True Story – An interactive mini album project!

Papercrafting meets memory keeping in this incredibly interactive mini album project!

Our new True Story album makes it easier than ever to preserve your stories and photos & is a one-of-a-kind memory-keeping project for National Papercrafting Month

The True Story project has room for an amazing number of photos and stories thanks to the innovative Flip Flaps, making this album a keepsake you will love paging through time and time again!

The True Story album kit comes with pre-cut pieces and die-cuts making assembly a breeze. You can embellish the book with coordinating stickers and clear acrylic pages for a truly unique look, creating a delightful mini album with surprises on every page!

To get a full picture of this album’s potential, including all the opportunities for journaling and photo display in the finished product, check out this short video, which shows off each page of this one-of-a-kind album.

Offer available through 28 February 2022, while supplies last.

Specials & Offers

Make sure you check out our other great promotions. Meet the new Smitten collection of Valentine’s crafting items that will have you falling head over heels! Or why not Sign up as a Maker with Close To My Heart. Signing up is a better deal this month than ever, because you can sign up for just $20 and you’ll get $22 back in CTMH Cash! Or maybe you want to rediscover Chantilly – a popular and stylish paper collection with coordinating stamp sets! Or be a VIP customer & join us for a VIP scrapbooking workshop – VIP Highlights or add a Craft with Heart™—Subscriptions with Heart! for easy Scrapbooking & card Making options.

I hope you are inspired get the True Story mini album project. Until next time, see you soon & keep creating!
Maz

27Dec2021

Workspace Wonder – The Flexible way to organise your crafting space!

Posted in Inspiration, Product Review by artymaz

It is that time of the year when you want to get your Marie Kondo on, and start organising your craft room or your craft supplies on your desk!

It doesn’t matter if you have entire room dedicated to your craft supplies (lucky you!) or you only have spare a desk and a couple of drawers – the Workspace Wonder™ are a brilliant & flexible way to organise your space.

Workspace Wonder™ is created as individual components that line stack on top of each other in a variety of combinations, so you can mix and match the pieces to create a storage solution that’s perfectly tailored to your crafting style and space.

And if your needs change, you can easily rearrange the pieces again to get the right fit for you.

Why not try an L shape for the corner of your desk!

Or go tall with your stack to save on space

Or even tall & wide with the very handy Workspace Wonder™ Tool Cubby to hold all your tools

Or add a Carousel Base & Top to your Stamp Pad Stacks so you can spin it around to find your desire colour!

Don’t forget about the papers!

You can sit the Workspace Wonder™ Paper Tray next to other pieces

Or combine the paper trays right into your favourite configuration!

There are so many possibilities for stacking and storing—you’ll want to discover them all!

What are some of your favourite options?

Specials & Offers

Make sure you check out our other great promotions including Smitten a collection of Valentine’s crafting items that will have you falling head over heels!. Be a VIP customer or add a Craft with Heart™—Subscriptions with Heart! for easy Scrapbooking & card Making options.

I hope this inspires you to try some of the combinations out in your craft space. Til next time, see you soon & keep creating!
Maz

Close To My Heart Layered Flowers Thin Cuts – Australasian Blog Hop

A Happy Hello and welcome aboard our Layered Flowers Thin Cuts Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from Danielle Edwards Scrappy Chick then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post

The Layered Flowers Thin Cuts are very vertisile flower thin cut dies that are a great investment. You might be thinking I have already got other flower dies, but these ones once you experiment with them a bit you can create more than the flowers that are featured on the front cover of the annual catalogue.

For my first card I did use the Layered flowers as expected.

I created the card front with the Embroidered Card Front stamp set. I cut out the leaves from Rosemary Cardstock & when I glued them down, I slightly curved them to match the inner circle. I cut the smaller flower from Mulberry Cardstock, using both the light side & the dark side layered together. I added some silver foil centres.This card came together very quickly as I had the flowers already done foor something else & I did not use them. I think I be making a bunch more flowers just to have on hand ready to quickly embellish a card.

For my next card I wanted to do something creative with the flowers, so at first I folded these large petals in half & then realised they sort of looked a bit like cone flowers.

After a bit of experimentation, I ended up cutting the petals so I could layer them & stamped on one of the images with Perfectly Imperfect Patterns & some sponging I got these gorgeous flowers.

I used some As You Grow Paper behind the Circle Windows Slimline Thin Cuts & added a For You stamp. I loved how this card turned out.

And finally I wanted to use the leaves.

I painted some watercolour paper in various greens from my water paints. I added water spray & dried it with a heat gun. I added some Lime & Gilt Gloss spays. And then I cut out my leaves.

I used the Curved Rectangle Frame Thin Cuts on Kraft paper & arranged the leaves around it, I did cut them so that I could layer them & have them poking out at various lengths. I cut out the Just Because & distressed it with some Vintage Photo Distress Oxide Ink & then with the embossing Pen I covered the wording & added gold embossing powder. I wanted the distressed look so I did not worry about it appearing on the background. I also added Solar Flare Stickles Glitter Gel to the background.

To finish off I cut one of the inner flowers. I stamped the small flower from Perfectly Imperfect Patterns in the centre & added white gel pen. It was a fun mixed media card to create.

I hope you enjoyed what I created with the Layered Flowers Thin Cuts, they were fun to create with.

