November Special-- Holiday Wishes Stamp Set

When you place a minimum order of $25 in My Acrylix^® stamp sets in November, you can purchase a new D-size Holiday Wishes stamp set for only $5! That’s significant savings off the full retail value of $17.95 US / $19.95 CAN. And here’s a bonus: many of the images in the set coordinate with our Cricut^® Art Philosophy cartridge for added cutting and stamping fun! I'll be using this set and my Cricut to create our family's cards this year. I always see beautiful cards but don't have the patience for all the "fussy cutting" involved in some of them. But now with the Cricut^® Art Philosophy cartridge I can make them! Shop with me using the button to the right, or call or e-mail me with your order.

The 25 Hour Day

Don't we all wish there were more than 24 hours in a day? Well, yesterday, there was! How did you spend that extra hour? Somehow, I got less sleep than usual!

Something I've often heard said to people wondering how you find the time to exercise, or to scrap with friends every week, or read books for fun, is that you can't "find" the time, you have to make the time to do the things that are important to you.

Now, confession time: I'm a stay at home mom of school age kids. My part time job takes up very little time, so I have plenty of time. Yet, I still find myself feeling crunched for time because I get involved in other stuff. I remember reading about a study a long time ago that said high school kids who worked up to 10 hours a week actually got better grades than those without a job because having less free time meant they had to learn better time management. And that's always stuck with me, perhaps now more than ever. I do have a little too much free time. Which I don't enjoy much, because there's always something else I "should" be doing, so I feel guilty. Yeah, I'm spoiled. I admit it.

So I'm getting re-acquainted with my planner, to better organize my time. I use it to keep track of the events that are, essentially, planned for me: parent-teacher conferences, parties, holidays, races, etc. But I don't think to plan the things that "should" happen, or that I'd like to have happen.

Yesterday I made the time to attend an all day crop, run by my friends over at Crop N Time. As always, we had a blast. I got 5 pages done, got some inspiration for my Christmas cards, did some organizing and took some orders. If you're somewhere in the vicinity, I highly recommend spending time with Crop N Time and having a great time with your friends! The next crop is February 25, 2012. 2012 already? Where does the time go?

And, as is always the case after a crop, I'm inspired to do what I can to scrap more often at home, even alone. Tomorrow I'll take the time to do the things I have to do in order to spend some quality scrappy time on Tuesday, guilt-free. And on my list: posting photos of the pages I did yesterday!

Summer Days

More Fanfare paper and Stickease, another Cherish layout. I did Four pages on a Tuesday night!

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Happy Day

Fanfare paper and matching Stickease. I used foam squares for dimension and used a Cherish layout. The "old books" still inspire!

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Typeset Workshop on the Go

Join me at my home on Wednesday November 16th at 7 pm to create this beautiful layout using the Typeset Workshop Kit:

Prices are as follows:

Full workshop kit (Level 2 paper pack, unique stamp set, Milepost shapes, Create a Shade Pearl paint, and instructional brochure): $35 (includes S&H and tax)

Value option (includes 1/2 Level 2 paper pack, you get to keep what you don't use and I provide just the additional materials you need, and instructional brochure): $10 

Call or e-mail me today to book your spot, before this fills up!

There's nothing like cleaning house...

to make you realize how much stuff you have! I've been cleaning and organizing my basement scrap area for the last couple of days and it's inspiring me to scrap more. I had forgotten how many beautiful papers and stamp sets I had, and now that I've refreshed my memory, I can't wait to use them. And while I've been having fun with the Cricut, I do still love stamps. I love the look of stamped quotes, flourishes, borders, titles, flowers, and other accents.

The next time you're pulling out your stash, take a few minutes and find something you haven't used in a while, or something you bought once and have been saving for just that "special page." You know what I'm talking about. And you know you will be able to find something else just as good, or better, someday so just USE WHAT YOU HAVE!

And then....then you can buy something new and exciting.

My family

Black and whites my photographer friend took one gorgeous autumn day. Typeset paper and shapes, stamp is Love Life, some shapes by Cricut Art Philosophy, sketch is based on Scrapbooks, Etc..

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Birthday!

Sick of birthday layouts yet? My kids were both born in the Fall and I just love this time of year! New Roxie paper, Cricut titles and flourish, sketch from Magic.

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Autumn Blessings

Retired Olivia paper and Stickease, a little ribbon, sketch from Scrapbooks, Etc. As soon I saw this paper, I knew I wanted to do these photos and I love the way this turned out!

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Rock On!

Still more Lucky paper, wood buttons, hemp, Cricut titles and a journaling spot.

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Celebrate the Occasion

More Lucky paper, another Pagemaps sketch, Irresistible chipboard embellishment for the 5, and stamp set from the Celebrate card kit.

