new product and a new sketch!

Good Morning!

I've got a great little sketch and some fantastic new product to showcase from CLOSE TO MY HEART! It's called Later Sk8r and it's great!

I have to confess I went a little off track from the sketch, but I just had to cut those gears out of our Artiste Cricut cartridge...

You can see the new ribbon in Outdoor Denim, love it! and some more of those great epoxy stickers!

Remember those!??? I have more than I want to admit, but those CTMH chipboard letters are my mission this year...use them up!!! I left them naked, I was going to stamp on them, then I was going to splatter paint on them...and finally I thought I'd just leave them alone!!!

 Here's the sketch this week at Let's Scrap...lots of possibilities!

And I thought you might enjoy looking at some of the new Later Sk8r paper coming for purchase effective February 1st!!! 

Contact me for your Close To My Heart Spring/Summer 2013 catalog today!!!

Thanks for stopping in today!

Too many photos, too little time!!!

How many of you have hundreds of photos you want to scrapbook but are getting frustrated because you just don't seem to have as much time? Perhaps you have oodles of photos from one event, you love many of them but are feeling overwhelmed to even think about starting to scrapbook them?

Great questions right? and not an easy one to answer...

In my daughter's Grad album, yes I said GRAD ALBUM ! because I took about 1000 photos of Convocation, Grad Cruise, Grad dress, Grad pool party, getting ready and photos of her and her date...etc... you get the idea!

Fortunately my kids are really photogenic , but unfortunatley that makes it so very hard to get rid of or weed out the bad ones...so I decided to scrapbook the photos I wanted to play with and then I slipped into the album photo sleeves with various sized photos and journalling cards...

This first photo is an example of how I scrapbooked some pictures of Olivia's girlfriends and their shoes...but the second page is just pics of her and her friends...and I KNEW that if I even considered scrapbooking all of these types of photos, I'd go crazy and get extremely BORED!


This page below is one of their Grad Cruise...all of the photos are fun, but also numerous and just too much to think I would scrapbook everything...but this way she can look through this album and see all her photos (well most) and add her own journalling and see some of my scrapbooking too...

These pictures below are an example of the hundreds I took, that I LOVE but couldn't possibly scrapbook even a quarter of...again too many photos, love them all and I wanted her to be able to flip through these photos and see most of the photos I took...

You can get great 4x6 and 2x3 size pre-printed cards now through Project Life or Echo Park's Photo Freedom or Memory Works Sn@p Life!...to name a few. There are many different 12x12 sheets of paper by paper companies, for this purpose...it makes getting your photos into albums and off the computer so much easier!!!

You can find page protector sleeves like these ones through me with Close To My Heart (4x6 Horizontal and Vertical pages only) or with Echo Park or We R Memory Keepers or Project Life to name a few...
The expression "Mama, don't let your babies grown up to be JPEGS!!!" I have recently been LIVING by...in a digital world we take lots of photos and don't seem to print them! I print the ones I love, scrapbook some of my favourites or the ones that have a story to tell and add the rest this way, to all my albums...I have made it way less overwhelming and if I find after that I want to take a photo or two out of any album to scrapbook...I can...but in the meantime, we have a finished album to look at when the events happen as apposed to a year or more later!

Hopefully you will spend some time flagging your special photos on your computer and sending them off to be printed...start by filing them into albums and then make some decisions about which ones are going to have a special place being 'scrapbooked' and which ones are just going to make it into the album You may even discover some photos on your computer that you completely forgot you took!

2 photos...1 sketch

Happy Monday! Ha you say...well with it being Exam week here for my High School kids, it has been a rather laid back day :)

Every Monday we release a new sketch from Scrapbook Challenges and of course I have created a couple layouts with today's sketch to share as well!

If you didn't already know that I have a great love of Kraft paper! I DO! but now with the pending release of our newest Close To My Heart catalog (February 1st) we also have LOADS OF NEW PRODUCTS!!!! One of which I've used here...Kraft tiny type alphabet stickers!!! What an awesome product!

Hopefully you'll also notice these adorable tiny type epoxy letters and numbers (I've created the date with the numbers) also available in our newest Spring/Summer 2103 catalog...let me know if you need your own copy!

I had so much fun with this sketch I decided to create another with the same papers and slightly different embellies...These layouts will go into different albums so I'm not the least bit concerned that they are the same looking :)

I really enjoyed working with all my assorted tiny type alphabet stickers, a definite staple for scrapbooking!

Now in case you only do double-pagers...you know who you are!!!...here's our double sketch design...I hope you get crafty this week, even if only for a short time...cause this sketch is super simple and everyone has two photos that they want to scrap! Thanks for stopping in today!

Let's Scrap with Chantilly and CTMH!!!

Hello! So glad you've stopped in today...it's always fun to start with a sketch...whether it's a card or layout sketch, whatever gets you creative and creating!

It's Wednesday and so that means it's time for a new sketch at Let's Scrap, this week is the third Wednesday in the month so that means a Card Sketch! As you can see, I created a layout instead!

So in case you haven't been following along, it's also time for a new Close To My Heart catalog! (contact me if you need one!) So of course with a new catalog, Consultants get to order from it one month before it goes live to customers, a great perk for us, and I ordered!!!

Now in case you've noticed, that lovely little fabric brad is from our *New Chantilly Assortment...and there are 9 adhesive backed ones in each package for $5.95...so they aren't really brads but they look like them! I've tucked this wee birdie onto a flower from the Paradise Paper Flowers and the Colonial White Rosette Ribbon  from last catalog! These lovely papers are from the *New Chantilly paper Packet and those FANTASTIC kraft mini-alphabets are NEW from CTMH too! So excited that we finally have some mini-alphabet stickers and even more excited that they are in my favourite Kraft!!!

Now a heads up...we are offering FABRIC to coordinate with two different paper collections and Chantilly is one of them...this bow coordinates with the paper collection  and all of the items in the artwork below are from our new catalog!

Here's the sketch!

Thanks so much for taking a moment today to check out my post, I love that you stop by and I hope you have a chance to get busy with paper, scissors and glue!

Spring Cleaning anyone?

Good Morning!

I always feel a little excited when I start cleaning up after Christmas, packing away those pretty treasures and cleaning the house after the tree mess and dust is uncovered on the furniture! 

Perhaps I'll re-arrange the odd Chatchki {nick-nack} and give it a new home around the house, I may even make a visit to HomeSense for a new toss cushion...If you know me at all, you'd know that there are at least 3 toss cushions in every space in my home! Maybe one day I'll post a photo to show you how crazy obsessed I am with toss cushions :) I feel a layout coming on...

In my need to organize every January, it also means it's time to re-cycle, donate or just plain 'ole throw out some stuff! 

So that being said, I'm taking photos of and listing LOTS of my Scrapbooking and Stamping goodness on my Blog here...Make sure you head on over to my STAMP SALE page...you see that tab above this post...yeah, well that's where you will find 37 used stamp images and 13 new ones...I will be adding at least 25 more later tomorrow even! It is a time consuming process to photograph and tag each one, but hopefully those stamps that were well loved with me can be well loved at their new homes too!

I will be creating kits of products and offering them up on the Products for Sale tab above, so check back often to see what's newly posted...I will give discounts for multiple purchases of stamps and product as well as FREE shipping for purchases over $75.00

Thanks for stopping by today and if you have big Spring Cleaning plans yourself, please let me know by leaving me a comment !

Whoo's Your Valentine ?!!!

Well now that I've just teased all of you with the release of the new Spring/Summer 2013 catalog...I wanted to take a moment to showcase this month's special!

It's National Paper Crafting Month...did you know that? Well at CTMH, we are offering a super exciting kit to those customers that make a qualifying purchase of $35.00 from the Fall/Winter 2012 catalog! When you order $35.00 of product from our Fall/Winter 2012 catalog you are eligible to get this fantastic "Whoo's Your Valentine" Kit for just $10.00...you heard me, just 10 bucks!!! 

You will see that we have featured a couple of new Spring/Summer products in this great little kit too, Glitter paper and clear treat tubes as well!

If you need some help deciding...remember that not all the products from the Fall/Winter 2012 catalog will be available once the new catalog goes live...paper packs like La Belle Vie, Flirty {my favourite}, Moonlight and Pear & Partridge will not be carried forward so your only chance to get them and some of their coordinating embellishments will be during this month only!

Each Kit includes:

• 12—Die-Cut Boxes (3 each of 4 colors: Blush, Hollyhock, Ruby, White Daisy)

• 3—12" x 12" Cardstock Sheets (Blush, Hollyhock, White Daisy)

• 1—Sheet Silver Glitter Paper—new product for Spring/Summer 2013!

• 12—Treat Tubes with Lids—new product for Spring/Summer 2013!

• 1—My Acrylix®Whooo’s Your Valentine Stamp Set (D-size)

The perfect thing about this kit is that you can personalize these treats any way you'd like...the only thing pre-cut is the boxes, you can choose your sentiments and cardstock to personalize this how you'd like...I'm working on mine now and will link back with my creations :) I'm also excited about using this stamp set on other projects especially my Project Life pages as the size of these sentiments and images are perfect for that and cards too!

Make sure you contact me soon if you want to take advantage of this kit as they are only available until January 31st OR until supplies last !

New Close To My Heart Spring/Summer catalog!

Yes, it's the moment we've all been waiting for...the release of the 

Spring/Summer 2013 Catalog!!!

I have catalogs, if you are interested in flipping through one of your own, please contact me HERE

Consultants can order from it January 1st...if you have been considering becoming a Consultant or used to be one, please be sure to contact me for more information and to answer any questions you might have as I would love to have you join my team...and now is a fantastic time to join when you can receive some of the new products in your Consultant kits...there is lots of info HERE on my Blog :)

All customers looking to order will have to wait until February 1st...make sure you are saving up because this one is full of so many little treasures and goodness, you are going to be itching to get your hands on all of it!!! 

Stay tuned for some artwork as I've been playing with some of the new items and you are going to LOVE it :)

Still here...?

Yes, I am still here :) 

Ok, so the whirlwind trip to Hawaii has come and gone, spending time away during Christmas and New Year's isn't for everyone, but for the past couple of years we've enjoyed the change thoroughly!

I still have Christmas set up all over my house and I'm loving it! All the pretty things I've collected over the years...just looking at them gives me happy feelings that I don't want to rush to sweep away into a box...of course being away for so much of December makes it that much easier to enjoy all the pretty things for a little while longer!

Now it's 2013 and with a New Year, usually comes some New Year's resolutions...huh? What have you got planned?

I am going to take a suggestion from the lovely Davinie Fiero...I'm going to write myself a letter, just for my eyes only, to be opened on 12*31*13...and I'll scrapbook this just like Davinie did!

Check out her Blog! It's full of wonderful inspiration whether you are a scrapbooker, Project Life'er or as you will read on her Blog a Project 12'er

This year's Resolution for me is to take time to enjoy life's moments and try at the same time to document those moments! Whether I'm using traditional scrapbooking, Project Life or Project 12 techniques, the stories will still be recorded...

Stay tuned for some fun challenges this week and later this month at Scrapbook Challenges and Let's Scrap AS WELL AS loads of new goodness with Close To My Heart as we have just released a new catalog and there are so many yummy things in there you won't be able to resist playing with paper, scissors and glue!!!