California Day 4 (Convention Day 1)

If I had to sum up today in one word, it would have to be WOW! I just have to say that love being part of this company. Their forward thinking ideas and philosophy have made them the front-runner in the industry and I am so thrilled to be one of their consultants.

The day started with our first general session. It was filled with magic and quite a few Disney characters too! We learned about all of the new products that are available in our new fall catalog. I'm going to try to list everything I can remember...my mind is still reeling!

First - All My Acrylic stamp packs are coming DOWN in price! Sets will range from $6.95-$17.95 with no change in the amount of product you will receive.

Next - Level 2 paper packs are also cheaper, but they will have a few less sheets of paper. The packs are now $9.95, but the background paper is now heavier weight. This is great because you can now use background paper as the base for a layout. There are six printed sheets in a level 2 pack, along with six sheets of solid cardstock. The top of each printed sheet has a bonus zip-strip. This strip can be removed and the one side is printed and can be used as an accent to your projects! No more wasted strip!

Corp has decided to update our mission statement to include more possibilities for the art of memory keeping!

Another big announcement was that the hostess program is being expanded to include more free product. You can now select Workshops on the Go, Studio J memberships, and Studio J 5 packs, in addition to all of the previous options when you are the hostess for a show grossing at least $150.

We have tons of new accessories in the new catalog! Check out some of them in the pictures below.

Now for the huge news!!! CTMH now has an exclusive Cricut cartridge. This cartridge cuts over 700 shapes and cards that coordinate with several of our stamp sets and dimensional elements! This is huge news and I can't wait to start using this new cartridge with our product and sharing it will all of my customers.

If any of you are not a customer of mine and you are interested in learning more about all of this fabulous product, please feel free to email me a jobarron@ptd.net and I will be happy to sit down and talk to you about how you can start using CTMH product!

After the general session, we got an awesome bag (see below) with our new catalog and supplies for our create and take projects. I'm still spending time drooling over the catalog. Every time I look at it, I find more awesome stuff!!!

I am heading to bed shortly, but wanted to share a few pictures from the day. Enjoy!!!

California - Day 3

Yet another fun day is happening here in sunny California today! We started the morning in Disneyland again. We spent a few hours there and got some great photos and rode some of the classic rides. We hit up Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, Pirates of the Carribean, the Haunted Mansion, and It's a Small World, to name a few. After a few hours, we headed to California Adventure. A few of the rides we were hoping to get on had super long waits, so we just took a leisurely walk around. We did manage to ride California Screaming, which was a super fun roller coaster! We also met Mickey!!!

Around noon, we headed to Downtown Disney for lunch. After lunch, it was time to register for Convention, so we headed to the convention center to wait for the doors to open. To our surprise, they started letting us register an hour early! We got all of our name tags and information for the convention. On our way back to the room we met Goofy!

All in all, it has been a fun day, and it's not over yet! In a few minutes, we are heading back to Downtown Disney for dinner and some shopping. We need to be back to the hotel for a team meeting at 8:00. I may post more later. If not, be sure to check tomorrow for great news from convention!

California Day 2

Well, today was a little bit more low-key than yesterday (which is just fine with me)! Because my knee is still sore from the surgery, I decided to stay away from the parks today. My roommate and some other dear friends were set to arrive around noon, so I decided to hang around the hotel to wait for them to arrive.

I had my cereal breakfast in my room, watched a little TV, then showered and headed out for a little while. I took some time to walk around the hotel grounds to see what is all around us. I took a few pictures and then visited the hotel gift shops. When I came out of the gift shop, several of my PA friends were arriving at the hotel. We spent some time catching up, and before I knew it, my roommate and our friends arrived! I hung around with them while they checked-in and then we headed to our rooms.

Once they were settled, we exchanged roomie gifts! Roomie gifts are a CTMH tradition, and my friends never disappoint! This year, I got tons of great gifts! We also decided this year to include a few "virtual roomies." These are some friends who are not in our rooms with us, but are close friends that we wanted to share in this tradition. In all, there are six of us exchanging gifts.

