Psst! A Gnomes for Winter Giveaway!

Close To My HeartA Gnome for All Seasons, giveaway, gnome, gnomes for autumn, Gnomes for Winter, winter 69 Comments

Delivering on our promise of having A Gnome for All Seasons, we are excited to share our newest collection—Gnomes for Winter!

A few months back, we introduced the four-season paper collection series, A Gnome for All Seasons, beginning with the Gnomes for Autumn collection. We indicated that just weeks before every new season we would release a new gnome paper collection correlating with the upcoming seasonal period. Here we are, gearing up for winter with these mystical little creatures!

Much like its autumn-themed predecessor, the winter-themed patterned papers and sticker sheet are mainly that, seasonally themed. We love our gnomes but also understand that too much of a good thing can be overwhelming. If you look closely at the patterned papers and the sticker sheet, you will find that only one of the six 12″ x 12″ paper designs is sprinkled with gnomes, and there are only two gnome stickers on the coordinating 12″ x 12″ sticker sheet. So, even if you’re not into gnomes as much as we are, you can very much enjoy this beautiful collection of products in your scrapbooking and cardmaking projects!

Pair the patterned papers and sticker sheet with a set of coordinating, two-toned cardstock, for effortless color matching; a stamp set designed specifically for cardmaking, with sentiments for both inside and outside your cards; a stamp set with coordinating dies designed for scrapbooking, including large, themed titles; and a set of white acrylic snowflakes to complete the look!

For our friends who would like to add more gnomes to the mix, we have a set of Gnomes for Winter Thin Cuts dies that will cut the paper shapes necessary to assemble a 4½” gnome, enjoying himself in a pair of ice-skates!

This whimsical, fun-loving gnome has made his way onto the pages of our Gnomes for Winter scrapbooking workshop layouts!

The Gnomes for Winter scrapbooking workshop kit comes with materials to make three 12″ x 12″ two-page layouts. We have two kit options, one including the ice-skating gnome dies and the scrapbooking stamp and dies set and another without these. For a less gnome-themed set of layouts, you can easily follow the instructional guide and skip the part where it says to die cut and add the gnomes. Also, our patterned papers are double-sided. That means that where the gnome-themed paper is used on a page, you can flip those pieces over to use the design on the back instead.

Naturally, we also have a Gnomes for Winter cardmaking workshop! The kit for this workshop comes with materials to make 16 cards, two each of eight designs!

You’ll notice that the gnomes are not very visible in these cards. Just like we suggested for the scrapbooking workshop layouts, flip some of the paper pieces over! (Or even swap them if you’d like!) The guide is exactly that, a guide. Make the cardmaking and scrapbooking workshops your own with paper choices and embellishments that work for you, showing less or more of the winter-themed gnomes.

We want everyone to have a chance at enjoying creating with this collection, so we are giving away 10 FREE Gnomes for Winter paper packets and sticker sheets, here on the blog! PLUS, so you can really get into the gnome theme without skipping a season, we will also include a FREE Gnomes for Autumn paper packet plus sticker sheet with every winner! That means that TEN lucky readers will get two paper packets and sticker sheets, one each from the winter and autumn gnome collections!

A Gnome for All Seasons #closetomyheart #ctmh #ctmhgnomesforautumn #ctmhagnomeforallseasons #gnomecards #gnomescrapbooking #gnomelayouts #gnomepapercrafting #gnomes #autumngnomes #fallgnomes

For an entry into this contest, there are two requirements: first, you must be subscribed to this blog. (It’s an easy step that often gets overlooked, so make sure that you are actually subscribed because we do check!) Second, share this blog post on Facebook with the hashtag #ctmhgnomesforwinter. That’s it! You have from now until 3 pm (MT) on November 22 (7 am AEST on 23 November). The winner will be notified via email after the contest is closed.

Good luck!

November 1, 2023Create, Inspiration, Memory Keeping

A New Catalog with Silver Bells and a Thoughtful Holly Stencil

Close To My Heartchristmas, holiday memories, Holidays, holly, mixed media, Silver Bells, stencil, Thoughtful Holly 17 Comments

New Close To My Heart Catalog #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhsilverbells #ctmhthoughtfulholly #christmascards #diychristmascards #christmasstamps #christmasstencils #christmasscrabook #christmasscrapbooking #diyholidaycards #holidayscrapbooking

The coming cold months paired with the upcoming family-focused holiday season is a perfect recipe for heightened efforts on crafting! It’s one of the most wonderful times of year for making and preserving memories with those we love.

As of today, there’s a whole new catalog available on our website, full of new patterned papers, stamp sets, Thin Cuts dies, stencils, and so much more, to keep our hands happily engaged as we keep warm indoors. (Make sure to check it out and stock up on your favorites!)

