We have an early Valentine for all our loyal readers—a free card pattern! Celebrate along with us and share the love this Valentine’s Day, and anytime, with a personalized handmade card!
Making its original debut in our Blossom Workshops on the Go® cardmaking guide years ago, we paired this timeless pattern with our lovely Perfect Match collection to create four cards, two that are romantic themed and two that are not.
This classic pattern can be used for every celebration and occasion with the right combination of papers, embellishments, and sentiments. If you’re not sure how to mix and match these products, we’ve taken the guesswork out of the equation for you! For effortless coordination, simply choose any one of our creative collections and stick to just those products within the suite. Another option is to pick a color combination from either of our Love of Color volumes, and to strictly work with products within that color palette. (Making cards can be that easy! 🥳)
The flower card above was made using one of the Ballerina color combinations: Ballerina, Pewter, Carolina, and Sugarplum. If you look closely, you’ll notice that even though we picked this combination, we left Sugarplum (one of our retired colors) off and added White Daisy. It still works!
The Hello card on the right was made from one of the Candy Apple combination options: Candy Apple, White Daisy, Lagoon, Sapphire, and Black.
Download the free pattern below and share some love this Valentine’s Day, and beyond, with a handmade card from the heart. ❤️
Let’s celebrate the happy moments from the past several months with a new paper collection!
The vibrant In This Together collection features a delightful paper packet, sticker sheet, and stamp set, all packed with designs, icons, and sayings that pretty much describe exactly what we’ve all been experiencing on the regular over the last year. The bright, happy colors and whimsical designs that make up these products provide a beautiful foundation for the scrapbook layouts and fun cards that are begging to be made from our current circumstances.
The In This Together paper packet comes with 12 12″ x 12″ patterned papers, that’s double the usual amount found in our paper packets.
To complement the color palette of the patterned papers and sticker sheet, we’ve also put together a coordinating cardstock pack that coordinates perfectly with the shades and hues featured in the rest of the suite.
The lighthearted sentiments and icons in the In This Together stamp set are the perfect companion to your favorite quarantine photos!
We love each and every component of the In This Together collection, but there’s even more to love about it when you take a look at the exciting bundle and workshop options available through the In This Together special! With three discounted bundle options, it’s easier than ever to create beautiful artwork with this high-spirited collection!
For a guided approach to crafting with the In This Together collection, check out the In This Together workshop kit. This kit includes the paper, stamp set, embellishments, and a few additional components you need to create three 12″ x 12″ layouts and eight cards!
For a slightly different experience, you can turn to the In This Together album workshop kit, which includes materials and instructions to walk you through the creation of an entire 6″ x 8″ album!
If you want to get the benefit of a curated bundle at a great price but want to express your own creative vision, the In This Together product bundle is another excellent choice, as it includes the majority of the In This Together collection but doesn’t come with pre-designed project instructions.
One way or another, the current pandemic is affecting all of us. We hope that you enjoy crafting and creating beautiful things with the new In This Together collection, and, above all, stay safe and be kind—we’re all in this together! ❤️
It’s no secret that we love getting crafty around these parts, and Valentine’s day gives us an excellent excuse reason to spend a little extra time and energy creating pretty things because we’re doing it for other people!
Spreading kindness, especially during a time where we feel more disconnected and distant than usual, is contagious! Throughout this season of love, we challenge you to find ways to safely lift someone else’s spirit and let them know that you care.
One simple way to make someone’s day is with a small handmade gift from the heart. Since getting together isn’t an option for everyone right now, we thought we’d show you a few small gift boxes we created that can be dropped off in a mailbox or on a doorstep.
(Cricut® Artiste Collection)(Cricut® Art Philosophy and Artiste Collections)
If you don’t have access to a Cricut® machine, don’t worry! You can still participate in the challenge of putting a little love into the world, as well. We’ve asked our Creative Arts Manager, Karen Pedersen, to show us how to make a box and small pocket envelope by hand. As always, she delivered! Take a look.
We hope you found some creative inspiration as you took a peek at these artwork examples today, and that you were able to see just how simple it is to make something beautiful with your own two hands! Let’s take care of each other this Valentine’s season and spread kindness and positivity. As you do, you’ll not only bring happiness to others, but you might just see a little added joy in your own life, too!
