Damask Divas Scaredy Cat Blog Hop

Hello,

Welcome to the Damask Divas Blog Hop!  If you came here from the amazing Cydney, then you are at the right place. If you have missed any of the Sept line up, you can start back here. We are featuring Scaredy Cat paper pack this month – item # X7185B

 I just LOVE the designs in the Scaredy Cat paper, so I didn't want to cover it up. My project covered an old acrylic picture frame with the different sides of the b&t paper. Both side are so pretty that I just trimmed off part of the collage paper and used the opposite side as a strip underneath it. The other side of this paper is all different fences. The bottom is just different sized strips of the other papers in the pack.

I added chipboard arrow that came from the artbooking cricut collection. I stamped the trick or treat and the Happy Halloween from the retired CTMH Holiday Jubliee. (I think it was the stamp of the month many years back) I had Ruby CTMH ink left on my sponge dabber and dipped it in CTMH honey ink and found it made a pretty orange color that I put on the edges of the arrow and rubbed on the arrow. I also edged honey ink all over the edges of the paper before I assembled it. In this second picture of my project, I added the witch hate I cut from the same stamp set. I stamped it in slate and daped over it in that same ink mixture. I think the hat went well with these images. I also added an epoxy bubbles in green to the spider web.

You made it to the end of this month's hop.  How great are these papers? If you get this paper, I would love to see what you create! add in the comments your blog or facebook and I'll check it out! I'd love it if you followed my blog too!! We hope you had as much fun browsing our creations as we had making them! Thanks so much for hopping with us!! Thanks for stopping by! I missed being in The August hop! So glad to be in it again!

Make it Fromm The Heart!!

Melissa

P.S. Check out this GREAT promotion in Sept.

National Stamping Month #30yearsofhappy

September 2014 Constant Campaign

September is National Stamping Month, and Close To My Heart is ready to celebrate all month long! When you spend $30 on any current retail-priced stamps during the month of September, you qualify to receive the exclusive C-sized stamp set #30yearsofhappy for FREE! This special offer is part of our celebration of National Stamping Month and in honor of our ongoing celebration of our founder and CEO Jeanette Lynton’s 30-year anniversary in the scrapbooking and stamping industry. The exclusive stamp set features 30 mini images and sentiments perfectly suited for 30 days of happy stamping! Plus, make sure you check out Close To My Heart’s Facebook page and Instagram during September to follow all the ways we’re celebrating #30yearsofhappy for a full 30 days!

Dates: Offer valid September 1, 2014–September 30, 2014

Lake decorations for birthday at work

Hello! I live in Tennessee and I grew up near the Tennessee River/Kentucky lake. I spent most of my summer fishing and swimming in the lake there. It's a little city called New Johnsonville. I just loved it. My friend Heather's family has a lake house in Paris, TN and she and her family have had a great time out there. She's not a river rat like me, but thats were she goes to get away. When her birthday came up this year, I knew what I wanted to do for her. So, I cut out all the lake/summer images I could with my cricut explore. I made a banner that hung over her desk and 3d trees to stand around her desk. I also cut out lakes using a paper that looked like waves and had that around the trees. Another coworker added shredded paper for a grass look. Another friend added shells. I think it looked pretty cute. Some of the trees were cut with glitter paper and I used the wood grain stamp from the path finding card making kit to stamp the faux wood grain. The trees with the brown trunks had a tire swing and were not supposed to stand, but I just cut two bases with my explore and cut slits in them and put them together so the base would stand. The banner has flip flops and little round summer themed stamped images along with a lake scene and then I stamped and water colored sailboat to look on the lake. We do get some sailboats on the lake here. This is the same friend, Heather, that I made the sign language happy birthday card for. It just took me awhile to get her office decor post up. Her birthday was 8/18 and we decorated the Friday morning before so she had her decorations early since the 18th was on a Sunday. Hope you enjoy!

Stamp of the Month

August 2014: What a Hoot

S1408 What a Hoot, set of 17

Recommended Blocks:
1" × 1" (Y1000)
2" × 2" (Y1003)
2" × 3 1/2" (Y1009)
4" × 5" (Y1012)

Beautiful Stamps, Amazing Discounts

Each month you can purchase a new D-size stamp set, available for one month only, for just $5— that’s over 70% off retail! When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing.

