Happy Birthday!

Some CTMH-only cards. I used Geometric Backgrounds (D1559), Keyboard Uppercase alpha (B1416), Heartfelt Birthday Wish (M1033), and leftover bling and PP from other CTMH projects. 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love!

Blessings, 

Martha 

Some happy cards

Ok, so maybe I'm not done with summer after all (see my last post about Fall weather arriving: http://designsbysaenz.blogspot.com/2013/09/huntington.html) because I just had to sit and make some colorful, happy sentiments that look more spring- and summer-like than all those wonderfully rich Fall colors.  Light, easy, colorful = spring and summer; dark, rich, heavy and gorgeous = fall.  Then there's winter:  Red and green because I love Christmas!!!  LOLOL! 

Anyway!  :D I used the September Nat'l Stamping Month Special, You Are My Happy:

 

The birthday gift stamp is from You Are My Happy and so is the parenthesis; I also used Heartfelt Birthday Wish (M1033, available HERE) for the sentiment.

 

I did the very same thing on three separate cards, using different colors of ink and coloring the images in with regular colored pencils, nothing fancy.  There is no dimension to these cards, they are flat as can be, and I think they're perfect.  This Pacifica ink with a green colored pencil is my favorite of the three different color options I used. 

Then, I used the butterfly from the You Are My Happy, as well.  On the left-sided card I used Lagoon, Sunset, and Smoothie inks.  On the right-sided card, I used black ink and various CTMH alcohol markers.  I also used CTMH's twine.

This one uses Sunset ink and the same color of twine on two of the stamps from You Are My Happy. 

 

With a $50 order you can have the You Are My Happy stamp set trio for just $10.  Shop for that HERE.  Once you have $50 of product in your shopping cart this special should pop up, as will the September Stamp Of The Month for just $5. 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love!

 

Blessings,

 

Martha

Huntington

Hello crafty friends,

 

How many of you are ready for some really pretty autumn colors?  It's been raining in my neck of the woods off and on for a few days now and I am *loving* that summer is over!  We might have a real Fall this year!  I happen to love Fall and I REALLY love rain.  One of my favorite pastimes is sitting out on the front porch and just watching the rain, reveling in the gift of fresh water pouring down on us.  It helps if I have an ice cold Pepsi (not Coke! :D ) and my family with me. 

 

So, since Fall appears to be upon us, it's only natural that I would love, love, love CTMH's paper line named Huntington.  The fall color palette makes my heart happy.  This is the Workshop on the Go (WOTG, available for purchase HERE).

 

It's includes a super cool stamp set that I know I'll get much more use out of, and the embellies look great on finished pages.  I've actually had to order more of the bling because those shades of brown are part of my go-to colors for most cards and things. 

 

Here are my four finished WOTG pages, 2 two-page layouts: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are sans photos as I'm waiting for it to actually BE Fall before I get the right pictures! 

 

I used my leftover paper and the September SOTM for some cards, as well as Frame Flair (D1546, available HERE), and Look To The Light (B1428, available HERE). Of course, the Frame Flair piece was cut out with my Cricut and the Art Philosophy collection (Z1686, available HERE).  I also used Shimmer Trim in bronze (Z1849, available HERE).

 

 

That little pumpkin is cut from the Artbooking cartridge (Z1906, available HERE).

 

 

 

I used the scallop border on the honey CS (above), as well as a

vine cut from the Art Philosophy cartridge.

 

 

I am really loving that shimmer trim. 

 

 

 Don't forget to stamp on the inside of your card!  Here, the "thinking of you" is part of the stamp set called Sincere Expressions (A1146, available HERE).

 

 

 

 

 

For the frame and sentiment I used both Sunset and Chocolate inks.  On the card above I also used a Distressed Backgrounds set (D1544, available HERE) on the cream cardstock before adding the patterned paper. 

 

Somehow I still have a ton of Huntington paper left over from the WOTG so I'm sure I'll get either more scrappy pages from it, or more cards.  We'll see which I get to do first!  :)

 

Oh and in case you missed it, this is the September SOTM that is available for $17.95 (regular retail) or $5 if you purchase $50 in products.  Click on the "Shop With Me" link on the right column so you can score all of the wonderful CTMH products I've used with these projects.

 

 

 

As always, thank you for stopping by and leaving love!

 

Blessings,

 

Martha

 

 

 

Did I ever...

...share these cards?  I certainly meant to!

This card features an embossing folder by Tim Holtz.  The hardware is CTMH (no longer available).  The peacock is cut from Cricut's French Manor cartridge, which I applied Glimmer Mist to, and the bling (the peacock's eye) is Prima.

You can see where I attempted to pop out some of the peacock's feathers.  It looks super cool IRL.

For this next one I cut the bird from French Manor as well, and the tan frame is from one of the CTMH Cricut cartridges.  I embossed with Cuttlebug folders, and I did add some bronze Glimmer Mist to the bird.  I was going to add a sentiment but I really like it this plain. 

 

That is my card share for today.  Have a great weekend!

Cardmaking :)

I've made a few more cards over the last week.  I've been enjoying working with my Big Shot and Cuttlebug machines. 

For this first one, after embossing the background with an Anna Griffin folder, I proceeded to use watercolors to outline some of the flowers, leaves, and, of course, the bird.  Then I used Stickles to make some of the elements pop.  CTMH ribbon, Big Shot die for the sentiment, which is a stamped CTMH sentiment. 

 

 

 

For this next card I used my favorite color. :) The background is embossed with a Darice embossing folder and the scalloped half-circle and butterflies are Spellbinders dies. I used Glimmer Mist paint for the edge around the perimeter of my background, as well as on the butterflies.

