Cutie Pie s1412: CTMH December Stamp of the Month AustralasianBlogHop

 Hello and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived here from Patricia Manhire's Creative Corner,  then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

Woo Hoo! New products to play with today! Our new Seasonal Inspirations Catalogue has launched and it is very pretty. Love our new hopscotch papers and I have used them in my project today.

I have created a cute little counting book for my son.
Here are my ingredients:

• Hopscotch paper from the paper pack
• Hopscotch picture my life cards (they come in a pack of 56 and only cost $12!)
• Shinhan markers (Peacock green, Marigold, Cherry Pink, Tender Pink, Pastel Green, Barely Beige, Light Orange and Turquoise Blue)
• 1 12 x 3 flip flap from the large assortment pack
• 8 3 x 4 flip flaps from the small assortment pack (you'll need 2 packs)
• 1 3 x 3 flip flap from the small assortment pack
• Curlicue Alphabet stamp set D1630 (from the Artfully Sent cartridge collection)
• Handwritten Alphabet Stamp set E1030
• White Daisy Cardstock
• Cutie Pie stamp set S1412 (only available this month!)

The Cutie Pie Stamp of the month is only available until the 31st of December from your CTMH consultant.
I'd love to hear what you think of my project before you head off to Shaunna’s Blog, Passionate About Pages.

It's the little things S1411 : CTMH Stamp of the Month AustralasianBlog Hop

Hi and welcome to our November Blog Hop! If you arrived here from Shaunna's Passionate About Pages  then you are in the right place. If you didn't then... CONGRATULATIONS! You are about to join me and a bunch of amazing girls on the Stamp of the month Australasian Close to my Heart Blog Hop! Just follow the link at the end of this blog to join in.

What happens when your baby starts to crawl but is still waking for feeds 4 times a night?

Anyone?

Ok, I'll tell you.... You have no time to sit still anymore so crafting happens whilst dangling children over sharp blades and ink pads and blogging is an acrobatic event involving feeding whilst swatting small fingers away from keyboards and touch screens.

Why do I mention this when clearly I should be telling you about my stamp of the month project? Because..... Here is..... MY SHORTEST BLOG EVER!!!!!


When I saw this month's stamp of the month set I immediately thought.... chickens.

Sure I could have done something like this:

But I didn't. I did this:

This border will soon be gracing a page with one of my children doing something cute. I could tell you how I love the scaredy cat papers and colours I used (which I do!!!!) but then this blog would cease to be short - so here is a list:
Dotty Background and Orange Rectangle : Scaredy Cat Paper Pack
Flowers stamped into bady shapes : Canary Ink
Leaf for chicken wing, partial flower for beak and sentiment : Slate Ink
Dotty stamp for chicken feed/grass : Flaxen Ink
Background : Slate Cardstock
Eyes, baby beaks and feet : Warm Grey ShinHan marker
Sentiment and chicken background :Colonial White cardstock

It's the little things Stamp of the Month set is only available until 30 November from your CTMH consultant. Please leave me a comment before you head off to Vandra's Virtual CTMH Craftroom .
If your comment contains random letters I'll know you are swatting child fingers too :)

WARNING: Blogger may have been delirious whilst writing this blog. 

Home for the Holidays S1410 : CTMH Stamp of the Month Australasian BlogHop

Welcome to our October Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived here from Denise's Blog: Scrap Stamp Share then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. 

Today I am going to share a cute little embellishment idea that could be used on a card, a tag or on a scrapbook page. I like to call it 'There's a bear in there'.
It features this month's stamp of the month: Home for the Holidays available exclusively throughout October for $27 or for just $5 when you spend $75.

 


Now you will have to excuse the craft surface you may see in some of my photos, being a Mum of two very active children I completed this project on THEIR craft table so they could 'help'.

Step 1: Stamp the polar bear stamp in Crystal Blue ink onto White Daisy Cardstock. Isn't he cute?

