November Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Welcome to the November Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! If you just arrived from Kristie's blog, you are on the right path.


This month there are over 60 Close To My Heart consultants participating. We are featuring the November Stamp of the Month, Around the Block, a set of 26 stamps. Take your time enjoying all of the wonderful artwork for display that has been created using this fun stamp set. I know I can't wait, because someone always makes something totally outside the box, and I always look forward to finding that item.

I made a gift card holder using this set. It is a 3X6 inch card, but instead of opening, the house slides up to reveal the gift card inside.








The card base was made from a 3 X 12 inch piece of cardstock, scored at 6 inches and folded like a top-fold card. The Jingle Creative Basics paper was adhered to the front.




Next, I created the houses by stamping in Versamark on chocolate cardstock and embossing with white embossing powder. I made one complete house, one roof, and one roofless house. The pieces were cut out, leaving tabs at the bottom of the complete house. After cutting out the pieces, I sponged them with Chocolate ink. The roofless house was adhered to the front of the card. I then used the top of the house as a guide to cut through the front of the card (extending a little bit beyond the edge of the house, which is necessary so the house will slide with the gift card attached). Next I adhered a piece of Juniper grosgrain ribbon (from the Jingle Creative Basics) to the back of the complete house, making a loop at the top and wrapping about 1/2 inch of the ribbon onto the front of the house at the bottom. Then the house was slid through the slit in the front of the card. After sliding the house up all the way to determine whether I needed to trim the height of the tabs, I mounted the roof piece to the sliding house using 3-D Mounting Foam. One more function check, and then I sealed the edges of the card shut with adhesive (being careful to keep the adhesive out of the path of travel for the tabs on the sliding house). Pull up the house, and mount the gift card using glue dots. You may want to check how well your house slides with the gift card attached before sealing the card base. If it is too tight. simply extend your slit a little bit more.



Fully extended, without gift card attached.


Remember, Around the Block is only available November 1st-30th. If you would like to find out how to get this stamp set at a discount or maybe even FREE, contact your Close To My Heart consultant, or check out my website.


Now hop on over to Adeline's blog to see her wonderful creation!


If you find any broken links along the way, Jena has the complete list on her blog.

A Season That Sparkles

As I was clicking links on blogs this past weekend, I happened upon Flourishes. They had a post with the cutest card that had a chair that had been fabric-pieced. Very cool. So I kept reading and saw the Season That Sparkles challenge. Woohoo, an excuse to pull out my box-o-bling (yes, I really do have a box-o-bling. It is GOLD! It is a box I saved from my chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies that I brought back from Big Island Candies when I went to Hawaii. One day I will even cut a title for it on my Silhouette. And decorate it with more BLING! Oops, sorry, I went off on a tangent again.) and get SPARKLE-Y!


I decided to go ahead a try out the tri-shutter card I have been seeing so many of lately. Not too difficult, but the tutorial I found had a few of the measurements off. As long as I remember that for the next time, I'm good. The completed card is standard A2 size.






Papers: CTMH cardstock, CTMH Jingle Creative Basics
Inks: CTMH Chocolate, Juniper, Olive, Tulip
Stamp sets: CTMH Heartfelt Christmas, CTMH Card Chatter-Christmas
Tools and Techniques: Nestabilities Classic Oval Large, Martha Stewart Snowflake punches, CTMH Sparkles (there are 24 of those tiny things floating around the Christmas tree), Stampendous! Crystal Snow glitter in White (which was applied by running the snowflakes through my Xyron, then pouring the glitter over the adhesive--it doesn't tend to fall off using this technique)



Card open



Close up of the tree. There are 24 tiny little sparkles on there.



Close up of some of the snowflakes. The glitter doesn't photograph well, but it is definitely there.



View of the open card from above.

Christmas Stickease

Well, so much for homework. I procrastinated just a little bit more to make this card. I followed the Mojo Monday sketch 107 for this Christmas card. I was troubled to find (after planning the card in my head before dragging everything over to the table) that I was out of Ponderosa Pine cardstock. So I improvised by using the back side of the polka-dotted paper from the Holiday Creative Basics pack (which is from before CTMH put patterns on both sides of the Background and Texture [B&T] paper). And I did NO stamping on this card (although I did use my stamp pads for ink distressing). The image on the scalloped circle and the patterned piece across the width of the card are both from the Everlasting My Stickease pack.

