Vintage Witch 12x12 Home Decor

Welcome to the Close to my Heart Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring August's totally awesome Stamp of the Month called "Wicked".   If you have come here from Debra's blog, you are on the right path!  This is a circular hop so to see all 60+ participating sites, just click on the link at the end of each post to keep hopping along!

When I pulled this set out of the box I just fell in love with the incredibly funky images and how the stamps themselves were laid out on the carrier sheet.  That puzzle block layout plus an awesome layout using Mischief in the new Idea Book inspired this piece. 

This is part of my new home decor series which is a 12x12 scrapbook frame display in my front room dedicated to seasonal / holiday layouts. I started this piece prior to my new papers arriving so wasn't able to use the new Mischief papers (which I adore) so I used the colors from those papers instead. After my order arrived on Friday I was able to use our new Cricut cartridge (OMG that thing is cool) to make the Colonial White roses that accent the corners of the frame.

Here is a close up of the center square to see the puzzle layout better if you'd like to make a copy for yourself.  You can see I used a little watercolor pencil on the witch to color her arms and legs in Gray Wool and under her hat in Orange to coordinate with the papers and jazz up her up.

Materials Used:

Paper:  Felicity (retired - for the Barn red shaped piece - now I can cut the same shape using my Art Philosophy cartridge!), CS in Black, Colonial White, Gray Wool, Desert Sand

Stamps:  Wicked

Ink:  Desert Sand re-inker, Sunset, Versamark

Other:  Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge, Licorice Opaques, Black Embossing Powder, Watercolor Pencils, Black Designer Ribbon Rounds, Stipple Brush from Texture Tools, Black Sharpie (for faux stitching), 12x12 scrapbook frame from Michael's

Now head on over to Katy's blog and see what she's created for you with this fun and funky stamp set! 

If you'd like to get a little "Wicked" then head on over to my website at Paige.MyCTMH.com prior to August 31st to pick up this set!  You can purchase it outright for just $17.95 OR you can get it for $5 with any $50 order! 

Swimming Fish Card saying hello to my blog friends!

Hello again to all my blog friends!  Its so nice to get back into my craft room after a two week hiatus!  Between my in-laws being out and all three of my kids getting the same nasty cold/ear infection (of course one after another to take the maximum amount of time to get better - LOL) its been two weeks since I've had time to really sit and play.

While I'm waiting for my new goodies from the upcoming Fall/Winter Idea Book to show up, I'm playing catch up on some challenges.  I made this card with the fabulous sketch on the Heart2Heart Challenge blog this week.  The sketch is fun and the design team did some beautiful work with this one!  I went more fun and funky and was thinking about a fish race in the ocean when I put this together. 

Original Sketch @ H2H Challenges

Materials Used:

Paper:  Fanfare Level 2, Black CS

Stamps:  Hot Diggity (fish and sentiment), True Happiness (waves)

Inks:  Cranberry, Sky, Sunflower, Pacifica, Black

Other:  Blue/Green Sparkles, Glitz Glitter Gel

Thanks for stopping by today!  Hope your day is sunny and funny!

Paige

Is that a chirping I hear? CTMH now has a coordinating Cricut cartridge!

I couldn't be MORE excited about one of the announcements CTMH corporate made during our annual Convention last week - we have partnered with Provocraft to create a Cricut cartridge that will coordinate with our stamps from the new Idea Book!  WHOO-HOO!  There will be over 700 images on the cartridge and will also include 3-d flowers and boxes along with oodles of stamp shapes.

Not only that - each cartridge bundle will ALSO come with 3 D size exclusive stamp sets AND 3 sheets of coordinating dimensional elements!  WOWZER!

I just placed an order for a Cricut Expression 2 and am looking forward to learning how to use my new toy AND getting my hands on some of our new cardstock weight B&T papers which are perfect for electronic cutting machines!

To give you a taste of what is coming - here is a video from Corporate showing some of the goodies coming our way.

Good things coming our way....

No artwork today - my in-laws are still visiting and my craft room time has disappeared while they are here.  BUT, I'm starting to get tweets and messages from my CTMH sisters who are at Convention in Disneyland right now (those lucky ducks) and I'm SUPER excited about what is coming our way from CTMH in the new Idea Book that goes live on August 1st!  On Friday CTMH consultants will be able to see the online edition of the new Idea Book and starting August 1st everyone will be able to have a copy (hard copy or online) in their hot little hands!

Doing a happy dance!  Can't wait to see the new products!

Paige

Tropical Fish Birthday Card

This card was completely inspired by this card by my fellow CTMH consultant, Leisa at Big Red Scraps.  When I saw it I knew it would be the perfect card for my son's 13th Birthday.  He really wants to visit Hawaii next year so I wanted to give him a tropical fish card and this fit the bill.

