Close To My Heart Debuts Cricut Cartridge "Art Philosophy"

Hello My Blogging Friends...

I have some great news from Close to my Heart!! The New Catalogues are out - I have them now and some new exciting products have been released.  Check out the cattie here and if you see something you like just drop me a line and I can add it to my order.

Today is the debut of Close to my Heart's new Cricut cartridge "Art Philosophy".  Find the Art Philosophy bundle on page 12/13 in the catalogue and you can get there quickly by clicking the link above and going to the Canadian edition. This exclusive cartridge comes with THREE exclusive, coordinating CTMH My Acrlyix stamp sets and three Dimensional Elements pages! (White chipboard elements and stamps that coordinate with the shapes in the Cricut Cartridge) What a Bundle my Friends; its going for an amazing price and this month you can get the stamp of the month with your purchase for only $5.00 and recieve a bonus FREE stamp set as well! What a deal!

As your friendly CTMH consultant, you can order online at my website  or call me with your order by August 8th as I am submitting my first order of the season on this date.

The new catalogues have arrived -- I have them here!!  I am ready to get them delivered into your hands as soon as possible. Let me know by email if you want a catalogue and I can either drop it in the mail or deliver one or more to you... I will be putting in an order on August 8th so remember this first order date if you want to place an order with me.

The new bi-annual catalogue has some great new products and brings some excellent improvements. See six new paper collections that feel different as well as look different. One excellent change is in the pattern paper as it now has a thicker cardstock feel to it. The stamps cost considerably less than they use to and all the new ones are simply amazing!! Check it out and get the products you want now before the new cropping season is upon us.

In Appreciation for the Very Good Friends in our Lives!! BFF

Hello Blogging Buddies

Glad that you joined me today for this warm and cheery best friend card.  You know, when we want to express to our best friends how much they mean to us?  On this card I used paper from Pink Paislee"s Butterfly Garden Collection, the 6x6 paper pad.  This collection is exquisite, soft and ethereal-like with wonderful soft and rich colors in varying botanical themes throughout the collection.  I used the English Tea Party doilies both on the front and inside.  I stamped one of the Birdhouses from Justrite's 31/4" Birdhouse set and the Sentiment is from Just Rite's Friendship Nested Sentiments and Verse set stamped up on a Spellbinders Tags Two.  The leaves and vines cut in gold foil bazill cardstock is from Spellbinder's On the Vine Grand Borderability.  See the inside of the card pictured on the last picture below where I used another sentiment from the JustRite Friendship collection.  Again, I already had this stamp colored and then I selected the appropriate doily color to match the pattern paper I chose. With the tag already stamped ahead of time as well, this card came together very quickly.  I'm beginning to use up some of the tags and embellishments that I already had cut and stamped up ahead of time as I always make more of what I am doing while I have the stamps and dies out...  Its great to have various stuff on hand so that cards can be created quickly when necessary...  Voila!  There you have it, I did have lots of fun putting all my elements together to create this card.  Go on over to my favourite online scrapping source to find these product and much, much more.  Huge preorder specials on right now!

Wow!!  The light is so much better outside in natural sunlight.  Picture taken
on our weathered porch railing with our front yard in the background.

 Here is a little closer view.  See the details of the doily quite well here
Also see the Copic colors I chose to color this stamp with and the
tag that I ink distressed using Ranger Distress ink in Tea Dye 

Finishing the inside of the card with another stamp from the Friendship Nested Sentiments
using Labels Eighteen to stamp on, I ink distressed with Ranger Distress inks in Tea
Dye using the technique where you leave your dye on the diecut after its cut and
embossed and distressed around the edges with the die on so that when
you lift it, the edge remains white to bring contrast and dimension.

I Decorated a Chocolate Box! Check it out....



