The Final Countdown to Close to My Heart New Zealand

Hello

I would like to welcome all my new followers to my blog and I hope that you enjoy coming on my creative journey with me.  I would also like to thank those who take the time to read my posts and also leave comments as well.  I really appreciate the feed back that I am getting.

I was very excited to receive an email this morning from Close to My Heart informing me that we are very close to the launch in New Zealand – the first week in September to be precise.  I can’t wait to start and am starting to de-stash in order to have space and money for my new CTMH products.  The Cricut cartridges look so awesome and I am very impressed with the cards and scrapbook layouts that are coming through from the Australian consultants.

In the meantime I have been doing some scrapbooking and cards.  I am getting through my son’s album and I am now up to his 3rd birthday.  I have used the It’s a Boy stack pack to complete his second year and I am waiting for the cricut cartridges to make some titles to complete them and then I will post a few pictures on here.  I love the colours of this stack pack and they went very well with the photos of James.  I am looking at doing his next album using the Pro-player WOTG kit.  The colours are great and I love the coordinating stamps and shapes that go with it.  It is more appropriate for an older boy as well.

I have also made some more cards for Make Shift.  I haven’t done many get well cards so I have made these using up some of my stash and am pleased how they have turned out.  I am a little disappointed in my Chloe die from Memory Box though.  The cut shape doesn’t seem to pop out quite as easily as my other dies.  I will keep persevering with it and see how it goes.  Anyway, here are the cards:

Get well card - love this combination of yellow and red Love the combination of red, grey and yellow Love this combination of yellow, white and dots Red and white simplicityMaterials used are:

Fiskars flower punch

Memory Box die – Chloe

Cuttlebug embossing folder – Swiss dots

Stampendous Get Well Stamp

Kaisercraft greeting stamp

Red and Yellow scrap cardstock

Stampin’Up ink – Real Red

Bling from the local $2 store

Marianne Creatables flower and leaf set – sorry I seemed to have mislaid the name of this die.

Coloured paper from my stash

I am pleased with the colour combinations and the simplicity of these cards and I hope that you like them too.

Have a good weekend everyone and Happy Crafting.

A solution to the Creative Memories pages and protectors dilemma

Welcome back.

This is a quick post is for all those people out there (like me) who have Creative Memories albums but not enough pages or protectors.  The very resourceful new CTMH Consultants in Australia have discovered a solution to your dilemma.  You can convert the CTMH page protectors to use in your CM albums and save a lot of money instead of trawling through Trade Me or Ebay and paying exorbitant prices.  It looks to be very easy to do and the CTMH pages are really good quality and will protect your photos in many years to come.  I am really hanging out until the time I can sign up as a Close to My Heart Consultant in New Zealand.  Hopefully it will be early next month.

Please check out this YouTube video for further information and details:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5rIJlpQEpY&feature=youtu.be

I hope you find this useful during this transition from Creative Memories to Close to My Heart.

Happy scrapping

Patricia

Wow – Great News

Hello there

I have just received news that Creative Memories Australia and New Zealand has been bought out by Close to My Heart to  start their Australasian business.  I wasn’t really sure about Plan B, but I have had a look at the catalogue from America and it is amazing.  I love the fact that there is plenty of scope for my stamping and card making as well as for scrapbooking.  There is a lot more decorative products, plus there is also digital products as well.  It is also in a good financial position as well, which is very critical after what we have been through over the last few weeks. I still have a lot of questions about the structure and set up but I will now definitely be looking at this very closely.

So watch this space…

Happy Crafting

Baby boy two photo layout

Welcome again

Much as I enjoy taking lots of photos I still have to do something with them and now it is time to get back to my scrapbooking.  James’ album will not get done on its own!

As I have said in previous posts, James is growing up in front of me again and here is a two photo layout using the Rugged Baby Boy Addition,s as well as a decorative pack  that I received when I went to a Creative Memories training day last year (I am sorry I cannot remember the name of the decorative pack, but it is no longer available).  The colours go so well together.

I have used a lovely striped pattern as the base of my page.  I then placed a smaller cream patterned paper on the page and then put a trimmed sheet of grey paper from the Rugged Range over it.  The two photos were placed side by side (I was just going through my page sketches from Chris Lothian and found a similar sketch from her!) and I have added a couple of embellishments on the photos.  With this decorative pack came a gorgeous green metallic cardstock and I have tried to make it last several pages as it tones in so well with this album.  I cut a strip of this green cardstock across the page and then placed a small strip of floral paper to add some decoration to the strip and break the wide  strip.  To tie in with other pages in the album I have used cloud cardstock to place under the cream paper for a tag.  I finished this off with a title sticker from the Rugged Baby Addition Pack.  I then finished off with a couple of black epoxy stickers from the P.S. I Love You range.

I am sorry that I am unable to give any precise measurements for my layouts but I tend to use whatever I have in my stash.  I never throw out my scraps because I never know when I might need just that sized piece for a project.  Small strips of paper make great ribbons for other layouts, and different shapes make good embellishments as well for both scrapbook layouts and cards.

CM Two photo layout

Materials used:

Creative Memories Cardstock – Cloud

Creative Memories Cardstock – Green metallic

Creative Memories Rugged Baby Boy Addition Pack

Creative Memories P.S. I Love You Epoxy Stickers

Creative Memories Decorative Pack – sorry I can’t remember which one it was but it is no longer available.

Creative Memories Rotary Trimmer

Creative Memories Scissors

I hope I am showing that scrapbooking is not that difficult and the important part about scrapbooking is actually putting the photos into albums and writing down all our memories for future generations to understand where we have come from.

