Barbra Otten: Blog hop

Welcome to our Close to my Heart Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring the September's Stamp of the Month which is called, "Treasures." It's a set of 12 stamps and it's just beautiful. You can get this stamp set for free by simply purchasing $100 worth of our wonderful Close to my Heart products. You can see our brand new catalog here. The new catalog will be up sometime today, I see it's not as of 8:00 est.

If you have come here from Beth Naumann's Blog, you are on the right path!

This month we have 69 Close to my Heart consultants sharing their creations using this month's Stamp of the Month and the other great Close to my Heart products on their blogs. This is a simple to do, just click on the link at the end of the post on each blog to move to the next one. Here we go!!

For this particular card you will need some Sweet Home paper. This is one of our brand new papers that comes out today! I used our wondeful Wishes book for the inspiration for this card. The measurements for this card are as follows:'

Card base: 12" by 6" out of white cardstock
Card front: 6" by 6" Indian Corn Blue cardstock
3" by 3" garnet cardstock
5" by 1/2" blue patterned paper
2 1/2" by 3 1/2" blue polka dot paper
2" circle in white cardstock
2 1/4" circle in garnet cardstock
2 1/2" circle in Indian Corn Blue cardstock
2 3/4" by 1/2" white cardstock

Distress everything with a sponge tool and Indian Corn Blue ink.

For this next part you need a trimmer with a groove where it cuts, a dry embossing tool and a sanding block. Lay your card front on the groove at the 3" measurement, that should put the groove of the trimmer right along the center of your paper. Use your dry embossing tool to gently push the paper down into the groove forming a line in the paper. Do not press too hard or it will tear. Move the paper over a 1/2" and do it again. Continue on the paper until you have 1/2 inch lines along the whole paper in one direction then turn the paper and do the same thing again to make it look like the one below. Sand the raised grooves to expose the white core of our paper.

Take your garnet cardstock and do the same thing but only in one direction.

Glue the garnet paper one inch from the left side of the card front keeping it flush with the top and bottom of the card. I use Tombow adhesive, works beautifully on the textured paper.

Attach the thin patterned strip down on the left of the garnet paper, flush with the top and 1/4" from the left side. The lines you "drew" in the paper make it really easy to line the papers up.

Glue the polka dot paper 1/4" from the left of the thin patterned strip, about 1 inch from the top of the card.

Start layering the circles on the polka dot paper moving about 1/2" to the right with each circle.

Stamp the Queen Anne's Lace stamp on the circle in garnet for the stem, and Indian corn blue for the flower. Take a wiry sponge tool to make the tiny specks of color in Indian corn blue. This keeps the white paper from looking too bright.

Stamp the "you are my sunshine" phrase on the white rectangle and do the same thing with the wiry sponge tool.

Attach both to the card, the circle on the garnet circle, 1/2" to the right and the "sunshine" piece 1/4" from the bottom, 1/2" from the right hand bottom of the card. Add six brads on the right hand side of the circle following the curve. Glue the whole card to the card base, you can have it open on the bottom or to the right, your choice.

Now add the final touch, put glue on the flower parts of your embellishment and cover them with Prisma Glitter.

Let it dry awhile and then shake off the glitter. Our glitter lets the ink color show right through, I love that! Thanks so much for viewing our blog hop today, happy September!