Sarita Blog Hop

Hi! Welcome to the September edition of the Creatively Redeeming Treasures Blog Hop. If you are arriving from Elizabeth's blog, you are in the right place! This month, we are featuring the fantastic Sarita paper pack from Close To My Heart. I really love this paper. It's so trendy and modern, I love the navy and the orange, and the ikat pattern is one of my all time favorites. But as much as I love the paper, I wasn't feeling super creative with it. I kept pulling it out, looking at it, trying different combinations, and then putting it away again. I had no clue what to do with it. Then I talked to my best friend who just moved all the way across the country to live with her baby and her inlaws while her husband is going to school. She sounded so sad and lonely, and I wanted to do something to cheer her up. As soon as I knew I wanted to make her something, I knew EXACTLY what to do with this paper pack and this card was born.

I used the ikat patterned paper on an Outdoor Denim background. I used the fantastic Geometric Backgrounds stamp in the ikat pattern to stamp the navy cardstock in navy ink to give it a little bit more depth. I am a huge fan of background stamps, but these are probably my favorite. They are specifically designed to fit together so you can stamp seamless backgrounds with ease. It's so easy and adds such a great touch to your project.

The sentiment and the butterfly and flower stamps are from this month's exclusive You Are My Happy set, in celebration of National Scrapbooking Month. This is such a fantastic set. It comes with a complete uppercase and lowercase alphabet, a sheet of sentiments, and a sheet of adorable animals and shapes, and it only costs $10 if you purchase $50 or more in qualifying product!

  

The inside of the card has a delightful quote from Dr. Seuss and some more happy animals. I'm really happy with how this turned out and I think my friend is going to love it, too. To find out more about Close To My Heart or to purchase any of the products featured in this hop, contact your Close To My Heart consultant or follow any of the links in this post. Now hop on over to Kara's blog to see what she has for you. Thanks for stopping by!

Be Crafty!
Meredith

Joyful Stars Blog Hop

Welcome to this month's Joyful Stars blog hop. If you are coming from Elizabeth's blog, you are in the right spot.  If you get lost at any point, there's a list on Joyce's blog. Lets get started!

The last couple of days here have been cold and rainy. I've been wearing scarves and cardigans and feeling like fall. I also just got this super adorable turkey stamp, and so this card was born.

I used Barn Red card stock and one piece of patterned paper from the Huntington pack. I cut the patterned paper into a 1/2 in x 12 in strip and then cut it into three 4-inch pieces. The turkey I cut with my cricut using the Artiste cartridge. The 'Happy Thanksgiving' and the flourish are from that set, as well as the 'Thank You' stamped on the bottom grey piece. Some little gold sparkles were the finishing touch! Quick, easy thank you card for a thanksgiving hostess! Now hop on to  Lori's blog to see what else we have for you. Thanks for stopping by!

August Creatively Redeeming Treasures Blog Hop

Hi! Welcome to the August edition of the Creatively Redeeming Treasures Blog Hop. I'm so glad you are here. If you are coming from Angelina's blog, you are in the right place. If you are starting here at my blog, keep hopping through and when you end up back here, you know you are in the right place. Let's get started, shall we?

This month, the theme is the brand new paper pack from Close To My Heart called 'Babycakes'. This paper pack is so cute. It is gender neutral, full of trendy greys, browns, and oranges, polka dots, stripes, and adorable giraffes, and would make fantastic baby pages or projects. When I first saw it, I completely wrote it off, because I don't have babies, and clearly this paper is only for baby projects, right? WRONG! The giraffe paper is probably best for babies, but the neutral color palette, the polkadots, stripes, and solids make it a fantastic choice for many different projects. To show you how versatile this paper is, I made a very classy Thank You card that has nothing to do with babies.

