life documented: October 2020

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Become A Close To My Heart VIP!

We love our Close To My Heart creative family, and we love being able to offer you the best deals on the best crafting materials on the market! Today, we’re going to give you an in-depth look at an exciting new way to maximize your savings with Close To My Heart and rack up rewards each time you purchase items you love!

With our new VIP Customer Program, you can sign up for an annual fee of just $45 CDN, and you get an immediate sign-up bonus of $20 in VIP Credit. VIP Credit can be redeemed for a wide selection of Close To My Heart products, including paper packets, cardstock, specialty paper, stamps, Thin Cuts, embellishments, ink pads, and so much more!

Every time you make a purchase as a VIP customer, you’ll earn 15% of the retail amount of your order back in VIP credit. With these benefits, you’ll be rewarded each time you place an order with your Close To My Heart Maker! Your VIP Credits do not have an expiration date, so you can use them whenever you want! You can spend them right away or save them up for larger purchases. You won’t believe how quickly your rewards can add up and how much you can save!

Our VIP customers will also gain access to exclusive products and Facebook events throughout the year just for members of this awesome program! Our first exclusive event will take place in February 2021, and all our VIP customers who sign up before December 31 will be eligible to participate! At these VIP events, crafting experts from the Close To My Heart Home Office will showcase beautiful, exclusive artwork and demonstrate how to create each piece in step-by-step instructional workshops that you can’t view anywhere else!

Along with the numerous opportunities to earn VIP Credit, get exclusive products, and participate in private virtual events and workshops with other VIPs, this program also gives you the chance to get a Stamp of the Month set FREE with a qualifying order! For every month where you place an order of $60 CDN or more, you qualify to get the current Stamp of the Month set—typically retailing for $25.75—at no extra cost to you!

On top of all these amazing perks, you’ll get $30 CDN in VIP Credit when you sign up before December 31, 2020! That’s an extra $10, just for signing up before the end of the year! Enjoy your increased sign-up perks and participate in our inaugural offer!

With so many benefits of signing up as a VIP Customer, it’s no wonder that thousands have already taken the opportunity to sign up! We encourage you to visit the VIP Customer page on my Close To My Heart website to sign up for the VIP Customer Program today, and watch your rewards accumulate!

Saturday, October 10, 2020

October Cross Canada Blog Hop with Comfort and Joy!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING WEEKEND! and welcome to our Cross Canada Blog Hop...we may be few but we have some awesome artwork to show you!

To purchase any of the items seen in our blog hop today, contact your local consultant to place an order or CLICK HERE.

We hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we love to get feedback from our viewers....whether it was something that you really liked or some new technique that was used that you would like to learn how to do....by leaving us comments, we get to hear what you like, and what you want to see.

If you arrived here from Dorothy's Blog then you're all good!!! Just keep on clicking!

I've been playing with our Comfort and Joy workshop kit but have added my own design to it...you can purchase the pre-designed Workshop with Close To My Heart and quickly finish three layouts or don't be afraid to take our pre-designed layout kits and make them your own!

I'm not sure why photographing white or cream coloured cardstock is such a challenge but it seems to be! This is our French Vanilla Cardstock which is a lovely off white cardstock even if it looks meh here!

Our Comfort and Joy workshop kit comes with a pre-cut tree and stencil die cut...I've used Almond ink to sponge with the stencil included to add some background interest and then I added our Stickles Glitter Gel Solar Flare after with the stencil and a pallet knife.

Great way to add some visual interest to a plain piece of cardstock don't you think!???

I felt like we needed a circle shaker behind the title so added some Blue Belle sequins, red and green and Gold sequins too! The more the merrier right?!

I'm planning to dig into some Christmas photos from last year just as soon as I can find that box! Moving and home renos make it a tad bit challenging...I hope you're enjoying the artwork you've seen so far!

Now head on over to Michelle's Blog to see what she's created!

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Fall layout

Happy Fall Y'all!

I decided to follow along with Jennifer Edwardson's layout class this Sunday morning and dug into my Bloom With Grace leftovers now that I've created a 6 Page layout Workshop with this collection!

At my last weekend retreat away, I was busy playing with lots of inky things...but today I want to talk about our inks and watercolour paper.

To create this look I started with a smaller piece of watercolour paper (4x6 so it's easier to work with), three inks (Cinnamon, Paprika and Sundance) and a spray water bottle.

You'll need an all-purpose mat for a work surface.

Start by taking your ink pad and smooshing it onto the all-purpose mat to transfer some ink from your ink pad to the mat. Do this with two or three different colours and then spritz it with water from your spray bottle. Give your (4x6) watercolour paper a light spray with water and then drag/dip your paper through the ink and water on your all-purpose mat!

Play with your paper until you have a watery/inky result...sometimes I add more water with my spray bottle and sometimes I add more ink to the mat if I want to intensify the colour. I dried the wet watercolour paper with a heat gun or you can let it air dry but heating it with a heat gun will lock in the droplets and dry the paper quickly while preserving the look. I also took one of my water brushes and picked up the ink off the mat to tap and splatter more ink onto the dried watercolour paper once it was dry to add more detail.

As you can see with the image above, some of the papers look more intense than others but once you thin cut the leaf shapes and stamp them, they're going to look fantastic!

I used inks and some rock and roll stamping to layer the different colours of ink before stamping the leaves for some added interest.

Always start with the lightest ink colour when you are layering ink on a stamp before stamping...that way you won't transfer the darker ink colour to your ink pad! I created LOTS of leaves with the three 4x6 watercolour sheets with the intention of using them on several projects in the future...I added them to my Bloom With Grace kit so I had it all together for the next time I was creating.

This is actually the first time I've used this Classic Alphabet Thin Cut set and I'm loving it...perfect way to customize a title for your projects using papers you already have in your kits and stash.

Classic Alphabet Thin Cuts (Z3655)

Burlap Ribbon and wood arrows from my stash were added as well as those rose gold sequins! Some are still available on my website :)

Textured Leaves Stamp and Thin Cuts set (Z3754) Great addition to your stamp and thin cut collection, just sayin'

Remember with every purchase from the Bloom With Grace collection, I will email you the Bloom With Grace 6 Page Layout Workshop Guide to you for FREE.

October 1st marks the start of our new VIP program...take advantage of this customer loyalty rewards program to earn VIP Credits with every purchase PLUS a FREE Stamp of the Month too!