July Blog Hop!

Welcome to our Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We will be featuring July's Stamp of the Month, which is "You've Got Flair," a set of 8 stamps. If you have come here from Leslie Markland's Blog, you are on the right path! If this is your first stop, you may want to go back to Jena's Blog and start from the beginning!

This month we have 43 Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using this month's Stamp of the Month and other great Close to my Heart products on their blogs. This is 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!

Today, for my participation in this neat idea, I will be showing you how to make a cd cover and cd label. First of all you will need self adhesive cd labels. You can buy them at Staples or Best Buy. They are a nice paper to stamp on, I didn't have any trouble. You also need stamp inks, I used hydrangea, watermelon and ocean. And, of course, you need the wonderful You've Got Flair stamp set and stamp blocks that it, a distressing sponge, a trimmer, and adhesive.

Put your sponge from the stamp set under the label paper and stamp one of the stamps randomly in hydrangea. If you've been reading my past blogs you know that you need to think in triangles when doing this.

Stamp a 5" by 4 3/4" piece of white cardstock also. Some cds may runner larger than this or smaller so measure yours first!

Squeeze the ocean stamp pad together pressing the top down onto the ink. This is the way to get a light coating of ink on the cover for use with a blending pen.

Pick up some of that ink on your blending pen and begin to color in the paisley shapes. You can color them anyway you want, there are lots of options as these designs have lots of coloring room! I started with ocean.

Use your watermelon to color in more of the design.

Use your hydrangea to fill in even more. I left some white showing but that's up to you.

Distress the edges of the white cardstock and, if you can, the sticky label (it's tricky). Carefully line up the label to your cd and stick it down.

Make a label, mine runs about 3 inches by 1 1/2 inches. Stamp the name of your cd. You can also make a label for your cd if you like, I recommend you use excess sticky paper from the cd labels set, it needs to be very tight against the cd so that it won't give your player problems. Slide the cardstock into the case, if it doesn't fit, trim it.

Here's the cd in it's case. I found this idea on Jeanette Lynton's site (she's the owner of Close to my Heart) and she even put little sparkles inside her cd case. You can too!

Now "Hop" on over to Traci Godbee's Blog to see her work! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to get some great crafting ideas and other fun ideas! Remember, the July Stamp of the Month is only available until July 31st! Contact your Close to my Heart Consultant (or ME if you don't have one) to see how you can get this stamp set at a discount or even free!

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Here is another project I have made using this Stamp of the Month...
(click here)

Here are all the participants of the blog hop in case you miss one!

Jena Devries
Wendy Kessler
Sherry Thompson
Dawn Heuft
Brae Montgomery
Melissa Laverty
Karen Norman
Deb Young
Adeline E. Brill
Tammy Lea Pinchard
Jen Rubio
Cibele Glazer
Laurie R Newton
Kami Welter
Helen Onulak
Sarita Schraeder
Chris Shouse
Paige Dolecki
Dawn Ross
Jamia Bankhead
Nona Davenport
Haley Dyer
Misty Jackson
Jennifer Patrick
Carla Ironside
Jody Gustafson
Heather Painchaud
Julia Menssen
Lori Miller
Pamela O'Connor
Reba Poquette
Anne Beck
Shannon Pelletier
Caren Goldsein
Jan Moxey
Kristie Horness-Herdener
Alanna Moses
Leslie Markland
Barbra Otten
Traci Godbee
Jill Lucas
Amy McVey
Laurie Levnik

Time to Color

I don't know about you but I always loved to color when I was younger and even sneak and do it sometimes now that I'm older. What's great about scrapbooking and stamping is that I still get to do that and I don't have to feel silly about it. The You've Got Flair stamp of the month for July is not only great for random stamping but also begs to be colored. For the card today you'll need a trimmer, a corner rounder, adhesive, off-white cardstock, scissors, petal, honey and sweet leaf cardstock and inks, the You've Got Flair stamp set, a small Just Blooms flower, purple ricrac or any ribbon of your choice,a matching brad, pop dots, a ruffled border punch, blending pens, a sponge and a texture tool, this looks like a very loose wiry sponge, see pictures below.

First up you need to choose one of the Flair stamps and the petal stamp pad and some off white cardstock (I chose off-white to match the flower). Remember yesterday when I was talking about keeping your random stamping in the form of triangles. You can especially see it here, each three shapes make a triangle.

Next fill in with the small "flower" from the set, filling up the spaces in between the other image (still using petal).

I wanted the white area filled in a bit more so I used this wiry sponge that leaves little dots that make a nice background, you will wonder how you lived without this tool once you own one.

Now it's time to color. Take your petal stamp pad and close it and squeeze the top down to the ink. When you open it back up the color will be on the inside cover, it's a "watered down" version of the ink so it's easier to control the color. Dip your pen into the ink and color away!

It doesn't matter how you color your paisley images, you can follow what I did or color it your way. The next color is honey.

Finally, fill in the rest of your coloring with sweet leaf, this is one of my favorite colors in the Close to my Heart collection.

Cut a piece of petal cardstock 8 1/2" by 5 1/2", score it and fold it in half. Using the corner rounder (you can tell I love my corner rounder) and cut off the four corners, distress (if you like). Cut a piece of honey cardstock 2 1/4" by 4" and a piece of petal cardstock the same dimensions. Use a ruffled border punch and trim off one of the long sides, distress with your sponge and petal ink. Attach to the center of the card separating the two papers by about an eighth of an inch.
Cut your paisley randomly stamped paper to 3 1/2" by 3 3/4", distress and attach to center of the honey and sweet leaf cardstock pieces.

Add ricrac next. I attached mine with tombow.

Poke your brad through the flower and attach to bottom left with a glue dot or two. You could also decorate the center of the flower with a button or sparkle instead.

Stamp the You've Got Flair sentiment on a 2 1/2" by 2" inch off white piece of cardstock, attach it to a petal cardstock you've cut 2 3/4" by 2 1/4" after distressing both pieces. Put the whole completed piece on your card and you're done! Make sure you check out the deal of the day on my website today, I'm betting it's a mystery box. My first mystery box arrives today. I'll take a picture and let you know what's in it!