Are you not into mysteries?

What you see is what you get!

So, you weren't into buying those mystery boxes? You loved the idea of getting things for 50% off, but you were just too afraid it would be filled with things you didn't like? Well, this offer might appeal to you more! See the details below for a VERY special box of goodies - filled with product at MUCH MORE than a 50% discount AND filled with an incredible opportunity as well....

FOR ONLY $99.00 (plus tax/shipping) this is exactly what you will get in your "main" kit:

$218.85 worth of product including:
X7110A Back Country Level I Kit $9.95
X7110B Back Country level II Paper pack $12.95
X7110C Back Country level II Stickease $4.95
1385 White Daisy Cardstock (24 sheets) $9.50
D1394 Framed Moments $22.95
B1328 Backwoods $13.95
D1353 Campin' Fever $22.95
E1013 Field Trip $34.95
C1362 You're a Hoot $18.95
Y1004 My Acrylix block 2.5 x 2.5 $7.50
Y1010 My Acrylix Block 2 x 6.5 $9.95
Z261 Double Scrubber $10.95
1778 My Acrylix spritz cleaner $4.25
Z2104 Barn Red ink Pad $5.25
Z2114 Cocoa Ink Pad $5.25
Z2137 Olive Ink Pad $5.25
Z2140 Outdoor Denim Ink Pad $5.25
Z2305 Black Marker $2.95
Z2335 New England Ivy marker $2.95
1512 Bonding Memories Glue $6.95
Z697 Sponge $1.25

(You'll also receive over $50 worth of business supplies)

With this purchase you become a Close To My Heart consultant and will get a minimum of 22% off all your purchases for at LEAST the NEXT SIX MONTHS!!!

In addition from July 1st - 31st only, you have an opportunity to pick any FIVE free items from this "favorite fives" list!

That's $315 worth of product for your $99!!!

My Acrylix® Thank You Stamp Set (retail value $22.95)
Magic Moments Scrapbook Kit (retail value $34.95)
Basic Textured Cardstock Combo Pack (retail value $14.95)
Life Delights Memory Showcase (retail value $12.95)
My Originals® Hello Birdie Card Kit (retail value $12.95)
Creative Basics™ Silhouette Collection (retail value $8.95)
HeartFelt™ Whimsy Die-Cuts (retail value $9.95)
All-Out Adventure Rub-Ons (retail value $9.95)
Window Charms™ Squares (retail value $9.95)

See more information about that offer here:
WHAT a deal!!!
This part of the offer is while supplies last!
But wait, there's more!

You can also add more "goodies to your purchase:
For another $60 - get $180 worth of Scrapbooking specialty items

Reflections Scrapbooking Program $21.95
X7114A Bella level I kit $9.95
X7114B Bella level II kit $12.95
X7114C Bella level II MyStickease $4.95
D1359 Comments $22.95
D1354 Endless Friendship $34.95
D1363 Picture Perfect
Y1008 My Acrylix Block 4x4 $10.50
Z2128 Holly Ink pad $5.25
Z2147 Smokey Plum Ink pad $5.25
Z1196 Cocoa My Legacy Linen Album
Z1131 Creme Brulee Designer Ribbon
z1161 Foundry Tabs
Z1297 Edge Distresser

And/Or You can also add more "goodies to your purchase:
For another $50 - get $150 worth of CardMaking specialty items:

9032 Originals Card Confidence Kit $29.95
X7111B Moon Doggie Level 2 Paper $12.95
X5807 Creative Basics Animal cookies $8.95
C1356 Extreme Happiness $18.95
C1368 Fringed Phrases $18.95
Y1009 Block 2 x 3.5 $7.50
Z2116 Cranberry Ink Pad $5.25
Z2118 Desert Sand $5.25
Z2119 Dutch Blue $5.25
Z2150 Sunflower $5.25
Z1136 Mini Medley Accents $7.95
Z1282 Summer Craft Buttons $7.50

Here is the BEST part of the deal! By purchasing the main kit, you join my CTMH team and are allowed access to our company and team websites (full of ideas and amazing art), our team newsletters (geared to help you KEEP that discount with minimum effort), and our team meetings (art, prizes, food and fun!). What is stopping you? You can do as little or as much as you want - there is no pressure to sell, and we NEVER ask you to leave Close To My Heart.

Whether you want to dabble with your discount, or Cruise into a new career, I am here to help you succeed. I look forward to helping you get started!!

Here's where you get started!