I used one of the brand new Spin Cards, as well as the mini Thank You stamp. And can I just talk about the mini stamps for a minute. How cute are they? They are adorable, the perfect size for a quick card to someone, and at only $2.95 each, you can buy all of them! Great, huh? They also fit perfectly on the spinner part of these cards, so the combo makes it fantastic for a quick and easy card. I used the brand new Scallop Punch on the edges of my strips of paper, layered them on the bottom of the card, and topped it off with some Bronze Shimmer Trim. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how much I love shimmer trim. If this is your first visit, let me just say that if I could only pick one crafting product to keep with me on a desert island, it would be shimmer trim. This stuff is amazing. You need shimmer trim.

I sponged the edges of the spinner and the cut-out with Sunset ink to make them stand out a little bit more. 

On the opposite side of the spinner I just adhered a grey circle. I might do something with this later before I give the card away, or I might not. I haven't decided for sure yet. But I like that I have options.

That's all I have for you today! Hop on over to Helen's blog to see what else we have for you with this beautiful paper.

Be Crafty!

Meredith

July Creatively Redeeming Treasures Blog Hop

Hi! Welcome to this month's Creatively Redeeming Treasures Blog Hop! If you are coming from Elizabeth's blog, you are in the right place! If you are just stopping by, feel free to follow the links and hop the whole way through and see everyone's artwork. This month's theme is 'Anything Goes', which is my favorite theme. :) I thought I'd show you a project I made for my team last month at convention. I recently learned how to do Coptic binding, which is a way to bind books so that they open flat at any page. If you would like to learn how to do this, there is an excellent tutorial here. I used a small notebook for the inside pages and plain, cream-colored cardstock for the outside covers. I used brown, waxed thread, although embroidery floss also works well. 

I forgot to take pictures before they flew in a plane, so it's a little beat up. I layered Chocolate and Sweet Leaf cardstock. On the brown cardstock, I stamped some flourishes around the edge in Chocolate, and on the green paper, I stamped the scallop dots from this stamp set. (By the way, this is one of my favorite stamps ever. I use it so often to make a subtle pattern on paper and it is so versatile. If you like making patterned paper with stamps and plain cardstock, this set is definitely a must have)

I layered a strip of the Chocolate Grosgrain Ribbon on the green piece. The stamp is from 'For a Friend', and I cut an oval out on my Cricut that fits perfectly.

That's it for today! Thanks for stopping by. Now hop on over to Dolores' blog to see what she's made for us this month!

Be Crafty!

Meredith

Quick update

If you are here looking for this week's party kit, it's not here today. Please check out the blog hop I'm participating in today in the post below, and check back tomorrow when hopefully my camera is fixed for this week's party kit. It might be my favorite! Flowers and pastels and lace, oh my!

Joyful Stars Blog Hop

Hi!  Welcome to the July Joyful Stars Blog Hop! If you are coming from Cindy's Blog, you are in the right place! Not sure what a blog hop is? Its basically a big circle of blog posts on a similar theme and you 'hop' from one post to the next through the provided links, eventually reaching the point where you started.

This month, our theme was 'Anything Goes', so I decided to mix some old and some new. I started with the July sketch challenge from Paper Crafting Divas. I used some paper from the 'Clementine' Paper pack (which is one of my all time favorites and is sadly no longer available) as well as cardstock in Champagne and Saddle.

The sentiment is from For Every Occasion, which is probably the most versatile and useful sentiment set I own. If you make cards, you MUST own this set.

The pattern on the brown cardstock is from a new stamp set that isn't available until August 1, but it is really fantastic. It's three different border/background stamps which fit together, making it super easy to make your own patterned paper! I LOVE stamps that let me make my own patterned paper, and this stamp is fantastic. There's the ikat pattern I used here, a checker pattern, and a diamond pattern. I stamped the ikat pattern on the brown cardstock in Chocolate ink because I wanted it to stand out.

