ARTBOOKING Video Tutorial: How to make a layout with the new Artbooking Cartridge!

Here is a fabulous video created by Close to my Heart for the Big Picture Class pajama party that was held on July 31st. Watch it for a great tutorial on how to use the new cartridge and create this terrific layout!


***If you are getting this delivered via e-mail you will need to click out to my blog using the title of the post above in order to view the video!***

   

Isn't that fabulous? Artbooking is such an easy tool to use to create fun and fast layouts and when you want to bump up the art factor you just add some stamping or some accessories! If you are ready to get this cartridge (and you won't regret it!) visit my website here: 

 www.Paige.CTMH.com

Let me know if you have any questions!

Paige

New Year's Countdown Layout with CTMH Little Reminder and Glitz

Welcome to our Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring January's SOTM called "Little Reminder". If you've come here from Michelle's Blog you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle so you can start here and work your way all around. If you get lost along the way, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants here. 

My project is a glitzy, shiny countdown to New Year's layout complete with champagne glasses!  I can't wait to take a picture of our toast tonight to add to this project!

I had the most fun creating the champagne glasses out of Art Philosophy cuts.  I used an oval shape and cut off the top, a mat shape and cut off one edge plus a small strip of cardstock to join the two. 

I used my waterbrush and applied yellow inks to get the color I wanted. I made a water line and tiny dots with my Stardust Glitz Gel, outlined the glass with Desert Sand sponging and coated the entire thing with a thick cover of Liquid Glass. They took a full day to dry but I love the results!

I used Gray Wool cardstock to cut my letters and my mat.  The Silver Glitz is the same color so the entire letter and mat look fully covered with silvery sparkles even if I missed a spot!

If you'd like to make this project, get these supplies:

Paper:  Colonial White CS, Black CS, Kraft CS, Gray Wool CS

Stamps:  Little Reminder

Ink:  Black, Gray Wool, Buttercup, Honey

Other:  Art Philosophy Cartridge, Silver Glitz, Stardust Glitz, Liquid Glass, Waterbrush, Black Sharpie (for the dots between the numbers)

Now "Hop" on over to Angel's Blog to see her work! I know she'll have something wonderful to share!

Remember, the January SOTM is only available until the 31st! So contact your CTMH consultant or visit my website at www.Paige.MyCTMH.com and order this set for just $17.95 or get it for just $5 with a $50 order!

***Happy New Year!***

CTMH Studio J Easter Layout - Tutorial on adding lines of stitching to your layouts

This adorable Easter themed paper pack is one of the paper packs that was developed exclusively for Studio J (there is one new Studio J only pack for each Idea Book release).  I love the sweet vintage feel Easter themed stickease that came with this kit - see those cute little bunnies?  On this layout I did a lot of resizing of stickease as well as layering stickease to create clusters of embellishment.  The egg cluster on the right side page was created by resizing and layering (use push to the back and bring to the front buttons) and the flower scroll on the left side is a scroll with an extra stickease added on top.  I also added two clusters of buttons as well as some stitching which is so easy to do! 

This little tip was taught to me at a Close to my Heart event by the guy who is in charge of Studio J. I was so excited that I told my friend I was sitting with that this tip alone was well worth the fee to attend the event! On the layout above I added just a couple of stitches but now that I know how easy it is to add a whole sections I'll be stitching away on my Studio J layouts from now on!


TUTORIAL for adding lines of stitching to your Studio J Layouts

To add stitching to your Studio J layout simply go to your embellishments tab in the left side options bar and select buttons.  Select whatever size thread and shape thread you would like (we have straight stiches as well as cross stitches).  Then drag that selection to place it on the layout. 

Do you  want to do a whole line of stitching?  Put down two or three of your selected stitches and align them as you'd like.  Use your Ctrl key to select the group by holding down and clicking on each element like you normally do with almost any program. 

Now, look at the top bar above your layout.  There is a menu bar that says "zoom, move, undo, redo, copy, paste, snapping-on".   Select copy and you'll get an identical group of stitches to place on your layout.  You can keep doing the copy feature to get a larger line to quickly go around an entire page or section.  If you have extra stitches hanging over simply remove the excess by clicking on the individual stitches you'd like to remove and putting that element into the trash. 

Isn't that cool?!?!  I'll definitely be doing this on my November order of Studio J layouts!

CTMH Studio J Layouts using CTMH Back Country

Did you know that you can use any of the patterend papers for your journaling and title boxes in CTMH's Studio J?  Here I've used the same plaid paper that is on the bottom in both the title and journaling box but changed the color to a light blue so you could read the text. 

