Customer Appreciation Open House!!

SAVE THE DATE!! Sunday January 4th I will be having

Customer Appreciation Open House from 3pm-6pm.

Come and see what is brand new with the grand revealing of the Spring Idea Book that officially releases January 1st. This catalog has some fun and innovative new stamps and paper packs that really keeps up with the trends in scrapbooking and paper crafting. Here's a seek peek:

All of my loyal customers will recieve 10% off thier entire order (before s/h & tax) that they order at this event!! Better yet.....bring a friend that is new to CTMH and receive and additional 5% off and your friend will get 5% their order! What a great deal! All as a "Thank You" for your loyalty and friendship these past 7 months that I've been your Consultant.

During the Open House there will be make-and-takes, door prizes, gift certificate giveaways, refreshments, fun and more! Come on by on Sunday and see what the excitement is all about! This event will be held at my home: 16817 Larch Way #B108, Lynnwood.

It will be so terrific seeing everyone and having such a blast playing with the new products! Hope to see you all there!

National Paper Crafting Month!

The "Key to my Heart" stamp and paper kit is now available! This exclusive kit is only available through January 31st, so get yours today!

The paper pack you receive is so beautiful! It uses all of our newest most delicious colors: Juniper, Sorbet, Tulip, and Creme Brulee. The stamp set is an "E" size set that is our largest size. Let me tell you, these stamps are absolutely gorgeous! I've been waiting for CTMH to come out with something like this! I can't wait until mine arrives on the 22nd! I'll hopefully have time to make some things and post to share how cool this kit is.

Both the stamp set and the paper pack together are valued at $47.90, but you can get it for as little as $20 or even FREE! By only spending $75 you can purchase the "Key to My Heart" kit for only $20, or spend $130 and get it FREE. Better yet....host a qualifying gathering of $400 (which is really easy to achieve) and get the kit for FREE! Sign up as a Consultant and you can also get the kit for FREE in addition to the great deeply discounted consultant kits.

I will be having a Customer Appreciation Open House on January 4th from 3pm-6pm and will have the kit on display for everyone to see and play with. See the next post for the details on that event.

Any questions please feel free to comment here, or send me an e-mail at skunamuffin@yahoo.com Happy crafting!

December Club layouts

OK Ladies....here they are. Pictures of the layout we'll be making this Sunday for Club night. This time I didn't have pictures ordered through Snapfish yet to put any on to help with placement. That's why I also took a picture of the front of the workshop guide to help with picture placement.

This time we will be using paper and MyStickease from the snowy "Aspen" collection. This collection is really pretty. Hope you all have fun this Sunday!

Materials: All CTMH. Aspen L2 PP, Aspen MyStickease, natural twill ribbon, "New Fallen Show" SS, "Snowflake Kisses" SS, "Friendship" alpha SS, "Simple Stitches" SS, natural twill ribbon, twilight corduroy brads, twilight ink, outdoor denim ink, desert sand ink, Dermacoat acrylic paint, piercing tool, embossing stylus, blending pen, sanding kit.

Pictures of an old project

I came across these pictures today and decided to share them with you all. It's an accordion tag mini album I made for some friends of mine who had a baby. Courtney's now like 6 years old and just as cute! One of my favorite things is handmaking gifts for friends and family. Some of the panels on one side have pockets where I put more pictures. The other side has pockets with tags I made for the parents to write down their thoughts of the day Courtney was born. Sorry that some of the pictures are a little blurry, and obviously the flash was too much on the last shot.

Materials: Bear with me, it's been a long while since I made it. My memory of the products is a little fuzzy.

Accordion tags I got somewhere. DCWV paper. Making Memories fabric tags, brads, definition stickers, metal embellishments, and rub-ons. Misc. other items I don't know where they came from.

I've been a busy girl...

Sorry it's been soooo long since I've posted something. I have been incredibly busy lately and finally have a change to post some projects......quite a few projects. Doing a little blog catch-up.

This card is a simple 3"x3" card I made to send out for Thanksgiving. Yet again, I used some rogue stamps. *gasp!* I know, but they were cool. Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my CTMH stamps. It's OK to have a little variety. :) I used Liquid Glass to make some of the leaves stand out by adding dimension.