Silver Bells is one of the new, holiday themed paper collections available in the November–December catalog. Its timeless designs and neutral tones, including silver and gold foil accents on the coordinating 12″ x 12″ sticker sheet, are a must-have for an elegant spin on holiday classics.

Use the beautiful, patterned papers with intricate sticker accents and sentiments to create gorgeous scrapbook pages and cards, worthy of your holiday stories and loved ones.

Take things up a crafty notch by adding stamped accents and sentiments to the mix with stamp and die sets designed specifically for scrapbooking and cardmaking.

The Silver Bells—Scrapbooking Stamp + Thin Cuts comes complete with titles, like “A December to Remember,” “Holiday Memories,” and “’Tis the Season,” as well as a beautiful ribbon bow and holly leaf branch.

The cardmaking stamp and dies set comes with several detailed ornament stamps and coordinating dies, in addition to a set of holiday bells and four classic holiday greetings: “Happy Holidays,” “Season’s Greetings,” “Wishing You Joy,” and “Warmest Wishes.”

As you continue to turn the pages in the new catalog, you’ll discover even more notable holiday-themed patterned papers, stamps sets, and products. One bundle of coordinating products that is sure to catch your attention is the gorgeous Thoughtful Holly Stamp + Thin Cuts + Stencils set!

These coordinating products were designed to create beautiful cards with minimal effort!

First, stamp the outline of the holly bouquet image, and then use the four stencils to selectively color the different sections of the intricate stamp with a blending brush and your choice of ink. Finally, if you didn’t stamp directly onto your project and are creating a dimensional accent, cut out the outline of the stamp with the coordinating die.

What’s especially great about so many of our products is that they work really well together, even if they are not all part of the same collection.

Pairing the neutral themed patterned papers from the Silver Bells collection, for example, with a bright colored holly bouquet created using the Thoughtful Holly stamp, stencils, and die, results in a stunning card!

There are so many exciting new products in the November–December catalog that just became available today, so make sure to flip through its pages on our website, or simply look through the What’s New menu. Stay warm, keep those hands busy, and create something beautiful for the upcoming season! Happy shopping!

October 4, 2023Memory Keeping

Two Eerie-sistibly Sweet Scrapbooking Workshops!

Close To My Heartcandy, guides, Halloween, I Want Candy, pastel, workshop guide 4 Comments

I Want Candy #ctmh #cmthiwantcandy #closetomyheart #ctmhhalloween #halloweenscrapbooking #scrapbookinghalloween #halloweenscrapbook #candyscrapbooking #candyscrapbook #scrapbookingcandy

Spooky season is on, and we are at the ready to preserve all those wicked-fun moments with two scrapbooking workshops using our cute, with just a hint of creepy, I Want Candy collection!

The I Want Candy designs provide a sweet twist to the typical gruesome vibes associated with Halloween, with a more fun, whimsical, and lighthearted approach. It is a mesh between a few classic colors and motifs, like purple and orange and ghosts and cobwebs, and the pastel Halloween trend, including light pinks and blues and the creepy cute.

What’s especially exciting about the I Want Candy collection, is that the paper designs and color scheme make it easy to use outside of Halloween projects, too. By mixing and matching the right products, you can also make scrapbook pages and cards with no association to the holiday.

The I Want Candy paper packet includes colorful gingham, stripe, dot, and star patterned papers, and one word-patterned paper, where “candy” is written out in a variety of fonts and directions. The sixth patterned paper available through this collection is a coordinating Halloween-themed candy design, where little ghosts, bats, and pumpkins adorn candy wrappers, amid an array of sweets typically associated with trick-or-treating.

The 12″ x 12″ sticker sheet follows suit, with a refreshing break from the ghastly and frightening, featuring the same light color palette, including a handful of stickers themed in the Halloween spirit. What remains outside of these spooky sprinkled designs, are a group of stickers that can be used for any sweet memory or relationship you want to celebrate! Pair these with the I Want Candy puffy stickers for an even more special, and sweeter, treat!

Unique to I Want Candy, this collection includes a beautiful pink glitter paper. We paired this glitter paper with five other cardstock colors from our exclusive color palette to create a combination that works seamlessly with the patterned papers and stickers.

Lastly, we split the candy and Halloween themes from the I Want Candy collection and created two stamp sets with coordinating Thin Cuts dies!

Here is where you choose how to approach and use this collection of products. Will you go candy themed birthday party with the I Want Candy Stamp + Thin Cuts, for example, or spooky pastel tea party with the Eerie-sistible set?

Whatever direction you choose to take this scary sweet collection, it’s up to you. That’s the fun bit about art! If you have been using this collection, please share with us in the comments below what you’ve been doing with it.

