How cute are these owls from Cottage Cutz?
I used CTMH Grace paper for the chest of the owl and card background, along with Chocolate card stock.

With my 13 pound order of paper arriving, I just can't stop making all these wonderful cards. Life seems to be a lot easier with a large variety of paper to choose from. Using regular chocolate B&T paper, it was easy to create this distressed look by gently sanding the paper before placing it on the card stock base. Definitely giving this card just the right touch.

SNEAK PEAK: As promised a sneak peak. More later. Just got another box of goodies today. Remember my Fall/Winter Open House is on Saturday, September 11, 2010 from 2:00-5:00 p.m. See you then.

Finally!!!!! Back in the swing of things. With a super clean and organized room, I really feel energized. Now, i know you all saw the before picture, but, what I didn't show you was the pile of stuff in the middle of the floor and lucky you I didn't get a picture of it either. The end result a clean, clean room and a new card. Enjoy.

National Stamping Month is here and to Celebrate Close To My Heart has come up with this great promotion: TRIPLE PLAY!!!!! You can create these super cute mini albums with qualified My Acrylix purchases.

Kits include....

1- My Acrylix® "Love This" stamp set

4-Exclusive Mini Ink Stamp Pads (Desert Sand, Hollyhock, Indian Corn Blue and Sunset)

9-4x12 Panels (3 of each of 3 color schemes)

3-6x12 die cut sheets

1-72" Colonial White Grosgrain Ribbon

3-Velcro fasteners

1-Easy to follow assembly brochure

How do I get you ask?

1. Buy the Triple Play kit for $29.95.

2. Purchase $25 in My Acrylix® stamps and get the Triple Play kit for just $15.

3. Spend $40 on My Acrylix stamps and get Triple Play for only $5!

4. Host a Gathering with sales of $300 or more and get Triple Play FREE!

5. Join Close To My Heart as a Consultant and get the kit FREE!

Don't miss out, make sure you get your's before this promo is gone. Shop with me online today.

WOW, what a week. Just a week ago my friend Christine seemed to think my days had more hours in them than hers. I only wish. Last week I felt like each day I was loosing hours faster and faster. I've been so, so swamped at work for the past few weeks, seems like everyone wants to sue everyone. So in what little free time I have had, I've found myself in quite a predicament having four different projects going on at the same time. This happens sometimes, with little time to create, when an idea pops into my head, I just jump right in, to get the basics down and before you know it BAM, a great big mess and then your brain just shuts down.

So, on Thursday, I decided to get back on track and actually complete each project that I have been working on before I get started on anything else. First plan of action, clean my messy room. Now, if you know me, I am very particular about my space and I like things in order, so for me to show you my room in this condition will definitely sum up my week and mental distress. LOL. Now, this picture was taken after I started cleaning, so it is not a true reference of the mess that I had created over the past week.

I got in on the 2, 4, 6, 8 Sale with CTMH and on Thursday, my 13 pound box of paper packet showed up and of course I had to go through them all, so if you could just imagine paper everywhere.

Day 2 of my plan, Friday, finish cutting all the parts for the Halloween invitation, label and organize. Oh, and my order came in from CTMH with all the new goodies from the Fall/Winter 2010 Catalog. There was much more playing and looking at all the new stuff than work being done. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, is all I can say about this new catalog.

Day 3, Saturday attend an open crop day at my up line Annette's house from 3-11 p.m. So off I went with my box of goodies, distressing ink, sponges, and a cool refreshing beverage. Four hours later, after many times of washing my hands to get the ink off, I had distressed 240 pieces of the invitation and I only have 80 more pieces to go before I can start assembling. Not to mention, after I assemble the invitation, I then have to distress with stickles and liquid glass. Thank goodness for my friend DiAnn, she is going to help assemble all these invitation. The dead line is coming up. I want to have them assembled by next week. 4 hours was enough for me, so I went home and flopped down on the couch for the night.

Day 4, Sunday, honestly, I didn't want to even think about the invitations anymore. So, I decided to work on the Halloween scrapbook in the box project for my open project day on September 26 and make two new cards for the Card Club coming up in September, all before going to a clear card class I signed up for with Annette from 2-5. Class ran a little late so when I got home at 6:30, back to the couch I went. OMG the weekend is over and I still have not completed one project. Oh well, there's always this week. Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck.

Watch for some sneak peeks of the new product line from the Fall/Winter Idea Book later this week.

Halloween Party Prep

Getting ready for Halloween. That's right it's that time to make my Halloween Party invitations. What, in August? Yep. I actually made the invitation two months ago and last night I started preparation for 40 invitations. First cutting all the card bases, then cutting all the paper layers and paper to be cut with Spellbinder Dies. Then the fun part, stamping 40 of each image, all together 160 images. Just love these Tim Holtz stamps, a perfect combination for Halloween.









