Rock the Block

Hi Everyone!

I hope you had a fantabulous Christmas and a Great New Year! I hope you received all of your crafty wishlist. I know I got to check some of my list off. My son, in collaboration with my wonderful husband, gave me a new sewing machine and some storage units for my soon-to-be-finished craftroom in the basement. My husband and I had decided to not buy for each other this year because of other financial committments but does he listen? No, of course not! So I received a new digital camera (since I got mine wet in the ocean last winter) and a rolling portable scraptote! :) Now to get my things organized!

One of my thoughts for improvement this year is to get my office/scraproom up and running in an efficient way. It sure is nice to get all of my stuff out of my diningroom! I also plan on posting more often. I'm not ready to do everyday just yet, but maybe when my work contract is up?

For today's post, I just want to share some of the great deals going on with CTMH this month. This is the last month for our Fall/Winter catalog and then our Spring/Summer 2012 will become available. I've had a sneak peak and there are a lot of great papers coming. Including some "man friendly" ones! There are also some great deals online in the "While Supplies Last" section, so click on the link above to check it out.
When you place a minimum order of $25 from the Autumn/Winter 2011 Idea Book, you can get two valuable new products for just $15: the My Creations^® Collage Cubes (a Spring/Summer 2012 sneak-peek product!) and the exclusive My Acrylix^® Rock the Block E-size stamp set (available only during this promotion). This Rock the Block promotion represents a retail savings of almost $30! You're going to love the collage cubes and the Rock the Block stamp set, which work together for interactive, fashionable fun! Check out this great video demonstrating some ideas that you can use with Rock the Block!

Also, for those of you who are Studio J members (our fantastic digital scrapbook option), there is a special January promotion.

A Perfect 10!
January is free layout month for Studio J^® members! For every 9 custom-printed Studio J layouts you buy, you’ll receive the 10th layout free. To receive the discount, just add 10 or more layouts to your cart. You’ll see a discount reflected in your order total. And you can totally take advantage of this promotion by ordering in multiples of 10. Buy 9, get 1 free. Buy 18, get 2 free. Buy 27, get 3 free. And so on! If you’re not a member yet, now’s a great time to join!

Dates: Offer valid January 1, 2012–January 31, 2012.

And last, but definitely not least, is our January Stamp of the Month deal called Little Reminder. With any purchase of just $50 from the Fall/Winter catalogue you can buy this stamp set for $5.00.

Oh, and the best news of all is that now the prices in Canada are the same as the United States! So you will see a bit of a drop in the prices of some of our items! Great news for us!

Hope you have a scrapaliscious day!

Karen

Gift Box and Card Set

Yeh, I finally had a chance to download some pics off my hubby's camera, so here is the gift box and card set that I mentioned in the last post.

The paper I used for this project was from an older package called Passages. These became available online in the "While Supplies Last" a few months ago. I scooped up several packs as I really liked the paper and intend to do a scrapbook of the trips I take with my friend who is more like a sister to me. It was a tough decision to break into this paper, but I'm glad I did as the result was fantastic!

The box is just the right size for A2 cards and envelopes. It is called My Creations Card Box and retails for $5.50 Canadian. The first thing that I did was inked the edges of the box (it's originally white) with my Chocolate Distressing Ink from my distressing kit.

Then I measured and cut the strips of paper for all the sides. I cut them 1/4 " smaller than the actual dimensions. I used my handy dandy pink ATG to adhere the paper to the box. The postcard on top came with the Stickease and I simply layered it onto the chocolate brown cardstock. The phrase "every day cards" was stamped using a small alphabet set of stamps that had been a constant campaign. Sorry I can't give you the name right now, I'm in the process of having my floors redone and a craft room built in the basement so items are scattered all over and some are packed in boxes! I can't wait until all these renovations are done!

I used a glue dot to adhere the bookmark which also came with the Passages paper kit and then I simply slide my postcard into it. The ribbon is from CTMH as well. The only embellishment that is not a CTMH product is the slide I put on the front. The came in a pack from a sales rack at one of my favourite stores, Michael's.

And now for the cards. All of the cards are A2 size and I simply used standard envelopes to go with them. This gift was for an Aunt and Uncle of my husband. They had travelled to visit us so that the Uncle could perform communion blessings for my step-daughters after their baptism. Although they were quite excited and honoured to be able to perform this, I felt it was important to acknowledge it with a gift, I and knew that something made with love and care would be appreciated so much more than a bought item.



Without further ado, here are the cards! They are all made with strictly CTMH papers, stamps and inks. I kept them simple and made a variety of types of cards. I didn't take pictures of the insides, but I always made sure they had a light colour to write their message on and some sort of paper decorated them.

I like the torn paper effect with our white core papers.

I did different generation stamping for the same sentiment, leaving one to stand out. I think this sentiment is actually just a wooden stamp that I had laying around and is not a CTMH stamp.

Decided to change up the colours a bit and still have them coordinate. Love the double sided CTMH paper for that!

Used 2 inks when stamping this sentiment!

Love the buttons and hemp. The canvas buttons were easy to stamp using CTMH inks and a patterned stamp from the Token Alphabet stamp set. The Hello was again a small wooden stamp that I had picked up from Michael's.

I hope you enjoyed getting to see this project, finally! I enjoyed making and giving it and I'll probably do it again. It would make a great hostess gift to have on hand. Check out my website by clicking on my badge. We have a great promo coming up. I'll chat about it on my next post, but I'll give you a hint...think of a child's block puzzle!

Keep on crafting!

Karen