30 Stamps in 30 Days

Happy Labor day, everyone! It’s going to be a fabulous fall.  September is consistently one of the most beautiful months here in the Rocky Mountains, and it always gives me reason to celebrate.

This September actually gives me extra reasons to celebrate. Have you seen the #30yearsofhappy stamp set debuting this month? It’s packed with 30 stamps, and they’re all adorably MINI! This set was designed to celebrate both National Stamping Month and the 30 great years I’ve been in the stamping business. This has been quite a journey—truly 30 years of happy!—and I think this milestone calls for a celebration!

I’ve had this sweet C-size created for our special month. It comes on a 4" x 6" carrier sheet and includes 30 mini icons perfect for small projects of all kinds. It has a $13.95 USD value, but you can get your set absolutely FREE with a qualifying purchase all month—now’s the time to contact your Close To My Heart Consultant to make sure you get your happy on!

Each one of the images in the set holds plenty of possibilities, as we’ve discovered here at corporate. I’m going to share many that we’ve already uncovered—and I also want to know what all of you are creating during the month, too!

Here’s the plan: every day during September, stop by the Close To My Heart Facebook or Instagram page to get some inspiration. There will be a new project presented each and every day, making 30 projects in all. Each one will be marked with the hashtag #30yearsofhappy. Hashtags make it easy to organize your photos, tweets, or posts so they can all be viewed in one place.

With the hashtag #30yearsofhappy you can not only see what we’ve posted, but also share your own artwork! Once you’ve seen the post of the day, show off your own creations to the rest of us by labeling them with the same hashtag. Whenever you search #30yearsofhappy on Facebook or Instagram you’ll find everything with the same label there for you to view. It’s quick, easy, and oh-so happy!

The celebration won’t be complete until we’ve all shared in the excitement! Here’s to 30!

A Heartfelt Welcome!

This week, Close To My Heart concluded one of our highest new Consultant enrollment months ever—more than 3,600 Consultants joined our family! And who's surprised? (not me!) With an incredible new Consultant kit PLUS a free Cricut® collection, signing up was a great deal…but there's a great deal more here, and I'm eager for you to discover what it means to be a Close To My Heart Consultant.

You've just joined an incredible community of passionate paper crafters, savvy business leaders, dedicated teachers, and product enthusiasts who have found their place using, loving, and sharing our unique and exclusive products. We celebrate each other's successes. We laugh. We learn together. We hope each one of you are working with your new Upline to determine a vision for your new business—it is here to work for YOU, fitting your life and your needs and your creative journey, whatever that may be.

I'm also so grateful to the thousands of existing Consultants who are such incredible ambassadors of our business opportunity. Thank you for sharing what you love with others this past month—you are a light and you keep this company shining brightly! My heart is full of appreciation and excitement for each of you and this great time for growth. I say it often, but it's always true: You are welcome here!

Announcing the Bucket List Contest Winners!

It’s May 1st, and that means that I’m not only looking for the May flowers that the April showers promised, but also that I’m announcing the winners of the April social media contest. A landslide of you answered the question, “What’s on your bucket list?” Thank you for your responses! To a lucky 20 winners (with big dreams) I’ll be sending the materials needed to create your own Base & Bling accessory. If your name appears on this list, please email me@jeanettelynton.com with your mailing address included and “Bucket List contest” in the subject line:

1. Tammy Rusch (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 10:43 am)

2. Sue F. (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 11:23 am)

3. Tina (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 12:02 pm)

4. Cindy (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 12:35 pm)

5. Grace Green (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 1:12 pm)

6. Lourdes Alcala (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 2:20 pm)

7. Marbath Carmack (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 4:56 pm)

8. Margi (Jeanette’s Blog on April 1, 2014 at 6:00 pm)

9. RobynL (Jeanette’s Blog on April 2, 2014 at 12:48 am)

10. Di Crawford (Jeanette’s Blog on April 2, 2104 at 6:51 pm)

11. photofunwithfawn (Jeanette’s Blog on April 2, 2014 at 7:19 pm)

12. Beth Bennett (Jeanette’s Blog on April 3, 2014 at 5:21 pm)

13. OregonGma (Jeanette’s Blog on April 24, 2014 at 11:08 am)

14. Bronwyn Hammond (Facebook on April 3, 2014 at 1:19 am)

15. Cathy Shumaker Dismuke (Facebook on April 1, 2014 at 6:50 pm)

16. Jenny Bottom (Facebook on April 1, 2014 at 3:43 pm)

17. Monika English (Facebook on April 7 at 3:09 am)

18. Rachel Brant (YouTube video)

19. Natalie Barrington (YouTube video)

20. Jill Norris (YouTube video)

Congratulations to you all! Enjoy sporting your new Base & Bling accessory all around town in the days to come.

Artbooking Made Easy: Summertime Layouts

Summer, summer! At long last I can feel it approaching again. The glory of spring will fade into the sizzle of summer, and that’s all right by me. I can’t imagine a better way to let go of one of the most gorgeous seasons on earth than to dive right into another.

Today marks another “transition” as well: this will be my final Artbooking Made Easy post. I can’t believe it’s here! The time we’ve spent together exploring the Cricut® Artbooking cartridge has been such a delightful experience, and I hope you’ve learned as much and had as many moments of inspiration as I have.

To go out with a splash, I want to share with you some ideas on how to use the summertime-themed keys for your upcoming summer photos and memories. Get a final look at the masterful pieces you’ve come to expect in this series, along with some helpful hints on how to create similar projects by watching the video.

You just saw some hot ideas, but let me load you up with a few more:

I love this Family Vacation layout, not only because it features beach scenes and embellishments (because who doesn’t love the beach?) but because it incorporates the journaling so creatively. The hexagon numbers are a fun way to match up each adorable photo with a caption, don’t you think?

There is also some fantastic layering used here. A square of B&T, a journal spot, and some cardstock turn this combo of a photo mat into much more than a photo mat—it’s a scene to behold. With the photo atop that, held in place by washi tape and stitching, and a few embellishments more, the entire piece is a little work of art all on its own.

When you work with a busy layout like this one but have details you still want to add, make use of your photo space. Crop a photo so that the focal person isn’t precisely in the center, leaving room for a stamped sentiment or extra accessory over the open space.

Move to the next layout and you’ll notice that though a lot of the same shapes were used, yet the layouts look totally different. 

A change in size, paper, placement, and embellishment give every single shape on the Artbooking cartridge multiple looks. With 700 images on the cartridge, that means the possibilities are as high as the sky—a big, blue, open summer sky.

From one artist to another, keep dreaming! You’re as free as you let yourself be in your creativity. It’s my hope that the Cricut^® Artbooking cartridge gives you all the right ingredients you need for expanding your artistic world and capturing the moments that matter most.

Recipes:

12" x 12" Sunshine Layout

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

D1555 My Acrylix™ All the Details

Z1939 Paper Fundamentals Basics Assortment

Z1853 Aqua Dots

Z1928 Durables Triangle Studs

Z1931 Honey Triangles Washi Tape

Z1837 Mini-Medley Accents Wooden Collection

Colors: Honey, Pear, White Daisy, Ruby, Sunset

12" x 12" Family Vacation Layout

Reflections: Front & Center–Accent Band (Alternate)™

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

C1575 My Acrylix™ True to Life

D1580 My Acrylix™ Catch You Later

D1543 My Acrylix™ Country-Born

A1159 My Acrylix™ LOL

D1556 My Acrylix™ School Years

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

X7179B Ariana Paper Packet

X7171B Sarita Paper Packet

Z1939 Paper Fundamentals Basics Assortment

Z1886 My Crush™ Besties Assortment

Z1887 My Crush™ Best Day Ever Assortment

Z1889 My Crush™ Favorites Assortment

Z1931 Honey Triangles Washi Tape

Z1853 Aqua Dots

Thread

Colors: Buttercup, White Daisy, Goldrush, Whisper, Honey, Archival Black, Lagoon, Champagne, kraft

Artbooking Made Easy: Together Layouts

Thanks for telling me all about your favorite photos! I think I need to schedule a family photo shoot soon! Congratulations to the Artbooking cartridge winner, Carolyn! Please send me an email with your mailing address to me@jeanettelynton.com with “Favorite Photo Contest Winner” in the subject line. 

With summer time on its way, I’m sure most of us are thinking about being together with our family—on family vacations or at reunions, BBQs, and parties. If you love documenting your favorite family together time, then you’re going to love today’s episode of Artbooking Made Easy. We’re going to be looking at the together layout keys on pages 60 and 61 of the Artbooking booklet. 

So whether you’re scrapbooking memories with your sweetheart, your friends, or your family, these together layout keys are perfect!

I love this overlay! As Mimi pointed out, it’s been backed with papers from several different paper packets, but they all work together so well that you wouldn’t even guess they weren’t from the same packet! This overlay is nice because you can leave the cutouts backed simply with paper, photos, stamps, or embellishments.

Don’t you love this beautiful stamp? It’s nice with the two-colored effect too, created by simply stamping in two different inks and then cutting out the frame from one and paper piecing it atop the sentiment.

Again, this adorable overlay is perfect to be sized down and used for a card! I also love how the “I Adore You” sentiment was dovetailed and then popped up with a double layer of 3-D foam tape to give it a realistic ribbon-like look.