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Follow Your Dreams

Lucky paper, Pagemaps layout, You and Me stamp set and some wood buttons!

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Flower Child

This was another preprinted page from K & Company. Just added a couple of photos, a Cricut journaling spot, and a stamped quote and I was done. Five pages done today on a scrapbooking playdate with Connie!

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Sick Day

Again, Felicity paper, Cricut, and Licorice Opaques. Oh, I tied the tag with some hemp; it adds dimension. Hope you like it!

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Falling for You

This sketch is from Pagemaps, using Felicity paper from a couple of years ago, Cricut title and flourishes, and Opaques in both Licorice and Mocha.

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Anniversary card

I made this the other day for an Anniversary party (obviously). No stamping at all, this is all Cricut, right down to the card base. The paper is Roxie and design is a takeoff of an example in the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge book.

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Anniversary Layout

This was created with the now retired Silhouette paper, one of my favorite lines. I had used it to make the invitations (seen on the left page) and have been saving the paper for a layout. I used the Cricut and our Art Philosophy cartridge to create the rosettes to mimic those on the cake, and embellished with the flourish from the Love Life stamp set and some Sparkles. The title was cut from the Cricut Calligraphy cartridge and the layout is Raise the Curtain from Magic. Oh, and journaling is hidden inside the card. I'm going to cut a slit in the page protector to allow it to be opened.

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Typeset tag

(ed: photo fail! Will post more later :) )
Typeset paper and zip strip, edges distressed, Cricut cut tag and star with brad, stamp of the month, finished with hemp.

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You're A Star!

Typeset paper and canvas shapes, Pagemaps layout, and my sweet boy in black and white. :)

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Fun with Cricut

A New layout using Typeset paper pack, September SOTM, the CTMH Cricut cartridge and some coordinating stamps and chipboard. This is the layout my hostess club is making tonight!

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Fall/Winter Close To My Heart catalog

Our new catalog debuted on August 1st (OK, so I'm a little behind) and I love it. The papers are now cardstock weight and truly double sided, with a cute zip strip that you can use as a border. If you have our You and Me Kit from May, you'll recognize the style of paper. They are beautiful! Great fall papers, wonderful winter sets, and some truly beautiful and versatile neutral sets.



In addition, we have a Cricut cartridge now that coordinates with our stamp sets, and comes with its own coordinating stamp sets and dimensional elements (chipboard).



Click the link to the right and it'll take you directly to my website to shop, or view the catalog online: Fall/Winter Idea Book

And be on the lookout for new layouts I'll be posting much more regularly (as soon as I get these pesky kids back to school!).

Happy National Stamping Month!

Do you have any fun projects planned? Card workshops? Finishing a scrapbook album? I have a few layouts to post, but first, exciting news!


To celebrate National Stamping Month in September, we are offering the first-ever double stamp set! You can get the exclusive My Acrylix^® Pair-a-Phrase double stamp set FREE when you place a minimum order of $75 US / $82 CAN from August 15 through September 30, 2011. You'll love this double set—two D-size sets in one envelope—which includes lots of clever phrases and coordinating images you'll use in your handmade cards all year long. The double set has a retail value of $35.90/$39.90, which drastically increases the value of your qualifying purchase, and you can't purchase it singly, you can only get it this month and as a free set with a regular purchase. Have double the fun stamping during National Stamping Month with our new Pair-a-Phrase double stamp set!

First haircut!

Felicity paper from a couple of years ago, journaling stamp set from You and Me kit, Stitched Together stamp set, and some opaque pearls. Loved these diecuts, I can't wait to get my new CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. And a new Expression so I can make full sheet die cuts.

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Sibs

Foundry tabs, fun papers, twill ribbon, and button brads, on kraft cardstock.

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Mayberry Workshop

Mayberry paper, canvas badge buttons, stamps. My kids at the apple farm. This was fun, stamping on the buttons!

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Mother of the year

Single layout, using lots of fun borders and punches, including a punch in the bottom corner. Sketch by Pagemaps.

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Scrapbooking on the Go

It's been so long since I posted! My dining room is currently completely trashed, though I do have a couple of new layouts to photograph and share.

But something is always coming up. Now, it's summer break. The kids are home and want me to keep them company outside. I can't scrap outside, because the papers will blow away, get splashed, dirty, whatever. What do you do at times like these? Put it off until you can devote your attention to it? Come up with small projects you can do outside while you keep an eye on the kids? Organize photos, create sketches, make small embellishments?

Please share your tips!

Camera envy? Tips for using a point and shoot camera from Photo.net

Photography and scrapbooking go hand-in-hand, don't they? I took a quickie photography course a few years ago and instantly found the quality of my photos improved. However, looking through the last batch of photos I had printed, I noticed that I'd been slacking.

