Faux Flower Soft

Here is the second card we made at our unit meeting this past weekend. We used the CTMH stamp set "Treasure Life" for the flower image. To add a little extra something to our cards, we made homemade Flower Soft (See the second photo for a close-up image. Click on the photo for a better look!). Flower Soft is a product you can buy on the market that is a pot of colored sprinkles that allows you to create text, designs and miniature floral embellishments. It’s acid free and is loved by card makers and scrapbookers alike, but it can be rather expensive. This weekend we learned how to make our own Flower Soft using styrofoam, rubbing alcohol, and CTMH reinkers. It's super easy and adds a great effect to cards!

Spring Card

This past weekend I went to a unit meeting at my upline, Nancy's, place. We had a blast (as always) and made two great cards! Come back tomorrow to see the second card.

Tonight, I want to share a 'spring card' with you. This does not refer to the subject of the card, but rather the way the card 'springs' up when taken out of the envelope. They are super easy to make and provide that extra element that makes the card special. For this card I used the Twitterpated paper pack, adhesive pearls (colored with Copics to match the paper), a flower punch, and the new 'mocha opaques' from CTMH in the center of each flower. The stamped hedgehog image is from the Penny Black stamp company from the Wonderful stamp set. The image was colored with my Copic markers. Don't forget you can click on each image to get a closer look!

Front View

Side View

Roomie Gifts (Received)

A few weeks ago I shared the roomie gifts I made for my roommates at the CTMH Convention in Washington DC in early July. Today I want to share the gifts that were given to me! Both of my roommates used the Caboodle paper pack, which is one of my all-time favorites! Call me biased, but I think our room had the best roommates and the best roomie gifts EVER!

My roommate, Stacey, made this adorable box for me. She used a cardboard 'beverage' carrier (AKA six pack) to create a care package of items that we could use at convention. The box included a reusable water bottle, tissues, hand sanitizer, candy, pens, a notebook, and bubbles (for blowing from our atrium room deck...lol). She also personalized my box with a stamped name tag and made an adorable paper flower for the front of the box. How cute!!

My second gift is from my roommate, Crystal. This is a relaxation/spa kit and I thought it was such a unique gift! She used a My Acrylix organizer box, covered with Caboodle paper, as the carrier. Inside she put a rectangular tin with scented candles, a relaxation CD, and a My Creations Board Book full of spa recipes!

A New Look!

When I logged into my blog tonight, I saw a message in the corner that my blog design was going to be deleted tomorrow! Apparently, the website that was hosting my design needs to make some changes. So...I went to their site to pick a new blog background, but it seems that everyone else was doing the same thing. The site was too busy! I tried to get into the site for over an hour and finally gave up. Instead I went to a new site and found this cute background! What do you think?!? Leave me a comment and offer your thoughts. Thanks for looking!

Christmas in July!!!!!

Early this afternoon I received a visit from the 'Man in Brown' (the UPS man) with my Convention bundles! (It was like Christmas in July at my house!) Here's a sneak peak at some of the new products that will be available on September 1st. Feel free to click on any photo for a closer look. I can't wait until you can see this stuff in person...the pictures are nice, but they don't do these products any justice.

12x12 Dark Chocolate Faux Leather Album and Magic book

12x12 Black Faux Leather Album, Blue & Green Sparkles, Licorice Opaques, Hooligans Assortment, Acrylic Stamps (The Boo Crew/Party Animal)

New Color Assortment (Ink Pads, Markers, Red/Pink/Purple Sparkles, Sunset Accents, Pear Accents, Lagoon Accents)

Hooligans Level 1 Kit

Hooligans Level 2 Kit

Hooligans Stickease

Completed Convention Layouts

I finally got around to adding photos to my Convention layouts and thought I would share. I'm so happy with the way these turned out and I can't wait to share them with others. The photos are from a friend's family vacation to Florida. Click on any photo to get a better look. The right layout contains pictures from their day at Discovery Cove, playing and swimming with dolphins. Both of these layouts feature our new (larger) flip-flaps and our antiqued copper accents. (LOVE THEM!!) Enjoy!

Left side (closed)

Left layout (open)

Right layout (closed)

Right layout (open)

Right layout (open with extra surprise)

Convention Layouts

At the Saturday make-and-take session of the CTMH Convention, we made these incredible layouts. I love this new Magnifique paper pack, and was so excited to see that we would be using it for our project. These layouts use our new, larger sized, flip-flaps. I love when scrapbook layouts have an element of surprise, and these layouts absolutely do have that! In addition to using my favorite paper, and the flip-flaps, these layouts also included some of my favorite accessories. Our new Mocha Opaques are adhesive backed pearls in three shades of brown (love them!!). We also used antiqued copper Foundry Flourishes. I think these are my most favorite accessory from the new catalog. I've included a close-up picture of these elements below. You can also click on any photo to get a better look at the layouts. (Please forgive the dark photos...I didn't use the flash because it left a glare on the pages). The combination of all these items make for some stunning layouts!

In addition to the Magnifique paper and the accessories mentioned above, these layouts also used the new stamp set D1438 - Circle of Love. We also used the new ink colors Lagoon and Pear.

I started adding photos to the layouts on Saturday, but decided to stop because I don't have any of the new cardstock colors yet. I prefer to mount my photos on colored cardstock, so I have to wait a until next week to finish adding pictures. The pictures I plan to use are from a friend's family trip to Discovery Cove in Florida. The colors work perfectly with this paper, and I can't wait to see how they look on the finished layouts.

Left Layout (closed)

 Left Layout (open)

Right Layout (closed)

Right Layout (open)

Accessory Close-Up

New Colors!