Autumn Many Thanks Card

I had to get my scrapping fix in today, so I checked out the sketch challenge at OCC. I wanted to break in one of my (too many) stamp sets that I got this week, so decided on a thank you card. I also wanted to kick out a bunch of Christmas cards, but I don't see that happening today. I still have homework to do. :(




Stamps: CTMH Many Thanks
Papers: CTMH cardstock, CTMH Enchanted
Inks: CTMH Autumn Terracotta, Garden Green, Smoky Plum and Sunflower
Techniques: DTP ink distressing, emboss resist
Other: 3-D Foam mounting squares, Marvy Uchida scalloped punch, MM spirals

Pilin' it on

Wow, I finished my homework assignments and had them turned in before dinner tonight, so I had time to scrap. I decided to work on a Christmas card, so I checked out Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge for this week. She challenged us to use something that was given to us. This was a difficult challenge for me, I buy EVERYTHING (don't worry, DH doesn't read my blog :) ). But, I also decided to try to work in another challenge or two. I ended up with a total of FOUR challenges for this card: Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge #44, Amy's Friday sketch from a few weeks ago at Prairie Paper and Ink, Monochromatic Mania from Our Creative Corner, and the Pile it On Challenge #18 (Three Dimensional--I know, real toughy for me, right??? LOL).




Papers: CTMH cardstock, CTMH Perfect Day, Scribble Scrabble Rosy Winter Wonderland
Inks: CTMH Sorbet and Tulip, CTMH markers, Copic markers
Stamps: Cosmobella, CTMH Annotations, CTMH December Word Puzzle
Techniques: Sponging, watercoloring
Dies and Punches: Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circle Small and Standard Circle Small, Martha Stewart Snowflake


So, let's cover how I met each challenge. The Bella image I received in a swap. I followed Amy's sketch (with minor liberties-the extra snowflakes at the top). The colors used were Barn Red, Tulip, and Sorbet (I think it qualifies as monochromatic). I mounted the sentiment circle with 3-D Mounting Foam (of course!), and added some vellum snowflakes that were cut with a Martha Stewart punch. The two on the sentiment circle were mounted on the circle with glue dots. The three up top were mounted using glue dots and clear buttons (one has no button, one is mounted on one button, and the last is mounted on two buttons that are stacked on top of each other to give extra height).


Now I should try to clean up some of this scrap stuff that seems to have found its way onto every surface in my scrap room...

National Cardmaking Day

Today is National Cardmaking Day, so I had an excuse reason to tear myself away from my Business Management paper to make a card. Technically, this card is related to my Business Management paper. The paper is based on an interview that we had to do with a business owner. So I chose a local business (Truly Madly Sweetly Bakeshop, which has the most delicious cupcakes and mini cheesecakes) to do an interview with. I was so pleased when the owner agreed to sit down with me. Because she was such a fantastic lady (as well as a fantastic pastry chef), the chat was really easy for me. So, I was going to write her a thank you note, and then I remembered that today was National Cardmaking Day, and instead decided to make a card. The inspiration for this card is from the colors of her shop (white and light pink, with striped walls up top). I followed Mojo Monday Week 106 sketch.

Stamps: Cupcakeabella, CTMH Thank You
Papers: CTMH cardstock (Blush, Chocolate, Hollyhock), CTMH More to Adore
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, CTMH markers, Copic markers, CTMH Hollyhock, Prismacolor marker
Embellishments: CTMH ribbon, CTMH brad (Cranberry), Liquid Applique, Round sticker from More to Adore Stickease
Techniques: Paper piecing, heat gun-puffed Liquid Applique, shadowing with Cool Grey marker

Here is a closer view of the cupcake. I was careful to keep the Liquid Applique off of the stamped lines of the icing so they would show when it was finished. To puff up the Liquid Applique, simply use your heat gun just as you would for heat embossing. The sticker stamped with "Thank You" was mounted on a 3-D foam mounting square. To remove the stickiness from the back of the sticker, I simply sprinkled it with baby powder and tapped off the excess. That way it won't stick to the card when I mail it.