Last Day

Tomorrow is the last day to take advantage of the Studio J pricing and my black Friday deal. Check out this post for more details! Also click here to go to my website.

Gone for a bit

I am going to be out of town for a family reunion and Thanksgiving, so I am not going to be posting daily, and I may or may not post at all, we will just have to see how things go. So I wanted to leave you with a little something to look forward to. I have a few plans for December and they include the following:

Cut Above class for all my local buddies

12 days of Christmas for all my customers. This will be here on the blog, I will have 12 specials, one per day and you can only get them that day. To get them you just have to call, text or email me saying you want the deal of the day (and how many you want). I will add it to your "bag" and at the end of the 12 days I will let you know what your total is and get it shipped out to you. Super fun way to get some stocking stuffers, or other small items you have been having your eye on but haven't gotten yet, and I may have a big item for you on the 12th day.

A series on gifts you can make and give away. Everyone loves a homemade gift, but sometimes it is hard to figure out what to make. I will have a couple of posts with some fun ideas and tutorials.

The December special from Close to My Heart is huge and I can't wait to share it with you!

So with that I will sign off and see you again after Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh don't forget that with any $100 you get a free paper pack, just let me know which one you want!

Big Day

Saturday was a big day for my oldest little. She decided that she wanted to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My husband's mom and sister flew in for the event. My parents were going to drive up from Boise to be with us, but I-84 was closed after a small storm earlier in the week and the weather people were predicting a bigger storm on Saturday night which meant they couldn't get home if they had come. We were all a little bummed, but the event was still beautiful and meant a lot to all of us. Because of the big event and having family in town, I didn't get a lot of time to create something, so I thought I would share a layout I did in Studio J with a couple of photos I snapped of my daughter in her baptism dress (she wasn't actually baptized in it, but it is a white dress that symbolizes the event and she can wear it every Sunday to church.)

I am planning on stamping and cutting out a few flowers and adding them to this layout to make it feel a little more finished. I hope you all had a great weekend!

Teaser

I am not sure if you remember or not, but when Close to My Heart changed this year to an Annual Idea Book they also announced that they would release a few Seasonal Expressions books. The first Seasonal Expressions goes live December 1st, so I thought that it would be fun to tease you a little with a few pictures of products within the Seasonal Expressions. Here you go:

This Seasonal Expression has some fun spring, Valentine's Day, and Love themed products. There is something for everyone: scrapbookers, cardmakers. There are some fun Cut Above kits and a ton of fun stamps. I can't wait till December! I will be doing a fun 12 days of Christmas where I will be giving a little discount on 12 different items. More details will be coming soon, so stay tuned!

Christmas card from Cut Above

Yesterday I was able to catch a little time and I put together the rest of my Cut above Christmas cards. Here is what they look like:

I really LOVE how fast and easy these cards come together! I had 20 minutes and that is all it took to put 10 cards together. This one is the Christmas Card kit (z2064) and yesterday's was the Holiday Card kit (z2065). Both make 10 5x7 cards and come with really fun, cute, and matching envelopes.

The other thing I love about these kits is that all you need is one stamp set and you can make both kits, plus the stamp set is a B sized so it is only $9.95. It is called Merriest Christmas (b1468).  You can get everything you need to complete your own kits at Sharesa.ctmh.com.

Happy Thursday!

Bazaar preparations

Guess what, I made time yesterday and was able to get a few things done on my crafting to do list. In fact I was able to get quite a bit done which makes me really happy! I first finished the Snowhaven card Workshop on the Go and ended up with 5 each of the following cards:

Then I had just 15 min left in my allotted time and busted out 10 of the following 5x7 cards using the Cut Above series (I am in love with this series!):

We will see what I can get done today, I am hoping to get the other set of Christmas Cut Above cards finished and ready to go for a Bazaar that I will be at the first weekend in December.

Tuesday

So this past weekend I got sick and now I am trying to play catch-up with everything, laundry, bathrooms, rooms etc. To add to that I have family coming into town this weekend for a big day for my oldest (she has chosen to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Then next Tuesday we leave for a family reunion/vacation. Needless to say crafting is taking a back seat for the moment. So I thought I would stop in and remind you of the awesome deals going on this month: First Studio J is $5 per layout this month with a ton of specials going on as well, free stuff if you are lucky! Second: I am giving away a free paper pack with every $100 spent on my website. Also there is the stamp of the month that is $5 with a $50 purchase. Check it all out on my website and I will hopefully be back tomorrow!

Studio J Special-Are you Lucky?

Just a reminder that November marks the five-year anniversary of Studio J®, and that means it’s your lucky month, with five amazing ways to win through Studio J and Close To My Heart social media!

1. First, throughout the month of November, all layouts purchased in Studio J are $5! That is a savings of over 25% off of retail!

2. Your second chance to win big must come by sheer luck: every fifth order placed in Studio J during November receives a FREE surprise Close To My Heart accessory in its shipping box! The accessory has a retail value of $5 or more.

