Upcoming Workshops

Well, it's time for me to get back to being me...including Close to my Heart.  It's been a fun 4 months with baby Tyson, but I've been itching to create.  Hopefully you are itching too, and will be able to join me for one of my upcoming workshops!

SPRING!
I don't know about you, but I'm ready for SPRING!  Here's a fun banner to welcome in bright, happy colors and flowers!  Plus, you will get to make 4 baby cards (2 boy, 2 girl).  Banner measures about 4" x 24", cards are 4" x 4".

This workshop will be held  

Friday, February 22nd: 7:00-9:00pm

Workshop fee: $16 

Sign up before February 15th, or asap, as space is limited!

IF YOU PLACED AN ORDER SINCE TYSON WAS BORN: you will get to make the banner for FREE!  Add the cards for just $5 more!  Please let me know if you would like to come make the banner!  All orders placed between September 14-January 14th count, including Studio J!

Black and White Birthday!

I'm in LOVE with the new "For Always" paper!  So elegant and stunning!  It can be paired with almost all of our colors, and does not disappoint.

This workshop includes 2 each of the 3 cards below (6 cards total), and 3 clear pillowboxes (great for small gifts like jewelry, candy, gift cards, etc.).  

This workshop will be held April 12th and 13th.  

Friday, April 12th: 7:00-9:00pm

Saturday, April 13th: 10:00am-Noon

Workshop fee: $16 

Sign up before April 3rd, or asap, as space is limited!

Quick and Cute
This has to be one of the easiest workshops ever!  Make 4 each of 4 designs, total of 16 - 3x3 cards, including envelopes!  Perfect for adding to your gifts, plates of goodies, or a quick note to a friend.  Only one of them says anything (you're sweet), the rest are wide open to interpretation--they can be for anything you need a little card for!

This workshop will be held June 14th and 15th.  

Friday, June 14th: 7:00-9:00pm

Saturday, June 15th: 10:00am-Noon

Workshop fee: $16 

Sign up before June 3rd, or asap, as space is limited!

Color Dare #29 ~ Blush & Cranberry

I love doing the Color Dare challenges, but lately I keep forgetting to look at the challenge before it's too late.  This week, I remembered!!!

Here's my take on the Blush and Cranberry Challenge.

For this card I used the following:
Whoos' your Valentine (December/January Special)
Cranberry and Blush Cardstock
Black and Gray Glitter Paper (lightest gray)
White Bulk card base
Cranberry Pigment Ink
Blush Exclusive Ink
Colonial White Rosette Ribbon
Bitty Silver Brad
Bitty sparkles
Foam Tape

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the "let's be friends" is curled.  The card layout was inspired by the "For Always" Workshop on the Go Cardmaking Kit.

Wait, I think this one is even better, I mounted it on a Cranberry Card base 6 x 4-3/4" now

Studio J® Tricks to Add Flair to Your Layouts

This information was provided by CTMH.  

I would love to see some of your Studio J layouts after you take advantage of October's SWEET promotion.  Buy 9 layouts, get your 10th FREE!

Even though Studio J^® is fast and easy to use, it is helpful to know some great tricks that can make customizing your layouts even more exciting. Here are some Studio J tricks straight from our professional Close To My Heart artists:
1. Customize your background and texture paper. You can change the color and intensity of the background and texture paper included in whichever kit you choose. Simply select the piece of background and texture paper, change the color in the color selection tool, and increase or decrease the intensity of the color in that same popup box.
2. Crop My Stickease^® quotes, titles, and tags. The cropping feature on the My Stickease images allows you to select a section of a quote, title, or tag to use as a border or other embellishment.
3. Create a customized My Stickease image. If you have a specific image in mind to use as an embellishment on your page, you can create a customized My Stickease to fit your theme perfectly. Simply add a text box, photo hanger, ribbon, ribbon slides, and Stickease to create the little suitcase! So easy! Be sure to crop or send elements behind other elements when necessary, and add several elements together for a unique look!