We’ve created two scrapbooking workshops using all the I Want Candy products, one Halloween themed with the Eerie-sistible stamp set and dies, and the other simply candy themed using the I Want Candy stamp set and dies.

Eerie-sistible Scrapbooking Workshop:

I Want Candy Scrapbooking Workshop:

Download the workshop guides, below (or from our website):

Eerie-sistible Scrapbooking Workshop Guide
I Want Candy Scrapbooking Workshop Guide

The Eerie-sistible and I Want Candy scrapbooking workshop kits are a configuration of products from this collection with just a few additional sheets of White Daisy cardstock. The best part, they are available at a discount price from what you would pay if you purchased everything separately!

If you’re looking for an even sweeter deal, the I Want Candy product bundle includes one of everything from the collection at 20% off!

These products and offers are available through October 31, and while supplies last. Make sure to sweeten up your craft rooms with the I Want Candy collection and share with us what you’re creating with it in the comments below!

July 26, 2023Memory Keeping

Travel Down Memory Lane with This Technique-Filled Scrapbooking Workshop!

Close To My Heartblending brush, coloring with ink, colouring with ink, house, liquid glass, memory lane, paper piecing, scrapbooking workshop, techniques, workshop 1 Comment

Memory Lane is one of our newest paper collections and we can’t help but feel completely nostalgic because of it!

Memory Lane #closetomyheart #ctmh #ctmhmemorylane #memorylane #scrapbook #scrapbooking #memorykeeping #memorylanestampset #memorylanepatternpapers #memorylanescrapbookingworkshop #scrapbookingworkshop

The beautiful motifs and colors used throughout this collection are reminiscent of that romanticized childhood neighborhood, where trees line the streets, a tire hangs and swings from a branch, and dragonflies dance in the garden’s warm summer breeze.

Just like most of us can imagine that one place, person, or moment in time that will always feel like home, the Memory Lane collection will catch all of those deserving memories in one place, ready to be revisited and enjoyed, time and time again.

This evocative paper collection is ideal for scrapbooking our everyday stories—complete with photos, mementos, and journaled experiences—the big and small moments that add up to and make us who we are.

To get you started on this memory keeping journey, we have put together a scrapbooking workshop that makes three 12″ x 12″ two-page layouts and one 12″ x 12″ single-page layout using the products from the Memory Lane collection!

These dreamy pages are intricately designed but, with the help of the free and easy-to-follow instruction guide available for download on our website (and here), you will find yourself enjoying revisiting the moments that you’re scrapbooking about more than minding how it all gets put together!

In addition to the already beautiful patterns that make up each layout, there are several optional techniques embedded on every page, and we absolutely encourage you to try them all! The artwork can be somewhat deceiving because the techniques we’re about to highlight are quite simple to perform but have stunning results.

Like we just mentioned, the three techniques we are sharing today are used throughout every page of this workshop. However, all three techniques we’re focusing on are also used on just this one single-page layout of the workshop! As we break the techniques down, we’ll be looking at this page up close, but make sure to look through the other layouts and see for yourself where and how they are also used!

First, let’s talk about adding color with a blending brush! The fine, soft bristles of our blending brushes are not just great for blending (as the name implies) but are also fantastic at buffing inks on paper.

Looking at the page, you can see that we’ve added a Sage ink background to the three areas where we have our embellishment clusters, creating a place for them to “rest” rather than appear like they are floating. Additionally, notice that we even added color to a patterned paper, not just the White Daisy cardstock. You want some cohesion between your embellishment clusters, and this inking technique is one way to achieve that. Also, when adding embellishments of any sort—including buffed on color—our eyes prefer to see sets of three or five. Including the bottom cluster’s Sage background was a no brainer in this case, giving us three places on our layout with the buffed-on ink.

Adding color with a blending brush is quite simple and pretty difficult to mess up! Simply load the brush with ink by rubbing the bristles on the ink pad and the apply the ink to the paper using a gentle circular motion.

The tree hiding behind the house in that bottom cluster was also colored with Sage ink and a blending brush, in much the same way. We stamped it first, then colored it with the Sage ink for the leaves and a brown marker for the trunk, and hand trimmed it with scissors last.

Coloring all the way to the lines, or inside the lines, was not important. It’s a look and we’re here for it!

Next, let’s talk about how that cute little house came together! We certainly didn’t color in the lines for this one, and it worked out great!

There’s an incredibly easy technique for adding color to symmetrical stamp images, and that’s to use the same stamp but on its back side. By that we mean to mount the stamp on a stamping block with the smooth side facing out, the detailed part of the stamp touching the block. This way, with our My Acrylix^® stamps, you will get a solid shape of the original, detailed version. And that’s exactly what we did with our house!

