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Jump for Joy!

Jump for Joy!
October Gatherings mean more Hostess Rewards!
WHETHER YOU’RE A BRAND NEW OR EXPERIENCED HOSTESS with Close To My Heart, this is the perfect opportunity to hold one or more Home Gatherings and receive special sales incentives! That’s right . . . at every Gathering held from October 1 to October 31 that reaches a minimum of $450 in sales, hostesses will be able to "jump" to the next level of Hostess Rewards—which means more free products and more items at 50% off! And it’ll be so easy to do, because October is the ideal time for guests to buy scrapbooking, cardmaking, and papercrafting supplies to preserve their memories. It’s enough to make you Jump for Joy!

*Additional tax and shipping/handling may apply on Hostess Rewards. See your Consultant for a list of select product credit items.
** For each $100 in sales past $1,050, add an additional $20 in free products.
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October Stamp of the Month

H2H Challenge - Back to School - P is for Pencil

No kids here going back to school so this weeks challenge was really a challenge for me. But I wanted to enter hoping I would win the prize package Christine is offering. I LOVE that Around the Block Stamp and have had to borrow it a few times from a friend of mine to make house warming cards. I remembered a cute back to school craft I saw in the September Creating Keepsakes magazine (that I borrowed from the same friend). I just had to make these pencils. Stopped by the Super America and picked up a couple of Rolo's and stole some Hershey Kisses from a co-worker. I added a cranberry ribbon and a tag. All product CTMH except the candy and aluminum foil. Here is my entry - thanks for looking!

It's time to get sketchy!

Here is my entry this week. I needed to make a birthday card for a friend so I decided to use the sketch challenge. I had a whole brand new package of Boom Di Ada Creative Basics. Then I remembered I had left over card stock, ribbon and the stamp set from the "From Me to You" kit from several years ago. The ribbon and inks matched the Boom Di Ada - perfect! And, since I had to make a card, why not make two? I have to cut an 8 1/2 x 11 card stock into 2 card bases, right? So while I was at it I made two cards.

The brighter pinky one will go to my girl friend for her birthday along with a little goodie in the gift bag. I used liquid glass to adhere the striped paper to the back of a clear button and used some sassy strands to keep the buttons from being "naked". I used an 8 x 10 piece of striped paper and adhered it to the front of a kraft bag. Then turned the paper over to the pink side, trimmed and stitched on my tiny sewing machine. A felt button in the middle of a Big Pinks flower and a "Celebrate" sentiment finished the bag. I might tie some ric rac around the handles later.

I wanted to do the other card all mono chromatic (all garden green). There are just some small pink dots on the B&T paper. I thought this might make the card more versatile - maybe to give to a man.

Thanks for looking.

Mini Cards

I took a Mini Card class at Archiver's last week. Cute, cute, cute cards!

I bought some extra paper and used their stamps to stamp a few extra images and came up with these regular sized cards that I think turned out cute too.

H2H Challenge - Tag you're it

Here is my entry into the contest this week. All products are CTMH except the tag base. Thanks for looking.

Pretty Pins and a Card

I bought Pretty Pins on the Jackpot June sale and was wondering what to do with them. I needed some gift boxes to send some presents in so this is what I came up with.

The boxes are brown Silpada jewelry boxes. I knew that's why I saved them so I could alter them. The Topstitch papers work well with brown box. I put a little bling on this pretty pin.

I had a tiny bit of More to Adore paper that I had left over from a class I took a long time ago (see Tracey - I saved the scraps).

I only covered the box lids put the ribbon on the lid so it can be lifted off all in one piece.

I made this card for my aunt. I just love this quote.

Thanks for looking!

H2H Color Challenge

Well, this weeks H2H challenge was a color challenge and I really wanted to play but wasn't sure if I had all the colors.

So I did some research - thank goodness everything in the catalog is labeled.

Blush - not to be confused with baby pink - is in the Topstitch Level 2 packet and the Daydream Level 2 paper packet - check. Blush cardstock - check. Blush ink - check. Blush embellishment - just purchased on the June Jackpot - check.

Now, Vineyard Berry - card stock? - nope. Ink? - nope. Embellishments? - nope. Oh, wait - according to the catalog Topstitch has Vineyard berry - cool! I've got that. Pull out the Topstitch paper pack, looking, looking, looking . . . . teeny, tiny, microscopic flowers on the striped B&T paper - hummm, we'll see. Oh, and I have the My Stickease and there are round Vineyard Berry stickers - hmmm, we'll see.

Now on to the Creme Brulee . . . looking, looking, looking . . . ok, Daydream has some B&T paper - Creme Brulee background with dots. AND low and behold those Fancy Cuts Die Cuts Botanicals has a whole sheet of Creme Brulee flowers (and Juniper and Sorbet) with a solid Creme Brulee on the back. I KNEW there was a reason I bought those so long ago.

So I pull all these scraps together and they look like . . . . crap - who ever heard of a Creme Brulee colored flower? The whole card is going to pink! Nothing looks right together! Who picked these colors anyhoo! (I hope I wasn't the only one whining about the challenge.)

I decided to do a 3 x 3 card since I wasn't sure about anything. I even used repositional adhesive because I wasn't sure if the card would turn out. But this is what I came up with:

Whew! That was hard but I enjoyed the challenge. And it actually turned out nice. I used the "Hey There Cupcake" stamp and masked the "Cupcake" part. Sorry, I whined. All products are CTMH except for the brown ink. Thanks for looking!

