Invitations using You Rock paper

I have a great party coming up with a wonderful hostess and I wanted to make some invitations that would really reflect her personality. Having Close to my Heart parties is all about friendships and so this card uses the wild colors of You Rock but the sweet friendship title and butterflies from Friendship's Flight. I made a lot of cards (21) at once so you'll see most of these cards in groupings.

Cut your papers as follows:

White cardstock - 8 1/2" by 5 1/2" card base, folded in half and attach card front to it when finished
Cardstock color of your choice from You Rock pack (Indian corn blue, outdoor denim, goldrush) - 5 1/2" by 4 1/4"
Pattern paper - 2" by 4 1/4"
Cardstock of same color as above - 1 3/4" by 4 1/4"
White cardstock - 2" by 2"
Outdoor denim pattern paper - 1 3/4" by 1 3/4"

Distress all with outdoor denim ink and a sponge tool.

Round the two corners on the right hand side of the card front with a corner rounder.

Using your trimmer's groove and a dry embossing tool, emboss two lines 1/2" apart from side and from each other around all four outer edges as shown. Sand with sandpaper block.

Glue pattern paper strip under the second embossed line from the top.

Emboss cardstock strip with four lines and sand. These can be random lines. Attach cardstock strip directly in the middle of the pattern paper strip.

Using goldrush ink and a butterfly base stamp (two step stamping used here), stamp it on the white square.

Stamp the outline of the butterfly in outdoor denim ink. Use a wiry brush tool to dab little specks of outdoor denim ink all over the piece.

Attach butterfly piece 3/4" from left side and top of the card.
In the rectangle made by the embossed lines, stamp the "Life is nothing without Friendship" phrase in outdoor denim ink on the lighter colored papers, in white daisy on darker paper. Glue your card front to the card base with the fold on the left. Remember to always line up your card with the fold first because the other sides can be trimmed (folds can't). Now wasn't that easy?

Friendship's Flight

Just another last minute gift, I love, love, love the way this turned out. The stamp set is Friendship's Flight.

How to alter a business card magnet

At the big Close to my Heart team meeting I went to this past weekend I got in on a bulk buy of business card magnets. I love these and actually have yet to use my business cards on them. Instead I turn them into awards for my own team and little refrigerator works of art with my stamps. The magnets measure 3 1/2" by 2" and it takes so little to make them into a sweet gift.

A couple of months ago my brother, Scott Wilson, came to my team meeting and taught all of my downlines and myself to use a brayer. He used to work at a stamp shop and knows everything there is to know about making beautiful cards (he also makes other artwork, I'll include some at the end of this post). He showed us how easy it is to decorate a background with a little ink and a brayer. Brayers work very well with glossy photo paper. I have a ton because I get 100 4 by 6 photo paper cards whenever I buy new inks for my printer. If you take one of those and cut it to 3 1/2 by 2 inches you'll be set to make this magnet art.

I don't know if you've noticed but at the top of almost every page in a Close to my Heart catalog there are "lipstick swatches" of the color combinations used on that page. I utilize these constantly because I'm not good at choosing my own mixture of colors and I could never figure out how to use one of those color wheels. Close to my Heart does it for me so it's the first thing I look for in the new catalog (like the one I just received). The very first color combo in one of our new papers is juniper, olive, creme brulee and cocoa. I thought those would be perfect for this magnet because the colors said "spring" without being too pastel. To start your magnet ink up your own brayer in creme brulee.

Now run it back and forth over the glossy cardstock until it's just the right color for your tastes. Give it a minute or two to dry (glossy dries the ink slower).

Next take the Friendship's Flight stamp set and stamp the sentiment on the lower right hand side in cocoa. Your stamp will stick to the glossy cardstock so carefully peel the paper off the stamp.

You'll be doing some two step stamping on this, first stamp the butterfly background in juniper.

Now line up the outline of the butterfly and stamp it in cocoa. Luckily you can see what you're doing!

Do the same thing with the smaller butterfly, first in juniper....

then in cocoa ink. See how easy this is?

Now take your foam tool and olive ink and distress the edge to provide a pretty outline or frame for your magnet.

Get your magnet and peel the wax paper off so the adhesive shows.

Attach your "work of art" to the business card, trim with scissors if you don't line it up exactly. You're done, how pretty, how easy and what a simple little gift!

Here's a couple more in other colors. Unfortunately the colors look so much better in person than they do here in photos but the point is that you can make these in many different colors to suit your taste.

Here's a piece of my brother, Scott's, art. I'm very proud of him.