 

One of the new features that I think is absolutely fabulous is the ability to change the patterend paper to be any of out 60 colors.  I changed the plaid paper to Olive Green on the second layout to give a bit of diversity.  On this layout I also used the Auto Title tool to slap down the line of stickease to spell "family fun".  You can space the title letters as close or as far away from eachother as you want, you can change the size of each letter and with the Auto tool you can line everything up perfectly.  Having lots of fun with that one!  I also used the resizing feature to change the size of the stickease trees. 

I recently saw a layout where another consultant made a different tree (from the Hooligan paper pack) into a HUGE tree that took up half the page.  I am definitely going to play with the resizing feature a bit more and think more outside the box on how BIG I can make certain stickease!

Yesterday I had an absolute blast at the Seattle Close to my Heart Leadershare event hosted by an Executive Director (not my chain but they opened it up to other local consultants).  I had the honor of meeting my 4th upline, Karen Morris, who is just such a nice lady!  We also had three VP's from the company come and give talks about the upcoming Idea Book changes (going to two per year), Studio J and also upcoming corporate events.  I have some artwork from the event that I'll be sharing soon.  I didn't finish all the stamping yet so I'll share it as soon as I've completed it.  It was an exhausting but FUN day full of learning.  I carpooled with another local consultant (Hi Carrie) and really enjoyed getting to know her a bit more as well as meeting some other local girls. 

I have to say that the best part of having this business for the past couple of years is all the wonderful women I've met through doing this - not only the other consultants on the bulletin boards and locally but also all my wonderful friends and customers!  Its been such an enriching experience for me and I also want to thank all you cyber friends who stop by - your visits and comments have meant so much to me and really keep me charged up!

CTMH Studio J Layout using CTMH You Rock papers and Members Only Layout

This is one of the layouts I started on October 30th because I needed to place an order by October 31st to get that lovely free shipping for the month on my Studio J membership.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I seriously love Studio J.  In just a couple of hours over two nights (I sent my order in at 10PM on October 31st after we went trick-or-treating) I had completed 6 new layouts and made copies of 7 more from last month for my mother-in-law.   While I adore the artistry of creating layouts from scratch, the fact that I don't have to print out my photos in advance (my personal weakness), can fit it into my schedule at whim and best of all - AM ACTUALLY GETTING IT DONE makes this product perfect for my busy life!  I've even gone back to 2008 and scrapped a couple of my older photos - YAY! 

Spencer is getting to be such a handsome young man!  I still find it amazing that he is taller than me and now has size 11 feet.  The one thing that hasn't changed is that million dollar smile - he's always made my heart melt with that gorgeous happy grin of his! 

I really loved working with the Stickease on this layout - I added the "awesome" tag to his shirt and love the arrows pointing in at him.  I also had lots of fun with adding brads and played around with the Auto Title feature much more this month (so glad I did because its a great tool!).

If you haven't played around with Studio J yet you can check it out on my website at Paige.MyCTMH.com.  You do need to create a free sign-in account in order to play BUT you don't get charged a penny until you sign up for membership or go to print out a layout.  I think its awesome that they let people check it out BEFORE they buy.  If you feel behind on your family scrapbooks, need to do a specific project or just enjoy the low-cost/low-mess of digital scrapping then this is something you'll enjoy playing around with.  As always, if you have any questions I'm happy to help - just leave a comment on this post or contact me at my e-mail paige(at)myctmh.com.

First Day of School Layouts using StudioJ Online/Digital Scrapping with Member Only Layouts and Class Act Paper

These are the 4 layouts I created in StudioJ to celebrate the kid's first day of school.  Can I just say how fabulous I feel that two major events from September 2010 have ALREADY been scrapped?  First Time Ever that I've been so quick and its all because I could just pick the paper, pick the layout, drop in the photos with a wee bit of editing and (POOF) I was done! 

I absolutely adore this StudioJ Member Only paper set called Class Act - the crossword paper and the black board paper are just so cute!  I used heavy distressing on all these layouts and was REALLY happy with our blemish removal tool as Devin had a big scab under one eye that was very prominent in these photos!  I also used 4 different Member Only layouts - how cool are these?!? 

Isn't my daughter beautiful?  Eliza is becoming the young woman I've hoped and dreamed she'd become - smart, independent, funny, empathetic, athletic and a really good head on her shoulders.  I couldn't be more proud of my girl.

Check out the smile on my cutie Spencer.  He's such a happy fun-to-be-around guy!  I've never seen anybody better at catching critters than this kid.  I swear he's a frog whisperer. 

Devin is such a character!  This kid has unbelievable inner strength and persistence.  He's like water - he'll just keep pouring it on until he gets the results he's looking to achieve.

