When you give of yourself

I was watching the Art and Soul episode on my website and Jeanette Lynton (the founder of Close to my Heart) called a card, "love in an envelope." Wow, isn't that a beautiful thought! I've had a lot of fun in the past few days making these cards from the Sweet Home paper and using the Wishes pattern book. Here's one using our brand new September stamp of the month. I can't believe it's truly almost September but I'm going with the flow.

Cut your paper like this:

12" by 6" card base - white works great but garnet would be cool too because it's going to show through
6" by 6" card front in Indian Corn Blue
6" by 3" garnet cardstock
5" by 1/2" blue patterned
3 1/2" by 2 1/2" blue polka dot
(2) 1 1/2" by 1" white cardstock
1 1/4" circle out of white cardstock
1 1/2" circle out of garnet cardstock

Distress everything with the Indian Corn Blue.

Take a dry embossing tool and turn your card front diagonally on your trimmer, press the tool down into the groove to make a line. Don't press too hard as you don't want to go through the paper. Continue making lines about a 1/2" apart then turn the paper the other way and do the same thing so that your paper will look like this. Sand the lines to make them show up.

Use a border punch to make a pretty border on your garnet paper. Dry emboss lines in your garnet strip about an inch apart and sand. Glue it down one inch from the left side. Now take a hole punch (size of your choice) and punch a hole in every diamond around the border as shown.

Glue the skinny blue pattern strip down a quarter inch from the left side of the garnet paper.

Attach the blue polka dot paper an eighth of an inch from the left of the blue patterned strip, 1 inch from the top of the card.

Using the big fluffy dandelion stamp from the September Treasures stamp, ink it up with Indian Corn Blue, then "stamp off" on a scrap piece of paper first, then stamp on your circle so it's a light application. Stamp the "when you give of yourself" stamp in the middle in garnet.

Glue the circle on the garnet circle then onto the card in the upper right corner of the blue polka dot paper. Stamp a small dandelion on each of the small white rectangles. Using your wiry sponge applicator, stamp the blue ink over and around the dandelions to subdue the white. Attach them under the circle, centered.

Put four brads down the left side of the garnet paper about once inch apart, and 1 1/2" from the bottom and the top of the card. Glue card front to card base, the dots will let the base color show through. Hope you'll give of yourself today and send out a beautiful card to someone you love.

Delight in the Everyday

One of my favorite things about Close to my Heart is that they have a special every single month. This month it's this wonderful Everyday Celebraton card kit. I just finished putting together one of the two I received for FREE! You can get it for free too by purchasing just $60 worth of stamps from now to September 30. Just go to my website at http://barbraotten.myctmh.com/ and click on "shop online." Choose your stamps, make sure they add up to $60 or more and once you hit "checkout" a little box will ask you if you want the Everyday Celebration kit for free. Hit the "add" box and continue on with your checkout. Within a week to 10 days you will have your brand new stamps and this kit. Let me tell you what comes in it:

Everyday Celebration Stamp Set (yes!)
16 card bases and 16 envelopes (they are pre-cut with that pretty curve)
Enough patterned paper and cardstock to make 16 cards!
Two mini-ink pads
All the accents for 16 cards plus extras for other projects
Enough ribbon for all 16 cards
Foam squares to pop up your designs
A sponge to distress
A full color step-by-step instructional brochure that tells you how to make all these cards

Okay, are you excited yet? Here are my cards, I made two of each and I love them.

Home Sweet Home

Here's the second card I made from the same pattern. I wanted to show you all that once you have a pattern you can make tons of different cards by changing the paper or stamps or embellishments or just make slight adjustments in the layout. Here's a card using the same Sweet Home paper I used yesterday along with the same basic pattern. All I really changed was the embellishments and changed just a few techniques.

Cut your paper the same as yesterday:

This is a 6" by 6" card so you need to cut a card base out of cardstock that measures 12" by 6", score it in the center and fold it. Cut the Indian corn blue cardstock 6" by 6". That's your card front. Cut the garnet pattern paper 4" by 6", the striped pattern paper 4" by 6", the Indian corn blue flower paper 2" by 4" and two 1 1/4" by 1 1/4" pieces. Turn all the pattern pieces over now and distress. A great advantage to our pattern papers is that they have a different color on the backs.

Yesterday we made some diagonal lines with a trimmer, dry embossing tool and a sanding block, today you can go a little more grid-like.

Take the 4" by 6" blue pattern paper and rip it along one side then distress the edges. If you don't have a border punch, this is an easy technique to add some texture.

Cut the corners off the card front so that it has nice rounded edges, see how this is looking different from yesterday's card already!

Use the brown side of the garnet paper for this card. Glue it to the center, or slightly off center if you like, to the card front.