I would love you to leave a comment before heading off to the next stop, Shaunna Richards – Passionate About Pages

Enjoy the hop & thanks so much for taking the time to check out these ideas with this month’s feature.

Til next time, see you soon & keep creating!
Maz

1Sep2020

Creativity in Motion – animated stamps to bring your artwork to life!

Posted in Cards, Inspiration, News, Special Offer, Technique by artymaz

We’re delighted to announce our new line of animated stamps to bring your artwork to life!

With specialized acetate sheets to help your stamped images dance on the page, these sets are absolutely one of a kind and are a must-have for any avid stamper!

Fun Ideas to Try Out

So here are some fun card Ideas that I tried out that are a little different to the ideas on the instructions.

For this card I stamped the Floral Details & Background onto Distress Watercolor Cardstock with Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide™ Ink onto the smooth side & smudged & blended the ink with the Round Waterbrush.

I used the dragonfly from the Animated Butterfly Kisses Stamp stamping in black & followed the easy instructions to put it together. I finished off with some Silver Foil Paper & extra flower & leaves to complete the card.

My next card I decided to go for a cute little scene using the 6″ × 6″ Bright Stack paper to form the sky & hills of grass.

I cut out the hills using the Fancy Borders Thin Cuts & layer them over the blue pattern paper. I then cut out a circle using the Circle Shaker Window Thin Cuts, added the Animation Sheets & added foam tape to form the well where the pull card.

I decided to use the dancing hippo from the Animated Safari Animals Stamp Set for my animation as he seemed to work well in this little scene. I added a stamped balloon from A Wild Bunch & finished off with a saying from the Animated Safari Animals Stamp Set.

With slimline cards being all the rage right now, I decided to try out these stamps on a slimline card.

I created a simple frame on my cricut (I am sure you could fine & do fancy one one if you like) and stamped the animals & added some grass – nice & simple.

What to do with the Left Over Acetate sheets

Colour In

One of the things you can do is colour in your left over sheets with the TriBlend™ Markers to create a rainbow type effect & use the pieces to decorate your papercrafting projects. Make sure you colour in on the right side, if you colour in on the wrong side the markers will remove the black lines on the specialized acetate sheets.

Cut Out

Die cut out some shapes & use as embellishments. The easiest way to attach them is to use some Glue Dots® Mini Dots as they are less likely to show through.

Free Virtual Event

If you want to find out more about this join us on Sunday, 20 September, for a virtual event dedicated to the art of stamping! We will make a total of 12 cards, 3 each of 4 different designs.

Make sure you mark yourself as going to get you name into the draw for prizes & remember this is a FREE event. We hope to see you there!

Check out how easy it is to put together

Til next time, see you soon & keep creating!
Maz

The Pretty of Paper-Piecing – CTMH Technique Blog Hop

Welcome to this month’s Technique Blog Hop where we the theme is to “The Pretty of Paper-Piecing” with Close To My Heart products.

If you have arrived here from Darlys Recker then you are in the right place.

If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

I like to think of paper-piecing as colouring with paper. It is a great way incorporate paper scraps into your work & fun.

For this project I thought I use the super cute A Koala-ty Day Stamp + Thin Cuts.

I stamped the Koalas that are on branches onto the woodgrain pattern paper from the Timber Paper Pack & the leaves onto the green polka dot pattern paper from the Bring Back My Pack – Brushed Paper pack. I fussy cut these out (thank goodness for the Non-stick Micro-tip Scissors) & glued them onto a stamped & Die cut image.

I then coloured a second coloured koala in with markers & fussy cut them out & stuck them on. For the background I sponged Mint, then Sage & at the bottom Julep. I did stamp over the sponged background with Mint leaves but I made the mistake of not making sure my sponged background was dry before doing that – so they blended in – oh well.

To finish off I stamped the Have a Koalaty Day in black in the middle &added a white Stitched frame with the Koalas on either side – so cute.

My Next idea I just paper-pieced the pots & that is it. I used Timber & Mixed in kraft based pattern paper for the pots & added it to the plants that have been stamped onto a background that used the Bargello Technique.

I added more colour to the plants with some markers & I think it turned out great – it looks like a greenhouse.

I’d love for you to leave a comment before you head on over to Brenda Lapp to get more The Pretty of Paper-Piecing ideas.

If you like to get any of the products that I have used in this project, please contact your Close To My Heart Consultant or if you do not have a consultant & are an Aussie, I would love for you to place an order with me on my website

Till Next time
See you soon
Maz

Let it Shimmer! – CTMH Technique Blog Hop

Welcome to this month’s Technique Blog Hop where we the theme is to “Let it Shimmer!” with Close To My Heart products.

If you have arrived here from Alyson Mayo then you are in the right place.

If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

Who doesn’t love shimmer & with the Close To My Heart Shimmer brushes it is super easy to add shimmer to your projects.

On this card I added the Gold Shimmer brush to the Star Balloon & on the cute clouds I used the clear shimmer to give them some shine & make them look like they are full of rain.

I used the updated Bring Back My Pack – Brushed paper to create my little scene for the Snuggle Up Bunnies

This is a angle shot to try & get a better image of the shine the Shimmer brushes add

My next card idea was inspired by a card from the Craft with Heart™ Cardmaking subscription but believe me when I say that the card that was in the subscription was much faster & quicker to make but still just as cute