Hello Blog Hoppers

I'm back with the project of the day!!  Wow, I just love these Cheery Lynn and Marianne Design dies and the Spellbinder Dies too  oh yes! (both sets shown here are available through preorder)..yes, and all my embellies, ... oh and my stamps, um.... yeaaaah!  Life is just wonderful!  The day is beautiful but its painfully warm outside.  I'm comfortable tho, sitting with my air conditioning on and working on more projects.  This time, I'm showing off an altered art project featuring one of my favourite products out on the market today.  This is last season's Prima Marketing Reflections Collection pattern paper which I chose from my stash to cover over a chocolate box.   I just wanted to provide you with options on what to do with all those old boxes you keep throwing under your bed! teeheehee.. Well, they can be used for gifts to keep sentimental items or trinkets.  Just cover them up and go hog wild with your diecuts, flowers and embellies -- Voila!! Orrrrrrrr ... you could fill it back up with your favourite chocolates and eat bon bons dans le sac! That roughly translates.. eating candies in bed!  LOL  Anyways, they are great for gift giving with a set of hand made cards inside for that special person in your life who appreciates the work you put into your projects and gifts.  Again, this project is chock full of "stuff".  I used the Italian Flourish Doily from Cheery Lynn Designs to begin my layers.  I didn't really want to cover it up but it is big and I LOVE the layered look.  The Italian Flourish is the one that resembles a snowflake when it stands alone but paired with other dies, it take on very different look.  I layered a Marianne Design Creatables Doily Round 3.75" size doily on top of the Italian Flourish.  This die is another stunner, the cutouts are elegant and the embossed finish is crisp.  In the top right hand corner I've placed two of the same of another die from Marianne Designs called the Butterfly Creatable and I layered them up for an exquisite filigree look.  Aren't these dies amazing??  You are going to see more and more of my design work being created using both these brands of dies in the future!  Click on any of the links that are highighted and underlined and you will be brought directly to where you can find the products at great preorder prices. 

The Spellbinder sets I used on this decorated box is Bird Sanctuary and Nested Butterflies Two, both of these are available on the preorder list at OC Scrapbookers.  I glammed the box up with Zva Creative Rhinestone Flourishes in champagne and copper to compliment the colors in the paper, as well as the copper foil I used on the Italian Flourish doily and one of the Marianne Design Butterflies. I used a Martha Stewart Monarch Butterfly to punch some in glitter paper to dimension and texture to the result.  I finished it off with some brown kaisercraft pearls and some tea-stained lace.  Oh, and last but now least, the sentiment is a stamp from guess... yes, you're right -- the Just Rite Birdhouses set in 31/4" round interlocking.  There you have it... an altered project and a bit of a rest from the cards.  Let me know what you think!!





10"x 7.5" box covered with Prima's Reflections Collection pattern paper



See the Italian Flourish Doily from Cheery Lynn Designs
On top of the flourish die I put a Marianne Design Creatables Doily Round, 3.75" round

Get a closer look by clicking on the picture, click again to zoom in more. 
See the layered filigree butterflies?  They are Marianne Design's Butterfly Creatable, LR0114

Flutterby Wednesday!!

Stopping by to quickly post this card in order to enter it in the Flutterby Wednesday Challenge Blog #164 just for fun.  I came by the blog when I went surfing for fine challenges to enter some of my work into.  When I read all about this Challenge, this card quickly came to mind. I knew it needed its own post to enter the challenge and because it fit the criteria so exactly.  The main criteria is that it must use "stripes and a butterfly, angel or fairy".  Well this card fits the criteria exactly!  I instantly fell in love with the Butterfly Wednesday Challenge Blog  because of my love for Butterflies, Angels, and Fairies!  I may well become a consistent follower to this Blog and enter challenges again and again!  I encourage you to visit this challenge blog and enter some of your grand designs...



This Card used Bo Bunny Gabrielle paper and the butterfly is from the collection as well
Gabrielle Trinkets.  Lots of other Prima flowers, Zva Creative pearl
flourish and Cheery Lynn Design Doilies
Click onto the picture for a closer view



Posting to enter Design Team Call for Cheery Lynn Designs

Hello My Friends

I'm posting some design work pics here featuring Cheery Lynn Design Doily Dies...  This post serves to enter an example of my work for the Cheery Lynn Design Team call.  I took pictures of the sister card I was talking about on an earlier post, sister cards as you can see on the pics below.  Looking at the middle picture, I do want to point out that I always complete my card designs by finishing the inside the card to compliment the decor on the outside of the card.  Often I compliment my cards further by making matching envelopes of specific sized cards that I'm fond of making.  See the earlier posts on my blog here to find out how I'm talking up the wonders of Cheery Lynn Design products and how I fell in love with them when I found them earlier this Spring.  This design call comes at the most opportune time as I am featuring the dies I recently recieved and talking about the so many more types of dies that are available with so many more in the planning stages.  Wow!  So my friends... I would love to hear from you -- let me know if you think I would be a good design team player on the Cheery Lynn Design team for the coming Fall/Winter!!

Sister Cards using English Tea Party Doily Die
Bo Bunny Gabrielle Collection and a wealth of other products.
Products also include various Spellbinders Dies, various JustRite stamps,
Zva Creative Crystal and Pearl flourishes and assorted Prima flowers, and borders
with ribbon and crystals.  Click on the picture once for a close-up and again to get even closer. 

This picture shows the inside of the card.  Here I used both the English Tea Party
doily and then the French Pastry Doily, finishing it off with a Spellbinders Beaded circles diecut
stamped with a JustRite Butterfly Garden selection.

Showing both cards nicely here.  The card behind the front one here was posted
earlier today and you can see it better by clicking on the heading of my blog at the top
this page to refresh and bring you to past posts where you may see more on the
card in behind and more on the doily dies that I discovered and LOVE so much! 

I'm Back to Post More on these Great Dies!

Hello My Blog Friends

Its a beautiful sunny morning, cooler and the birds are singing loud and proud outside my window.  I'm back with a coffee this morning to work on loading pics of the work I did yesterday and the card I put together using these intricate diecuts. 

So,  I want to talk a little about the way that I worked with the dies yesterday. -- I used the Grand Calibur so that I could get more on the large base plate and I loaded them up with the Metal Shims that I purchased along with the first dies I ordered.  Each time I loaded the machine, I cut cardstock or paper to fit the dies and taped them down using Scotch Magic Removeable Tape.  I then cut them the same way I cut all my cherished dies.  Now as I mentioned previously, a couple of times I had to put a die through the second time, I think mainly because I had too much on the base plate (always try to get the best bang for my buck) LOL.  I was working on a couple of Marianne Creatable dies as well that I ordered in the same order for the Cheery Lynn dies.  I wanted to try them out too and I'm here to tell you they are of equally excellent quality and easy to work with.  Once I ran them through the die cutting maching, I picked up each one up in turn and over a garbage bag I tapped lightly on the backs of the dies and loosened the diecut while tapping off most of the loose paper that was cut.  The die comes off with the tapping and most of the paper comes right off the die!  I love that there is very little time spent picking paper out of these dies as we find ourselves doing with some of our other cherished name brand dies.

There is always some cuts where the paper doesn't come out with the tapping technique, but with cutting as many as I did yesterday, I'll just put them away and check them well before I use them on any projects to make sure all the pieces that are supposed to be out are punched out.  Here are pictures of some of the work I did with the dies:



English Tea Party



 I cut this one in Brown Charlie petallic cardstock and tapped most of the pieces out in the garbage bag.  This one cut exceptionally well and did not require alot of tapping or piercing.  Click on the picture for a closer view.

French Pastry Doily



This die is a bit smaller than the English Tea Party but no less dynamic.  With the smaller size it is great for layering as you will see on pictures further down and on the first project I'm posting further on.

Italian Flourish Doily Die

This is the one that resembles a snowflake when it is by itself.  The cuts are amazing and the embossed edges that are left are stunning when you see it and can touch it.  I just love the filigree look to it and I had lots of fun cutting these and experimenting with various cardstocks, foils and textured paper.



 





Layered English Tea with French Pastry
Ha, thats making me hungry!!



English Tea Party with Italian Flouish
Cut the larger one in blue foil and the Italian
Flourish in a winter pattern paper


Now, I want to put up the pictures of the first card I did yesterday.  And while I'm posting this morning I'm putting together a sister card something like this one and its coming along nicely.  I will post it a little later on... The first card here is a little busier than I usually do but I do like busy as all my followers know.  I like an explosion of color and texture on the palette, a plethora of wonders to see and if you look closer there may be more to discover... I really like that and, its my style I guess you could call it, my signature.  So here goes ...

Using Bo Bunny's Gabrielle Collection

Inside: English Tea Pary Doily and
Sentiment from Justrite's Butterfly Garden
31/4" round Ribbed Stamp set

 
Click on the pictures themselves to see a closer view of the images, and click again for an even closer view.  On this card I used a Zva Creative Pearl Flourish (most of the time the flourish doesn't fit the way it is presented in the package but you can cut these flourishes up and use pieces on your card front to suit your creativity) That is way I did here.  As for the doilies, I layered up first an English Tea Party doily and then on top of that I put a French pastry doily cut in the Gabrielle paper -- do you see why these dies are essential to your crafting and scrapbooking needs?  You can simply cut doilies to your heart's content in the matching pattern paper collections that you are working with at the time.  The sky is the limit with these babies as it is with our other name brand dies.  On top of the layered doilies I put a Prima Poetic Whispers Creme flower as the center piece.  Wow, these flowers are amazing!!  Intricate, elegant and exquisite -- feminine and well..Old World!  What can I say, its why I was so attracted to them.  Around the bottom left hand side I laid out a flourish of 3D mini rosebuds from Prima, called Fairytale in Teal and then I placed some tea stain rosebuds to round it off.  On the top right side, I put a metal butterfly embellishment from the Gabrielle Collection - Trinkets.  My sentiment is from Just Rite's Everyday Tiny Sentiments set stamped on a Spellbinders Ribbon Banners S4-324 - with my essential collections that I have going on, I can create anything!!  .. and I have so much fun trying. 

