Cheers To You!

Hi All! Welcome to the Rose Blossom Blog Hop featuring Close To My Heart's November Stamp of the Month: New Year's Cheer!

If you've just hopped over from the AMAZINGLY talented Lynn Darda's blog, From My Bungalow, you're in the right place. (I'll have a list of participants at the end of this post.)

So as you can see, this stamp set is perfect for creating beautiful invitations to that fabulous New Year's party you're planning or for all those parties you plan to throw throughout the year. I love the clean Art Deco-like style. I, however, wanted to use it just a little bit differently. 

We happen to have a number of families in our circle of friends who do not celebrate the Christmas holidays. Now I love making Christmas cards, but I always struggle a bit with the generic ones. After all, some of our friends aren't really celebrating any holidays in the winter, depending on the year. BUT, just about everyone I know here in the US celebrates the turning of the New Year. So I used this fantastic little stamp for a set of Happy New Year cards.

Let's take a look at one of them:

To create this simple card, I used water color cardstock cut to 3 1/4 x 4 1/2 inches and created a very light wash over the background using light blue and warm grey water colors. I then dried it with my heat tool. I stamped the champaign flutes in VersaMark ink and heat embossed them using gold embossing powder. I did the same with the "cheers" sentiment and switched the embossing powder to silver. I then masked off the top of my flutes and stamped the bubbles using Whisper ink. I also used Whisper ink to stamp the starburst randomly around the front of the card for a little extra flair. I used my 0.3 Copic fine liner to add some doodle lines around the flutes and along the base to help ground them a bit more. 

I then added layers of Glacier and Whisper cardstocks and popped the whole thing up on a White Daisy card base using fun foam.

Here are some close ups of the front.

And here's a look at the greeting inside, which I stamped in Whisper ink:

 And here's the card, once again:

I hope you enjoyed my Happy New Year card! This really is a versatile little set. The images are really perfect for any celebratory occasion, and the bubbles and starbursts would make fantastic little backgrounds all their own.  Now for more inspiration, hop on over and see what the brilliant Morgan Vogt has in store for you at Tweetscraps!

And as promised, here's a list of the participants in today's hop:

Brenda

Lynn

Kim {that's ME!}

Morgan

Sue

Ginger

Have a fantastically creative week!

CTMH November 2016 Stamp of the Month	CTMH Glacier Cardstock	CTMH Whisper Cardstock	CTMH Whisper Ink
CTMH White Cards & Envelopes (Value Pack)	Watercolors	Watercolor Brush Set	VersaMark Watermark Ink
Ranger Princess Gold Embossing Powder	Ranger Silver Embossing Powder	Copic Multiliner SP (0.3)--Black	ATG Gun
Craft Foam

InLinkz.com

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy NEW YEAR All!

One of the things that I like to do each year is start a fresh, clean journal. It's like the year: brand new and full of possibilities. So I thought I'd share the journal I made to start out 2013.

When I say "made," what I really mean this time is "covered." (Perhaps "personalized" is a more accurate term.) Anyway, this journal started out as a simple little composition book from the office supply store. I covered it using the Pemberley Collection by Close To My Heart. (By the way, it will be retiring at the end of the month, so stock up now!) I used papers from the paper pack to cover the front and back covers both inside and out. I left the outside back cover fairly plain. 

I take my journal with me everywhere, so all bling and embellishment has to be on good and tight. To make sure that is the case, I use my Liquid Glass. I also used a  Blue Ice Sharpie on the Clear Sparkles and Silver Shimmer Trim to color them to match. "Life is Good..." and "true story" are from CTMH's It's Your Life stamp set [retired] stamped in Outdoor Denim Exclusive Ink.

Here are some close-ups of the cover: 

I added a pocket and detail to the inside front and back covers. The stickers and journaling boxes are from the Pemberley My Stickease assortment.

Take a look:

Hope you enjoyed my journal. I'll post the other one as soon as I get it done. 

Happy New Year! May this be a fabulous, fun-filled and creative year for you and yours!