Materials: All CTMH. Colonial White CS, Liquid Glass, chocolate exclusive ink, sanding kit, sponge. Other--DCWV fall paper pack, Inkadinkado "Autumn" stamp set, dollar deals ribbon from Target

Going Public!!

It's now official! Close To My Heart has authorized us as Consultants to use our personal blogs for promoting CTMH products and events. I'm excited because now I get to share even more about this terrific company with all of you! Granted I have "cheated" a little by advertising my Christmas card workshop. Oops! ;)

All the product I use on most of my blogs is CTMH and I must say that the quality of their awesome acrylic stamps is the best around. I admit, I have in the past bought other brands of acrylic stamps, but they don't hold the ink and stamp clear and crisp images as well as CTMH. The papers are a cut above most of the ones you can get at your local store. Especially our heavy weight cardstock. I must say, our cardstock is the BOMB!! You can do so much with it. I really love all the ways that you can distress the paper and how in holds ink. So versatile!

One of the best things about CTMH products....everything coordinates! You can purchase patterned paper and then get the EXACT matching ink, markers, cardstock, and even cool embellishments! Takes all the guess work from trying to match a random paper to some leftover embellishments. This truly makes scrapbooking and stamping, as CTMH's motto says: "Faster. Simpler. Easier."

If you are at all interested in finding out more about CTMH's great products, or would like some advice on how to make your projects pop, please contact me. And as always, please check back here often to see what new projects I've been working on and get inspired!

Christmas gifts

Every year I make gifts for my family for Christmas. Sometimes I wish that I could just give them a gift card and call it good, but dang it! I just HAD to start making gifts. Now that I'm a consultant for Close To My Heart, the handmade trinkets are even more expected. Now I can never stop. Each year I try to come up with something different and that my family will actually use. One year it was a lap blanket, another year a mini scrapbook of my brother's wedding, another year was ornaments with family photos. It goes on and on.

This year I came up the idea of doing a wall hanging that they can use for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've only completed one side. The "fall" side is obviously meant for Thanksgiving, and the other side will say "noel" and use the Aspen paper pack. The first image is of the first one I completed. I realized it was FAR too detailed to make multiple versions (everyone has to have the same so there's no fighting of which is the best) so I kept that one for myself. :) The other ones will be tied together once I complete the other side.

Materials: All CTMH. Magic Moments L2PP, dimensional elements solo letters, "Playful Flourishes" SS, cocoa and indian corn blue inks, cocoa re-inker, acrylic paint, scallop scissors, cocoa and colonial white ribbon, goldrush and sweet leaf buttons, sunflower embroidery floss, Coluzzle circle cutter, liquid glass.

Other-ribbon from Target dollar deals, EK punches,

November scrapbook club

So here they are....my examples for the Notebook Workshop-on-the-go project for our club night. This is my absolute favorite paper pack! The colors are fun, and I love the aged look. These are pretty simple layouts, so hopefully we can get all sex pages done. (hopefully) ;)

Materials: All CTMH. Notebook L2PP, Notebook MyStickease, "Shining Star" SS, "Rustic" alpha SS, "Friendship" alpha SS, "Simple Stitches" SS, "Friendship word puzzle" SS, "Delightful" alpha SS, desert sand ink, chocolate ink, black ink, colonial white brads, hollyhock twill ribbon, dimentional elements "fresh shapes", black marker.

In a "posty" mood...

So, I post craft items on here so much that I though I'd share with you some personal pics. These are of my favorite two-year-old Haylee as her dad and I took here to the pumpkin patch in Snohomish a couple weeks ago. She is soooo stinkin cute! I want to steal her every time I get to see her!

The terrain was pretty muddy and lumpy, so as we were traipsing through the patch, I hear Haylee behind me saying "Weee! Weeeee!". I look behind me to find her "running" down the lumpy slopes like they were giant hills. Oh, the little things that entertain a two-year-old! It as so cute!

We were trying to get her to pick out a pumpkin by encouraging her to pick up some of the smaller pumpkins:

Me: "Haylee, how about this pumpkin?"

Haylee: "No, it dirty!"

Me: "Well honey, they're all dirty. How about this one?"

Haylee: "No, it wet!"

Me: "It's OK, your clothes can be washed"

Haylee: "Look at my shoes, they dirty!"

Me: "Look at my shoes, they're dirty too"

That then encouraged her to stop every few feet to say "look at my shoes!" over and over again. She did finally pick out the smallest pumpkin in the patch but didn't want to carry it. So her dad handed her is hot chocolate to carry so he could carry her pumpkin. After that, I could hear her every now an then saying "ummm, hot chocolate", "it yummy". Not only is she a young diva, but she loves her chocolate! True girly girl!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This shot shows the embossing

This shot shows the dimension

Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday!! I love the crispness in the air, the smell of fall, and the fun and freedom of dressing up and going to a party or taking a child out trick-or-treating. That's what make me soooo excited when I saw this stamp set when the new fall/winter catalog came out. The Creepy Cobwebs set was one of my first purchases. This set is awesome! This so one of the cards I made to send out to friends and family. After embossing, I used a sponge and some ink to add more color. Again, the die-cut wasn't in the color I wanted, so I just covered it in some patterned paper.

Materials: All CTMH. White Daisy CS base, Goldrush CS, Black CS, Game on B/T paper, Creepy Cobwebs SS, Delightful Alphabet SS, Dazzling die-cuts in Autumn Harvest, versa mark embossing ink, black embossing powder, black exclusive ink, goldrush exclusive ink, black designer ribbon rounds, sanding kit, edge distresser, sponge, 3D pop dots, micro-tip scissors.

Other: green ribbon by Lil Davis Designs, "fall" ribbon from Target.

Wonderful Rub-ons

I made this card for an entry into CTMH's corporate rub-on contest. This literally took me four hours to make because I stewed so long on how to do each individual element so long. After all was said and done though, I really love the outcome!

Can I say again how much I love the Magic Moments paper! If you haven't noticed yet, I use it a lot. I used chalks to color in sections of the rub-on, and also some of our new die-cut elements to create some uniqueness. The punctuation die-cut was the same color as the letter, so I just covered it in patterend paper to create the contrast. Also, liquid glass was applied to some of the rub-ons to make them stand out.

Materials: All CTMH. Colonial White CS, Magic Moments L2 PP, Dazzling die-cuts in Winter Cozy, Nature's Ambiance rub-ons in chocolate, Love Letters rub-ons in chocolate, cocoa exclusive ink, cocoa grosgraing ribbon, hollyhock button, sunflower waxy flax, liquid glass, sanding kit, edge distresser, scallop scissors.

Christmas Card Workshop

This will be the first year that I'm going to do Christmas card workshops where you can easily make your own cards. The two dates I have chosen are Sunday November 16th and Saturday November 29th. Both dates are open house style from 12 noon until 8pm so you can come whenever is convenient for you. The workshops will be held at my condos cabana in the Martha Lake area.

For only $30 you can hand make 50 of your own Christmas cards for you and your loved ones to enjoy and appreciated far more than yet another boxed card from a department store. That's only about 60 cents per card!! Even better.....I will pre-cut all the paper for you, so all you have to do it assemble and stamp your images. Put your own twist on them by using my stamps and your imagination to complete some very fun cards. There are two patterns/colors to chose from: "Aspen", which are blues and creams, and "Evensong", which is the traditional red and green. All supplies are of course Close To My Heart.

This will be a truly great time of fun and socializing all the while making all your Christmas cards WELL before you have to send them off. Even if you're completely new to stamping and cardmaking, you won't believe how simple they are to make!! If your a veteran to crafts, I know you'll learn something new and love it! If you think that 50 cards is way too many for you, invite a friend to go halves with you and enjoy making them together.

If you are at all interested, please contact me so that I may order your supplies in time. And please invite anyone you please!! The examples are from the "Aspen" collection.

