Halloween Madness

Well it's not technically fall yet but pumpkin madness has hit us full force this week along with the beginning of all sorts of fall holiday preparations.  Maybe not at your house,  but at my house it's a bit bonkers with all the things to do. As I finish up the summer pocket letter swaps I've been participating over at Mini Album Scraps in I'm getting ready to gear up for Halloween. 

I am participating in another pocket letter swap with Mini Album Scraps along with about a dozen other gals, plus I'm stretching my wings a little and am participating in a couple events sponsored by Laura Carson over at the blog Artfully Musing, and Alpha Stamps. If you've never seen any of her work then you must check her out.

This is part of Laura's village for the  Halloween Haunted Village Event 2015. On her page you'll find a treasure trove of  pictures a few videos and all the information you need to participate and play with us. 
Now it's time to get busy! I've got tons of Halloween elements to put together. Then before we know it it'll be time for the Christmas madness to take over. So, everyone take a big breath and get ready to ride out the next couple of months with a bunch of crafty craziness!!!

Damask Diva's Nevermore Bloghop - Pocket Letters Madness

Happy first day of September everyone!!!!  It's that time of year when summertime and  back to school suddenly turns to thoughts of the holidays. For us in the Close to my Heart world, today  is the unveiling of the the New Annual Inspiration Book and the new 2015/2016 line of goodies. Once again I'm joining in on the Damask Divas Blog Hop. This Month we're featuring Nevermore from our new Fall Holiday Expressions Catalog. 
If you've followed the link from Jennifer Dykstra thanks for following along and if you've just stumbled over today to see if I've been paying attention to my blog at all, well Welcome Back!!! 

I've spent the most of my summer making all sorts of cute crafty stuff and sharing. (BAD Felica!)  Well mostly pocket letters. If you haven't heard of this craze you can find out a here. In short its a bunch of little Artist Trading Cards stuffed into a baseball card collectible sleeve and then stuffed with  a letter from you to your pal, goodies and all sorts of treats. Over the summer I've sent and received 8 and let me tell you the letters I've received have been just beautiful works of art from everyone. And as it's getting closer to that witching time of year. I thought I'd use this gorgeous paper to get a little jump start on my Halloween themed pocket letters. Here is the front.

Now I've also used the Nevermore Complements. This little bundle of goodies is chock full stickers chipboard pieces and really great acrylic pieces that just made this go together in a snap. Now for the back, which at the moment is technically blank since there is usually art or goodies stuffed in both the front and back but I wanted you to get a look at the back sides of this paper.

I love this tree. Its one of my favorite pieces and I have it popped up with a  couple pieces of dimensional foam and have the ghost behind it. Spooky!!!

But I have to say I had a great time making this adorable little shaker card. This is not part of the Nevermore complements, but the candy jar is from our Pumpkin Chevron stamp set. 

I'm in love with this cute little shaker, have I mentioned that. Its so cute.  Now, this is where I leave you. If you are interested in purchasing any of these items you can head to my store here. 
If you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear from you, but now it's time to hop over to see Traci Williams and thanks for hopping with us!!!

Flowers for Mothers Day

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day yesterday. I had a great afternoon with my mom, making her lunch and doing a little catching up. 

I don't know about you guys but I've been noticing that as our parents get older they get a little pickier about gifts. Lets be honest after you reach a certain point in our lives you get to a place where you don't really want or maybe even really need things. Therefore it gets harder for us kids to give our parents gifts.  So whats a daughter to do when you know going to a store and purchasing something is not going to fit the bill? You do a craft project... This is a project that I have been wanting to do for pretty close to a year. Not necessarily as a gift but for myself. Um, I've been procrastinating. 

Last year I started seeing the awesome Donna Downey doing little tutorials for the Faber-Castell Gelatos over here at Design Memory Craft. Now of course as it sometimes happens, one video leads to another, then another, and a buying spree ensues. I'm not saying that's how this happened but it could have. Anyhow, somewhere along the way I saw a tutorial for a very abstract floral work with the gelatos. Blobs of color were put down, a little water was added then details with a fabric pen. It was pretty awesome and it looked like something I could do and actually achieve a piece of work that looked like I might be a little artsy.