The Mickey ears are from my upline, Nancy. I'm sure we will be wearing those a lot this week. (When I get home, they will be great for Crazy Hat day at school!) The ring was made by my roommate, Crystal. She used CTMH buttons to make this great accessory. She also made another ring with a CTMH mesh flower (not pictured). Jean made us all a gorgeous charm bracelet. Stacey made an adorable tag book filled with Disney quotes. The necklace with the cute little guy hanging from it was my gift to the others. That cute little guy is called Sticky Boy and he is well known in the CTMH community!

After we finished with our gift exchange, we headed to lunch. Since my friends were famished from their flights, we headed to Downtown Disney and I took them to the Rainforest Cafe, since in knew exactly how to get there from yesterday. We got a great table in the back of the restaurant, and it felt like we had the place all to ourselves. We had a blast and got some super fun souvenir pictures taken for the scrapbooks!

Right now, we are back in the room, deciding how we are going to attack the next day. Enjoy the pictures I'm sharing that recap what I've shared above. Hang in there for more updates!

California Day 1

What a day! I have been awake for over 23 hours and am surprised that I haven't fallen asleep sitting up. However, I did promise that I would blog daily to let you all know how our trip has been going.

Here is a recap of today's events:

We started our day by waking up at 3am to get ready to leave for our flights to California. (If you know me at all, you will realize that this was no easy feat!) We left the hotel at 4:15am for the airport. We were officially TSA screened, frisking included, and then waited for our flight. The first flight was from Philly to Denver and it was a pretty turbulent flight. We arrived in Denver 45 minutes early, which was nice because we originally only had a 35 minute layover. The early arrival gave us time to hit the restroom and get our bearings before loading the plane to Santa Ana. The second flight was much less turbulent, and in a little over two hours, we arrived at the John Wayne Airport.

Once we had our luggage, we caught a taxi-van and were at the Disneyland Hotel in about 20 minutes. We had a few issues at check-in but eventually got it all sorted out and found our way to our rooms. Although they are a little bit of a walk from the convention center, it is totally worth it! The rooms are newly renovated and the walk is worth being away from all of the existing construction noise.

Once we unpacked and relaxed for a little while, we headed off to dinner and Disneyland. Dinner was a nice relaxing meal at the Rainforest Cafe. Once we got to the park, we managed to catch the afternoon parade, although sitting on a park bench waiting for it to start resulted in a lovely sunburn on my forehead and my nose! The parade was a lot of fun and I got some great pictures. (see some below) We rode a few rides, including Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Pirates of the Caribbean, before my knee decided it had had enough. We came back to the room and I finished unpacking while my travel mates headed back to the park for the evening festivities.

Now I am in my PJ's, ready for bed! The last picture posted below is my favorite feature of our room. The headboard is a carved wooden image of Cinderella's Castle, and it is stunning on it's own, but there is a secret surprise. There is a switch on the light on the night stand. When it is flipped, the headboard plays music and the fireworks light up! They stay lit until you decide to turn them off. I may leave them in all night. It is simply magical :-)

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day. As always, click on any picture for a closer look. Enjoy!

My Scrap Shirts

One week from today I will be in Philadelphia waiting impatiently for a morning flight to Anaheim, California. We will be leaving bright and early Monday morning for the 2011 Close to my Heart Convention. My friend, Nancy and I bought some shirts for our trip. We found a great website that had shirts on sale for $6.99. We thought it would be cool to have some scrapping shirts since the people around will completely understand what they are trying to say. Here are the shirts I decided to get for the trip. You can click on the picture for a closer look. Can't wait to wear them next week!

Watch for my next post when I will share my completed layouts from last year's convention in Washington, DC. I finally completed all of my layouts thanks to Studio J online scrapbooking from Close to my Heart. I did 15 layouts in five days! Can't wait to share them with you.