As we continue to celebrate National Papercrafting Month with our adorable Home Sweet Home frames, we want to share a few more ideas of how you can use elements of this versatile kit in other crafting projects! A top-notch accent or background can be the crowning jewel in a scrapbook page, card, or 3-D art piece, and we know you’ll love creating projects of your own with the beautiful pieces from our Home Sweet Home special!
The Home Sweet Home special features the Home Sweet Home Frame Kit, which includes a wide variety of exclusive patterned papers and die-cuts, along with large wood circles. These elements are not only beautiful when used to create a Home Sweet Home frame but make charming additions to other projects as well!
Adding a pre-cut accent or background to a scrapbook page or card is an excellent way to simplify your crafts, while still yielding beautiful results. As you can see with this gorgeous layout, the inclusion of these vibrant floral die-cuts placed over the corner of a photo add dimension and pops of color, and when paired with other small embellishments, tie the whole thing together with a stylish flourish!
The Home Sweet Home die-cuts can also be placed partially behind photos to add some flare to your backgrounds. These sunflower and silver sprig accents are the perfect touch to not only complement the bright colors in the photograph, but also serve to dress up the background of the page.
It doesn’t matter which die-cut shape you decide to use—each one can produce fantastic results. Just look at how these rainbow and silver glitter die-cuts are placed over a piece of grey polka dot patterned paper for a simple, yet stunning card!
For this adorable get-well card, the scalloped piece at the center makes a perfect backdrop for the simple sentiment piece and is offset beautifully by the die-cut bow.
To help round out your inclusion of Home Sweet Home pieces in your own cards or layouts, you can include them alongside other embellishments, as you can see with this adorable slimline card. The cupcake die-cut and silver glitter stars are offset beautifully by the large, iridescent sequins and Thin Cuts border at the top!
Along with the die-cuts, the Home Sweet Home wood circles can also be used in scrapbook layouts. While the circles themselves are relatively flat, they can be used to add dimension and blend well into backgrounds, lending additional texture. Here, you can see how a wood circle has been covered with pinstripe patterned paper and offers an ideal platform for the journaling on this page!
As you can see, there’s a wealth of creative opportunity included in the Home Sweet Home special, far beyond the creation of a Home Sweet Home frame! Each piece is full of possibility and can be used to boost the aesthetic of any art project, from scrapbook pages, to cards, to 3-D pieces. No matter how you choose to repurpose these gorgeous pieces, they’re sure to dazzle wherever they’re placed. Have you used any of the Home Sweet Home die-cuts and wood circles for other art projects, or do you have some ideas? Leave a comment below to tell us what you’ve used them for, or how you’d like to!
We have the perfect project to help inspire and motivate us this new year as we strive to live intentionally—vision boards!
Our Maker community recently created 12″ × 12″ vision boards using our custom wood frames and we’re loving how each turned out so uniquely beautiful!
A vision board helps you clarify and stay focused on what truly matters to you. What inspires us most about this concept is that everyone chooses different images, photos, ephemera, etc., to help represent their goals. When you mix in beautiful patterned papers, stamps that provide inspiration, and photos you can print in any size, you have no limits to the creative expression of your vision.
Here are a few examples of what our team created. Each person was given the same collection of basic supplies, yet their boards are all so different, just like their creators.
This 12″ × 12″ framed vision was created using half of one of our scrapbook patterns (Make It from Your Heart Vol. 1, pattern 4) with a mix of stamping, handwriting, and, of course, bling—achieving that perfect blend of clean images and personal touches! The outer frame was stained using a stamp pad and sponge, adding color while still showing the wood grain.
This layout uses SVG cut files mixed with stamping and stickers to create a large title. Tags and polaroid-like frames help bring emphasis to the elements on the page. Remember, if you don’t have a photo of your aspirations, the internet is your friend! You can find any image and print them just as you would a photo to help you document your vision. This frame was covered with a light color of Distress Oxide™ ink to give a more solid coverage to the wood.
This board uses the awesome collage template found at Persnickety Prints. Paired with our Multi Circle Windows Thin Cuts, you can create a template of your photos and frame it with this versatile die-cut shape. Use the negative space circles from the die to create a banner for added detail. This concept lets you put small images as one focal point in your frame and create a reference list to support it. We colored the wood frame and a few wood embellishments with Gloss Spray, which added intense color as well as a little shimmer.
This next idea makes the pattern paper really shine! We love using the retro polaroid style to make photos pop off the page. This was done with an SVG file, but you can easily print from Pernsickety’s 3″ × 4″ retro prints for the perfect uniform display of your photos and goals. Mix in some stamped sentiments for inspiration, and make things happen!
This last idea uses four 12″ x 12″ frames to create one large wall display. This multi-frame approach allows you to focus each quadrant on a different subject. Here, we’ve set goals for family history, creativity, home, travel and fitness. Look at all the ways the various photo print sizes can be used to help you visualize your goals. These frames were painted with black acrylic paint.
We hope these creative displays we shared for our 2021 visions will inspire you to create one for yourself. Manifesting your vision through photos paired with written words truly help realize what is possible. Putting a beautiful collection together will undoubtedly inspire you to create the life you desire for the new year!
Happy 2021 and National Papercrafting Month! At the start of this new year, many of us find ourselves with a burst of creative energy and are looking for ways to make some positive changes in our lives and homes. For an easy way to fulfill this need, celebrate all month long with us and our Home Sweet Home special!
Our Home Sweet Home special features a frame kit that comes with everything you need to make a gorgeous 13¾” x 13¾” framed “HOME” with a wide variety of interchangeable accents for year-round celebration!
The seasonal accents fit perfectly over the “O” in “HOME” and are made using the punch-out die-cuts included in the frame kit. Many of the accents have multiple layers for a beautiful, three-dimensional look, and each one features bright, vibrant colors to really make them stand out.
Altogether, this kit includes 27 different accent options! The Home Sweet Home frame kit comes with 14 wood circles, but each component of the kit is also available individually, including additional circles and magnets if you’d like to make all 27!
As you can see, there are accent options for every season to keep your frame updated throughout the year!
There are also options for many different holidays, incorporating a touch of festive décor for every occasion!
Is there an athlete in your life? Celebrate game day with a personalized accent just for them!
If you want to add a little more personalization to your Home Sweet Home frame, design your own accents using the wood circles and parts of the provided die-cuts. Whether you want to create an accent for a special holiday, family tradition, or any other accent with personal meaning, it’s easy to do with the various components in the Home Sweet Home frame kit!
Along with the easy punch-out die-cuts for the interchangeable accents, each kit comes with beautiful overlays and backgrounds for the frame itself. These can be easily applied to the wood frame to create a polished, classic look. If you favor the natural wood, however, you can easily add color to the wood itself using a TriBlend™ marker, an Exclusive Inks™ stamp pad or re-inker, or even embossing powder!
There’s so much to love about the Home Sweet Home special, and for five lucky readers this week, there will be even more to love! We are ringing in the new year today by giving away FIVE Home Sweet Home frame kits!
For a chance to win one of these beautiful kits, you must be subscribed to this blog AND leave a comment below letting us know what your creative aspirations are for 2021. All entries must be submitted by 3 p.m. tomorrow, January 6 (MST) (that’s 8 a.m. January 7 AEST for our Aussies). The five lucky winners will be notified via e-mail later this week. (We use the e-mail address you are subscribed with, so make sure it is up to date in order to not miss out!)
We have so many exciting things lined up for 2021! Keep up with all of our projects, designs, products, ideas, and more by continuing to follow us here, as well as on Facebook and Instagram (@cmthofficial).
Now it’s your turn: what creative things are you up to this year? Tell us below!
For our last post of the year, as we wrap up 2020, we are sharing a free downloadable scrapbook pattern, complete with cutting diagrams and all!
Making its original debut with our Unforgettable collection a few years ago, we paired this timeless 12″ x 12″ pattern with another blast from the past, our revamped Blossom collection!
The Bring Back My Pack—Blossom collection features the Blossom paper packet, sporting the same classic paper designs that made it popular the first time around, with a refreshed color palette and several coordinating products—including a brand new sticker sheet and stamp set, Cherished Blossoms! We also brought back a popular stamp set that originally debuted with the Blossom collection, Shower Flowers.
