Christmas Creations Blog Hop with CTMH

Welcome to the •MAKE•IT•Crafty• Seasonal Blog Hop! This month we will be featuring Christmas crafting!! 

If you have arrived from Natalie Racine's blog, you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way around. If you get lost, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants here.

This month we have a number of Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using various CTMH products to help you get in the mood for all the Christmas crafting that we enjoy doing this time of year. 

For this blog hop I have decided to show off a few of my foundation pages for my upcoming December Daily album. I create a lot of my pages ahead of time so during the month of December I am primarily just adding the photos.  

What is December Daily?

Originally initiated by a well known scrapbooker Ali Edwards, December Daily can now be found all over the internet starting in the early fall months and continuing through the new year. Aimed at capturing all of your holiday memories, this project consists of taking a photo a day during the month of December and placing it in a dedicated holiday album. And the best part- you can easily get the entire album created ahead of time! 

 This will be my 6th year participating in this world-wide project and what I have discovered is that it forces me to be more present in my life. A small mishap that would have caused me stress before is now a funny story for the scrapbook. Just like taking the time to write about what you are thankful for, this activity makes you stop and look around for all the little details that make up our lives around this season. 

For the last five years I have documented my “25 Days of Christmas” by creating a 25-page scrapbook in November (no pictures in it) in order to be ready to add pictures and journaling to the completed pages daily, starting December 1^st and ending on Christmas Day.  I recorded a story or two from each day or described a detail about our family traditions. I put a lot of emphasis on completing my base album before December 1st because, in my experience, the project is more likely to be completed this way. When your pictures are ready all you will have to do is adhere them to your already completed page or slide them in a pocket. It's that easy.  

Click here to see a video of some of my completed pages from previous years.

Now here are some of my foundation pages. I will continue to add them to this post as they are completed.

This year I am using an 8x8 inch 3-ring Heid Swapp album that I purchased at Michaels. I will be using traditional pages mixed with 8x8 and 6x8 pocket pages.

White Pines paper, White Pines Picture My Life card and clear photo overlay in gold cut into a 4x4 square

6x8 pocket page with a space left for a photo in December

back of 6x8 and a 4x4 pocket page

White Pines Complements adhered to the pocket page so you will see through to the page/picture behind it

8x8 traditional page unused White Pines paper and complements

White Pines paper, complements and assortment

Flip page to add more pictures or journalling

CTMH Products Used:

White Pines Collection
Picture My Life Clear Photo Overlays


Thank you so much for following along on our Blog Hop today! I hope you enjoyed all the amazing artwork my CTMH friends have created... Now it’s time to head on over to Emma Hubert's blog and see her artwork! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to get some great crafting ideas! Look for our next Blog Hop where we will feature beautiful Valentine projects, see you soon! 

Documenting December with Close To My Heart

As soon as the evening get a little nippy and the leaves start to turn my Pinterest feed begins to tempt me with December Daily inspiration. I start to feel the familiar little nudge to dig into my Christmas drawer and see what gems I have leftover from last year and to wonder what new Christmas paper will be available.

I wasn't at all sure what I wanted to do this year. I have done one album with traditional 12 x12 pages, one 12 x 12 pocket page album, one 10 x10 full of very simple traditional pages, one 6x8 album and finally last year I did an 8.5 x 11 album. I really enjoy the challenge of a new format every year so I toyed with the idea of a very small album focussing on only one picture everyday but then I found out my sister and her family are coming to spend Christmas with us this year. I knew I would have far too many photos to be comfortable pulling off a small album. Luckily I found the new Heidi Swapp 8x8 albums and I got excited because it was a new size and I could still fit a ton of pictures in it.

Of course I choose the gold glitter one because I still have so much gold left over from last year.

The next step in the December documenting process is to choose the paper you are going to use. I like to start with a co-ordinating collection and then match that with a few bits and pieces that I like from other collections. This year I also wanted to make sure that everything I used was easy to get, either through myself at CTMH or Michaels. Due to the ever increasing exchange rate, shipping costs and limited quantities I am not interested in doing any online shopping right now.

As soon as I saw the new Christmas paper collection from CTMH I fell in love and knew that I would be using it as the basis of my album this year. CTMH even created a set of Picture My Life cards to go with the paper that had the numbers one to twenty-five on them! I also love that this collection will still coordinate with last years set of which I still have a few cards left over.

White Pines paper collection

sticker and die cut assortment

White Pines badge buttons

PML cards numbered 1 through 25 and every card has the same design on the back in the opposite orientation

clear photo overlays in silver and gold

Fundamentals stickers alphabets, titles, labels, and icons

Fundamental Assortment iIncludes 6 wooden stickers, 6 paper bows with gold or silver foil patterns, 8 plastic clips, and a 6" × 6" sheet of glitter stickers.

I will also be using a few goodies cut out with my CTMH circuit cartridges using some of the new red and gold glitter paper!

I will also be making my own pocket pages this year using the new fuse tool (love this!) and of course I will use lots of flip flaps of all sizes to add even more pictures and pretty paper to my album. 

Stay tuned for pictures of my foundation pages.