This week end

This is what I did this weekend. Needless to say not much else got done around the house and my dining roo . . . er my craft room is a wreck. But I got all my birthday cards done for a while.

Mom's birday card.

My nephew Winston's birthday card - I have already mailed this.

My hubby's 49th birthday card.

My sister's birthday card - matched the bag I made.

Alayna's first birthday card.



Oh, and this is a little 2 inch canvas thingy I picked up at Archivers. Printed a teeny tiny pic of hubby and me and used some CTMH rub ons. I have to find some magnets to glue on the back and I'll put it on my fridge.

Hope everyone else had a productive week end! Thanks for looking.

H2H Challenge - ABC - Anything But a Card

This weeks H2H challenge is Anything But a Card. I decided to finally do something with the beautiful bags they give out at Charles Penzone Salon. Charles Penzone is a local salon where I have my hair cut. When you buy product they put your hair gel in these cute little brown and green bags with lovely brown grosgrain ribbon for handles. (Probably to make you feel better about spending $16 on hair goo.) The ribbon is just tied in knots on the inside of the bag so they were easy to remove.

This is the "before" picture. (Please disregard the complete mess in my dining roo . . . er craft room.)

I love the brown so I decided to try some of my Topstitch papers with it and make a simple gift bag. Luckily the sides of the bag do not have any advertising on them so they didn't have to be covered. I removed the ribbon, covered the front and back with B&T paper, punched holes using the bag as a guide and put the ribbon back through the holes. The ribbon handles were pretty wrinkled so I ironed them. (What was Charles thinking!) I got the technique of faux stitching and lollipop flowers from watching Tresa Black's Ustream Channel. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fabulously-artsy

Cute little gift bag! All products are CTMH except the clear button. Here are a couple more views:

H2H14 Sketch Week - Wishes CityScape

Here is my entry for this week. I had "fun" making this little card and I got to use my felt embellishments I got on one of the June Jackpots. Love the "Let's Get Together" papers. Thanks for looking.

H2H11 Scrappy of a different sort

Since I already made my dad's Father's day present last week I thought I would make cards for my brother and brother-in-law. I thought I would challenge myself and look through all my paper packets and see which one had the fewest scraps. It was Boom-Di-Ada. The scraps were left over from a class I took from my CTMH consultant. Here is what I started with.

I looked in the Wishes book and chose the Collage pattern since it had 6 different scraps of squares. I also made my 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card open from the bottom instead of the side since that's what size scrap I had. I also got out my new Sew EZ sewing machine for the first time. I'm still not sure about it, we'll see. This is the first card I made for my brother.

I didn't have a scrap piece of B&T paper to cover the whole card front so I used a piece of cardstock on the side.

Then I decided, I might as well use the rest of the scraps and I created a card for my brother-in-law. Thanks to inspiration from http://www.jaxbeanstalks.blogspot.com/. She made a card with a label from a beer bottle. My brother-in-law likes Flying Dog beer and when he was visiting once, he peeled the label off and it has been on my fridge since then. Thought I would send it back to him in a card and tell him I hope he gets to drink a cold one on his day.

Inside
Thanks for the challenge. It was fun. All products are CTMH (except the Flying Dog label). Gotta get these cards in the mail!

H2H Challenge - Time to get Scrappy

OK, here is my entry for this week. I just got into scrapbooking recently. It started with the Miracle Kit. That was SOOO easy and my pages turned out so good. All I did was follow the directions in the kit. So I went back and dug out what was left of my Tickled Pink kit and made those pages and then moved on to the Grace kit. I now have 9 completed pages done!! I'm gonna have to buy an album now! I decided to submit the My Creations Cube this week. I needed something for my dad for father's day. What do you buy a 72 year old dad that doesn't want anything? So I decided to make a cube with pictures of his kids and grand kids. This is my first one and I searched the web for ideas - thanks everyone for the inspirations. I also looked at 6 x 6 and 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 card sketches in "Originals" and "Wishes" books. Then I got out my Grace papers and the accessories that came with the kit and went to town.
Here is the flat version. I decided I wouldn't like putting the cube together with hemp strung through the holes so I covered them up. Of course when I was gluing the cube together trying to hold all the sides up I saw the advantage of putting the cube together by connecting the holes with ribbon or hemp. I had to do a little pre-planning to get the pictures going the right way so they would be right side up when the cube was put together.

Here are pics of each side of the cube. Everything is CTMH products.

My sister's boys.


My brother's boys.
My sister, brother and I.

My brother's daughter, Hope. The newest member of the family. A perfect little girl adopted from China.
The bottom of the cube. Embellishments are flat so the cube will sit flat. I'll write a personal note to my dad later. I liked the quote stamp from the Tickled Pink kit.
The last side of the cube. (I'm obviously Dad's fav.) Not grammatically correct I realize now. It should have said Me & Dad. Oh, well. I used the letters from the Good Times stickease. I also realized I don't have a good picture of me and my dad. Gotta work on that.

Some more pics after I used liquid glass to glue the sides together. I loved the way it turned out. Not bad for my first attempt. Thanks for looking.

H2H9 Challenge - Sketch

H2H9 - Here is my card I created from this week's sketch. I used scraps from my Tickled Pink kit. All products are CTMH except the ribbon.

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