3. If luck doesn’t smile on you in that way, you might stumble upon it by finding a little extra something in your Studio J box. Five “golden tickets” will be sent out during the month of November with randomly selected Studio J print orders. This “golden ticket” is redeemable for one of Close To My Heart’s new D-ring albums* loaded with 10 Top Load Memory Protectors™.

4. For a fourth way to win, simply create new, gorgeous layouts in Studio J, select your favorites, and then post pictures of them on Close To My Heart’s Facebook page using the hashtag #ctmhlucky5. After November 30, five lucky winners will be selected from the entries based on their artistry and creativity and each of these winners will receive their own D-ring album loaded with 10 Top Load Memory Protectors!

5. And there is one last way to win: take your new Studio J artwork and post a picture of it on Instagram using the hashtag #ctmhlucky5. Just as it is with Facebook, after November 30, five lucky winners will be selected from the entries to receive their own D-ring album loaded with 10 Top Load Memory Protectors!

To make things even more exciting, five brand new kits from the Annual Inspirations idea book are available in Studio J, so you can create new artwork using the latest papers and embellishments from Close To My Heart. With so many ways to win, five may be new your new lucky number! Log in to Studio J and start creating today.

Express Collections in Studio J

The Express Collections in Studio J are some of my favorite to work with. They are a collection of layouts that are all finished, all you do is add your journaling and photos and you are set. No need to figure out what paper you want, or what color to make something, it is all done for you. You can change them up if you would like and I will show you how. First, when you click on Express Collections this is what you will see next:

I am not sure why the Autumn/Winter 2013 Retreat isn't showing up right, but it is there. Today I decided to work on a few photos of my Little E, so I picked the Little Miss collection. I liked the first layout so I picked that one

I put my photos in and resized them using the percentage drop down menu. One thing that I love about this option of changing the picture size is that it tells me how big I can make the picture before it looks bad. It does this with the slider going from green (good) to red (bad) with yellow in the middle (warning, might not look how you want it to). I didn't have enough photos to fill all the photo wells, so I just changed two of the photo wells into journaling spots. This is really easy to do. You click on the photo well and the photo editing box will pop up, next you click on the square at the top of the box with a T and some lines:

Then add your text. I also changed the color of my text by selecting the color box at the top of the text editing pop up window. I picked Slate.

Then I wanted to have the text show up as if it was on a piece of White Daisy Cardstock so I clicked on the other color bloco box in the text editing pop up window and selected White Daisy.

And that is it, now my layout is complete and it took me all of 5 minutes. LOVE it!

Oh and just a reminder, Studio J is free to use, yup FREE, so why not log on and try it out today?

Adding details in Studio J

Today's project is going to look a little than what I left you with yesterday. I just wasn't feeling the colors in the pictures with the color with the paper. So I switched to pictures of my husband's birthday. I only have 2 pictures from his birthday, mostly because I took a lot of video. So I picked a layout with two photos wells and that I liked the paper colors. Here is what I started with once I added the photos:

My next step was to change up the paper just a little to suit my tastes. To do this I clicked on the paper tab over on the left side of the webpage.

I just changed the color of the accented cardstock and the color of the cardstock that is behind the pictures. I wanted to add a little texture and felt that the green was a little too bright. The next thing I did was add a title using the My Stickease title. To do that I first deleted the title spot:

Next I added some color to the ribbon and metal accessories that were already on the page. I choose the color Thistle because then the color would pop. I also made the bow a little bigger by using the percentage drop down menu.

Next I added some embellishments from the My Stickease large selection. One of the presents that I added was a little bit big, so I used the percentage drop down menu again to make the present fit into the piece of cardstock that I wanted it to.

As I was putting together the cake Stickease I did the plate first, and then the top layer and then the middle layer. That layered the pieces in a way that made it look like one piece not three. I added the candle to the top of the cake and that made me want to move the Thistle metal embellishment to the left a little. Moving the hinge was easy, but I needed to zoom in to move all the little brads into their places. To do this I went to the top of the website and used the percentage drop down and moved it to 300%, then I used the slider bar at the bottom so that I could see what I needed to see.

All I have left is to add my journaling, as you might have noticed there is a vellum over the journaling area, to do that you click on the journaling and a box will pop up. Then you click on the little box of colors and I picked the Crystal Blue cardstock color so that it coordinated with the background cardstock.

And that is it. I now have a completed layout that took me 20-30 minutes to make and it is ready to go.

All I need to do now is buy it and hope that I am one of the lucky ones that gets a golden ticket or an album for free this month. To find out more details about today's special just go here. Let me know if you have any questions or neec help with a layout.

Studio J How to

Since this month's special with Close to My Heart is a Studio J special ($5 for a layout, crazy good!) I thought that I would do a quick turtorial on how to use Studio J. Your first step is to go to my website and click on the Products Tab and then click on the Studio J Online Scrapbooking tab and this will take you to the Studio J website that looks like this:

Click on the enter now and log into your Close to My Heart account, or create a new one. You should end up on a page that looks like this:

Over on the right you can see that there are a few options for you, if this is your first time you should click on Create New Project. If you have been before and are coming back to work on something than you can click on Go to My Project. Once you click on Create New Project you get to name it before moving on. Today I am working on my daughter's birthday, so I named mine S's 8th Birthday.