My next order will be going in on November 1st if you want any of these items for your Christmas scrapbooking projects. 

Make It Crafty Seasonal Blog Hop

Welcome to the •MAKE•IT•Crafty• Seasonal Blog Hop! 

This month we will be featuring Halloween and Fall creations. 


If you’ve arrive from Natalie Racine's Blog, you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way around. If you get lost, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants here.

This month we have a number of Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using various CTMH products to help you get in the mood for all the fun activities that Fall brings us.

For this blog hop I knew right away that I wanted to use the new Sangria paper line. I just knew that our family pictures from last October would go perfectly with the gorgeous colours in this collection.

Products used in this layout:

Sangria Complements 

Sangria Paper Collection

Fundamentals Stickers Enchantment Pack

Thank you so much for following along on our Blog Hop today! I hope you enjoyed all the lovely artwork... Now it’s time to head on over to Pam Furlong's Blog and see her artwork! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their blogs to get some great crafting ideas! Look for our next Blog Hop where we will feature beautiful Christmas projects, see you soon! 

A new Scrapbooking Season is Here!

 The 2015/2016 CTMH Annual Inspirations Idea book has finally arrived! 

6 All New Paper and Embellishment Collections!

Zoe

Sangria

La Vie En Rose

Kaleidoscope

Georgie

Urban

3 New Alphabet Stamp Sets:

Inked

Jennifer's Hand

Typography

New Colour Fundamentals

patterned cardstock collections

sticker packs

assortement sets

7 New Picture My Life Card Sets

Georgie

Childhood

Through the Year

Going Places

overlays in gold and silver

overlays in black

Beautiful You

New Cricut Artistry Collection

4 New Embossing Folders

4"x4" instagram album and accessories

3 Card Workshop Kits

New Base and Bling jewellery

6 new enamel embellishments

3 new shimmer trims:

coral, green and aqua

gold and silver foil tape

thick twine in 7 colours

gold and red glitter paper (finally!)

watercolour paper, paints and brushes

one new punch

3 new organizational products

7 new colours

40 new stamp sets

m-size stamp set for all United States and Canadian provinces

plus more

Click here to see all the new products online.

Also available now is the 2015 Holiday Expressions Idea Book. This mini catalogue contains all of our Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas products. 

2 new paper and embellishment collections

Nevermore (Halloween)

White Pines (Christmas/Winter)

White Pines Picture My Life Card Set

3 Christmas card workshops

plus more

Click here to see all the new products in this idea book online

September is also National Stamping Month!

Available only during the month of September, these exclusive C-size My Acrylix®Hello, Life! stamp sets can be purchased for $16.50 each! Or, for an even better deal, you can purchase all three for only $41.50 —a savings of $8!

September Stamp of the Month

You can own this gorgeous floral stamp set for only $6 after a qualifying purchase. 

I hope these new products inspire you to get scrapbooking and card making as much as it does me! 

Watch this space for a blog hop on October 2nd that I will be participating in using some of these new products. 

Summer Creations Blog Hop

Welcome to the •MAKE•IT•Crafty• Seasonal Blog Hop! 

This month we will be featuring summer paper crafting creations.

If you’ve arrive from Pam Furlong's Blog, you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way around. If you get lost, you’ll find the complete list of participating consultants here.

This month we have a number of Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using various CTMH products to help you get in the mood to scrapbook your summer fun. Not that we need a lot of help in that area! I have been ready for summer for months now!

Because February was so cold here I decided that I needed to immerse myself in summer photos to remind me that we actually do get nice weather here! Here are my creations:

The first collection of layouts is an entire week long camping trip we took last summer. I chose the pocket page approach because of the number of photos I wanted to use. Most of the paper used in this project is the Seaside Picture My Life (PML) collection but I also used some Surf's Up and Hopscotch PML cards and a few other non-CTMH cards and embellishments.

the happy birthday picture is actually a flip flap

Products Used:

Seaside Picture My Life

Seaside Compliments

Surf's Up Picture My Life

For Always Picture My Life

Hopscotch Picture My Life - retired

lagoon hearts washi tape

black arrow washi tape

4" x 6" flip flaps

memory protectors

For the next set of layouts I used the National Scrapbooking Month Taste of Summer exclusive paper collection to document a BBQ. I was so happy to see the colours worked so well with these pictures even though they were taken 2 years ago! I added my journalling and a few more embellishments after taking these pictures.

Products Used:

Taste of Summer paper collection

Blossom compliments

This next set of layouts is one of my favourites using the Surf's Up Picture My Life kit.

this is the title page that comes with the full PML kit

this is the back side of the title page

Products Used:

Surf's Up Picture My Life

Surf's Up stickers and embellishments - retired

gold polka dot washi tape

camper crazy stamp set

Thank you so much for following along on our Blog Hop today! I hope you enjoyed all the lovely artwork... Now it’s time to head on over to Natalie Racine's Blog and see her artwork! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their Blogs to get some great summertime crafting ideas! 

Look for our next Blog Hop in the fall where we will feature products from the new 2015-2016 Annual Inspirations Idea book! But first enjoy your summer!