Box Birthday Card

My dear friend Jolene is celebrating a birthday today. All month I have been working with Close To My Heart's featured paper packet La Vie En Rose so I had it on my table when planning out this card. The box card design is from SVG Cuts. I used CTMH's glitter paper and embellishments from the La Vie En Rose Complements. The birthday sentiment is from the stamp set Your Own Kind of Wonderful.

CTMH Animal Greetings Meets CRICUT Create A Critter

Animal Greetings is an adorable stamp set from Close To My Heart. What makes this stamp set even more precious is that for every set sold at $17.95 Close To My Heart is donating $7 to Operation Smile. 

Operation Smile is an international medical charity whose global network of thousands of credentialed medical volunteers from over 80 countries is committed to helping improve the health and lives of children from more than 60 countries. To date, the organization has provided more than 240,000 free surgeries for children and young adults born with cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities.

D1679 Animal Greeting $17.95

For my C&S card design I wanted the animals to be bigger than the stamp image. I used the Cricut cartridges Create A Critter and Create A Critter 2.  I made these cards into valentines, but they can work for any occasion. 

Chocolate Understands Box

The last few days I've been taking old tutorials and designs making them into Design Space files to cut with my Cricut Explore. This chocolate box that fits Ghirardelli squares is one of those old tutorials! This would be perfect to make up for Valentine's.

I made my box with Close To My Heart cardstock, a retired Close To My Heart stamp of the month, and ribbon from my stash.

If you'd like to try to make your own box here is a link to the Design Space project. I have a subscription to the Cricut library and now I'm not sure which pieces I used! This will be free if you have a subscription or the cartridges I happened to use. Otherwise you will be prompted to purchase whatever you do not have in your library.

Buckle Card and Design Space Share

The January Joyful Stars Blog Hop was amazing! One of my fellow hoppers inspired me by sharing a unique design the "Big Buckle Card." The tutorial is on Splitcoaststampers. I took the tutorial and used that to make a project in design space to cut the pieces with my Cricut Explore. I used Close To My Heart's Paper Collection of the Month and Stamp of the Month to get a jump on some Valentine's Day Cards. If you would like to try the Design Space Project here is the link. I have a subscription to the Cricut library and now I'm not sure which pieces I used! This will be free if you have a subscription or the cartridges I happened to use. Otherwise you will be prompted to purchase whatever you do not have in your library. 

Joyful Stars January 2016 Blog Hop

Welcome to the Joyful Stars January 2016 Blog Hop! On the 10th of each month a group of Close To My Heart consultants share artwork using some of our favorite products. This hop is a circle, so it doesn't matter if you are coming from Krista's blog or if you start here on my blog. Just continue around until you're back at the blog you started on to make sure you see all the fabulous projects. 

My project for you this month is a trio of cards using Beloved Bouquet, this month's Stamp of the Month. I also showcased Close To My Heart's featured paper collection this month, La Vie En Rose. 

The first card uses the base and shade technique. I stamped the solid flower in Pixie and the outline stamp in Pomegranate. I used the same technique for the leaves. The lighter color is Pear and the darker color is Topiary.

On the second card I stamped the flower and leaf outlines with the Black Memento™ Ink Pad on Watercolor Paper. Then I used various colors from the Watercolor Paints to color the images.

The last card I stamped the flower and leaf outlines with the Black Memento™ Ink Pad again, but this time I used various  ShinHan™ Touch Twin™ Markers. I think this one is my favorite! On each card I did use the beautiful Black & Gold Ribbon, a brand new item in the Seasonal Expressions 1.

Thanks for hopping along this month. Your next stop is Donna's blog. Just in case you get lost or experience a technical difficulty, you might want to keep Joyce's blog open in a separate tab, as she has a full list of participants.