I embossed the sentiment and fish in black embossing powder and used the marker blending technique on the two lower fish.  Here is a close up so you can see the blending better.  So what exactly is marker blending? Marker blending is when you use dye based markers (CTMH markers are all dye based) and you put one color next to the other and then use the small tip (not the brush end) and basically pick up dots of the darker color to merge with the lighter color.

So in the example above, I colored the red in the back and the orange in the front of the fish body.  In the center of the fish body, I took the orange marker fine tip and used the dotting technique to blend the two areas together.  On the fish with the blue tail and yellow body you can see the green in the center where I've blended the two colors together.  I know it seems really simple but I was very surprised at how well it worked!  This was one of the techniques taught in the Summer Online Card class I'm taking.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you are in for a fun weekend.  My in-laws are coming in on Sunday for a long visit so we're busy getting the house ready for guests.  We're really looking forward to spending time with them as its been a couple of years since they've seen the kids.  I'm sure we'll have lots of fun and I'll take lots of pictures to fill in some of my summer themed layouts!

Hugs,

Paige

Funny Farm Guy Birthday Card

I made this card for my Dad's birthday this year.  I used the colors from this week's online card class color challenge (yellow, orange, red and two greens) but I also used the inspiration picture from  this week's Heart2Heart Challenge.

Inspiration photo from Heart2Heart Challenges

So how did this photo inspire me?  First off, the white space.  I'm not good at leaving white so I really had to force myself NOT to back the sky with some blue.  I also pulled using three main elements and the colors used in the photos are very similar - the orange drink, yellow background flowers, two colors of green and the red raspberries.

Well, I'm off to post the card to hopefully make it in time for Dad's birthday.  Thanks for stopping by!

Paige

Tropical Hibiscus with CTMH Extreme Happiness

Here is my second take on this week's Online Card Class color combination.  When I first looked at the palette I put together two different color swatches - one with colors I more commonly use and then one with shades of colors I don't use as often.  I wanted to push myself to experiment with a wider range of tones and wound up surprising myself!

This color combination was so unexpected when I started pulling this one together that I'm still looking at it in disbelief.  The light orange color is Taffy - one of the few colors I don't use very often as it always seems to be a hard pastel color to use (guess I'm just not a pastel girl - LOL).  Anyways, who would have thought that Taffy mixed so well with Tulip, Sunset, Key Lime and Ponderosa Pine?  Its like a day-glow tropical surprise!

Materials Used:

Paper:  Jingle Level 2, Taffy CS, Key Lime CS, Ponderosa Pine CS, White Daisy CS

Stamps:  Extreme Happiness

Inks:  Taffy, Sunset, Desert Sand, Creme Brulee, Ponderosa Pine

Other:  Key Lime Bigger Brads

Thanks for stopping by today!

Paige

Life's A Picnic Watermelon Card with CTMH

I hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July!  We hosted a neighborhood BBQ yesterday and had an absolute blast. We started off the day at the big community celebration - lots of bounce houses, face painting, cotton candy and then we came home to set up tables and fire up the grill.  The kids all swam in the pool, we made S'mores on our little gas fireplace and we ended the evening with a few fireworks out front.  My kids all declared it the very best 4th of July they've ever had and I have to agree - it was so much fun visiting with my wonderful friends and neighbors!

I'm playing along with this week's color combination for the Online Card Class I'm taking.  The combo is at the bottom of this post if you'd like to play along!  These colors made me think juicy watermelon and bright sunshine!

I started with the watermelon stamp (the rind is stamped in Topiary ink with Pear marker over top for the two color tones) which then made me think how funny it would be to have a row of ants walking off with the watermelon.  Thankfully we DIDN'T have ants at our big 4th of July BBQ yesterday!

I paper pieced the sun and then added some clear rhinestones on top - I colored them orange with a Sharpie.

Thanks for stopping by!

Materials Used (all CTMH unless noted):

Paper:  Hooligans (the grass), Topiary CS, Tulip CS, Sunflower CS

Stamps:  Summer Sweetness (watermelon), Summer Picnic (ants), Splendid Day (sun),  Campin' Fever (sentiment)

Inks:  Goldrush, Sunflower, Tulip, Topiary, Pear, Black, Versamark

Other:  Cuttlbug Polka Dot Embossing Folder, Liquid Glass, Clear Sparkles, Orange Sharpie, Goldrush Button, White Waxy Flas

Happy 4 U Card

I made this card to play along with the Heart2Heart Challenge this week using a sketch by Kristina Werner from the online card class I'm taking.   I was so inspired by all the wonderful items people were making with this color combo that I just had to play along before the challenge closed!  I am so close on time that I didn't even wait for the liquid glass to completely dry on my letters before I ran downstairs to take a quick photo.  Unfortunately, its much more noticeable in the photograph than when I looked with my naked eye - LOL - but, here it is!

Detail of the cute little tab tag at the top:

Thanks for stopping by!

Paige