Once we stamped the details with Sapphire ink, we colored it by stamping it again, this time in reverse, with Melon ink. (You can play with your ink here, and either do a light color or make a color lighter by using generational stamping.)

We snuck another technique in by using paper-piecing to make the windows white!

We stamped a second house in Sapphire ink, then hand trimmed the windows with scissors and attached them to the colored house. The final colorful details to the roof, windows, and door were simply added with marker.

As a bonus, we’re going to share a final tip with you, today—and that’s the use of Liquid Glass!

Liquid Glass is a longtime favorite with us, and we named it liquid glass because of its glossy, glaze-like appearance once it’s dry.

Throughout this workshop we added dots of Liquid Glass to the centers of all the hand trimmed, stamped flowers. This small and simple detail makes these pretty floral clusters that much prettier, catching the light with every little movement of the page!

When you’re using Liquid Glass, be mindful that it requires a good amount of time to dry. We encourage that you either prepare these flowers before attaching them to your layouts or to add the liquid glass to the layouts once they are all completed, setting them aside on a flat surface to dry before adding them to Memory Protectors™.

The Memory Lane collection, including the kit for this gorgeous scrapbooking workshop, is only available through the end of August and while supplies last. Get your hands on these beautiful products while you can and take that trip down memory lane as you prepare your scrapbook pages!

July 12, 2023Create, Memory Keeping

Scrapbooking Your Seaside Summer Holidays

Close To My Heartbeach, Cape Cod, crab, destination, Holiday, ocean, palm tree, sand, scrapbooking, Sea, seagull, seahorse, Seaside, starfish, summer, sun, vacation, water 12 Comments

Scrapbooking Time By the Beach #closetomyheart #ctmh #ctmhcapecod #scrapbooking #dayatthebeach #beachdayscrapbooking #vacationscrapbooking #beachscrapbooking #seasidescrapbooking

If you’re leaving your heart in the sand this summer, we want to help you bring it home! Scrapbook all of your favorite moments from your endless days at the beach with the coastal themed Cape Cod paper collection.

Summer is officially on, and with it come days packed full of memories in the making. A refreshing trip to the beach tends to be a common theme for these hot months. Whether it’s by an ocean in your back yard or a planned trip to a paradisical location far away, so many of us long for the renewing feeling of the sand hugging our toes while our noses get kissed by the sun.

The Cape Cod paper collection will give your best beach trip photos a beautiful home, where you can return to the sea, time and time again, any time of year.

The beautiful coastal style of beachy materials in the Cape Cod patterned papers, stickers, stamp sets, and embellishments designs communicate the same relaxed feeling you find at the ocean.

The patterned papers and sticker sheet are each 12″ x 12″. Complete with sand, driftwood, palm trees, and turquoise blues, these coastal designs are part of a classic trend that never goes out of style. Even if you don’t make it to the ocean this summer, snatch up the Cape Cod collection while it’s available, now and through the end of August.

The Cape Cod–Scrapbooking stamp set plus Thin Cuts are a hot commodity right now and are going fast! Everyone is just loving on the cute seahorse and crab and their coordinating dies that make it that much easier to cut their shapes out!

No scrapbooking layout is complete without a few embellishments! The Cape Cod embellishments are made up of light blue acrylic shapes and coordinating kraft and white paperboard die-cuts. These on-point themed acrylic shapes and die-cuts are ideal for creating one-of-a-kind coastal scrapbook pages. You can use them as they come or customize them as needed. For example, we sponged a bit of ink on a white starfish die-cut, colored a palm tree with markers, and drew lines on the wings of a few seagulls with a white gel pen.

Several of these same natural seaside elements are found in the downloadable Cape Cod svg digital art collection, where you are free to cut them in any size and out of any paper design or color that you prefer, allowing for even further customization.

SVG images are digital images that are resolution independent and infinitely scalable. That means that you can resize them to any scale (large or small) and they will look clear and crisp every time. Once you save them to your device, access these images with your choice of design software. If you have a Cricut^® cutting machine, you can access these files on Cricut Design Space™ and manipulate them there before cutting them out.

Use any of the svg images from the Cape Cod digital art collection to create or add onto your beach themed scrapbook pages or simply use the two-page layout we designed for you! Because it comes as an svg file, like explained above, you can make these pages as large or small as you’d like. When we designed the layout, we had the standard 12″ x 12″ in mind but, if you’d prefer a smaller layout, like a 6″ x 6″ for example, you can scale it down and adjust the photo count and sizes as needed.

