Tag Archives: magical

Create, Memory Keeping

FREE More Magical Scrapbook Pattern!

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Free Scrapbook Pattern #CTMH #CloseToMyHeart #CTMHMoreMagical #MoreMagical #freepattern #freescrapbookpattern #scrapbooking #free #download #scrapbooklayout #magical #adventure #dreamscometrue

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary day, we give you a fairy tale that looks like a free scrapbook pattern!

Free Scrapbook Pattern #CTMH #CloseToMyHeart #CTMHMoreMagical #MoreMagical #freepattern #freescrapbookpattern #scrapbooking #free #download #scrapbooklayout #magical #adventure #dreamscometrue

This timeless pattern made its original debut years ago with our You Rock collection. Without the need of any pixie dust, the instructions have been revamped so they can be used with any papers and for any occasion!

We created a truly enchanting spread by pairing this pattern with the More Magical paper packet, coordinating cardstock, and stamp set. Our current More Magical workshop kit makes 4 coordinating two-page layouts to preserve all of your magical adventures. Download the pattern and cutting diagrams below and use them to make a fifth coordinating layout to add to your album!

 

Download Pattern

 

As usual, we encourage you to make this, and any, pattern your own by being flexible with its parts. Take a close look at our completed layout for some examples. Instead of using a small photo at the top of 2D, we filled the space with a stamp. Then, we added another 4 x 4 photo to the layout by splitting it down the middle and attaching half of it on each page to complete the row of photos across the top.

And don’t forget about those pocket cards that are part of the paper packet! Use them whole, cut up, or even torn to incorporate additional patterns, sentiments, and accents. Adding a pocket card with a lighter design to a page made up of darker patterns is also an easy way to create space for stamping.

 

No matter where your happiest place on earth is, take advantage of the bright patterns and motifs available in the More Magical collection and use them to preserve all of your fairy tale adventures. Remember, this collection is only available through the end of the month while supplies last, so make sure to grab yours while you still can!

Free Scrapbook Pattern #CTMH #CloseToMyHeart #CTMHMoreMagical #MoreMagical #freepattern #freescrapbookpattern #scrapbooking #free #download #scrapbooklayout #magical #adventure #dreamscometrue #MakeItfromYourHeart #howtobooks

 

For even more timeless scrapbook patterns, check out our Make It from Your Heart™ pattern books! If you love the free scrapbook patterns we share on the blog, you’re sure to be blown away by the patterns and inspirational artwork in all of our how-to books.

 

 

 

Recipe

12″ x 12″ Dreams Come True Layout
CC8183 My Acrylix® Dreams Stamp Set, CC8181 More Magical Paper Packet, CC8182 More Magical Coordinating Cardstock, Z6505 Carolina Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z6509 Candy Apple Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z3314 Black & White Dots, Z4194 White & Gold Skinny Ribbon, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape

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Create, Memory Keeping

More Magical

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Bring Back My Pack #ctmh #CloseToMyHeart #ctmhmoremagical #moremagical #ctmhbringbackmypack #bringbackmypack #magical #scrapbooking #scrapbook #cardmaking #WaltDisney #disney #amusementpark #park #inspire #fairytale #enchant #enchantment #magical #scrapbookingkit #inspire #dream #create #lovethis #dreamscancometrue

Once upon a time, in the not-so-faraway kingdom of Close To My Heart, there were some talented fairies diligently working on paper and stamp designs sure to enchant anyone who set eyes on them. Like a fairy tale come to life, they brought back a beautiful paper packet once beloved by all. With a few color updates, the results were a More Magical paper packet, the My Acrylix® Dream stamp set, and a workshop kit to help preserve all of your magical adventures!

The More Magical Workshop kit includes the More Magical paper packet and a selection of other products, which you can use to create four coordinating two-page scrapbook layouts and eight cards! (Download instructions to turn these crafting products into beautiful artwork right on your Consultant’s website!)

But just like your fairy godmother’s best efforts, this magic won’t last forever. Get all of your More Magical products, suited for all-purpose crafting, before the spell ends on September 30! May your memories live happily ever after with this charming collection! 😀

Bring Back My Pack #ctmh #CloseToMyHeart #ctmhmoremagical #moremagical #ctmhbringbackmypack #bringbackmypack #magical #scrapbooking #scrapbook #cardmaking #WaltDisney #disney #amusementpark #park #inspire #fairytale #enchant #enchantment #magical #scrapbookingkit #inspire #dream #create #lovethis #dreamscancometrue

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Community

Magical Consultant Artwork

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There are few things we like better than giving away free products, and one of them is looking at amazing artwork created by our Consultants! Today’s our lucky day because we get to do both. 🙂

We challenged our Convention attendees to create a scrapbook layout with Convention photos using our Magical paper packet and then to share their layout on social media using the hashtag #magicalconvention—and boy did they deliver!