This was my desk at 10:00 when I stopped for the night. Today I will finish the prep work for the front of the invitation and tomorrow for the inside. Check back later for a sneak peak of the inside of the invitation and the piles of paper everywhere. Just can't wait to get the prep work out of the way and actually start putting the invitation together. Have a great weekend everyone.

Sunday morning after breakfast with my parents I got right back to it. It was 10:00 a.m., with a clean desk, I started going through my paper packets and chip board. I really love how this project came out, so I thought I would share it with you and show you how I put it together. I hope my directions are ok, I've never done this before.

I decided to do a Happy Birthday pocket card. First, I covered my chipboard with My Reflections Simple Pleasure Level 2 CTHM paper (item # X7070B), distressed the edges using a sanding block and CTHM Twilight and Desert Sand ink, then placing them under some heavy books until dry. While the chipboard was drying, I stamped this wonderful image of a little girl looking a bird house and bird by Elizabeth Bell. I chose this stamp because I have a saying "A Little Bird Told Me That It Was Your Birthday" and I thought it would be so cute together.

Then I search through a lot of stamps, looking for an image for one of the tags. I chose this cute stamp with a basket of flowers and a little bird, since the little girl was picking flowers. Next I picked the alphabet die from Tim Holtz for the birthday tag. After all my images were stamped and the alphabet was cut, I chose the design for the tags and cut them using my Spellbinders Scalloped Oval die.

Now I was ready to start coloring. I like to work with some noise in the background, so on went the TV. Well this makes it kinda of hard to concentrate on your work, since you're constantly looking up at the TV, but I got it done. After I was done coloring , I began adding the glitter and stickles and set them aside to dry (at least an hour). While the stamped images were drying I put the base of my project together. First, cutting a piece of matching paper for the front of my card. I used a scalloped circle for the front of my base so, this paper was cut to fit on the bottom half of my project to form the pocket. Distress the edges with ink and gluing it down, on the edges (sides only), so when you place the paper on the card it forms the pocket for your tags.

Next came the ribbon, I used this really nice edging I picked up at Hobby Lobby, yes I said Hobby Lobby, but that's an entirely different blog. I used CTMH Twilight, Chocolate and Desert Sand exclusive inks for my color choice for this entire project. Applying a light dab of Desert Sand ink to the edging. Once dry, I glued the edging on to the scalloped circle piece of the card across the opening of the pocket. Next, I glued the scalloped circle on top of the other paper covered chipboard piece and placed it back under a stack of CTMH catalogs to dry. Those extra catalogs come in handy for a lot of things. lol...Now that my glitter and stickles were dry, I started cutting out the little girl image, I have found it easier to stamp images on watercolor paper when you want to color with markers or watercolor. This seems to make the images look cleaner and the colors brighter. Then I punched out some flowers for the tags and distressed them. Next, I picked some thick card stock and cut out some flowers with a flower die made by Cuttle Bug. I made these cute flowers with a technique my friend DiAnn showed me by crinkling up the card stock until it gets somewhat soft and then you pull the flowers apart and layering them to make a thick flower, and again, came more glitter.

Finally, I'm ready to to put it all together. Wallah, the end result, this beautiful Happy Birthday Pocket Card. I wonder who will get this for their birthday? Don't worry Club gals, this is one of the projects I am offering for my open project day in September. Have a great day, hope you enjoyed this project as much as I have. Oh, by the way, I was done with this card at 4:00, yes 6 hours to make this card. But well worth it!

From one extreme to the other, first bigger and then smaller, either way these are great ways to dress up a gift for that someone special. A recipe card is great to go with a box of cookies, a cake or a pie. I fell in love with Elizabeth Bell Sugar Nellie stamps about a year ago and copic markers at the same time. This recipe card holder was made using Splendor and Caboodle CTMH Level 2 paper, Spellbinder Scalloped Oval dies, CTHM My Acrylix Cupcake Sprinkles (item # D1336) and My Acrylix Recipe Box (item # D1364) stamp sets.

A gift card is one of my favorite ways to express an occasion. This gift card holder is a smaller version of the recipe card. I was practicing my masking and shadowing techniques when I can up with this idea. Enjoy.

Happy Monday and thank you for visiting my blog. Taking a week off from paper crafting and attending my CTMH Quarterly meeting with my upline and all the members of our team really got rejuvenated. When I woke up Saturday morning I was ready to get creating. CTMH has this wonderful consultant campaign starting August 15 through September 30, 2010. With qualified purchases of our My Acrylic Stamp Sets you can receive this Triple Play mini album set at a great discounted deal. This mini album kit contains 3 4X4 mini albums, an exclusive "Love This" stamp set, pre-cut dies, four exclusive mini ink pads, coordinating ribbon, and instructions for assembly. This mini album was so much fun to put together and it only took about an hour, including putting in the pictures. To see more on this promotion you can visit my website at http://TamraPope.myCTMH.com