Snowman Christmas Card with CTMH Snow Friends, CTMH Holiday Jingle

This is another card inspired by the wonderful Kathy Carlson (see her card here).  I've had this retired blue gingham paper in my stash for about 1.5 years so I was happy to find a cute card to inspire me to USE some of my stash!  Love the combination of Heavenly Blue and Cranberry - what a cheerful pop!  My darling daughter and I had a blast making a couple of these cards for our Christmas sending this year.  She likes doing the watercolor pencil coloring for me on my cards.  I love doing projects like this with my kids - the kids have fun playing in "mommy's room" and we get some one on one chatting time while we work.  I've also been told by our neurologist that scrapbooking is good for the brain!  It helps with the planning and visual processing parts of our brains and as I've been teaching my kids - you have to use your math skills to figure out paper maximization!

Materials Used:

Paper:  Evensong Creative Basics (retired), Heavenly Blue Gingham (retired)

Stamps:  Holiday Jingle, Snow Friends

Ink:  Cranberry, Cocoa (snowmen)

Other:  Watercolor Pencils, Cranberry ribbon

Teacher Gift Hand sanitizer bottle with CTMH Rub-ons

This is the second part of the gift my youngest is giving to his teacher this year. Each day as the kids line up for lunch she gives them all a squirt of hand sanitizer before they go to eat. This is just SO nice as I know she is buying the sanitizer herself and it means SO much to me that she does it as my youngest is immuno-suppressed. Just knowing the kids are all getting nice and clean before they eat takes a little bit of the worry about germs away.

Here is a close up of the bottle decorated with our rub-ons. If you want to give this a try - one tip I can give you is to lay the bottle down flat (I started off upright and it was much more difficult). The large container of sanitizer was from Costco and the front label peeled off very easily leaving a clean surface. I got the idea for doing this from the CTMH consultant bulletin board and thought it was a fabulous idea for a teacher gift. I was very pleased with how fast it went together - my son designed what the bottle would say and I rubbed the letters on for him. This would also be fun to do on soap bottles in the bathroom or in the kitchen - I'll have to give that a try and see how they wear over time! If you give this a try let me know how yours turns out!

Happy Hanukkah Cards with CTMH Cupcake Sprinkles

I needed to make a couple of Hanukkah cards for some dear friends of mine and wanted to go with the festival of lights theme.  I used the candle stamp from Cupcake Sprinkles and turned it backwards and stamped with the backside or non-patterned side of the stamp to make a solid candle image.  I used the flame top as it was but added two layers of liquid glass to give it lots of shine and dimension.  It is a simple card but I think it does focus on the light aspect of the imagery.

Here is the card with the stamp set - you can see the striped candle towards the center of the set that I used the backside for stamping.

Materials Used:

Paper:  White Daisy CS, Moonstruck CS, Silver Metallic (unknown source - it was a gift)

Stamp sets:  Cupcake Sprinkles

Ink:  Moonstruck, Sunflower

Other:  Liquid Glass

Teacher Gift Thank you Cards with CTMH Thank You, Daydream, Easter Eggs, Let's Play Ball

These are part of the gift my youngest kiddo and I made for his teacher for Christmas.  Her classroom has a sports theme (baseball and football) which hasn't been Devin's cup of tea as we are more of a martial arts family.  When I saw the Let's Play Ball stamp set in the clearance sale I knew I HAD to get it just to make cards for his teacher!  At $6 this stamp is perfect for these cards and whenever we get invited to a sports-nut boy birthday party!  The clearance sale is over at the end of the 17th so if you haven't had a chance to order YOUR presents yet - CLICK HERE to get on over to my site and get some GREAT deals while they are still available!!

Materials Used:

Paper:  White Daisy CS, At the Game Paper (LONG ago retired)

Stamp:  C1198 Let's Play Ball (in the clearance sale NOW -gone on December 17th), D1361 Thank You

Ink:  Outdoor Denim

This is the girl version of the thank you cards.  I used our Easter Eggs stamp (former Stamp of the Month) to stamp around the punched out flower to create the pattern.  I love using that stamp set like this! 