CTMH StudioJ Online/Digital Scrapping with Hooligans Paper

Our new Hooligans paper pack has such fun colors and themes that I knew it would be perfect for all of the pictures I took during Devin's 9th B'day party.  On these StudioJ layouts you can really see the distressing tools in action.  On the first one there is our new Sunset color sponged on the edges of the two White Daisy base pages and Cross hatching directly on the paper on the black strip underneath.  I love that you can make your cross hatching in any color - even ones that wouldn't show in traditional scrapping like Lagoon on Black (shown here).

One of the other cool things in StudioJ are the photo mats.  You can choose various widths starting at 1/16" and going up and you can use any of our 60 colors on any of the mats.  Here I've used Pear on the first three mats and Sunset on the last three on the left.  Again, I had fun working with sponging on the edges of this layout.  Both of these layout patterns are for Members Only - aren't they AWESOME?  I love the diecut paper look on these two layouts.  Tomorrow I'll share our First Day of School layouts with even more of the Member Only funky layouts!

I hope you are enjoying this peek into StudioJ!  If you haven't already checked it out, go over to my site https://paige.myctmh.com/Retail/StudioJLanding.aspx?PageId=185

and have some fun playing around for free.  I just love that there isn't any nickle and diming on the different elements - no $1 charge for this paper pack or $3 for this layout - everything in all of StudioJ and all of the future upgrades and new releases are included in the membership price!  Yep, this product ROCKS!





My First Studio J Order - and I LOVE IT! Hooray for online/digital scrapping!

Let me preface this post by saying that when StudioJ first came out we were in the midst of unemployement so I wasn't able to play with the new product like I wanted to.  Now we're back in the black so to speak and I was able to get a full one-year membership to StudioJ - YES!

These new memberships ROCK because:
- You get unlimited layouts at just $3.25/page ($6.50 for a double layout)
- FREE Shipping (up to 20 layouts) once per month (extras are up to 20 in a box for $5.95 shipping)
- FREE High Resolution and Low Resolution JPEGS
- FREE Page Protectors
- Member Only paper packs AND layout patterns

A THREE month membership is only $30 bucks (can you believe it?????) and a 12 month membership is $99.  You seriously break even on a YEAR membership with just 15 layouts! 

What do I LOVE about StudioJ?  My biggie is that I don't have to print out the pictures before I can scrap!  I'm terrible about getting the photos dumped from my computer and over to Costco to get the pictures printed - not to mention having to re-print enlargements because I change my mind on which is my lead photo.  So many of my scrapping ladies laugh at me because they have tons of pictures and need to make the layouts - I have the layouts and need to get the pictures printed to fill them!  StudioJ takes away that extra step and I adore how easy it was to use. 

The biggest plus for me was being able to enlarge photos/crop with ease AND the new photo editing tools.  I was able to fix red-eye, remove a scab under my son's eye with blemish removal, remove mega-glare from glasses, and use wrinkle remover if I wanted to (okay - these are all kid shots so I'll use that when I get to MY OWN photos!)  I wanted to make sure I got my FREE shipping in September so this Saturday I sat down and made 7 layouts in one evening!  I did some finishing work and double checked my distressing and such on Tuesday and pressed BUY yesterday. 

Here is my first Studio J layout to share - a cute layout of my kids in the pool this summer using a Member Only paper pack called Splash Zone and the layout I chose was Dialogue (open for anyone).  I'm using my FREE Low Res JPEG to share here - how cool is that?!?

On this one I didn't use a whole lot of distressing or anything - pretty much just colored in the ribbons and added stickease (the H2Oh! title and the tag).  Tomorrow I'll show some of the first day of school layouts I did that used more of the distressing tools.  So, what are you waiting for?  Did you know you can create a FREE account on StudioJ to check out the product without ANY cost?  Go play around on my site here and let me know what you think!  You don't get charged a PENNY until you purchase a layout or signup for a membership but I really think you're going to love the product and ADORE the pricing!

Veranda Family layout with CTMH Veranda Basic Kit and Friendship Alphabet

I just love the colors in our Veranda paper pack as they have such a vintage feel.  This layout features the stamp set that comes with the Veranda Basic Workshop kit.  I've used the set to make the paper flowers on this layout - some are stamped directly on the layout and some are trimmed out and then layered.  Don't you just love the little hummingbirds?

Materials Used:

Paper:  Veranda Level 2, Colonial White Cardstock

Stamps:  Thinking of You (included with the Veranda Basic Kit), Frame of Mind, Friendship Alphabet

Inks:  Cocoa, Juniper, Creme Brulee