Here are our five random winners, who will each receive a brand new My Legacy™ scrapbooking album of her choice:

 

If you see your artwork here, that means you’re a winner! Please send an email to ctmhblog@closetomyheart.com with your name, shipping address, and preferred My Legacy™ album (remember, choose a NEW one!) using the subject line “Magical Convention.”

There’s more beautiful artwork where this came from, so be sure to search #magicalconvention on Facebook and Instagram to see even more beautiful layouts!

Congrats to our winners! We hope this makes your day a little more magical. 🙂

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Learn, Memory Keeping

The Magical Pocket Card

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You’ve probably tried your hand at pocket scrapbooking before, but have you ever tried using pocket cards on your traditional scrapbook layouts? Just like with pocket scrapbooking, these cards can help you put together a beautiful layout in a flash.

Each of our paper packets comes with two 12″ x 12″ sheets of pocket cards that you can cut apart and use in a variety of ways. We used a bunch of these cards from the Magical paper packet to make this adorable layout. Can you spot them all?

Ideas for how to use pocket scrapbooking cards on your traditional layouts. #ctmh #closetomyheart #pocketscrapbooking #picturemylife #scrapbookingideas #scrapbooking

First up, there’s the “Love This” card. Our cut-apart pocket cards always include a title card that you can use as your main sentiment.

Next, we have the journaling card. Here, we used one of the decorative cards for our journaling by adding a few lines with a ruler and pen, but you’ll also find cards with pre-printed lines in our cut-apart cards, too. Either way, pocket cards make adding journaling to your pages a piece of cake!

Then we have the Honey photo mat on the right page—it’s a pocket card, too! Because our pocket cards come in both 4″ x 6″ and 3″ x 4″ sizes, they make great photo mats.

Ideas for how to use pocket scrapbooking cards on your traditional layouts. #ctmh #closetomyheart #pocketscrapbooking #picturemylife #scrapbookingideas #scrapbooking

If you’re looking for a fresh scrapbook pattern, try cutting apart some pocket cards and arranging them on your layouts in different patterns until something strikes your fancy. On this layout, we simply layered three pocket cards in a sort of fan pattern. By adding a stamped tag from our July Stamp of the Month and some Magical Complements, we ended up with a look we love. 🙂

Ideas for how to use pocket scrapbooking cards on your traditional layouts. #ctmh #closetomyheart #pocketscrapbooking #picturemylife #scrapbookingideas #scrapbooking

This layout shows what happens when you get creative with your pocket cards! Rather than cutting into a 12″ x 12″ sheet of paper to create paper accents, you can use pocket cards, which offer additional patterns not found in your larger papers. Take a look at the “Love today” title, for example. The circles come from the “Love This” card, and the word “today” was stamped on a trimmed down piece of another pocket card.

Whether you’re looking to put together a layout quickly or you’re just looking for some fresh ideas, pocket cards have your back. Try them out for yourself—they will change the way you scrapbook!

p.s. Remember our Magical Convention contest? Now is the perfect time to try using the Magical pocket cards to create a layout with your Convention photos! Share your layout on social media using the hashtag #magicalconvention for a chance to win one of our brand new My Legacy™ scrapbooking albums! Be sure to post your picture by July 25, because on July 28, we’ll randomly select five winners and announce them on the blog.

Recipes

12″ x 12″ Love This Layout
S1607 My Acrylix® From the Notebook, X7209B Magical Paper Packet, Z2816 Cranberry Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2848 Sapphire Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, X7209C Magical Complements

12″ x 12″ Love Today Layout
S1607 My Acrylix® From the Notebook, B1484 My Acrylix® Jennifer’s Hand, X7209B Magical Paper Packet, Z2816 Cranberry Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2848 Sapphire Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2805 Black Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2862 Honey Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, X7209C Magical Complements, Z3216 White Twine

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Learn, Memory Keeping

The Triangle Rule

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Remember how your math teacher said you’d use math every day for the rest of your life? Well, as a scrapbooker, you definitely do! You measure, you count, and if you try out today’s tip, you’ll apply your math skills even more!

It’s time to take a trip back to geometry class, because we’re going to talk about what we call the triangle rule. In a nutshell, here it is: After you finish a pattern and you’re ready to add some accents, arrange them so they form a triangle.

