Join CTMH in August and get a *FREE Tote!

Have you ever thought about turning your hobby into a lucrative business? Or maybe just getting Close to my Heart products at a great discount for you and your friends? August is the PERFECT time to sign to up. Not only do we have a new $49 kit, but if you join my team in August, you can get this adorable exclusive tote bag for FREE (while supplies last)!  

You can choose to order the $49 New Consultant Essential Kit and get $130 worth of brand new CTMH products shown below! (Or choose the $99 Master kit and get $280 worth of new goodies!)

New $49 Essential Kit Contents: 

 

• Read Me First Letter
• 3 Fall/Winter 2012 Idea Books
• 5 Hostess Order Forms
• 5 Customer Order Forms
• Close To My Heart Color Swatch
• Autumn/Winter B&T Duos Sampler
• Nature's Delight Petite Perks Stamp Set
• G1045 Avonlea WOTG Kit
• X7155C Avonlea Canvas Shapes
• Z1322 My Creations Recipe Box
• Z1777 Color Ready Canvas Alphabet
• Z2111 Chocolate Ink Pad
• Z2173 Slate Ink Pad
• D1522 Glamour Lowercase Stamp Set
• D1527 Perfect Fit Frames Stamp Set
• Y1006 3" x3" Acrylic Block
• Y1009 2" x 3 1/2" Acrylic Block

 Master Kit Contents: 

 

 Includes everything in the Essentials Kit, plus-

•  7 additional Fall/Winter 2012 Idea Books
•  25 You are Welcome Here Recruiting Brochures
•  25 The Rewards Come Now Hostess Brochures
•  5 Studio J Layouts (redeem within 3 months)
•  5 Studio J Brochures
•  20 additional Hostess Order Forms
•  20 additional Customer Order Forms
•  4 additional Petite Perks Nature's Delight Stamp Sets
•  25 Cello Bags
•  Z1782 My Acrylix Stamp Scrubber
•  1778 My Acrylix Spritz Cleaner
•  1512 Bonding Memories Glue
•  Z697 Sponge
•  Z679 Liquid Glass
•  Z2434 Chocolate Inks Marker Set
•  Z534 Micro Tip Scissors

The promotion starts at 9am (MT) on Wednesday, August 1st.

The tote is only available while supplies last, so sign up early to make sure you get yours before they are gone.

Have questions? Feel free to CONTACT ME.  If you're ready to sign up, use the quick and easy online form on my website HERE.  Don't forget to wait until August 1st if you want a chance to get that cute Damask bag.

*If you don't have a need for that cute bag, I'd like to offer to purchase it from you for $20.  Myself and a couple of my unit mates couldn't make it to Convention this year and missed our opportunity to get one for ourselves, so let me know if I can take it off your hands.  ;)  That would also make your consultant kit $20 cheaper once I pay you for the bag.  What a deal!

"Just fluttering by to say... happy birthday to my dad..."

Ahh, I can't believe I've actually done posts for 4 days in-a-row!  It's been ages since that's happened.

First things first, I need to give a big shout out to my Dad and wish him a very Happy 65th Birthday today!!

Ha ha, what a goof!  He got a hold of Mateo's skateboard and helmet at Jaxon's last baseball game, lol.  I just love his sense of humor and I'm so glad that a little of it rubbed off on me.  :)

Okay, onto to the crafty stuff...

Well, here is my favorite card from my workshop last week.

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it at first, but I knew I wanted to use this cute little stamp called "A Tree".  I love the "A" sized stamps, they're only $6.95 - you can't beat that price!  And I think it was very cute paired up with the Lucy paper pack.

I ended up stamping the Tree in Cocoa ink, then I stamped the tree top again in Sweet Leaf.  I cut out the tree top and glued it down.  I also stamped those tiny little butterflies (in Cotton Candy ink) and cut them out.  (Some of my workshop peeps weren't too happy about having to cut those out.  They are quite tiny.)  

