Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share Day 3: A Ray of Sunshine

Hi All! Welcome to Day 3 of the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share celebrating Close To My Heart's April Stamp Of The Month: My Sunshine! 

 It's our final day for the April blog share, I hope you have been inspired to go out and make beautiful things. This last project was inspired by this Cardabilities sketch:

Here is my card:

This card definitely falls under "whimsy" in my blog, and it was a lot of fun to create. The base is Kraft cardstock. The pennant is cut from yellow woodgrain cardstock from the soon-to-be-released Dream Pop collection. I sponged it with Sunset Exclusive Ink to accent the woodgrain. I added a little piece of a zip strip from the same collection to add interest. I then stamped the sun rays from My Sunshine on Kraft cardstock in Sunset Exlusive Ink, cut it out (the Artiste Cartridge makes this a breeze), and popped it up with dimensional adhesive. The center circle is White Daisy cardstock sponged with Honey Exclusive Ink and then stamped with the Summer stamp from My Sunshine in Sunset Exclusive Ink and popped that up with dimensional adhesive, as well. For the scallop around the circle, I used the bird wing from the Stamp of the Month and stamped it in a scalloped pattern using White Daisy Exclusive Ink, and then layered the pennant on top. (The inspiration for that came from this project by the very talented Marg Van Patten.) The front sentiment is from the CTMH Patterned Pennants stamp set and is stamped in White Daisy Exclusive Ink. I cut it out with a punch and popped it up with dimensional adhesive. The inside is from the same stamp set and is stamped in Sunset Exclusive Ink. To add interest, I used my white gel pen to do a little faux stitching around the edge of the card and the sun. I then used it on the inside to do a little accent doodling. Simple, but effective, I think.

Here are some close-ups:

 Here is a look at the inside:

And here is the front, once again:

I hope you enjoyed my little ray of sunshine! Remember, My Sunshine can be yours for $5 with any qualifying order of $50 or more, or you can purchase it on its own for $17.95. It is available through 30 April. Now hop on over and see what bit of Sunshine the Über-Talented Lynn Darda has for you at From My Bungalow!

Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share Day 2: Kraft-y Bits of Sunshine

Hey folks! Welcome to Day 2 of the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share celebrating Close To My Heart's April Stamp of the Month: My Sunshine.

Today's card project was inspired by a clean and simple challenge from the folks over at The Kraft Journal.

And here it is....

The base is Kraft cardstock (obviously!) on which I randomly stamped clouds in White Daisy Exclusive Ink. (I stamped the back with clouds, too.) The cloud stamp is from the CTMH Chantilly Workshop On The Go. (Love that set!) The pennant banner is made from Outdoor Denim Chevron Ribbon layered with a strip of patterned paper from Dream Pop. The sentiment is from the April Stamp Of The Month: My Sunshine, and is stamped in Honey Exclusive Ink on White Daisy cardstock. The hot air balloon is cut from White Daisy cardstock using the CTMH Artiste Cricut Cartridge. (I love how our stamps coordinate with our Cricut cartridges, don't you?) I stamped the balloon (also from My Sunshine) in Outdoor Denim Exclusive Ink, and sponged the basket with a little Honey Exclusive Ink, which I covered with yellow stickles for added sparkle. I used glitter gel for the flag pole and added a bit of Dream Pop to cover the flag.

Here's a couple of close-ups:

And here it is, once again:

I hope you enjoyed my little bit of hot air and sunshine. Remember, My Sunshine can be yours for $5 with any qualifying order of $50 or more, or you can purchase it on its own for $17.95. It is available through 30 April. Now hop on over and see what bit of Sunshine Kraft-y Queen Lynn Darda has for you at From My Bungalow!

We'll see you tomorrow for Day 3 of the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share and a little more fun with My Sunshine.

Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share Day 1: Sharing a Little Dreamy April Mojo....

Hi All! Welcome to the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share featuring Close To My Heart's April Stamp Of The Month: My Sunshine.

Today's project also provides a little sneak peek of a new paper collection that CTMH is releasing to celebrate National Scrapbooking Month in May. The collection is called Dream Pop, and is full of dreamy pops of color along with fabulous cardstock that is perfect for use with color resist techniques. Today's card was inspired by this Mojo Monday sketch:

Now on to the project!

Are these colors fabulous or what???? The card base is made from Kraft cardstock, which is layered with White Daisy cardstock. I used the polkadot cardstock from Dream Pop as the 3rd layer. (You can see the resist pattern on it better in the close-ups.) The large medallion is cut from the back of the paper that I used for the triangle. I popped it up with dimensional adhesive and added a little glitter gel for extra sparkle. The little "Hi" flag is the zip strip from the yellow and grey piece to which it's attached. The bird is stamped in Lagoon Exclusive Ink. The shape can be cut from the CTMH Artiste Cricut Cartridge. I fussy cut it because I didn't want a white border. The wing is stamped in Sorbet Exclusive Ink, fussy cut, and attached to the bird with dimensional adhesive. The sentiment is stamped in Lagoon Exclusive Ink on White Daisy cardstock. The little flag is cut from the zip strip on the hounds-toothy/medallion paper. The sentiment and bird are both popped up with dimensional adhesive.

Here are some close-ups:

And here is the full card, once again:

I hope you enjoyed my dreamy April bit of Mojo. Remember, My Sunshine can be yours for $5 with any qualifying order of $50 or more, or you can purchase it on its own for $17.95. It is available through 30 April. Now hop on over and see what bit of Sunshine the ever-so-talented Lynn Darda has for you at From My Bungalow!

See you tomorrow for Day 2 of the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share and a little more Sunshine!

A Beautiful Challenge

Hi All! Happy Spring! It's April 15th, and you know what that means.... (No, not "it's time to file for an extension on my taxes...") It means it's time for the second Rose Blossom Garden Challenge for the month of April! Today's challenge is to use the "Mother's Day" key on the Artiste Cricut Cartridge by Close To My Heart. While that key has a lovely little box on it, I decided to think outside it a bit and see what I could come up with. Here it is:

So what do you think? For this project, I used patterned paper from the Chantilly collection, a little strip of Blush cardstock, Sparkles, Color-Ready Seam Binding, and a little glitter gel. The basket is actually made from the cupcake wrapper cut at 2 1/2 inches. I inked around the edges with Blush Exclusive ink, and added a strip of Blush cardstock accented with White Daisy brads [ret.] for a handle. I also added a little circle of chipboard covered with the same green patterned paper that I used for the leaves as a base for my bucket. I used pink and clear Sparkles for a final touch of fun.

To create the tulips, I cut 20 tulip shapes at 1 1/4 inches. I inked around the edges of each flower with Blush Exclusive ink and scored and folded each in half. I then glued five together to make a 3D flower. (Important note: the color of the tulip will be the color that is on the inside of the fold. So I folded 10 with pink and 10 with yellow on the inside. Scoring the tulips made it easier to fold them in half.) After all the adhesive was dry, I added glitter gel to give them an extra pop (and to hide the seams). I used toothpicks for stems, and poked them through the chipboard base so they would stand up.

For the leaves, I cut 6 leaves at 2 inches. I then used the flip key to cut 6 more so that I could glue them back to back with the green patterned paper showing. I inked the edges with Sweet Leaf Exclusive ink and glued them to the base of the bucket.

I cut the "#1 Mom" at 3 inches and then used the flip feature again to cut another one so that I could glue them together. (I wanted to used the yellow pattern for both front and back.) I tied the sentiment to the basket handle with crochet thread (the bakers twine was a little thicker than I liked) and added a Color-Ready Seam Binding Ribbon bow. 

This was such a fun project to make! If you remove the sentiment, it could easily be used for a birthday, get well, or "just because..." gift. The best part is that these flowers don't have to be watered and they never die. It's a little bit of perpetual spring! Be sure to check out all the fun ideas to be had in the Rose Blossom Garden. Remember, this whole project was cut using only the Mother's Day key. (Okay, except for the circle base to the bucket, which is from my stash...) 

As a reminder, here's how the challenge works. Each month you will be given 2 challenges: one on the first of the month and one on the 15th. Each challenge will involve a single key on one of the CTMH Cricut cartridges. You may choose to play in one or both challenges, it's up to you. At the end of each challenge (so that's twice a month) we (the design team and our lovely leader, Brenda Rose) will choose 3 Top Projects for that challenge. Then, at the end of the month, we will choose a Top Project for the month and do a random drawing from among the participants for the monthly prize--which will be  a Close To My Heart stamp set that coordinates with our Cricut cartridges. (How cool is that?!) April's winner will receive the Perfect Fit Frames stamp set.

So come play along with us in the Rose Blossom Garden! I can't wait to see what you make!

A Happy Little Challenge

Hello All! As promised, here's my project for the Rose Blossom Garden inaugural challenge:

The challenge, as you may recall, was to create something using the "Happy Birthday" key on the CTMH Artiste Cricut cartridge. The hot air balloon image is one of my favorites on the whole cartridge, so I knew I wanted to use it. I decided to go with a little welcome sign for my front door. (Because of our storm door, anything we hang on the front has to be relatively flat.) So this is what I came up with. I've listed out all the particulars here.

Hope you enjoy it! It makes me smile every time I see it! By the way, did you know that this cartridge (in fact, this very key) coordinates with the April Stamp Of The Month: My Sunshine? It does! I'll show you more with that in the upcoming weeks. But you can check it out now by going here.

Have a fabulously creative weekend!