August Stamp Of The Month Blog Hop

Welcome to our August CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! Each month we will showcase the Stamp of the Month which can be purchased exclusively through a Close to My Heart Independent Consultant.

The stamp set we'll be using is "Baroque Borders" and is available for just $5 with any $50 order.

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. 

This month we will be showcasing the August Stamp of the Month "Baroque Borders" . This stamp can be used in so many different ways and we hope to inspire you with our creations!

If you just happened to come to this blog, you should start at the beginning at Lucy's blog.

My daughter celebrated her 1st birthday a couple weeks ago and I lost my mind and decided to throw her a princess party. ;)

Here is the cake (which looked easy enough.. and would have been had I bought regular cones for the decorations instead of heavy sugar cones which FYI regular cake can't hold the weight of) surrounded by the purses which I made using the Artiste cricut cartridge and the Baroque Borders SOTM, some tiaras, noise makers, etc.

As you can see the purses wouldn't close after I filled them with lip gloss, nail polish, beads, a little worry doll, crayons, ring, and candy. :)

You will find this cute little purse on page 31 of the Artiste handbook. The handle is just a piece of gift wrap ribbon that happened to match the colour scheme. I started off using regular ribbon but quickly switched when I remembered that my 3 1/2 year old boy was going to be the oldest kid at the party and so using regular ribbon would be a bit of a waste. Here's some up close photos including my prototype (the purple one with the nice satin ribbon).

After the purses were cut I stamped part of one of the corner stamps from the Baroque borders SOTM set on the flap, assembled and voila!

Of course I couldn't possible share these pictures with you without also sharing a few more pictures of my princess at her party and enjoying her cake (she's in her swimsuit so I was able to put her right into the little pool to get all the cake off after). ;)

The next stop on your blog hop fun is Judith.

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

1. Lucy ~ http://www.love2createitall.com
2. Darla ~ http://www.stampingunderdoctorsorders.blogspot.com/
3. Judith ~ www.grammiejudys.blogspot.com 
4. Carolyn Heniges http://www.nuts4scrappin.blogspot.com/
5. Amie Kiger ~ http://www.mimimyselfandibykigz.blogspot.com
6. Ryan www.pieceandpaper.blogspot.com
7. Joanne http://josiesjoy.blogspot.com
8. Pam Stewart - http://i-candy-scraps.blogspot.com
9. Kindred Hearts - http://itmakestotalcents.blogspot.com
10. Julia Hammond http://youcancreatectmh.blogspot.com/

August Art Philosophy Hop

Welcome to our August 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.

This month we will be showcasing the "Decorative Layer" (shift or no shift) feature of the cartridge.

If you just happened to come to this blog, you should start at the beginning at Lucy's blog

I will warn you that I was having a bit of a "MOJO meltdown" when I was trying to create something for this hop. I had just finished making all the things for my daughters 1st birthday (more on that in a future post) and had all sorts of crazy stuff going on here as well as planning our vacation (which I am now on while you're reading this). Regardless I was still happy with the way it turned out. I have a good friend in the US who is always helping me out with things that I wanted a card for.. and since she's always referring to me as "my Canadian friend" I thought this was very suiting.

I really wanted to show how well the images from the Art Philosophy cartridge go with the Artiste cartridge and truly compliment each other.

I used the decorative layer on page 34 using the shift key from the Art Philosophy cartridge cut at 3.4" (either change the settings on your machine to 1/10 inches to get this size OR use cricut craft room, a gypsy or design studio) in White Daisy cardstock.
The "thanks" stamp is stamped in Cranberry ink and is one of the stamps that comes bundled with the Artiste cartridge, and as indicated on the carrier sheet for the set it is cut at 1.5" Love these stamps!!

I then cut the card (with shift key) at 5" from page 46 in the Artiste handbook from Cranberry cardtock. This folds over top of the non-shift card key cut at the same size on page 46 which I cut from White Daisy and inked the edges with Cranberry ink using one of our new pigment ink cubes (love these!!).

I took the maple leaf from the center of the decorative layer piece from the Art Philosophy cartridge and sponged some cranberry ink on it as well and used an adhesive spring to make it wiggle and pop up off the card once the front closure was removed.

Hope you enjoyed my project. :)
The next stop on your blog hop fun is Diana.

