February 2010 Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

The first month of 2010 has FLOWN by!  Time for the February Stamp of the Month Blog Hop.  If you just arrived from Lori's blog, you are on the right path.  This month there are over 70 Close To My Heart consultants participating in our blog hop.  We are featuring the February 2010 Stamp of the Month Piece of Cake, a set of 10 stamps.  This set consists of adorable cakes on platters along with some sentiments that will work great for cards and other projects.  And with so many participants, there are bound to be lots of adorable projects that you ( and I!!!!) will want to do for ourselves.

My project is a rather simple (but useful) one.  I've been reading a lot lately, both pleasure reading and professional reading.  On more than one occasion my bookmark has slipped out of my book, causing me to have a spend a few minutes searching for my place.  So I decided to make a magnetic book mark.  The first step was to cut a piece of cardstock slightly more than twice my desired finished size.  I then scored it across the middle (just like you would score to fold a card).  I then took the folded cardstock and cut it using a Nestabilities die (make sure that you place it in the die so that the fold doesn't get cut by the die).

I put the two magnetic disks together, and adhered to the back of one side of the cardstock (what would be the inside of the "card").  Then I closed the card to adhere the second disk to other side, which helped to make sure that the disks were properly lined up.

 
The cake image was stamped twice, once on white, and once on patterned paper.  Both images were cut out, the patterned paper was adhered over the white paper, and I colored in parts of the image.  The paper-pieced image was then adhered to the "front" of the bookmark, and I ran the whole thing (in the open position) through my Xyron with dual-sided lamination cartridge to laminate the bookmark (this will not only help it to last longer than bare cardstock, but will also ensure that your magnetic disks don't come unattached).  Trim away the excess lamination, and your bookmark is ready for lots of use.  I have found that if you intend to laminate something with a fold, it seems to work better to create the fold before you laminate the item.

 

Papers: CTMH Garden Green cardstock, CTMH That's Amore
Inks: CTMH Chocolate, CTMH markers Garden Green and Tulip

Tools and Techniques: Paper piecing, Nestabilities Labels Eight, Cuttlebug, Xyron lamination, Basic Grey magnetic disks
Stamp Set: Piece of Cake

I have to say, I find it highly amusing that I am using this really *cute* bookmark in a book about a Parachute Infantry Regiment company in World War II.

Remember, Piece of Cake is only available February 1-28, 2010.  Contact your Close To My Heart consultant, or click here, to order one for yourself.

Now hop on over to Laura's blog to see what she has created!

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