Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Heritage Layout - My Father , My Mentor

Close To My Heart is having a consultant contest for heritage scrapbooking... I have some photos of my parents that I really like and they were both born and raised during the Great Depression so that's perfect for this purpose. I wish they were both still living as I miss them so very much. 

I haven only finished this layout so far but I will do the one of my mom before much longer. 

My father served in the Army for World War 2 and I love this photograph of him. I used primarily the Rustic Home Fundamental papers but did add a few other pieces here and there. I chose to place the journaling behind the photo but have photographed it separately and it is shown below the layout. 




Products used are all Close To My Heart unless otherwise indicated: 

Paper: Colonial White Cardstock, Kraft Cardstock, Sea Glass Cardstock, Rustic Home Fundamentals, Hello Lovely Paper Pack
Stamps: Jennifer's Hand Alphabet
Inks: Desert Sand, Whisper, Sea Glass
Accessories: Artbooking Cartridge, Artistry Cartridge, Rustic Home Ribbon Pack, Dreamin' Big Sequins, Simple Chevron Embossing Folder, Wood Slats Embossing Folder, Sanding Kit, Sponges, Stitch Guide, Piercing Tool, Embroidery Floss with Needle (not CTMH)

Enjoy, 
Alyson

Monday, February 27, 2017

H2H - Mix & Match, This & That

The challenge this week at Heart 2 Heart is Mix & Match, This & That. It can be to mix and match papers from different paper collections or to use a combination that is rather opposite like stripes and polka dots or something else that is a matter of mixing and matching... there are a LOT of possibilities here. 

I chose to use stripes and polka dots - I wanted to delve into the Adventure Fundamentals papers once again as I love those colours. I initially was thinking about using the bold diagonal striped paper but it just didn't work with what I had in mind. I have a feeling I am going to be left with a lot of that pattern when the end of that paper pack comes around... I tend to have a difficult time with the larger patterns in general, especially since I tend to be more of a card maker than a scrapbooker. I think those larger patterns are better suited to scrapbook pages than to smaller situations like cards... 

Nonetheless, I used the stripes with the arrows on them and the large polka dots. I also used the tiny little polka dots as a background paper. There are also stripes on the ribbon. 


Join us at Heart 2 Heart and show us your interpretation of Mix & Match, This & That. Since this challenge goes live on February 27th, leaving just 2 days in February, it will be counted as the first challenge in March. So, you have the entire month of March to enter this or any of the March challenges. 

Products used are all Close To My Heart

Paper: Adventure Fundamentals, White Daisy Cardstock
Stamps: In Bloom, Hello Lovely - Cardmaking, Banner Wishes (ret.) 
Inks: Emerald, Raspberry, Black Pigment Ink
Accessories: Adventure Ribbon Pack, Hello Lovely - Cardmaking Thin Cuts, Purple Hearts Enamel and Glitter Duos, ShinHan Markers, Clear Detail Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Scallop Border Punch (ret.) 

Enjoy, 
Alyson





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Friday, February 24, 2017

Colour Dare 232 - Watercolour Hello Card

This week's Colour Dare is a combination of 4 colours - White Daisy, Lemon, Fern and Sapphire. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to do with this combination - there were no current patterned papers with any of these colours - just the Fundamental papers - so it was either create my own pattern or do something else completely different. I chose the latter. 

I saw this idea on Pinterest - stamping the ends and painting in the middle. I wasn't sure how to go about the process so I did a sample first. This took me a lot of time - I had to mask and emboss the stamping component so that was a slow process, especially since it was done in three colours and the embossing was done in sections due to the masking part. 

The water colouring was another story... this is NOT my strength by any means. Frankly, it terrifies me. I chose to emboss the stamped images so as to protect them (hopefully - at least that was the goal). I wet the paper and then put blobs of paint in the three colours randomly around the paper. With a smaller brush, I blended sections of them together, working fairly quickly. I painted along the stamped images, adding water to keep the colours from drying on me. The hardest part is not letting the colours all blend together into one giant messy colour. When that was dry, I went back with some ShinHan markers and coloured in some of the stamped images and added the Thin Cut plus a few embellishments. 

So, here is my final card - a new creative challenge for me but one I would like to try again, for sure. It was fun :) 




Join us at Colour Dare, using all and only the colours shown in the photo. If you don't have the Close To My Heart colours, use something as close as possible. The challenge ends on Thursday, March 2 at 10pm EST. 

Products used are all Close To My Heart

Paper: White Daisy Cardstock, Sapphire Cardstock, Watercolour Paper
Stamps: Here for You, Springtime Wishes (ret.), Love This (ret.)
Inks: Sapphire Pigment Ink, Fern Pigment Ink, Lemon Pigment Ink
Accessories: Hello Thin Cut, Clear Detail Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Watercolour Paints, Paintbrushes, Blue Dot Enamel and Glitter Gems, ShinHan Markers, Foam Tape

Enjoy, 
Alyson





Monday, February 20, 2017

AH 200 - Triangles, Triangles... and Happy Birthday!

Atlantic Hearts has reached its 200th sketch! That's really quite amazing. I remember being here when we reached Sketch 100, so it has been a while now. I love this design team and I love working with sketches, so it's a prefect match :) 

For this sketch, I pulled out a Picture My Life card from the Beautiful You Collection. Although Sea Glass is not a colour that was used in that collection, I was able to hide the green that was used on the background card with the sentiment and flower so it didn't show so I could focus on the Sea Glass instead. It goes so well with black and gold. 
I embossed part of the sentiment in gold and used some of the Black Shimmer Ribbon to hold the sentiment piece in place. A flower added to the top of the sentiment makes the card just a little more feminine. 



