Pivot Slider Card with Zoe

I stumbled across a picture of a pivot slider card this morning (see Paula Knall's card here) and thought it was such a cute idea I had to make one today!  I pulled out my Zoe paper pack and had some fun putting this new-to-me style card together.  The butterfly and flowers are all cut from our Cricut carts.  I used some retired Prisma glitter on the butterfly - then I remembered why I don't use it so much - it is now all over my craft area!

You can see the pivot post the butterfly is attached to - there is an a semi-circle cut out of the card front so the butterfly can swoop through the flowers!

 The sentiment is a sneak peek from an upcoming set called "A Bunch of Love" that I'll link after it goes live on Monday!

Zoe is one of the packs from the annual book so it's still orderable through July.  April 30th is the last day for Regatta, Penelope or Charlotte so don't delay if you want any of those!  I loved them all but I'm very excited to get 3 new paper packs to show you starting on Monday!

Stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Heart2Heart Challenges - The Birds and the Bees

This week at Heart2Heart Challenges we are celebrating Spring with a Birds and Bees challenge!  I decided to combine old and new by grabbing a long retired but absolutely adorable bee themed stamp set and combine it with Cricut cut shapes (taken from Artfully Sent) and our Honeycomb Embossing Folder.

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My images were colored in with a combination of marker (on the bees) and watercolor pencils.  You can see a bit of retired Stardust Glitz Glitter Gel on the wings too.

Thanks for stopping by today and I'll hope you head on over to Heart2Heart Challenges and get your Spring on with our Birds and Bees challenge!

Paige

Urban and Stamps of Approval Center Stair Step Card

This card features our awesome Urban paper pack mixed with our C1637 Stamps of Approval stamp set (coordinates with Artistry) with a scattering of Artbooking images to create fireworks. 

Our foil tapes have become one of my go-to products lately because they add so much shine but don't make a card feel too girly.  They come on 15 yard rolls for $4.95 and are self-adhesive so they are easy to add, economical and they mail flat!

 I really love the way the stars hang over the side steps on this card to enhance the 3-D effect.  I've been on a fancy fold kick lately having lots of fun with my Explore!

If you'd like to order any of the products mentioned in this post you can click on they links or visit my shopping site at:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

Thanks for stopping by today and for your continued support of my business!  Stay crafty my friends!

Paige  

Heart2Heart Challenges - Retired Products Challenge!

Today at Heart2Heart Challenges we are hosting a "Retired Product" challenge and even though it wasn't my DT group I just had to play along!  After so many years of being a CTMH consultant I have a considerable amount of retired product hanging around my craft room!

One of the things I like using retired product on is experimenting with new styles of cards.  This one is called a Side Stair step card that I found on Pinterest and played around with it in Design Space until I could get it right for my size card.

The papers I've used are from Roxie (probably about 3 years ago) and two different stamp sets - the Brushed WOTG stamp set for the butterfly image that I stamped in Slate and Smoothie and B1400 Beautiful Friendship which is actually still available until 8/1/16! 

I had a blast creating this 3-D card!  Can you tell I'm gearing up to offer a fun fold class?  I'm starting a new job this week so I'm not quite ready yet but I'll be posting information soon!

Don't forget that this month is STAMPGANZA our fabulous Buy 2 Get 1 FREE stamp sale!  You just keep adding stamps to your shopping cart and for every 2 you have they'll give you a third for free! So if you get 6 stamps then the 2 lowest priced sets will be the freebies.  

Shop at: www.Paige.CTMH.com

You can expand your dollars by setting up a party through me and getting Hostess Rewards on your order too!  Just send me a note at Paige@Stampologist.com or give me a call at (425) 260-6965 if you'd like me to help you do that!

Thanks for stopping by and stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Watercolor Blog Hop

Welcome to the Watercolor Blog Hop! If you have come here from Lauren's Blog you are on the right track. The complete list of participating CTMH Consultant bloggers can be found here.

This is another entry in my Dementia Friendly Series of cards that I started in honor of my Mom.  These are cards that are image based without a lot of words (she can no longer process the written word) and usually contain a 3-D element to play with and catch her interest. 

I pulled the iris image from one of the Artfully sent cards along with the sweet butterflies to decorate the front of the card.  All the elements were cut from our Watercolor paper. I used our new Eggplant Cardstock to frame the card front and complement the flowers.

The inside card is another of our Artfully Sent Pop Up Cards.  I painted a rainbow of watercolor on the inside of the cardbase to show up behind the center popped up butterfly.

The large butterfly overlay is cut from Aluminum Duct Tape from the hardware store.  It is self-adhesive so I laid strips down on White Daisy and set my Cricut Explore to custom cut Aluminim.  It worked GREAT!

I had a lot of fun creating this one - I just loved the almost holographic effect of the shiny silver butterfly with the rainbow behind it.  

Here is the Cricut Explore file if you would like to make this card:  https://us.cricut.com/design/#/canvas/37154473

Now hop on over to Kirsten's Blog and see what she has created to share with us!

Thanks for stopping by today and stay crafty my friends!

Paige

My Dad is Rad Birthday Card - Artistry and Artiste with FREE DS link!

My older son designed this card for his Dad's birthday using My Dad is Rad from Artistry as the focal point and building a background with some cogs cut from Artiste. He is a pretty artistic guy so watching him pick out pieces and colors to create the design he wanted to make was a lot of fun!

Here is the DS file link:  https://us.cricut.com/design/#/canvas/36846915

My younger boy isn't very artsy so he just picks a pre-made card from one of my cartridges and maybe gives a color that he wants on the card before he leaves my craft room for me to make it - LOL. He picked this one is from Classically Modern Cards cartridge for his Dad.

I jazzed this one up with some tone on tone background stamping with an older retired set called Gear Up.  You may notice a mechanical/robotic theme to their selections - my husband was involved with my both the middle school and high school Robotics teams that both went to the state competition this year!  It was really awesome having that moment with both my boys as this is my older son's senior year and the last possible time that both boys would be eligible for state competition.  They didn't win but just being invited to the competition was awesome.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Birthday Box Card with ProPlayer

I'm trying to do a bit more stash diving to make a dent in the many boxes of paper I've collected over the past 8 years of being a CTMH Consultant.  This one is from a year or two ago called ProPlayer.  It was an awesome video game/computer themed paper pack that was perfect for my husband's birthday card this year.

I added a dash of Ruby and Topiary cardstock plus some Silver and Gold Glitter paper to help make this tonal paper pack pop for a birthday card. I added the little white balloon highlights with our Chalk Marker.

Thanks for stopping by today! Stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Happy Valentine's Day! Mad Scientist Love Potion Z Fold Card

Happy Valentine's Day to all you crafty people out there!  Here is the card I made for my teen science guy this year using our Positive Chemistry stamp set along with the mad scientist from "A Frightful Affair" cricut cartridge. The font is from our Artistry cart.

This one is a Z fold card - basically you take a regular card and fold the front back on itself to create a Z shape. 

I used second generation Whisper ink to stamp the background of the paper with the ion stamp.

This shot shows the shine from the Liquid Glass I applied over the Shinhan Touch Twin Marker colored beakers.

I hope you all have a wonderful day full of love and laughter!  Enjoy your Valentine's Day!

Hugs,

Paige

How Do I Love Thee Valentine's Day Card

A couple of months ago I used my Cricut points to get a Circle Membership and the Crazy Cool Cards Circle Membership cartridge.  This cutie is one of the 30 or so fun shaped or folded cards on the cartridge.  I did use all CTMH Cardstock on this one so I am using our products too - LOL!  Cotton Candy, Ruby and White Daisy are perfect Valentine's Day colors!

The arrow wraps from the top of the front to the back and tucks into a tiny slit to hold the folded heart card closed.

This is the inside of the card - those numbered red hearts are just tucked in behind the paper slats.  I'll write a brief note on each of them and send this off to my daughter for Valentine's Day this weekend.

I'm pretty sure she'll get a kick out of this one when she opens it up.  It almost reminds me of the cootie catchers she played with as a kid! 

I've been having fun getting back into crafting again over the past couple of weeks.  The last couple of months have been really, really hard and I finally feel like I'm getting my equilibrium back.  It's nice to feel the urge to create pretty things again!

Thanks for stopping by and stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Pop Up Box Card with Hopscotch Papers

This is the first box card I made with the new All Occassion Box Cards cartridge from Cricut so I pulled out some retired Hopscotch papers for a test run of how these cards go together.  This cutie is set for a standard sized card (5.5x4.25") but was a very tight squeeze into a regular envelope.

I made two of these cards - one for my daughter at college where I left the tiny envelopes unsealed and added a very small paper inside each envelope with special messages of encouragement for her.  The other card I sent to my Mom today to brighten up her living space at her new memory care nursing home.  She is in an advanced stage of dementia but likes to fiddle with things. I'm hoping she enjoys opening and closing the box part up but at the very least it will brighten up her living space.

I don't buy very many non-CTMH cartridges but the new All Occasion Box Card cartridge looked too cute AND I got it for a great price plus free shipping. So...I just couldn't resist!

Thanks for stopping by today! Stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Heart2Heart Challenges - Through a Window

Today our challenge at Heart2Heart is "through the window" so I grabbed my CTMH Artfully Sent cartridge and our Sangria paper pack and made this fun word bubble window card.  It's bright, wacky, borderline tacky but kind of fun!

I applied a second card front with temporary adhesive to the front of the card so I could sponge through the cuts and get this look on the white liner. Confession - I had a second card front because my Cricut chewed the first paper I put through because my mat wasn't sticky enough and the paper shifted and rolled.  My quick fix was grabbing some Washi tape to hold down the corners of the next sheet of paper until I get a chance to wash my mats.

I hadn't used this set Mini Messages Hostess Rewards set yet so I had fun stamping all the cute little sayings inside the windows!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you'll take the challege at Heart2Heart and create a "through the window" project to share!

Paige

Artistry Octopus Card - Getting Ready for Senior Year with Heart2Heart Challenges!

This week I'm the Hostess with the Most-est over at Heart2Heart Challenges for the "Working 9-5" challenge!  It's always a blast getting a sneak preview of what the Design Team has created for the week's challenge!

I'm sharing a fun octopus card I made for my son who is starting his senior year or high school in less that two weeks!  He is looking at studying Marine Biology when he goes to college so I immediately thought of the ADORABLE octopus on our new CTMH Artistry cartridge!

Once I got him on the paper I just had to give him some school appropriate things to hold - can you believe how tiny I was able to get the letter on the notebook? The tiny smart phone totally cracks me up too!  All his little accessories with the exception of the notebook (Artbooking I think) come from our new Artistry cartridge.  If you don't have this one yet you NEED to get it - it is just too cool!  I can't wait to give this to him right before school starts!

Stay crafty my friends and make something beautiful today!

Paige

Ticket to Ride - Heart 2 Heart Challenges

This week's challenge at Heart2Heart Challenges is called "Ticket to Ride". When I started thinking about this challenge I focused on a big drive we have coming up - taking my daughter back to college. After an incredibly fun and enjoyable summer home the time has come for me to take my girl back to school (giant Mommy tears being wiped off my keyboard). 

With the exception of the curvy arrow and the school house, all other pieces were cut from our new Artistry cartridge!  The font on this cartridge is just AWESOME for cutting tiny little letters into things - some of the letters in the word Sophomore are an eighth of an inch!

This card is kind of a map from our house to Pullman going through the Cascade Mountains and driving the curvy roads in the palouse. I'll give it to her just before as I say goodbye at the dorms so we can tell her one more time how proud we are of the amazing young woman she is and that we are looking forward to a fabulous Sophomore year for her at Washing State!  Go Cougs!

I hope you'll join us at Heart2Heart Challenges this week and create your own interpretation of "Ticket to Ride"!

Stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Products Used in this Card:

Artistry Cricut Cartridge

Wanderful Paper Pack (Blue mountains)

Crystal Blue Ink

Cardstock: Ruby, Slate, Sweet Leaf, Honey, Black, White Daisy

Artistry Cricut Cartridge Blog Hop - BRAND NEW CTMH CARTRIDGE!

Welcome to the Artistry Blog Hop!  I am THRILLED to introduce you to the newest CTMH cart called Artistry which is filled to the brim with icons, banners, detailed sentiments, overlays and more! If you've come here from Melinda's Blog you are on the right track! 

Today I'm sharing something a little bit different and hopefully as funny to you all as my family found it.  My college girl had a cruddy start to her day today so when I sat down to create for this blog hop I decided to make her a card to cheer her up.  Let's face it, not every day is sunshine and roses and sometimes we need cards for those rough days too!

I've used the font from the new Artistry cartridge as well as the topping to this coffee image. I'm not sure if its because it's sparkly or because of the eyes but I just can't help laughing at this one.

The font on this new cartridge is AWESOME for making cards and layouts with negative cuts.  It is designed to have open holes in the letters so you don't have to save little bits and pieces from your mats to insert back into your letters. The font alone on the Artistry cartridge makes it a must have to me!

Remember, now with Artistry you can order the physical cartridge through me for $99 OR you can get a Digital Download code bundle for just $79!  Both bundles come with the same 3 fabulous D size stamp sets PLUS a package of our new Enchantment Palette Cardstock  - $68.35 in total of add ons!  That is like getting the digital cartridge for as low as $10.35!!!  If you mainly use CCR or DS then this is a great way to go!  You can see all the fun images on a blog post and video I made by clicking here.

Ready to order your copy?  I know you'll love it! Shop my store here:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

Other CTMH products used on this card:

Jackson Paper Pack

Gold Sequin Assortment

Brown and Tan Glitter Paper Assortment

Now hop on over to my sweet friend Darlys Recker's Blog and see what she has created for us!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for supporting my Close to my Heart business!  Your sweet comments and product orders are what keep me creating!

Paige

August Stamp of the Month Blog Hop - Framed

Welcome to the August SOTM Blog Hop!  Today we are featuring the extremely useful Framed stamp set.  This set has three fab frames and 9 different sentiments. If you've come here from Jilena's blog you are on the right track.  This hop is one big circle so eventually you'll come back here but if you happen to get lost along the way the complete listing of participating CTMH Consultant bloggers is available HERE.

 

Both the beautiful frame shape and the sweet mason jar filled with flowers are on our latest CTMH Cricut Cartridge - Artistry!  This wonderful cartridge is full of icons, sentiments, banners, frames and overlays - almost like an Art Philosophy 2.0! You can see the images on the cart by clicking HERE.

 If the papers look new too it's because they are!  Our Zoe paper pack will bridge August until the new Idea Book is released in September.  The cartridge and papers JUST became available to order today August 1 so you can check them out on my website:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

When you purchase the new cartridge you'll also be able to get the August SOTM for just $5!  While the shapes aren't circled on the set it DOES coordinate with Artistry cuts at the following sizes:

Now hop on over to Carol's blog and see what she has created to share with us today!

Thanks for stopping by today!  Stay crafty my friends!

Paige

Artistry - Brand New CTMH Cartridge - see the images HERE!

CTMH just unveiled their latest Cricut offering at the 2015 Convention and I was THRILLED to get my hands on it!  This cartridge is full of icons, detailed sentiment cuts, banners, shapes and more!  It's almost like an Art Philosophy 2.0 cartridge - chock full of all kinds of useful shapes, icons, banners and phrases!

Shop NOW at:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

What's New with this Cartridge:
1.  The physical cartridge comes with the brand new Enchantment Palette Color cardstock (we used to do White Daisy) plus three awesome D size stamp sets for $99!
2.  You can now do a DOWNLOAD CODE bundle for just $79!  You'll get a code for the cart PLUS the Enchantment Cardstock and the same D size sets but save $20!  Ladies - the stamps and cardstock ALONE are worth $68.35 so its like you are paying $10.65 for this cartridge!
3.  The August SOTM does coordinate with the cartridge!  In my video I'll show you the sizes and the page numbers for each cut PLUS I'll post a photo in a blog post later today featuring the August SOTM with the stamp cuts.

If you are like me, the black and white images of the handbook just don't do it justice so here is a quick video I did showing the handbook page by page.  Don't worry, if you like just the black and white images you can see that too at the bottom of the post!  

If you are receiving this via e-mail you won't see the video unless you click out to the title of this post and visit my blog.  It's worth it so come visit!

Here is the link to the handbook so you can see the images and fall in love!
http://cdn.closetomyheart.com/global/oba/docs/products/1509-cricut-artistry-shape-index.pdf 

Are you as excited as I am?  YAY!  If you have any questions you can contact me at Paige@Stampologist.com.  If you'd like to set up a party ($150 level gets rewards and $250 gets a half off item) let me know as I'm happy to help get you going with that too!

Shop today at:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

Thanks so much for supporting my business!  I hope you enjoyed the video!

Paige

Life is GOOD - Heart 2 Heart Challenges

Heart2Heart Challenges has a Life is Good theme challenge going on this week that I hope you'll join in!  Anyone can enter by adding their picture as a thumbnail to the challenge blog - the only requirement is to have some CTMH product in your project!  