The butterfly on the tree is popped up using a tiny foam dot.  Next we added my favorite Sweet Leaf stitched grosgrain ribbon.  (I hope this doesn't go away for a long time, I use it often.)  We tied a knot in the ribbon and stuck it with a Foundry Pin Clip.  Those are so fun because they have a little slot in the top to slide in a piece of paper (or even a photo if you're scrapbooking).  We stamped the sentiment on the reverse side of the floral Lucy paper and cut it to look like a little banner.  Next was some obligatory added sparkles and voila, the card front was done!

Back in February, at that crafty retreat I went to in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (Creative University), one of the classes was a scrapbooking class.  The instructor & fellow CTMH consultant (Michelle Nist) showed us how to do a pop-up on our layout, so I took that same idea and applied it to the inside of the card.

Isn't that fun??  I just loved that added surprise when the card was opened.  We left the inside of the card blank.  No, my name and blog address wasn't printed in there, lol.  The butterfly was really easy to cut out using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  I hadn't used my Cricut in years and now ever since I've had this cartridge, I use it all of the time.

Well, that's it for my "Summertime" themed cards.  I hope you found some inspiration.  I know I haven't posted many of my past workshop cards, so I'll do some digging, get some photos taken and hopefully you'll see some of those very soon.  Happy Summer!

Cue the Little Mermaid music... "Under the Sea"

Either that or the theme from "Foot loose".  What am I talking about you say?  Why this fun little card that we made in my workshop last week.

This card was designed by fellow consultant Sheila Bennett.  As some of you know, back in February I went with a few of my friends to a crafty retreat in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho called "Creative University".  This was my second year attending and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Anyhoo, back to the subject of the card.  At C.U. one of the things we got to do was participate in the "Card Cafe'".  There you could go on your own time and make up to 5 different greeting cards.  Each station had all of the supplies pre-cut and the directions spelled out for you.  This little card happened to be my favorite of the 5, so I just had to duplicate it.  I've been waiting all of these months for the right timing and this was it.

Sheila was the creator of all 5 cards in the Card Cafe' and I copied Sheila's card almost exactly.  The only thing I changed was the Birthday greeting and one of the cardstock colors.

This stamp set is called "Under the Sea" (hence the title of the post) and the paper pack used is called "Footloose" (hence my other musical reference, lol).  I also used the stamp set "Card Chatter - Birthday" for the sentiment.  I just love all of the sea life in this stamp set - so adorable.  I'll definitely have to make some other cards with it.

Here's a close up of the front flaps of the card opened up:

And here's a look at the inside of the card.  Helpful hint: if you happen to stamp your sentiment crooked (I'm not saying that's what I did, lol) you can create a little matted sentiment and put it right over the top of the crooked one.  What's that saying in the stamping world?  Oh yeah, there are no mistakes in stamping, only opportunities for embellishing.  ;)

Well, thanks again for stopping by.  Come back tomorrow to see the final card from the workshop.  It happens to be my favorite of the bunch. Ciao!

Aloha... another summertime card.

Aloha!  Here is another of the cards we made in last week's "Summertime" card workshop.  I just love the bright colors and beachy feel!

I got the idea for this card from one that I received in a card swap I participated in back in January.  The creator of the original card was a fellow consultant named Tracy Lunceford.  Unfortunately she doesn't have a blog, so I'll just have to give her credit here and say "Tracy, I just loved your card!".

Tracy's original design used the same papers, wooden shapes and sewing technique, but Tracy's card was a unique round'ish design cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  She also used a different alphabet font and had the word "Ahoy" embossed on her card - very cute!

I just loved the look of the hemp sewn onto her card so I had to give it a try as well.  I actually emailed Tracy to see if she had any tips for hand sewing with hemp and she suggested putting a little glue on the end of the hemp and kind of twisting it to a point.  I did that, let it dry and it worked like a charm.  Once again, "thanks Tracy!".

Here's a little close up of the sewing and the cool new Seaside Wooden shapes we used.  They're so lightweight, so that makes them nice to use on a card or a scrapbook layout.  They say you can stamp on them or ink them up, but for this card I just used them "au natural".  ;)

The supplies used on this card were:
Footloose Paper Pack (X7151B)
Smoothie cardstock (X5763)
Old World Alphabet (E1017)
Seaside Wooden Shapes (Z1693)
Hemp - Natural (Z280)

Thanks for stopping by!  Come back tomorrow for a look at card number 4.  :)