52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown Color Challenge

This month's Color Challenge at 52 {Christmas}Card Throwdown is the following:

I'm happy and honored to share  my card: with you as a 52 CCT Guest Designer for June 2014:

Close To My Heart products used:

      White Daisy CS

      Holiday Red CS (retired)

      New England Ivy CS

     Topiary B & T paper (retired)

     Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder (retired)

     Holiday Greetings Stamp set (retired)

     Metallic papers (retired)

Other products:

    Gold adhesive gems by Recollections

Now it's your turn to create and share with us.  We look forward to visiting your blogs and commenting. Please turn off word verification and use a direct link to us here.  This challenge will end at 6PM GMT on Friday, June 20, 2014

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a wonderful week filled with fun and creativity!

:) Marie

It's an Art Philosophy Blog Hop!

I originally entered this in the Challenge Me Monday challenge at Fantabulous Cricut blogsite. I've been too busy to create anything new so I'm also posting this for the CTMH Art Philosophy blog hop. The challenge here is to use something from the Art Philosophy cartridge in creating your project and it is hosted by Lisa Stenz, a wonderfully talented CTMH consultant. You can find Lisa's Creative Corner blogsite here.
Thanks to fellow CTMH consultant Susan Koeferl who posted on our bulletin board and recommended this great blogsite that features Cricut made projects. You can check it out here. They have something special going on everyday there! "Holiday cards" is the theme for this week's Challenge Me Monday challenge. I made 2 cards, each with Close To My Heart products and their exclusive Art Philosophy cricut cartridge. The first card used Cranberry CS and ink, A1115 A Holiday stamp set, Bliss paper and holographic paper (non ctmh). The Art Philosophy cartridge was used to cut the scalloped oval and scalloped oval with trees cut out. They can be found on page 52 of the Art Philosophy booklet and the measurements I used were 2.25 for the top layer which was decorative layer shift button. The background oval was cut at 2.75.

The second card is very similar but I changed the color of the papers, ink and greeting. The new colors are Holiday Red and Topiary CS. The greeting is from B1381 Holiday Cheer. I used Bonding Memories Glue Pen and Prisma glitter to make the outside edge sparkle. (My first attempt was to glitter the entire green oval but then the pop up dots would not stick so I glittered only the outside edge so I the top layer would stay attached!)

These cards were easy to do and fun to make. It took me way longer to write this blog about them than to create them! Which one do you like better?

November Constant Campaign--Holiday Wishes and Clean and Simple Sketch Challenge

Close To My Heart is offering a fantastic holiday stamp set called "Holiday Wishes" for just $5.00 (valued at $17.95) with a purchase of $25 in acrylic stamps during November 2011. I received mine yesterday and had a blast making these cards today. There are coordinating Art Philosophy cricut cuts to match these stamps. These are the stamps that come in the set and I managed to use every one of them in these 4 cards. All products used are from Close To My Heart.

This first card is based on the Clean and Simple Stamping Sketch FTL164 which can be found here.It features "Believe" paper, Topiary and Holiday Red CS and Topiary Ink. Lines were embossed on the Holiday Red CS and then distressed with a sanding block. The star and banner were cut on the cricut with CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge.

The next card features "Wonderland" paper, Twilight CS, and Blue and Green Sparkles. After stamping with Twilight Ink, the images were stamped in Versamark and then clear embossed with Polysparkle Tinsel Embossing Powder (CTMH retired).

The tree in this card was stamped in Sweet Leaf Ink on Sweet Leaf CS. The birds were colored with a Tulip marker. The same image was then stamped in Versamark and embossed with Polysparkle Tinsel and then Topiary Ink was rubbed across the tree. The background paper is CTMH "Mistletoe" (retired).

The final card features Vineyard Berry CS and Ink. Bronze glitter gel was applied at the top of each stocking and Stardust glitter gel was used on the angel halos and wings.

CTMH Color Dare Challenge #5 using Art Philosophy Cartridge

Have you heard about the new Cricut cartridge called "Art Philosophy" available from Close To My Heart yet? It's just fantastic--I've had the original cricut for years yet only used it once. Now I can't stop playing with it! This special cartridge also comes with 3 coordinating stamp sets and 3 sets of Dimensional Elements. Check it out on page 13 of the new catalog here.

The other day I was just having fun cutting out shapes using the new cricut cartridge and then I thought I could use the shapes in a challenge. As I perused the consultant bulletin board I came across a new challenge series that interested me. It is called "CTMH Color Challenge" and can be found here. I probably would not have chosen to put these colors together yet I enjoyed the challenge. Diana's challenge for this week was to use these CTMH colors: Pansy Purple, Garden Green, Holiday Red, Amethyst, and Black. I liked that I could use as many of these colors as I wanted and did not have to use all of them.

My card was made using all but 1 of the listed colors--I forgot about black when I was designing the card yet it didn't matter. The patterned paper was from very old CTMH Pansy Purple B&T paper which I colored with Garden Green and Amethyst markers. The shapes cut from Art Philosophy were 2 3/4" Garden Green Circle1, 2 1/2" White Circle1, 2 3/4" B&T Circle3 Layer, and 1 1/2" B&T Banner2 Card. The greeting is from the Salutation Seals set and was stamped in Pansy Purple Ink and then clear embossed. the inside circles of the scalloped circle was colored with Pansy Purple Ink and then Liquid Glass dots were applied. I used Garden Green Ink to stamp the swirl stamp from the You and Me stamp set. (That swirl is my new favorite background stamp!) Hope you like it.

There is a special birthday coming up this week so I used the same sketch I came up with in different colors and AP cricut cut numbers. I also used my Cuttlebug embossing folders to texturize the papers. Thanks for stopping by to take a look. Have a great week!

CTMH January Stamp of the Month and H2H Challenge

The theme of this week's Heart 2 Heart Challenge is cards featuring animals or insects.  The CTMH January Stamp of the Month "Find Your Style" features a bird, butterfly, dress form and shoe with a friendship greeting and the words Love, Soar, Friend and Beautiful.  Here is my entry for the Heart 2 Heart challenge this week:

The bird is black embossed onto a piece of gold holographic gift bag paper (it was broken and I had to find another use for the pretty paper!) The ovals were made with the Coluzzle knife and template.  They are mounted onto Wings paper.  Soar was stamped in Black ink onto Twilight CS.

I also had fun playing with the Shoe stamp and a variety of colors:

The above card features Twilight, Hollyhock, Black and white cardstocks.  The greeting is stamped with Hollyhock ink and trimmed with an old Fiskars scissors called Bowtie.  Licorice Opaques Adhesive Gems adorn the shoe and paper.

In the next card, the shoe was stamped all over Sky CS with Pacifica Ink:

Pacifica, Pear and Holiday Red cardstocks were also used. Red sparkles adorn the shoes and horizontal trim.  Thanks for checking out my latest creations.  Feel free to leave comments. :)

You can check out what other CTMH consultants have done with the January Stamp of the Month set here: