I want to thank everyone who posted or mailed a birthday card for me. I was overwhelmed by the beautiful artwork and thoughtful messages you shared—you truly made my birthday one to remember. I am grateful for all you do to make Close To My Heart feel like family, lending your time and talents to help lift others up.
I want to share some of the beautiful artwork you created. I know it will inspire our readers, just like it inspired me. Here are just a handful of the beautiful birthday cards:
I wish I could share all of the artwork here! It was so fun to look at your sweet cards. Each one of you is unique, and I can see that through your artwork—it represents you!
As was mentioned on the blog before, we have selected 20 random people who have posted a card. These 20 winners will get the Penelope paper packet and the Penelope Complements. I’m lucky enough to get to announce them today! Here they are:
Jenifer Benner
Tanya Armitage
MaryJo Boyus
Rachel Stribling
Jen Patrick
Jen Burkhart
Sassy’s Creations
Dawn Montagano
Ellen Jarvis
catscrapbooking
Shirley Ross
stampinbuds
kigz55
jrans2
crys_daus
scrapstampshare
joaniestanclift
peachypapercrafts
ballisticdesign
gabbysews
If your name is in the list above, please email your name and mailing address to ctmhblog@closetomyheart.com using the subject line “Birthday giveaway.” We can’t wait to send you your prizes!
I just want to close by telling you again how grateful I am for this act of kindness. Your cards touched my heart. I am so lucky to have each of you as part of our Close To My Heart family. Know that I care about you dearly.
When you think “St. Patrick’s Day,” chances are you think about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In the spirit of this Irish holiday, today’s post features gold and rainbow-colored artwork along with tips on how to create both monochromatic artwork and artwork that uses all the colors in the rainbow!
Gold is the perfect color for this little princess—just look at that adorable crown! The key to pulling off a monochromatic color theme is using lots of variety in the other elements. For example, even though this page uses almost exclusively gold, the variety of shapes and products make it anything but plain: The solid gold glitter paper contrasts the fine details of the embossed stamp images, gold sequins, and gold glitter hearts. The white and gold bow from the Basics Fundamentals assortment also adds a bit of dimension to the page.
This card follows the same principles: It uses a variety of shapes and products that all fit into the same color family. Glitter paper, gold embossed stamping, and white & gold ribbon are the perfect trio! (If you recognize those gem stamp images on the page and card, that’s because they’re from the My Acrylix® Diamonds Are Forever stamp set Sticky Boy highlighted a few posts back when he was talking about Stampaganza—if you haven’t gotten it yet, right now is the best time because for every two stamp sets you purchase, you get one free!)
On the other side of the spectrum, how about incorporating all the colors of the rainbow?
The Penelope paper packet is an obvious starting place—it’s springtime colors make the perfect companion to a rainbow color scheme. We used this paper packet for the base page and for many of the strips in the rainbow stretching across the page.
Here’s how to incorporate lots of colors into your artwork without going all Willy Wonka: Keep your rainbows controlled and well defined. You can see that our rainbows are in two controlled areas of the page: the rainbow strips behind the title and the rainbow embellishing extending diagonally across the page. Having the rest of the page be more subtle helps to mellow out the rainbow so it’s not too overwhelming.
This fun rainbow card featured in our Annual Inspirations idea book shows off another way to get a shimmering rainbow look: using shimmer trim of course! This card is very colorful, but the neutral White Daisy cardstock that lays over the sparkly rainbow trim keeps the colors at bay so the card is composed and intentional.
We hope you have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day filled with smiles, laughter, and no pinches! And we hope you enjoy trying out these two approaches yourself.
Which one are you most excited to try? 🙂 Tell us in the comments below!
Recipes
12″ x 12″ Shine Bright Page
C1629 My Acrylix® Diamonds Are Forever, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, Z3076 Gold Glitter Paper, Z2164 Sorbet Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z891 VersaMark™ Ink Pad, Z2012 Sequins Gold Assortment, Z3105 Fundamental Assortment—Gold, Z2066 Ranger™ Princess Gold Embossing Powder, Thread
