Category Archives: CTMH

15 years of Close to my Heart goodness!

The look of watercolor, the ease of stamping!

Don’t you just love the look of watercoloring? I do love it, but sometimes am intimidated by it. So, when Heart 2 Heart announced the watercolor challenge, I thought it was a perfect chance to give you all an idea on how to do it, without having to feel intimidated by actually watercoloring!

I grabbed the Perfectly Imperfect Patterns stamp set, that has 6 different watercolor type stamps and 2 stamps that are splattered dots, and got started! I used the Wild Berry and Lemonade inks for my card, and just went for it!

The stamps are stamped a couple of times each, and I did overlap them, and got a light orange color in the middle. I used the splatter dots all over the card, in first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and even sixth generation stamping! I even added a few in Archival Black, to help tie in the banner and butterfly body.

I used the small butterfly outline and cut out of the vellum, and used the detailed small butterfly in Wild Berry to ‘pop’ off the card.

The banner and sentiment are both from the Thoughtful Critters Stamp and Thin Cut. I stamped the sentiment on some black cardstock, used white embossing powder, and then cut with the banner thin cut. (then trimmed off the hands with my scissors)

I used just a tiny scrap of Black cardstock to make the body. I cut with the thin cut, then trimmed the body out with my non stick scissors.

I hope you have liked my little project! I would love to see you participate with the H2H Challenge! You have until the end of the month to upload your creation! (you don’t have to be a consultant, the challenges are for anyone that likes to craft with CTMH goodies!)

I would really love it if you left a comment below! I love to hear what you all think about my creations!

Supplies Used:

Thanks for stopping by!

~Michelle

Let’s get Geometrical!

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You know, sometimes you just have to get outside of your box, right? That was me for this hop. I couldn’t figure out what I could do for it. Then, I went to pinterest. And, I don’t know about you, but I get waaaaaaaay too many ideas from there! (wouldn’t it be fun to have the time to make all of those ideas, though??) I am so glad I did! So, if you are following along on the hop, you came from Maz’s blog. If you started here, that’s great too! Just keep hopping along, and you will end up getting to Maz’s blog, and all the other ladies as well!

So, this is a layout that I have had pinned for many years! Today was the first time that I went for it! I don’t have a title for it, just yet, becasue I need to pick the photo that is ‘just right’!

I had laid it all out, and thought it was just a smidge too stark, so I decided to add a hint of color. I grabbed my watercolor pencils, and added some colors to the flowers and leaves with the pencils, very very lightly! There is just the tiniest hint of color to it, and I think that makes it just perfect!

Here you can see the color just a bit. Like I said, it’s VERY light! This page was super fun to do! I just love it!

Thanks for stopping by the hop! I hope you enjoyed my layout! I would love to hear what you think of it, so if you could drop a comment below, that would just warm my heart! Then, you can hop over to Danielle’s blog to see what she made for you to see!

Supplies used:

Thanks for Stopping by! See you again soon!

~Michelle

Sometimes you just need some Winter Wonderland!

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Hello crafty friends! It is another crafty challenge week at H2H! This time it is all about the Winter Wonderland! I just recently got this paper pack, and it is so fun! I wanted to make something extra useful for the holidays that are happening soon (are YOU ready?) So, I went with a gift card holder!

It’s super simple, can be used with scraps, and is great for any and all occasions! This gift card holder is beyond easy to make! Let me know if you guys make some!

Let me know what you think of this adorable little guy! Then, hop over to H2H’s blog, and play along with the challenges!

Did you know you can use embellishments in a different way?

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The new challenge is up over at Heart 2 Heart Challenges is up! This one is all about the embellishments! This could be taken so very many different ways! At first, I was going to do a shaker card, and then, as the card was coming together, it ended up being totally different! I love how it turned out, don’t you?

For this card, I started with the window thin cuts. Everything except the shutters have four layers of White Daisy Cardstock, the top and bottom have a layer of Charcoal Cardstock, and the shutters have a layer of Pewter Cardstock. I have a piece of acetate between two layers of the window, so that I could have some “glass” in my window frame!

