**SNEAK PEEK** CTMH Spring Idea Book 2010 Swap Items

First, I am so sorry for the less than adequate pictures. As a prior post showed my good camera became illiterate and so I am down to using this standby. YUK, YUK, YUK!!! Ok, enough ranting.

For those of you who have never participated in a swap - OH please do. It is a wonderful way to get your creativity flowing and also gives you x amount of items when the swap is finished. This swap had an added element of surprise. We all signed up PRIOR to knowing what the paper packs in the new idea book would be. I picked paper pack 4 which ended up being CTMH You Rock. What a stretch out of my little box! I am partial to subtle patterns and pastel colors. This pack is anything but! So, my goal was to create items that were not the first thought when looking at this paper. I think I accomplished my goal (check out the Valentine's card)- let me know what you think!

A. Tags

B. 8 x 3 1/2 Card

C. 4 1/4 Circle Card

D. 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 Card

E. 6 x 6 Layout

F. Paper Candy

Here's some close-ups of the items. Again sorry for the poor picture quality.

Tags

3 cards

6 x 6 Layout

Paper Candy

I used all CTMH paper, ink, stamp sets, and embellishments.

My new camera arrives January 12th and you can be sure I will take pics again and repost these items so that you can see the gorgeous paper, sparkly embellishing, and small details on each piece.

And one last pic. This is my creative chaos when I'm working on a project. WARNING: May be harmful to children's eyes! Mother's who want kid's rooms kept clean beware!!

Tee Hee!!!

2010 Layout Challenge

I have entered a wonderful challenge along with many of my talented Close To My Heart sisters. The challenge is simple...decide how many layouts to make in 2010 and then do it! This is a fantastic way to keep our creativity flowing all year long.
I've decided that since there are fifty two weeks in the year my personal number to finish is 104. That means I owe everyone in the challenge and my loyal blog followers 2 layouts a week. Keep me honest everyone - comment if I'm slipping!!

I, of course, will be checking up on my sisters and encourage you to do so as well. Along the sidebar is a list of participants. After scoping out my blog, follow the links and visit theirs as well. You won't be disappointed.

Happy 2010 Everyone! Let's make this our most creative year yet.

Merry Christmas!!

and Felic Navidad!

I'd like to wish every a joyous holiday season. May you have lots to eat and many to share your feast with.

A new day dawns.

One More Layout

This is a layout I did last month at the retreat. I used CTMH Twitterpated L2 and Heartfelt Wonder die cuts for embellishment. The felt die cuts are great to use. I found the original pieces seemed "flat" so I inked the edges and man did that make a world of difference. On the tree, I cut out the acorns from the B&T and used Liquid Glass to attach to the back of clear craft buttons. The lettering was done with Chocolate Love Letter Rub-ons and the journaling was my own handwriting which I rarely do as I don't like my own writing. Professionals say to use your own writing as a way to personalize the work. That way my great, great granchildren will know what kind of hen-scratch I had.

Camera Down!!

Isn't it funny how a scrabooker cannot be without a camera? My old hand-me-down camera finally decided to stop reading it's SD card. I'm clicking away, minding my own business when suddenly what appears in front if my view - CANNOT READ CARD - in bright red letters. Not one of the pics this morning were saved. All the prior pics are good as my lovely laptop showed me them. It's the camera that has become illiterate. Sooooo my next purchase shall be a shiny new camera all my very own. I know! How exciting for  me! Please leave your suggestions for what type of camera you use and what you would recommend.

But I do have a trusty (well sorta) backup one with limited settings for me to play with and wreck. It's a camera, it's a video camera, it's an mp3 player, it's an e-reader. But lord only knows how to make it do these things! There are no motion or night settings. There is just point and click - sigh.

I did manage to snap a pic of my latest layout. This is from the CTMH Grace WOTG kit. This is the first time I've used a WOTG and I love them! Everything is laid out for you right down to what and where to embellish! I'm planning on doing the second layout and the card workshop as well.

If Dogs Could Speak...

A friend asked me to create a Thank You/Christmas card for her vet's office from her dogs. Now this was a challenge as she wanted to include fun fur on it somehow. Yes, I have some wacky friends. After searching high and low for fun fur, an old teddy bear was sacrificed for this project. Here is what I came up with. I incorporated the fur along the bottom creating a "collar". Hope she likes it!


The characters were royalty free images I snagged from the web as I have no dog stamps. I must remedy that situation. After all, a girl can never be too rich or have too many stamps!!
 

