Some Kinda Wonderful for Featured Products Blog Hop

Hello crafty friends and welcome back to another installment of the Close To My Heart (CTMH) Featured Products Blog Hop, where this week we bring you projects using the Some Kinda' Wonderful paper kit, its color palette, Workshop On The Go, or coordinating stamp sets.  If you came here from Corinna's blog you are in the right place, but hops are circular so you are welcome to jump in anywhere along the way and simply follow the links until you've made the rounds.  A complete list of this week's participants is included at the end of this page in case you get lost along the way.  Let's get started!

While I find this collection of colors and prints very energetic and interesting, they're not ones I usually choose to work with so I was struggling a little bit with this one.  However, last night I was playing around with this week's sketch from the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge and I thought I would try that sketch with the Some Kinda Wonderful kit and this darling Beautiful Moments stamp set to make a divider page for my Everyday Life Planner, and this is what I came up with!

I customized the scalloped frame die cut from the retired Art Philosophy cartridge using Cricut Design Space so that the opening was 3 x 3" in a 3.6" square frame (which slightly larger than the original opening for this cut but it can be accomplished using group/ungroup and slice features in CDS).  The horizontal stripe is one of the zip strips from this kit and the two vertical banners are just fussy cuts from other patterned papers in this kit.  The horizontal banner is crafted from one of the 4 x 6" PML cards included in this kit.  I plan to stamp "#life is..." but I haven't decided what stamp set to use so that will have to be added later.  At any rate, I wanted a journaling section for dreams, goals, and bucket lists, etc. and I think this will make a great divider page for that purpose.  (I am also going to post this for one of the Some Kinda Wonderful theme weeks at Between The Folds challenge blog on my "off" week as we are all pitching in a bit extra to help out one of our teammates.)

And now it's time for you to hop on over and see what Lauren has in store for you.  Please join us again on Wednesday, 4/19/17, when our theme will be Complements.  Until then, happy crafting!
Annette


complete list of participants:

1.  Corinna Murphy

2.  Annette Clark (here)

3.  Lauren Moore

Swan Lake for CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop

Hello and welcome back to another installment of the Close To My Heart Featured Products Blog Hop, where this week we are bringing you projects based on the Swan Lake kit.  If you came here from Corinna's blog you are in the right spot, but as always hops are circular things so you are welcome to jump in anywhere along the line and make the rounds.  Just in case you get lost along the way, I have included a complete list of this week's participants at the end of this post.  Let's get started!

I wanted to do something a little different for this project so I started this as a custom page for my Everyday Life Planner, intending to have a section for journaling on gratitude, but I love these cute pedestal card holders I got at Micheal's at graduation time, so I might just leave this out until Thanksgiving has past.

details:  I measured a Everyday Life Planner page and cut a piece of the Swan Lake paper to size.  I then turned to my Cricut and cut this white heart at 4 1/2" using the retired Artiste cartridge.  I used the Flower Market cartridge to cut the words out at 2.33" height using Poppy and Glacier CS.  For a little added visual interest (and because I love a little touch of glitter and bling) I wove some black and gold ribbon through the edges.  I thought it still needed a little more bling so I added 3 graduated-sized hearts for the top left and bottom right corners as well as this gold embossed bow, all from the retired Gold Fundamentals Assortment.

And that's all there is to this one, your next stop on our hop is Lauren's blog.  I hope you take time to make the complete tour and that you find inspiration for your own Swan Lake projects, and please stop back on 11/2/16 when we will be working with the City Sidewalks kit.
Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

Complete list of participants:

1.  Lauren Moore

2.  Janna Gray

3.  Donna Digby

4.  Corinna Murphy

5.  Annette Clark (here)

Thick Twine for Between The Folds Challenge

Hello and welcome back!  Today's project features CTMH's Thick Twine for the Between The Folds Challenge #22B.  Having started my crafting journey with needle arts, I love so many things about the thick twine:  the lustrous colors, the soft texture, and the versatile ways you can use it, just to name a few.  No matter what craft medium I'm working with at the moment, I love to combine colors and stretch myself to try new things, so of course I had to that with this project too.  So here's what I came up with:

details;  I started with this page from this background My Crush Everyday Life Page and this card from the January 2016 promotional kit "Picture My Life Live Your Day Scrapbooking Program."  In the center of the white heart, I used Thistle ink and this sentiment from the Wavy Blooms stamp set.  Then, using both the Glacier and Pixie thick twines, I unwound the two strands for each color and twisted one strand of each back together.  Next I used Liquid Glass adhesive to glue the twine down about one inch at a time to I could keep the dual colored strands tightly wound, and I outlined the heart.  Since these three colors are the foundational colors for the planner pages, I loved that I could get all three colors in my project by inking with one and twisting together strands of the thick twine from the other two colors.  I also love how easy it is to  personalize my planner and its pages.