I ended up stamping on a piece of the Wood Texture Paper (from the Wood Grain Paper Packet, and I love how much depth it gives it! I used two of the little sprigs from the Serenity Cardmaking Stamp & Thin Cuts. and put them on two 1″ x 1″ blocks. I used Sage, Clover, and Evergreen inks for the foliage.

I added red sequins from the Holiday Loose Sequins (that are still available online!) with the , then some of the tiny gold glitter gems on the garland. I decided it still needed a bit more, so I added a few lines with my black .05 journaling pen, then I added the larger gold gems to the end of those lines.

Of course, the outside of the house needed to have something on it, we couldn’t have it be just plain white! So, I grabbed a sheet of the brick texture paper from the textures paper pack. These bricks work perfectly!

I used Liquid Glass to adhere everything except the sequins, and for those I used Tombow Multi Bond Glue.

The card is a 5×7 card that I made from White Daisy Cardstock. Though not shown, the inside reads “For You With Love”, from the For All Occasions stamp set. I used a 2″ x 2″ block for that, and combined the two sentiments onto one block.

I would love to know what you think about this card! For every share of this blog post, and comment on this post, and comment on the Facebook post with this card, you will be entered into a drawing for me to send this card to you, for you to be able to use to send to someone! (or keep for yourself!) I will draw a winner on December 11th! And, if you have made it this far, if you put a penguin emoji in your comment (here or on facebook) you will receive 2 entries!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope that between myself and the other ladies, you have been inspired to join us over at Heart 2 Heart Challenges! You have until the end of the month to participate! I hope to see you over there!

~Michelle

Do you have problems with making masculine cards?

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I know that sometimes I do! I thought that the Oh Deer challenge over at H2H Designs was perfect to get in a fun guy card! And the great news, it’s fairly easy, too!

I grabbed a deer image off of one of the CTMH cartridges, and did some editing. I cut it out a couple of times, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about foam tape on those teeny antlers!!

I used three different distress oxides to color the back panel, then sprinkled some water droplets on it, then sprinkled some gilt gloss spray over the oxides.

I used just a scrap of the french vanilla cardstock to help the sentiment pop off the card. The sentiment itself was embossed with gold embossing powder.

The card went together super quickly! And I could imagine it working with any number of color combinations!

I would love to see what you come up with, with the inspiration you get from the other ladies participating in the H2H Challenges!

Until next time, I hope you are able to stay crafty, my friends!

~ Michelle

H2H Challenge: Get Inky!

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This is such a fun and easy challenge to do! If you stamp, you can play along!

I had fun making this card for a class! It turned out so beautifully!

So, go and grab some inks, and get inky! And join us over at the H2H blog, and share your inki-ness!

Let’s Celebrate Connections!

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Welcome to Spring! It’s May, and the flowers are popping up all over the place! Along with the flowers is another challenge over at the H2H blog! You should definitely check out the challenges and play along! They are so fun!

Today I have a super fun card, that is going out to a friend that I haven’t seen in a bit. I hadn’t gotten a chance to play with the white pearl paper yet, so I did! It turned out so fun!! (I wasn’t sure if my technique was going to work, or not! I’m so glad it did!)

So, I grabbed my scraps bag and picked out a few colors that I thought would work well together. I wanted one to be a very neutral color and one to be a bright pop of something. I think I succeeded there, what do you think?

I am using Almond and Raspberry cardstocks along with the white pearl paper. I stamped the image from the May SOTM in Mink ink, directly on the pearl paper. Then I grabbed a piece of scrap printer paper, and ‘dabbed’ it over the pearl paper, to remove any excess ink. Since this paper does have a shine, it wasn’t going to take as much ink as normal cardstock would. Then I took my heat tool to it, just to be safe.

Then I just lined everything up! I did just use scraps of the Raspberry paper under the pearl, and the Almond is just a couple of strips as well!

I popped the sentiment up on some thin foam tape, after stamping in Raspberry ink, of course! I wrapped a smidge of the mink twine around it, and viola!

And! Those adorable dots! I WISH we had them in raspberry!! But, believe it or not, those started as white! I used the dark red blend and the bright pink blend markers to create the raspberry color! It’s hard to photograph with the sheen of the pearl paper, but they match almost perfectly! I was so pleased!