Needless to say this project was inspired by that. I have literally spent a few hours trying to find that tutorial so I could rewatch it and then give credit where credit is due but I can't find it. That said, if someone runs across this and knows where I saw that I'd love to know.

I managed to only get a quick photo before it was dragged up to my mom's so I apologize for the poor lighting. 

As I said before it was a really quick project, taking about two hours total. I started with a small 100% poly v-neck tee from Michael's, the set of gelatos from the Designing with Gelato's Kit. I literally put my colors down abstractly, kind of in blobs and then took a paint brush and water and pulled my color from the center out, adding a swipe from the tube of what ever color I was using  if I thought it needed more color. Then, because I'm impatient. I dried the tee with my blow drier and went to work drawing in all the details with a Pentel Gel Roller for Fabric. I'd give you a link for this but I just found out they have been discontinued by the manufacturer. 

I really don't think the picture does the tee justice. It turned out very water color like because I used quite a bit of water to activate the creamy gelato color on the material. Plus the material wicked and the moisture spread. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.  Now both the gelatos and the pen are supposed to be colorfast and permanent after they dry so my fingers are crossed that this is truly the case. But to be sure. I think I need to do one for myself so I can verify it.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Taste Of Summer CTMH BlogHop

Hey everyone! Hope your spring is picking up. We've had some fabulous weather here in Far Northern California the last couple of weeks. We really need the rain but man it's been beautiful. 

In case you were not aware May is National Scrapbooking Month! That said, our wonderful CTMH Damask Diva's couldn't let this luscious paper packet go without notice and we've been making things with it for your enjoyment. So if you are here by way of Cydney Fowler's Blog, Welcome!!! If you just stumbled on this I'll have the entire blog list at the end of the post so you can continue back around.  Now I have a project I've been working on but due to a broken water pipe I haven't been able to access my craft room to finish. Heavy sigh. So I'm just going to have to share the papers at the moment.

Now I'm going to just put this out there. I think I've said this before but I'm not a traditional scrapbooker. I don't generally make 12 by 12  or 12 by 24 page layouts because, well I don't have kids, and I although I love my pets I know the only person that loves them like I do is me. And. I feel like stealing photos from your family kinda amounts to stalking. LOL. But I digress.  

This paper packet is just lovely, bursting with lots of color and character. I think its perfect for all sorts of summertime scrapbook pages along with cards and other crafty things. 

  Truly, I don't think this graphic does it justice, and I'll tell you know my favorite paper in this set is the lemons on the green background. The vibrant colors make it a natural choice for your favorite summer memories. And to sweeten the deal, the Taste of Summer paper packet is delightfully simple to get your hands on: you can purchase it outright for just $8.95

Above is the example of a beautiful scrapbook layout the CTMH Design Team put together for this packet.  I should have my layout and cards up and posted before the weekend is over so stay tuned. Now if you'd like to order your own packet of Taste of Summer simply click HERE and you can order directly from my CTMH Store.

Now if you'd like to check out what everyone else has done here's the list in order;

Jessica at CraftinandStampin

Melissa at FrommtheHeart

Jennifer at JDDesigns75

Jennifer Benner at Jensmessystudio

Traci Williams at Papercrafting101

Cydney Fowler At Cydney Fowler Creations 

Thanks for hopping with us and I'll see you over the weekend.

Mixed Media Phone Case

Well I finally  did it. I got sick and tired of misplacing my phone every time I sat it down. The case was grey, the counters in my downstairs kitchen are grey and I'm slightly ashamed to say I have a little bit of clutter. But in my defense my downstairs basement apartment is 700 Sq ft. Needless to say I was "loosing" my phone a lot. 

After one such episode this last week I decided to do something about it and I decorated my case. 

