CTMH Australasian - Sangria Blog Hop

Hi and welcome aboard our Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop featuring our stunning paper collection - Sangria! If you have arrived here from Scrappy Matters and the delightful Simone Morton then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. This new paper collection from Close To My Heart is just so warm and inviting that you'll be dying to get your hands on it, especially after seeing the wonderful creations we've got in store for you as you make your way around the blog hop.

Take a look at those stunning colours! One of the things I love about Close To My Heart is the way they make everything match. It's not just a new paper pack - there's paper, coordinating compliments and of course bling! It then steps up another level with the Workshop On The Go scrapbooking kit which provides you with everything you need to create at least 2 stunning double page layouts - including instructions!

It's been a busy time for me lately with it being school holidays so I haven't been able to play as 

much as I would've liked to, however I want to share with you how versatile this paper collection 

is as I was able to quickly whip up a few cards using just a couple of sheets but each card 

being of a completely different nature!

Firstly I made a few 3x3 cards that are simply just for! Aren't those little guys just the cutest! They make up a bunch of cute little creatures as part of our newest Operation Smile stamp set - Animal Greetings. By purchasing this stamp set you are helping a child get their smile back! These little guys were all coloured in using our Shinhan Marker range and they were so much fun to do! Don't forget you can click on any image to make it larger if you need a closer look.

The next card I created was one that could be used to celebrate a birthday, an anniversary or any other special day for someone. Something that I really wanted to try with this paper collection was some gold heat embossing. I really felt it would set the colours off and our gold embossing powder is just perfect for it don't you think? It just says elegant to me. The gorgeous swirl I've featured here is from 

the Love Life stamp set and the butterflies and sentiment are from Your Own Kind of Wonderful 

- two of my personal favourites. 

So we've had some "just because" cards and a "Special Day" card. This collection is that 

versatile it also said "Christmas" to me! Does it say Christmas to you? Aren't those little ornaments cute! Again I decided on some more gold heat embossing to really make the colours pop and add that something special to the card. 

And lastly - for those who like to do digital scrapbooking - you haven't been forgotten!

Close To My Heart has released a Sangria Studio J Collection for a limited time! 

Take the link and get in quick to ensure you don't miss out on this wonderful collection.

I hope you've had fun reading about one of our newest paper collections and seeing what I've created, I know I've certainly had fun playing with this collection and I can't wait to see what it inspires you to do!

 Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look around - to order any of Sangria products be sure to contact your CTMH Consultant. I'd really love you to leave a comment before you hop on over to see what has been created in Vandra's Virtual CTMH Craftroom. Thanks again for joining us.

Twinkle- S1510 - CTMH Australiasian Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

                                                      

Hi and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month 

Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived 

here from Wendy Hopper's Expressions of the Heart then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas! Everywhere you go!
I love this time of year, Christmas always has me so excited!!
I love the festive season and I especially love to be able to create my own little bits and pieces and add my personal flair to it all - and I couldn't be more spoilt with what Close To My Heart has to offer to         help me accomplish this!!  Starting of course with the October Stamp of the Month - Twinkle! This stamp set is just full of Christmas spirit and will have you crafting Christmas goodies like there's no tomorrow!

I just love how simple Close To My Heart make it for us to make fantastic handcrafted, personal creations with ease, having stunning artwork like this stamp set at our fingertips!

The simplicity goes a step further with this stamp set being cricut compatible with the Artiste  cartridge, as indicated by the red outline, ensuring perfect shapes every time for your stamped images. 

This D size stamp set is available exclusively throughout August for $27 - or yours for just $7.50 when you spend $75







I had so much fun creating a few quick cards 
with this set - I hope you enjoy them.
Firstly I played around with some background stamping to create this panel using cranberry ink and simply matting with cranberry cardstock to really make the pattern pop. 
Simple but effective and eye catching I think. 
How about you?









I had lots of fun playing with colours to create 
this next little card. Colours used
were lagoon, thistle, pear, honey and cranberry.
The string of lights reminds me of Christmas time at my Nan's when I was a child. She had this old set of lights that were shaped like these bulbs and I can still remember how they clinked together when we were trying to untangle them. 
Good times! Great memories!







This last card was a little more involved but was still really fun to create. I used my artiste circuit cartridge to cut the circles and stamped as pictured using cranberry ink as well as versa mark ink which was then heat embossed using our silver powder. The touch of silver really adds to the festive feel. The white background was given a hint if elegance by embossing with our quatrefoil embossing folder, which I think really sets it all off.

