Close To My Heart Card Swap

Casey Spinks, Executive Director for Close to My Heart organized a card swap to showcase some of the new products from CTMH's 2017-2018 Annual Inspirations and the soon to launch Holiday Expressions book. Here are my 10 creations. The rainbow cards have been featured in previous posts. If you are interested in the "recipe" for any of the other cards, please leave me a comment below; happy to share.

Had so much fun making these, will definitely make more with other new products. Lots of great stuff this year.  The Holiday Expressions products featured here are the 4 cards on upper right. The top 2 cards are made from Falling For You paper packet and card making stamps and thin cuts. I made the 2 cards below with the Beary Christmas paper packet, card making stamps and thin cuts and Tree Line Border dies. (lots of fussy cutting) Card on the very bottom features the September Stamp of the month Feel So Blessed. Both Seasonal Expressions and September stamp of the month go live on September 1st!

As always your comments are much appreciated!
Thank you for visiting.

#CTMH Falling for you card making stamps and think cuts
#CTMH 2017-2018 Annual Inspirations
#CTMH 2017 Holiday Expressions
#CTMH 2017 September Stamp of the Month
#CTMH Beary Christmas
#CTMH card swap

Rainbow die cuts

From the watercolor background I created with CTMH inks, I die cut the word Family.  This die is new in CTMH's just launched Annual Inspirations catalogue.  I inked the word with VersaFine and heat embossed in clear twice to get a super shiny surface.  I also die cut the word another 2 times and stacked the rainbow version on the top to give it more substance and dimension to balance the rainbow die cut scallop fringes below.  I created the border fringes with MFT's Fringed Scalloped Borders die and CTMH card stock.  The 2017-2018 new card stock comes two tone, a darker and a lighter side.  Thought the fringe die would be a great way to show case the light and dark colors.  I staggered the borders with lighter side over the darker side.  At the top of the fringe I glued a skinny strip of black glitter card stock. The sentiment Fun For Everyone is from one of CTMH's new stamps For All Seasons. I heat embossed the sentiment in white over black card stock and brushed on some sparkle with Clear Shimmer Brush pen.

Supplies used:
CTMH Family die
CTMH For All Seasons stamp set
CTMH  Pansy, Lagoon, Willow, Tangerine card stock from Adventure Cardstock Combo Pack
CTMH Canary card stock from Whimsy Cardstock Combo Pack
CTMH Ruby card stock from Enchantment Cardstock Combo Pack
Black Glitter paper
VersaMark ink pad
Ranger White Superfine embossing powder 
Ranger Clear Superfine embossing powder
Clear Shimmer Brush
MFT Fringed Scallop Borders (can be purchased in the Atlanta area at Impressive Ideas)

Please leave your comments below.  Love to hear from you. Thanks for visiting!

#CTMH Family
# Rainbow die cuts
#OCCRainbowMaker

More Watercolor Background

I love this Procrastinating sentiment... I can relate... While creating watercolor backgrounds for my last card, I had some left over and not one to waste anything, I used it as the background for this sentiment which I stamped with black Archival ink and heat embossed in clear to give it some shine.  This is a simple card. I popped the sentiment and for balance, also popped the wide black glitter border at the bottom.  I cut successively thinner stripes of black glitter paper and adhered them flat onto the white card base.  A thin strip of rainbow watercolor was glued flat on the top. Finished with a few white enamel dots.

Supplies used:
Procrastinating sentiment from CTMH We are Makers stamp set
See last post Rainbow Watercolor background for list of colors and recipes
Black Glitter paper
Archival Black ink pad
Ranger Clear Superfine Embossing powder
Black and White Enamel Dots 

Have fun "procrastinating"....

#CTMH Procrastinating
#CTMH We are Makers
#Watercolor background
#OCCRainbowMaker

Rainbow Watercolor Background

I created the background for this card with Close To My Heart (CTMH) inks and watercolor paper.  For the colors that I have reinkers, I used them.  For others, I stamped the ink pad onto my craft mat and added a spritz of water.  I did blend reinkers to create "custom" colors because it is FUN!  I list the proportions and colors below. After I applied the first layer of rainbow colors with a large watercolor brush, overlapping them some. I heat dried the piece and filled in with more color where I felt it was needed, and heat dried again. I repeated the process another time.  When I was happy with the colors, I put the dried water color background sandwiched between 2 copy papers and ran it through the die cutting machine several times to smooth it out.  That worked pretty well.  I stamped the Makers sentiment (new in CTMH 2017-2018 Annual Inspirations catalogue) with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it in white.  I felt it needed a shiny black border/mat.  I created the mat by inking the edges of a piece of black card stock with black archival ink, and applied clear embossing powder over the edges and heat set. The rainbow piece was adhered flat onto the shiny black border mat; and the whole piece was popped with foam tape onto white card base.