4. Select more than one element at a time. If you want to move several elements of your layout at once, simply click and drag your mouse around the elements you would like to select. Let’s take buttons, for example. After the buttons have been selected, you can click the icons in the popup box to choose to align the buttons vertically or horizontally if you desire.
5. Make faux washi tape with vellum text boxes. To create the look of a piece of clear washi tape, make a small rectangular text box, filled with vellum background (this is the default color for text boxes). You can make the tape strips as large or small as you want, or even layer them for more emphasis.

6. Stretch one photo across multiple photo wells. If you have fewer photos than photo wells, instead of deleting the excess wells, try scaling the picture to a larger size and then copying the picture to other photo wells and matching the photos up until they align with an almost seamless image. This trick works best with photo wells that are adjacent to each other.
7. Create ruffled ribbon. Select “Ribbons” in the drop-down menu under the Embellishments toolset. Choose ribbon tab and rotate the tab so that it is vertical on the page. Then layer several tabs on top of one another, sending every other one to the back to create a ruffled look.

8. Create a jagged border with text boxes. You can create a jagged border simply by rotating multiple text boxes about 45 degrees and making them the same color as the background. Put these boxes on top of a long, rectangular box of another color, and you’ve got a jagged border!

9. Change the background of your layout. Sometimes you may like the photo and journal arrangement in a layout, and yet want to change the background colors. Because photos sit on top of everything else, this is easy to do. Simply pull a journaling box over the space you want for a different background and fill it with a color from the color selection tool or a patterned paper from the Papers toolset. Then, send it backwards until the photo wells are on top of your new background.
Bonus Trick! Use keyboard keys to make embellishments. Did you know that some of the best tools for creating custom embellishments are the basic keys on your keyboard? It’s as simple as typing into a journaling box with no background color. Use periods to make a polka dot pattern, angle brackets to create a trendy Chevron look, overlapping pound signs to make burlap, question marks to make rope, and so much more!

Time for Some Serious Studio J!

Did you hear about the great promotion for October?  For every 9 layouts you purchase, you get 1 free!  I already have 5 layouts done, and I'm sure I'll have no problem coming up with pictures for the remaining 5.  But, if I get all crazy and do 18, I can get 2 more free!

Get started on your layouts NOW!

Here are some pictures I'm excited to get on a new layout: (thanks to Kimberley!!!)

He's such a cute baby!  We are keeping him!!!

I'm taking a break...his name is Tyson!

Friends,

Here's a little known fact - we were chosen to be the adoptive parents for a sweet baby due any minute now!  His name will be Tyson, and we couldn't be more excited!!!  Since we don't know exactly when he will be born (maybe he already is, when you are reading this!), I feel like I can't really make any major plans.  So, I won't be doing my fall open house this year.  I am also not planning on any workshops until at least the first part of next year.

In the meantime, I am going to make you an offer, I hope you won't want to refuse!  From now, until my next open house, I am offering you NO SHIPPING AND TAX!!!   That's pretty much my price on stuff!  Place orders as often as you want, and get everything for just the retail price!  (except on Studio J, I can't figure out how to make that work)

Anyone who takes advantage of this great offer will be invited to a special workshop that I will host in either January or February.  We will make something fun, and it won't cost anything. BUT, in order to be invited, you need to place an order between now and then!

So, get over here, and get your catalog, then shop as often as you want, (email me your order, and I will enter it, so you can get the discount).  I can even take credit cards.

Thanks for supporting me through this baby time, I'm excited to not stress out about anything but him for a while!!!

:)
Karen

Introducing: Artiste!

I'm thrilled to share Cricut Cartridge Artiste with you.  It is available only from a CTMH consultant (LIKE ME!).  And it's amazing!  I love all of the 3D items you can make with it.  Boxes, purses, bags, flowers, yo-yo's and so much more.  Plus, it's got a great Font, shapes, and lots of coordinating stamp sets to go with it.

Get this amazing cartridge (including an instruction book for all of the 3D items) along with 3 exclusive - and cute - stamp sets, and 3 sets of dimensional elements for just $99!  Available NOW at my website: My CTMH store.  If you would like a catalog or more information please email me at KarensAStamper at gmail.com.  I'd love to hear from you!