If you prefer a bit more guidance for scrapbooking your days in the sun, we’ve got you covered with the Cape Cod scrapbooking workshop! Pair the materials in the Cape Cod scrapbooking workshop kit with a few additional supplies (listed on our webpage and on the included guide) and create three coordinating 12″ x 12″ two-page layouts!

The featured technique in this workshop is embellishing with white gloss spray. As you can see in the layouts above, the white gloss spray can create a water-weathered-like effect on the woodgrain patterned paper or emulate the white foam of a crashing wave.

The beach is a popular summertime destination. Whichever route you choose, bring and keep your memories from the beach home with the beautiful Cape Cod paper collection. Time wasted at the beach is time well spent, especially when you can be brought back through a well-kept scrapbook layout!

March 15, 2023Create, Inspiration, Memory Keeping

Must-Try Stamping Ideas with Life’s a Hoot

Close To My Heartalcohol markers, coloring, colouring, journaling, life's a hoot, owl, photo stamping, stamping, stamping on photos, Stamptacular, triblend markers 1 Comment

Scrapbooking Stamping Ideas #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhlifesahoot #stampingideas #scrapbooking #scrapbookstamping #photostamping #journaling #journalingcards #owls

In a lot of ways, stamping is pretty straightforward—ink the stamp and press it onto a paper surface to transfer an image. Where we have fun as makers and creators is when we think outside the mark. Today we are sharing three quick stamping ideas for you to try on your next papercrafting project, using the Life’s a Hoot—Scrapbooking stamp set!

Stamp on Photos!

Stamp directly on your photos and use up some of that negative space! Negative space is the area surrounding the subject of your photo. Using a photo with plenty of negative space gives you a place to stamp without covering the subject.

If you want to stamp on your photos, matte photo paper is the best option and works well with any ink, even if you prefer the raised look and feel of embossing. Keep in mind that inks, even the embossing ink (VersaMark™ ink pad), will absorb quickly into the matte photo paper. If you are going to stamp and heat emboss multiple images, emboss between stamping each image to make sure the embossing powder has time to stick to the ink.

Stamping on photos is a great way to personalize your scrapbook layouts even further and also an easy way to make your very own, one-of-a-kind, cards! (DIY Photo Cards!)

Color Stamped Images

Stamping can be more than just a one-and-done process! While there are plenty of stamping techniques that we love for adding a variety of ink colors and effects to our stamped images (10 Stamping Techniques You NEED to Know!), one of the easier ways to add color is to simply color the images in!

These beautiful heart-faced owls were stamped with Intense Black ink and colored with our alcohol-based TriBlend™ markers.

The Intense Black Exclusive Inks™ stamp pad is intense not because of its color but because it is a non-smearing, fast-drying, solvent-based permanent ink. It is also waterproof and archival. If you want to add color to stamped images with alcohol markers or watercolor paints, Intense Black ink is the way to go!

If you are not familiar with TriBlend™ markers, inside every marker there is a gradation of colors, from light to dark, delivered through three separate fine bullet nibs. You basically get three markers in one! The alcohol-based ink is especially designed to blend seamlessly for mixing and layering the shades.

If you are using a porous paper surface and are hoping to create a seamless blend between colors or shades, don’t allow the ink to dry between color applications. Start with the lightest color, then add a darker shade, overlapping some of the color in the middle of the two. While the ink is still wet, it will move and spread through the fibers of the paper. When two colors of ink are wet on top of each other, they will spread into each other, creating a more seamless blend.

Like we mentioned, alcohol ink will spread through the fibers of a piece of paper when it’s still wet. Keep that in mind as you color a stamped image, and avoid coloring up to the edges, leaving a tiny space for the ink to move into on its own. If you apply too much ink to a stamped image, even though you may have colored in the lines, it may not look that way by the time the ink is absorbed and dries.

Create Journaling Cards!

Scrapbooking is about memory keeping, and that includes journaling! Making sure there is room on your scrapbook pages to write a whole story, or just a few precious details of the story that your photos tell, is not difficult. Reserve a space on your pages for this important aspect and use stamps to create a journaling card.

We typically like to use White Daisy cardstock for these journaling cards on our layouts. Stamp a sentiment at the top or bottom of your card and then, with a journaling pen and ruler, carefully draw lines to guide your writing. After adding the journaling, mat the card like the photos on the layout and attach it to the page. Easy-peasy!

Enhance your creativity by doing things differently from time-to-time and experiment with new media, new products, and new techniques—especially with stamping!

Now is the perfect time to jump in! From now until March 31, you can get unbeatable discounts on our top-quality stamp sets and Thin Cuts! Enjoy a savings of 35% on My Acrylix^® stamp sets and up to 60% on coordinating Stamp + Thin Cuts sets through our Stamptacular Sale!

