Starting early on Christmas this year

Ok well I guess those cute little pencils toppers got me thinking about doing my Christmas cards early this year. I wanted to share with you my favorite one that I made last year, put away in a safe place, then couldn't find it and thought I had actually sent it to someone without making a copy for my card book. Well I found it in it's safe place and photographed it for you.

Just click on the card to enlarge it and see more detail.

Simple, elegant, embossed lines with the scor pal and swiss dots cuttlebug embossing folder, embossed only in the middle of the card. Labels 4 nestabilities in the two largest sizes pop dotted to add dimension. Stamped the image from Snow Days C 1420 in black, then lightly went over the branches with brown watercolor pencil, the bridge was colored with grey, tree a light green and water light blue. I wanted everything muted and soft. The snow areas were covered with a homemade flower soft in white, that I made by grating some foam board with a very fine cheese grater. The sentiment is from the stamp set Captured Moments C1423. another one of my favorites. A couple of pearl adhesve gems finishes off the card. I hope you enjoy this one. Now I need to make another so I can send it off this year. I love the white on white with just the hint of color, don't you?

Merry Pursuits Round Scalloped Easel Card

Surprise I'm also a gift card holder, the perfect size to tuck that wonderful gift for your special someone.

The cuts are so easy with the Art Philosophy cartridge, everything lines up so perfectly and are so crisp and perfect. The card base is cut out of retired Textured New England Ivy cardstock using the card feature on page 31 and cut at 4 1/4 inch. This will fit nicely in a standard size envelope for mailing. You will also need 1 page 31 cut at 4 1/4 for the top of the card from cardstock and 1 of the same size cut from Background and Texture paper or patterned paper of your choice. I used some retired CTMH paper that I had on hand. You will need to also use the regular circle found on page 21 and cut (1) at 2" in white, (1) at 2 1/4" in New England Ivy and (1) at 2 1/2 in white (which I embossed with a cuttlebug folder), (1) at 3" in New England Ivy and (1) at 3" in Background and Textured paper. I used the red side of the B&T.

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Fold the TOP of the card base in half and fold back on itself.

Adhere the Background and Textured 4 1/4" scalloped circle to the 4 1/4" New England Ivy scalloped circle matching the scalloped, so easy since they are identical cuts.

Stamp your image on the 2" white circle, I used one of the little elves from Merry Persuits B1313 and colored him with a waterbrush and ink from the top of the stamp pads. I embossed the larger white circle using a cuttlebug folders with snowflakes, then glued the 2" onto the 2 1/4", then onto the embossed 2 1/2 circle These were glued off center with upper right edges lining up. Then this unit was glued to the prepared card top.

Line the top unit up with the card base that is folded backwards and glue just the upper edges.

I finished the inside by taking the B&T 3" circle and folding it in half and gluing those halves together to give it more bulk since this is the lip that the easel sits on. I glued the half circle to the 3" New England Ivy circle only at the edges making sure that my card would fit into the pocket and then added a double bow and ribbon and a snowflake button. The placement of my circle unit was determined by the size of my gift card. I think I will go back and distressed the outer edges of the inside card with some New England Ivy ink to add something extra. The double bow with the gathered tails were added to the front of the card and I just love the effect.

What do you think?

Life's Good

The weather is starting to cool down here in southeastern Virginia and soon the leaves will begin to turn colors. Here is one of the cards that we made last week at my Hostess Club in honor of fall. I love the warm colors and the Art Philosophy cartridge made it so easy to do all the cuts. I used the Dreaming paper cut 1/4 inch smaller than my colonial white card base, the Oval 5 cut at 4 inches from Colonial White and then stamped with 2nd generation chocolate ink using the words from D1477 universal backgrounds. I distressed the edges with chocolate ink. Next I cut out 2 acorns from page 36 of the AP cartridge book at 1 inch in colonial white and 2 acorn caps from chocolate and embossed them using a cuttlebug folder.The acorns I stamped in desert sand using universal backgrounds and distressed the edges with desert sand to give some definition. The leaves were cut at 2 inches from page 34 of the AP book and stamped with the coordinating stamp that comes with the AP cartridge. They were inked first in Honey then before stamping I touched the edges on the Autumn Terracotta pad then stamped and edged with sponge dauber in chocolate. A chocolate grosgrain bow was added to tie the leaves and acorns together. The Ticket was from the You and Me stamp set D1495 and the ticket was cut from page 25 of the AP book at 1" stamped in chocolate and distressed with chocolate with a chocolate brad. Inside I have the little owl from the Pair a Phrase stamp set shown in an earlier post. 
I hope you like this, it was so easy to put together using the Art Philosophy cartridge.
As always to see a closer look at this card simply click on the card to enlarge.

I am so honored. I won an award! Actually 2 awards.

I received two awards this week while I was away from my computer at my daughter's home in Richmond. Wow I am truly blessed by good friends and such creative women. I am humbled that they selected me to receive this award and consider myself in amazing company. Thank you Caron Barnard at  Scraphappy Corner and Jackie Lupien at Cre8tive Cookie

This is the award itself and it was sent to me by both Caron and Jackie. Please visit their sites by clicking on the links above.

 Here's how it works:

The goal of the award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have fun!
So, now it's my turn to pass it on and I would like to share it with:

Joanie from Crafting with Joanie
Brenda from Stamp .Scrap. Create
Connie from Paper Pleats and Ribbon Roses
Tracey from Gr8scraps
Andrea from Girl plus Paper

Please visit these blogs and check out all the creativity going on there!

How cute are these?

One of the wonderful and talented CTMH consultants, Tracey Sanders posted her creations on her blog, http://www.gr8scraps.blogspot.com/ complete with cutting directions and I had to give a couple of them a try. Please go to her blog and let her know how much you love them, she has so many great things that she has created using the new Art Philosophy cricut cartridge. If you haven't gotten yours yet you can go here and place your order. You won't believe how versatile this one cartridge is. Tracey made hers in the larger size to attach a jumbo candy cane to.

 I wanted to use them to attach pencils as little Christmas presents for Jackson's kindergarten class, I'll be looking for the fat ones that little hands use, but regular size ones were all I had available for the picture.

 I'll be more than happy to share the sizes that I reduced them down to if you are interested. Tracey has all the cutting sizes on her blog for the large ones. I cut my bow ties out of white cardstock and brayered over them in cranberry with a decorative brayer that I have instead of using patterned paper. Oh and did you notice the Angry Bird, another one of Tracey's creations, that I just love.

All of the cuts were done using the Art Philosophy cartridge and CTMH paper. On the Angry bird I also used some liquid glass on his eyes to make them shine.

While supplies last

Hurry over to my website www.janeo.myctmh.com and check out the while supplies last section in the shop online. Some great CTMH products have just been added, level one kits, embellishments,block holder, top coats, ribbon just to name a few at up to 80 percent off. These won't last long at these prices. Check back daily as more items that were retired are added at huge discounts.

Enter to Win a Cricut Expression Machine

Rush on over to Close To My Hearts facebook page http://www.facebook.com/CloseToMyHeart?v=wall and enter to win a new Cricut Expression Machine from the link on the left side of the page. Even if you already own a personal cricut machine, the Expression is twice the size and tons of fun. What could be better than to win one for free. I've been showing you some of the terrific items you can make with the new Art Philosophy cricut cartridge and it pairs prefectly with the cricut expression. Sweepstakes ends September 26, 2011 @ 11:59 pm (MDT.