Now you get to upload photos. The easiest way is to put whatever photos you want to use in a folder on your desktop. This makes it really easy to find your photos to upload. The photos will take a little while to upload, so please be patient, maybe grab a snack while you wait, play one of your favorite songs and then go back and let the fun begin!

Once your photos have upload you can click on continue and then you get to pick either to start with an Express Collection or Create Your Own Layout. I choose Create your own layout because I am wanting to use the Confetti Wishes with all these fun birthday photos.

This is what you will see if you pick Creat Your Own Layout. These are all the new kits that have been added.

Up in the right there is a drop down menu where you can pick the number of photos you have. I have 5 photos so I picked 5 photos in the drop down. Then you just pick one of the which layout you like the best. I am a sucker for the Honeycomb layout so I picked that one. Here is what I saw next:

I picked kit one because I loved the look of those fun colors on the gray.

All you have to do now is drop in your photos and go through some options and add in the details. I will be back tomorrow to show you just how to do that.

Thankful/Black Friday Special

I am going to share a special with you that is ONLY available through ME. All month long, any order of $100 will receive a FREE paper pack of your choice. Here is how it works. You go here and you order $100 worth of product. Then you email me (sharesalarsen@gmail.com) and tell me which of the following paper packs you want:

Then I will get them ordered and sent your way. So easy! I just want to thank all of you for being such great customers and helping me out in reaching my Close to My Heart goals. So have fun shopping and getting those items you ned for Christmas crossed off your list, or just buy yourself a little something to play and create with. If you have any questions just let me know! Happy Monday!

My little guy

I Love the way this layout turned out! This is my son's first hair cut. We waited till he was 15 months old to cut it and I had a really hard time! It was really cute and wavy and when we cut it all that wave was gone and it has never come back (insert sad face here). 

I used some retired Later Skater paper and stickease. You can still get the real shimmer trim, the slate striped twist ties and the triangle stud durables.  You can get them all here on my website. I hope you all have a great weekend and I will see you on Monday with some more fun artwork.

A birthday layout

Since this little has turned 8 I thought that I should get a few more of her birthday layouts done. I finished her 5th birthday layout and since I used one of the stamps from her current birthday party invites I thought I would share it here on my blog.  Here is the left page of the layout:

Here is the right page:

I love the blue sparkle tape and sequins! I am also loving that I can use Picture my Life cards on traditional layouts. This layout uses a lot of items that are retired and no long available, like the patterned paper, the ribbon and the bird stamp. You can get the wood grain washi tape in a bundle of three on the While Supplies Last section of my website here.

It is $10.45 instead of $14.95, super good deal!

I love how this turned out and cannot wait till I get to scrapbook her birthday from this year.

What's New Wednesday

There have been a ton of things added to the While Supplies Last section on my website. Here are two examples:

$2.00 normally $5.95

$6.95 normally $9.95
I love it when new deals are added to the While the Supplies Last section, what I hate it missing the great deals, so hurry on over and check out the rest of the items and get what you want before they are gone! Just click here.

November Special

November marks the five-year anniversary of Studio J®, and that means it’s your lucky month, with five amazing ways to win through Studio J and Close To My Heart social media!

1. First, throughout the month of November, all layouts purchased in Studio J are $5! That is a savings of over 25% off of retail!

2. Your second chance to win big must come by sheer luck: every fifth order placed in Studio J during November receives a FREE surprise Close To My Heart accessory in its shipping box! The accessory has a retail value of $5 or more.

3. If luck doesn’t smile on you in that way, you might stumble upon it by finding a little extra something in your Studio J box. Five “golden tickets” will be sent out during the month of November with randomly selected Studio J print orders. This “golden ticket” is redeemable for one of Close To My Heart’s new D-ring albums* loaded with 10 Top Load Memory Protectors™.

4. For a fourth way to win, simply create new, gorgeous layouts in Studio J, select your favorites, and then post pictures of them on Close To My Heart’s Facebook page using the hashtag #ctmhlucky5. After November 30, five lucky winners will be selected from the entries based on their artistry and creativity and each of these winners will receive their own D-ring album loaded with 10 Top Load Memory Protectors!

5. And there is one last way to win: take your new Studio J artwork and post a picture of it on Instagram using the hashtag #ctmhlucky5. Just as it is with Facebook, after November 30, five lucky winners will be selected from the entries to receive their own D-ring album loaded with 10 Top Load Memory Protectors!

To make things even more exciting, starting November 1, five brand new kits from the Annual Inspirations idea book will be made available in Studio J, so you can create new artwork using the latest papers and embellishments from Close To My Heart. With so many ways to win, five may be new your new lucky number! Log in to Studio J and start creating today.