Thursday, September 10, 2020

September/October New Product Blog Hop


Welcome to the New Products Blog Hop for the September/October Seasonal catalog from Close To My Heart. Fall is my favorite season and sunflowers are my favorite flower. CTMH put them together for me, so I'm a happy girl. I can't wait to see all the artwork on this hop. You should have come from Brenda's blog, but it's no problem if you started here. The hop is a circle so just keep going until you get back where you started. If you get lost along the way, hop over the Melinda's blog for a full list of participants.

I made two "over the edge" cards for the hop. Both use the Bloom with Grace-Scrapbooking stamp set. Here's the first card.


The card base measures 4 x 5.5, which a quarter inch smaller in width so I could hang a leaf over the edge. I used my Versamat to measure because I want this to fit in  a standard envelope.


Here's a close up to show you the dimension on the flower. I stamped two in Desert Rose on French Vanilla cardstock, cut one flower around the whole outline, then cut the second one so only the petals that were "in front" showed. Any petal that was tucked behind or overlapped by another went away. I then glued the two flowers together, offsetting them so it looks even more dimensional, and added Bisque Liquid Pearls to the center. 

Other products used on this card include Lovely Borders with coordinating Thin Cuts, Mini-Envelope Thin Cut, and Seasonal Borders stamp set. The paper all comes from the Bloom With Grace suite. The Mini-Envelope Thin Cut is so fabulous! It's in the seasonal catalog, but I sure hope it lives a long time after October in the Online Only section of my CTMH website. 

I went super easy on the coloring, using only two markers in a light green and sunny yellow. I stayed away from the edges to create a little bit of shading in the coloring.

Here's the second card.


I used colored pencils and really went to town on this. I was in a coloring mood and just kept adding shadows and shading. This was also stamped in Desert Rose. The background matte and sentiment banner were cut from Blue Belle, which is the new color of the year. LOVE it! The sentiment banner was cut with one of the dies in the Waterfall Thin Cut. It's designed to make a specific kind of interactive card, but all the accompanying thin cuts in that set are marvelous to use on their own. Like the first card, the off the edge element goes to the 4.25" mark so it will fit in a standard envelope. 

I'm sending this card to my writing partner to celebrate finalling in the Spur Awards again. We won in 2018, then finalled in 2019 and 2020. All the books come from the same series, so it's truly an accomplishment to celebrate. I had to finagle a spur for the other cards, this time I just colored it in because CTMH gave me the perfect image. 

Now you're off to Maureen's blog. Again, the hop is a circle so keep going. You don't want to miss a single bit of inspiration from this new, beautiful catalog!

Until next time,

Becca

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Here for the Memories: Blog Hops with Heart

 


Welcome to the September Stamp of the Month Blog Hop featuring Here for the Memories. 


You should have come from Brenda's blog, but the hop is a circle so you can start anywhere and just keep going. If you get lost along the way, head to Melinda's blog for a full list of participants.

A few years ago, I decided guilt over my backlog of pictures needing to be scrapbooked no longer applied. Today's project is a perfect example of why.


Although the picture was taken ten years ago, I absolutely LOVE how it turned out with these brand new products. The photo doesn't quite do this layout justice. The colors in the picture perfectly match the sunflower paper. I used a variety of new products which are available as of today. The background paper and "2010" are from the new Woodgrain Paper (Core Catalog), the sunflowers and green matte are from the Bloom with Grace collection (Seasonal Sept./Oct. Catalog), as is the "stand tall and face the sun" and all sunflower images in the top right corner. 


Here's a close up of that, because I also want you to see the new Liquid Pearl product I used. The color is Bisque. I intentionally did a haphazard job of adding some small, some bigger, and some overlapping so it looked more realistic on the flower centers. I also added touches all around the layout almost like gems. I love how I can create large and small dots and never run out of the right size.

I let the pearl dots dry overnight, and they are completely dry to the touch. No sticky residue. Now that I know how well they work, I'll be rounding out my collection of colors.

All images were stamped in either Fern or Espresso ink. I stamped three sentiments from the Here for the Memories set. Two of them are pretty easy to spot. Can you find the third?

Now you're off to Maureen's blog. Be sure to get all the way around because these consultants are always inspiring, and they have a ton of new things to show you in addition to the stamp of the month.

Until next time,
Becca