Mini-box with buttons

This is a fun project and so simple that you can really do it in about a half hour. I found these little necklace boxes at Michael's $3.00 for six, yep, that's right, 50 cents a piece. They even come with some cotton inside! These particular boxes are pretty shiny on the outside so after experimenting I found it wasn't good to stamp directly on them. Instead I cut a 3.5" by 3.5" inch piece of white cardstock to fit the top. I used the ink colors below, clover meadow, honey, Dutch blue and holiday red for my decorating.

Here's the cute stamp set I used, Robot Power! Isn't it adorable? The small stamps are really great for random stamping too.

Take the little dog stamp and, using Dutch Blue, stamp randomly around the whole page. It's okay to let the dog go off the page.

Stamp the red rotor randomly in holiday red filling in the white spaces between the dogs.

Now do the same stamp but in a different color, clover meadow. Then take that small fan like stamp in the set and stamp in the white spaces with the honey ink.

Using a couple of circle punches or your circle cutter, punch out a 2 inch circle in white cardstock and a bigger one in honey.

Now distress the edges of all three paper with the holiday red ink if you like.

Attach the cardstock square to the top of the box with Tombow. Glue the smaller circle on the larger one and then attach to the center of the box. Now add a window charm circle. These are so cool and make your stickers or embellishments look like epoxy stickers.

Now find a bunch of buttons that play up the colors that you've used. I skipped the waxy flax this time so they would lie very flat. Attach them around the edge of the top of the box with glue dots and you're done!!

Now I know this is the last day of June which means the 30 days of projects is over but that doesn't mean I won't still be giving ideas on lots of projects in July and so forth, just not every day. During July I am going to be sharing some organizational tips and also am participating in a blog hop that starts tomorrow using the new July stamp of the month. You don't want to miss it.

Do you follow?

I'm posting this again because my goal is 100 followers in my first month, won't you help me get there? Only 43 to go!!!

Did you ever wonder what it means to be a follower of a blog? I'm sure you've seen the little mini-pictures on the sidebars of many blogs including mine and wondered what it means to "follow" them. Let me tell you how I think of it.

Do you follow any band? How about a movie star, someone whom you'll go see at the theater no matter what the reviews were? Well, if you are, then you are a fan. To me, that's what having your name or picture posted as a follower of a blog means, it means you are a fan of that blog.

What happens if you do sign on to follow a blog? Absolutely nothing. You don't get emails or notifications or even blog posts sent to you. You just get whatever name and picture (or none at all) that you want to show publicly set in a special place on the blog you are following. Now that's nice isn't it? It's like saying "I like your blog."

Now if you follow my particular blog, Can't Stop Dreaming, during the month of June, you get entered in a drawing for a bunch of great blog candy, gifts from me, (not real candy but crafts I've made). On June 30th I will post the winner and that person can contact me and let me know where to send all their gifts. Easy, right? So look for the Follow link on the right hand side bar and sign up today .

Card Box instructions

This weekend I taught a workshop to some close friends where I took the My Acrylics organizer and turned it into a card box to hold greeting cards. This particular one has a very cool nautical theme but you could, of course, change the box to fit any theme you want just by choosing different paper, stamps and embellishments. First you need an acrylic organizer.

Next, choose the paper you want, I chose Majestic Blue, isn't that a great name? All measurements ahead are in inches. The front uses the compass pattern paper, cut it 6 1/4 by 4 1/4. Cut the cranberry (does not come with this paper set) 6 x 4 and cut the map pattern paper 2 x 6. Use your circle cutter and cut a colonial white circle 2 1/4 in diameter. Cut a cranberry cardstock circle 2 1/2 in diameter. Cut an outdoor denim circle 2 5/8 in diameter (not shown).

Distress all the pieces with your sponge and desert sand ink.

Take a piece of magic mesh, if you own some, put it on the small circle and pounce desert sand ink right through the mesh. If you don't have magic mesh, just pounce color on it without it.

On the back of the map pattern paper attach two pieces of twill, long enough that they can be tied in a knot on the front of the paper, trim as needed. I used tombow to hold the twill down. Attach the cranberry paper to the compass pattern.

Tie the knot on the right hand side, trim excess then glue piece down to the cranberry paper about 1/4 from bottom.

Attach the white circle to the cranberry to the outdoor denim, then put the whole thing on the left hand side of the card. On the right hand side, stamp a title for your card box.

