August club project

For August club we will be making a card folio (two examples are posted in the top picture) and two cards to go in the folio! The card on the left uses paper from the "Bella" paper packet and uses the stamp set "Buttoned Together." The card on the right uses the August stamp of the month set "It's Your Day."

Christmas in July

I love Christmas! Every year I send out about 60-70 handmade Christmas cards to family and friends. The secret: I make them all year! Really there's no other way! If you wait until Nov. to sit down and make your cards you will be overwhelmed and just give up and go buy them, vowing to yourself you will do it next year!

Here are 6 Christmas cards I made using the 3 kits CTMH sells right now that are Christmas patterns (I'm sure there will be at least one more Christmas pattern in the fall catalog so be on the lookout!); the top card is from the Evensong kit, the second card is Aspen paper and the last card is Everlasting. Another secret for making a big batch of cards is to use stickease instead of a lot of stamping on cards-this will save you lots of time plus you will still have darling cards. All of these cards use minimal stamping and I've used stickease instead. What I do every year is buy a level 2 paper packet and the coordinating stickease; then use one of our card pattern books (Originals or Wishes), pick out 3-4 patterns max. and make your cards in bulk.

One thing I loved about CTMH when I found them was that they have stickease, stamps and embellishments that match their paper. This saves you tons of time and makes it much easier to make layouts and cards. For embellishing Christmas cards you can use ribbon, rub ons, sparkles, buttons, brads and we also sell fabric Christmas labels that are darling! You can then stamp a sentiment on the inside of your card and you're done!

Ok.....it's July now, do you want to send out handmade cards this Christmas? If so, get started now and use the tips I've shared, make a few every week and by the time late Nov. rolls around you'll have all your beautiful cards done and ready to send out!

Heart felt Whimsy die-cuts artwork

The HeartFelt Whimsy Die-Cuts are brand new to the summer 09 catalog and are one of my favorite new embellishments! You get 3 11x11 sheets of a variety of die cut shapes (flowers, birds, buttons, butterflies, swirls, arrows, hearts, etc) in 3 different colors (buttercup, garden green, and tulip). These die cuts are very easy to work with and you simply add them to your layouts with glue dots or glue! Because they are felt they add texture to your layout as well.

There are also several neat things you can do to alter them. On the top card here, I adhered the butterfly to my card then added several dots of glue with a glue pen and sprinkled prisma glitter over the glue to give my butterfly some neat accents! On the second card with the flowers, I swiped the edges of the die cuts with white paint from the distressing kit to give them a distressed look (just let them dry about 15 min. before you adhere them to a card or layout). I also added sparkles to the middle of the flowers to give them pop as well!

You can also paint the entire surface of a felt die cut to give it a matte effect or if you want to change the color of your die cut, simply put white paint (this comes in the distressing kit) into a craft jar, add a couple of drops of re-inker in the color you want to use, mix the paint and re-inker, and then paint your die cut the color you want it to be with one of the brushes that comes in your distressing kit (again let it dry about 30 min. before you adhere it to your card or layout).

These embellishments are so much fun to work with! Have a blast experimenting with them!