Inside the Scrapbooks

Now that I have rested my wearly bones, here are the remaining pics of my scrappin marathon!

Here is a closeup of the poem on the last page. My older daughter always ends her books with a closing poem and I "stole" the idea from her. It makes a nice finish to an album.

And one more closeup. This layout tells an extremely condensed version of baby Naomi's brief life. Because some of the family members have small children I didn't want some of the pictures visible when you first open the page. They are very heart wrenching images of her final hours with us. I decided to use our CTMH flip flaps and create a mini-book. I covered the top with an image I duplicated using one of Michelle Zindorf''s cards and techniques. I love following her work and re-creating it for my own use.

And that concludes your tour of my 60 pages in 6 days marathon! Please put your seat backs and tray tables in their fully upright and locked position! LOL.

A Roomful of Layouts!!

OK, so here are the fruits of my long labor. Six days and 60 pages later the albums are ready to be wrapped and sent off!

These are the layouts in 3 scrapbooks that are Christmas gifts for Adam's family back east. Each book is identical except for the paper pack and contains 20 pages. HUMONGOUS thanks to Robin Garrow and her 18 page layout plan. I could not have accomplished this feat without her.

As you can see my living room was half full of pages!! It is awesome to see them all laid out on the floor like that. Of course, Crush, our cat had to pose for the picture. I will post closeups of all three albums tomorrow. Now, I need some sleep!!

One More Trifold

Welcome Iona and thank you for being my very first follower! This is so exciting and motivates me to make sure that I post new and exciting cards and layouts regularly. My new products arrived yesterday and I ordered the Veranda WOTG so will try to get that done up and posted in the next couple of days. The three family gift albums are coming along very slowly but I'm extremely happy with the results. I will also post those once completed

Here is Miranda's second tri-fold card. She srapped for almost 8 hours then perused the cattie and told me I am the sole cause of her being broke in the new year...LOL. I encouraged her to talk to everyone at her work and have a gathering so she can get her hands on lots of product for free. This one is a Christmas card for her future Mexican parents.

It uses CTMH Jingle PP, Heartfelt Christmas SS, Gracious Greetings - Spanish SS, and Save the Date - Spanish SS. Again the embellishments are mainly dollar store items with the exception of the sparkles. The present stamp on the right hand side uses the Bamboo ink stamping/coloring technique from an Art and Soul episode. You stamp your image with bamboo ink then color over top of the image. The bamboo ink "disappears" allowing you to place the colors you want on the image. Love this technique!

You Rock Tri-fold Card

My daughter, Miranda Moreno, who has never scrapped decided she wanted to make a birthday card for her fiancee's brother. They are headed for warm, sunny Mexico next week. It has been 3 years since Javier has been home and 10 years since he's seen his brother! I had an extra tri-fold base already cut and let Miranda go to town. And did she ever!!

She used the new CTMH paper pack "You Rock" , "Star Power", "Gracious Greetings - Spanish" and "Beloved" stamp sets. Stamping was done with Outdoor Denim ink. Most of the embellishments are dollar store items I've had laying around for years.

The card turned out beautiful! I knew that this paper pack and stamp set had uses other than for the "teeny-bopper" age group. This card shows how the right details can change the theme from young rocker to country gent.

She is totally hooked on stamping and tri-fold cards! As I write this, she has stolen another tri-fold base I started with the CTMH Jingle paper pack and is stamping away! Another stamper is born!! YESSSSS!!!

Today's Project

Here is what I have been working on today - Christmas cards for Adam's work buddies. I made a group of 24 A2 cards using Jingle Creative Basics kit and CTMH "Heartfelt Christmas" stamp set. I used Tulip and Juniper inks. The ovals were made with my new Nestabilites that arrived day before yesterday. I just had to play! The ribbon is CTMH bulk organdy that I have had forever. I didn't have enough sparkle brads so I made some. I dipped the brad onto a Versamark pad and then into some holographic embossing power, heated it (use tweezers!) and viola!

Inside I used CTMH Card Chatter - Christmas stamp set AND on the back I stamped my personalized company stamp using grey flannel. I chose that color so that the consultant info was subtle yet available.

OK, I'm back trying to figure this blog thingy again...LOL. Please bear with me. Once I figure this all out I will be sharing some wonderful projects using CTMH scrapbooking and stamping supplies.

Here is a first attempt at putting a picture of some of my artwork!