Cards from remaining Magic Moments kit

Hello everyone,

Little late getting up the pics for the cards I made using the leftover paper from our October club night. Been super busy this month. Only have a few minutes to post, so I'll have to come back and fill in the materials later. The first card is a "scrap-lift" from Nona's blog. It was one of her video tutorials. You should look at her blog,she has loads of great ideas! The link is on this site on the right side. Hope you all enjoy them and are inspired!

Layouts for Sara's party

All excited for Sara's CTMH party tomorrow! Here are the two layouts that the guests will have a choice of making. Sara really likes both the Magic Moments and Notebook papers, so that's what I wanted to make them with. Plus I used one of my favorite stamp sets, "Shining Star". The "stitching" on the Magic Moments layout is actually are a stamp from the "Circle Round" set. Hope everyone has lots fun and discover how easy it is to scrapbook!

Materials for Notebook layout: All CTMH. Notebook L2 PP, "Shining Star" SS, Colonial White CS, cocoa and hollyhock exclusive inks, cocoa grosgrain ribbon, window charms, micro tip scissors, "Playful Flourishes" SS for photo corners, hollyhock exclusive marker for "photo" word, "Then & Now-right" layout idea from Cherish layout book. Other-EK circle punches.

Materials for Magic Moments layout: All CTMH. Magic Moments L2 PP, "Magic Moments" SS, "Circle Round" SS, colonial white CS, cocoa and indian corn blue and sweet leaf exclusive inks, colonial white grosgrain ribbon, floral dimensional elements, hollyhock designer ribbon rounds, "Playful Flourishes" SS for photo corners, hollyhock exclusive marker for "photo" word, "Ensemble Piece-right" layout idea from Imagine layout book. Other-EK circle punch.

October club pages

Ok ladies.....here they are. Our six pages we will be making for the October club night. This is using the Magic Moments L2 paper pack with matching embellies. The first page, the blank space under the title is for journaling. There is one empty square on the third page where I need another picture. Also, the strips are for more journaling. I just need to get a matching cocoa marker. Most of the pictures measure either 5x7 and 3x3. I did adapt for the standard 4x6 and it looks fine.

Again, there is a lot of extra paper left! Love how much we can get out of these packs! I will be posting some cards and what-not's out of my leftovers later. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, I want a new camara. Hope you like them!

Materials: All CTMH. Magic Moments L2 PP, Magic Moments MyStickease, "Magic Moments" SS, "Friendship Large Alpha" SS, Cocoa Exclusive Inks, Hollyhock Exclusive Marker, Colonial White grograin ribbon, Sunflower waxy flax, window charms, piercing tool, scallop scissors.

Good Times Had By All

So the first of our club gatherings was last night. It turned out to be a smashing success! Most of the ladies were able to make it and they all got to meet each other. I think this is going to be a great group of fun women.

They made most of the six layouts that their kits contains. Each one receives a Level 2 paper packet, matching MyStickease and coordinating embellishments, which this time included our NEW rub-ons and matching cocoa ribbon to go with the Perfect Day PP. It was so great to see how quickly and easily they all figured out to put their kits together. Mind you, these kits start with whole pages of cardstock and patterned paper where they use cutting and layout guides to cut their own paper and lay them out for finished pages. It was so great to see individuality and creativity in each member as they were putting things together. Each put their own personal touches on their layouts to make it uniquely their own.

This is shaping up to be a big hit in my business and I'm so excited! Not only am I earning sales, I'm helping nine lovely ladies by showing them how truly easy it is to create beautiful layouts quickly and simply while having fun doing it! And with minimal effort on my part. Just a little guidance. This company is so awesome!!

Sometimes contraband is fun

So I found these "other" stamps at "Mike's" when I went to use a gift card for my birthday. I couldn't help but buy two different sets. I really like the style of these. To set over the guilt of buying them, I made a few cards using nothing else but CTMH products. ;)

Materials: "Thankful for Everything" SS from Inkadinkado. All other is CTMH. Perfect Day L2 PP, Cocoa grosgrain ribbon, Juniper, Sorbet, and Tulip Exclusive Inks, Creme Brulee Designer Ribbon Rounds, edge distresser, sanding kit, stylus, sponge. Other-staples from Staples.