CTMH BlogHop featuring the July SOTM

Welcome to the Close to My Heart Stamp of the Month Blog Hop for July. In Canada, we are featuring the stamp set "Canadian Celebration".

I had a lot of fun working on this project for the first official Hop with our Yahoo CTMH bloghop Group started by Diana Soling. This is a group for everyone that loves inspiration! All CTMH consultants, customers and friends are welcome to join.

Now this month we have a variety of artwork featuring our CTMH stamp of the Month, both the Canadian & American versions of this stamp AND artwork highlighting a picnic or party theme...so you will have loads of summertime inspiration as you Hop Along!!!

If you've come here from Kathleen's Blog, you are on the right path. If this is your first stop on the hop, that will work too (just keep hopping till you get back here again). 

To continue along the hop, just follow the link at the end of each post to go to the next site. We hope that following the hop will give you lots of inspiration and ideas for using this month's stamp sets, along with inspiring you with your summertime creations. I hope you enjoy all the many fabulous CTMH products you'll see in each post! 

Every year here in Canada, we celebrate Canada Day with a parade and fun times at our local Rotary Stadium...and of course top it all off with some fireworks...for the past few years my daughter has danced in the parade and this year I got to enjoy sitting on the side lines to watch it...I thought it might be fun to play with this Canadian Celebration stamp set on my Canada Day layout...

I admit that at first glance this layout is a bit overwhelming...well for me anyways...but I love how it turned out...and of course I love all of these CTMH products...click on each image for a larger view if you'd like

my title is made from our Irresistibles Eclectic Chipboard Die-Cuts inked in Cranberry. This layout was created with our Fanfare paper collection featuring our Cranberry and Pacifica colours. The little stars are punched from the Cranberry cardstock.

of course with most parades, you take plenty of photos...I was no exception there so I decided to print out a couple photos I wasn't going to feature in this layout and instead use my star punch on them...this way I've got a little taste of the image and I've created an embellishment in the process...two birds with one stone I say :)

the Canadian Flag stamp worked perfect for this space and I really like the star explosion as well, even if it was a little more challenging trimming it out...

I couldn't resist having a little play on words here...I've been told that I say it ALOT...being Canadian, I guess that's ok...I used some of our Oxford Colour-Ready Alphabets and stamped some of the fireworks in Cranberry ink...notice my star punched from one of my photos too!? The layout design is courtesy of Let's Scrap, the inspirational sketch site...look for sketch tag 7-6-11

I hope you've enjoyed your visit here and that you find loads of inspiration as you hop along to Lela's Blog...remember that this 'Canadian Celebration' stamp set is available from your CTMH Consultant for the month of July only!