Join us at Atlantic Hearts for our 200th sketch challenge and show us your interpretation of the sketch  shown above. You have until Sunday evening to enter your project. 

Products used are all Close To My Heart

Paper: Sea Glass Cardstock, White Daisy Cardstock, Raspberry Cardstock, Picture My Life Beautiful You Collection 
Stamps: Happy to be Friends
Inks: Black, Versamark
Accessories: Artiste Cartridge (ret.), Gold Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Thin Foam Tape, Gold Glitter Gems, Black Shimmer Ribbon, Corner Rounder

Enjoy, 
Alyson



Monday, February 13, 2017

H2H - Tuxedo Black and White

The challenge at Heart 2 Heart this week is titled "Tuxedo - Black and White". I interpreted that to create a project using black and white. I LOVE challenges like this because they really make me think and try things I am not normally doing every day. 

I had to spend some significant time on my Cricut machine, preparing individual flower stems by slicing leaves and grouping images to turn them to black so they could cut as a group rather than as individual pieces. I love the way this turned out. I pulled a very old button from my stash along with some old ribbon and they went perfectly with this design. I chose not to add a sentiment to my card - if I want one later, that can always be added at a later date. 


Join us at Heart 2 Heart and show us your interpretation of "Tuxedo - Black and White". You have the rest of the month of February to enter this or any of the February challenges. 

Products used are Close to My Heart unless otherwise noted: 

Paper:White Daisy Cardstock, Black Cardstock
Stamps: None
Inks None
Accessories: Flower Market Cartridge, Dot Embossing Folder (ret.), Diamond Embossing Folder (ret.), Button (ret.), Satin Ribbon (not CTMH)

Enjoy, 
Alyson






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Friday, February 10, 2017

Colour Dare 230 - Edged Flower Birthday Card

The Colour Dare challenge this week is made up of the following colours: 

White Daisy, Pixie, Saffron and Whisper. 

We encourage you to use Close To My Heart colours but if you don't have Close To My Heart products, you can still enter our challenges. Just use something as close as possible. Your project needs to contain all and only these colours. 


This challenge will remain open until 10 pm EST on Thursday, February 16. 

My card has 5 flowers along the side which I trimmed and I then placed an embossed base on the back of the card. The sentiment is very simple and I added a few coordinating ribbons and embellishments to create a border at the top. 


Join us at Colour Dare and show us how you use these colours to create a project all your own! 

Products used are Close To My Heart unless otherwise indicated: 

Paper: White Daisy Cardstock, Whisper Cardstock
Stamps: Love This (ret.), Say it All (ret.), Framed (ret.) 
Inks: Whisper, Saffron, Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Grey Enamel Gems, Pink Shimmer Trim (ret.), ShinHan Markers, Dot Embossing Folder (ret.), Deep Yellow Ribbon (not CTMH), Grey Gathered Ribbon (not CTMH), Pink Grosgrain Ribbon (not CTMH)

Enjoy, 
Alyson




Monday, February 6, 2017

Atlantic Hearts 198 - Masculine Birthday Funnies

I always have a hard time with masculine birthday cards... Sometimes the best idea is to go with a humorous approach! 

This one was created using the Some Kinda Wonderful paper pack - full of bright and bold colours. I chose to use a black patterned paper as my background and some of the brighter colours for the accents. The sentiments is stamped on one of the PML cards that had a word balloon on it. The actual balloon was a little too big so I trimmed around it but only used the top part of it and added a Lemon coloured background for emphasis. The multi-coloured zip strip was a perfect addition to this card. 



Join us at Atlantic Hearts and show us your interpretation of the sketch shown above. You have until Sunday evening to link up your project. 

Products used are all Close To My Heart

Paper: Some Kinda Wonderful Paper Pack, White Daisy Cardstock, Lemon Cardstock
Stamps: Birthday Funnies (ret.), Birthday Sparkles
Inks: Pacifica, Lemon (inside)
Accessories: Black Shimmer Trim, White Shimmer Trim, Blue Enamel and Glitter Dots

Enjoy, 
Alyson



Wednesday, February 1, 2017

February Stamp of the Month Blog Hop - Easter Bunny


Welcome to February's Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! This month, we are featuring the stamp set "Easter Bunny" - a set of 12 stamps. This is a whimsical set of stamps, with three bunnies, some terrific sentiments and a few little extras. The bloggers along this blog hop will certainly show you many ways to use this awesome stamp set, so sit back and enjoy the tour. 

You should have arrived here from Darlys Recker's blog.


If you get lost, a list of all blogs can be found on Melinda Everitt's blog

The stamp set looks like this.



I chose to create a 5x7 card for this blog hop. I needed the larger space to accommodate the heads of the bunnies in the windows of the card. 
The heads were heat embossed so I could colour them. I also wanted them pointing various directions. I outlined the windows using the twine ribbon from the Rustic Home Ribbon Pack. 



The next blog on the hop is Judy Faye Garner's blog
I'm sure she has a wonderful project to share with you.

You can get this stamp set for just $6 this month with a $50 purchase. 

Visit my shopping site here


Remember this stamp set is only available until February 28th! 

Products used are all Close To My Heart

Paper: Sugar Rush Paper Pack, White Daisy Cardstock, Sea Glass Cardstock, Blossom Cardstock
Stamps: Easter Bunny
Inks: Cocoa Pigment Ink, Pomegranate
Accessories: Cricut Base Images, Sugar Rush Dots, ShinHan Markers, Rustic Home Ribbon Pack, Clear Detail Embossing Powder, Heat Tool

Enjoy, 
Alyson