Have you met our color of the year, Wild Berry? We are celebrating this beautiful, pink hue even further this month with a special collection of exclusive products and having a Wild Berry Blast!
Join us in this celebration of color with a free downloadable scrapbook pattern, complete with cutting diagrams and all!
Making its original debut with the Zoe Workshops On the Go®, we have here paired this timeless 12″ x 12″ pattern with the gorgeous Wild Berry Blast collection!
Every year, we introduce one special color to our exclusive color palette that is especially trendy and make it available in a variety of products, but only for one year. We have been enjoying crafting with Wild Berry so much that we decided to make even more specialty products!
From the Wild Berry Blast paper packet, featuring six sheets of patterned paper in a variety of fun designs, to the coordinating cardstock, which includes six standard two-toned cardstock sheets in this delicious shade and six additional sheets with single-sided foil or UV-coated designs, there are so many fun new ways to include Wild Berry in your projects!
Also part of this Wild Berry Blast celebration are an exclusive set of die-cuts—all in Wild Berry of course!—and a stamp set full of borders and sunburst-like designs.
Along with providing products that you will consume and not just collect (it’s hard cutting into the pretty paper sometimes, we get it!), we also 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 Zoe scrapbooking pattern, you will find that it also comes with cutting diagrams, making 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 preserving your special memories your way.
We’re also offering limited time discounts on existing Wild Berry items, such as cardstock, glitter paper, ribbon, shimmer trim, and more! These exclusive items and special savings are only available through April 30, so you’ll want to be sure to snap up these deals before they are gone!
For even more scrapbooking patterns, check out our Make it from Your Heart™pattern book series. If you love the free patterns on this blog, you’re sure to be blown away by all the patterns and beautiful examples offered in our how-to books!
At Close To My Heart, we absolutely love color! A great palette is the foundation for great artwork, and has an unparalleled ability to inspire, energize, and soothe. We recently launched our new Core Products catalog and, with it, eight new colors that were added to our exclusive color palette, including Color of the Year, Wild Berry!
Today we’re going to show you how to create beautiful artwork using this statement color in three different color combinations. To get started, we’ve arranged the Close To My Heart color palette into a color wheel. Choosing colors for your artwork can be easy when you’re working with the right tools—and that includes the best color options!
***Keep in mind that our exclusive colors are made up of much more complex tones, shades, and hues than how they are categorized on the simplified color wheel offered above. As you reference and use this source, know that it is not 100% confining. As you become more familiar with what makes colors work together visually, you’ll find that this color wheel is very flexible.***
The Wild Berry color combinations we’re sharing today are reminiscent of what you would see in our Love of Color how-to book series. Each two-page spread focuses on one exclusive color from our palette shown in three different pieces of artwork, each in a unique color scheme. You’ll never second-guess your color choices again with this inspirational guide!
In this first example, see how Wild Berry beautifully works together with Sapphire, Lagoon, Mint, and Sundance. With Wild Berry as the dominant color, the yellow-orange, blue, and blue-green shades create gorgeous complementary elements, tying the entire piece together.
In these next cards, we combined Wild Berry once again with Lagoon and Mint, and then with Nectarine and Scarlet. Wild Berry acts as an accent color in the standard size card and dominates in the slimline card. We can give you all the color combinations, but in the end it’s up to you to decide how much of each color you want to use and how to balance your artwork. You can use the same color combination to create several pieces of art but they do not have to look or feel the same! (Isn’t color amazing?!)
If you look at Wild Berry and Avocado on our color wheel, you’ll notice that these two colors are opposite each other, which means they are complementary! We incorporated the neutral tones of black and charcoal for accents, but this is really a complementary color scheme in disguise!
If you’d like to learn more about color theory, or if you’re in need of a simple refresher, revisit a few of our previous posts we’ve published on this blog:
Once you get these basics down, creating your own color combinations will be a breeze! In the meantime, or if color theory just isn’t your thing, look to our Love of Colorseries as your ultimate color guide for creating perfectly balanced color combinations!
Do you have a favorite Close To My Heart color? (Retired colors count!) Let us know in the comments below!
With the launch of two new Close To My Heart catalogs this week, does anyone else feel like a kid on Christmas morning? Since September 1, hundreds of new Close To My Heart products, including stamp sets, patterned papers, embellishments, and much, much more, have been readily available at our fingertips!
In case you missed the exciting announcement after our North American Convention, we have moved to a new catalog release schedule. Close To My Heart will no longer only publish three catalogs a year, but SEVEN—an annual Core Products catalog and six, bi-monthly, supplemental catalogs. The goal is to get fresh designs and up-to-the-minute products into your hands when you need them and want them most!