Friendship Blessings

As promised, I have been meaning to post the card that I created and taught at our last unit meeting. The card was pretty easy to make and incorporated a bunch of different techniques. I used the Friendship Blessings stamp set, which is one of my all-time favorites. The flower was stamped on chocolate paper and embossed with silver pearl embossing powder. Then I stamped the flower again on white cardstock. The white flower and the leaves were colored using the water brush and CTMH ink. Once they were colored, I set them aside to dry. Then I random stamped the background on the chocolate cardstock using chocolate ink. The border along the side is a kraft, color ready border with ribbon threaded through the holes. I then cut out the colored flower and leaves and glued them over the flower that was stamped on chocolate cardstock. The flower looked better when I glued it off-set instead of exactly over the original flower. I added a mocha opaque pearl to the center of of the flower to finish it off. The card is super cute and can be used for any occasion!

Twisted Easel Card

In preparation for my trip to California in a few weeks, I wanted to see if I could figure out how to blog on my iPad. I recently bought the camera connection kit for the iPad so I can get images from my camera right onto the iPad without a computer. That part of blogging is super easy. Figuring out how to post has taken a little more work, but I think I've figured it out. This post is my first attempt at blogging on the iPad. If this works, I expect to be blogging frequently from California so that all of my CTMH friends and customers can get a first hand look at what is happening in Anaheim!

A few weeks ago, we had a unit meeting and each person was expected to teach a card to the rest of the group. This twisted easel card was my upline, Nancy's, card. The card was super easy and the results are stunning! The first image is the way the card looks closed. The second image is how the card looks when it is standing open. Watch for my next post where I will share the card that I made for the meeting.

Framed Flower Art

I was recently asked to create some 'artwork' for a CTMH Leadershare event being held in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania this coming weekend. I wasn't given any guidelines and was just asked to create something nice. All of the donations will be used in a silent auction, with all of the proceeds going to Operation Smile. We are all hoping that this auction will result in the most money raised at any of the 5 CTMH Leadershare events held this year. I am so pleased with this way this project turned out and I hope that it gets lots of interest this weekend! In fact, I like it so much, I need hurry up and make one for myself!

The papers used on the flowers are from the new CTMH Sophia paper pack. The green printed background paper is from the Miracle paper pack. The leaves were cut with a Sizzix die called 'Branch with leaves.' I added dimension to the flowers using a Copic marker. All of the embellishments are from CTMH. I used our new buttons, waxy flax, ric-rac, and white daisy rub-ons on the frame. The corners and the bottom are embellished with hand-stitching. I also added some glitter to the flower edges to add some 'bling.' The frame was purchased at Wal-Mart on clearance for $5. (I actually went back this week and bought five more!)

You can click either image to get a closer look!

Front view

Side View (to show dimension)

Loving Studio J

Have I told you all how much I LOVE STUDIO J?!? Studio J is my new guilty pleasure. I love that I can scrapbook on my computer, while sitting the recliner and watching TV. The best part is that the results are stunning!!! Here are four two-page layouts that I created in one evening! The photos are from our CTMH Convention in Washington DC last year. I'm trying to get all of my pictures from this trip scrapped before we head to Anaheim, California for the 2011 Convention in July. I decided that the best chance of that happening is to create an entire album of Studio J layouts. Now that my classes are over for a while, the chances of that happening just got a whole lot better! Click on the picture of each layout to see a closer look at the image. If you like what you see, feel free to email me and see how you can get in on the Studio J craze!

A Riley Birthday Card

Here's a card I made recently for a very dear friend of mine. It is a 6x6 card made using the Animal Cookies paper from CTMH. The image is colored with Copic markers. The edges are hand-stitched using blue embroidery thread. Can't help but love these Riley stamps!!!

Clipboard

This is one of my all-time favorite projects. A long time ago, my scrapbook club wanted to try their hand at making altered clipboards. We decided to use the CTMH Artboard, which is a bit larger than a typical clipboard. This was a lot of fun to create and embellish. I used a retired CTMH paper, called Emporium, and various assorted buttons from CTMH. This is a staple in my scrapbook room and I use it all of the time to hold paper samples, photos, color charts, and more! Click on it to see the image up close.

Terribly Neglectful

Wow...I just realized that I have been terribly neglectful of this blog. As usual, school started and life got crazy after my last post! I'm going to try to give this blog a lot more attention from now on. Now...don't expect to see posts every day, but I promise to try to make up for being gone so long. Please forgive me :o(

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!