If you follow our Instagram account, you may remember how we showed the triangle rule on a single scrapbook page.

When creating a layout, you do the exact same thing, but rather than creating a triangle on each single page, you create a triangle across the two pages.

Here’s a layout featuring our Magical paper packet. Can you spot the triangle? 🙂

Use the triangle rule to make your scrapbook layouts balanced! #ctmh #closetomyheart #scrapbookingtips #scrapbookinghacks #scrapbooking

Here it is!

Use the triangle rule to make your scrapbook layouts balanced! #ctmh #closetomyheart #scrapbookingtips #scrapbookinghacks #scrapbooking

See how the deer, oars, and punched circles create a triangle? The little flags above the three circles also help form that corner of the triangle.

The triangle rule is great because it helps you balance your pages by giving you guidance for where to place your embellishment clusters, while also leaving you lots of different options to play with. If all of your layouts were perfectly symmetrical, they’d look nice, but there wouldn’t be much room for creativity. By creating triangles, which can be all sorts of different sizes and dimensions, you are still creating a layout that’s pleasing to the eye, but you get a lot more variety!

We hope this makes adding accents to your scrapbook pages a little bit easier. Try the triangle rule out for yourself, and tell us what you think in the comments below!

Recipe

12″ x 12″ Camping Layout

C1611 My Acrylix® Campfire Lifestyle, X7209B Magical Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X5762 Lagoon Cardstock, X5775 Sapphire Cardstock, 1272 Cranberry Cardstock, Z1375 Kraft Cardstock, Z2870 Ruby Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2816 Cranberry Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2895 Lagoon Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Pacifica Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2818 Desert Sand Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, X7209C Magical Complements, Z3216 White Twine, Z3090 Red Enamel Gems, Z1999 1″ Circle Punch, Z1979 Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen

All these products are available through one of our Independent Consultants. To find a Consultant near you, visit closetomyheart.com and click on “Find a Consultant” in the top right corner of the page.

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Celebrate, Memory Keeping

Fourth of July

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Here at the Home Office, we love the Fourth of July. It’s a holiday dedicated to spending time with family, creating lasting memories, and most of all, remembering the men and women who have served this country.

Since this holiday is only a week away, we wanted to share with you a beautiful Fourth of July shadow box you can create for your home. We hope that as you make this page, you take a moment to feel gratitude for all those who have fought for our freedoms.

Celebrate the Fourth of July with these adorable scrapbook pages! #ctmh #closetomyheart #fourthofjuly #scrapbooking #diyfourthofjulydecor

For this page, we took inspiration from none other than Old Glory herself. Strips of fringed paper form the stripes, and some 3-D stars in the top left corner allude to the 50 states.

Quick tip—To create each star, simply cut four identical star shapes. Then fold them in half and attached the halves together to create a sort of accordion.

In addition to this shadow box, we want to share with you some classic Fourth of July layouts.

Celebrate the Fourth of July with these adorable scrapbook pages! #ctmh #closetomyheart #fourthofjuly #scrapbooking #diyfourthofjulydecor

Creating a faded watercolor title, which looks distressed, is perfect for a holiday all about tradition and history. We also made sure some fireworks found their way onto the page, compliments of the My Acrylix® Fireworks Fun stamp set—again, it’s all about the tradition!

Celebrate the Fourth of July with these adorable scrapbook pages! #ctmh #closetomyheart #fourthofjuly #scrapbooking #diyfourthofjulydecor

If there was ever a perfect paper packet for the Fourth of July, it’s the Magical paper packet. The colors, the star and stripe designs—they’re just the thing for evoking feelings of July and preserving these warm summer memories.

Any of these layout pages would look wonderful in one of our shadow boxes too, and now is the perfect time to get your hands on some shadow boxes because you can purchase a 2-pack and save through our Flash Sale. The sale has been extended through June 30, so make sure to get in on the action before it’s over!

We want to hear about your Fourth of July traditions. Share your plans with us in the comments below!

