Thinking of You Card

Today I am posting a card that I created late last night when I should have long been in bed. It's crazy how your mind picks the oddest time to throw creative images at you. No choice but to get crafty. Our Holiday Mini Catalog was just released and we have tons of new stuff to play with. I thought I needed to dig through some of my current product before I got distracted with all of the new goodies. 

For this card I used an image from our adorable "Tender Hearted" set and a verse from the "Simply Zinnia" stamp sets. Along with these two stamp sets, I chose the "Mediterranean Blooms" DSP and the "Soda Pop" paper collection from Close To My Heart. I used a variety of our Stampin Blends to color the stamped image. I also used our Deckled Rectangles Dies, the Stylish Shapes Dies, and Happy Little Things Dies for my paper layers. My three embellishments are from our Pecan Pie & Clear Ribboned Adhesive Backed Dots. 

Thank you for stopping by. If you have any questions or if I can help you, please let me know. 

cherylarbo.stampinup.net

Happy Scrappin! 

• A2 Side fold card base
• 3 1/2" x 4 7/8" Soda Pop #166475 layer
• (2) 1 1/2" x 4 1/4" Mediterranean Blooms #163287 layer
• 2 3/4" x 2 3/4" Basic White #159276 card stock
• 1/2" x 2 1/4" Basic White # 159276 card stock
• Stampin Up Tender Hearted #163744 
• Stampin Up Simply Zinnia #163472
• Pecan Pie & Clear Ribboned Adhesive Backed Dots #164204
• Deckled Rectangles Dies #159173
• Stylish Shapes Dies #159183
• Happy Little Things Dies #163709

Stampin Up "Layers of Beauty" Stamps and Masks

Here it is, the middle of May and school is winding down for the year. We now have a granddaughter going into Kindergarten and a grandson to the second grade in August. For my Grands three wonderful teachers, I thought they would appreciate having a few pretty cards to send out to their friends and family.

When I bought Stampin Up's "Layer's of Beauty" stamp set and coordinating masks earlier this month, I thought they would make some beautiful cards for my Grands end of the year gift for their teachers. I thoroughly enjoyed making these. They look so detailed. Anyone would think it would take someone hours to color each card. Don't tell anyone, but it took just minutes to layer the ink colors using the masks. They actually did all of the work for me! I am very happy on how they turned out. I am new to Stampin Up and when I created these cards I did not have many colors of our ink pads so I was limited in my color choices. I decided to experiment using just one color of ink to color each flower. I ended up using Pool Party, Melon Mambo, Real Red, and Night of Navy inks. I used a very light pressure using the first mask, a more firm pressure for the second mask, and a full strength color for the third mask. It worked out perfect. I lucked up having both Soft Sea Foam and Granny Apple Green for the leaves using the fourth and fifth masks. I also used our Deckled Rectangles Dies to cut my card stock layers. In the end, I was very happy with my cards. 

Thank you for stopping by my blog. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. Here is a link for my Stampin Up website. 

Happy stampin! 

Cheryl 

Up Coming Blog Changes

Hi everyone. I hope you are doing great.  As most of you know, Close To My Heart is closing their doors. Because of this I signed up to be a Stampin Up demonstrator on May 1st. My intentions are to knock the dust off this poor old blog and get active here instead of everything being on Facebook. We will see how this works out. I am also currently starting the process of changing my blog from Blogspot to WordPress. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping all of my old posts found on here will easily transfer to my new blog once everything is completed. I just wanted to jump on here real quick and give you a heads up! 

While I am here, I wanted to post two quick and easy cards that I made using our so pretty Thoughtful Journey 6x6 DSP. It is available in our new May 2024-April 2025 annual catalog, but is now on the “low inventory” list. If this is on your wish list, I would advise you to order it before it goes on backorder. This collection has 48 sheets of beautiful designer papers. Along with the DSP, I used my favorite Deckled Rectangles Dies. I hope you like my cards. 

If you would like to look through the new catalog, here is a Stampin Up Catalog link for you. 

If I can be of assistance to you, please just let me know.  

Happy crafting!

Cheryl

   

Catalog Delivery Schedule

"As a measure to help minimize the effects of the ongoing supply chain difficulties, CTMH will be transitioning back to a three-month catalog schedule beginning with the July catalog release.

The upcoming May–June catalog will be the final two-month catalog before the change, giving us time to make the necessary adjustments. After that, the catalog releases will follow this schedule:

July/September, October/December, January/March and April/June"

What do you think ladies? I myself LOVE it! More time to use our products that we LOVE! This announcement has MADE MY DAY!