In case you lose your way the entire lineup is:

1. Lucy ~ http://www.love2createitall.com
2. Darla ~ http://www.stampingunderdoctorsorders.blogspot.com
3. Diana ~ http://dianasfreemoments.blogspot.com
4. Wendy Kessler ~ http://myscrapbookingblog.com
5. Eva~ http://loveofcreating.blogspot.com
6. Carolyn ~ http://www.nuts4scrappin.blogspot.com
7. Stephanie- http://www.quiltedscrapper.blogspot.com
8. Joanne - http://josiesjoy.blogspot.com
9. Laura W. http://scrappinsweetiesescape.blogspot.com
10. Kindred Hearts - http://itmakestotalcents.blogspot.com
11. Pam Stewart - http://i-candy-scraps.blogspot.com
12. Carolyn Mendoza ~ http://www.craftingwithcarolyn.blogspot.com

Blog Help Video

Today I am sharing a video tutorial series on how to create a blog post and the various elements included with that.

I have started to participate in a lot of blog hops (as well as help organize a large number of them) and there are a few very common problems and questions regarding the posting of these.

Whether you actually participate in blog hops or not you may find this video useful just for a little blogger walkthrough,

Included in this video series is:

• Part 1: Changing your time zone
  
• Part 2: Schedule your post to go "live" at a specific date/time and actually have it post properly


• Part 3: Find the Permalink/Deep URL (or direct post link) for your post before it's actually live on your blog

• Part 4: Generate a "preview" link to share with a hop organizer (or other person) so that they can see your post ahead of time WARNING: the link you will get for this is only good for a short amount of time

• Part 5: Linking words to URLs

• Part 6: Add labels to your post

• Part 7: Add photos

• Part 8: Add video
  

I haven't actually completed the videos for part 6,7 and 8 yet but wanted to get this posted for everyone to see the first 5. :) I will edit this post as the other videos get finished.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

Please contact me if you have any further questions or comments on this subject.

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!

Sketch Challenge

I took part of a sketch challenge today with MCCR.

Today's sketch is:                                                    

My take on it is:

I created the whole thing in Cricut Craft Room first of course. I just love how I can plan out my whole card colours and all without using any paper or even taking any out. Here's a screen shot of it all laid out:

The ducks and the onesie are using the free digital cartridge that you can use with CCR called Craft Room Basics and are 1" high.


The card base is 5.5" high and it, the layer and label shape are all from the Art Philosophy cartridge from CTMH.

The onesie and the label shape are both on foam tape for some added dimension

The sentiment stamp as well as all the papers (Lucy B&T, Creme Brulee and Colonial White) are from the Lucy Workshop On The Go. I used cotton candy for my sentiment and sponged some creme brulee on the card base and label shape backing as well just to take the starkness away from it.

Cricut Craft Room Cartridge Font Tutorial

Today I have a video tutorial on how to use fonts in the Cricut Craft Room. I will show you 2 different ways to use the fonts from your cartridges as well as how to join the individual letters into words and getting the fonts shadow lined up and sized correctly.

July 100 Cricut Cartridge Blog Hop

For my card today I chose to use Fancy Frames, Heritage and Trim The Tree cricut cartridges.

I made an embossing folder with the Fancy Frames cartridge (the 3rd row 4th column button) at 5" Real Dial Size. If you're local and would like to learn how to make your own embossing folders I teach classes on how to do this, you can contact me for my class schedule.

I also cut the backing for this frame (4th row, 4th column) and embossed it with my homemade folder. After I dry embossed it I ran my gold inkpad over the embossing to highlight the embossing. I also used my gold Sakura pen to edge both the outside and inside of this frame and my card base (both inside and out). I attached thie embossed panel with foam tape for added dimension.

I used Trim the Tree and Cricut Craft Room to cut my ornaments out of some gold sticker paper (I used CCR because I wanted to take the guess work out completely of what size I wanted them and this allowed me to line everything up how I liked it and then cut.


I took this screen shot for you so you can see what I mean.

I also used the Heritage cartidge to cut the label for my sentiment. I stamped my sentiment from A1115 A Holiday CTMH stamp set in gold encore ink as well as distressed the edges of my label with the same gold ink. I attached the label with a couple star brads I had in my stash from years ago.
Here's a close up of the dimension the embossing gives this as well as the shine!

Next you should go to Miranda's blog: http://www.nanasscrapspot.com

If you get lost along the way here is the entire line up

Start http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com

Heather Lynn http://heathernovinger.blogspot.com/

Lisa Carrier http://ourcraftingcorner.blogspot.com

Darla http://www.stampingunderdoctorsorders.blogspot.ca/ YOU ARE HERE

Miranda http://www.nanasscrapspot.com  GO HERE NEXT

Erica's Project http://ericasprojects.blogspot.com

Yvette http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/

Christina http://cema1cema.blogspot.com

Jessica S http://jessicascraftshaque.blogspot.com

Candice http://stampinpearls.blogspot.com

Lucy http://www.love2createitall.com

Blog Candy http://ericasblogcandy.blogspot.com