Jump on it July

July starts a new month and with it comes a new special and a new stamp of the month.  During the month of July, when you purchase $25 USD in current, retail priced stamps, you qualify to receive either the July Stamp of the Month, My Acrylix^® Life Is Wonderful, FREE or any one of the Hostess Rewards stamp sets featured in Annual Inspirations 2014–2015 or Seasonal Expressions 2 for only $5 USD! That is a savings of up to $17.95 USD! The July Stamp of the Month is a lovely, versatile stamp set that is a great match for your cards and layouts that celebrate all the wonderful things—big and small—that life has to offer. Additionally, the Hostess Rewards stamp sets have previously only been available as part of the Hostess Rewards program, which means now is the perfect opportunity to get those special stamp sets you’ve had your eye on! To get your FREE stamp set or your $5 USD Hostess Rewards stamp set, simply place an order for $25 USD of any current, retail priced stamps. This offer is available only during the month of July and applies only to the July Stamp of the Month and current Hostess rewards stamp sets, so spring into action and jump on this deal before it’s gone!

Organize Stamps with Evernote

Lately I have been doing a lot of scrapbooking, I think that the nesting phase is kicking in and I just HAVE to get more current on my scrapbooks.  This is actually fine with me, it helps me to not focus on all the crazy pregnancy stuff that is going on.  All this scrapbooking is making me wish I had a way to know which stamps I have and what images I have.  I also want to know what title stamps I have and what journaling or quote stamps are in my stash.  So I started doing a little search and came up with two FREE software programs/apps that can be my brain and keep track of my stamps.  The programs/apps are called Evernote and OneNote.  I decided to go with Evernote just because my husband uses it, and my laptop is kind of old and can't handle the software needed for OneNote.

I used the following video to help me get started.  I also set a small goal for myself so that I could keep moving on getting my stamp stash organized.  My goal was to put all my stamps into my Evernote Notebook from my Close to My Heart Large Organizer.



I found the video a little long winded, but did help me to know what steps to take and how to get started.   I am super excited about the search idea, how much easier it will be to run a search for butterfly and have a picture of all my stamps with butterflies and a note of where I am storing them.

Now some people have a lot of stamps (like hundreds), I don't have that many, mostly because if I am not using it I tend to sell it or give it to my daughter so she can use it, so the actual storage of my stamps is really simple.  I have one Large Organizer from Close to My Heart that has all my Everyday Life stamps (chevrons, travel, doily, birds, trees etc), Card making stamps, and Alphabet stamps.

I use the plastic dividers that you can also get through Close to My Heart to separate my stamps into the categories mentioned above.

I also have two of the My Acrylix Organizers that hold my stamps from the Workshops on the Go, and an unorganized one, that is going to get organized this week.

I thought I would share all of this because having things organized makes scrapbooking and cardmaking so my faster and simpler and easier, which is just how I like it!  Hopefully this helps someone and I will share a screen shot of my Evernote Notebook as soon as I am finished with it.

Happy Scrapbooking!

Use Your Stash blog hop If You Stamp It

Thanks for joining us on this blog hop where we are using some of our scrapbooking stashes.  If you have come from Heather Jane Schmuckal's blog you are on the right track!   This month we are featuring stamps that we bought because we loved them and when they arrived we forgot about them, put them away, or just didn't have a use for them at the moment.  I actually have a ton of stamps like this so it was really fun for me to grab a few and use them.

I used 3 brand new stamps on this layout, each stamps set featured a frame stamp that I used to run down the middle of my layout.  I used Sweet and Lovely from the Artbooking Cricut collection (D1571), a stamp from the Art Philosophy Cricut collection (D1496), and this months stamp of the month, Just Sayin' (S1505).  I also used a few other stamp sets, but I had used them before so I will list them at the end of this post.

This layout sketch came from the Stashbusters class that I took and featured awhile back from Big Picture Classes and I felt it was fitting for this blog hop. I hope you enjoyed this layout and blog hop.  To keep hopping just head over to Shirley Ross's blog.  

Happy scrapbooking!

List of materials used:

1358 White daisy cardstock

X7196B Blossom paper pack

D1571 Sweet and Lovely from Artbooking Cricut collection

D1496 Art Philosophy Cricut collection stamp set

S1505 Just Sayin' (this months stamp of the month)

C1429 Party Pennants 

C1474 10 Things

Marigold ShinHan marker

Z2105 black ink

Z3042 Coral Reef Sequins

Z1853 Aqua Dots

Z1799 Silver Shimmer Trim

All products can be found and purchased on my website.

Retiring Stamps

The following stamp designs, last featured in the Spring/Summer 2014 idea book, are being retired. They will no longer be available to order after January 31, 2015. These sets can be viewed in the “Retiring Items” category on my website.
 
A1124 A Tree
A1139 Congrats Graduate
A1141 Be Still
A1154 Friendly Thoughts
A1156 Flower Confetti
B1418 Love Doily
B1423 Hoppy Easter
B1439 Dreamer
B1440 Fancy Fair
B1441 Buggy Love
B1444 Greatest Love
B1445 Happy Hive
B1450 Owls
C1571 You're the Best
C1573 Do Your Best
C1574 Believe in Yourself
C1577 Mother's Day
C1579 Coming Up Roses
C1583 Robot Family
D1547 Paper Doll
D1579 Windy Day
M1035 Newlyweds
M1036 Perfect Polka-Dot Day
M1037 Balloons
M1038 Shooting Star
M1039 Good Job Stencil
M1040 Parasol
M1041 Hi
M1042 Colored Egg

Favorite Fridays-Alphabet stamps

I know that I said that I would be back with another Scaredy Cat layout, but I kind of changed my mind while I was working on the layout. I was stamping my title and said to myself, "I just LOVE this stamp set, I should share how much I love it on my blog." So I am. I have decided to start a series that I will have on my blog called Favorite Friday. This is where I will share some of my favorite things from Close to My Heart. To start off I will share three of my favorite alphabet stamp sets that you can get on my website: sharesa.ctmh.com.
It is hard to say which one of these alphabet stamps is my favorite, but I think it might have to be the new Handwritten Print (E1030)

Seriously, how cute is that alphabet! It is also the perfect size for titles, or if you wanted your journaling to be a bit bigger it works for that as well. What this picture doesn't show is that it also comes with a lower case of the same font. This allows me to use the lowercase letters to get a title that is a little smaller, but still has that handwritten look. LOVE!

My next favorite is the Framework Alphabet (E1027). This alphabet is fun because it just gives me the outlines of letters in a fun way.

It is a bit smaller than the Handwritten Print stamp set and works on cards as well as for titles to my scrapbooking layouts. Another thing that I LOVE about this stampset is that I have so many options, I can color them in, I can stamp them on patterned paper and cut them out, or I can leave them just as they are. And with the ShinHan Twin Touch Markers that we now sell I have a ton of options for colors.

The last alphabet stamp set that I have been using a lot is the Marquee Uppercase (E1029). I love the bold look of this alphabet stamp set.

I love the blocky, chunky, edgy look of these letters and use them whenever I am wanting to make a bold statement with my title. This stamp set feels like a modern take on your regular old block alphabet and I really like that feeling. Plus it reminds me of my school days and doodling the alphabet when I should be taking notes. I always tried to get that chunky on one side look and now I can just pull out this stamp set and viola I am done.
I hope that you enjoyed this post on my favorite alphabet stamp sets and look for these alphabets in the coming posts to see them in action. Happy weekend!