Join me, Monday night as I make another card just like this! 5pm Pacific over on my Facebook page!

Thanks so much for checking out my little card today! I do hope you stop over to the H2H challenge blog to see what the other fantastic ladies have for you! (They are all super cute, btw!) Then, maybe you can play along as well!

~ Michelle

Old & New, the next H2H Challenge!

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Hey guys! It’s time for another challenge! This one was super fun to do! It was one of those cards that changed about 15 million times from concept to finish! Have you had that happen before? I’ve had cards that evolve as I am making them, but not many that change as many times as this one did!

So, Old and New. Well, I have a bunch of new(er) products on this card. I’ll name them at the bottom, but can you find them all before you see the list?

I decided that I wanted to go with a slimline card. I grabbed one of the old CTMH books to get a sketch to use. Then I just went to town! I did a bunch of stamp surgery and even more masking, and I don’t know about you, but I just LOVE LOVE LOVE how this card turned out!

I even added a sentiment on the inside of the card! (which, I don’t normally do, but I just didn’t have enough room on the outside! LOL!!)

This card just makes me so happy! It’s kind of ridiculous how much so!! LOL! Oh! I might need to grab a pen and add a comma after coffee and glitter…. hmmmm . . . what do you think?

Oh, and the “old” It is both the older CTMH book (retired) and the packing material that I had, to use for the coffee cup sleeves!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope my card has inspired you! If so, come on over to the H2H challenge blog and play along! Plus, you can see all of the other designers’ creations!

~ Michelle

CTMH Items Used:

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Are you in for another 100 days?

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Hey there!

So last year, my good friend Danielle and I did a thing, we created 100 projects over the course of 100 days! We had over 350 in our Let’s Flock Together of participants! It was such a rush, and felt great to create each day. That group of 350, have access to the projects to recreate them as they please whenever they please!

AAAAAAAAAAND . . . we are doing it again! 🙌 YAY!

Did you know that the average virtual paper-crafting class is $15 -$25? That virtual crops start at $50 per day? Michelle and Danielle are very happy and excited to share that this 100 day journey is less than $1.00 a day (under our Early Bird period)

Classes Begin May 3rd

This year in addition to the 100 projects from last year, you can look forward to:

4 Virtual Crops designed to get your creativity flowing
7 styles of classes EACH week:
- 6×8 pages
- Mixed Media
- Fun fold cards
- Giftables
- 12×12 layouts
- Cricut tutorials/projects
- LFT Page Sketches
- LFT Card Sketches
100 Re-usable projects with video instruction
Cricut links to tutorials and projects
28 LFT sketch’s to print and keep.
Live instruction days (recorded for later viewing)
Recorded classes for replay during 2021
A private Facebook Group for sharing projects
A private Forum on our website to discuss and share ideas and more.

To learn more and to sign up, click HERE

The early bird special is only good through May 5th!

P.s. Subscribe to our mailing list HERE and don’t miss another event – like our summer virtual retreat June 5th

Can’t wait to see you all soon!

Michelle

Check out some of last year’s projects:

It’s going to be a whole truckload of fun!! We would LOVE to see you there!

Pocket Card Perfection Blog Hop

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Welcome to another fun blog hop! Today we are focusing on the PML cards! So, right now, there is a special on these fun cards, they make scrapbooking super easy, but they can also be used for cards, like I am showing you today! So, if you got here from Darlys’ blog, perfect! If you started here, also perfect! The hop is a circle, so you should end up back where you started!

My card today uses a few different things! I have the Lovely PML cards (well, one of them), the current Mix In paper packet, the Lovely paper packet, the rectangle dies, and the March Stamp of the month. I used one of the patterns from the MIFYH V4 book (though, I adjusted it a bit to fit the 3×4 card).

This card went together really very quickly! The Blue Belle cardstock was a bit too plain for my liking, so I stamped the butterfly wings from the March SOTM in mink ink to give it just the tiniest bit of texture.

I love how perfectly this whole thing came together! I would love to know what you think! After you leave a comment (pretty please!), hop on over to Lauren’s blog to see what she has for you!

Thanks so much for stopping by!