Today I wanted to showcase the retiring colors from our Enchanted color palette in using our theme.  I pulled up Design Space and found an everday life PML card in our Artfully Sent cartridge.  I deleted the word everyday and added text in our Art Philosophy font.  I think the happy couple is from our Artbooking cartridge and the Smokey Plum circle may be from Artiste. This may be a record for the most number of cartridges used on a single card for me! 

The retiring colors used on this card are Indian Corn Blue, Outdoor Denim, Olive, Barn Red and Smokey Plum.  The darker green is New England Ivy which IS staying (I meant to pull a sheet of Ponderosa Pine which is on the retiring list!).

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Check your CTMH paper pack stash and be sure to stock up on retiring cardstock that you need to finish layouts or re-inkers to keep your ink pads juicy for years to come!  Those sell out very quickly and almost always before the retirement date (August 31).  

Shop at:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

Enchantment Palette Changes:

Retiring - Smokey Plum, Outdoor Denim, Indian Corn Blue, Ponderosa Pine, Olive, Autumn Terracotta, Barn Red

Staying - New England Ivy, Goldrush, Ruby

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you'll join us at Heart2Heart Challenges this week!

Paige

Life is a Beach - Heart 2 Heart Challenges

Today is my first post for my new role in the Slate Design Team at Heart 2 Heart Challenges!  Our theme of the week is Life is a Beach so get out the sunscreen and join me by surfing through all our beachy themed projects today at the Heart 2 Heart Challenges Blog!  I hope you'll join the fun by posting your beach themed project (must contain some CTMH product) on our linky at the H2H Challenges Blog!

I made this card for my beach loving 17 year old's birthday. One of his gifts will be a day trip to the ocean when I get back from Convention. There is nothing he likes better than spending the day checking out the critters in tide pools and the sand!

This card uses lots of bits from different paper packs - so fun pulling colors to make my scene come alive!

Palm Trees - Jackson Paper Pack, Olive and New England Ivy CS

Waves - Seaside Paper Pack

Sand - Champagne CS

Sun and Paradise sign - Honey CS

Surf Boards - Scaredy Cat and Wanderful

Sky - Glacier Ink

If you'd like to purchase any of these materials you can visit my shopping site at:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

If you have an Explore and the Artbooking Cartridge and would like to duplicate this card, here is the Design Space file for you to use:

https://us.cricut.com/design/#/canvas/29212672

This is posting while I'm away to CTMH Convention in Disneyland.  I'll be home soon and I'm sure just bursting with excitement over what is coming this year from CTMH! I already know there is a new Cricut cartridge on the way and you KNOW how much I love those!  Thanks for stopping by today and come back soon!

Stay crafty my friends,

Paige

Happy Everything Blog Hop - Operation Smile Stamp!

Welcome to the Happy Everything Blog Hop!  Today we are showcasing our new Operation Smile stamp set Happy Everything.  If you've come here from Angela's Blog you are on the right track.  This hop is one big circle so eventually you'll come back here but if you do get lost along the way, the full listing of participating CTMH Consultants can be found HERE.

This stamp set is so versatile and fun that I had a hard time picking what kind of card I wanted to make!  In the end I decided to create a bright and cheery birthday card using our Shinhan Touch Twin markers.

I used the fine tip end to color in my balloons and some of our white enamel stars to match my color scheme.  I *love* that you can use our alcohol markers to color match accessories perfectly!  The balloon shine was created by using the Colorless Blender marker to remove just a bit of color from each balloon.

 I think this sweet sentiment will work great for teen cards and adult cards too!

I used the thicker end of the markers to color diagonal stripes of each color overlapping to make a rainbow.  A dash of Black Shimmer Trim behind it finishes off my Art Philosophy Cricut Cut shape.

Operation Smile is a wonderful charity you can read about HERE.  I'm so proud to work for a company that supports this group and directly impacts the life of so many children each year.  Each time you purchase one of our exclusive and adorable Operation Smile stamp sets $3 is given to this cause! 

 If you are ready to get this fab set for your own stash or any of the other fun products I've shown today, you can visit my shopping site at:

www.Paige.CTMH.com

Now hop on over to my friend Darlys Recker's Blog and see what she has created to share!  Thanks for stopping by today!