Close To My Oh What Fun Paper Suite: Australasian Blog Hop

A Happy Hello and welcome aboard our Oh What Fun Paper Suite, Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from Doreen Watkins 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.

Today I would like to share with you a creation which features Close To My Heart’s Featured collection Oh What Fun Paper Suite

I love the bright fun colours of the Oh What Fun Paper Suite., they are very suitable for a non traditional Christmas but the patterns & colours can be used for more than Christmas.

I decided to use the pinks & some of the mint colours in a scrapbook layout featuring my nephew’s dog, China – I haven’t got any journaling on this as this will be a title page for a bunch of layouts featuring this cute fun fur baby.

This layout is mixed media but the background was super easy (though a tiny bit time consuming) to create.

I added some of the papers under the photo & mixed up some Hello Pumpkin. I added some Decorative Borders cut from Raspberry & Black. This was matted onto crinkled vellum that actually got crinkled because I had it on the bed & one of the cats walked over it! Lesson leaned so not place vellum on soft surface where it is likely to get walked or sat on.

Believe it or not the watercolour background is not created with watercolours but with a stamp set called Watercolour Impressions stamped in Mink & Mint. Believe me at first it looks like a hot mess & if you try it you might think that this is not going to turn out – but the papers cover most of it up & it just peeks out here & there.

I then set about cutting up 1inch squares from not only Oh What Fun but also Hello Pumpkin & the Seasonal Mix in as they both included colours & pattens that worked well with the Oh What Fun Paper Suite. These squares were then hand cut into triangles & turned into a chevron pattern. I mixed this up with some zip strips & stamped doodle borders & even some washi tape.

I did find that after I placed the title on which is a mixed of a stamped & Cricut cut that is was not standing out & that the background was competing focus for the photo. It was the bright raspberry on some of the patterns was detracting away from the eye so I did a white wash with white water colour paint. this help soften the pinks to match in with China’s outfit.

Its messy & fun, which I know this style is not for everyone but that is life with pets – they can be messy & fun so I do hope you enjoyed this different way to use up a bright Christmas Themed paper pack.

This exclusive Featured collection Oh What Fun Paper Suite is only available until December 31 as we are now coming to the end of the Holiday Expressions Idea Book. So I would hurry before it is gone for good.

Contact your CTMH consultant to place an order. If you do not have a consultant, I would love for you to place an order with me on my website

I’d love you to leave a comment before heading off to the next stop, Vandra’s Virtual CTMH Craftroom.

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

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

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Shake Things Up! – CTMH Technique Blog Hop

Welcome to this month’s Technique Blog Hop where we have “Shake Things Up” with Close To My Heart products.

If you have arrived here from Shirley Ross 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.

Shakers are a fun interactive element that can be added to any papercrafting project & I love the fact that Close To My Heart now stock Shaker Window Foam & Acetate & a Thin Cuts -Shaker Window & Confetti to allow us to create these shaker elements.

As our new shaker card thin cut is a circle, it was perfect to add in amongst the circles on this scrapbook layout and the Loose Sequins are like smaller circles – repeating the pattern on the layout.

Close up of the Shaker on the Scrapbook Layout

For my next idea I decided to turn the shaker into a Snow Globe. I created the stand in Design Space & the snow hills from the Decorative Borders & the little houses are in the Cricut® Season of Joy Digital Collection. I resized the houses to fit inside the snow globe & the Loose Sequins act as the snow falling.

I also created a see through shaker card – these cards do use two acetate sheets but I do love the way you can see through to the inside of the card where you could place a sentiment. I kept this card very simple with just a poinsettia on the Candy Apple circle.

I’d love for you to leave a comment before you head on over to Carol Loftus to get more ideas in using the new shaker card products.

I hope you enjoyed what I created, as much as I enjoyed creating it and thanks so much for taking the time to check it out.

See you soon
Maz

CTMH Stamp of the Month: Seasonal Trees (S1811) Australasian Blog Hop

A Happy Hello and welcome aboard our Stamp of the Month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from the amazingly creative, Shaunna Richards Passionate About Pages 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 Seasonal Trees – November Stamp of the Month The  features three fab trees suitable throughout any season, be it summer, winter, spring or autumn.

They can be used for Christmas or to just create pretty scene. I loved this stamp set when I first saw it & have been looking forward to creating something with it to share with you all.

The first card I made is a Christmas Card where I used one of the tree leaves & the cute little bird house from the Seasonal Tree stamp set. I really love how this turned out with the sponging & stamping of the leaves in different greens peaking out of the large scallop that has been cut using the Decorative Borders Thin Cuts.

The next card I used the same leaves combined with the pine cones from the Wonder of the Season stamp set to create this Christmas themed image. Adding the Candy Apple Striped Ribbon & the Red Pearls helped finish this image off.

My final card I decided to actual feature one of the trees in full. The background that it is on is created with sage ink on an acrylic block with drops of gold shimmer pen & stamped onto cardstock. It was heat set & the tree stamped partially over the background. The leaves stamped in sage which appears darker as the background became lighter when it was mixed with the gold shimmer. I haven’t added a sentiment yet as I think I could use this card for Christmas or for someone’s birthday.

I hope you enjoyed what I created, as much as I enjoyed creating it

If you liked to own Seasonal Trees – November Stamp of the Month  all you need to do is add it to your cart at full retail price of $29.50AUD OR, with your qualifying order of $82.50AUD, add it at checkout for the promotional price of $8.25AUD. You only have until September 30th

I’d love for you to leave a comment before you head on over to the very talented Doreen Watkins to get more wonderful ideas on how to use this stamp set.

Thanks so much for taking the time to check out these ideas with this month’s Stamp of the Month.

See you soon
Maz

Paste-fully Creative – CTMH Technique Blog Hop

Welcome to this month’s Technique Blog Hop where we are  being “Paste-fully Creative” with Close To My Heart products.

If you have arrived here from Shirley Ross 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.

Texture Paste is ideal for adding dimensional layers onto a variety of surfaces and Close To My Heart have opaque matte, transparent matte, and transparent gloss texture paste to play with.

Opaque matte dries white or the colour that you colour it with. It is nice & thick & holds it form.

Transparent matte, and transparent gloss are a thinner consistency & both dry clear, which means that when you add colour, the colour is a lot brighter. The only difference is one dries with a glossy finish.

On this card I used the Transparent matte through a stencil created from the Artbooking Cricket Cartridge over watercolour paper. Once it was dry I coloured it with water colour paper & used paper towel to remove some of the colour to allow some of the white background of the watercolour paper to show through.
I cut it into a banner to use as a background and created a butterfly to match to make this thank you card.

With this card I added embossing powder to the wet texture paste. Once the texture paste was dry I used the heat gun to emboss the gold powder.

This made a great background to cut up & use to feature behind the hedgehog. I coloured tit pink to match in the raspberry cardstock & the raspberry polka dot paper from the Oh What Fun Paper Pack.

I hope you all try out texture paste & give it a go. These are just a few ideas & I am sure you find more along this hop. I’d love for you to leave a comment before you head on over to Tamara Sandwisch to get more wonderful ideas using texture paste.

I hope you enjoyed what I created, as much as I enjoyed creating it and thanks so much for taking the time to check it out.

See you soon
Maz

Close To My Hello Pumpkin Paper Suite: Australasian Blog Hop

A Happy Hello and welcome aboard our Hello Pumpkin Paper Suite Australasian, Close to My Heart Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from the amazingly creative Vandra’s Virtual CTMH Craftroom 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 blog post – where you will discover lots of ideas using the Hello Pumpkin Paper Suite.

While this paper suite is perfect for Halloween with the oranges & black, what I love is that there are designs on this paper pack that could be used for any occasion.

In fact I think that paper suite looks more Halloween themed once you add Halloween Embellishments to it, there are actually only a couple of papers that have a Halloween design & even then one of them reminds me of the Cheshire Cat disappearing face & smile from Alice In Wonderland.

 

This card is created using the Workshops Your Way® Epic Birthday Cardmaking Kit which features the papers from the Hello Pumpkin Paper Suite. I created my own design using the papers & stamps adding some Hello Pumpkin Washi Tape & an embossed section using one of the Decorative Borders Thin Cuts to create this funky birthday card.

My second card is a floral birthday card using some of the Hello Pumpkin Strips to showcase the bright colours that I used on the flowers with a bit of black. It was a nice challenge to use the papers in this way.

I hope you enjoyed what I created today & if you did so, please leave a comment before you head over to the very talented: Lauren Moore- CTMH Craftings who I am sure will showcase something absolutely wonderful with the Hello Pumpkin Paper Suite.

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

Overstamping: Permission to be imperfect with your stamping

Overstamping is where you layer stamped images to create the illusion of depth. You can mix different colours – no masking involved or even add embossed images. One of the great things about overstamping is it doesn’t matter if you didn’t ink up the stamp correctly or accidentally rocked the stamp , this is because you will overstamp some of these areas & it will all look intentional.

In this card example I randomly stamped images from the Wonder of the Season stamp set. I started with the pine cone image first around the edge in Toffee Exclusive Ink then added the fir tree leaves with Sage Exclusive Ink using a mix of first & second generation around the pine cones.

It didn’t matter if they slightly over stamped. I added the holly berries in Candy Apple Exclusive Ink and the holly leaves in Clover Exclusive Ink and well I thought I needed more red so I used some berries from the exclusive October stamp Love with All the Trimmings.

To finish it off I added more pinecones with pigment ink & embossed with Ranger™ Copper Tinsel Embossing Powder. You can see I again over stamped some areas where I had stamped before but it works for these types of images.