I hope you've enjoyed having a look at my little creations, they were lots of fun to do. 

I'm sure I don't need to tell you again how much Christmas excites me!! It's only 84 days to go!!

 I'm sure you wanted to know that ..... do make sure you pop back between now and then to see 

what other Christmas crafts I have instore! 

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look around - don't forget that this cute stamp set, Twinkle, is only available for the month of September from your CTMH Consultant. 

I'd really love you to leave a comment before you hop on over to Doris Taylor's Creative Inspirations 

to see the wonderful ideas she has to share with you. 

Paper Garden – S1508 - CTMH Australiasian Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Hi and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month 

Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived 

here from Doris Taylor's Creative Inspirations then you are in the 

right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please

join in by following the link at the end of this post.

The September Stamp of the month, Paper Garden, is such a lovely stamp set that you'll use over and over with themes of spring, gardens, the outdoors and weddings coming to mind. I'm sure you'll be able to think of more than that also.

This stamp set is also circuit compatible and uses the Artiste Collection. The red outlines indicate which shapes can be recut by your circuit, ensuring perfect shapes every time!

This stamp set is available exclusively throughout August for $27 - or yours for just $7.50 when you spend $75

Over here in the Midwest of WA it's wildflower season for us and this stamp set gave me the perfect chance to creative a few layouts for some photos that I've been meaning to put onto a page (or 3) for sometime - like since 2011! It also gave me the chance to play with a new technique that I've only recently come across myself ..... painting with our inks!

Yes you heard right - painting with our inks using your acrylic block and your blending pen! You will see from the photos below (feel free to click on any that you want to see on a larger scale) that I chose to stamp the images in whisper ink. The colours I decided I wanted to "paint" with for this occasion were thistle and pear, with further green highlights in topiary. 

I rubbed my block across the ink pad and then used my blending pen to pick up the ink and proceeded to colour accordingly, adding further layers of colour as I saw fit to create the tones in the flowers. Once I was happy with those I then added further highlights to the leaves by changing to the darker topiary ink.

These gorgeous strips became the main highlight of my layout!

Once I had matted them using thistle and pear cardstock I really felt it finished 

the strips off nicely and I decided I really didn't need to add much more.

The title block was created using the Keyboard Uppercase (in thistle) and 

Handwritten Print (in whisper) lettering stamp sets.

Now it was ready for my photos - and there you have it! 

 One page layout capturing the fun my children had playing in the wildflowers of the 

Midwest for the first time ..... they had a ball (apart from the very friendly flies)

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look around - don't forget that this gorgeous stamp set, Paper Garden, is only available for the month of September from your CTMH Consultant. 

I'd really love you to leave a comment before you hop on over to Vandra's Virtual CTMH Craftroom 

to see the wonderful ideas she has to share with you. 

CTMH Australasian - Zoe Blog Hop

Hi and welcome aboard our Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop featuring our newest paper collection - Zoe! If you have arrived here from Mummy You Made This? then you are in the right place.    If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

One of the things that I first loved about the Zoe paper collection was how versatile it was!

It totally struck me as either boy or girl depending on which side of the paper you choose to work with and the colours you decide to combine, which means that it can fit in with whatever your choosing to create. I decided that I really wanted to showcase this feature so I created 2 birthday cards with very little differences. All I really did was flip the paper!!

So you can see in the left photo I've used the hounds tooth side of one of the papers and 

matched it with Glacier exclusive ink and Whisper exclusive ink to create a more 

male colour schemed card.On the right photo I've flipped the same sheet of the Zoe paper to 

show the dotty side and matched it with Sorbet exclusive ink and Glacier exclusive ink inks 

to give a slightly more feminine touch.

Now don't you just love shimmer trim!! The shimmer trim on the card on the right is our lovely 

new addition - coral shimmer! While the card on the left actually uses our White Shimmer Trim! 

Can you believe that? It's our white shimmer trim coloured in with the Turquoise Blue Shinhan marker!! 

(Yep! You can colour our white shimmer trim in whatever colour you like using our Shinhan markers!)

The stamped feathers came from the gorgeous stamp set C1584 Feathers and were fussy cut using the precision of our non-stick Micro Tip Scissors.

To add further dimension to the cards I decided to emboss the white backgrounds using the Arrow Embossing folder on the left card, and the Scallop embossing folder on the right. 