Step 2: I use a technique I entirely made up myself. In saying that I am sure I am not the only person who has ever done this just that it is not something I learnt from anyone else. Ok, so I took one of my son's old textas and removed the ink bit from the inside. I ran it under warm water for a few minutes until the water ran clear. I now how have a thoroughly dead texta. Good. Because what I really want is a fine tip pointy sponge.
I take my new tool and dab it in my VersaMark ink. Then I draw over the top of each snowflake on my stamped image dabbing in the ink in between each one.
I keep my special home made tool in my organiser and I don't let anyone else near it. I have used it for lots of projects now with both the VersaMark ink and also my pigment inks - my previous one met a sad end when someone tried a little too hard to get the texta to work.... grrrrrr.... don't touch other people's tools without asking! Sorry... digressing...

Step 3: Coat with Silver Embossing Powder (and tap off of course). In this case I haven't worried about flecks of dust on the image as it adds to the effect I am creating.

Step 4: Apply heat (as per normal heat embossing).

Step 6: I took my stamp and inked it with Cranberry Ink. Then I took a piece of paper towel and rubbed off the ink on the ears, the facial features and the arms. You could also just use your finger. I don't like to use wet wipes for this because they are sometimes too effective and stop the next bit from working.
Next I used a dauber inked with Cocoa Ink and daubered the face and arms. Then I took a dauber inked with Cotton Candy Ink and daubered the ears.

Step 7: Stamp this onto White Daisy Cardstock. Using micro-tip scissors cut around the bear. Don't leave any colour around the edges of him.

Step 8: Stamp the image again in Crystal Blue ink on white daisy cardstock and cut out the inside of the picture leaving only the frame.

Step 9: Take a piece of Cranberry Cardstock and cut to 3 1/8" x 4 1/4"
In the centre bottom of the back stamp the image again. It does not matter how perfect or imperfect this stamped image is.

Step 10: Cut out the inside of the image including the frame parts - go slightly wider than the frame on all sides.

Step 11: Use adhesive to stick the Crystal Blue Frame to the Cranberry cardstock.

Step 12: Use Glue dots to stick the cut out bear to the embossed image. The glue dots will raise him up off the page just a little bit.

Step 13: Stick the window on top of the embossed image using foam tape.

Step 14: There's a bear in there.... Just decide what you want to do with your little cutie!



Home for the Holidays is only available until  the 31st of October 2014 from your CTMH consultant.

Bear and I would love you to leave a comment before heading off to your next stop: Georgia Creates CTMH.

What A Hoot S1408 : CTMH Stamp of the Month Australasian Blog Hop

Hello and welcome aboard our Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop! Look at us with a brand new Stamp of the Month from a Brand New Ideas Book!!!! Hoot Hoot Hooray!!!
If you have arrived here from Natalie's Close to my Heart Blog then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

So one of the things I do on a regular basis is run workshops for kids. As a Mum and a trained primary school teacher I really enjoy seeing kids of all ages enjoying the creative process and especially the part when they turn to their parents and say 'Look what I made!'.

So today I am going to share some of the techniques I use with kids in a simple stamping session. I have used August's Stamp of the Month 'What a Hoot' available exclusively throughout August for $24 or for just $5 when you spend $75.

This is an amazing stamp to use with kids! It screams creativity. It's like playing dress ups with owls. So much fun!

So when I work with younger kids (today's attendees are 3 year olds), I make sure I get all my materials organised beforehand. I place all my materials in groups on a nearby (but out of reach) table. I want to be able to grab the next step/ activity at a moment's notice. Kids in this age group will not sit quietly while you dig around trying to find a pair of scissors or decide to mix a new paint colour.

So at this session I had a plan that we would create a card. I had all the pieces precut and I had pre-stamped the phrase 'what a hoot' with VersaMark ink onto white daisy cardstock and embossed it with clear super fine embossing powder. I had also mixed up some paint with water - I do this regularly, it makes the paint go further but in this case it also made the paint into more of a wash, which is what I wanted. I had all the stamps prestuck on blocks and the kids table covered in butchers paper.