Materials Used:
Paper:  Daydream Level 2, White Daisy CS
Stamps:  Thank You, Easter Eggs
Ink:  Spring Iris
Other:  Martha Stewart punch (edging), Flower Punch (not sure the vendor) and small .5" Marvy Uchida punch

Teenager Gift Set using CTMH Best Friends Forever, CTMH Grown with Love, CTMH Alphabet Solos M

This is a gift set my daughter and I put together for her to give to her BFF using a Level 1 Best Friends Forever kit (retired). We had a blast putting this together but I think what my daughter likes best is the knowledge that as she grows up she may never have to shop the malls and pay full retail for gifts! I do have her buy the materials that she uses to create the presents - either cash or labor payment so she gets off pretty darn cheap. Yep, I do like the fact that my kids understand that homemade means that you care enough to take the time AND you can save some money in the process! This set is just SO DARN CUTE that I know her buddy will love it!

This is a pencil cup we created by putting together five 4' coasters. I'll do a tutorial for these later on (probably January 'cause December is FLYING by if you know what I mean!). The initial is an Alphabet Solos M embossed in Cocoa.

2. An altered composition book - the tree is embossed in Cocoa, stamped leaves and then the flowers are stickease from the kit. The tree is from Grown with Love and the little bird in the branch is from our upcoming Felicity kit - you are gonna LOVE that one!

3. Mini pizza box (4" square) using the Hollyhock cardstock from the kit along with some Fancy Cut Botanicals I had laying around. There are 3 sheets of different colored flowers, stems, leaves, etc in the package so we mixed and matched and added some brads until we got the effect we were going for. I'll be doing a tutorial for these boxes later on too!

4. Inside the pizza box is a set of altered binder clips. Some have a stickease initial added to the front.

I've used lots of different products on these so just leave a comment if you have a question about one of the items. When I create for myself I tend to keep pulling out things and don't keep track of what I'm using - its like when I cook - a little bit of this, a little bit of that...

Covered Pillow Box Picture Tutorial with CTMH Holiday Trinkets and CTMH Holiday Creative Basics

I had a Creative Class the other night and the ladies in attendance each received this adorable pillow box filled with Close to my Heart presents for the holidays. The box itself is part of the present as it is completely reusable- gotta love that! I wonder who made it home before they opened their present....

Here is a quick picture tutorial for making a covered pillow box.

I bought a box of 50 pillow boxes in the Target Wedding aisle when they were on clearance (total score!).

2. Measure your pillow box. You will need a piece of paper a bit more than twice as wide (to go all the way around) and just a little longer than your box.

3. Cut your chosen paper to size.

4. Put adhesive on the FRONT of your box. Make sure you get right to the edges and then put it down in the middle of your paper.

5. Fold the sides of the paper up. Put adhesive on the back side of your box and then push the paper onto the box to adhere.

6. Cut the extra paper off the two ends of the box following along the curve.

7. Use a hole punch to cut out the divet in the end of the pillow box.

8. Fold your box ends in. The first time will be a little stiff as the paper has to fold along the boxes score line. I used a sponge dauber to add some ink to the cut edges to make them blend better.

9. Instead of buying fillers I take sheets of tissue paper, fold them up and cut them in .25" to .5" slices on my paper cutter. I fluff the pile and then use it to fill up the boxes.

10. Add a pretty ribbon around the box and tie in a bow at one end. Add some decoration to the front and you are ready to go!

Materials Used:

Paper: Holiday Creative Basics (retired but in the Clearance Sale - it comes with 8 yards of cranberry ribbon).

Stamps: Holiday Trinkets

Inks: Cranberry, Ponderosa Pine, Desert Sand

Other: Pillow Box (Target Wedding), Red Ribbon (Target), Gel Pens (Costco), Red tissue paper for filler

New Art and Soul Tutorial - Happy Highlights featuring CTMH Posterboard Alphabet

The latest CTMH produced Art and Soul episode is now live on my site - to check it out click here! This episode will show you the many uses of our outline stamps and features one of my favorite alphabet sets - Posterboard!

Here I used Posterboard alphabet to emboss in Cocoa and then I stamped on the inside of the letters using the sparkles stamp in Holiday Trinkets. A few minutes to cut the letters out and I was ready to assemble this awesome banner using our Around the Holidays card kit!

There are lots of other examples in the Art and Soul episode using this type of stamp so be sure to check it out! These free 10-15 minute classes are always full of information, inspiration and best of all a discount on the featured items!