Acrylic Block Tip #1

I have been having lots of fun with the alphabet stamp sets, Trinity and Classmate. Because My Acrylic Stamps stick on the block so well and because the blocks are clear, it's just too fun to put together your own sentiment for a card or title for a scrapbook page. I really love the fact that My Acrylic stamps can be super small and still stick to the block until you pull them off. So, play around with your alphabets and try this little trick when you are putting your own sentiments, titles and words together: Place the stamps one at a time from behind so that you are looking through the block seeing the word come together as it will look when you stamp it. I seemed to get it lined up easier doing it from behind rather than typically the block on the table way. Try it out and have some fun with your alphabets this week.

More Elemental Fun

I am using the same designs I used with the Sanoma Level 2 Paper Pack scrapbook pages I designed for an upcoming workshop. I fliped the top to the other side, used a couple of Milepost Shapes and A Little Thanks Stamp Set to finish it off. I love using the same design so you can see how easy it is to have a completely different scrapbook page each time. I have always designed my own pages from scratch and have occassionaly used designs I see in a magazine but with my time so limited these days due to working full-time I think I am going to get a copy of one of Close to My Heart's Foundational How-to Programs. I will start with Cherish since that's the word I used for my title in this layout. This will be good for those evenings when my brain is mush from a day of data entry work and I need some creating therapy.

Get Your Close to My Heart How to Program Here

Silent Auction for Halloween Carnival

Since I started putting together my scrapbook workshop designs for November/December workshops, I decided to donate a framed scrapbook page for the silent auction at the Halloween Carnival at my son's school. I created this page from the Elemental Level 2 Paper Pack, Classmate Alphabet, Art Philosophy Cartrige, Love Life Stamp Set, Olive ink and brads and a banner dimensional. I love the simplicity of it. I wasn't too sure about the Elemental paper but when it comes together it looks fantastic. Let me know if you agree!

An Abundance of Opportunities Awaits

I have been reading a wonderful book by a friend of mine in my networking group called 10 Godly Keys to Success and Prosperity. I have been creating as I go through the book working my thoughts and feeling about what I am reading into my creations. I have done a couple layouts on Studio J and did my Dreamin Layout about my dreams and I created a pin to wear to remind me of a few things and be an object of curiosity that people will ask about. I chose the letter "A" for my pin because of the chapter about having an attitude of abundance. Meredith Bromfield is the author and she hit the nail on the head. Attitude is Everything! I have been wearing this pin for over a week now and have found that I have been in a much better frame of  mind. I am more positive, up-beat and just feeling AWESOME! I decided to create a new pin every month with a different letter to remind me about "whatever" and to get people asking and talking about it. It's kind of fun to watch people look at the pin but some of them will never ask you so I am super excited when someone does and I can share about my Awesome God and how he's given me an Abundance of blessings and provides me with an Abundance of Opportunites and I just have to keep the Attitude that Anything is possible with God. I hope you are having and Awesome weekend and enjoying the beauty of the fall season and that your attitude is looking up. Find out about Meredith's Book

Christmas is coming...

and so all my friends have started to wonder what am I going to give this Christmas. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg but want to do something special, unique, possibly made by me. Hmmmmmmm.  I know I will call Janine and ask her about doing a workshop so my friends and I can make a couple of scrapbook pages for the family photo.  Talked to Janine and she is going to create designs for 6 scrapbook pages for one paper pack from her new business Close to My Heart.  We get to do two of them at the workshop and get the instructions for creating the other 4.
This is going to be such a special gift and will look so nice in a frame on my mother-in-law's wall. And the best part I will have 2 completed scrapbook page gifts and 4 more to complete before Christmas for just $12. I can't wait to see what Janine has designed! She will even make kits for my friends that cannot come to my workshop for $20. This is too awesome!

Birthday Card on the Fly...

I have been getting the reminder message on my computer about my Dad's birthday coming up on the 23rd for over a week and kept snoozing it but woke up this morning and thought yeah, I better get to it. So, I called on the Cricut Art Philosophy to help me make a simple and fast birthday card for a male. I used the Celebration stamp set that is one of the 3 sets that comes with your Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge. I pulled out some coordinating paper from the Typeset Paper Pack, grabbed my Bamboo and Chocolate inks and got to cutting.

I made the mistake of cutting my green mat at 2.25" and knew it was too big when I pulled it out. Oh, duh, it should have been 1.75" to go with the 1.5" stamped image I was going to use. Okay, so sleeping last night on the chair wasn't the greatest thanks to my hubbie snoring up a storm. In any case, I thought to myself 'how can I make this work'. I used it and just trimmed off the edges. I used the words 'Fun, Love, Joy' from the Celebration stamp set and placed them all together randomly on a block to create my worded background. Stamped 'Best wishes to you' on the inside and all done in about 15 minutes. Yeah. Now it's time to get ready for work but I will be back playing with some new Close to My Heart stuff that came yesterday!

Snow Inspiration

This past Saturday we woke up to a blizzard, at least it seemed that way at our house. You can drive 1 mile south and it's not snow, it's rain. It makes living here interesting to say the least. But the snow kept me from getting out to do errands and in the studio to craft. I had just recevied the Wonderland Paper Pack from Close to My Heart and was just inspired to create using this wintery paper. I decided to try making another magnet card so that the recipient can take off the front piece and use as a fridge magnet. It's a card and a gift all in one.  I dropped it in the mail box on Monday to get it in for the World Card Making contest but discovered that the post office was closed on Monday. Great! They specifically said it has to be postmarked by Oct 10th but the darn post office wasn't open.  I will see about emailing them and ask that they consider counting my card towards the contest even though the post mark is going to say the 11th. I don't think they realized it was Columbus day either.

I did lots of embossing on this card including edging the papers in ink and applying sparkle embossing powder so I would have a sparkly edge. I found some pre-made silver bows that I had in my stash forever that worked perfectly. I will have only two of these available to make at the Project Playground on Oct 23rd so 2 lucky ladies will be able to come and make but if you really like this all you need is the Wonderland Paper Pack, I Believe Stamp Set, Blue ink, Sparkle embossing powder and some white card stock.  I would gladly give you the card recipe so you can make this wonderful winter card. www.ctmh.com/janinerobertson

Creating keeps my mind off of...

my shoulder pain. I went to the doctor on Thursday for it and turns out I have a bone spur and the machine at the YMCA triggered a swelling in that area. So, doc hooks me up with a steriod shot which I had before when I hurt my other shoulder from our indoor sky diving adventure a couple of years ago. All seemed pretty good until I woke up Saturday morning with more pain in my arm and all over that area. It was a different kind of pain, a burning pain which was a big indication to me that I was having an allergic reaction. It could only be from the shot. So, my creating on Saturday was only a blessing in that it kept me focused not on the pain I was feeling but my oh my I was hurting bad. Thankfully, I got a good nights sleep and it seemed a bit better in the morning and with IB profin it has been much more tolerable today so I managed to get more accomplished today but I am not quite finished with todays project so I won't be posting it just yet but I wanted to share with you the scrapbook layout I made with the Typeset Paper Pack of my two kids school portraits from last year. I thought I better get them done now before we get to far along into this school year and the memories of last year start fading away. I love to outcome.  I always tell people if you aren't into scrapbooking at the very least make one page a year with your kids school portraits.  I will be putting all of theirs in a book all it's own so we can see how they have grown and changed from year to year. So another weekend bites the dust and off to my work week I go...