Jeepers Creepers Fun for CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop

Hello and welcome back to another Close To My Heart Featured Products Blog Hop, where this week we are bringing showcasing the Jeepers Creepers paper kit.  This is a fun Halloween themed paper pack that has a lot of versatility and doesn't have to be spook related.  If you came here from Donna's blog you are in the right place but hops are circular things so feel free to jump in anywhere and make the rounds.  Just in case you get lost, I have included a complete list of participants at the end of this blog.  So let's get to it!

So, even though I said this paper pack didn't have to be Halloween related, I couldn't resist using it for just that!  I have never gotten around to making one of those adorable pop up box cards so I immediately thought of making a haunted house themed card.  My project is still a little under construction as I just realized I probably need to add some ghosts in keeping with the haunted house theme, but these adorable monster stickers were too darn cute to resist!

Now it's on to Lauren's blog to see what she has waiting for you.  Thanks for joining us and please stop back by on October 5th when our theme will be For the Love of Stamping, which is sure to be a fun and inspiring hop!

Happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

Complete list:
1.  Lauren Moore
2.  Corinna Murphy
3.  Donna Digby
4.  Annette Clark (here)

Florence TY Card for AHS #178

Hello and welcome, crafty friends!  I have another quick thank you card to share with you based on this week's sketch at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge, created by Michelle Stewart.

There really isn't much explanation to this one.  As soon as I saw the floral elements on the sketch, I knew I wanted to use some leftovers from the recently retired Florence kit.  Since I am still working on a series of thank you cards for a friend, I was pleased I could get the Hello - Thanks thin cut set to fit what I had planned, along with the "friend" sentiment from the Say It All stamp set (also retired) stamped in Peacock.  The only other thing I can add about this card is that the panel the "thanks" sits on is backed by another piece of white CS edged with a piece of zip strip from the same Florence kit.


Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are able to find some creative time this week and play along.  As always, you have until 10 p.m. Central time on Sunday evening, which is 9/25/16 for this sketch.

Happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

Jeepers Creepers for HP Tribute for BTF Challenge

Hello, crafty friends!  This is the second week of our Jeepers Creepers theme at Between The Folds Challenge Blog.  I'm so in love with the colors in this kit and I can't wait to show you my project!

Confession time:  I didn't take up scrapbooking until I was in my 40's and my son, disabled and severely epileptic since birth, had passed away.  My family and I had so many precious memories we didn't want to let slip away, but for a long time it was too overwhelming to actually scrapbook them.  However, as soon as I saw this fun kit and it's brightly colored, whimsical embellishments I knew there was one very special memory I HAD to tackle.  I was even inspired to write up the whole story of how the only movie my son ever got to see in a theater was "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," but my printer chose today to go on the fritz and I had to improvise for the journaling.  So I jotted down a condensed version on a journaling card left over from the Everyday Life planner kit, which I topped off with the Jeepers Creepers washi pack which I love!  It was a little plain with just the card on the left side so I made a diagonal panel, cut one of the zip strips in half and mitered the corners and placed that behind the journaling card for visual interest.  I also added a couple of the purple lightning bold puffies from the assortment for this kit.  I used the
Artistry cartridge for the lightning bolts and glasses, the cauldron is from the "Happy Hauntings" cartridge, and the title is from the "HarryP" font I downloaded from a site called DaFont.  So in the end, this page isn't quite what I had envisioned but the most important thing is I got this one done and my family can relive this special moment forever.  And that's what memory keeping is all about, after all.

So thanks for stopping by and letting me share this special moment in our family's history.  I hope you are inspired to unleash your creativity this week and share your Jeepers Creepers inspired projects with us at the Between The Folds challenge blog.  You have until Monday, September 26, 2016 at 11:55 p.m. Eastern/10:55 p.m. Central time to link your projects.

Happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop - Thin Cuts

Hello and welcome back to another edition of the CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop, where this week we are bringing you projects created with our exclusive line of Thin Cuts.  As always, blog hops are circular things so you should have found your way here from Jennifer Bennett's blog but you are welcome to jump in at any point along the way and make the rounds.  A complete list of participants is included at the end of this post in case you get lost.

So not only do I have a clean and simple project of my own to show you, but I am pleased to share with you a guest post from a fellow CTMH consultant who has always inspired me, Allisa Steinlicht.  She has generously agreed to let me share this beautiful card featuring the snowflake Thin Cut, which you can find the details for HERE.

Isn't it lovely!  It has me wishing for snow... almost!  lol

So on to my project today.  It's a really clean and simple set using the Hello & Thanks set.

I love this set as it's sized to work especially well with cards.  Don't get me wrong, I dearly love my Cricut(s) but sometimes I prefer to do a more hands-on project, and other times I appreciate being able to quip up a quick accent without having to load up and log on to various machines.  Anyway, I have fallen in love with the Create Kindness card and stamps sets that are this month's special but not all of my scrapbook pals like to stamp so I have been working on a few cards using these Thin Cuts to show them they can still make adorable cards.  That's all I've finished so far but I promise there will be more, my desk is currently littered with a wild assortment of colored card bases, banners, and die cuts, I am having so much fun playing that I'm not sure I will be able to stop any time soon.