Supplies used:
For the red I used CTMH reinkers 2 drops of Pixie, 1 drop of Pomegranate, 1 drop of Cranberry 
Orange came from Tangerine reinker 
Yellow, was made with 2 drops of Canary to 1 tiny drop of Goldrush
Green was straight from the Willow ink pad because I don't have the reinker
Blue was blended by applying Pacifica ink pad onto craft mat with a drop of Lagoon reinker
Purple came from Pansy reinker 
Sentiment from CTMH We are Makers stamp set 
Archival Black ink pad 
VersaMark ink pad
Rangers White Super Fine Embossing Powder
Rangers Clear Super Fine Embossing Powder

#Watercolor background CTMH colors
#CTMH We are Makers stamp set
#OCCRainbowMaker

Love to hear your comments! And thank you for visiting.

Color Lifting

After not posting anything in a month, the last few days, I have had energy to craft a few cards.  Been stuck at home recuperating.  Turned to YouTube and learned this color lifting technique from Jennifer McGuire. After following her technique, I fussy cut the flower and leaves and  added sparkle to the hydrangea and leaves with Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle brush pen.  Stacked 3 layers of the "thanks" die cut for added dimension.  I love how it turned out.  I sent it to my dear friend Verna at Fuji Floral Design  in midtown Atlanta. She loves working with hydrangeas and other beautiful "not your ordinary" flowers including orchids and other tropicals to create stunning arrangements. She has been sending me food and flowers during my recovery.

For how to do this technique, please go to Jennifer McGuire's blog.

Supplies used:

Ellen Hutson Mondo Hydrangea stamp
Distress Inks - Blueprint Sketch, Ripe Raspberry, Mowed Lawn
Ranger White heat embossing power
Hero Arts Thanks stamp and cut set
Lawn Fawn Square Stitched Frames die set

Rainbow Maker card 2

For the second rainbowcard, I remembered I had purchased MFT's Big Balloons Stencil from my favorite local craft store Impressive Ideas recently. Dah! So didn't need to make a stencil for card 1 actually....Too clever by half...I tried out a technique Laura Bassan taught in day 1 of Rainbow Maker. Used MFT's Geometric Grid stencil. The sentiment is from MFT's Rainbow Greetings stamp set.

Rainbow Birthday Card

Inspired by online class "Rainbow Maker" to play with Distress Inks and Stencils.  The first card is a simple card. I used MFT's Big Birthday Balloons die set to create my own stencils. Not exactly ROYGBV but then I always seem to end up doing something quirky...This card was made with my friend Will in mind. It's his birthday! I wrote his name with a VersaMark pen and heat embossed before I applied distressed ink with a blending tool.  Created a true ROYGBV banner for the sentiment.

Rainbow Colors - Valentine Card

For this card, I took ideas from several of Jennifer McGuire's Rainbow videos from her blog.  I created the background by heat embossing scattered hearts border (Close to My Heart, retired) stamped multiple times with sparkly white embossing powder (doesn't show up here) then applied Oxide inks, spritzed with water and heat dried, alternating several times. For the sentiment, I wanted to use stamps that had a solid background.  The CTMH stamps from the Artistry Cricut collection fit the bill. "You & Me" was stamped with Color Box Chalk ink Lime Pastel and French Blue.  "So many reasons to be Happy" was stamped with CTMH Blossom and Tangerine inks. To finish the card, I added sparkle to the sentiments with Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle brush pen followed with Clear Glazing pen to give it extra shine.  Made my own iridescent heart sequins by die cutting some large sequins with MFT's heart dies from BluePrint Tag Builder 5.  This card definitely took the most time.  Somewhere on this card are all the colors of the rainbow!

Happy creating your version of rainbows!