Notice how the artist had used a frame on top of the photo, without trimming off the edges. I love how the colors work together to frame the photo but it adds a certain amount of interest to keep the edges of the photo exposed.

Mimi showed us in the video how to back the border with colorful scraps, but you could also do the same thing with the “together” banner or other cutouts from these keys, as many of them have decorative edges.

These two heart pennants add such a nice touch to this page. You can use some re-inker and a spray pen to add some light sprinkles of color, as you can see here on the White Daisy cardstock that’s backing the pennants. I also love the machine stitching on top! That adds a fun and unexpected detail.  

I hope you enjoy scrapbooking all your “together” moments with these together keys!

Recipes

Together Layout:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

B1439 My Acrylix™ Dreamer

C1581 My Acrylix™ Inspiration Flourishes

E1028 My Acrylix™ Hopscotch Alphabet

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

Z1935 Black & Grey Epoxy Bubbles

Colors used: White Daisy, Hollyhock, Goldrush, Desert Sand

Remember Page:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

C1581 My Acrylix™ Inspiration Flourishes

B1443 My Acrylix™ Hello Wonderful

X7179B Ariana Paper Packet

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

X7180B Balloon Ride Paper Packet

Z1812 Sparkles Clear Flourishes—Small

Z1752 Sparkles Clear Assortment

Colors used: Buttercup, White Daisy, Sorbet, Sweet Leaf

Together Card:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

B1443 My Acrylix™ Hello Wonderful

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

X7181B Jubilee Paper Packet

X7179B Ariana Paper Packet

X7178B Ivy Lane Paper Packet

X7182B Timberline Paper Packet

Z1934 Flamingo Dots

Colors used: White Daisy, Olive, Cashmere, Hollyhock

Artbooking Made Easy: Snapshots Mini Album

I know that, as scrapbookers and crafters, many of us are inclined to find any excuse to pick up our cameras and snap a few (or not so few) pictures. Am I right? Have you ever found a stash of photos that you always meant to scrapbook and just never got around to? Or maybe you’re just looking for a way to scrapbook those impromptu family pictures you took at the park. Either way, you’re going to love what’s being featured on today’s episode of Artbooking Made Easy! Look at pages 40 and 41 of the Artbooking booklet to follow along!

See what I mean? I love the camera and the photo strip cutouts on these keys. They are the perfect way to highlight all of those snapshots that I know we all have tucked away! Let’s look at some of the details of this great mini album.

One of the things I love about the circle overlay is all of the fun stamping you can do with it! Jill showed us how the overlay was used as a stencil all over in this album for this fun, shaded stamp pattern. Try this out with the other overlays to pattern your paper! The best part is that you can still use the cutout, even after you’ve used it as a stencil!

The My Acrylix™ Reel Life stamp set used here comes with three arrows, so you can achieve this fun pattern by just stamping it once in four different colors, cutting out all the pieces, and arranging them however you’d like.

Isn’t this a great watercolor technique behind these speech bubbles? All you need to do is take your Exclusive Inks™ pad, and press the lid into the stamp pad so that ink collects on the inside of the lid. With a paintbrush, add some water to the ink and then use even brushstrokes on your paper to achieve the look you want.

Of course, you can use the cutouts from these keys for other projects besides mini albums, too. On this adorable canvas, all of the shapes were cut using Real Dial Size to make them fit perfectly on the 6" x 6" canvas. The title and the circle half overlay were both cut at 2" RDS, and the photo mat cut at 4 1/2". The camera and the heart were both cut at 1 1/2" RDS. I like how the artist customized the title by leaving off the “photos” from the “My Favorite Photos” pennants on page 40 of the Artbooking booklet.  

After all these photography-themed cutouts, I’m thinking about all my favorite photos, but I also want to hear about yours! Leave a comment here, on our Facebook page, or on YouTube telling me about your favorite photograph for a chance to win your very own Cricut^® Artbooking cartridge! I’ll announce the winner next Monday.

