Anything is Possible

Now that I'm back from the Close To My Heart convention, I'm cutting and gluing again.

OK ... I wasn't physically at the convention but my heart was there!!  It was actually fun to stay home and watch the updates roll in with my CTMH Facebook friends. 

Of course, that's called "making the most of things".  Even when the BEST isn't happening we should always be looking for something spectacular.  They say "bloom where you are planted". TRUE.

  I like to bloom AND grow. This week I tried a color combination that would have been easy for me to reject. It didn't really inspire me at first, but I pressed through and I love the results. What do you think?

A better way to state this sentiment is  ...  Luke 1:37   For nothing is impossible with God.

It's so exciting to see all that you can do with paper, but nothing comes close to actually doing it!!  I turned to my favorite new form of inspiration ... challenge blogs. I'm REALLY into using scraps these days so this sketch from Operation Write Home was perfect. In order to step outside of my box I tried a color challenge too. There are so many, but the one at CR84FN58 caught my eye. NOT because it was my favorite colors, but it really was waaaaaaay outside of my color box.

Mission Accomplished

At the beginning of June I set out to feature a different Close To My Heart stamp set every day in honor of Stampaganza. I missed one day ... but I'm ok with it because on some days I featured more than one stamp set. I'm not gonna lie. This wasn't easy. I was tempted to call it quits.  BUT today I'm here to finish strong. I like to think of this last post as the Grand Finale ... like when you go to a fireworks show. I used Remarkable Wreath to make 8 different cards. This is my first time using it. It was fun to try out a variety of combos. AND I used every stamp in the set except the little bow.  I'd rather use real bows.

I used this week's Operation Write Home sketch (with a bit of a diversion on the ribbon - that's how I roll). Since CTMH paper is double sided this was the perfect sketch. I cut a base piece the size of the card & then sliced an inch off of the side and turned it over. The cutting and pasting part of these cards was a snap. I did them all with scraps that I have left from other projects. It seems to me that every card can be made from scraps since the canvas is so small.

The stamping didn't turn out to be mass produced because I was having so much time mixing and matching the colors and the stamps for a wide variety of effects. I really do love how every single wreath turned out. It makes me want to decorate my front door.

Today is the last day to buy two stamps set and get one free. You have until midnight tonight to shop on my website ... www.shellynemitz.ctmh.com. Another great promotion starts on July 1st. 

Just Another Monogram

OK ... not gonna lie. Some of these days in June haven't exactly gone smoothly when it comes to making some quality examples of CTMH stamp sets. Today all I could pull off is one letter ... hahahahaha : ) Here's the letter S from the Friendship Alphabet. This set has been great for scrapbooking, but it's also great for cards. AND there's a smaller version of this same font. BONUS!!

Affection

There are a lot of stamps out there that seem like they're only good for one thing. Sometimes that might be true, but in my opinion we can be making "love" cards all year long. Affection seem to be solely for Valentine's Day, but switch up the colors and poof! It's like a bit of stamping magic. It just looks like summer to me.














As usual, Operation Write Home has put together another great sketch. Go to their site and see what kind of variety can come from one great design. There are usually new posts there every day.

Pin-spired

If you haven't found something to love about Pinterest, well ... it just doesn't make sense. It can save you a lot of time and money for a variety of hobbies and interests. I'm done buying crafty magazines. Pinterest is soooooooo much better for generating ideas. Check out what I just saw yesterday. This photo isn't from a blog but I really want to show it without knowing who put it up. Jump on my Pinterest page to get a closer look.

My copykatting involves ... you guessed it ... stamps. If you think letter stamps are only for scrapbooking, think again. I could copy this idea all day. With letter stamps it was easier than the wonderful die cutting shown in the sample. Close To My Heart offers oodles of letter stamp sets. The one shown here is called Bohemian Alphabet. Stampaganza is a great time to stock up on letters. You'll save $29.95 by ordering two sets and getting one free.

Dotty Rainbow

It's an understatement to say that this new Dotty for You paper pack is jam packed with bright colors.  In fact, one day the papers were just sitting there and I saw ... a rainbow. Then I remembered a great post about rainbows using CTMH products on Jeanette Lynton's Blog. So of course I had to try it 

... a Dotty Rainbow. 

What do you think?  If you don't like rainbows then you're still sure to notice that this is the easiest card ever to put together using just a few small scraps of paper.

The original Rainbow Card as seen on Jeanette Lynton's Blog

The Grand Finale ...

If you've been stopping by my blog recently you know that I've been cutting up my Dotty For You paper pack. Instead of reinventing the wheel I've been taking out some of my previous designs and making those again with this awesome new paper pack.