So, I'm trying to refresh my memory and get back into working on maximizing light and composition in my photos. I only have a Kodak point and shoot right now, so I found this article particularly helpful and wanted to share it. So many articles out there are geared toward SLR owners that this was refreshing. I will share others as I find them.

Camera envy? Tips for using a point and shoot camera from Photo.net

Couple Time

This is another K and Company pack, this one of pre stitched papers. So this was easy to put together. I put my photos down, added the title in Large Friendship font, a couple of pewter embellishments, and a touch of ribbon. Instead of using a journaling block, I journaled around the photos.

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Wine Tour

This is a different layout for me. It is not CTMH paper, for one thing! The paper is a My Mind's Eye pack from Everyday Tango by Lisa Cohen, and some die cuts from K and Company. Title is in Large Friendship by CTMH and Small Chocolate. Journal and flourish stamp from the You and Me kit, plus some Opaques pearls in Mocha. Layout is Spellbound from our how to book, Magic.

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Sweet Baby Girl

Another old layout, finally completed! There is no patterned paper here, it's all color coordinated random stamping. We did this at one of our first CTMH home gatherings, and again, I've been waiting to use the "perfect" photo. Challenge: use your stuff!

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Day at the Zoo double layout

This is an old layout, assembled four years ago at hostess club back when I was just a customer! It's been blank since then, just waiting for the perfect photos. This CTMH Expedition paper was retired a few years ago but it is still cute; layout from Cherish how to book. Embellishments are images from an old CTMH stamp set, Life's a Jungle, cut out, and colored in a little bit. Title is in Rustic alphabet.

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Spring Single Page layout

This was made with Sophia patterned paper on a Pear cardstock base, Bohemian alphabet on white and cut out, various paper flowers and some flowers and the butterflies stamped with Fill in the Blank set on patterned paper and cut out topped with buttons in Pink assortment. Sketch from Pagemaps. This Fill in the Blank set is great! Just $22.95 and it takes the place of 9 different punches, plus it has a number of different sentiments you can stamp as well. I also used the flourish from the You and Me Kit as the flower stems in the bottom right.

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Yellow Playground single page

More Tinkerin' paper, buttons, Sassy Strands (retired), hand cut banner, Field Trip alphabet, and sketch by Pagemaps.

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Playmate layout

Tinkerin' paper and badge buttons (since retired), Dimensional Elements On Target, Field Trip alphabet, sketch by Pagemaps.com.

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Dads' Day

Since-retired Splendor paper, Pagemaps layout, Cocktail alphabet, liquid glass outlining the title and adhering paper to clear buttons, self-adhesive kraft color ready borders sponged with Clover Meadow ink. Like it?

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Style single page

A little bit of Fanfare paper scraps, tied with twine looped through two photo hangars, accented with three black button brads. Sketch from Scrapbooks, Etc. magazine. Clicking the links in my posts will take you to my CTMH site so you can shop, and create similar projects!

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Bounce layout

My Tuesday night scrap night-- I actually got a few pages done! This blog seems to be accomplishing my goal of forcing me to keep up with my scrapping instead of using Tuesday nights to clip coupons, or do other necessary paperwork.

Here are my layouts! First: Bounce. Sketch adapted from Pagemaps.com, used Fanfare paper, title in Cocktail alphabet, I hand cut paper pinwheels and glued mini buttons in the center, used a Fiskars border punch, and our kraft borders. Journaling stamp is by Autumn Leaves. Oh, I popped the focal photo in the center with foam squares for emphasis, as well as the yellow stars. Small Cranberry stars are from the Fanfare workshop kit stamp set.

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Pure Joy layout

Miracle Workshop on the Go kit, and yes, that is a very weird picture of my little girl as she enjoys her first s'more.

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Follow your dreams layout

Second layout from You and Me kit, my son's first day of kindergarten. Pages 6 &7.

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The best part of crop night: time with friends to relax at the end of the day. Thank you all for another successful crop!

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Celebrate birthday layout

My daughter's second birthday, on the You and Me kit, first layout

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Another Fourth of July layout

Single page layout, Fanfare paper, sketch from Scrapbooks, etc. magazine. Stamps are old July word puzzle, and some clearance bling from Michael's.

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Fourth of July

Fanfare Workshop on the Go kit. And two pages are done!

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Linda and Julie, our Tastefully Simple and Stampin' Up! reps.

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Crop Today!

Today is the tenth Crop N Time crop. My make and take was make your own patterned paper using stamps. I will post a few pics later.

To celebrate, Connie from Scraps and Stories challenged everyone to create a layout using ten embellishments. Try it on your own, journaling in ten words, or using ten photos.