The birthday sentiment and frame are from the August Stamp of the Month, Framed, which is available

 for this month only! Yours for only $5 with a purchase of $75! Otherwise you can also purchase for the normal price of $27. Contact your consultant to find out more!

The second thing that caught my eye about the Zoe paper collection was how FUN it was!! 

This collection wanted to lend itself to cute little party decor - what do you think of my little popcorn 

cups and thank you gift bags? These were created using the Artiste Cricut cartridge.

The sentiments on the gift bags again came from the August Stamp of the Month, Framed, 

and were tied with our glacier extra thick twine to finish them off. Aren't they just the cutest!

I hope you've had fun reading about our newest paper collection and seeing what I've created, I know I've certainly had fun playing with this collection and I can't wait to see what it inspires you to do!

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look around - to order any of Zoe products be sure to contact your CTMH Consultant. I'd really love you to leave a comment before you hop on 

over to see what Leah has created at Cameron's Corner. Thanks again for joining us. 

Framed S1508 CTMH Australiasian Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Hi and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. 

If you have arrived here from Vandra's Virtual CTMH Craftroom then you are in the 

right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the 

link at the end of this post. 

The August Stamp of the month, Framed, is such a cute, versatile stamp set that you'll use over and over throughout the year with it's array of sentiments. 

This stamp set is available exclusively throughout August for $27 - or yours for just $5 when you spend $75.

A great bonus of this stamp set is that it's Cricut compatible and uses the brand NEW

 cricut collection just released by CTMH this month! The Artistry cartridge! 

Cutting your stamp mats with the Artistry cartridge ensures that you can get perfect 

shapes each time to then stamp.

The red outline shows you which shapes can be cut using your cricut.

Seeing as Fathers Day is just around the corner I decided to whip up a very quick 

Fathers Day card using the appropriate sentiment from the stamp set, along with a 

few quick cuts from the new cricut cartridge. I'm totally stoked how cute this little guy 

looks and my kids now want to keep this one to give to Dad for Fathers Day.

So what do you think? Isn't he a bit of a spunk!

All cuts were set to 1.25" RDS to ensure they matched together in size.

I used some thin 3D Foam tape when mounting them onto the white daisy cardstock 

to give them a bit of a lift. I then further mounted the white onto a piece 

of outdoor denim cardstock which I think completes the look. 

Now the outdoor denim is a retiring colour and will no longer be available after 

this month so if you're loving the colour I strongly suggest you grab yourself 

a pack (or 3) before it goes! 

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look around - don't forget that this 

very versatile stamp set, Framed, is only available for the month of August from 

your CTMH Consultant. I'd really love you to leave a comment before you hop on 

over to Jenny's Blog, The Creative Heart to see the wonderful ideas she has to 

share with you. 

Home For The Holidays S1410 CTMH Australiasian Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Hi and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived here from Shaunna's Passionate About Pages then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. 


The October Stamp of the month - Home for the Holidays is just full of Christmas cuteness! 

I know, I know - I said the "Christmas" word - but let's be honest, it's really not that far away now so it really is time to think about all those wonderful, handmade crafty bits and pieces you're planning 
to do.

This stamp set is available exclusively throughout October for $27 - or yours for just $5 when you spend $75.

A great bonus of this stamp set is that it's Cricut compatible and uses the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge to ensure that you can get perfect shapes each time to then stamp.

The red outline shows you which shapes can be cut using your cricut machine and the backplate of the stamp set have the sizing and page number already there for ease of reference. 

I thoroughly enjoyed playing  around with this stamp set
 and my very first creation 
was this totally cute, 
decorated, gift canister. 
I've used the candy cane and lolly stamp to create the background as well as using it for the cute little hanging tags.

There are so many gorgeous little bits that make this truly pop! From the gold embossing powder used on the flowers, to the stunning red Shimmer Trim, the self adhesive (gotta love that!) Gold sequins and the itty Bitty sparkles to finish it off.

I'm sure everyone would love to receive some Christmas cheer in something like this!

I have also decided to start off the Christmas cheer by making up a limited number of these as into what I call "Grab & Go" kits. The main components are all together in kit form for you to simply then adhere to the container. I highly recommend using our Bonding Memories  glue for this. To find out more about these grab and go kits you can contact me here.

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look around - don't forget that this wonderfully cute Home For The Holidays stamp set is only available for the month of October from your CTMH Consultant. I'd really love you to leave a comment before you hop on over to Wendy's Expressions of the Heart to see the wonderful ideas she has to share with you.