Recipe:

12″ x 12″ Life’s a Hoot Layout
Z4681 Life’s a Hoot—Scrapbooking Stamp + Thin Cuts, X7290S Life’s a Hoot Paper Packet + Sticker Sheet, X5978 Glacier Cardstock, X6054 Grape Cardstock, X6067 Periwinkle Cardstock, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, Z6520 Flamingo Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z6524 Grape Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z4189 Intense Black Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2494 Hydrangea TriBlend™ Marker, Z2474 Ice Grey TriBlend™ Marker, Z2493 Lavender TriBlend™ Marker, Z2512 Muted Brown TriBlend™ Marker, Z4575 Black LePen™, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape, Z5038 Die-cutting & Embossing Machine

February 22, 2023Create, Memory Keeping

Beautiful Cards and Scrapbook Pages in Minutes!

Close To My Heartcard kit, cardmaking kit, Craft with Heart, cut above, cwh, fast and easy, kits, layout kit, predesigned, scrapbooking kit, subscription 3 Comments

Using kits that come with everything you need, we are excited to share with you how to put together beautiful scrapbook pages and cards in no time! All you have to bring to the crafting table is adhesive, a journaling pen, and maybe a snack 😁.

The excuse that we hear most often from people for not scrapbooking or cardmaking is that they simply don’t have the time to do it. Cut Above^® kits are the response to that genuine concern. Each layout kit comes with all of the pieces you need to complete two coordinating two-page 12″ x 12″ scrapbook layouts, including pre-printed base pages, pre-cut paper pieces and die-cuts, complementing stickers, and simple assembly instructions. Essentially, all of the cutting has been taken out of the scrapbooking equation, saving you tons of time and allowing you to jump right into the artistic and creative side of memory keeping that we all enjoy and love so much.

Similarly, our Cut Above^® cardmaking kits come with all of the materials you need to create two each of an assortment of cards, designed especially for the season ahead. The kits include preprinted card bases in varying sizes, pre-cut die-cuts, coordinating stickers, and an exclusive stamp set and mini black ink pad to customize each of your card sentiments to use for any occasion.

For those of you who love a good subscription program, we recommend Craft with Heart™! Through a Craft with Heart™ subscription, you can get beautiful scrapbooking and cardmaking kits delivered directly to your door on a regular basis! (Talk about happy mail!)

Cut Above^® kits are a wonderful balance of ease and creativity. While your pages and cards come pre-designed, you still reap the joy and benefits of creating something yourself and that comes together in just minutes, with an easy-to-follow instructional guide. If you’re just getting started as a scrapper or card maker, or would like to get started, Cut Above^® kits are a great place to begin! Even if you’re a more experienced memory keeper or crafter, these projects will keep your creativity flowing and maybe provide inspiration for your own designs!

Take a closer look at the five Craft with Heart™ kits currently available, now through April, on our website and in the video below.

If you’re not quite ready to commit to a subscription, we have a few starter bundles that you should definitely check out! There are two scrapbooking starter bundles that each include a Cut Above^® layout kit for one 12″ x 12″ layout, a stamp set, stamping block, and mini stamp pad to embellish your pages even further, a journaling pen and adhesive (you don’t even have to bring that to the table with these bundles!), and Memory Protectors™ and an album to safely store your completed pages!

The cardmaking starter bundle includes a Cut Above^® cardmaking kit that makes six standard size cards, a basic sentiments stamp set, stamping block, and mini ink pad to personalize your cards for the right occasion, adhesive, and a stamp shammy to keep your stamps and stamping block clean.

Every component in each of these bundles is also available on its own. So, if you already have an album for example, you can get the Starter Cut Above^®layout kit by itself. Do you just want the starter sentiments stamp set from the cardmaking bundle? You got it! Visit our website and click through to get exactly what you need!

Craft with Heart™ and Cut Above^® are the perfect solution for those who enjoy the art of scrapbooking and cardmaking but are looking for a quicker alternative. Even if you’re a die-hard decorative scrapper or card maker who loves to spend hours on a project, these predesigned kits are a great way to catch up on documenting your stories and celebrating relationships without sacrificing quality. They’re a win-win deal that you will absolutely love!

February 8, 2023Create, Inspiration, Memory Keeping

A FREE Scrapbook Pattern for the Storybooks!

Close To My Heartboy paper, castle, crown, dragon, fairy tale, free pattern, girl paper, knights, once upon a time, prince, prince charming, princess, sangria pattern, Scrapbook Pattern, sleeping beauty, Storybook, striped 9 Comments

We are paying homage to all the princes and princesses, to the dragons and unicorns, and to anyone who truly loves a good fantastical adventure, with a FREE downloadable scrapbook pattern for a two-page 12″ x 12″ layout!