Attach the blue striped paper to the center of the brown paper. Glue down the long blue dotted strip one inch from the top and 1/4 inch from the side of the blue striped paper. Place the small squares down towards the bottom, straight up and down instead of diagonally like we did yesterday.

Using one of the cute Stickease that goes with this paper, choose one of the houses and add to the lower right hand side of the card.

Add the "Home is where Memories Live" stickease to the upper left hand side, about and inch from the top, 1/4" from the left. Attach a window charm right on top. That's it, doesn't look much like yesterday's card, does it?

Thank You card

One of the great things about card-making is the immediate gratification. They don't take long to make, or take much paper and you really don't need to be super creative to make them. They can be easy especially if you use a pattern like I do. I took this one from the Wishes book and it's a pattern I return to again and again, as you will see tomorrow in my next tutorial.

For this particular one I used our brand new Sweet Home paper. It will be available on September 1st and it's just gorgeous. This is a 6" by 6" card so you need to cut a card base out of cardstock that measures 12" by 6", score it in the center and fold it. Cut the Indian corn blue cardstock 6" by 6". That's your card front. Cut the garnet pattern paper 4" by 6", the striped pattern paper 4" by 6", the Indian corn blue flower paper 2" by 4" and two 1 1/4" by 1 1/4" pieces. You will also need one 1 1/2" by 3" piece of white paper (not shown). I realize that only consultants out there have this paper but adapt your paper to make a totally unique card of your own.

Distress all the pieces with a sponge and Indian corn blue ink if you like. Distressing is a look I like to help differentiate the multiple patterns but you can skip this step if you don't like the look.

Take the 6" by 6" card base and have some fun with it, creating a pattern using the groove in your trimmer, a dry embossing tool and a sanding block. An embossed background is like making your own pattern paper and it only takes a few minutes.

Using a border punch of your choice, cut a border on both sides of the striped pattern paper.

Glue that to the Garnet pattern paper, I went slightly off center on purpose. You can put it smack in the middle if you like.

Glue down the long dotted paper off center on the striped pattern paper. Add the squares, you can line them up straight or go diagonally like I did.

Take that whole piece and add to the embossed card front, again I went slightly off center so I could put brads on the left side later.

I used the Kanji Phrases stamp set, it's so pretty. This particular word says "thank you." Stamp it on your white paper. Our acrylic stamps are see through so you can have perfect placement. Make sure you utilize the foam sheet that comes with every stamp set. Lay it down under your paper and press your stamp firmly for a great impression.

Add to your card as shown, or anywhere you want. The most important thing is balance so if you put something "heavy" on the right side like this phrase, you need to balance it on the left side with something like a ribbon, buttons or brads. Now stamp the words "thank you" directly on the pattern paper.

Dot your white rectangle with some Indian corn blue ink and a wiry sponge, it tones the bright white down. I had some leftover brads from the Tickled Pink promotion we had a few months back, they were perfect for this. Add five brads about an inch apart, one 1/2 inch from the left side. Glue the whole thing to the card base and you are finished. Tomorrow I will do the same card pattern, using the same paper but with a few twists. Isn't this fun?

Taking it Easy

Sometimes you need a card but don't have a lot of time or a lot of paper. I needed to make a lot of invitations quickly as I have a ton of Close to my Heart home parties coming up in September and October. I try to save time and money whenever possible. This card looks a bit fancy with just a few extra techniques but it really comes together fast and with just cardstock it's cheap too!

I used olive, colonial white and outdoor denim cardstock. Cut the outdoor denim 5 1/4" by 4 1/4", cut the olive cardstock 5" by 3 3/4" and cut a smaller piece of olive 3" by 1". You also will need a cardbase out of the colonial white cut 8 1/2" by 5 1/2". Score it in the middle and fold, this card will open at the bottom. You will need one extra piece of olive paper to stamp a leaf on, make sure it's at least 3" by 3".

Here's the first trick to fancy the card up, dry emboss a checked pattern into the larger olive piece by laying it on your trimmer and drawing a dry embossing tool along the groove at every inch vertically. Then turn it and do the same one inch in on each side only.

It should look like this once you've sanded it. Looks like I need a new sanding block!! It gets a lot of use.

If you like the distressed look, now is the time to take a sponge and your outdoor denim ink (just one ink pad for this whole card) and ink up the edges.

I used the Many Thanks stamp set, it's one of the wonderful new stamp sets you will have an opportunity to buy starting September 1st. You can purchase it right through my website and it will be sent directly to your house. Take the small little acorn stamp and stamp one acorn in each small square at the top and at the bottom.


Stamp the words, "Happy Fall" on the small olive piece.