We pride ourselves in being the “let me show you how®” memory-keeping company, and in providing the most comprehensive scrapbooking and cardmaking patterns. When you download the Unforgettable scrapbooking pattern, you will find that it also comes with cutting diagrams to make it even easier to create these pages from any of your favorite papers and embellishments, not just what we are showing you here. All of our patterns lend themselves to any memories that are special enough to preserve.
Download this free scrapbook pattern below and let us show you how easy scrapbooking can be!
For further inspiration, take a look at how we adapted elements from this 12″ x 12″ pattern and used them to create a 6″ x 8″ layout.
Happy New Year!
For even more scrapbook patterns, check out our Make It from Your Heart™pattern book series. If you love the free patterns on the blog, you’re sure to be blown away by all the patterns offered in our beautiful how-to books!
What a year it has been! This has been a year of change. But through all that has happened, it has become clearer than ever just how vital this company is. I am so grateful to see Close To My Heart continue to make a difference in the lives of crafters all around the world.
How grateful I am, too, for my treasured family, for precious friends, and for my Savior, Jesus Christ. Together with this company, these are the greatest blessings and joys of my life. These are the things I am celebrating this holiday season.
I wish you a holiday filled with happiness and love. May it be a time filled with joyful connections and heart-warming traditions as we bring this year to a close and move into a new one.
There are so many great stories that happen around the holidays that deserve to be written down, cherished, and shared. In November, we released a new workshop kit from the Story by Stacy™ line called Holiday Stories I Love. Using this new workshop kit, a few of our Home Office employees, including our beloved founder and CEO Jeanette Lynton, explored the memories behind photos they treasure most, documented them with detailed stories, and shared them with us below!
Dolls have always played such a significant part of my life. I love them for their beauty and their representation of many fond childhood memories.
My love of dolls began before I can even remember. I cherish this photo of me with my mother on my very first Christmas. Our lovely tree, and my mother and me dressed in our Sunday best. My mother always said she thought of me as her little doll. She loved to dress me up in beautiful clothes with all the little details, just so. She said I even looked like a little dolly with my porcelain skin, big blue eyes and pretty pink lips. She called me her doll and I loved it. It made me feel so special.
By my second Christmas, dolls were my happy place. I took dolls with me everywhere I went. I played with them, gave them each a name, and fussed with their clothes and hair to make them look oh-so pretty. On my third Christmas, I went to see Santa. My mother recalls that when I sat upon his lap, the only gift I requested was more dolls! Dolls were such a happy part of my childhood and even now, bring such a feeling of nostalgia of a time where life was carefree and magical.
As a mother myself, I call my children and grandchildren my little dolls, just like my mom called me. It is a term of endearment that has carried on because it shows such love for these special and beautiful people who fill my heart and home.
Even today as a grown woman, I still find joy in collecting dolls. I’ve created quite a compilation over the years of beautiful dolls, each representing something special. I have dolls of every ethnicity, hair style, period of history, etc. They bring me a sense of comfort and joy to see their splendor and exquisite detail. I hope to one day pass these cherished dolls down to my daughters and granddaughters, that they might know of my love for dolls, but more importantly, my love for them. — Jeanette
A tradition that goes back as long as I can remember is a Christmas nativity that we act out ourselves. I did this as a child with my own family. I’m so happy we have carried it on with my own children and now grandchildren. The year we took this particular photo was December 2018. We had just moved to Lindon and went to our local ward (church) Christmas party. We were about to leave but Ariana insisted we take this photo. Even though I was tired from working all day I did it for the family. I’m so grateful I did. It truly represents all the nativities we have done as a family with better costumes! Lol. We usually use towels, sheets, and toys. No matter how hard, crazy, busy Christmas seems to be, our homemade nativity always brings the true Christmas spirit into our home. We are a forever family because of our Savior. — Monica
I think I was 11 years old and in the 6th grade. We lived in Littleton, CO, and my dad had quit his job at Metropolitan State University a few months before. He had been asked to do some dishonest things and wasn’t willing to compromise his integrity. Money was very tight and even though I knew that, I still asked for a 10-speed bike.
