It's Your Birthday | Make It from Your Heart

Say It with Style #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhsayitwithstyle #sayitwithstyle #ctmnnationalstampingmonth #nationalstampingmonth #cardmaking #cardsentiments #cardstencils #stencils #cardfront #slimline #cardmakingworkshop

Somehow it’s already September, but we don’t mind one bit because stamping is in the air! It is officially National Stamping Month, and we are celebrating in style with brand new coordinating stamp sets, Thin Cuts, stencils, and more!

Let’s take a closer look at all the exciting things Close To My Heart President, Monica Wihongi shared on our Facebook page a few days ago.

STAMPS + THIN CUTS:

In our Say It With Style special, there are four stamp sets with coordinating dies that cut the shapes you see outlined in blue.

You Go Girl Stamp + Thin Cuts

It’s Your Birthday Stamp + Thin Cuts

All the Best Wishes Stamp + Thin Cuts

Sending You a Hug Stamp + Thin Cuts

Each of these stamp sets is available on their own or paired with their coordinating Thin Cuts.

STENCILS:

For additional flair, we have two new sets of card front stencils, designed for both standard and slimline size cards!

These were hard to see in the video because they are made of a clear, plastic material. Here, we are showing you a digital grey rendition, instead, so you can really get the detail that each of these stencils has to offer.

The striped stencils are designed so that you can flip them and cross the patterns as you stencil to create a plaid. The quartered circles stencil pairs of each size are intended to line up with each other and complete the patterns when they are used together.

WORKSHOPS:

At the crest of our Say It with Style special are four cardmaking workshops, complete with downloadable cutting guides and instructions, that put all these wonderful new products to use!

Each of the workshop kits comes with the materials to make 16 cards, four cards of four designs, including one of the Say It with Style stamp sets with their coordinating dies, around a dozen cardstock sheets, card bases and envelopes, and a set of embellishments (either die-cuts or acrylic shapes) just right to complete each look. That is 64 cards, ready to deliver your messages in style!

Additionally, the workshop guides will walk you, step-by-step, through how to use the plaid and quadrant stencils to create the background patterns on each of the cards.

The kits available for each of the workshops are available for purchase with or without the stencils, each at 20% off their retail value. Once you own the stencils, you won’t need to purchase them again for use in another workshop. They are made of a sturdy, see-through plastic material that can be used time and time again.

And, if you’d like to purchase all four workshop kits, there is an all-inclusive bundle that is even more discounted, at 30% off the retail value!

EVENT:

We love the chance to celebrate stamping month with anyone who would like to join in, so we are hosting a two-day event where we will be creating the artwork from these workshops live on our Facebook page!

Join us on October 6 at 2 p.m. MDT and on October 7 at 11 a.m. MDT and learn how to use the stencils, get all of the cutting done for all four workshops, and assemble as many of the cards as we can get to!

Like Monica said, you don’t even have to buy the bundles to watch (but why wouldn’t you want to?). Join us on our Facebook page, here, to see how we use all these great products and let’s enjoy some crafting time together!

A New Approach to Shaker Cards, Step-by-Step #cards #cardmaking #shakerwindows #shakerwindow #shaker #interactivecrafting #process #stepbystep #ctmh #closetomyheart #dimension #sequins #confetti #instructional

We are so excited to share this shaker birthday card with you! Not only does it use the new Round Balloon Thin Cuts, but, if you look closely, you can see that we shook things up with how we created the window!

Unlike the shaker cards we’ve shown you on this blog, so far, all of the shaker cards pictured in our new Core Products Catalog have the window mechanism built from behind a large framing project piece, rather than on top of it!

Let us show you what we mean!

If you recall, in May we shared how to recreate the shaker window on the Tutti Frutti: Here’s the Scoop scrapbook page. On that page, and up until then, we built a shaker window on top of a base and then attached it to the project.

On this birthday card, we are still building the shaker element separately and then attaching it to the art. However, the top “frame” that attaches to the acetate window is a larger piece of the final project, which helps to seamlessly integrate the shaker element into the artwork.

Another thing that we did differently with this card was to create the window’s shape using a die that is not specifically designed as a “shaker window” Thin Cuts. The round balloon, as you can see in this very same card, is part of a standalone Thin Cuts set that can be used to create paper balloon shaped accents and does not have to be used for creating windows. (How fun that it can be, though!!)

Let’s take a closer look at this card and assemble the front shaker part of it, together!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Round Balloon Thin Cuts
Small Circle Shaker Window Thin Cuts (optional)
Small Circle Shaker Window Foam + Acetate
Clear Loose Gems
Pink Mini Hearts
2½” x 2½” Light Ballerina Cardstock (optional)
3″ x 4″ Light Seabrook Cardstock
Adhesive Runner

Assembling a shaker window from behind:

1. From the Seabrook cardstock, die cut the balloon and keep the resulting negative space portion to use on your card. (Keep the balloon, too, for another project!😉)

Tip: When you are cutting the balloon, remember which side of the cardstock you want facing up, toward the front. One side of the cardstock is the true Seabrook color, and the other side is a lighter tone of the color. On our card, we wanted to use the lighter side as the front and kept that in mind as we positioned our die.

2. From the Ballerina cardstock, die cut a 2″ circle. (The circle in our Small Circle Shaker Window Thin Cuts is 2″.)

Tip: We also wanted to use the lighter side of the Ballerina cardstock. Because a circle is a symmetrical shape no matter how you turn it, it didn’t really matter which way we cut it.

3. Flip the prepared Seabrook cardstock over and attach the circle acetate. Only use adhesive along the edges of the cut-out balloon shape on the cardstock.

4. Carefully pull the circle foam tape off the backing sheet it comes on and attach it to the perimeter of the acetate.

5. Add gems and hearts, or your choice of filling, to the center of the frame. Do not add too much, so there is enough room for movement once the shaker is complete.

6. Expose the adhesive on the top of the circle foam tape and attach the cardstock circle.

7. Attach the shaker window to your project!

As you can see on this project, the back of our window is light Ballerina and the cardstock that it was attached to is light Flamingo. We did this intentionally to make the window more visually interesting, especially since a few of the mini heart colors are on the darker side. With the lighter center, you can see all the pieces and nothing gets lost in the background.

If you do want your shaker window’s background to match the piece you are attaching it to on your project, you can simply skip the step of cutting out the backing circle and attach another part of your project to the shaker instead. This may be a little bit trickier, depending on what your project is. If it gets too complicated, just cut out a circle in the same patterned paper or cardstock color as the piece your shaker will be attached to on your project and use that to back your window before attaching it. No one will know!

This cute card is just one of the many shaker window cards pictured in our Core Products Catalog using this new approach for the window! We’ve collected them all for you below, along with their recipes, so you can continue to get inspired and shake things up!