Let’s take a closer look at some of the new goodies in our Core and September–October catalogs. (It may be time to make some room in your craft room—your stash may be getting a bit bigger! 🙂 )
Paper Packet + Sticker Sheets
Each of our supplement catalogs will feature two paper suites. Within each suite you will have the choice between two paper packet options, one including a new 12″ x 12″ sticker sheet, and one without. The new sticker sheet will come with titles, accents, and more, that coordinate perfectly with the designs of its accompanying paper packet. Both paper packets will come with six sheets of three double-sided designs of patterned paper, rather than the 12 we’ve done in the recent past, so you only purchase what you need and avoid having too much left over!
Custom Cardstock Packs
When you visit our cardstock menu on our website, you will find two very exciting additions. As a continuation of the theme of getting you just what you need, we now offer custom cardstock packs! Choose between a 12-sheet or 24-sheet pack and then decide which of our current exclusive colors you want in it. We’ll package up your selection and send your customized pack along with the rest of your order. It’s that simple!
Scrapbooking Workshop Kits
Our scrapbooking workshops got a makeover! Each workshop continues to come with easy-to-follow instructions to make six complete pages however only some are paired into layouts. Both, the Every Little Thing and Hawthorn scrapbooking workshops make two individual pages and two two-page layouts.
Even more exciting, we’ve trimmed a lot of the paper cutting right out of the workshops! Each new kit includes large, exclusive die-cut sheets and accessories that coordinate effortlessly with a handful of additional products for fast and seriously gorgeous pages. In the page above, the only thing you’ll cut when you make your own are the two photo mats. <3 <3 <3 !
Everyday Life™ Albums
Our Everyday Life™ album line just got bigger…and smaller! Providing the greatest versatility in size (and color options), these are now available in 6″ x 6″, 6″ x 8″, 8½” x 11″, and 12″ x 12″. Perfect for preserving vacations, weddings, highlights from the football season, or backyard adventures, the Everyday Life™ line is designed to accommodate any occasion or memory!
Heat Transfer Vinyl & Digital Art
You already take pride in filling your scrapbooks with beautiful artwork on the inside, so why not add some flair to their outsides? With our new line of heat transfer vinyl and digital SVG files designed specifically with album covers in mind, you can easily do just that!
After downloading the digital images, cut them out of the heat transfer vinyl using your favorite cutting machine, and then apply them to your album. For a complete list of available heat transfer vinyl colors and digital art designs, click here.
Penmanship with Melissa Esplin
Renowned calligraphy and lettering expert Melissa Esplin joined forces with Close To My Heart to create an easy, step-by-step penmanship program. Penmanship with Melissa Esplin introduces stroke sequences, letter forms, and techniques to improve and develop your personal, individual style. Equipped with exercise worksheets and practice pages, as you see can see above, this program provides the necessary tools to share your stories through your own creative handwriting!
Journaling Pens
Get ready to pour your hearts out with our gorgeous new Close To My Heart journaling pens!
These journaling pens are available in Black and Pewter inks and in .05, .03, and .01 tips. Easily take your handwriting up a notch by simply using the right tool!
TriBlend™ Markers
Color and blend like and expert with our new markers! Inside every TriBlend™ marker is a perfect gradation of colors, from light to dark, delivered through three separate fine bullet nibs. The alcohol-based ink blends seamlessly for mixing or layering colors.
Stickles™ Glitter Gel
Another newcomer to the Close To My Heart line-up are the Stickle™ glitter gels! Available in the ten colors you see here, use these fun gels to add dimension and a bit of sparkle to your projects.
Stamp Shammy
This spongy soft, reusable sheet is just what you need for lint-free stamp cleaning. Just add water and watch the ink come right off your My Acrylix® stamps as you wipe them with a Stamp Shammy. Yes, the photo above is staged to look pretty, but we really did just wipe that stamp clean with the wet Stamp Shammy to the right of it. And, because you can’t really have too much of a good thing, these come in a two-pack. J
New Colors
We’ve added several new colors to our exclusive color palate this week! Our favorite, and Color of the Year, is this beautiful trendy green hue, Julep! Keep a sharp eye out for it throughout the coming year, and you’ll find hints of Julep in a wide variety of our new products. (To see what other fun new colors we have in store, talk to your Consultant or take a look at our exclusive color palette in our Core Products catalog.)
Cricut® Complete Creativity Collection
Our newest Cricut® collection, Complete Creativity, provides you with all the pieces you need to create complete cards and scrapbook pages for a variety of themes and occasions.
This remarkable new collection is available for purchase on Cricut.com, through a special link you can get from your Close To My Heart Consultant. Ask your Consultant for more details about our extensive collection of Cricut® designs!
Rather than unwrapping all of the new goodies here for you this Christmas-like morning, take some time to carefully peruse both of our new catalogs on your own. The few items that we covered today are only just a sampling of the hundreds of new products available now!
