Close To My Heart Watercolors

It's time to share another creation with the Balloon Wishes Stamp Set (D1667.)  If you remember from past posts, My friend Karen and I have decided to feature a CTMH product monthly and share our creations with that product each week.  Today is my turn!

Watercolors are so hot right now!  You can use them as a background, highlight or paint with them.  Today I chose to actually paint my stamped image.

 Balloon wishes has such a wonderful main image that I thought it would be fun to frame it!  First I stamped the balloon with Memento Black.  After it dried, it was cut out.  I used my CTMH watercolors (Z3132) to paint the image.  Tip...when painting a round image, to help it look more realistic, paint the area darker on the outer images and lighter in the center.  This will give the illusion of the light reflecting off the item.

I used Glacier Cardstock for the background and sanded it to give the appearance of a "real" sky.  The clouds were cut using one of my CTMH Cricut cartridges and lightly sponged with Whisper ink.  Lastly, the "Up Up and Away" was stamped with the black ink, cut out lightly painted and attached to the balloon using pop up dots.

Please feel free to check out Karen's Blog to see what she is creating.  And, for sure, don't forget to check out my website for these products along with all of the wonderful Close To My Heart items.  For Now, Happy Crafting!

Close To My Heart and Coloring with Shinhan Markers

I love to color.  I've loved to color before it became popular last year.  It is relaxing along with making you feel like an artist.

The other day, I was going through some of my "older/retired" Close To My Heart stamp sets and came across one that I have always enjoyed using.  It is called Summer Breeze and pictures a lighthouse, sailboat and beach scene.  It is just perfect for coloring!

CTMH began collaborating with Shinhan markers a few years ago.  They are alcohol based which makes them easy to blend and shade.

By the way...this is the second week of my joint venture with Karen and the featured CTMH product.  Hop on over to her blog and see what she did with the Balloon Wishes stamp set.  For Now, Happy Crafting!

It is time for a new CTMH Annual Inspirations Book!

It is hard to believe that the me has rolled around for a new Close To My Heart Annual Inspiration Book.  The 2016/2017 book is here today!

I've not been as good about posting as I once had been.  I start out with the best intentions and then life gets in the way.  Well, I am really going to try to do my very best maintain steady posts (this with a little help from my friend Karen.)  We have decided to share posting time by featuring a product a month.  This month, to celebrate the new idea book, we chose to feature a wonderful stamp set called Balloon Wishes (D1667.)  It highlights a hot air balloon that is perfect for watercolors, markers or paper piecing along with a number of useful sentiments.  This set works perfectly for both scrapbook pages and cards.  So without further ado, here is our first installment using Balloon Wishes.

I used Glacier and Juniper card stock for the mats.  The top mat of Glacier was embossed using the Confetti Embossing Folder (Z3118) and then sanded for additional texture.  The balloon image and sentiment were stamped using Black Memento ink onto White Daisy card stock.  Each was then cut out.  The Balloon was colored using my CTMH watercolor pencils (3505) and the color was blended with the blending pen (3174.)  Lastly, the sentiment was "popped up" using 3D tape.

This is just the first in many planned featured product posts.  Remember, I mentioned Karen???  While I'm doing the featured post today, do not forget to head over to her blog for some of the fun things she has been doing.  Next week, she will be doing a project featuring this same stamp set.

I am going to try my very best to keep this posting going.  It feels so good to be doing this kind of creating once again.  If you are interested in seeing the new idea book, stop over to Karen's blog or visit my website for more information.  For Now, Happy Crafting!

Collection Connection: Magical

This is one of the new CTMH paper packets.  Check out all that you can do with the versatile Close To My Heart products!

How to Make That Flip Flop Wreath

A post or so back, I showed you a flip flop wreath that will be our Community Center May project.  As I was doing research for the project, I learned that there were many problems with the flip flops falling off the cardboard/fiber board ring.  I wanted to figure out a way that this would not happen to the ones we made.  I "got it" and now I'm going to share it with you.

Here we go...

1.        Poke pipe cleaner from front side of flip flop through to the back at both heel portions of the shoe’s strap. 

2.     Attach the flip flop to the wire wreath at the connector points of the wreath.  It will take 6 shoes (3 pair) of flip flops to complete the wreath.  Secure with hot glue.

 

3.     While glue is drying, cut 24 pieces of mesh approximately 15 inches in length.

4.        Twist 4 pipe cleaners between each shoe in preparation for the mesh.  This will take 24 pipe cleaners.

5.     Attach mesh to wreath by twisting into each pipe cleaner.

6.      Cut excess pipe cleaner (not to short) and twist ends downward to hide in the mesh.

7.  Hot glue daisies or another type of flat flower to the heel of each shoe to hide the pipe cleaner.

8.      Carefully open the ends of the twisted mesh to spread.

9.       Attach glasses or other decorations if desired.

The finished product...

Simple, quick and cute.   There are so many fun and colorful flip flops.  These flamingo ones

came from Michaels and the ones I used in the first wreath were from the Dollar Store.  For

Now, Happy Crafting!

Close To My Heart Happy Times

Close To My Heart has a special paper packet this merry month of May in honor of National Scrapbooking Month.  It is called "Happy Times."  It is a fun paper packet with what I bet is a hint of the new colors.  There are even 4 sheets that have foil embossed patterns.  It is bright and colorful and I really like it. 

As I mentioned, I want to get back into the swing of things so I used one of my favorite sketch challenges to help me...MojoMonday.  I haven't done a sketch challenge in so long....

The card features a gold heat embossed sentiment to match the Happy Times gold embossed paper I used as a background mat.  The flowers were cut on the Cricut using Hollyhock paper.  Happy Times is available free with a $60 purchase from my website.

I am also working on a picture tutorial on making that flip flop wreath featured in my last post.  Don't forget to check out the CTMH Happy Times paper packet on my website and the sketches on MojoMonday.  For Now, Happy Crafting!