I came across a problem when preparing to show my girlfriends this project. I misplaced or downright lost my New Horizons stamp set. I asked all my fellow consultants and couldn't locate one anywhere in time so I was forced to go to the store and buy a stamp set that wasn't Close to my Heart. I haven't done that in over two years because I had no need. Up until just a year ago I had never even used acrylic stamps at all so I wasn't even sure if I could find what I needed. I did find a set of nautical stamps that were close to what I needed but, unfortunately, I found something else too...the difference between Close to my Heart stamps and other acrylic stamps. My upline had always told me that she has no problem telling her customers who want other acrylic stamps besides CTMH to go ahead and try the others knowing that they would find out the difference quickly. She was right. The stamp set I bought was from a very well-known stamp company and I expected at least similiar quality as my CTMH heart stamps but I was sadly mistaken. From the moment I opened these stamps I was disappointed. First of all they didn't come with any sponge-like cushion that our CTMH stamps do. Secondly I could barely peel the stamps off their carrier sheet. They felt very flimsy and I was truly afraid I was going to rip them. When I finally pried the stamp off, it didn't stick well to my block, it fact I couldn't tell that there was anything thing on the stamp that would make it cling to my block but I did the best I could. I had nothing but trouble with getting the stamp to make a good impression, even using my own sponge cushion. I stamped and re-stamped to try to make it work and then just had to choose from the best of the bad impressions to make my card box. So, the moral to this story is that I'm sticking with Close to my Heart!! Anyway, I hope you are lucky enough to know where your New Horizons set is or have another great Close to my Heart stamp set to use so let's keep going. Using cranberry, outdoor denim and bamboo inks, stamp the lighthouse 3 times.

Cut out the cranberry lighthouse, leaving about 1/16 of an inch border all around the edges.

Out of the outdoor denim lighthouse cut just the water. Glue it onto the cranberry lighthouse. Cut out the "sand" on the bamboo lighthouse and glue that on the cranberry lighthouse (not shown).

Attach the lighthouse to the front of your circles. I recommend you do not use pop up dots. Because you'll be handling your card box a lot, you don't want to have the lighthouse piece get bent. Using tombow, glue this whole piece to the front of your box, isn't it great!??

For the sides of the box you need to cut the blue swirl paper 6 x 4 1/4 (twice, one for each side). Cut six strips of the cranberry cardstock 1 x 6.

Cut the colonial white paper into a circle 2 inches in diameter, cut the map patterned paper into a circle 2 1/4 inches in diameter. You need 4 of each of those circles. (not shown)

Distress them (optional). Using an embossing tool and a trimmer with a groove in it, draw little lines all along the entire length of the cranberry strips about 1/4 apart, turn them over and sand them so the white core shows through. (not shown due to blurry photograph, lol)

I had to use what I could from the non-CTMH set I bought so I chose the shells here, if you have the New Horizons set, use the life preserver stamp and choose one of the three colors to ink it with. You'll need to stamp two and then cut them out. If you are not into cutting much you could stamp directly onto the circles you cut for the sides. I put one set of shells and one boat on each side, reversed.

For the second set of circles stamp two cranberry and two outdoor denim boats.

Cut out the sail on the outdoor denim boats and glue to the cranberry boats.

Now, put the colonial white circles on the map patterned circles. Glue the shells and boats to the circles. Attach the dry embossed cranberry strips to the outdoor denim paper as shown. Add the circles centered. Do this for both sides and then attach to the sides of the boxes. Tombow or glue dots work great.

Now for the back of the box, and, by the way, you do not need to cover every side like I did. Anyway, you need to cut the compass patterned paper 6 by 4 1/4, the blue swirl paper 5 x 3 1/4 and the cranberry cardstock 2 by 6. Use the dry embossing technique again to make the lines on the cranberry cardstock, it makes the whole thing look weathered like a beach house.

Attach the three pieces like this, very simple.

Go through your button stash (if you need more, click here), and find ones that match your paper, shells would be cool here too. Tie your buttons with waxy flax that is bamboo colored. Tie the buttons with it and attach them to the center of the cranberry cardstock in a line, use glue dots.

Using glue dots or tombow, attach to the back of the box.

*I changed these instructions a bit from my original post to make the dividers larger."

Inside of the box you need separators with labels that tell what kinds of cards you have in there.

I cut about 12 of them, you can do more or less. Cut the colonial white paper 6 x 5. Using your leftover paper from above or other matching paper from your set, cut 12 pieces 4 x 6. Finally cut some matching cardstock, I used a crystal blue cardstock, cut 12 pieces 1 x 2 or 2 x 2. Those will be your labels.

After distressing, glue the patterned paper flush with the bottom of the colonial cardstock. Stamp the labels with the titles you like. I recommend the set Say It In Style, it had more than enough labels on it for this card box.

Here's the inside of the box completed. You can see that my dividers don't stand up much higher than my cards so you might want to add that inch I mentioned above.

Finally, to complete the nautical look I found some thin rope and I put a line of Liquid Glass on both sides of the handle and carefully wrapped the rope around it then let it dry. It's very secure due to the liquid glass. That's it, a fun, easy card box for you!

Very pretty altered notebook

I know that I just did an altered notebook a couple of weeks ago but I found a different size at Michael's, still for a dollar, and decided that this is what I'm going to teach at my Close to my Heart party in Battle Creek, Michigan this Saturday. I always love showing people different ways to use their scrapping and stamping supplies so here we go again.

For this particular notebook you will need: trimmer, scissors, ruler, $1 book, sparkles, smokey plum ink, olive ink, creme brulee ink, Bella paper set (so gorgeous), acrylic blocks, sponge, smokey plum marker, glue, tombow, Endless Friendship stamp set and Make It Count stamp set. All these supplies can be found for sale on my Close to my Heart website, here. Remember that there will be a drawing for a $22.95 stamp set this month amongst all people who bought from my website. Now, look at these colors in this gathering of supplies, aren't they beautiful?

Here are your cutting dimensions: colonial white, cut one piece 4 1/2" by 6 3/4", one piece 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" and one 2 1/2" by 1 1/2". Using your plum pattern piece from the Bella set, cut a piece 4 1/2" by 3 1/2". Cut the patterned floral paper 4 1/2" by 3". Cut olive cardstock 2" by 4 1/2" and 2 1/2" by 2 1/2". Also you will need some extra colonial white to stamp on. Now, I understand that whatever notebook you might want to alter may not be the size like mine so just adjust your cutting measurements to fit yours. Once you've cut them all, distress. My picture shows a lot of cut paper because I am making mine for several people to play with!

Now take the gorgeous flower from the Endless Friendship set and stamp it in smokey plum on your colonial white paper. Next take your solid circle stamp and stamp "off" once to the paper before stamping inside of your flower. This is called second generation stamping and it makes the color lighter obviously. I showed you a little diagram in this picture. Once you've stamped the solid circle, get that little starry-like center and stamp it in the ink then directly onto the center of the flower, no stamping off this time. See what a nice look that makes!

On the Endless Friendship stamp set there is a set of three flowers together, stamp them in creme brulee too.

On a piece of olive cardstock, the long strip, stamp in olive ink the little curly vine. Sorry about the quality of this photograph.

On the 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" colonial white square, stamp the vine with the two leaves near the top.Those two leaves will be the leaves of your flower.

Cut out all the flowers, the large and the three small, put a dot of color in the center of the small flowers with your smokey plum pen. Stamp sentiment from the Make It Count stamp set on the smallest colonial white paper block and then attach one of the small flowers.

Glue the smokey plum large flower off to the left bottom side of your colonial white 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" block so that it looks like the two leaves are coming out from under it as pictured. Add the two yellow flowers for accents.

Attach that whole piece to the olive 2 1/2" by 2 1/2" olive cardstock.

Now get your notebook, put the large colonial white cardstock piece centered on your notebook, use Tombow, it's the best! Put your olive cardstock strip down first, flush with the bottom of the colonial white cardstock. About 1 1/2" inches down from the top of the cardstock, glue your plum patterned paper, it should be flush with the olive at the bottom. Attach the flowered print right in the middle of that.

Put your flower embellishment square on the upper left hand side about 1/4" down from the top.

Now put your sentiment down about 1/2" from the right hand side of the page, centered between the olive cardstock and the floral patterned paper. That's all there is to it, so much prettier than before!

Gift bag - so easy!

Here's a quick and easy way to brighten up a plain white paper bag. I bought a package of small gift bags at the store and knew right away that they would look better stamped. All you need is a stamp set (I used Endless Friendship), some inks (sweet leaft, crystal blue and blush), a sponge, a wiry sponge, the bag and some stamp blocks.

With a stamp of your choice do some random stamping, remembering the triangle rule (see random stamping posts from previously).

Stamp the center of the flowers, I love this particular center in this set, so goofy!!

Add leaves and then take the wiry sponge (I have no better name for it) and stamp little blush colored specks all over the whole bag. Make sure you stamp on both sides. I leave the sides of the bag white.

Distress the edges of both sides of the bag and add some little spiral stamps to the white spaces.

In about five minutes you'll be done. Find a matching piece of tissue paper and put it in the bag along with your gift. Easy!