Fall Favorites SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to our September Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! This month Close to My Heart is offering a stamp set called "Fall Favorites". This set can be purchased exclusively through a Close to My Heart Independent Consultant for only $5 with a qualifying purchase of $50.

 

In this hop, you will see projects featuring this fun stamp set from many talented crafty ladies! We hope you enjoy our blog hop today!

If you have just hopped onto my blog, please start at the beginning at Lucy's blog: Love 2 Create .   If you just came from Lucy's blog then you are on the right track. :)


My Project Details:

My mother-in-law sent a wonderful wiper card with Tinkerbell on it for my daughters 1st birthday, so when I sat down with this stamp set I decided I really wanted to try making a wiper card myself. :)

Now the big challenge I had was figuring out measurements since every tutorial I could find when I did a google search brought up measurements for making an A2 (4.25 x 5.5) card landscape and I needed it to be portrait for this card and when I kept the sides the same as the tutorials said it looked very strange and awkward so I had to play with this a lot. The sentiment I wanted to use also wouldn't fit on the wiper part so I changed the dimensions of that too and then inked part of my sentiment and stamped it and then inked the last part of my sentiment and stamped it below that.

The ink I used for the sentiment is Barn Red which coordinates perfectly with the Dakota B&T I used . I used one of the new colours "Cashmere"to stamp the scarecrow image and the pumpkin image on the wiper and then I wanted to colour it with my watercolour pencils but could not for the life of me find them in my messy craft area so I used chalks instead.

I cut the frames to make the opening reveling the card underneath where I stamped my image from the Art Philosophy cartridge in Cricut Craft Room (of course) but you could just use center point on your machine and cut the label shape first and then the rectangle using the same center point coordinates. The letters are cut out of the piece I cut out from the middle of the frame using the Artiste cartridge.

The card doesn't really "open" but when you pull the card front to the right and the back piece to the left the wiper piece pops up from the middle.

Here's how it looks as you "open" it.. (closed, half way and all the way).

Isn't the main image stamp just too cute?! I love that this set has a single bird, and the pumpkins as a separate image as well as some great fall words and sentiment. Love it!! You can get this fantastic stamp set "Fall Favourites" for just $5 with a $50 order plus you would also qualify to get the double stamp set "It's Your Day" for National Stamping Month (which you can see pictures of and a great blog hop full of ideas for in my previous post here) for $5... that is an absolutely incredible deal! :)
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Your next stop on the Fall Favorites Stamp Set Blog Hop is  Shelly Mendenhall of Inky Wheeler's Artsy Musings




Here is a complete list of the blog hop in case you get lost along the way:

1. Lucy :  Love 2 Create You came from here
2. Darla : Caution: Crafting is Contagious! You are here
3. Shelly Mendenhall : Inky Wheeler's Artsy Musings  Go here next
4. Eva Friesen : For The Love Of Creating
5. Judith Ashmore : My Blog Adventure
6. Stephanie : The Quilted Scrapper
7. Tina Gale : My Scrappy Ideas
8. Maria Woodworth : Maria's Paper Craft Place
9. Jennifer Kramer : 4 Hearts Scrapbooking
10. Carolyn : Nuts 4 Scrappin'
11. Madeline Morcelo : Inking From The Heart
12. Theodora : Celebrate Crafts
13. Laura W. :  Scrappinsweetie's Escape
14. Michelle Stewart : My Creations With Michelle

PRODUCTS USED:

InLinkz.com

July Art Philosophy Blog Hop

Welcome to our July Art Philosophy Blog Hop! Each month we will showcase a feature of the amazing Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge which can be purchased exclusively through a Close to My Heart Independent Consultant.
We're so excited to be doing this hop and we have a fabulous lineup with some very talented ladies. There will be lots of fun projects AND some blog candy!!!

Lucy Kelleher, our hostess and fellow CTMH Consultant, will be giving away a stamp set! She is giving away a prior Stamp of the Month set that can no longer be purchased called "You Are ...". (This stamp set has a $17.95 retail value). You will find a picture of the stamp set on her blog. To enter to win, you will need to leave a comment on her blog and on every stop of the blog hop. If you also become a follower of Lucy's blog, she will give you another entry .

This month we will be showcasing the "Card" feature of the cartridge. Did you know there are 100 different card shapes you can make with this cartridge? You heard me correctly -- 100!!! Now we won't be able to show you ALL 100 card options, but we will show you as many as we can.

If you just happened to come to this blog, you should start at the beginning at Lucy's blog - http://www.love2createitall.com/.

My project today uses the card feature key on page 47 (without the shift key) which is the 3rd row down 7th key over (going left to right) of the white image keys on your keypad.

First.. a close up of the glittery goodness!! :)

Here's what the whole card looks like from the front:

Now.. just to show you that this really was the card shape which has a cutout window in the middle of the front panel and not just a plain card with this stuck on it (and because I thought the picture looked really neat)... here's a shot of my card open in front of a window so you can see that you can see through it. :)

Here's how I achieved this look.
First I made my file in Cricut Craft Room so all the pieces would line up and cut in the correct spot as well as I was able to play with the colours to decide which ones I wanted to use.

Next I loaded my silver paper (the paper I used was Reflections cardstock from Michaels) and cut the card shape @ 5.5" using CCR. Then I took a piece of acetate which I had applied a piece of Scortape to first and with the mat still loaded in the machine i carefully lifted the cut card shape up on the side with the cutout and ligned up my piece of acetate with the acetate side on the mat and the tape backing facing up so that it would cut the pieces in middle of my acetate 9yes I could have just cut a bigger piece and put t in approximately the right spot since CCR shows you where on the mat it will cut but this way I knew exactly how much edge I would have on the acetate around my shape). I cut all oth the layers for the ornament and the label shape like the opening in the card front with my setting on 4 speed, 4 pressure, 4 blade depth and a mulitcut of 2 since the kind I used was BCT tape which has a very thick backing on the tape.

Now I had my card shape cut from the silver card and a solid square of acetate with adhesive on it and all the pieces cut out of the tape backing.

I removed the tape backing on the outer edge leaving all of the part you can see through the window cut opening of the card covered. and lined it up with my card from behind and stuck it on. now i just removed one section of backing at a time and applied my glitter to the exposed adhesive rubbing it on really well with my fingers and then using a shaving brush to brush away all the excess glitter.

I used my Say it in Style stamps (which is no longer available as of August 1 so make sure you order ASAP if you want this amazing set of sentiments) to stamp the sentiment in versamark ink and heat emboss with red tinsel embossing powder.

The next stop on your blog hop fun is Gloria Shirr so hop on over and see what wonderful project she has to share with you today! :)


Here is the list of all the talented consultants who are participating in this months blog hop:

1. Lucy ~ Love2Create
2. Darla ~ Caution: Crafting is Contagious!
3. Gloria Shirr - Purpleglo Creations
4. Laura Wolff- Scrappinsweetie's Escape
5. Eva-For the Love of Creating
6. Danielle ~ Little Bit of Scrap
7. Connie ~ Connie's Crafty Closet
8. Wendy ~ My Scrapbooking Blog
9. Joanne - Josie's Joy
10. Laura Charko - Koala Designs
11. Carolyn Heniges - Nuts 4 Scrappin'
12. Kindred Hearts (Penny) - It Makes Total Cents
13. Stephanie Feist- The Quilted Scrapper
14. Julia Hammond You Can Create

Thanks so much for stopping by and hopping with us - we hope you LOVE all the projects we created!

Right from the idea book.. With a little twist

You can actually see this exact design in the idea book so why did I make it and am posting it right??
Well.... The big difference between mine and the one in the idea book is that mine is entirely done with the cricut cartridge whereas the one in the idea book uses the bought shaped cards.

I like that you can duplicate this without having to spend money on costly shaped cards! Heck you could even use a different shaped card if you wanted I just wanted to see if I could duplicate the one from the idea book and... You can!!
You can order this cartridge and lots of other coordinating stamps (like that holly leaf and the label stamp) here: https://darlah.myctmh.com

Look at my post http://stampingunderdoctorsorders.blogspot.com/2011/10/art-philosophy-coordinating-stamps.html from yesterday to learn all about the cheat sheets that I make just for my customers!!