Don't forget, you have until Monday, 6/6/16, at 10:55 p.m. to link your project if you want to create a project using Thick Twine and play along with us at this week's BTF challenge.  Even if you don't you will definitely want to check out the projects from the rest of the design team and the other participants.  The more the merrier!

Happy crafting!  ~~  Annette

My Crush Everyday Life Pages for CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop

Hello and welcome back!  This week our CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop participants are bringing you fun and inspiring projects created with the My Crush products.  If you found your way here from Jenifer's blog you are in the right place, but blog hops are circular so you can jump in anywhere along the way and just make the rounds and I have included a complete list of our particpants at the end of this post in case you get lost along the way.  Now, allow me to share my project with you today.
While I dearly LOVE my Everyday Life Planner, I haven't done nearly what I thought I would with it so it took me a little more time than usual to decide what I wanted my project to be but I knew I wanted to do something with the My Crush Everyday Life Pages that are designed to fit the planner.  I tried several projects, including a couple of coloring projects using watercolor paper and some new stamps, but I kept coming back to this pretty design, my favorite out of the whole pack.  While I don't know if my photo does it justice, I am SO happy with the way it turned out that I may not put it in my planner at all but frame it and hang it in my room (which features various shades of purple and lots of inspirational sayings, lol).

details:  I noticed that the new Rose Gold foil tape looked awesome with this shade of purple so I placed the page on my Versamat and used my favorite ruler ever and lined up a set of diagonal lines 3/4" apart using Rose Gold in the bottom corner and Silver Foil Tape in the upper right corner.  Then, letting the bokeh effects already on the paper guide me, I used a combination of the new Florence sequins with the silver ones from the new Calypso sequins, some darker burgandy colored sequins from an previous CTMH kit that I can't identify, plus some from the Oceanside and a couple of the larger silver sequins.  Overall, I think it made for a lovely variation in tone and color that really complements an already-lovely page.

So that's all there is to mine.  Please don't forget to hop on over to Kim's blog if you haven't been there already, and I hope  you will join stop by again for our next hop on 6/1/16 when we will be featuring projects made with the CTMH display trays.    Thanks!  ~~  Annette

complete list of participants:

1.  Kim Loewen

2. Jenifer Benner

3.  Annette Clark (here)

Planner Page for AHSC #156

I just adore this week's sketch at the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge.  As soon as I saw it, I knew that I wanted to use it to make my own divider page for my Everyday Life album; the only "challenge" I had was carving out the time to make it.  This project took a bit of time as I wanted to create a Cricut file in case I wanted to make more dividers or pages in the future, but it was totally worth it because as much as I LOVE my planner album, I love to customize it even more!

details:  I used the lovely Kaleidoscope paper kit and adhered that to a base I created on white CS, just to give it some extra sturdiness and so I could sponge ink onto the divider tab so it would be in keeping with the water color theme.  I used the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge to cut the frame in Gypsy CS.  I used the Brushstrokes stamp set in Pear, Gypsy, and Pixie inks for the brushstroke images.  For the sentiment, I used a consultant-only stamp set, masking the image so I could basically divide the entire image into three parts, stamping the top and bottom ones in Gypsy and then using Versamark and gold embossing powder to heat emboss the word "life."  To finish it off, I added two different sized hearts from the Treasured Puffies as well as the white and gold ribbon.  This is one of the few times I feel like one of my projects turned out better than I had envisioned it, and I know I'm going to enjoy using it in my planner every day!

Thanks for stopping by and I really hope you will play along with this week's sketch challenge or at least stop by the AHSC blog to check out the fabulous projects from the participants as well as the rest of the design team.  Happy crafting!  ~~  Annette