National Stamping Month

Since National Stamping Month is almost over, I thought this last week was the perfect time to tell everyone about the Close To My Heart special! Ok, I forgot until now. Fire me. 

The special is that if you spend $35 on anything from Close To My Heart you can get this exclusive DOUBLE stamp set for $5!!!

The "It's Your Day" stamp set! It's super cute and super versatile and I love it! Here are a few things I've made with this awesome stamp set:

This is a cute little 3x3 card using only cardstock. All the patterns were stamped using the stamp set!

This whole layout is made from white cardstock (with a bit of Kraft for photo mats) rainbow stamped with the stamp set. I have seen this rainbow-type look everywhere and decided to create it for less than $1! You should be able to click on the photo to make it bigger...

This is my attempt to keep paper where I need it. At any given moment I have at least 5 pen magnets on the fridge, but my post-its seem to wander off. All by themselves I'm sure. So with a bit of chipboard and the new stamp set, I made a home for some paper! 

Obviously I am on an outline/doodle-in-black-pen kick, sorry. 

You have less than a week to get this fun stamp set! Hurry hurry!

Baby Cards

My friend is FINALLY getting her baby from Africa!!!

This called for baby cards!
She is getting a boy:

But I made a girl version too:

The center squares are popped up to add a bit of dimension and I happened to have matching tulle for both!

These cards are also my interpretation of the Heart2Heart challenge for the week: line, line, circle, square. Do you see it? Usually I avoid the more geometric challenges... but I really like how this one turned out! Check out their blog HERE to see other ideas or to participate.

On a more depressing note, it's my birthday.

Ugh.

I am turning a rather undesirable number this time...

But at least my Dahlias bloomed!

Spotlight on ME!

Quick!

Everyone go to Close To My Heart founder Jeanette Lynton's blog HERE!

Did you go see?!

I am the spotlighted artist!!!

All my projects were created using the same ONE stamp set: A Note For You. I wanted to show how versatile Close To My Heart's stamp set were; and how with just one $9.95 set you can create all sorts of fun things:

First up is a little 3x3 card that uses ONLY colonial white cardstock, twine, and ink:

When you stamp the petals of the A Note For You set in a line, they make fabulous ruffles! Only glue on the tops and fluff out the bottoms for more dimension:

Next I made a standard-sized card, but traced the edge of a White Daisy Die-Cut Card onto my cardstock:

I stamped the outline edges of the flower and leaves on the back of my patterned paper and used the lines as a stitching guide. Yes, a bit more time involvement, but it makes all the difference:

Last, but my favorite, is a good use for the billions of baby food jars I just can't seem to throw away:

Good use of garbage and scraps, huh! I stamped the flower outline on the back of patterned paper again, but then cut to the center and overlapped a petal (or cut out some petals completely) to make 3D flowers. I threaded wire through buttons, out the back of the flower, and wrapped the whole piece onto sticks from my yard. Add some hemp, curl the petals, and viola! 

I'm so happy I won! Especially since I am actually proud of these projects :) 

Thanks for listening to me brag!

H2H Photo Challenge

Heart 2 Heart is a Close To My Heart challenge blog and it is AWESOME! If you ever need a kick in the pants to create, visit HERE. 

This week is a photo challenge. Since I figured out how to transport the inspiration photo (all by myself! I'm so proud!) here it is: 

And here is what I came up with:

I could not get the fabric draping out of my head, so I just went with it! I used a similar color scheme (Sorbet, Dutch Blue, Kraft) and obviously stuck with the striped hot air balloon.

Yes, it took forever to make my balloon. 

And shade my clouds. 

And hand-stitch my string.

And yes, it was worth it!

THANK YOU!!!

Holy Cow!!! I never thought I would ever get any comments, let alone another follower! You Heart 2 Heart girls are so nice! I will definitely be playing along with the challenges more often now! Here is a card to everyone who visited my blog lately:

Archivers had an extremely similar card for a make-and-take a few weeks back. I loved it and recreated (ok, copied) it with products that I had on hand. Yes, the little bird is quilled! My daughter really loved the whole quilling experience at Archivers and asked for an instruction book for her birthday. Of course I looked through it myself... so expect to see a few more quilled things coming soon! 

Thanks again to everyone for looking!

Mini Cards!

I finally got a chance to play with the new papers from Close To My Heart! The new idea book came out August 1st with 8 new paper packs to choose from... so of course I couldn't choose and had to do something with all of them. I was heavily inspired by the 8 little cards we made at my last unit meeting. That's the best thing about being a consultant. I get to hang out with extremely creative people! All of the cards are 3x3 with lots of dimension:

 Typeset

 Elemental

 Dreamin'

 Sonoma

 Mischief

 Believe

 Wonderland

Roxie

I promise they aren't fuzzy in real life! Still working out this photography-to-blog thing...

I used the new color-ready butterflies and stars, ribbon, brads, the "Live Your Style" stamp set, tons of 3-D foam tape, and lots of sparkles! I have a few kits left over from my monthly club, so if you are interested email me at steeltulip@hotmail.com. All 8 cards are all stamped and cut; all you do is sponge the edges and glue them together! Each kit is $10 + shipping (sorry, only US). 

Thanks for looking!