Some of you may remember this pattern from its original debut with our Sangria collection many years ago. In the downloadable file below, you will find that the instructions have been revamped so that they can be used with any papers and for any occasion! Our patterns are truly timeless, and paired with your choice of papers, embellishments, and a little creativity you can make your very own scrapbook layout fit for any of your once-upon-a-times or happily-ever-afters!

The Storybook collection is a great fit for this pattern—especially the coloring page type paper design. Using this paper for the bottom half of each page in this layout gave us ample opportunity to color our favorite elements of this fun and fantastical paper design. It makes an excellent base layer for these adorable photos telling the story of this little princess’s big day.

But we didn’t stop there! Today we’re taken upon ourselves what feels like a magical quest of sorts by offering you two completed layout examples using our Storybook paper collection.

Like all of our patterned papers, the Storybook papers are double sided, with a unique design on each side. What is particularly special about this set of patterned papers, is that one side is geared more toward fairytales that involve magic mirrors, glass slippers, and unicorns, while the opposite is for the adventures that entail swords, goblets, and dragons. In this second example, you can see that we’ve used the other side of the coloring page paper, which gave us different accents to color. This paper is such a fun way to customize the artwork to any occasion!

Like any good papercrafting adventure, this Storybook paper collection is helped along its journey with coordinating products, including stickers, black paperboard die-cuts, and two-toned cardstock—and we used them all in creating our two layouts!

A FREE Scrapbook Pattern for the Storybooks #freepattern #sangriapattern #scrapbookpattern #ctmhscrapbooking #storybook #storybookcollection #fairytale #dragon #knight #princess #prince #happilyeveryafter #onceuponatime #royal #coloring

If you find that your stories require different color choices than what we’ve provided in the papers or stickers—perhaps you’d rather have a purple dragon or a white castle—several of the designs from our papers and sticker sheet also appear in our stamps. You can stamp your own dragon or castle (and a few other icons) and color them as you see fit with the Storybook—Scrapbooking and Storybook—Cardmaking stamp sets! This collection allows for you to tell your story exactly how you want it!

The outlined shapes shown in these two stamp sets show you what you can cut with our metal dies if you purchase the stamp sets with their coordinating Thin Cuts. When working with Thin Cuts, you can layer stamped accents over other page elements effortlessly—no fussy cutting is required!

Click here to download the free scrapbooking pattern, complete with cutting diagrams, and create scrapbook pages to add to your very own storybook! (For our friends in Australia and New Zealand, click here to download the guide!)

Recipes:

12″ x 12″ Sleeping Beauty Layout
X7289S Storybook Paper Packet + Sticker Sheet, X7289C Storybook Coordinating Cardstock, Z2517 Burnt Orange TriBlend™ Marker, Z2481 Coral TriBlend™ Marker, Z2527 Dusty Purple TriBlend™ Marker, Z2519 Gold Yellow TriBlend™ Marker, Z2496 Pale Pink TriBlend™ Marker, Z2525 Vintage Blue TriBlend™ Marker, X7289E Storybook Die-cuts, Z1263 Bitty Sparkles, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape

12″ x 12″ Prince Charming Layout
X7289S Storybook Paper Packet + Sticker Sheet, X7289C Storybook Coordinating Cardstock, X6033 Paprika Cardstock, Z2590 Glacier Shimmer Brush, Z4583 Honey Butter Shimmer Brush, Z4582 Melon Shimmer Bru z sh, Z4291 Mulberry Shimmer Brush, Z3818 Paprika Shimmer Brush, Z4585 Seabrook Shimmer Brush, X7289E Storybook Die-cuts, Z1263 Bitty Sparkles, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape

How to Organize Years of Photos without Getting Overwhelmed

Close To My Heartback up photos, consolidate, digital photos, eliminate, empowered, memories, Memory Keeping, online cloud, organization, overwhelmed, photo case, photo organizer, photo table, photos, pocket scrapbooking, printed photos, printing, process, scrapbooking, snap-close, tips 20 Comments

When it comes to scrapbooking, one of the biggest deterrents for people is feeling overwhelmed by their copious amounts of unorganized photos. If you have years of memories piled up in your phone’s photo gallery, or spread between multiple devices even, it’s easy to feel discouraged and to put off preserving these moments in a much more user-friendly format. The longer you wait to sort and organize your photos, the more memories you’ll collect, and the more overwhelming the task will get—so let’s not delay and start now. Let us show you how!

Follow the step-by-step outline we’ve created, below, as we walk you through how to efficiently organize your digital photos and get them into a scrapbook! This process may take some commitment, but the journey is worth it—especially when your memories are all in order and in an album where they can be relived and shared!