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A couple of happy spring cards

My hostess club wanted to do cards this month, so here's what I came up with: 2 cards from Wishes, Sophia paper, using paper distressing techniques and stamp sets from the You and Me kit and Sophia Workshop on the Go:

A Weekend Challenge

Not a challenge with prizes (yet--I'm still new!). Tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day and I definitely plan to find time to do at least a quick layout to celebrate. But more importantly: it's a weekend, the weather here is supposed to be beautiful, and it's Mother's Day.

My challenge to you is to take photos this weekend. I know, that's easy, right? The hard part: have someone else take at least one with you in it. If you have plans on Mother's Day, have those you love take a pic of you with your kids, your siblings, your mom, whomever you're celebrating that day.

If tomorrow is your big day, scrap with friends and get photos of all of you together! Or, get a pic of yourself sitting at your scrap space, amidst all your supplies.

This is going to be hard for me, as I'm usually the photographer. But recently at a weekend scrap with my friends and then again at Easter I pulled out my simple tripod and set it up-- I got great group photos at both occasions, and I will actually be in my own scrapbooks! *gasp!*

Have a great weekend, and I hope you take a lot of great photos! I will post mine here. :)

Edited: got pics of my beautiful flowers, and myself relaxing in my new lounge outside!

Happy National Scrapbooking Month!

It is! An entire month devoted to those of us who love to spend our time cutting, gluing, tying, embellishing, and making a giant mess on the dining room table. Ahem. Or, doing it all online without the mess!


You can celebrate our favorite month with a special promotion that features our exclusive You & Me scrapbooking kit. When you order a minimum of $50 US / $55 CAN in Close To My Heart products in May, you qualify to purchase this awesome You & Me scrapbooking kit for just $15/$16.50—that’s more than half off the retail value! With the kit, you can create two gorgeous two-page layouts fully embellished with trendy accents and a new D-size stamp set. The full-color instruction brochure will guide you every step of the way. The You & Me kit is also available at the full retail price of $34.95/$38.95. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a Close To My Heart Consultant, you can get a FREE kit by joining my Team in May! Whether you’re a beginning or an experienced scrapbooker, you’ll love creating these two beautiful layouts to celebrate our favorite month of the year!

Check it out at kerriestrong.myctmh.com.

A Scrappy Saturday Night

Anxious to have another post for my blog and riding the adrenaline from the one-hour challenge on Friday I did a few pages last night. CTMH used to have B&T (patterned paper) packs to coordinate with our color families in addition to the themed packs, but they discontinued them a few years ago. I have hoarded mine but thought it was about time to use some up! These were in Summer Carnival, very vibrant primary and secondary colors that are perfect for photos of my kids playing and, well, just being kids. I used sketches from Pagemaps, and some Heidi Swapp embellishments I won at the Snowflake Scrap in Sturbridge, MA, last January. I'm actually trying to use some of my stash before buying more! What a concept! And I broke in my new Cricut Calligraphy cartridge, that thing is so much fun.

Before I finished, I made a birthday card for my mother. I had my Cherry-O paper pack on me which is so bright and summery, and I found scraps just the perfect sizes for this card. And I used the Party Pennants stamp set, with some Mocha Opaque Pearls and Chocolate ribbon. The card base is on Sweet Leaf cardstock, my favorite green: 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

DIY Journaling Spots

I am a firm believer in journaling on my pages, in my own (atrocious) handwriting. I have a few things from my grandparents in their handwriting that I just treasure now that they're no longer with us, and while it's a morbid thought, I want my family to feel the same way about my scrapbooks. When you see someone's handwriting, you get the sense of their presence and can almost imagine them writing the notes or recipes that they did.

CTMH has some wonderful journaling spots which I love that coordinate with the Lucky and Sophia lines, but they don't always coordinate with every paper pack I'm using. I may occasionally create my own journaling spot in the midst of creating a layout, though more often than not I'll just journal on the cardstock without doing so. But the journaling spots really finish a layout, don't they? And I think they force you to take a few moments to reflect on the feelings of the day and to relive the memories.

A few months ago I was in search of a make and take that would be simple but creative to do at a crop. My friend Connie over at Scraps & Stories suggested a journaling spot and it was beautiful!

Since then I've made a few of my own when I needed them but what I wanted to do was to take some time and make up a huge batch at once. That's what I did this week at our regular Tuesday night scrap. I cut small pieces of paper in varying sizes out of white, ivory, and kraft cardstock; used an assortment of journaling stamps; I rounded corners and used a Sizzix and a few dies. I sponged the edges with the foam tool and Chocolate ink from my distressing kit, I stamped flourishes and backgrounds in a few of my favorite colors just for accents. When I use them, I'll add extra embellishments to coordinate with the layout but the result is a huge stack of journaling spots, ready to go.

So the next time you're in a rut, maybe not inspired to scrap but you want to do something crafty, make up a batch of journaling spots and keep them in your embellishment bag so you can grab one and adhere it right into your layout.