So, to celebrate the intro of these new dies, OC Scrapbookers has an awesome pre-order event going on!  Hop on over and take a look!  There's a whole lot going on over at OC Scrappers this whole next week with much more to come...  Don't forget the preorder special on Copic Markers going on today too - not much time left on that preorder special.
So my friends... let me know what you think.. I do want to do some altered art and a layout here too..  Stay tuned for the sister card and much, much more!!

Drum Roll Please!!! Say Hello to the Doily Die!

They are absolutely to DIE for!! These awesome dies are simply amazing and let me try to do them justice as I describe them and show them to you here on this post and consecutive posts to come all this week... Pls. watch the videos that I have loaded up for you below to see how they are cut and so that you can begin to become comfortable with them.

You know, I wasn't completely sure that I liked doilies when they began to appear on cards and layouts last Christmas. I liked them on some of the work I saw but didn't care for them on other projects. I think it was that they were for the most part first, manufactered using flimsy/thin paper, and second there seemed an absence of vibrancy in color and texture for me coming mostly in white with some silver ones (didn't wow me). Then I discovered the Doily Dies made by Cheery Lynn and ordered a few to try --- Well... you can bet that I am now a collector of Cheery Lynn Dies in all of their formats. Over time I will collect them and Deb, over at OC Scrapbookers  is going to carry the designs beginning with an AWESOME preorder starting today. Okay... where do I begin?? I'm so excited to show you these dies. Lets try to get this video loaded so you can view them and see how to cut them as he demonstates.

Keep in mind, and let me clarify that some of the videos talk about fussing with cutting the dies by running them through your die cutting machine over and over, turning them around. This is an older video and well, if you are knowledgable and used to the die cutting machine that you use, you know that you only need to play with the shims enough to get a clean run through the first time. A little playing at the beginning to get the right fit of shim(s) may be needed but then you will get the hang of it for the particular die cutting machine you are currenty using. I've had a Cuttlebug for diecutting and embossing for years now but recently I acquired first a Vagabond (electric) diecutting machine for major projects (that means manufacturing for me) such as when I have orders for multiple cards like christmas cards or invitations for events. Then, I discovered the beauty of the Grand Calibur with its 81/2"x11" base plate size and how I can cut multiple dies in one run through which of course is perfect for my fondness of layering diecuts on projects.  So now, I use (almost exclusively) the Grand Calibur for many of my diecutting needs. I still love my Cuttlebug and will not part with it as I use it for workshops, (if interested, OC Scrapbookers has the best price on the Grand Calibur in Canada, check it out)  but I just love being able to do several diecuts at once on the Grand Calibur. The GC totally sold me on these doily dies because with only one run through, for cutting and embossing with the recommended metal shim, these exquisitely intricate dies cut like butter and every piercing and raised embossed image comes out crisp showing the deep complexity of each die. The thicker the paper you use, the more stunning and deeply etched is the finished result!! I am going to show you the diecuts by themselves to illustrate their beauty and then I'll show you them on a finished project.


French Pastry Doily Die

 



Here are the three Cheery Lynn Dies that I ordered to try out.  You will find my projects this week feature these 3 doily dies in my art in various ways.  I had fun today just cutting and cutting and getting used to them.  From time to time I put a die through more than once and mostly because I was loading too much on at once.




Italian Flourish Doily Die



English Tea Party Die





I had fun too cutting them out with various cardstock including glitter cardstock and various colors of foil cardstock, seeking that dimension and texture that I was looking for.  See how this one looks somewhat like a snowflake..  Well, you can imagine what I will want to do with that one come Winter...  I will post my own pictures of the various cuts I made today and then I'll top it off by posting a project to show another wonderful group of products!!

Stay tuned for the next post featuring my own pics and a project I did today with the doilies.  I'll be adding more on what I am doing with these beauties so that you can take advantage of my learning.  Feel free to email me and ask any questions  or comment on what you think so far.  I am interested in what you think...  So, go on over to OC Scrapbookers to see the preorder special price that Deb has put on in to celebrate the Cheery Lynn products.  Look for more very soon, maybe even later on tonight or early tomorrow morning...  later friends!