Recipes

Be Yourself Mini Album:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection (cutouts and stamps)

B1431 My Acrylix™ Reel Life

X7179B Ariana Paper Packet

X7171B Sarita Paper Packet

X7172 ProPlayer Paper Packet

Z1751 Baker’s Twine Harvest Assortment

Z1702 Baker’s Twine Paradise Assortment

Z1799 Silver Shimmer Trim

Z1918 Teal Shimmer Trim

Z1817 Slate Polka-Dot Washi Tape

Z1932 Silver Geometric Washi Tape

Z1935 Black & Grey Epoxy Bubbles

Z1853 Aqua Dots

Z1938 Sponge Dauber Value Pack

Colors used: Colonial White, Crème Brulee, Juniper, Outdoor Denim, Slate, Twilight,

My Favorite Canvas:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

Z1939 Paper Fundamentals Basics Assortment

Z1818 My Creations™ 6" x 6" Canvas Display

Z1830 Brown & Tan Glitter Paper

Z1753 Sparkles Brown & Tan Assortment

Colors used: Flaxen, Sorbet, Thistle 

Artbooking Made Easy: Mother's Day My Creations

Mother’s Day is right around the corner! Of all my titles, “mom” is definitely my favorite! (Although, “nana” is right up there, too!) I adore my sweet children and grandchildren, and I am so grateful to be their mother and their grandmother! On today’s episode of Artbooking Made Easy, we’re going to look at how to use the Picture My Life™ scrapbooking programs to create adorable gifts that any mother would love to receive!

I know I would love to receive a pocket-scrapbook page filled with photos of my children and grandchildren—wouldn’t you? These scrapbooking programs are amazing by themselves, but combining them with elements from the Artbooking cartridge makes them even better! Let’s take a closer look at these wonderful projects.

I love this sweet Mother's Day Picture My Life page! Monica pointed out how the shapes from the Artbooking cartridge can be sized down using the Real Dial Size feature in order to fit these smaller cards perfectly. Real Dial Size is going to be the key to making the shapes, cutouts, and titles from Artbooking work perfectly on your Picture My Life layouts.

These scrapbooking programs are so unique that no matter your scrapbooking style, you can adapt it to fit your preferences. For example, I love how the card on the bottom right acts as the journaling for the card to its left.  The cork shapes point to the picture and the kraft letters label it. And don’t you love how those little stitched hearts decorate the card? Such a nice touch. If you’re worried that the Picture My Life programs won’t give you enough room for journaling, think again! Each of the cards has journaling on one side, so there’s always plenty of room to label and write some details about your photos.

Because the Picture My Life cards are rather generic, they are also versatile enough to use for a variety of projects. But using cutouts from the Artbooking cartridge is the perfect way to add some specific details and titles to your pocket scrapbook pages and layouts, like how the artist has created this “Mothers day” title using the letters from Artbooking.

Like Monica said, one of the best parts about the Picture My Life programs is how they also coordinate perfectly with the My Reflections™ paper packets. This My Creations™ box is decorated so adorably using paper from the Skylark paper packet and a card from the Skylark Picture My Life program, but then just a few select cutouts from the Artbooking cartridge help dress it up: the arrow, pennant tab, and “cherish” title. And don’t you love that Base & Bling camera charm?

See how this box fits everything you need? And because it’s tiered, the cards are all readily accessible. Remember that you can decorate the inside of the lid, too!

Monica already pointed out the calendar on this layout and how it was sized down to fit perfectly on the card. But I like how the artist played up the calendar theme by using a card with the months of the year, and by journaling highlights from the 1^st year of marriage.

One idea from this page is to add a cutout from the Artbooking cartridge to a blank journaling card. If you don’t have anything specific to add journaling for on a page, an Artbooking title might be just enough to dress up the card.

Another smart idea: if you find that your pictures just don’t quite match your color scheme, you can always try printing them out in black and white or with a sepia finish.

So please enjoy getting those Mother’s Day gifts ready, and go ahead and try incorporating Artbooking into your own Picture My Life projects!

Recipes

Mother’s Day Page:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

D1578 My Acrylix^™ Flight of the Arrows

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

Z1947 Picture My Life^™ Skylark Scrapbooking Program

Z3000 Skylark Assortment

Z1853 Aqua Dots

Z1825 Keyboard Kraft Alphabet

A1863 Midtown Cork Shapes

Z1850 Lagoon Houndstooth Washi Tape

Colors used: White Daisy, Sweet Leaf, Lagoon, kraft

Journaling Cards Box:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

X7177B Skylark Paper Packet

Z1947 Picture My Life^™ Skylark Scrapbooking Program

Z1702 Baker’s Twine Paradise Assortment

Z1853 Aqua Dots

Z1958 Base & Bling Craft Queen Charms

Z1928 Durables Triangle Studs

Z1825 Keyboard Kraft Alphabet

Apple of My Eye Layout:

Z1906 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection (cutouts and stamps)

D1574 My Acrylix^™ Take Note

D1555 My Acrylix^™ All the Details

Z1942 Picture My Life^™ Avonlea Scrapbooking Program

Z2195 Aqua Dots

Z1918 Teal Shimmer Trim

Colors used: Colonial White, White Daisy, Juniper, Lagoon, Outdoor Denim, black, kraft