Blog Candy again!

Last month I offered a bunch of blog candy (handmade goodies, many from the tutorials themselves)for one person whose name I drew from all of my followers. Well, I'm doing it again. I've been already collecting some great items and I would love to give them to one of you! All you have to do to qualify for the drawing is to sign on as a follower (or already be one). I made it to 101 followers in June so I'm shooting for 150 in total for July! Thanks so much to all of you who are viewing my blog!

A little something different

I mentioned yesterday that my downline, Sue Colby, taught a very cool card at our unit meeting the other day. I want to share her card with you today plus my own version. First up, Sue's card, isn't it adorable? That's a card with it's own envelope (with topper)!

I followed the basic steps we used for making Sue's card except I wanted to make one utilizing random stamping. You'll need an envelope, crimper, stamp blocks, white or off white cardstock, stamp sets (Aspiration and Buttoned Together), adhesive, a trimmer, sponge for distressing, scissors, Cocoa, Tulip, Twilight and Sorbet inks.

You can use an envelope of any size, that's the beauty of this particular card. Choose an envelope, seal it and decorate it. I used the Aspiration stamp set, inked up the flower stamp in twilight, rolled the edges in cocoa then stamped. Aspiration is currently my favorite stamp set although I am going to buy the one used on Sue's card, Endless Friendship, on the deal of the day this month. Stamp on both sides of the envelope using the random stamping technique of thinking in triangles, each three flowers are the three "points" of the triangles.

Next stamp the outline for the flower in cocoa. Because you can see through our stamps, it's a lot easier to line it up.

For something different, I used the Buttoned Together set for the next stamp. Use one of the button stamps in between the flowers in sorbet.

Use a smaller button stamp in tulip and then one of the remaining small flowers from the Aspiration set in twilight for the final small spaces.

Now, this is important. Cut off an inch strip from the right hand side of the envelope. Do this before you use a crimper. DO NOT CRIMP THE TOP CUT-OFF PIECE.

Take your crimper and crimp the envelope with the lines of the crimpers going vertical towards the top of the card which is the side that's opened.

Stamp the top of the envelope (remember the piece you cut off the side?) with the "dream" stamp from the Aspiration set. Add two sparkles.

Add little dots with a tulip pen to the flowers on the stamped images. If I were to do it again I would have chosen the cocoa pen instead.

Make the card to fit inside of the envelope by measuring your envelope and make a card that's 1/4" to 1/2" smaller. Stamp the Friendship saying from the Buttoned Together set and then added a rectangle of color as a background for my flower. Use the corner rounder to make a nice smooth finish. Distress if you like. Your background paper will be measured to fit your card so I won't give measurements on this particular one.

On a separate piece of cardstock, stamp two flowers. One of the flowers you can decorate more than the other because the second one will be under the first.

Attach the flowers to the card, the top slightly tilted so the bottom shows from behind it, then added sparkles.

You can see that the card now fits easily into the envelope and the envelope top can slide down over the bottom.


Here's the final product, I hope you take some time to try out this card for yourself.

Frames to Share

I told you yesterday that I had challenged my team members to decorate their own $1.00 wooden frames and boy, did they come through. Today I am going to share their frames. There are no instructions but I wanted to show you how creative they are.

Here's Connie Hagood's. Connie and I met in college 27 years ago! We've remained friends despite me moving to California and her move to New York. She then moved to Washington D.C. and I moved back to Michigan and then she moved back to Michigan and now we live less than an hour away from each other. Connie joined Close to my Heart last October and has the most awesome workshops in Battle Creek, Michigan. If you want to check them out, contact her at hagoods@netzero.net. (Paper is Tinkerin')

Linda Hicks is up next. I met Linda when I started with Close to my Heart, she was at a party I did at Connie's house. Linda also started in October of 2008 and she has the best sense of humor. She actually did two frames, one for the unit meeting and one to go into the silent auction of our upcoming Scrapbooking and Stamping Fall Camp coming up in Clarkston, Michigan in September. All proceeds from that 3-day crop will go to Operation Smile, a charity that helps fix cleft palates for children in other countries. Contact me for more info on that crop and Operation Smile. Linda is big into clubs and crops at a workshop in her own home in Battle Creek. She can be contacted at linda-hicks@msn.com. (Paper is Perfect Day)


Sue Colby just joined our team last month under Connie. Sue has been a card-maker forever and has boxes of cards. As a matter of fact, she was our "teacher" last night at the unit meeting and taught us a card so terrific that I will be doing my own version and demonstrating it right here for you tomorrow. Sue has been amazing as a consultant already and has two workshops coming up in the next two weeks. She also lives in Battle Creek, more in the Bedford area and you can get ahold of her at her email Tabitha1197@hotmail.com. (Paper is Daydream)

Mystery Box #1 has arrived!

For those of you who are hesitant about ordering the mystery box, here's what was in the first one. Of course this is no longer available but it will give you a clue about what types of things you get in these boxes. Each box is supposed to be different than the previous ones. In mystery box #1 I received:

One National Scrapbooking Month Magic Moments kit. This was a constant campaign last year and contains enough paper to make 24 layouts. It has 24 - 12" x 12" Layout Pages, 8 - 6" x 12" My Stickease Adhesive Sheets (based on different seasons and holidays), 2 - 12" x 12" Colonial White Cardstock Sheets, 13 - 12" x 12" Memory Protectors, 50 - Cocoa Brads, 24' - Cocoa 3/8 Grosgrain Ribbon. The featured colors are: Barn Red, Cocoa, Hollyhock, Indian Corn Blue, Sunflower and Sweet Leaf. I believe the retail value was $35.00, might have been more.

One My Child's Reflections Scrapbooking Kit which contains 3 - 9" x 9" Preprinted Journaling Pages, 3 - 9" x 9" Preprinted Layout Pages, 1 - 9" x 9" My Stickease Adhesive Sheet and 3 - 9" x 9" Memory Printers, very cute! I'm not sure on the retail value of this one, probably runs around $12.95.

One D - size Floral Elements stamp set, retail value $22.95.

One B - size Birthday Script stamp set, retail value $13.95

One C - size Fluttering Frames stamp set, retail value $18.95.

One Autumn Terracotta Ribbon Rounds, retail value $7.95.

One Cranberry My Accents, retail value $12.95.

One 12 yards Twilight Designer ribbon, retail value $6.95.

Here's the picture of everything, wow!!!

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!

You've Got Flair card

As a consultant for Close to my Heart I try to show off the stamp of the month in cards, layouts and paper crafts during the month the stamp is available. The stamp of the month deal is a good one because if you spend $25 on products you can get it for 25% off. If you spend $50 or $75 in products you can get the stamp of the month for 50% or 75% respectively. The best deal is to spend $100 and get the stamp of the month for free. For July, the stamp of the month is one of my favorites because it's full of paisleys, it's called You've Got Flair. For me this immediately gets me thinking, "random stamping!" Not only do I love to random stamp but I also saw potential in this particular stamp set to try a technique I've wanted to try for awhile, baby wipe stamping. What is that, you ask? Well, keep reading.

Supplies you will need (not all shown):

Paper trimmer, Bubblegum and Creme Brulee paper, Bubblegum, Creme Brulee and Garden Green re-inkers and ink pads, a sponge, Glue Dots, the You've Got Flair stamp set (not available til July so choose another stamp set up til then, the Gratitude set is great for random stamping), a square window charm, stamp blocks, buttons and waxy flax that match, adhesive, a ruffled border punch and scissors.

My good friend and fellow consultant, Valerie Black, taught me how to use re-inkers with wipeys to make a multi-colored stamp pad. Up until I saw that I figured that I wouldn't have too much use for re-inkers until an ink pad goes dry but now, of course, I want them all! All you do is stack up 4 or 5 baby wipes in a pile and then squeeze droplets of the reinkers on them, allowing the colors to touch but not to mix too much or the colors will get muddied. Because I was using a large stamp I made sure that my inking area was large too.

Now here's the important part. Each time you stamp, using the wipeys as your stamp pad, you need to clean off your stamp. Because it's nearly impossible to place the stamp exactly on the colors the same way each time, you need to clean between stampings or the colors will get mixed up and brownish.


Now stamp over your paper. With random stamping it's good to try and think of making a triangle with every three stamps. Imagine that each time you stamp you are making one third of a triangular shape so that you could draw an imaginary line between the shapes that formed a triangle. It gives a little more purpose to your randomness, ha ha. With this particular stamp I also tried to turn it often to add variety to the stamping.

Once you've filled your page (don't forget to still use a sponge underneath your paper for good full stamp impressions), use a smaller stamp, I used the tiny flower, in between the larger stamps. This time I actually dipped my stamp purposely into the color of my choice, still using the wipes so that I could use the small flower as an accent for the big paisleys and complement the colors.
Cut the stamped paper about 7 3/4" by 5". Distress it with the Garden Green ink pad and a sponge. Then cut an 8 1/2" by 5 1/2" piece of Bubblegum paper.


Punch a ruffled edge along the short end of one side of the pink paper, distress then score and fold both pieces in the middle.
Attach the paisley paper to the pink, one side at a time works best so it folds smootly.

Stamp the sentiment on a strip of Creme Brulee paper you've cut 1 1/2" by 5 1/2" Attach to card about 1/4" above the paisley paper.

Choose another stamp off from the set you're working with and use it as an accent piece. I cut this 2" by 2" and then turned it diagonally. Distress and stamp the design.

Add the paisley embellishment to the left hand side of the card, about 1/4" above the bottom of the Creme Brulee strip.

Thread waxy floss through the buttons, tie them at the top, attach with glue dots.

Finally put the square window charm (remember it's self-adhesive)to the top of your embellishment, great 3-d look. You're all done, now go play and don't forget to check out the deal of the day.