Step One: Consolidate Your Digital Photos

Upload all of your digital photos to one location—your computer. We recommend using a photo managing system, like Google Photos, Amazon Photos, or iCloud, to easily transfer photos from your phone and other devices onto your computer. Amazon Photos is free* for Amazon Prime members and iCloud is best for those with multiple Apple devices (it is included on iPhones, iPads, and Macs), where it automatically updates between the Apple devices. (*As of the date of this article, this information is correct but is subject to change without our knowledge.)

Step Two: Eliminate Unwanted Photos

Once all of your photos are in one place, go through and eliminate any that aren’t worth keeping: repeats, photos with a blurry finger covering half the lens, photos of your to-do lists, etc.

A few tips: Avoid future photo hoarding by cleansing your digital photo libraries every few weeks. (Set a reminder on your schedule if you have to!) On the same note, while it’s a good idea to get in the habit of deleting subpar photos soon after you take them, don’t consider every photo that isn’t “Instagram worthy” subpar. Pause before you hit delete and allow a photo to sit for a while—especially photos of yourself (we can be so harsh on ourselves!). You might be surprised at how much joy a picture can recall regardless of how unprofessional it may appear or how much you might have hated looking at yourself when you first snapped the photo.

Step Three: Organize Your Digital Photos

In your photo managing system, create folders for each year of photos you have. Then place the corresponding photos in these folders. Once you’ve sorted your photos by year, go into each folder and create subfolders. You can label and further sort your photos by month, event, vacation, etc.

Step Four: Back Up Your Digital Photos

Back up all the photos in your photo managing system onto an external hard drive and/or a safe permanent online cloud service. You may be using a safe online cloud storage solution to sort your photos. Just make sure you also have a backup!

Step Five: Create To-Print Folders

Once you have organized your photos in your photo managing system, you’re ready to start thinking about scrapbooking them—woohoo! Even though all the photos you have left are photos you have deemed worth keeping, you may not want to scrapbook all of them. A great way to figure out which photos you want to scrapbook is to copy and paste a given folder onto your desktop. (Copy and paste, don’t just drag. We don’t want to permanently delete photos in this step.) Go through and delete any photos from this folder you don’t want to print and put in an album. This is also a good time to edit any of the photos you’re going to print, if you want to take that extra step.

Step Six: Upload & Print Photos

Once you’ve gone through all the photos on your desktop folder, you’re ready to print! We recommend creating a table, like the one below, to track each folder’s progress. When you have printed your photos, you can delete the desktop folder you created (remember, you’ve already saved these photos elsewhere!).

Tip: Choose one day every month to do a print run. Some months you may be able to afford printing more photos than other months. Whatever the circumstance, try and get in the habit of printing your photos on the same day each month.

Step Seven: Organize Printed Photos

Option 1: Use our photo organizer to sort and keep your printed photos.

You can organize your photos by date, person, event…whatever you want! Think about the album you want to create with the photos, and sort them into each case that way.

The photo organizer comes with 16 removable snap-close cases that can each hold up to 100 4″ x 6″ photos, while the sturdy large exterior case snaps close and comes with a convenient handle for transport. There is plenty of room to get yourself organized!

Option 2: Create a work-in-progress album.

Use one of our D-ring albums and divided Memory Protectors™ to separate out all the photos you’ll want for an album. You can group like photos together so you know how to plan your layouts.

(Going this route may even help you decide whether pocket scrapbooking is the way to go rather than traditional scrapbook layouts!)

And that’s it! The next step is to start scrapbooking away! If the idea of making the scrapbook pages themselves overwhelms you, a great place to start is with our scrapbooking workshop kits. You can also talk to your Close To My Heart Maker (or find one online!) for additional guidance.

We hope this post helps empower you to start organizing your photos for scrapbooking. We know that when you take that leap of faith, you’ll find so much joy and satisfaction in preserving your family’s memories and stories.

Do you have any additional tips for organizing and printing your photos for scrapbooking? Share them in the comments below!

Make It from Your Heart

Category Archives: Memory Keeping

Psst! A Gnomes for Winter Giveaway!

A New Catalog with Silver Bells and a Thoughtful Holly Stencil

Two Eerie-sistibly Sweet Scrapbooking Workshops!

Travel Down Memory Lane with This Technique-Filled Scrapbooking Workshop!

Scrapbooking Your Seaside Summer Holidays

Must-Try Stamping Ideas with Life’s a Hoot

Beautiful Cards and Scrapbook Pages in Minutes!

A FREE Scrapbook Pattern for the Storybooks!

How to Organize Years of Photos without Getting Overwhelmed

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: