Spooky Banner {Cricut Artiste and Art Philosophy}

I bought some random Halloween papers at my local craft store a few years ago and they have been sitting, collecting dust ever since. All cute papers but nothing to go with them! That's one of the main things I love about Close To My Heart - everything coordinates! Not only that, but with My Reflections Paper Packs, you don't get home and have one really cute paper... and nothing to dress it up with.

 I've been on vacation this past week and spent it at home. Sometimes that can be really relaxing and sometimes it's not! I had a little of both this week and was able to spend my relax time on this fun project.

This banner is a combo effort, using both of CTMH's exclusive cartridges, Art Philosophy and Artiste and no stamping! Let Cricut do the work for you. I programmed cuts in between loads of laundry. The B&T's used for the pennants' bases are Little Yellow Bicycle. The rest of the products are all CTMH.

Using Art Philosophy, cut one pennant per B&T (the first striped and the last white bat are the same paper, different sides). Pennants: Stripes "S" pennant: Page 29, cut at 7"; Second "O" purple diamond: Page 29, cut at 10 1/2"; Spider web "P" pennant, page 60, cut at 9 1/4", White with black bat "Y" pennant, page 60, cut at 6 1/4"; Orange First "O" pennant, page 68, cut at 8", black graveyard "K" pennant cut with Fit To Page, which scaled at 11 1/2". Cut your letters in White Daisy cardstock using the Font Layer feature, all in lower case at 3": "S" page 42, "P" page 40, 2 letter "O" page 30, "K" page 38, "Y" page 36. Rosettes: Floral rosette in Orange (retired), page 41, using the Decorative Layer feature x 6 count; The Black Discs are the negative center of the circle frame on Page 41, using the Layer feature, cut at 1 1/2".

Artiste: Rosettes (cont.): page 50, cut 12 pinwheel flower strips in Pansy Purple (retired) at 1 1/2" (you need 2 per rosette.) Fold and adhere the ends together with a little Tombow Adhesive. Flatten and adhere to the pennants with Liquid Glass. Spider: Page 77, use Shift, Accent 4 plus the [Halloween] key, and cut at 2". Spiderweb Border: Page 76, use Shift, Accent 4 plus the [Eek!] key and cut at 1 1/2". Glowing Eyes: Page 77, use Shift, Accent 3 plus the [Halloween] key and cut at 4".

Tie on a little Black 1/4" stitched grosgrain ribbon and some D-rings and you're done!

Warm wishes,

Let's Start With Halloween

Happy New Year! Ok, so this is a little out of season... I created this layout a while ago for my Stamp Camp and it's been sitting naked since. I just didn't have the right number of Halloween photos to use. Admittedly, these are not the most technically correct photos I've ever taken, either. The blur that resulted from the wrong setting on my camera, made for some super spooky creepies! I also started with the Sweet Leaf and Silhoutete to begin with, thinking Silhouette was perfect for a webby wayout, er.. layout.

This past week, I saw a challenge on the Heart to Heart blog with a color challenge involving Pear, Sunset and Gypsy. I knew this was a perfect layout to modify so I could pursue that! Sadly, I couldn't quite get the Gypsy to fit with what was already there since I had absolutely NO gypsy embellishements.. Hmm. So here is what I came up with. The spider is courtesy of Aidan, by the way. Let me know what you think and leave me some love!

Warm wishes,

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Holiday Tags and Morton Update {Welcome Colt}

As you can see we've been a little busy around here! This past month and a half we celebrated Halloween, welcomed our new little one, counted our blessings and then decked the halls. Phew! Here's a quick recap of our family but first, let me share this great video on how to make your own decorative tags for great gift-giving that makes a splash!



Happy Halloween
We had some pals come trick or treat with us this year. Uncle Drew and Whitney brought Brayden (aka: Thor) over to reign terror over the streets of South Jordan with us. We couldn't believe how much candy the kids collected this time! The dentist is gonna LOVE this bunch!

Snow Monsters
Our first good snow of the season called for suiting up. Brook and Aidan had a great time making tracks all over the backyard and even fit in a few Monste... er, Angels.

A Welcome Addition

Our house welcomed our new little brother into the world in November. Colt Glenn arrived a day early by cesarean and weighed in at 9 lbs and 11 ozs. He had a hard time adjusting at first due to his size and the c-section and spent some time in the nursery with an IV line until his blood sugar stabillized. When he was born he had a little bit of fluid in his lungs and had started to grunt while breathing, indicating labored breathing normally, so as a precaution they kept him on oxygen for a couple of days. Turns out he just likes to grunt like the other kids did. Completely amazed the doctors. We're glad they took the precautions anyway!



Smile, you're on Aidan's Candid Camera, Mom!

Roast Beast

This year we stayed home for Thanksgiving and had the whole Morton family over. It was great having everyone together again and Mom always puts on a good spread!







Canning

This was a new experiment for me this year. I've dabbled a little bit with freezing produce but really have wanted to learn how to do this and to be more self-reliant. We have a great little garden started and I'd love to be able to put some of our harvest up for a later date.

Last week I tried applesauce for the first time. After a few mishaps and some trials and more errors, I finally got something worth giving! The kids passed it off as a keeper and I gotta say, it feels great knowing that my 7 hours, 2 broken nails and bad temper really was worth seeing those jars on the shelf!

Deck the Halls

Wasn't sure about this adventure this year with a new baby and a 2.5yo Turbo-powered kid running around! Turns out the older two were more, eh.. acrobatic than Garrett. They put every ornament I had on the poor tree and half way through we lost the bottom rung of lights. *Sigh* Mom's fancy trees are a thing of the past for some time to come, it seems, but it turned out pretty nice and they had a great time!



It's been great being off work for the past month. I don't want to go back! I can't say it's been a vacation.. cuz it hasn't. But I've loved spending time with each of my children and my husband and the great way we have come together to work at making our home a great environment for our family. I'm really going to miss that as I move back to the hustle and bustle. Hopefully we can keep a little bit of that in our daily lives. But one thing I am looking forward to... going into the gas station again instead of paying at the pump because I have a car full of kids I don't want to get out of their seats!

Warm wishes,

Cute Pumpkin Card and Video

Here's a cute video to help you get started on your Halloween or Thanksgiving cards. It's short and sweet and explains the Base and Shade stamping technique. Enjoy!


Warm wishes,

Fall Hooligans Studio J Layout

This layout just cracks me up. My boys get pretty creative with their free time. Sometimes you want to know and..sometimes you don't. This was one of those times where pictures just showed up on the camera as I was going through and downloading them to archive and set up for scrapbooking. (With children who love to play photographer, this happens quite a bit to me.)

Apparently the youngest had made quite a mess out of his breakfast cereal as he is want to do on occasion. Rather than get upset at the mess, Dad decided to get even! He brought out the Dust Buster to zip it in a snippet! This was in the middle of the summer, but this paper with it's cute monsters and mayhem seemed appropriate to document these Hooligans!

All digital, this layout whipped up in a jiffy with Studio J. To learn more, contact me today!

Warm wishes,

{Wicked} Halloween Card and Pinwheel Flowers

Try making a scene out of your stamps for something fun and different. When I first started stamping this was ALL we did! So go old school, as it were, and have fun! (I won't tell you how OLD school.. No one needs to go THERE.)

Supplies: Wicked, August SOTM; Sunset CS; Black ink; Opagues Pearl and Licorice; Silhouette papers.

Warm wishes,
Trish

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Another Wicked Card

Now that I'm playing in the craft room I'm having some fun playing at Halloween cards with the August SOTM, Wicked. This set is so cute and so fun!

I used the same background from yesterday's card (see it here) featuring the honeycomb background in sunset and randomly clear embossed and sponged with Grey Flannel. The other images are super easy and stamped in Black. Add some stitched ribbon and you're good to go!

Close To My Heart just recently revamped the SOTM program to make it cheaper and easier to get these exclusive sets every month. Purchase just $50 in product and you can get the D-size set for only 5 Bucks! Pretty fabulous! Call or email me today to get in on this awesome deal and have yourself a Wicked Halloween!

Warm wishes,

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Stamp of the Month Halloween Card {Wicked}

I'm finally getting around to the craft room a little. Pregnancy always wipes me out and I don't get as much rest time as I really like because all the chores seem to take twice as long now!

This card was inspired by the Heart to Heart challenge blog. The challenge was to CASE one on the designers' creations either a little or a lot. I chose the circle card and pattern from Wishes as a start and a Halloween theme of some sort to highlight August's SOTM Wicked.

This is my most favorite SOTM set (I LOVE Halloween) and this is the first I've had to play with it. The honeycomb pattern on the sunset cs is from this set and was dusted with clear embossing powder and sponged with Grey Flannel. Boo and the bats are from Spellbound and were embossed also. I used the spray pen with a mix of water and create a shade pearl paint to highlight the black bats and trimmed with a random box pleat. It turned out very differently from what I originally planned but that is half the fun! Hope you enjoyed stopping by.

Warm wishes,

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Stamp of the Month Artwork

I LOVE THIS SET! I couldn't hardly wait to open it when I received it and spent the evening playing in the craft room! I am so ready for Halloween anyway, but this set is going to be the life of my party! Here is a few cards I put together last night. I'm going to show you my invites and neighbor tags later this month, so keep watching for those as well!

I used You Rock to pair with black cardstock because I was looking for a purple and a nice contrast color (Orange) and Garden Green. It seemed a little off-the-wall at first, but it seemed sent from heaven when I realized this paper pack has all of those! I added Desert Sand to complement this guy's bone structure, lol.

It was a great challenge and turned out well. I can't wait to try the next one!

Warmly,

Odd little creatures

More Autumn/Winter previews!

Warmly,

It's a little early for Halloween...

But as I was perusing ideas for Stamp Camp this September 18th, I felt inspired to use up my old supplies and try on a few patterns! I thought how AMAZINGLY spiderweb-like the colonial white and black pattern from the Silhouette Creative Basics was and wondered why I never thought of this before.

Hmmm... Hence this layout! I haven't got the photos on yet, but I know just what to add! Brook had the cutest Spider costume from Pottery Barn 2 years ago and she was a Spider Princess last year. Too Cute!!

What I liked about this layout pattern, Proof Positive from Cherish, is the flexibility in the Left layout. It is set up to have 6 small 3x3 photos in the white area under the title, but you could easily fit 2 vertical 4x6s or a 5x7. It's a great layout to do ahead of time and make your photo size selection later.

Clearly, it's an oldie but goodie! Happy stamping folks!

Warmly,

Supplies used: Silhouette Creative Basics, Colonial White CS, Embossing Floss - Basic collection, Sweet Leaf Ink, Black Ink, My Acrylix Creepy Cobwebs, 3D Foam Tape, Edge Distresser, Rustic Alpha, Chocolate Large Alpha.