First  I had to decide what to use. Although I have a large Samsung Note 3, I still put the phone in my pants pockets so I didn't want the additional bulk of too much bling and stuff like sat too high off the case.  So, I thought I go with some simple mixed media.

First thing I did was clean the case then give it a gesso primer. After that dried I took some Tim Holts musical note tissue tape and covered the entire back of the case to the inside edge of the cover. I figured the tissue tape was thin enough that it would not interfere with the fit of the phone itself and I was right. 

Then I gave it another light coat of gesso to provide some protection from the next layer of color.

Next up Faber-Castell Gelatos. I used 6 or 7 colors I think. I was wanting to have a background that looked like a whimsical landscape.  You know sky, sun, and ground. I started laying down my color with my blues first, then some yellows and oranges and then my greens. After that with clean hands I used the oils from my hands to spread the creamy color. Starting from the top and working down. Take note that I did have to clean my fingers so that I wasn't inadvertently blending colors into each other.  In other words I didn't want a thin line of green in my sky.

That completed. I took a small amount of black gesso and a liner brush and attempted a dandelion with bits of fluff blowing around. No trial run, I just jumped in with both feet. After everything was mostly dry (I was impatient) I gave the case a good layer of Ranger's Multi Medium Matte to seal everything.

That completed. I took a small amount of black gesso and a liner brush and attempted a dandelion with bits of fluff blowing around. No trial run, I just jumped in with both feet. After everything was mostly dry (I was impatient) I gave the case a good layer of Ranger's Multi Medium Matte to seal everything.

Time to finish another project...

Catch Up

Well I've been doing tons of crafting and zero posting and blogging. So. I thought I'd play a little catch up with a few little short posts.

I've had a hard time because I keep making gifts and I'm always afraid that I'll blow the surprise posting pictures. You know how that is.

I got a Cricut Explore several months ago and have been learning how to play with vinyl. This is a coffee mug that I did for my sister in law for Christmas. She'd graduated from her LVN nursing program  just before Christmas. We were all so proud of her I really wanted to do something special. The hardest part...weeding.

Damask Diva's Valentine Day Blog Hop

Happy weekend everyone! Welcome to the Damask Diva's Valentine Blog Hop!  Well the holidays are over and now we're gearing up Valentines Day. To give everyone a little head start we decided to throw together a blog hop featuring  the very pretty Close to My Heart Heartstrings paper pack from the current Seasonal Expressions Catalog. I decided to also throw in the Awesome Forever In My Heart Stamp Set, also in the seasonal expressions catalog.

Now if you've come here from Melissa Fromm's blog you are on the right track, thanks for stopping by!

A lot of you know I love making cards. I think it's because I feel like I can get creative on a smaller canvas where sometimes the larger scrapbook pages can be intimidating. So of course, today I have a card for you. 

I thought I was going to make a 5x7 inch card  but I believe the finished size ended up being 5x6 inches. It will still fit in a standard envelope but I got a little carried away with my paper cutter. With a little help from the Cricut CTMH Art Philosophy Cartridge I cut several 21/2 in and 1 and 1/2 inch hearts from all the design paper in the Heartstrings paper pack as well as several from a piece of White Daisy card stock. Using the small text heart stamp from the Forever in My Heart stamp set I and some Cranberry ink I stamped one of the small hearts on the front of the card. For the background of the card I used a piece of Whisper card stock and a new Anna Griffin Love embossing folder from my stash to add some texture and added a small stamped "You're Sweet" banner, also from the stamp set.

I decided that a plain blank inside wouldn't do so I added some additional hearts using the "Always on My Mind Forever In My Heart",  sentiment stamp from this stamp set. I again used Cranberry ink to ink the edges of my heart and stamp my sentiment. Easy Peasy!


I am officially the last blog in the hop to se the entire list and if you'd like to see a list of the entire hop you can check out the list here. Thanks for hopping with us.

If you like what you see leave me a comment and let me know. I hope this jump started your Valentine creativity, now get out there and get crafty!