My bedroom was in the basement, and so was my dad’s workshop. My parents told me that Christmas was going to be hidden in the workshop and asked me not to peek. I just couldn’t help myself. A week before Christmas I looked inside. I saw a very old, very beat up, white 10-speed bike.
I remember being so disappointed. My idea of a cool bike was a brand new bike in a pretty color with all the bells and whistles. I remember thinking, “I shouldn’t feel this way! I know Dad is out of work, money is really tight, and this is probably all he could afford.” I remember for the rest of the week leading up to Christmas feeling so guilty for peeking and trying to psych myself up to act grateful, surprised, and excited on Christmas.
Christmas morning came and into the living room we went. There, next to the tree, sat a brand new, bright yellow 10-speed bike. It had all the bells and whistles and it was just for me. I truly was surprised and so excited! It was not the bike I had seen when I peeked. It wasn’t until years later that I found out my dad had been so sad to give me an old bike that he asked around and found out about a police auction. He went and was able to find that new bike for an amount he felt he could pay.
Every time I think of that bike, even today, I get all choked up. It was so much more than a bike. It was a symbol of the lengths my dad was willing to go to make his little girl happy, and showed me just how much he loves me. — Karen
This photo was taken on Dec. 14, 2017. I have no idea who took it, or how this moment was captured, but I am so very glad it was. This photo represents a special tradition we have of getting a new Christmas book for our collection & reading by the tree before bedtime. The lights of the tree make it all the more magical.
The particular title isn’t a storyline I recall, but there is one Christmas book that has meant the most to this little boy. In 2012, the year he was born, President Thomas S. Monson’s book, “The Christmas Train,” was the one we added to our collection. As soon as Owen was old enough to understand it, it quickly became his favorite & we read it multiple times during the holiday season.
The story is about President Monson as a young boy, wanting desperately to have an electric train. I think the train topic definitely added to Owen’s infatuation with the book, yet I also know that the story itself has had an impact on him as well.
The story details the importance of sharing, & sometimes sacrificing, to see the joy it brings to others. Owen is one to pray each day for the homeless—that they can find food & shelter. He wants to donate to the Food Bank & worries about those he sees on the side of the road. He will often comment hours after passing someone, still thinking about their situation or what they might need. He has a very soft heart & a desire to love those less fortunate.
As much as we may try to instill these selfless traits in our children, I do firmly believe that Owen came to Earth this way. His special spirit is filled with compassion & caring. It is a gift especially given to him.
This photo will always be the perfect reminder to me that Owen embodies the characteristics of a prophet as a young boy—wanting so much for himself (Owen’s wish list is always exceptionally long!) yet, he acts on a stronger desire to give. —Jill
Each year a few weeks before Christmas my mom would use a staple gun to stick two long burlap banners to wood beams dividing the dining and living rooms in our home. Both of these were decorated with felt poinsettias and holly leaves hand-cut and hot-glued. To these we would pin the Christmas cards we received. I remember thinking as a teenager that they were looking a bit worn, but that I was ok with that. I liked Mom’s handmade holiday touches.
Geoff and I spend our first Christmases together in Chicago, and I was determined to make our little apartment homey. We purchased a pint sized artificial tree and I wanted ornaments, but other than the very breakable glass balls, these were expensive. I decided that I would clip coupons from the Sunday paper and that however much I saved on groceries I could purchase and paint at Michaels. Some were as much as .59 cents each, but the gingerbread men were only .29 cents. While Geoff studied every evening, I painted ornaments that have hung on our tree ever since.
By the time we built our current home—in 2006—I had fallen in love with bright, happy colors and with the help of fuzzy ball ornaments from IKEA, I created a bright and playful vision that included painted hat boxes and leather stockings in orange, pink, turquoise and green. The point of this story is that I LOVE to decorate for the holidays—just like my mom—with a mix of handmade and thoughtfully acquired things, and that while my style is very different, and a bit childish, it is magical and 100% me! — Stacy
All of our Story by Stacy™ products are intended to help recall and retell memories in a beautiful way, as you can see by our true-life examples, above. We wish you all a lovely holiday season, full of beautiful new memories for you to cherish, recall, and share for years to come!
