Tag Archives: new idea book

Create

10 New Tools & Products to Add to Your Crafting Arsenal

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2018 HE Cover

It’s an exciting time of year, folks! As promised, our Holiday Expressions idea book catalog was released just a few days ago and it is filled to the brim with new, cutting edge tools and products to add to your holiday and non-holiday crafting arsenal. We’ve gathered a few of our favorites for you below, but there just isn’t enough room to share “all the things,” so make sure to flip through the whole catalog so you don’t miss anything! 🙂

Love of Color

Never second-guess your color choices again with this new, inspirational color guide! Love of Color brings the exclusive Close To My Heart color palette to life with breathtaking artwork that illustrates how to create perfectly balanced color combinations. Organized by color, each spread focuses on an exclusive color shown in three different color schemes.

Pigment Pads

pigment

We now have pigment ink options available in our patented Exclusive Inks™ stamp pads! This acid-free, fade-resistant pigment ink dries quickly and permanently on most papers and porous surfaces after heat-setting. Available in our full-size ink pads, the new pigment pads feature raised pads that are approximately 3¾” x 2½”—larger than average and easier to use. Available in Candy Apple, Pixie, Sapphire, Clover, Espresso, Black, and White Daisy.

Texture Pastes

Build dimensional textures right on your artwork with texture pastes! Available in opaque matte, transparent matte, and transparent gloss, these pastes can be used alone with a palette knife or paired with stencil sheets to create more intricate patterns.

Shimmer Brushes

We loooove the effects created by our clear and gold shimmer brushes so much that we now have them in several additional colors—Sugarplum, red, black, and Mint. Take a look at the video below to see them in action!

Shaker Window Kits

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Assembling a shaker window has never been easier! With these trusty tools, you are sure to get hooked on this throw-back trend!

Thin Cuts—Shaker Window & Confetti

Thin Cuts—Shaker Window & Confetti

Cuts a window and confetti shapes to use for a 2½” shaker window.

Gold and Silver Loose Sequins

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Add some sparkle and shine to those shaker windows.

Shaker Window Foam & Acetate

foam & acetate

New Thin Cuts

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From decorative borders, to fancy tags, snowflakes, and merry sentiments, we are sure you will want these new sets in your crafting toolbox!

Season of Joy Cricut® Collection

Prepare to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with the dynamic shape designs in the new Season of Joy collection!

Season-of-Joy

This collection features over 45 images and projects, including several seasonal icons, titles, and sentiments, as well as a collection of 3-D projects that you can create after a few simple cuts on your Cricut® machine.

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Holiday Kitchen

holiday-kitchen

Because food plays such an important role in so many of our favorite holiday traditions, we couldn’t help but make another Cut Above® recipe kit—this time with some holiday flair! The Holiday Kitchen Cut Above® recipe kit includes everything you need to get all those recipes in one place together with the stories and memories that make them so special!

All Things Sugarplum

Sugarplum

There’s a new kid in town and it goes by the name Sugarplum—our 2018 Color of the Year! This exclusive shade will only be available for a limited time, so make sure you get it in all of its available forms: stamp pad, pigment pad, re-inker, cardstock, glitter paper, shimmer brush, and more!

Beautiful Soul

We are on a mission to change the lives of as many children as possible by restoring something that no child should be without—their smile.

Operation-Smile

In recent years, Close To My Heart has annually dedicated the proceeds of one stamp set to the efforts of Operation Smile™, a non-profit organization that provides safe surgeries to repair cleft left lips and palates in children around the world. Starting with our new Holiday Expressions catalog, we are now dedicating one stamp set per catalog—that means three stamp sets a year—to this very worthy cause.

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Purchase this catalog’s Operation Smile™ stamp set, My Acrylix® Beautiful Soul, encourage others to do so, or simply get on our site and make a straight donation to Operation Smile™.

So what do you think of our 2018 Holiday Expressions line up? Which products are you just dying to get your hands on? Let us know in the comments below!

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Community

Thanks for the Memories, Anaheim Convention 2015!

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Whew! Can you believe that it’s almost been a whole week since we said goodbye to each other at the end of Convention? We’re still trying to recover from the whirlwind of papercrafting bliss that was Convention. Some bags are still unpacked, some Consultants are still sleeping sound in their beds, and others have visions of Disneyland® churros dancing in their heads. Having fun is a lot of work! But it’s worth every minute. 🙂
For all of you that attended, we hope you had fun because we sure did! Before life gets too busy again, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of the highlights of our week spent next door to “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Shall we?

As usual, Sticky Boy was up to his usual shenanigans. This year Sticky Boy decided to be a little less sticky and a little more sweet by posting hints about his hiding places on his Facebook page. This sent more than one Consultant racing down the halls in hot pursuit of his latest revealed location. Some were victorious; others barely missed him. He frequented the nooks and crannies of the hotel, popping up on drinking fountains, flower vases, and elevator walls. It was quite the hunt! We can’t wait to see where Sticky Boy will travel this year with his newfound friends and his little heart balloon in tow.

We raised enough monetary wattage to light up a whole lot of smiles. Between the Base & Bling necklaces, the auction, and the 5K run, we raised over $40,000 for Operation Smile™! Thank you to everyone one who was generous enough to donate to this important cause. After listening to Monica share stories from her Operation Smile mission in Mexico and showing us a special video featuring celebrity Kate Walsh, who went on the same mission as Monica, each of our hearts beat a little faster for Operation Smile and its unique quest to change the lives of children by giving them back their smiles. And, as a special announcement, we unveiled the new Operation Smile™ t-shirts, which will be available for order July 23! We will donate $10 of every shirt purchase to Operation Smile.

Love was in the air. With the theme of “Make It from Your Heart” combined with motifs from the movie Up, we should’ve guessed that something truly magical was going to happen. During the dance on Saturday night, Monica’s husband Jody Wihongi took the stage and sang “Marry Me” by Train. That was our first clue. After he finished the song, Monica invited one lucky Consultant up to the stage who was then surprised by her boyfriend who came from behind the stage, got down on one knee, and proposed! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to play a part in this special moment.

We got to hang out with Jeanette Lynton. When Jeanette Lynton takes the stage, you know you’re in for a treat. It’s always inspiring to hear and simply be in the same room with the visionary who gave this company its wings. She chatted with us about future plans for the company, her favorite movie, and what her children and grandchildren have been up to lately. She also gave a bit of advice: “I wish you would stop saying ‘I can’t’,” she said. “Because you can!”

It was a paper feast for the eyes. In addition to unveiling loads of new products, we also hosted a number of artistic showcases where Convention attendees were able to feast their eyes on art made by fellow Consultants, as well as all the exclusive art from the new idea books. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, there was plenty more to be seen in business and Extravaganza classes.

Oh, yeah. We released new editions of these things called idea books. Ever heard of them? We’re sure this isn’t interesting to you, so that’s why we left it for last. Just kidding! The release of not one but TWO new idea books was met with quite the enthusiastic response at Convention. After we released the beautiful Annual Inspirations 2015–2016 idea book on the first day, there was one question left lingering in the air: What about Christmas? Well, the next day this question was answered in a magical way when, amongst flurries of snow and the jingle of bells in the ballroom, we unveiled the Holiday Expressions supplement!

*Both of these idea books will be available to all Consultants on August 1 and to customers on September 1.

Thank you for another wonderful Convention! All we have left to say is that we can’t wait until Convention next year at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida. We’ll see you then!

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