Happy scrapping

Patricia

Border Maker Magic

Hi there

As I promised a couple of days ago I said I would post some more of my son’s album that I have been completing but out of respect for the people in Boston I decided to leave it yesterday.  All my thoughts are with those affected by this tragedy.  Even though I live in New Zealand these events still have quite an impact on us.

I am really loving using the Border Maker system and the cartridges.  In this page I have used the picket fence and twinkle chain border and as you can see I do not throw anything away.  I have used the thin strip of card left over from using the twinkle chain cartridge to glue a thin strip of card down the edge of the picket fence.  The yellow has worked beautifully with the outfit that James is wearing as well as the play gym he is playing with. The blank pages I use are a great background without using a lot of cardstock or paper which can be cost effective and allow the packs to last a lot longer.  I have used the sentiments from the Rugged range as well as I can’t seem to have blank spaces somehow!?!  I am working on this all the time and I will get better.

CM layout using Border Maker cartridges

 

Materials used:

Creative Memories Cardstock – Yellow

Creative Memories Cardstock – Cloud

Creative Memories Border Maker – Twinkle Chain and Picket Fence cartridges

Rugged Title stickers

Rugged Baby Boy Additions – sticker

ABC Monograms Swirly – Black

Happy Scrapping and keep safe

Patricia

 

More rugged baby boy

While the weather has turned to rain (much needed to break our drought thank goodness!  We have a total water ban on at the moment.) I have completed another couple of pages for my son’s scrapbook album.  This time I have kept the pages simple and used a white page for the background.  I love the combination of the border maker picket fence and twinkle chain cartridges and was really pleased with the combination of the yellow and the blue.  The blue complemented the clothes we are wearing in the photos and the yellow helped to highlight as well as James was wrapped in a yellow blanket.  I use colour a lot when I am scrapbooking as I find that the right colour behind the photo really highlights the photo.  I also like to keep embellishments to a minimum as well so as not to overpower the photograph and journalling. These photos are rather special as James was my grandmother’s only great grandchild and died when he was about 18 months old.  So it is lovely to have the whole family in the photo.Rugged Baby Boy scrapbook page Rugged Baby Boy Scrapbook pageMaterials used:

Creative Memories Rugged Baby Boy Additions

Creative Memories Cardstock – Cloud

Creative Memories Cardstock – Yellow

Creative Memories Custom Cutting System- round cutters

Creative Memories Border Maker – Picket Fence and Twinkle Chain cartridges

Creative Memories Rugged Paper tags

Happy scrapping

Patricia

 

 

Rugged little boy

Hello again

I have now started with doing my son’s 12 x 12 album using the Rugged Power Palette and additions.  I have used the Rugged Baby Boy Additions and am really pleased with how the pages have turned out.  I will be buying another set of additions as I had so many photos of when he was born, as you do when it is the first child.  The colours of the papers have worked in really well with the colours of the photos.

James' albumJames' album James' album

Materials used:

Creative Memories Rugged Baby Boy Additions

Creative Memories Rugged Paper Ribbon

Creative Memories Rugged Tags

Creative Memories Scissors

Creative Memories Enchanted Epoxy Stickers

Creative Memories Black Pen

I have also used my Memory Manager 4.0 to crop the photo of me holding James to get a 4 x 6 photo of just James and that turned out to be great and just finished the page off.

Looking back it was hard to believe that he was such a  little baby, now he that he has grown into an adult.  I am really enjoying going back and doing these photos and reminiscing about the good times we had and how special he is to us.  He has had a lot to deal with in his life but he has never let that hold him back.

I will keep posting photos of his album as I complete it.

Happy scrapping

Patricia

Scrapbook pages

Welcome back to my blog.

I have gone back to my scrapbooking roots and here is a sample of what I have been doing.Enchanted layout

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have recently attended a VIP Roadshow and one of the projects was this layout.  We were given a basic layout template and then it was up to us to put the embellishments to finish the page.  Here is the original template

Creative Memories template

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructions for my layout:

1) One sheet of 12″ x 12″ Designer Print Paper – Enchanted as base

2) I used the straight blade of my 12 -inch Rotary Trimmer to cut a  10 x 28 cm sized rectangle from the red 12″ x 12″ Embossed Paper – Enchanted.  I then rounded the four corners with the Corner Rounder.   This rectangle was then placed on the Designer Print Paper base about 1.5 cm from the top edge and 10 cms from the left edge of the base.

3) I used the Border Maker System and the Twinkle Chain Border Maker Cartridge to cut a pattered border out of the red Embossed Paper – Enchanted.  I trimmed this chain to fit on either side of the rectangle.

4) I chose a green coordinating peice from the Storybox Photo Mats & Journalling Boxes – Enchanted and placed this over the red Embossed Paper – Enchanted about 2.5 cms from the left hand side and about 6.5 cms from the top.

5) I then used my Custom Cutting System – Circle Patterns to cut a circle from a red piece from the Storybox Photo Mats & Journalling Boxes – Enchanted.  I then placed this circle on the lower right corner of the green piece.  I put a landscape photo onto the green sheet and then using the Custom Cutting System – Circle Patterns to cut the portrait photo into a circle and then placed it onto the red circle.

6) I then cut a strip of green Paper Ribbon – Enchanted approximately 23 cms and placed it under the red twinkle chain border and this went over the red rectangle as well.

7) I used one of the journalling squares from the Storybox Photo Mats & Journalling Boxes – Enchanted and placed it on the upper right corner and then wrote about the photos using my Dual-Tip Pen.

8) Finally I have used the Paper Ribbons – Enchanted and Epoxy Stickers – Enchanted to finish the page and placed a Title Sticker – Enchanted under the landscape photo.

Happy Scrapping

Patricia