August 2014: What a Hoot (S1408)

Spend $50 and get this Stamp of the Month set for just $5.

Picture Perfection

Your picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure awaits!

Choose from 1 of 8 Memory Protectors™ designs!

During the month of August, when you purchase any of the 13 available Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs featured in the 2014–2015 Annual Inspirations idea book at their full retail price of $24.95 USD / $27.50 CAD, you are eligible to add your choice of 1 of 8 qualifying Memory Protectors™ 10-packs for just $3 (USD & CAD)! Each Picture My Life scrapbooking program already includes a coordinating 10-pack of Memory Protectors, so when you add your additional 10-pack for only $3 you will be well on your way to your own picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure!
Contact me for more details.

*Offer valid August 1–31, 2014 while supplies last.

Treasured friend

I have a close work friend who's last day was 8/22. I made this little card for her as a just because and to thank you for a twix bar she had shared with me. This is a great stamp set from CTMH.   I stamped the shells in chocolate and so touch of hollyhock. I added the shells I had water colored and the sentiment from the stamp set. Ink and stamp set can be found on my CTMH site. Just click the shopping card on the top right of my blog page.

Here's the inside of the little card

 I attached the card to a cute little gift bag. Inside is some candy and a sea shell. 

Thank you for stopping by!!

Products used:

colonial white card stock http://frommtheheart.ctmh.com/Retail/Product.aspx?ItemID=268&ci=9

chocolate ctmh ink http://frommtheheart.ctmh.com/Retail/Product.aspx?ItemID=725&ci=650

hollyhock ctmh ink http://frommtheheart.ctmh.com/Retail/Product.aspx?ItemID=779&ci=656

Treasured friendship CTMH stamp http://frommtheheart.ctmh.com/Retail/Product.aspx?ItemID=8184

Here's the August specials:

Stamp of the Month

August 2014: What a Hoot

S1408 What a Hoot, set of 17

Recommended Blocks:
1" × 1" (Y1000)
2" × 2" (Y1003)
2" × 3 1/2" (Y1009)
4" × 5" (Y1012)

Beautiful Stamps, Amazing Discounts

Each month you can purchase a new D-size stamp set, available for one month only, for just $5— that’s over 70% off retail! When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing.

August 2014: What a Hoot (S1408)

Spend $50 and get this Stamp of the Month set for just $5.

Picture Perfection

Your picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure awaits!

Choose from 1 of 8 Memory Protectors™ designs!

During the month of August, when you purchase any of the 13 available Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs featured in the 2014–2015 Annual Inspirations idea book at their full retail price of $24.95 USD / $27.50 CAD, you are eligible to add your choice of 1 of 8 qualifying Memory Protectors™ 10-packs for just $3 (USD & CAD)! Each Picture My Life scrapbooking program already includes a coordinating 10-pack of Memory Protectors, so when you add your additional 10-pack for only $3 you will be well on your way to your own picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure!
Contact me for more details.

*Offer valid August 1–31, 2014 while supplies last.

How to train your dragon card

Here's a card I made with my explore from svg file made by Christopher Lopez on Facebook group. It was easy to make at only three cuts, the black, the yellow eyes and the top layer. I cut a second base , then I attached the completed piece with the bottom part of the card. All I did to attach it was to glue a hinge made by folding a scrap strip of black paper in half.

Toothless was given CTMH liquid glass on the base layer. This gave him highlights 

Watercolor stamping tutorial

Here's a little video tutorial that I made showing a great stamp then watercolor pencil or paint techique with CTMH supplies.

Rolled flower thank you card from CTMH Artiste cricut cartridge

 

Thank you for visiting my blog!  This card was very easy to make, yet it looks very pretty. I used CTMH card in Colonial White and I stamped a quarter foil stamp from my stash in CTMH blush ink(retired)(you could use CTMH Cotton Candy or Pixie instead). The background stamp was small, so I had to do repeat stamping, lining it up to meet the other stamping until the card was covered. Then I took some CTMH gold washi tape, put it down the center and added my sentiment from the same stamp set. It was one image and I inked CTMH hydragea ink around the outside after I had inked the thank you part in CTMH sweet leaf ink.

I can't remember the size I cut the roses out of from Artiste collection. I made a bunch of these roses awhile back and had them sitting around begging to be used. The color of cardstock is also blush. For the longest time it was the only CTMH pink color I had. I just got Cotton Candy and so I'll start using it more. Anyway I put a pearl(from my stash) in the center of each rose and attached to each side of the sentiment. I added epoxy bubbles on each side of the Thank you to complete the card. I fell in love with these epoxy bubbles from CTMH they come in different shades of blue and green and they are so easy to attach with the adhesive on the back! I hope you enjoyed this card! I love the Artiste Cricut collection. It has beautiful images and 3d objects, and it has great cards. I can't rave enough about it.  Thank you for stopping by!

Here's were you can find the non retired products used:

Colonial white card

blue and green epoxy bubbles

CTMH Cricut Artiste collection 

CTMH Sweet Leaf ink

CTMH Gold Shimmer Trim

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the great August CTMH specials:

Stamp of the Month

August 2014: What a Hoot

S1408 What a Hoot, set of 17

Recommended Blocks:
1" × 1" (Y1000)
2" × 2" (Y1003)
2" × 3 1/2" (Y1009)
4" × 5" (Y1012)

Beautiful Stamps, Amazing Discounts

Each month you can purchase a new D-size stamp set, available for one month only, for just $5— that’s over 70% off retail! When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing.

August 2014: What a Hoot (S1408)

Spend $50 and get this Stamp of the Month set for just $5.

Picture Perfection

Your picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure awaits!

Choose from 1 of 8 Memory Protectors™ designs!

During the month of August, when you purchase any of the 13 available Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs featured in the 2014–2015 Annual Inspirations idea book at their full retail price of $24.95 USD / $27.50 CAD, you are eligible to add your choice of 1 of 8 qualifying Memory Protectors™ 10-packs for just $3 (USD & CAD)! Each Picture My Life scrapbooking program already includes a coordinating 10-pack of Memory Protectors, so when you add your additional 10-pack for only $3 you will be well on your way to your own picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure!
Contact me for more details.

*Offer valid August 1–31, 2014 while supplies last.

Oalf frozen card plus preview of June sotm

Hello all! I made this card with the upcoming June 2015 stamp of the month and svg file by Christopher Lopez, a friend that is in a cricut Facebook group.

The finished card measures at 5x7. This card was made for my twin cousins that are 6. One wanted an ice cream card and the other wanted a popsicle card. They both like the movie frozen and I enjoyed watching part of the movie while my aunt nand uncle were driving. I wanted this card to be fun for the 4 of them. I started with lagoon paper and stamped with lagoon ink the ice cream cone and popsicle pattern. Here's a short video of how I did that:

Here's what the finished stamped background looked like:

Oalf was cut all on white card stock so I could use my touch twin markers and get him just the right color.

Here he is in the coloring stage:

Here is a short video of a tip to easily put pop dots on your work:

 

I love how the card turned out and I added some ctmh epoxy bubbles to the right bottom to finish.

I also stamped and cut out the ice cream cone and popsicle stamp. I have enjoyed practising with the touch twin markers that ctmh now carries. For the inside of the card, I stamped and cut more images fromt he June sotm that comes out next june.

Here's what they look after shading with markers and adding to the inside of my card:

 

All Close to My Heart Supplies used:

Shinhan Touch Twin Markers(all but the greens and purple used)

White Daisy Cardstock

White Daisy cards and envelopes

Lagoon cardstock

 

I hope you enjoyed this post and found the tips helpful. I love how this card turned out and I had a lot of fun making it. I hope my twin cousins love it. They are such fun girls. I just adore them! I will do a marker coloring tutorial when I feel that I have gotten the hang of it. I just basically colored all the lightest color and built color from there. It's a learning process as I have never used alchol inks before. I do love coloring and I have had a great time with all these great new products. I am about to close my first gathering and I plan to order several of these August Picture my life specials. I have never ordered them before, but I have gotten to preview what my CTMH friends have gotten and so I know it will be so much fun and easy. All the guess work has been taken care of.

Here's the specials this month that I am excited about!

Picture Perfection

Your picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure awaits!

Choose from 1 of 8 Memory Protectors™ designs!

During the month of August, when you purchase any of the 13 available Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs featured in the 2014–2015 Annual Inspirations idea book at their full retail price of $24.95 USD / $27.50 CAD, you are eligible to add your choice of 1 of 8 qualifying Memory Protectors™ 10-packs for just $3 (USD & CAD)! Each Picture My Life scrapbooking program already includes a coordinating 10-pack of Memory Protectors, so when you add your additional 10-pack for only $3 you will be well on your way to your own picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure!
Contact me for more details.

*Offer valid August 1–31, 2014 while supplies last

Stamp of the Month

August 2014: What a Hoot

S1408 What a Hoot, set of 17

Recommended Blocks:
1" × 1" (Y1000)
2" × 2" (Y1003)
2" × 3 1/2" (Y1009)
4" × 5" (Y1012)

Beautiful Stamps, Amazing Discounts

Each month you can purchase a new D-size stamp set, available for one month only, for just $5— that’s over 70% off retail! When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing.

August 2014: What a Hoot (S1408)

Spend $50 and get this Stamp of the Month set for just $5.

 

 

 

 

Pilot V5 pens with Cricut Explore Christmas subway art

 

Happy Monday! This is a short post to showcase more of the excellent detail of the Pilot V5 pen. I hope you were able to see the detail it drew in this sign language here:

Here's a short video of my explore at work drawing Christmas Subway art that I found in my Cricut design space subscription:

 

As always, if you follow by email, you may have to visit my blog or youtube channel to watch my videos. I have no idea why that is or how to fix it. If you know, please let me know! Here's a picture of the finished subway art that I wrote 4 sections at once of:

Here's a picture of the pens. I got a 4 pack of green, blue, black, and red plus a bonus regular pen at Walmart. These are the fine tip and fit the circut explore. Only these with the top fit, the click ones do not. Now I just need to cut these into 4 individual pieces and make some Christmas cards! I have a lot of ideas this year for Christmas cards and I want to have a Christmas card workshop. Thank you for my subscriber's, if you would share my blog with others and ask them to subscribe. It would love to see my fan base grow. This is my stress relief and I get such joy out of it!

 

Happy Birthday Heather! This card has sign language inside!

My close friend, Heather's, birthday is today! Since it fell on the weekend, I decorated her office Friday before she got there. decorations will have to be in another post as a friend is sending the pictures. I forgot my camera. I did get pictures of the card I made her using my explore though! I drew her name on the front using the silver cricut pen that came with the explore.

The girl on the chaise lounge and the flip flops/sunglasses were from pack your bags circut cartridge that I was able to use with my design space subscription. Heather loves green, so I tried to use a lot of green. I had to use blue to mat the card so that the other greens would show up better. The girl had to layers one black and one flesh tone. Heather has gold and brown hair. So, I cut both pieces in white and I colored all but the hair in the base layer black and the hair with golden yellow and mahgoney and a touch of clay. Love the touch twin markers! The girl's body was colored barely biege. I added a little light green to the swim suit to add detail. To the card, I added ctmh epoxy bubbles. I just love these! Heather has been learning sign language because she wants to work with special needs children, so I drew the inside of the card with happy birthday spelled with each letter of sign language.  She said she could read it well. Here's the inside:

Cricut made a cartridge for sign language. I found it in my subscription. I like how well it drew it out. I used my pilot v5 pen. My next post will show how well the pliot v5 draws subway art in the explore. Thanks for stoping by!
Supplies used: barely biege twin touch marker
golden yellow twin touch marker
mahogany ttm(had to shorten the marker name!)
The entire marker line can be viewed here

I am excited about these Close to My Heart specials that are only available in  August:

Picture Perfection

Your picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure awaits!

Choose from 1 of 8 Memory Protectors™ designs!

During the month of August, when you purchase any of the 13 available Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs featured in the 2014–2015 Annual Inspirations idea book at their full retail price of $24.95 USD / $27.50 CAD, you are eligible to add your choice of 1 of 8 qualifying Memory Protectors™ 10-packs for just $3 (USD & CAD)! Each Picture My Life scrapbooking program already includes a coordinating 10-pack of Memory Protectors, so when you add your additional 10-pack for only $3 you will be well on your way to your own picture-perfect pocket scrapbooking adventure!
Contact me for more details.

*Offer valid August 1–31, 2014 while supplies last.

Stamp of the Month August 2014: What a Hoot

S1408 What a Hoot, set of 17

Recommended Blocks:
1" × 1" (Y1000)
2" × 2" (Y1003)
2" × 3 1/2" (Y1009)
4" × 5" (Y1012)

Beautiful Stamps, Amazing Discounts

Each month you can purchase a new D-size stamp set, available for one month only, for just $5— that’s over 70% off retail! When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing.

August 2014: What a Hoot (S1408)

Spend $50 and get this Stamp of the Month set for just $5.

 

Close to my heart watercolor pencils and blender brush tutorial

Today's video tutorial had to be broken up into three different parts. I used the Close to My Heart Watercolor pencils and blender tool. The blender tool works like magic and does not make a mess.
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Your can get the watercolor pencils from my online store here

and you can get the watercolor blending pen from me here

The amazing Seaside Greetings stamp set can be found here

Thank you for visiting my blog!

 

 

 

Mario card from first svg cut with Cricut Explore

Here's step by step pictures of my first svg attempt to make a Mario brothers themed card. I found the svg's for free here at Krafty Nook's amazing blog.  I have many great memories of playing super Mario brothers with friends. I loved how it turned out and couldn't believe the little itty bitty pieces my explore cut.  Let's get started! :) Log into design space, click on new project. On the left hand side of the screen, you will see upload image. Click on upload image.  (For svg's you find online, you save them as an svg on your computer. )Then, you click on vector upload to get them in your design space and this screen comes up.

Click on browse, then find where you saved your svg file.


I selected Mario and then clicked open.


Now I clicked save image.



After I had saved him to my design space, I clicked on Mario's image and then selected insert in the bottom right corner.

 

It's a me...Mario!!!  Now here he is in design space, you size him by clicking on the little dots shown in the rectangle around him and you can drag him until he is the size you want. It's time to cut the pieces out on the different color papers on each mat. Black is the base. I cut his face in white and then colored with my twin touch marker in light beige because I didn't have any colored cardstock that was an exact skin tone match.

It assembled like a puzzle with lots of little pieces.

 

 

I thought I was almost done with the one on the left when I realized the placement was wrong so that made there not be enough room for the final pieces. Tip I learned along the way is to start with the outer edge pieces. I started this one on the right with the top part of the hat. I kept my pc on the overall picture and had it as large as it would go, so I could better see where I was placing each little part. I used my CTMH tweezers and bonding memories glue pen to attach each piece. This made it a lot easier and prevented glue on my hands. You have a few seconds to get each part right and then it's permanent with this glue. You can tell in the left Mario that getting his hand perfect was tricky. Once the hat outline is on, it was a lot easier for me to align the pieces so the black base had enough room between each little bit. Now on to my finished Mario!!!

Tada!!  There he is all finished! This picture makes me think evil Mario has come in and smashed good Mario to pieces. I had a lot of fun making my first svg. In design space, the different layers of the svg show on mats that are colored the color the cardstock needs to be. I found that a lot less confusing on my other cricuts because if you forgot where you were, you could just look at the computer that shows what mat you are on and click on next and previous mats to figure out what is left. Here's the card I made with this project.

 

I wanted it to look like Mario and Luigi were high fiving each other as they were stomping the goomba. I found a picture of paper mario in a google search and then I used crayola markers
to make the scene. The graphics on Nintendo game were not clear or perfect. My background is a nod to the classic game. I would have made the background exact to the game, but I didn't find an svg file for the ? box or the drain pipe and I was running out of time to get the card to my friend Adam. I had it all finished about an hour before he came to my house. It was probably good that I didn't have more time, I would have had all the characters all over my house. Thank you for reading my long blog!

Here are the products used: Colorboc paper(for my first svg, I didn't want to ruin any CTMH paper!)
ShinHan™ Touch Twin™ Barely Beige Marker  
tweezers
bonding memories glue pen
glue dots

Please follow my blog if you haven't already and share with people you think might also enjoy. I appreciate it!!