THIN CUTS Rose Blossoms Blog Hop

It's Blog Hop day ... woo hoo!!  I'm always excited to be a part of this because I know I'm going to see some amazing Close To My Heart art AND be inspired to create above and beyond. You either came from Marg's magnificent blog or you're starting here. Whatever the case make sure to go all the way through and keep on hopping until you've seen all of the wonderful Rose Blossom creations.

We are featuring CTMH Thin Cuts, which are 25% off for the whole month of March. There's plenty of time left to build your thin cut collection. There are two kinds of thin cuts - stand alone shapes and cuts that coordinate with our tremendous stamp sets. I decided to work with the stand alone cuts. BUT I love them all! I'm certain that you'll see some great examples of both in this hop.

Here's my layout ...



This layout features two different sets - Happy & Stars. As you can see I got a LOT of mileage out of just these two sets for this layout. Do you notice how some of the starts are open and some are filled? I love how you can (carefully) use the whole star. That means this set adds up to SIX different stars that are available. {This is a secret, but sometimes I'm not careful and my thin cuts slide off the paper as I'm setting things up to cut. That might just account for the stars that are tucked in here and there or seem to be sliding off the page!! NEVER throw away your apparent mistakes!!}

For old time's sake I took out some paper and a pen to make this. My scrapbooking roots started just like that! The only upgrade here is glitter paper, which I didn't have 20 years ago! I had soooo much fun keeping it simple. AND as busy as it is my photos are still highlighted.

Here's another important thing about thin cuts. There's usually something useful left behind. With the negative space I have seven delightful cards to use for a variety of happy occasions. I've decorated two of them so far, with MORE thin cuts (Basic Hearts and Happy Birthday). This satisfies both of my creative outcomes, scrapbooking AND cards. Win-Win!!

Thank you for taking a look today. Now you get to check out Tweetscraps, where Morgan has surely made something you will want to duplicate. Enjoy!!

Blog Hop With Hearts

I'm so excited to take part in the wonderful blog hop because ... hearts. I love hearts. They're my favorite shape. Some people have a favorite ice cream. I have a favorite shape. 

If you came here from  Wendy Coffman's Blog then you're on the right track. If you just stumbled on you're in for a lot of inspiration as you hop through these heart projects.

Do you have scraps that all seem to wind up being strips? I've been working with the Sugar Rush Paper Packet and wound up with a big stack.  So, I did this. It's hard to throw even the smallest piece away sometimes. It doesn't look like much but here's how it all starts ...

Turn it over and it's all adhered to a 4 x 5.25 inch piece of white cardstock. Once that's finished take out a scissors or trimmer and cut off everything that falls off the white page. When I do this I cover as much of the base piece with adhesive as possible and then adhere the pieces to that. You'll notice that the overlapping pieces are clean. That's because some of them are still possibly great scraps! LOL! ALSO, I do very little planning here. Take a pile of strips and start adding to the paper. I try not to put the exact same ones next to each other but that's about it.

I ran this piece through my Cuttlebug using a Heart Thin Cut. 

It's important to center it as best possible (you'll see).

This is what you wind up with in pieces.

Do the same thing with a coordinating, less busy piece of paper the same size.

Now you're ready to make TWO cards. I really love it when I can make two cards at once. These are adhered to a basic white card base.

The fun really begins when you add various stamps and embellishments. 

Here you have my two finished cards.

I spent less than a half hour going through the rest of the scraps and wound up with 8 more cards that are ready to decorate. Even without bling these make me very happy. Look at all those hearts!

Of course you don't have to wait for scraps to do something like this, but if you have some ...

Thank you for hopping over. Now go to Amie Kiger's Blog to see more inspiration. She has a list of all the participants plus something that I'm sure will make your heart full!