I also used some brand new Bronze Shimmer Trim which isn't available until August 1. You guys, I got a roll at Convention and I've almost used the entire thing in the two weeks since I got it. I adore this shimmer trim. I'm not really a glitter person, but I find myself reaching for shimmer trim all the time. As I said, the Bronze shade isn't available yet, but you can find it in silver and black. (OR, to order anything out of the new Idea Book before it's available, you can join my team for only $49, receive $155 worth of brand new product, and get a discount on all of the new products in the new Idea Book! Contact me for more information.)

Now, can we talk the flower design for just a moment. I really love the way it looks, and I have seen these shapes used so many times. Would you believe that I didn't realize how simple they are to make until about three months ago? It's true. (In case you are like me, and don't know, a full tutorial for this card is below and I'll share the secret). To finish off the look, I used a flower from the XXXXXXX assortment pack and a brown button tied with some bakers twine.

So that's my project for today! Hop on over to Joyce's blog, or keep reading for the full tutorial. Thanks for stopping by!

Card Recipe!

Use standard size card base or cut cardstock to 8.5" x 5.5" and fold in half to make 4.25" x 5.5" card
Cut dark brown cardstock piece at 4.25" x 5.5"
Cut beige piece at 4" x 5.25"
Cut 4 squares at 1.25" x 1.25" and 4 at 1.5" x 1.5" from 4 different sheets of cardstock. Stamp or sponge as desired. (I sponged all the cardstock pieces in Chocolate ink)
Use a corner rounder on two opposing corners of all 8 squares. Layer one small piece on one larger piece as desired and adhere to beige cardstock.
Attach shimmer trim.
Stamp sentiment in Chocolate ink
Attach center embellishment
Adhere beige piece to dark brown piece
Adhere dark brown piece to card base.

That's it! If you make a card similar to this or similar to the sketch challenge, send me a picture! I love seeing what you create.

To find out more about CTMH, to order any products from CTMH, to find out more about joining my team and receiving a ton of free product, or to learn about online and in person classes, Contact me! Also, don't forget to check out our July Specials!

Be Crafty!
Meredith

July Classes!

I just wanted to take a moment to talk about classes and introduce the classes for this month. We do a layout and a class on something else (cards, 3-D object, etc) once a month. Class kits are available, and they are available at two different levels. At the first, and easiest level, the kit comes with only what you need to complete the project. For a layout, that means the base pages, photo mats, embellishments, journaling and title blocks, and directions. If you attend this class in person, you will be able to use my supplies for stamping and inking, and if you order it online, everything will be pre-stamped. At the second level, you will still receive all the supplies you need for the project, but there will be some extras. You will receive an entire pack of embellishments, not just the amount you need for the project. You will receive pre-cut paper, but you will also receive some extra paper as well. You will receive the stamps and ink you need to do your own stamping. All classes are available in person or online, and if you participate online, you will receive detailed instructions and Skype/FaceTime/Gchat support as necessary.

Now that we have the details out of the way, lets talk about our July classes. The first class is a layout class. We will be completing two, 2-page layouts with a grey, coral, and teal color scheme and a 'Summer' theme. I'm a huge fan of this layout, and it comes together so quickly! Here's a quick picture of the first page, and I'll have more up soon - I am having difficulties with my camera right now so I'm sorry about that. 

The layout class, if you participate in person, will be on July 30th. Please register by going to the 'Classes' link at the top of the page and selecting the correct option from the drop down menu under July Classes. Registration for virtual and in person classes must be by July 19th.

The second class we have this month is a mini-card class. I absolutely love mini cards, because they are perfect for tossing in a gift bag or including with a quick present (birthday, hostess, thank you, etc). Also, they are just so cute! We will be making 6 mini-cards in 6 different designs for different occasions. The cards will come in a mini 'magazine box' holder that I really wish I could show you, and I will upload pictures as soon as I can. This class will be on July 29th. Please register by July 18th by following the procedure outlined above.

That's it for today! Check back tomorrow for a very exciting blog hop, on Wednesday for my next party kit (you guys are really going to love this one), and don't forget about all of the exciting July specials!

Be Crafty!

Meredith