And that's all I have for you today.  The next stop along in our hop is Lauren Moore and I know you won't want to miss what she has in store for you.  Thanks for stopping by and please join us again in two weeks when we will be bringing you some fun and inspiring projects made with the Jeepers Creepers kit and its color scheme.  Until then, happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

And here is the complete list of this week's participants, as promised:

1.  Lauren Moore

2.  Corinna Murphy

3.  Donna Digby

4.  Jennifer Bennett

5.  Annette Clark (here)

Shabby Chic Wedding Card for AHSC #176

Hello and welcome back, crafty friends!  Here in the USA we just celebrated Labor Day, which is the unofficial end of summer which is fine with me as I have always been a big fan of autumn.  While some people get inspired when spring rolls around, whether it's to clean, redecorate, or get crafty in other ways, I feel my best in the fall.  Maybe that's why I felt brave enough to use this latest sketch by Michelle Stewart for Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #176 to venture into unknown territory...  I made my first attempt at a shabby chic card!  It's not as fabulous as the more experienced shabby-chic'ers that always inspire me, but I'm pretty tickled with it for my first try so let's get started!

details:   Later this month we will attend the wedding of a Young woman whose family and ours have known each other forever, and the bride and groom have planned a very country, somewhat rustic themed wedding with their colors being brown (barnwood), white, and mint.  So when I decided to use this sketch to make their wedding card, the first thing I did was to get out this lovely chevron barn board-patterned paper by The Paper Studio, which I cut to 5 x 7".  I cut a 3 3/4" panel of white CS and used Sea Glass ink and the heart stamp from the retired Charming Cascades set to stamp the background pattern and then I used my edge distresser to give that piece a rough, worn looking edge.  I then used CTMH's retired Art Philosophy cartridge to cut the 3 1/2" frame from Sea Glass glitter paper plus a solid shape in the same size in white CS to back the frame.  On that piece, I created a light watercolor background by pressing the closed Sea Glass stamp pad together so that ink was deposited in the lid and then "picking up" the ink using the medium flat waterbrush.  Then I used Saddle ink to stamp the ampersand image from a retired set called Mr. & Mrs., and Sea Glass ink to stamp the words and adhered those three layers to the card.  I used heat embossing and white embossing powder to stamp the congrats sentiment from another retired set called The Happy Couple.  Then came the really fun part:  the embellishments.  I dug out all kinds of things to try but ended up using a variety of retired (and some previously unused) CTMH products:  I hand cut leaves from a wide burlap ribbon, I layered 3 paper blooms and sponged one with Saddle and another with Sea Glass to make the body of the flower with the middle toned Mocha Opaques faux pearl in the center.  My rustic flower felt like it was lacking something so back to the stash I went and after several ribbons failed to impress me, I remembered seeing a recent post that had a pretty little clutch of string behind a focal point image, so I opened up a package of white waxy flax and that did the trick.  I finished the card off by adding a trio of pearls in the bottom corner:  the largest was another of those mocha opaques, the smallest was one of the white ones, and the middle sized was another white one which I colored with my turquoise blue ShinHan alcohol marker.

So, that's how  I created my first shabby chic wedding card.  I hope you will take time to check out all the projects our design team and participants have come up with this week, and hopefully you will find time to create and share your own project based on this sketch from AHSC and share it with us.  As always, you have until 11:55 p.m. Eastern/10:55 p.m. Central on Sunday, 9/11/16 to link up.

Happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

Random Stamping Projects for Between The Folds 29B

Hello and welcome back, crafty friends!  We are in our second week of projects featuring random stamping over at the Between The Folds challenge blog.  Not only is this really fitting since September is National Stamping Month, but it's one of those themes which are only limited by our imaginations, so the possibilities are virtually endless!

This one was really pretty simple once I settled on what I wanted to do.  I started with the recently retired "Diamonds Are Forever" stamp set from CTMH's May-August 2016 Seasonal Expressions idea book.  I tried making this on an A2 size card but that looked too crowded once I put my sentiment piece in place, so I started again with a 6" square card and liked how that looked much better.  I used a piece of Ruby CS for the base and then used Sapphire and Gypsy inks as well as the retired Topiary, Ruby, and Creme Brulee inks to stamp the jewels.  For the center piece, I used the center cut function on my Cricut Expression with the Artistry cartridge ( found on p.13 of the booklet) at 2" and 1 3/4" so that I came out with a thin frame of gold glitter paper, adhered that to a 2" cut of the same shape on white CS, and used Sapphire ink to stamp this sentiment from the same set.  The only thing missing is a little shimmer I want to add to the gems with a clear Shimmer Brush but I forgot to order it in time for this challenge.

I hope you will take time to check out the rest of the random stamping projects from the other design team members as well as our participants.  And as always, we'd love to have you join us this week at the Between The Folds challenge blog and share your project.  It's fun and it's easy, you just have to use some CTMH product (and let us know what  you used if it isn't obvious).  You have until 11:55 p.m Eastern/10:55 p.m. Central on Monday, September 11, 2016 to link your projects so there's still plenty of time to play along.

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!  ~~  Annette