There's a celebration to end all celebrations around the corner ... Resurrection Sunday!!!  

(my favorite name for Easter)

It's time to sharpen my focus on this weekend and put my tools away for a few days. Instead of showing you a different card design every day here's what I've got all at once. Enjoy!! The photos on the left show the cards I originally made. All the way down the right you'll see cards made with Dotty For You. The majority of these will be donated to Operation Write Home.  Exciting!

Original 

Original

Original design

Original

It Works

The dots make it easy to make a perfect line of pearls.

I set out to duplicate some previous card designs using this new Dotty for You paper pack. This didn't seem like a design that would transfer, but I tried it anyway. In my opinion ... it works.

The original creation.

When you get "bored" with a design you can almost always turn it sideways.

Here Come The Cards...

If you've been following the last few days of this blog ... I'm creating with the new Dotty for You paper pack. There are so many possibilities in these 24 pieces of paper. I absolutely love these colors and their seemingly endless combinations.

It's sometimes so hard to know where to start. Instead of running off in a whole bunch of new directions I decided to look backward over what I've made in this past month. During March there was a great event at my house that involved 20 thank you notes of 5 different designs. Instead of re-inventing the wheel I took out the samples from that event and copied using these new papers and some of the same products offered at the card workshop.  The main thing I swapped out was the papers.  I had already done the design work so it was fast to make these new cards. 

You can see the new items I created below ... along with the old.

Side Tracked

I've been sooooo busy creating some cards for you with the new Dotty for You paper pack ...

... needless to say I guess I can get easily distracted when there's a pile of colorful scraps sitting in my peripheral vision. There's something about mixing an matching papers that has always appealed to me in this wonderful world called Paper Creating. (that may be a made up name)

You'll have to come back to see the cards, but in the meantime I have this.

 It's so crazy easy to do this it's embarassing.

Cut A LOT of triangles of different angles. Take a piece of 12 x12 cardstock and apply adhesive in two strips about 2 inces apart along the sides. (you can just start with one side and apply more adhesive as you go) Start adding triangles. You'll have to turn them back and forth to keep from angling right off of the page. This is going to look like a mess because you'll have pieces hanging everywhere. When all of the pieces are applied you just trim off the excess around the outsides AND cover up the center with another piece of cardstock. The only slightly tricky part comes when you've gone around the whole page and there's one space left. You'll probably have to trim that last triangle to fit just right.

I've been doing this for years and it never gets old. Here's a page I made at least 10 years ago. I gave it away so I can't show you what it looks like now. And here's an example using bigger triangles.

And now you see why I rarely throw any paper away.

In The Beginning ...

Nope ... I'm not about to tell you a Bible story. Today I was working with the new Dotty for You paper pack and I decided to scrapbook like I did when I first started in 1998.  All I had back then was some paper, a scissors, adhesive and my photos. Those were simpler times before I ventured into crazy amounts of embellishments & a case full of tools. I didn't know there were magazines or trends to follow. I was innocently just trying something new. When I first started to scrapbook it was just an experiment. Other people were doing it so I decided to give it a try. My goal was to scrapbook for one complete year to see if I liked it. hahahaha ... and as they say, the rest is history.

In the beginning I couldn't stand the thought of cutting my pictures ... I mean, come on. I paid for the whole thing. Why would I cut some off and throw it away?  Yes ... this photo on the left is literally the first page I ever made. The computer can't even comprehend that color of fluorescent pink, but trust me when I say it's bright. Eventually I moved into patterned paper and took out my scissors. I used things around the house to come up with various shapes. Many of my dishes were circle templates and I even traced my kid's hands. I used a ruler to draw a straight line on the back of a picture because I had no idea what a paper trimmer was.

The Dotty for You paper is so much FUN!!! Today I forced myself to go back in time. I refused to use  anything beyond paper, scissors, adhesive & one marker. Most of this was cut free-hand. The one thing I couldn't do was set my paper trimmer aside. So if you're keeping track I guess that's a cheat.

Yep ... I hand cut these letters. No templates, no machines.

The journalling says, "Why? That's the question from both points of view. Adam wonders ... Why does she have to take sooooo many photos? I'm thinking, Why won't he cooperate so I don't have to take soooo many photos? Why? Why? Why?"  I know there are other paparazzi mom's out there who can totally relate to this.

More fun with scissors.

These pieces & the "tickets" are also cut from one of the Dotty for You patterns. There are 12 different designs (two of each) in the paper pack. For this layout I've cut into 4 of the 12 patterns. Come back tomorrow for more.

Cut from one of the beautiful papers.

For those who are Pinterested : )