Quick and Simple Christmas Card

Once again I have been playing with the Close to my Heart Art Philosophy stamp set.  This time I made a very quick and simple Christmas card. 

I stamped to Christmas trees, cut them out and accented them with buttons.  I then used pop dots and attached the trees to a red card.

Next I stamped the phrase, "A Wonderful Season of ... Hope, Joy, Love"  on the card with embossing ink.  I then added sliver embossing powder and heat embossed the phrase.

The "snow" at the bottom of the card was hand cut from a scrap of white cardstock and scattered with a few additional buttons.

While this may not be my most detailed or exciting Christmas card ever, it will certainly do as a simple card for an acquaintance.

Welcome Rookie Baby Boy Card

Hello everyone.  It's another Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday.  My talented design team sister Karen selected this week's challenge cut - the BASEBALL from LIFE'S A PARTY cartridge.   I used four cartridges to complete my project for this week's challenge:  Life's a Party, Baseball, Kate's ABCs, and Art Philosophy.  Additionally, I also used one Cricut Imagine Cartridge to print the fabulous coordinating cardstock for my card - Theresa Collins Baby Boutique. 

After designing my card in Cricut Design Studio I printed three 8 x 8 inch squares of cardstock with Baby Boutique, the Baby Boy Words print, the light blue with grey damask print, and a coordinating solid blue.   With additional white, black and brown cardstock scraps, I was ready to begin my card.

The base card was created by welding two baseballs together in Design Studio.  I also welded the shadow cuts for the baseball bat and the word Rookie to the top layer baseball.  I cut the base card in white American Crafts lightly textured cardstock. 

Next I cut the elements for the card front in layers, back to front.  The baseball bat was cut in a solid brown cardstock and a brown print paper.  The baseball bat cuts were adhered to the base card and the large black baseball was glued over top.  Next the baseball top layer, cut in Theresa Collins baby boy words, was added over the black baseball.

The word Rookie was cut from the Baseball cartridge in two  additional layers - a polka dot shadow and a light blue top layer.  I added black doodle dashes to the edges of Rookie.

The "Congratulations" tag was cut using the Art Philosophy cartridge.  I wanted to use one of the new Close to my Heart Art Philosophy stamps - "Congratulations on your ...".  After referencing the cut size listed beside the stamp on the acetate packaging, I cut the Theresa Collins blue and grey print top layer at 2 inches.  I then cut a light blue layer at 2.25 inches and a black layer at 2.5 inches.  I stamped the top layer and then attached all of the layers together.  I add the word "boy" to the bottom of the tag.

I used the negative cut from the baby boy words baseball (from the card front) and glued it to the inside of the card.  I welded the phrase "Welcome baby boy" using Kate's ABC's and using a xyron, attached the phrase inside the card.

I finished the card with a light blue polka dot ribbon bow around the bat.  An especially cute baby card for the baseball fan new parent!

I will be back tomorrow with another new project to share.  In the meantime, remember to drop by BBTB2 and check out the amazing baseball projects the design team is sharing.  Remember that it is also fun to play along on our weekly challenges!

If you would like more information on the Art Philosophy cartridge, stamps, and chipboard set, you can visit Melanie's Close to my Heart consultant site.   I love the versatility of this great set!

My First Art Philosophy Project

I just couldn't stand it, I HAD to play with my Art Philosophy cartridge and Close to my Heart stamps yesterday!!!  I had actually put together a schedule for the week.  The schedule included two lists - one of tasks to accomplish in my house and the other a list of scrappy projects for the week.  According to the infamous list, I messed up yesterday.  According to my degree of happiness I think I did the right thing!!!  My bathrooms WILL be cleaned today!  And I will finish cleaning the scrap room, only because I messed it up (again) after I spent 5.5 hours there yesterday!!

Do I even need to tell you that I used only one cartridge to create this card???  And only one set of stamps???  I cut the card shape on page 45 of the manual, cutting at 6.5 inches.  Next I cut as a background in black and then a bit smaller in blue and berry print. I then cut the decorative frame layer on the reverse side of the paper, a dark red. 

I cut three flowers () from page 39 of the manual.  I cut the flowers in white lightly textured card stock and stamped them with the coordinating Close to my Heart flower stamp.  I used a Blush color Copic around the edges of the flowers and in the centers.  I left the decorative details on the flowers white. 

I attached the flowers with pop dots and trimmed them out with sticky pearls.  I added two thin strips of ribbon as an additional border.  I finished the card by stamping the sentiment "A Wonderful Season of.... Joy, Hope, Love".   Both of the stamps I used on this card are included with the Art Philosophy package from Close to my Heart. 

If you would like to know more about the CTMH Art Philosophy set, visit Melanie's CTMH site.  Also, Melanie is doing a week of Art Philosophy projects at her blog, Courtney Lane Designs. 

I will be back tomorrow, hopefully with clean bathrooms, with a fun project from Tie the Knot.

My CTMH Order Arrived Today

I am beyond excited - My Close to my Heart order was delivered today and I adore it!!!  I posted about this set over the weekend (HERE), but I must admit that the set exceeds my expectations - Seriously!! 

The photo above shows the complete contents of the CTMH box, less the packaging materials, of course.  I love the ART PHILOSOPHY cartridge.  The chipboard sheets are HUGE - just look at them next to the cartridge package!  And the stamps are wonderful.

I really like how CTMH packages their stamp sets.  Each set comes in a plastic envelope which snaps closed.  On the front is the name of the set and the back shows all of the stamps.  LOVE THIS!  This method of stamp packaging takes up almost no space whatsoever in the scrap room!!  I am all about storing efficiently!

When you remove the stamps from the envelope the are attached to a clear acetate sheet, with a thin piece of foam behind them.  Removing and replacing these stamps on the acetate will be easier than most brands of stamps that use the double acetate layers.  AND - again, they take up almost no space as they envelope is so much flatter than another brand's plastic storage boxes!

Above is a view of the five sets of stamps included in my order.  The bottom three come with the cartridge and 3 large chipboard sheets; the top two sets are add-on specials.  The sassy Halloween set is the August stamp set of the month and cost me $5.00; the alphabet set was free!!

If you are interested in acquiring this FABULOUS set and do not have a consultant, this is the link to Melanie's CTMH consultant site.  I truly ADORE this set and feel certain that you will too!! (Wishing I did not need to clean house because I want to go play right now!).