Recipes

12″ × 12″ Celebrate Shadow Box
X7209B Magical Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, 1272 Cranberry Cardstock,Z1829 Black & Grey Glitter Paper, Z1799 Silver Shimmer Trim, Z3132 Watercolor Paints, Z1151 3-D Foam Tape, Z3167 Cricut® Artistry Collection

Cricut® Shapes*:
Artistry
1 ¼”, 1 ¾”, ¾” <NewYears> (p. 50)
1 ½” Title <k> (p. 65)

12″ × 12″ Liberty Layout
D1689 My Acrylix® Firework Fun, X7209B Magical Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, 1272 Cranberry Cardstock, 44751 Archival Black Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2013 Sequins Silver Assortment, Z3132 Watercolor Paints, Z3188 Paintbrush Set, Z1979 Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen, Z3169 Cricut® Artbooking Collection, Z3167 Cricut® Artistry Collection

Cricut® Shapes*:
Artbooking
2 ½” Title <j> (p. 64)
2″, 2 ¼” Shift+Border <J> (p. 64)

Artistry
1″ <font> “July 4” 

12″ × 12″ Liberty Layout
Make It from Your Heart™ Vol. 2: Pattern 3 (with alterations)
X7209B Magical Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, Z1829 Black & Grey Glitter Paper, Z3075 Red Glitter Paper, X7209C Magical Complements, Z3214 Magical Sequins, Z3169 Cricut® Artbooking Collection

Cricut® Shapes*:
Artbooking
1 ¼” <font> Happy th of July”
1 ½” <font> “4”

*Real Dial Size

All these products are available through one of our Independent Consultants. To find a Consultant near you, visit closetomyheart.com and click on “Find a Consultant” in the top right corner of the page.
 

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Create

My Favorite Stamp Set: Magical Moments

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So, what’s your favorite stamp set?

You’re probably panicking right now. It’s like that moment of agony when a die-hard bookworm is asked to share with the class the title of their favorite book. Their heart demands that they share more than just one, but alas, the venue is wrong and the audience underprepared for their exquisite literary taste. Oh, the injustice!

But don’t worry—we’re a different kind of audience. We ask about your favorite set understanding your stamp obsession, knowing that what you say is your favorite may actually just be the first of many favorites. We agree wholeheartedly that sometimes it’s impossible to pick just one.

When we asked one of our studio artists about her favorite stamp set (with our “nobody can pick just one favorite” disclaimer in place), she told us about the set she’s going to use to count down to the big 2-5 in December: the My Acrylix® Magical Moment stamp set! Better yet, as a gracious accompaniment to her confession, our artist shared an adorable piece of home décor she made using the set.

Enjoy a peek for yourself:

Magical Moments stamp set

If you search for this set in Annual Inspirations, you’ll find it sitting on page 154, right next to the My Crush™ Holiday Happenings book. Naturally, this set fits our holiday-centered book like a dream (seriously, better than a vision of sugarplums dancing in your head), but you’ll find that it’s also a good fit for other pieces, even non-holiday themed projects.

We love the way she used the numbers in the set to create her own countdown calendar here, but these numbers aren’t limited to just this holiday season. Use them for any kind of countdown—birthdays, graduations, new babies—and they’ll be just as fitting.

Joy to the World stamped piece

The way our artist has layered the sentiments on this Joy to the World card is clean and very cute. Using Olive ink, she first stamped the “Joy to the world” sentiment on a square of White Daisy cardstock. She then stamped the sentiment a second time in Archival Black ink on Glacier cardstock, trimmed it out, and attached it to the original Olive stamped piece. We love how it gives the stamp a new level of visual dimension!

Notice that the arrow stamp is used across more than one element of this piece: both on the Dec. 25 card and the Joy to the World card. Using the same stamp in more than one place is a great way to pull all elements of your project together.

The star and heart shapes you see on this piece also come from the stamp set. Don’t be fooled by their dimension; these are actually stamped pieces popped with 3D foam tape. You can use these versatile shapes on ANY project throughout the year.

Now it’s your turn to share. What is your favorite stamp set from Annual Inspirations 2014–2015? (Take a deep breath. You can do this!)

Please create a piece of artwork using that set and send it to ctmhblog@closetomyheart.com with the subject line “My favorite stamp set.” Include in your email a list of the materials you used. Entries must use Close To My Heart products exclusively. We’ll select a few to share here for all to enjoy in the coming weeks!

Recipe:
C1602 My Acrylix® Magical Moment, 1245 Olive Cardstock, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X5770 Glacier Cardstock, X5929 Whisper Cardstock, Z2033 Paper Fundamentals Whimsy Assortment, 44751 Archival Black Exclusive Inks™ Pad, Z2116 Cranberry Exclusive Inks™ Pad, Z2137 Olive Exclusive Inks™ Pad, Z1880 Designed Décor Black Frame, Z1899 Hook Clips, Z2051 My Crush™ Holiday Happenings Badge Buttons, Z1263 Bitty Sparkles, Z2027 Mini Stapler, Z2097 Mini Staples, Thread

Cricut® Shapes:
Artfully Sent
4″ Shift+Pocket Card <Card-2> (p. 50)

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