The kids arrive and it is so exciting to be doing craft!!!

I always start with a stamping activity with no boundaries. This gets the kids used to the blocks, stamps and ink pads (which are super kid friendly - don't worry, nothing toxic here). So I just let them go for it with some plain white paper and a couple of ink pads. I choose colours based on their preferences but also keeping in mind that I don't want the colours to mix so darker colours are better to prevent cross-contimaniation on the pads.

I was really interested to see which stamps they wanted to use together. It's never what you expect.

After some fun I get out my black pigment ink and get the kids to pass me the stamps they want to use on their cards. I do the stamping on this one - pigment ink is a bit too yukky to put in the hands of a 3 year old. After the nod of approval on the cards I cover the stamped image in our very special 'magic pixie dust' (Clear Super Fine Embossing Powder), shake off the excess and while I hold the cards over the toaster I get the kids to say magic words to help the magic happen.

I set the newly embossed images to one side to dry while we do a bit more magic of our own. The pre-stamped 'what a hoot' cards are brushed with the paint solution and.... magic! Words appear! We put these to one side to dry.

Now we can colour our owls. I do not let young children use my excellent alcohol markers. Best markers to use with young kids are Crayola Washables. The number of times I have panicked because texta has appeared on something precious and then run it under a bit of water and it has disappeared has made me a fan of these. Love them.
So why have we bothered to emboss the owls? If you have done colouring with young children recently you will know that they often don't stay in the lines and in the case of my dear boy he often just scribbles over the entire thing making it so you can't see the image at all. When you emboss, however, it creates a plastic coating over the image which prevents the marker ink from colouring it - so even if they scribble over the entire image, you will still clearly see the owl. Clever huh?

Finally we need a pop of colour on our card - a quick mat of coloured cardstock stuck on an angle behind our dear owls helps to create a fun look. With kids I usually just use glue sticks because they are cheap and they can manage them on their own, plus the glue is easy to wipe up if it gets dropped. However when we are just sticking a few pieces down like with this project I help them to use a tape runner - for this project I used my new favorite: EZ dots. Love love love my EZ dots but that is a blog for another day...

Ta da! Look what we made!

The What a Hoot Stamp set  is only available until the 31st of August from your CTMH consultant. I'd love you to leave a comment (or even ask a question) before heading off to the next stop on the Blog Hop- Lisa's blog : Crouchie's Getting Creative

Circus Alphabet S1407 : CTMH July Stamp of the Month AustralasianBlogHop

Welcome to my first ever blog hop entry! If you are not sure what a blog hop is, read on and you'll soon discover a fun scavenger hunt of ideas! This is the Stamp of the month Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop. If you have arrived here from Mandy's blog, Hall of Indulgence then you are in the right place. If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post. 

I would like to share with you this mini banner which features July Stamp of the Month Circus Alphabet available exclusively throughout July for $24 or for just $5 when you spend $75. 

This cute little banner will look great on a cake or on the party table PLUS you have the added bonus of being able to scrap it into an album afterwards!

The banner shape is cut from the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. Page 29 Decorative Layer cut at 1.8 inches.
You need 16 total pieces. I cut 8 from pear cardstock and 8 from lagoon cardstock.
I used gypsy ink to stamp the Circus Alphabet letters onto the banner. One of my favourite things to do with alphabet stamps is investigate the punctuation shapes that come with them for decorating other things. In this set the full stop is a cute little spiral circle. I used the full stop to embellish the ends of my pennants. I did find with this stamp that you only need slight pressure to get the stamp detail - too much and the spiral becomes a blob.

To finish off I used slate baker's twine and simply threaded the twine through. When you do this, decide how you want the thread to show: across the middle of each pennant or on the side of each pennant (as I have done). It is much more pleasing to the eye if they are all threaded the same way. I threaded by hand as I found the holes big enough but if you find threading difficult just use a large needle.

Circus alphabet is only available until 31 July from your CTMH consultant. I'd love you to leave a comment before heading off to your next stop,  Monika's blog: A Sprinkle of Glitter.