At Thursday morning's general session at Convention, corporate announced that they have updated the summer color palette. There are eight new colors in this color family. The cards posted earlier today use several of the new colors in the CTMH color palette. I thought I would post a picture so you could see all of the new colors at once. Although the picture is not the greatest, I can promise that the colors look so much better in person. Can't wait to get my hands on the cardstock I ordered at convention!!

Convention Cards

As promised, I want to take a moment to share some of the projects we did at Convention this week. During this post you will see the four cards we made at the make-and-take session on Friday. (Keep watching for the scrapbook layouts we completed on Saturday...you won't want to miss them!) We used a lot of new products during both sessions, including new papers, stamps, and embellishments.

Card #1 - Mistletoe Paper, Acrylic Stamps (D1436 - The Present, C1422 - Unity), Opaques (Mocha)

Card #2 OUTSIDE - Mistletoe Paper, Acrylic Stamps (C1422 - Unity, D1438 - Circle of Love,D1436 - The Present), Opaques (Mocha)

Card #2 (INSIDE)

Card #3 OUTSIDE - Olivia Paper, Acrylic Stamps (D1436 - The Present, C1422 - Unity), Opaques (Mocha)

Card #3 INSIDE

Card #4 - Olivia Paper, Acrylic Stamps (D1436 - The Present, D1438 - Circle of Love), Opaques (Mocha)

Convention Day 3

Well...I'm finally home and recovering from this year's convention. Saturday was another whirlwind day, which didn't leave much time for blogging. We were up until about one, and got up on Sunday at eight to head home. I intended to blog yesterday but sat down on the recliner and crashed for about four hours (Yikes!).

Here's a recap of our Saturday events: got up, ate breakfast, another general session (Jeanette, our founder and CEO, had a question and answer session where she answered consultant questions/short speaker about Operation Smile/several consultants played Jeopardy for free product credit), after general session we had lunch, create-and-take session was awesome!! (we made scrapbook layouts using our new flip-flaps...pictures coming soon), then we had two more business classes, after classes we took a few pictures around the hotel and started packing, finally we had our closing banquet (we had an amazing dinner, followed by the incredible comedy of Anita Renfroe!). It was a fabulous way to end the events of the week.

Here are a few pictures from the last day...

My roommate Crystal/My unit members/Me outside the hotel

Convention Day 2

Wow...what an amazing few days this has been! I am so tired yet exhilarated at the same time. Sorry this is a little late, but last night was a VERY late night! Here's how our day went...

Wake up, shower, breakfast, go to first general session, hear business advice from Mary Christensen (wonderful speaker!), lunch, business class on updates to Studio J (WOW!! wait until you see what all can be done in Studio J now including photo editing...also annual memberships will be available on September 1st), another business class (where they announced the September special, Triple Play), make-and-take session (where we made four cards using new products like; clear cards, opaque pearls, new ink colors, and new papers...watch for pictures soon!), dinner, Awards Gala (where we were also entertained by pianist Jon Schmidt...WOW!), returned to the room and took pictures of us all fancied-up, then my roommates and I decided to try to prepare for the next make-and-take session (these things go super fast, and can be very stressful...our instructor told us some things we could do to make the next session a bit less stressful), bed at 1:00am! (Did you count all of the WOWs?!?)

Phew...I'm tired just thinking about it all again. Today should be another late night and another fun filled day. Looking forward to working on today's scrapbook layouts using our new, larger, flip-flaps and antiqued copper foundry accents! No promises for a post tonight, but a recap on today's events will be coming soon!

Convention Day 1

Hello everyone! Well, what an exhausting day...but exhilarating at the same time. First, let me say that I love working for CTMH! We are always on the cutting edge of new products and trends and our new catalog will not disappoint you. The new paper packs are fabulous and I'm sure you will love them almost as much as I do. There are tons of new products, 8 new colors, and even a new how-to book! Also, we are changing our catalog format to a bi-annual publication. There will now be two catalogs per year and each catalog will be 24 pages longer than the current format. I will be giving sneak peeks of these items (and more information) over the next few days and weeks...so keep checking back. I promise to post more tomorrow...I am too tired now to think straight. G'night all!

Roomie Gifts!!

I have been very busy crafting this weekend. Boy, does it feel good to create!! I am pleased to inform you all that I finally finished my 'roomie gifts' for Convention this week. I am actually ready for Convention two days early! I am so excited about these gifts and can't wait to give them to my roommates as a thank you for putting up with me for a few days. Please forgive the glare on some of the photos...it was hard to get good pictures because of the shiny surface. I cannot take credit for this project (as usual). The idea and directions came from fellow CTMH consultant Beth Ivanic. (Thanks, Beth...your directions were fabulous!) Crystal's gift used an older paper pack, called Boom-di-ada, and pictures from Convention 2008 in Orlando. Stacey's gift used Cherry-O paper and pictures of her family. Enjoy!!

Riley Calendar

As promised yesterday, I want to share with you a gift I made for one of our retiring teachers. She loves the Riley stamps almost as much as I do, so I had no choice but to make her something with Rileys. I decided to make a perpetual calendar for her to keep track of birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I used a CTMH Display Album. I am only going to share photos of the front side of each page for each month. The opposite side was a page I made on the computer with the days of the month and room for her to write events. I used all CTMH paper for this project.

January (with Aspen paper)

February (with That's Amore paper)

March (with Stardust paper)

April (with Floral Tapestry paper)

May (with Emporium paper)

June (with Animal Cookies paper)

July (with Stardust paper)
August (with Tinkerin' paper)
September (with Animal Cookies paper)
October (with Game On paper)

November (with Grace paper)

December (with Jingle paper)