Let's Make A Christmas Card

It is almost mid November.... time to get thinking about making some Christmas Cards. I typically mail out around seventy five cards each year. My Mom always had her cards written out, addressed, stamped, and  ready to be mailed the day after Thanksgiving. I have desired to do this my whole adult life, but I think I only pulled it off once in my forty-five years of marriage, but I keep dreaming and trying. Never giving up. 

I knew the first minute I first saw this stamp set that I wanted to make it appear that the Angel was placing a beautiful star on top of a Christmas Tree. My card went together quickly....until I got to coloring the Angel. I think I colored the Angel four to five times in several different shades, but nothing clicked. When my daughter came over I asked her opinion on it and she suggested a gold gown. Initially I thought the gold was too much with the two gold glittery stars and a piece of gold foil used on the strip of designer papers, but in the end I went with it. I stamped the image on card stock and then paper pieced the Angel over a white base layer using the coordinating die. 

I am a Close To My Heart Maker. If I can be of service to you, please don't hesitate to contact me. Here is a link to my website. cherylarbo.closetomyheart.com

Happy Scrappin and card making!

Cheryl

Deck The Palms

I am REALLY excited over this Christmas collection "Deck The Palms". We normally annually celebrate our wedding anniversary over Thanksgiving at Orange Beach in Alabama, but my husband was not able to get off work in November, so we are going for a few days after Christmas instead. Winter in Alabama is January and February, so I am sure it will be pretty chilly, but hoping to still roll up our pants and have a walk or two along the beach. Plus the restaurants, condos, and the beach go all out decorating for Christmas. We are not sun worshippers. We actually enjoy going for the fresh seafood. We have our delicious stand-by restaurants that we love going to, but with each visit we will try one or two new venues. This past July we were stuck in the tourist traffic.... it was awful, so we stopped and went into a Mexican restaurant that was in the parking lot. It was totally wonderful and amazing and reminded us both of our favorite restaurant that was located in Hueytown many years ago when we lived in Birmingham. We normally only eat seafood while at the beach, but we actually went twice here that week. It was delicious! Sorry for the lane swerve! 

This collection special is available from November 1st to December 31 2021. You can purchase individual beach and/or beach Christmas themed pieces within the collection. There is also an option to buy the full kit that includes both themes and all of the pieces offered in the collection. The colors are bright and beautiful. I am really enjoying our two recent paper collections using our new "color of the year" Wild Berry. I am not a pink gal, but I totally LOVE this color and even after it retires this fall, it is a keeper. This collection will be perfect for our vacation. I cannot wait to create using it. I placed my order yesterday and will be stalking my mailman for it's delivery. Listed below are TWO newly released YouTube videos showcasing this new Christmas collection and my pictures of the collection.

I am a Close To My Heart Maker. If I can be of service to you, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. My website is cherylarbo.closetomyheart.com

Happy scrappin and card making!

Cheryl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6KHgcGzqwo

https://www.facebook.com/CloseToMyHeartOfficial/videos/892559458299017/

Day 16 Of My "31 Days of Halloween"

Today is the last day of my treat boxes for the two Littles school. As I have mentioned, they only attend school days Monday through Thursday, so I only needed sixteen days of treats. I have never done a large project like this before and I have learned a lot along the way. I think my two biggest lessons were to start making them much sooner than two weeks prior to the start date and to buy the treats/snacks first and then create a treat box accordingly to the size of your treat. I have a large bag of leftover candy that was not used . Looks like I already have my sweets for Halloween night. I had thoughts of doing a "25 Days of Christmas" also, but will have to wait and see how long it takes me to clean up the mess I made making these. 

For today's treat box I made a cute rectangle box. Inside was a granola breakfast bar. My Grands love eating these. My daughter keeps extras on hand in their car so if they have activities that delay dinner, they have something good for them to tide them over until dinner. I bought a pack of twenty-four plastic toy fangs. My plans were to take them to the donut shop and ask that they put one in the center of each glazed donut we would buy, but the school mentioned someone had already signed up to bring donuts, so instead I tied one with a bow on the outside of each box. I thought they turned out cute. Enjoy!

I am a Close To My Heart Maker. If I can be of service to you, please don't hesitate to contact me. Here is a link for my website. Thank you! cherylarbo.closetomyheart.com

Happy scrappin and card making!

Cheryl

 

Day 15 Of My “31 Days of Halloween “

Sadly just one more day! Day fifteen for the two Littles school treats. I am sort of glad things are winding down. My desk and floor needs a major clean up. One day I will learn how to make things easier on me.

For today’s project  I made a mini match box treat holder. Inside is a small box of raisins. It has been a challenge to find a variety of snacks that don’t have nuts in them. I have never read so many labels in order to make sure it is a safe snack. Enjoy!

I am a Close To My Heart Maker. If I can be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Here is a link to my website. cherylarbo.closetomyheart.com

Happy scrappin and card making!

Cheryl