Joyful Stars September Blog Hop: Scaredy Cat

Hi!

Welcome the September edition of the Joyful Stars Blog Hop. If you're coming here from Krista's blog then you're on the right track. It's a circular hop so just keep going till you come back to where you started. If you get lost along the way, stop over at Joyce's blog for a complete list. 

While at Convention in DisneyLand this past summer, I heard it mentioned that the Annual Inspirations book was set up in a way to encourage us consultants to go through it in order, one paper pack per month. If we do, it will line up in an appropriate time frame for sales to happen in time for our customers to be using the Thanksgiving paper pack (Pathfinding) at the Thanksgiving season, for example. Since I can always use a little structure in my creativity, I am following that advice. 

Last month, I explored the Chalk It Up paper pack and this month, I am exploring the Scaredy Cat paper pack. Since it does seem obvious for Halloween, I made two layouts for the Halloween season that I know I will use - the first one is for our costume/trick-or-treating photos and the second layout is for the pictures from my sister's (awesome) annual Halloween party that she hosts for the kids. 

I really wanted to try to push myself creatively (I've been in a slump lately) so I forced myself to use the Cricut cartridges exclusively on each page. I didn't make it to "exclusive" but I used the Artbooking cartridge for both layouts. 

Artbooking is a fun cartridge to work with even if you don't use one (or more) keys to do the entire layout. I cut the B&T paper to use a mats for the photos but let the Cricut do the fun stuff. 

One the first layout, I cut the "Trick or Treat" three times, once each on White Daisy, Sunset and Honey cardstocks. I carefully cut the Honey and Sunset cuts apart and glued them together on the White Daisy cardstock to mimic the look of a candy corn. 

I then cut out the candies and the candy borders on White Daisy and used our Glitz gels (retired) to make them shine. 

One the second layout, I went to Pinterest for inspiration. A lot of Halloween photos came up using this awesome haunted house cut from the Artbooking cartridge so I decided to give it a try.

 I cut the house and some bats out of black cardstock, the moon out of yellow (exact color is unknown but I know it's retired), the fences are from Gray Wool (retired) and the Halloween is from Sunset cardstock. I used the Stickease to embellish a bit and used my black journaling pen to highlight and embellish the Halloween. 

Now you're off to Nickie's blog. See you again soon! I'll be showing you other ways to use the Scaredy Cat paper pack for more than just Halloween.

Create 4 Him Team Striving & Thriving Crop Day Recap

Last week, my upline "grandma", Krista Hershberger, gathered all her team to celebrate her win in the Striving and Thriving contest sponsored by CTMH Corp last year. The contest was open to any Director in the company worldwide and each team had to qualify in 5 areas. After the contest ended, all 18 teams who qualified won a free team meeting from Corp - complete with projects and a business class just for them. And Krista's team won!!!!

It was a nice day just to get away from the family for a bit to be creative but it was super nice to be able to get away with a wonderful group of gals to spend the day creating together - followed by a wonderful party with Kristine Widtfelt and her partner in crime, Tiffany. They gave a great business class then showed us how to use the Picture My Life cards in two scrapbook layouts. Here are a few of the photos from the day.

Being a consultant is really super special, I wouldn't give it up if I had to. If you'd like to know more about the perks of being a consultant, please email me!

Chalk It Up Layout - from Convention

Every year at Convention, Corp spoils us consultants in so many ways! My favorite part of going to convention is getting to make all the beautiful artwork created by Corp using all the new, fun products that were just announced!

This layout was especially fun because it used a theme paper pack (back to school) in an unexpected way.

This layout is just begging for candid shots from a random day - I'm thinking of one of those days that everyone is yelling at each other all day long until we're all outside, digging in the dirt, and I'm watering the garden then surprise! Everyone is wet and giggling and playing together. {Okay, maybe not a random day - that was our yesterday.}

Here are some close ups of some of the fun parts of the layout. 

I have always been a stickler for actually handwriting the journalling on layouts, whether they're mine or for a client (I make them do it). There's just something extra special when you're own handwriting is on the page. This layout uses little sketch marks to embellish the title. I love sketch marks, there really is no wrong way to do it.

This concludes my month-long project with the Chalk It Up paper pack. I hope you enjoyed it! I did so I'm going to continue next month only using one paper pack. I'll be working with the Scaredy Cat paper pack, embellishments and coordinating stamps. See you soon!

Chalk It Up: Back to School cards

School has finally started and all seems to be going well - so far! Little Man says he likes his new teacher and made new friends in his class. Since he likes a hot lunch every day, I don't pack his lunch which means I don't have the opportunity to leave him "love notes" ... but I've greeted him with a card when he eats his after school snack at home. Here are two examples I made using the Chalk It Up paper pack and chipboard accessories.

On this card, I used the new gold sequins to provide some bling but the cool pattern in the B&T is really all it needs. I used black ink to visually pop the chipboard off the paper.

On this card, I used the new alcohol markers to color in the white stars and chipboard pieces to match the paper pack. 

Here's a close up of the stars I colored in using the new ShinHan alcohol markers.

 I have one more project I made to share with you using the Chalk It Up paper pack, which will round up the month. Stay tuned for September when I will be sharing projects I made using the Scaredy Cat paper pack.

August Joyful Stars Blog Hop: Chalk It Up Workshop 2nd Layout

Welcome to the August edition of the Joyful Stars Blog Hop!

This is a circular hop so no matter where you start you can just keep going around till you get back here (or wherever you started). If you get lost along the way, stop over at Joyce's blog for a complete list. If you're coming from Krista's blog then you're on the right track!

CTMH Chalk It Up Workshop Layout 2 from LavendersageDesigns.blogspot.com

I used Pattern #3 from the Make It From Your Heart vol. 2 pattern book with leftover papers from the Chalk It Up workshop. I don't have a title or much embellishments because I'm waiting for some photos to develop to see what will fit ... this reminds me of the old Chicken and Egg question - which came first: the photos or the scrapbook layout? :)

If I go over board with the first day of school photos, then I'll use this in addition to this layout, but I could probably use it for beach pictures too.

What would you do to embellish the page?

Now you're off to my friend Nickie's page to see what she has to share!

August Stamp of the Month

With the introduction of the new Annual Inspirations, CTMH has changed how they do the Stamp of the Month program, which mostly affects consultants but you the customer get to benefit from it too.

In the past, consultants could only purchase the stamp of the months ahead of time with a large prepaid order of Idea Books. Not always easy for the little guys (like me) to be able to work ahead. Used to be, we could order a SOTM one month prior but we'd have to pay full retail price for it. Still not something a little guy (like me) could do. These are the two reasons you rarely saw SOTM projects from me - because I was purchasing them, like you, with my orders, usually at the end of the month.

However, that is in the past!!! Did you see the first few pages of the Annual Inspirations? All 12 SOTM sets are shown!!!!! That's right - you can see what the next twelve special stamp sets are going to be and plan your purchases accordingly! And - they are only $5 with a qualifying order! Seriously - this is a game changer for me! And here's the proof:

An August Stamp of the Month Card!!

Chalk It Up paper pack with August SOTM & ShinHan alcohol markers

I used Chalk It Up paper pack for the background and mat then stamped the images on White Daisy cardstock using the Archival Black stamp pad and let it dry overnight. I used the new ShinHan alcohol markers in Marigold, Golden Yellow and Barely Beige on the belly of the owl and the pumpkin (top) and Carmine for the mask that was stamped in Ruby ink. The feathers of the owl, I used Warm Gray 7, Warm Gray 4 and Clay.

Chalk It Up paper pack with August SOTM & ShinHan alcohol markers

 I wanted to compare the new ShinHan alcohol markers to the water-based markers of the past and you can tell the difference in the photo above. I used the same marking technique on both pumpkins but you can tell how much better the alcohol markers blend together as you color.

Chalk It Up paper pack with August SOTM & ShinHan alcohol markers

 I wanted to see what else I could color with the new markers, so I did the white enamel stars and the puffy prints from the Chalk It Up accessories. Cute!

This was a super fun project as I was able to experiment (successfully) with new products to show you how cute the Stamp of the Month is and how versatile the Chalk It Up paper pack is.

Check back on August 10th as I will be participating in the Joyful Stars Blog Hop with another Chalk It Up scrapbook layout I created.

Annual Inspirations Blog Hop: Chalk It Up layout

Welcome to the New Product Blog Hop featuring projects made from the New Annual Inspirations catalog from Close to My Heart!

I chose to re-work the Chalk It Up Workshop on the Go so there was no stamping or Cricut cutting. I usually only get to work when the kids are in bed so I needed an option that was fast and quiet! :)

I actually feel on top of things by making this layout for my son's first day of first grade coming up in a few short weeks (seriously, where did this summer go?!?!?)

You can check out two more versions of this layout - one with stamping and Cricut cutting and one with just stamping in the WOTG kit - talk to your consultant for more information.

I'll be posting more layouts I made with Chalk It Up throughout the month so I hope you stop back!

Enjoy hopping!