Why I Love Studio J

I don't know if you've ever heard me go on about Studio J, but you are about to!    Let me share my top 10 reasons why I love Studio J  - then I challenge you to try it out!  There's no commitment, just log on, create a quick account, and start playing around.  If you LOVE what you create, THEN you can purchase layouts for just $6.95 each!  No trips to Costco to pick up pictures, no sifting through all your paper and embellishments, just grab your credit card, and sit back a few days and your layouts will be on your doorstep before you know it!

Now... the Top 10 Reasons Why I Love Studio J

 1.  You can complete layouts in just minutes, with an internet connection.  This layout was completed before Josh got to lunch on his first day of school (this is last year, this year's is done, but I haven't ordered it yet--it's just a cute and took even less time with the Express Collection Layouts).

                            

2.  You can use lots of sizes of pictures, without planning ahead. Don't you hate waiting until you have your layout finished to print your pictures?  Or, worse, get all you pictures in 4x6, then find out that you want to use 3 - 5x7's and 6 - 2x2 pictures (as shown below)?  It's pretty great to just upload the pictures, then drag and drop them to the photo well, and they become whatever size you need!  You can even zoom in on them, and do some editing within Studio J!

3.  Funky shapes and sizes don't scare me! In the layout below you will notice some wedge shaped pictures.  Simple to do and creates a fun visual for your page!  Drag and drop, no measuring, templates, cutting and messing up!

4. Create multiple pages for different people.  The layouts below were so easy.  I quickly made layouts for 3 different family members.  One for us, one for Jake & his wife, and one for my in-laws.  They are similar but specific to each recipient.  (And, I must report, everyone was thrilled with their layouts!)

Our layout has a picture of my husband and his brother, and highlights our favorite part of the graduation ceremony--the soldiers coming out of the smoke-very cool!

This one is for his parents.

And finally the layout for Jake and his family

5.  To Journal or Not to Journal.  There are so many layout choices.  Some include lots of picture spots and journaling areas, and some don't.  There are titles on every page and space for journaling, however, you can change a journaling spot into a picture spot, and vice versa.  So much flexibility!

6.  Scrapbooks you can look at all day long.  With Studio J, when you order your 12x12 layout prints, you also get a set of .jpg images.  One of the images is great for sharing layouts on your blog, facebook page, emailing, etc., while the other one is two large files one for each page of your layout.  These can be used to re-print layouts at photo shops, or you can load them onto a SIM card and display them on a digital picture frame.  Josh loves to turn it on and look through the pages one at a time, it can occupy him (or me) for hours!

7.  Reprint all you want.  With Studio J's .jpg images, you can upload them to Costco and reprint your layouts for just $2.99 per page.  This is very convenient, but you can also reprint them from Studio J for up to one year.  While Costco's prints are less expensive, Studio J's quality can't be beat!  Studio J layouts are "custom printed to the highest quality, made to last a lifetime".

8.  Reasonable shipping charges Studio J layouts are shipped via USPS, and you can have between 4-50 layouts shipped directly to you for just $5.95.  Here's an idea, set a goal each month for how many layouts you want to create, and that you can afford.  Create your layouts, and put the $6.95/layout in an envelope or savings account each month.  Be sure to check in every 30 days or so, so they know you are still working on them!  Then when you have enough layouts to justify the $5.95 shipping (at least 4 are needed), then you can place your order and use the money you have saved up each month to pay for them.  Be sure to order every 90 days so they will save your work!

9.  Super easy to use!  Studio J is very intuitive.  You can figure it out quite quickly.  BUT if you do have problems, shoot me an email or give me a call and I can help you any time!  I taught myself almost everything (my friend Adana also discovered some fun stuff I didn't know!).

10.  It's FUN!  It's fun to come home from an event and scrapbook it right then, in just a few minutes!  Sometimes I will get home, drop everything, and scrapbook those fun pictures just minutes after taking them.  While I have to wait a few days for them to be delivered, I can enjoy the process of making them immediately.  All it takes is an internet connection and some pictures.

C'mon.  Go try it now!