 

For the smaller butterflies I cut three and layered them, leaving the bottom one the plain purple, embossing the middle white one with a Cuttlebug folder, and then using the same Glimmer Mist paint on the top one, and then I only glued along the middle of each butterfly so the wings could be popped out. The swirls under the small butterflies are the cut-outs from the bigger butterfly's wings.  :)

 

The sentiment is CTMH, after I sprayed some lovely purple Glimmer Mist on the scalloped circle. Ribbon is SU! and bling is CTMH.

　

 

 

Next, I made this beauty.  I think it's my favorite of the bunch.  It came together VERY easily. 

 

 

The background is embossed with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots (which is one of my go-to favorites in case you haven't noticed! :) ).  The note part is a SU!/Sizzix die, which I embossed with another Cuttlebug folder.  "Strong" and "Brilliant" are Simon Says Stamp dies.  The small "you are so" tag is just hand-cut, and it's a CTMH stamp.  Buttons are from stash and the jump ring too.  Stamps are CTMH. 

One little detail shot.  :)

I won't ever get tired of saying it:  STAMP THE INSIDE of your card!!!  :)

 

Finally, I brought out an older SU!/Sizzix die that I bought a few years ago but had never used.  This 3D pop-up card was actually easy to make and lots of fun to decorate!

 

This is the front of the card.  It looks simple BUT when you open it up....

 

 

TADA!  A 3D cake.  :)

 

I've used Simple Stories paper and stickers throughout, and the shine on the cake is from Stickles. 

Here are a couple of side shots. 

 

I really enjoyed making the above card.  Like I said, it came together very easily.  It may look complicated but it really wasn't; I think it took longer for the Stickles to dry than it took me to make the whole thing! 

 

Those are my card projects for this week.  Thank you for stopping by! 

 

 

 

Artbooking... and a card

Hello crafty friends! 

 

I finally got my hands on the Close To My Heart/Cricut Artbooking cartridge and oh my goodness.  I seriously think this is one of the best cartridges that Provo Craft has ever put out.  It has a great font, a ton of pre-welded titles, pre-made mini books (or LOs) where everything is designed for you already, basic shapes, banners, accents, backgrounds... I could go on and on but I'd rather show you!

 

Here is just one LO I made (click on the picture to enlarge). 

 

 

This uses the "Teen Layout" pre-made, pre-figured-out layout on page 81 of the

Artbooking handbook.  I used my own colors and made the page about my 10 y/o,

of course.  No teens here yet, thankfully!  :)

 

Left-sided page:

 

 

Right-sided page:

 

Now, originally I made my Cricut cuts and was going to leave it all as is, just add an embellishment or two.  But the boring cardstock just about demanded (LOL) that I stamp on it, distress it, something, to make it less boring.  So I did stamp on it.  Normally I draw dashed lines around the perimeter of photo mats or the 12x12 paper, but I found a stamp and used that instead.  See the sun rays above with all those lovely dashed lines?  Yup.  That's a stamp, and the circle part with the chevron pattern is another stamp. 

 

Here are a few accents.  This banner with "about you" was cut from the Art Philosophy cartridge.  The alpha is CTMH's Keyboard Kraft Alpha.  The wooden piece is from the wooden Mini-Medley Accents.  And there's bling too- Opaques Mocha adhesive gems.  On this banner I did the stitching with a marker, by hand. 

 

 

This stamped border is from the set called Love Life.  It really

brightened up that boring corner of my background cardstock.  I also used my pen to outline the whole title.  There wasn't a shadow of the shape to be cut and I can't just leave it like that... when there's no shadow I always outline the cutout for just a bit more depth.  You can see towards the bottom of the "1" where my marker became possessed and I messed up.  I will ignore my OCD and leave it as is.... :)

 

 

 

Another shot of the accent pieces and bling. 

 

 

This twine is also part of the wooden mini-medley accents.

 

 

The cool part about the frames on the LO above is that I still have

these two mats left over for another project.  :) 

 

 

Here's the sun part on the left-sided page.  I stamped from the same Love Life set and added bling, more wood, and the twine.

 

 

Here's a view of what I used; click on each name to go to my CTMH website for ordering purposes. 

-- Love Life stamp set

-- Opaques Mocha adhesive gems
-- Mini-Medley Accents, wooden

-- Keyboard Kraft Alphabet

-- Pacifica Ink Pad

-- Cricut Artbooking Collection

  

 

So, I had that Love Life stamp set out and decided to make a card with it.  It's a fantastic stamp set.  Here's a picture of it along with the paper I wanted to possibly use.

 

 

These are all the stamped and cut elements of my card.  I used the three-circle

thingie as a background on my Topiary cardstock, using Topiary ink

too for a tone-on-tone effect.  The orange flowers are stamped with Sunset. 

I decided not to use the rose flower side of the patterned paper, only the green dots.   

 

 

My completed card.  Except for the small flowers, I inked the edges

of everything in either Topiary or Sunset, and I added some bling too.

 

 

Don't forget to stamp the inside!  I made two of this card and on the right one

I didn't ink my stamp properly so I had to do damage control by adding another

 stamp... I like the only on the left better, the one where I inked the green swirly

stamp correctly.  My sister likes the haphazard-looking swirlies on the right card... go

figure.  I used the Topiary ink and the stars and hearts are stamped with Sunset ink. 

 

 

 

Detail shot:

 

 

 

That was my Artbooking adventure for today.  Stay tuned for

more as I explore this cartridge even further!  Until then,

stay crafty, my friends.  LOLOL

 

Topiary ink pad can be purchased HERE

Sunset ink pad can be purchased HERE