Art Philosophy coordinating stamps

Okay so if you've talked to me at all lately you know I am in LOVE with the new Close To My Heart Art Philosophy cricut cartridge... So much so that I signed up as a consultant!
I can honestly say that since I've gotten this cartridge I have not touched my other ones, and not because I was trying to only use this one but because every time I thought "now what cartridge has that shape" id realize that it was on this cartridge too!!
It has circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, scalloped versions of all of them, tags, label shapes (normally I would have to dig my Spellbinders out for these), assorted leaves, branches, birds, shaped cards, frames, stockings/socks, poinsettias, holly, ornaments, cards with images cut out of the front, flowers (both flat and 3D spiral ones.... Which I'm in love with!!), boxes, envelopes and lots more!!!

Anyways as much as I love this cartridge and the fact that it has stamps that coordinate to fit perfectly with some of the shapes (well that just puts it over the top!!! ) I was a little disappointed. Let me explain....
The stamp sets have the size each image needs to be cut at right on the sheet they are stuck to (however it is written REALLY tiny) but it doesn't tell you which shape in the handbook it is. This becomes time consuming a bit when youre using it constantly since there are 700 shapes in the cartridge to look through to find it! Soooooo... I thought well I am just going to make a cheat sheet for myself. I was so pleased with how it turned out and I thought well... I already took the time to find them all so I'm certainly not going to let anyone that orders from me spend all that time again.

Long story short I am sending already made up cheat sheets to anyone that orders through me for the stamp sets that come with the cartridge. If it's another stamp set that coordinates and I have it or you're local and have it shipped to my address than I will do one for those sets too. (I make them line up perfect with the actual stamp set so I actually need the set in order to do this).

I have all the shapes cut out of white (and stamped in black if it's a set I own) then they have repositionable adhesive on them so you can take them off the cheat sheet and place on your project to see if you like that image/shape there or not and gave an idea of how it will look. When you pull the shape off it reveals a cheat sheet underneath (see the maple leaf)... It will tell you what row and column on the keypad the button is for the shape and also if you need to press shift and/or any feature keys; it will also say what size to cut it at! Yay!!! I also stamp the non coordinating things in the stamp sets (like sentiments and such) on the black part in white ink. This whole thing slides right into your stamp envelope with your stamps so that it's all together or you can take it out and store elsewhere for quick reference if you prefer. Since the whole set is stamped you can still see the whole set through the packaging on the cheat sheet.

More of a visual person like me... How about some pictures of what I'm talking about???


Here are the pictures of the stamps that come with the cartridge (3 stamp sets plus 3 packages of chipboard shapes that coordinate with cuts from the cartridge come with it).

You can order from me here:
https://darlah.myctmh.com

Best cricut cartridge ever!!!!!

I just wanted to let you all know about the new Art Philosophy cartridge bundle by Close To My Heart for the cricut.
I am in love!!! So much so that I was sure that others would be too and signed up as a consultant so that when people ask in my "how to use the cricut" classes where they could get it my answer could be really simple... "from me!!"

This cartridge has it all!! 2 fonts, tons of shapes (including label shapes similar to the spellbinder ones we all love), tags, cards (beautiful shaped ones as well as ones with great cut outs in them great for revealing your stamped sentiment on the inside of the card), boxes, borders, paper lace and my favourite..... Rolled roses!!!!
Included with the cartridge are 3 yup 3!!! Stamp sets that coordinate with the shapes (there are more coordinating stamp sets available but these 3 come with it).
It also comes with some chipboard shapes that also coordinate so you can dimensionalize your project.

What?? You want to SEE the images??? I knew you would... So I'm putting the pictures at the end of this post!!

To order this great bundle you can order it directly from my site https://darlah.myctmh.com (just click shop online and then cricut collection) or send me an email!

Want to order more than just the bundle (like some of the other coordinating stamps)? Don't order online!!! Contact me about your order and let me place it for you as you will most likely qualify for some more free product!!! You can even host a gathering (and it can be online only if you want or we can have a real get together and have some crafty fun in person) and send invites to your crafty friends and if they order anything then you'll qualify for even more great stuff.... If they order enough then you might even be able to get you cricut bundle 50% off!!!
Just figured I'd throw it out there so you'd know as I wouldn't want anyone to miss that opportunity if it was available.

I also make cheat sheets that are just awesome if I do say so myself for the coordinating stamps just for my customer!!!! See my other post here > http://stampingunderdoctorsorders.blogspot.com/2011/10/art-philosophy-coordinating-stamps.html

Anyways, enough babble and onto what you've been waiting for... The pictures!!!!