Feburary Campaign and SOTM...

I can't believe it's already Feburary - wow it seems like just yesterday I arrived back home from Los Cabos. Time flies.

There are three exciting things this month I want to tell you about!

1. New catalog!! All the items in the Spring/Summer 2012 Idea Book will be available for purchase starting today and there's some really neat new stamp sets and embellishments in there to play with. I just got my packet of Baker's Twine and I already have a few ideas for it.

2. Stamp of the Month!! This stamp set is entitled Thoughtful Tidings and it's versatile for both cards and scrapbook sets, not to mention perhaps jazzing up a few other things ie 3-D items cut with the Art Philosophy Cartridge.

Look at all the neat things you can do with this courtesy of CTMH's designers...

And of course, if you were wondering all the stamps with red outlines means that there's a matching shape in the Art Philosophy cartridge to match.

3. Feburary Campaign!! If you're not so sure about scrapbooking but want to give it a try, Studio J is the place to start! I'm a traditionalist scrapbooker by heart but once I got my hands on this I couldn't believe how easy it was to do. For each Studio J 5-pack you purchase this Feburary, you'll get one 5 pack free.

It's almost Valentine's Day... have you started your Valentines yet?

Masculine colors...

My father in law is turning 60 this year, and his gift to himself is to fly all the siblings plus any significant others to Portugal from Denmark. So all we need to do is get to Denmark and he'll take care of the rest. Our tickets are bought; and just counting down the months before we go.

A 60th birthday deserves an awesome card! As I was doing my usual trolling of the forums last night I came across two inspirational items and a card was born. This is the first time I am entering in two challenges.

Inspiration: Heart 2 Heart's Photo Inspired Challenge & i{heart}2stamp's January 2012 SFYTT

I changed up the layout slightly from the SFYTT because I didn't feel like doing a circle but also because the inspiration from H2H includes tags! From the picture I took the theme of browns, yellows, and the leaf branch which is present in the large brown background patterned photo. Since the colors aren't "girly", they're masculine, in my opinion.

The funniest problem I have with putting so much on a card is that it flops over if I don't design the inside of the card and add some more 'weight' to it. So, I continued the leaf theme - those leaves are actually cut out of scraps from the front pattern of the paper, and I distressed the edge of the sentiment piece with Chocolate because it blended too much into the yellow otherwise.

Michaels etc:
* Solid Cardstock, Spice Market Collection
* Yellow dotted pattern - Creative Memories
* Ribbons
* Leaf pattern cardstock - Costco

CTMH:
* Limited Edition - September 2011 SOTM
* Horizon
* Bohemian Alphabet
* Card Chatter - Birthday
* Chocolate Ink
* Spring Iris Ink
* Olive Ink
* Honey Ink
* Opaques Adhesive Gems (Pearls), Mocha

I'm looking forward to Portugal and seeing my Danish family soon!

Adhesive Runners and cards

I'll start this post with a review of a Michael's product: Recollections Repositionable Adhesive Runner. I really didn't like this one. I bought it as a in-between - I had lost all patience with my Creative Memories tape runner that was acquired before my CTMH days.

Psst... I have a Tombow CTMH adhesive runner coming in the mail. I have high hopes!

The adhesive refused to stick a lot of my 3-D items down! I had to resort to the glue gun and was not impressed at all. I'm sure if you're just sticking paper to paper, it would probably work fine but it wasn't sticking my ribbon down. So for those of you who have seen Repositionables, either use Permanent or Permanent dots.

I saw this beautiful card originally done by Amy Sheffer and then used for inspiration by Teneale Williams who makes gorgeous cards down in Australia! So my inspiration is both cards off CASE Study Challenge #71.

Trying to get that cardstock ribbon to stick down was horrendous with the Recollections Repositionable! But the glue gun did wonders. The paper was from my Costco stock and when I saw it I just had to - the particular recipient of this card I know never minds a little shopping!

This photo is my lesson not to use a zoom lens (Canon EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6) to take closeups, but I can't remember what I did with the kit lens and the other one I have is for dark light, which is not worth it on sunny days. It focused fine on the little flower but not on much else! As you can see I also had to decorate the inside of the card with a bit of bling.

Michaels, etc:
* Patterned cardstock
* Solid cardstock (Jewel collection)
* White cardstock, bulk
* Ribbon

CTMH:
* Card Chatter - Birthday
* Pair-A-Phrase (2011 campaign)
* Pink Collection - Brads
* You and Me Die Cut (2011 campaign/fundraiser)
* White Daisy Just Blooms
* Spray Pen
* Pearl Paint
* Cranberry
* Outdoor Denim
* Smoothie
* Smoky Plum
* Art Philosopy Cricut Cartridge

 Hope it's not too windy where you are!

Spring Froggies...

Dad's birthday is coming up in Feburary, and I thought I'd try to stay at least one or two cards ahead of actual birthdays so I can get them mailed out in time.

I haven't touched my large stash of background papers from Costco in a long time (it was a steal!!) and I thought I'd go back to that. The one I chose in particular actually influenced my color scheme towards oranges, yellows, and browns.

Today's inspiration is Mojo Monday: MOJO224.

The ribbon was perfect timing - I was just by Michaels the other morning and they had spools of ribbon for 1$ ea. Thought I'd pick up some browns and reds and it complimented this card perfectly. For those of you wondering, it seems that natural light causes my granite countertops to reflect what's on the card.

Because the froggy on the top of the card is hidden under the ribbon, I thought I'd add three little frogs to the inside of the card amid a sea of red tulips. If you look closely, the tulips are double-color: first I inked the stamp up in Tulip (lighter color) then I inked the stems in Chocolate. Always go light to dark if you choose this technique.

Michaels, etc:
* Patterned circular cardstock
* Solid cardstock (Spice Market, Gems)
* Ribbon
* Fiskars Circular Shape Cutter

CTMH:
* Dream Big
* Beary Busy
* Card Chatter - Birthday
* 1" Circle Punch
* 2" Scalloped Circle Punch
* Chocolate Ink
* Tulip Exclusive Inks Marker
* Juniper Exclusive Inks Marker
* Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

Can you wait? 11 more days for the Spring/Summer 2012 Catalog to be live!

Brother birthdays back to back

My brother and I are born exactly six months apart, and my brother-in-law is the day after that for birthdays! I already have a card done up for my brother from a prior workshop, but I had to do one for my brother in law. Postal office, here I come again.

Today's inspiration was a card sketch from Got Sketch? that I got in my mailbox back in December. And I thought it was the perfect reason to use up paper from one of my retired Level 2 kits - Lucky.

Inspiration: Got Sketch? : Sketch 135 (card)

You can never go wrong with a few boy themed papers on your hands. My Cricut E2 cut the neat letters doily on Wonderland paper (brown with dots) and the blue doily with the grey background. It amazes me how intricate the E2 can really cut things.

To illustrate the versatility by simply turning the background paper over, I used the other side of it on the inside of the card. The print is similar but in this case it is in monotone color only.

And of course, the plane is because my brother in law absolutely adores planes; he used to be qualified to fly but hasn't in a few years. Maybe one day he'll take me up to the sky in a Cessna in the future.

Michaels:
* Blue cardstock from "Primary"
* Grey cardstock
* White embroidery floss

CTMH:
* Little Reminder : January 2012 Stamp of the Month
* Card Chatter - Birthday
* Horizon
* Lucky Level 2 Paper Pack
* Wonderland Level 2 Paper Pack
* Liquid Glass
* Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge
* Olive Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink
* Grey Wool Ink

Stay warm, I hear it's gonna get cold this week!

Back from San Jose del Cabo... and back to birthday cards.

I had a great New Year's in Cabo! Beautiful place, lots of sunshine, new friends made and lots of alcohol consumed (well, it was an all-inclusive). It won't be my last time there - I will have to go back again some day.

This is a photo we took on a tour out to El Arco del Cabo San Lucas, Lover's Beach and Divorce Beach.

I came home to an invitation for a birthday party at Bolero's! Although we are half unpacked and the house is half un-Christmas'ed, I just had to put together a pretty card for her - and MOJO's first design of the year didn't disappoint!

Inspiration: Mojo Monday : MOJO222

The trickiest part was the flower; I ended up using two of the stamped flowers from Spring Up to create the flower on the front of the card. Liquid glass didn't quite have enough adhesive for me to work with (had to hold it together for the stickiness to kick in) so the next time I make one of these, I'll be using Bonding Memories glue instead.

I also distressed the main pink background to give it a little more character.

If you look really closely at the 'Hip Hip Hooray' piece, you'll notice that I watermarked it with three second-generation stamps of '31' as the birthday girl in question is turning 31. Can you guess what set the numbers are from?

Other
* Purple cardstock, 'Jewel' collection
* Brownish cardstock, 'Spice Market' collection

CTMH:
* Spring Up
* Little Reminder - January 2012 SOTM
* Card Chatter: Birthday
* Pair A Phrase (for the inside sentiment)
* Mayberry Level 2 Paper Pack - retired
* Edge Distresser
* Garden Green Ink
* Tulip Ink
* Smoky Plum Ink
* Dark Chocolate Striped Grosgrain Ribbon

Happy New Year!!

I'm looking forward to what CTMH has to offer in 2012!! This is just a small post - Happy New Year :)

The stamp of the month is Little Reminder - I love the different style of numbers that they offer. And even better, there are matching Cricut shapes off the Art Philosophy CTMH cartridge for the two circles; this is awesome considering the amount of off-balance circles I have cut over the years.

And to inspire you, here are some of the crafts that the awesome design team at CTMH has come up with for ways to use this neat stamp set! Check back soon for my take on this amazing set!

Happy New Year and celebrate safely!!