Attach the large olive piece in the center of the outdoor denim card front. Glue down the Many Thanks phrase 1/2" from the side of the card, centered in the middle of the card.


Stamp the largest leaf on your scrap of olive paper.


Cut the leaf out, it's very easy on this particular stamp and will make a nice difference to spiff up your card.


Using pop dots always makes a card look cool. Just popping an embellishment up makes it special.


Attach the leaf to the right hand side of the card in the center letting it overlap the title.


Here's the finished piece after attaching it to the card base. If you want it fancier, you could use liquid glass or glitter on the different stamped images. I tried it on the leaf and will post that when it dries. You could also put the Happy Fall phrase on an outdoor denim mat too but the point if this card is keeping it simple, quick and inexpensive so go with it!

Twilight

Anyone out there a fan of the Twilight books? I am. I really didn't realize there was this big vampire romance obsession going on until right before the movie came out. I started to hear these little whispers about how popular this book was and so I went to see the movie. I have to be honest and say I wasn't impressed. I certainly wasn't thrilled enough to read the books at all.

Then one day, I was reading the Close to my Heart off-topic message boards and noticed a lot of threads about Twilight. That, coupled with a fellow consultant's recommendation made me curious so I decided to order the first and second books.

Well, I couldn't put them down. Within a couple of weeks I'd read both and practically ran to the store to get the third. I'm now on the fourth and I find it so interesting that books written for teenagers could be so fun for an adult to read. (Can you say, "Harry Potter?")

So, why am I telling you all about of this on a scrapbooking and stamping blog? Well, it's simple. We all have interests, for me it's guitar and Twilight and American Idol and Hall and Oates. For you it's something completely different. What I want to know is when was the last time you did a page or two in your scrapbook about one of your interests? Yeah, I thought so. It's been a long time if ever, right? Well it's time.

Your families do not just want to see pages about what trip you all went on or yet another picture of them swimming in the pool. They want to know about you too. Why not share a part of who you are in a page or two this week? I plan to, I'm going to make a page about Twilight, just for fun. I promise to share it when I'm done, how about you?

Crop in Clarkston, Michigan September 18-20

Hello everyone,

We still have some openings for the Inks Outside of the Box Fall Camp crop in Clarkston, Michigan. If you haven't checked out the link for this on the sidebar, please look for it. Much of the money from the weekend goes to the Operation Smile charity that fixes cleft palates for children who cannot afford the operation. You do not have to be a customer or a consulant for Close to my Heart to attend, it's just a regular crop, bring any supplies you want to crop with. We had a blast last spring at this crop and would love to see you there!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer card

Okay, last Christmas card for awhile until I start up my Christmas card workshops. This card, again, had to be made from a paper set that wasn't Christmas. I just got back from the team meeting where all of us were in this non-Christmas paper card challenge and it was amazing to see how any of our beautiful paper sets could be turned into a Christmas card. Try it sometime!

The paper set for this card is School Zone, it's no longer available for sale but so cute!! First cut your paper:

12" by 6" card base made out of colonial white.

6" by 6" sunflower cardstock

5" by 4" patterned paper (striped)

5" by 2" outdoor denim cardstock

2" colonial white circle

2.5" sunflower cardstock circle

3" by 1.25" colonial white cardstock

Distress all pieces with outdoor denim.

Stamp the Rudolph stamp from the Christmas Melodies stamp set onto the 3" x 1.25" colonial white cardstock piece. Use Clover Meadow ink.

Stamp the snowflake from Christmas Trinkets (not available til September 1) onto the colonial white circle with outdoor denim.

Round off the corners of the sunflower cardstock with your corner rounder. Slip it into a crimper (it just fits) and then sand the grooves with a sanding block.

You may cut the edges of the striped piece with a border punch on each side. Attach the striped piece 1/2 inch from bottom, 1 inch from the left side.

Crimp the outdoor denim piece and sand to expose the white core.

Attach that piece to the striped paper about 3/4" from right hand side and 1/4" up from bottom.

Glue down the Rudolph stamped image 1/2 inch from left hand side of the card, 1/4 inch down from top. Glue the circles together and then attach it 1/4 inch from bottom of outdoor denim strip and center it.


Add two holiday red brads to the right hand side of the outdoor denim strip.

Add a matching red ribbon to the top of your outdoor denims strip, I just glued down the strip flat with Tombow then tied a small piece of ribbon around the center of the "base" ribbon. Add a window charm to snowflake. Round the corners of your card base, fold it and glue this card front to it. With this card you can have the card base open on the right side or the bottom.

Since I had my School Zone paper out with Stickease within reach, I threw together this little school card too. Hope you enjoyed this!