Live Beautifully

Hi All! Welcome to the Rose Blossom Blog Hop for the month of May featuring the limited edition Live Beautifully Collection by Close To My Heart. If you just hopped over from the incomparable Marg Van Patten's blog, I didn't Have Potatoes, you're in the right place!

So May is National Scrapbooking Month and to celebrate, Close To My Heart has released the limited edition (available through the end of May) Live Beautifully collection:

This limited edition collection offers something for everyone. If you're a scrapbooker, cardmaker, or just all around paper crafter, check out the gorgeous paper pack (that includes specialty papers with gold foiling) and stamp set. If you like things quick and easy and beautiful, there's the Live Beautifully Cut Above Kit that has all that you need to make 5 lovely layouts including page protectors (you just bring a little adhesive). And if you just need the whole thing from start to finish, there's a bundle that includes a beautiful album, adhesive, the Cut Above Kit, and even an archival safe journaling pen so you can tell your story.

So what am I making with Live Beautifully? I'm so glad you asked!

Let's take a look:

I began by covering this little frame with two of the patterns in the Live Beautifully collection. I added a black and white zip strip from the top of one of the papers to the inner edge of the frame to create a more finished look. I then sealed the paper with Ranger's Distress Collage Crazing Medium, and let it dry. After the frame was dry, I hid the seam between the papers by adding gold shimmer ribbon from the Uptown ribbon pack and layered that with the crochet ribbon from the Rustic Home ribbon pack to give it a more shabby chic feel.

To embellish the frame, I stamped a sentiment from the Live Beautifully stamp set in VersaMark ink and heat embossed it in gold. I then stamped the main sentiment from the Beautiful Moments stamp in VersaMark ink on a scrap of dotted kraft cardstock from the Rustic Home Fundamentals paper pack, and heat embossed it in gold as well. I also heat embossed images from the Keep Dreaming stamp set in gold on vellum, and used my Prismacolor pencils to color the images on the reverse side. (The rose image is actually embossed in gold sparkle embossing powder, while the leaves are in the same gold as the sentiments.) Once I was finished coloring the images, I fussy cut them and added them to the front of my frame, along with a nest of gold thread and jute twine (which is really just strands I cut from the jute ribbon in the Rustic Home ribbon pack. After arranging the flower, I thought the frame still needed a little something. So I dug into my stash and found some paper butterflies and a few black sparkles. I added Gilded Gold Stickles to the largest butterfly and then popped all three of them up with dimensional adhesive.

Here are some close-ups of the details:

And here is the frame once more, in situ, as it were:

And there you have it! A lovely reminder to Live Beautifully!

I hope you enjoyed my little frame. Remember, the Live Beautifully collection is only available for the month of May.

Now hop on over and see what the oh-so-talented Morgan Vogt has in store for you at Tweetscraps.

Have a wonderfully, creative week living your beautiful life!

CTMH Live Beautifully Stamp Set	CTMH Beautiful Moments Stamp	CTMH Keep Dreaming Stamp Set	CTMH Live Beautifully Paper Pack (limited edition)
CTMH Rustic Home Fundamentals	CTMH Rustic Home Ribbon Pack	CTMH Uptown Ribbon Pack	VersaMark Watermark Ink
CTMH 3D Foam Tape	Ranger Princess Gold Embossing Powder	Ranger Ink Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder	CTMH Craft Heater
Ranger Gilded Gold Stickles	Ranger Distress Collage Medium (Crazing)	Prismacolor Colored Pencils	CTMH Live Beautifully Cut Above Kit (limited edition)
CTMH Live Beautifully D-Ring Album Bundle (ltd ed)	CTMH Live Beautifully Post-bound Album (ltd ed)

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