As this final chapter with Close To My Heart closes, THANK YOU for being part of my community!
I made versions of this shaker card for my VIPs to let them know how much I have appreciated them and our time together while inviting them to the next leg of this journey (pun intended with the color of the year, Journey), and I wanted to share some virtual hugs here for you too!
Stay tuned for the next chapter, beginning May 1!
Here’s a fun corner fold card using the let’s go anywhere collection! I used a combination of both the card and scrapbooking stamp sets with coordinating thin cuts.
I hope you’ll continue to follow me as I transition from Close To My Heart as they close their doors to Stampin’ Up! I’m really excited about their commitment to expanding scrapbooking and the pieces of CTMH that they are bringing into their line of products.
Today we are celebrating a special someone's 23rd birthday, and here is the card that I sent her so that she would have it for her actual birthday earlier this week. (Blue is her favorite color!). I used the retired Let's Celebrate collection (including a few stickers) to create this shaker card. (The shaker window is at the bottom right.)
As you can see from the back side of the card front, I used lots of 3-D foam squares for the card panel and a small round circle of acetate for the hexagon cut. I filled it with a variety of loose sequins from my collection.
At my April scrapbooking class, we created this layout based on a Make It From Your Heart sketch using the Let's Go Anywhere collection.
I love how this layout uses a variety of photo sizes, and I taught some ways to get creative with photo collage apps to make two 3"x4" photos on one 4"x6" print.
This card was so fun to make for a dear, sweet friend’s birthday! She loves violets, so I knew that I wanted to use the February 2024 Close To My Heart stamp of the month, Say It with Flowers. I decided to use the retired postage frame Thin Cut and the retired Sweet Memories periwinkle pattern paper because blue is her favorite color.
After stamping flower bouquet in Jade ink onto the Periwinkle patterned paper and coloring the leaves with colored pencils, I grabbed my Blue Belle, Green Apple, and gold shimmer brushes to splatter the front of the card.
I stamped the floral image with Harbor ink on White Daisy card stock, and then used a blending brush to add color with periwinkle and a bit of harbor. After fussy cutting the flowers and adhering them, I added some detail and dimension with a white gel pen. Can you see how I use 3-D foam tape for the two larger flowers? A pair of Honey Butter enamel dots finished off this card.
I stamped at the birthday sentiment in Harbor ink also.
Thank you for letting me share this birthday card with you!
Here's a sweet baby card that I taught at my recent card class using the Let's Go Anywhere cardmaking stamp set and Thin Cuts paired with the Honey Bunny collection.
We used the light side of Seabrook for our heart die cut and stamped the coordinating world heart stamp in Sage ink.
This card design was copied from the card on p. 22 of the March/April CTMH Idea Book. I love how much inspiration these catalogs provide!
Here is my final layout of our stay in Evora. Thanks for letting me share this part of our trip with you! Seeing the Roman aqueduct and following it into town (as it seemed to get lower and lower) was a really neat experience. I continue to marvel at how old structures in Europe can be and how young our country is by comparison.
Once again, I let my photos drive my design. I was really happy to be able to add the picture of the wall with the pretty bougainvillea onto this page (even though it was across from the Cathedral).
Let your pictures guide your design and you tell your stories! As always, please let me know if I can assist you in any way.
{Layout 24/52}
Hopefully you aren't sick of my travel layouts yet! I've only got a few left to share of our time in quaint Evora. We visited the Church of St. Francis.
We actually visited the Chapel of the Bones first, but I’m adding this layout second because I like the flow better. I really love how the neutrals work with my photos, so I kept the color pop of the passports to a minimum.
The twisted ribbon technique creates a pretty card! It's not hard at all to make but is a little time consuming. You need over 12" each of two different 0.5" strips. For both cards, I used the April stamp of the month, Little Hedgehogs, and the Honey Butter collection.
Don’t worry if your photos need to be different sizes than the suggested photos in a sketch or kit. I used five 4 x 4 photos instead of the recommended 3 x 3, and I think my layout is lovely.
Don’t forget my team’s motto, “ A mistake is an opportunity to embellish!” Don’t look too closely to find my stamping mistakes! Your layouts don't have to be perfect to be worthy!
{Layout 21/52; halfway to my yearly goal!}
This card design is all the rage so I couldn't resist making a fractured card at my recent, final Close To My Heart card class.
Because I took and printed way too many photos, I narrowed them down to create three layouts of the beautiful cathedral. These all use the same paper suite, Let's Go Anywhere, and my own layout designs. I used a retired set of thin cut arrows to help add some embellishments that coordinate throughout the layouts. (I am planning to go back and add a few embellishments now that I found the coordinating die cuts in my stash.)
I use more of the green city map print to highlight the cloister garden.
For the interior photos, I decided to stencil a brick pattern with Toffee and Espresso ink to help mimic the inside of the cathedral.
The heart is from the Let’s Go Anywhere cardmaking stamp set and coordinating thin cuts. (When I last checked, these are still available.)
{Layout 18-20/52}
After we visited the temple, we stumbled upon the gorgeous public library.
I love how the busy patterned paper complements the whimsy of the children’s section of the library.
This layout is the second featured in the now unavailable Let’s Go Anywhere scrapbooking workshop kit. (Spoiler! Stampin' Up will start carrying some of our workshop kits in the near future!)
{Layout 17/52}
When I saw the Let’s Go Anywhere collection, I knew I wanted at least one of almost everything because it’s perfect for my photos from my trip to Portugal a few years ago that haven’t yet been scrapbooked. (Hopefully you won’t get tired of this collection!)
Unfortunately, the scrapbooking workshop is no longer available, but I wanted to share my layouts with you anyway, because (in my opinion) they are so beautiful. Almost everything else is still available, so be sure to check out this collection before the end of the month.
I used my alphabet Thin Cuts to add the towns name. I also added some extra photos with a 3 x 4 flip-flap that I had in my stash. (I am super excited to announce that Stampin' Up! will be starting to carry flip-flaps at some point in the future!)
The arrows on the bottom right are pointing to my dad! That gives a lot of perspective on the size of the temple.
{Layout 16/52}
One of the mamy benefits of participating in Stacy Julian's Live Your Story membership group is her emphasis on storytelling as memory keeping. Now that the girls are older, it’s so much easier to tell stories over time, like this one.
I had originally planned to use three of these pictures with my birthday from 2021, since that’s when they were taken, but I remembered a moment in time that I scrapbooked of the girls absolutely cracking up at a restaurant. It turns out that was way back in the fall of 2015. Fast forward to this weekend: three of the four of us saw a sight we wish we hadn’t, but that absolutely cracked us up. And, well, crack was part of the hilarity. (I won't say anymore out of respect for delicate sensibilities!) I decided that I needed to combine all of these pictures together to show how much fun we have together.
On a more technical note, I used the current Honey Bunny collection, the April stamp of the month, Little Hedgehogs, and a sketch from the Creative Design Team's 12"x12" sketchbook.
Maybe I should print this blog post and tuck it behind the layout, because I really didn’t journal that much on it. Thoughts? I always appreciate feedback! Thanks so much for being part of my Inky Scrapper community!
{Layout 15/52}
Once again, I can’t believe that I was able to scrapbook an event within just days of it happening! I used the adorable Honey Bunny collection and the Honey Bunny Scrapbooking stamp set and Thin Cuts.
To save time, I stamped the bunnies on Acorn card stock that I had already cut with the Thin Cuts. That meant that I had to do just a little shading to add a little dimension and white gel pen for some bunny tails and bellies.
I fussy cut the "happy" to make the beginning of the title. I colored the stamped images with marker accents.
Hopefully you aren’t sick of seeing the rocking cards yet! Here is the April stamp of the month, Little Hedgehogs, edition with the Honey Bunny collection
I used my two gold yellow markers to color the various shades of the little hedgies. I just made a lot of little dashes instead of actually coloring in the images.
Rather than color the flower, I stamped it on the right side of a piece of Honey Butter card stock and then fussy cut it out. I used the same gold yellow marker for the center, and then added Honey Butter shimmer brush accents.
Can you see how I added Black Diamonds Stickles to the hedgehogs' eyes and noses? It gives a little fun dimension to their adorable faces.
If you love these cutie pies, be sure to grab your April stamp of the month, with or without Thin Cuts, on my website before the end of the month.
With this week being my spring break, I’m using some time off to get crafty. I can’t believe that I was able to scrapbook my birthday within just a few days of it happening! I decided to use the March Live Your Story "Hue and Me" color palette* since it went so well with my outfit. (Please tell me you also buy clothes to match scrapbook paper and vice versa?)
From top to bottom, I used 1“ x 12“ strips of light Seabrook, Seabrook glitter paper, Glacier, light Jade, light Evergreen, and Evergreen glitter paper. The balloons and sentiments are all from various retired birthday stamps in my stash. (If you look closely at the balloons, I used coordinating shimmer brushes to color alternating stripes.) I’m really happy with how this layout turned out. Don’t be afraid of using card stock and stamps instead of patterned paper.
How did I do on using this color swatch?
*Live Your Story is an amazing memory-keeping community hosted by Stacy Julian. I really love being a part of this community in addition to my Close To My Heart community. You can learn more HERE. If you decide to join, tell Stacy that I sent you! (No, I don't get any commission for recommending this group; it's just that wonderful!)
{Layout 13/52}
First and foremost, thank you so much for your support! As announced last month, Close To My Heart is sadly closing its doors, and my 24-year tenure comes to an end at the end of the month. While I am still grieving this closure, I am committed to remaining the Inky Scrapper and sharing my love of papercrafting with my community.
My final CTMH classes will be this Sunday, April 7, beginning at 4:00 with cards followed by a scrapbook layout class. As always, attendees can pay a small materials fee ($8 per class) or have that fee waived with a minimum $35 order. My website will be available for purchases through the end of April. CTMH will officially close its doors at the end of June.
So what happens next?
Stampin’ Up has made a very generous offer, so I am excited to announce that on May 1, I will be a Stampin’ Up demonstrator to continue my papercrafting journey. I’m especially excited about Stampin' Up’s commitment to expanding their memory keeping line, including items purchased from Close To My Heart. While I don’t have full details yet, I look forward to continuing my passion to teach card classes and scrapbook classes in the Northeast Georgia/TriState area.
I hope you’ll join me on the next chapter of this exciting adventure! Stay tuned for more details as they unfold! Thank you for your continued support!
No foolin' it's April 1! Say hello to the adorable April stamp of the month, Little Hedgehogs! Hopefully you love these cute hedgehogs as much as I do! This card came together very quickly thanks to the coordinating Thin Cuts with the April stamp of the month, the photo frame Thin Cut, and the Honey Bunny collection.
I used a very quick coloring technique on the hedgehog where I just made little dashes or scratches rather than trying to color in the entire image. I also outlined some of the stamped images to add a little color and dimension. Rather than color in the flower, I used my Honey Butter shimmer brush to color the center to make it a daisy.
Can you see the shimmer at this angle? I also used Black Stickles to highlight the hedgehog's eyes and nose. You can find everything I used on my Close To My Heart website, while supplies last, through the end of the month.
