Lots More CTMH Stamp Sale! Deep Discounts!

The Following are on sale for $4.75 each





The following stamps are $5.75 each











TO BE IN MY HEART SOLD!

JINGLE BORDERS SOLD!














Just letting you all know that I am going to go back into business! I used to run a rather successful and oh so fun small home based business with Close to My Heart. I had to put it on hold for about a year because of some things that life brought on me, but enough of that......because I AM BACK! I am so very excited to start this up again I can not even express (or contain) my excitement! Now, as you can imagine I had quite the collection of stamps that I used as demos and they NEED TO GO! I have to get rid of these sets to make room for my new hot stamps. The good news is I am offering them to all the scrappy folks out there at a fraction of the price I purchased them for. Each set is in good condition with light use (most sets I only used once! :-O) and comes in the original packaging that is in EXCELLENT condition. I can fit four in a cheap flat rate envie so the cost to ship up to 4 sets is only $5!!!!!! Can you believe it?!?!?! Isn't that great?!?!?!?! Anyways go check them out and hurry me your order at betsiemorris@yahoo.com. I accept pay pal for payment and will get them in the mail to you within 24 hours upon receiving your payment! ;-) So, what are you waiting for? Go check them out!

Oh, and stay tuned for some yummy creations made with CTMH new release items. I can't wait! Can you?

A Few New Ones

I was finally able to sit down, scrapbook, and found the motivation to do it! The last three weeks I have just not had the desire to create. In fact, I had lost my desire for it so much that I considered shrinking my stash down and trying to get out of it all together. Thankfully I got the itch this week and was able to scratch it. LOL!
I found a store that sells Thrifty ice cream -- the ice cream I used to love to get at the store "Thrifty" when I was growing up. I was so tickled when I ran across it that I just had to do a Layout on it.

I am part of a Stampin' Up! Hostess club and this was made with this month's order. I thought it would go perfectly with my daughter's photo of her on the day she earned Student of the Month.

Do you like the cool leopard flower on this? I love it! I used a ton of GM on this too! My daughter dancing down on the pier where I grew up.

Notice the flower in my daughter's hair? I bought a pack of them at a craft show. I used it on the above LO and I made a hair clip for my daughter out of another one!

I got this water color paper from SU! This little whatever it is a huge mistake. I originally wanted to use some mist on it and stamp a bucking horse but it flopped. So I GM the heck out of it and then came up with this. I have no idea what I am going to do with it, but there it is.

Just a LO I did of some left over stuff in my stash. Kids are enjoying the first few days of fall at their school playground.

Ever have photos you want to have in your book because they are an important thing to your family traditions, but don't have a clue how to scrap them? This is it for me! Everything on this LO came from a swap I did a few years ago. Nice to get it used up AND I kind of like the LO!

We have this Christmas village that Parker was determined to learn how to turn on. Well, he figured it out and this is a LO about it. I actually lifted this idea from a CK magazine.

Thanks for checking out my blog and my latest creations. It was nice to finalyl have the motivation and desire to scrap. I hope it last! :-)

Tis The Season

Here is my advent calander for our countdown to Christmas. I made a few other things to match it for the breakfast nook area. Thanks for looking!

Holiday Challenge #4 (The Last and Final One)

I actually do not have this challenge done yet! I have had it planned for about 6 weeks, but I am still waiting on the prodcuts I ordered to come in the mail so I can complete it. Once I get them and get it done I will upload the images. Sorry I have no example for you :-(

With that being said, the challenge is to alter or make a Christmas Countdown Calander. I am cheating and using the little take out box premade thingy from SU!

This will be the last challenge for the holiday. Personally, we are hitting the busy time! Two of my three kiddos have birthdays between now and Christmas, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and family coming in. I may start some challenges up in 2011. I will also upload some Layouts and projects I complete in the mean time. So check back often, okay? :-)

Holiday Challenge #3!

I know this is a day early, but I have a very busy weekend ahead of me and it starts in in about an hour! So, with that being said, I want you to get ready for your holiday pictures. I don't know about you, but I am far to busy to do much scrapping during the season and by the time I have time to sit down after the first of the year I am sick and tired of all the holiday colors and such. So finding inspiration after the fact is just too hard. I like to create a mini album for the season and then display them as decorations over the the following years. You may like to do a Layout for your album, so whatever it is get started on it! Do a LO or album and leave room for your pictures. That way when you are done all you have to do is slap the photos down!

This is what I started with:

It is a 9 by 9 inch accordion mini album by CTMH. I have had it it my stash for years and never knew what to do with it. It really is not my style. I just have it because it was a promo one year. I turned it into this:

The first holiday that we celebrate that never has a good LO after the fact is Thanksgiving, so I made this:

I know it is not the typical Fall colors, but...well....ummmmmm....I am sick of the typical fall colors, so I pulled out this line from Basic Gray that I had in my stash and used it. I also threw in the typical fall PP from Cosmo Cricket that I have tons of to make it a little more Thanksgivingish!

Sorry this is out of order. I had a hard time uploading today and some of the pictures did not even upload correct, so sorry. I hope you can get the idea though! Anyways, I sealed up the accordion and made it into a pocket for the kids' letters to Santa. We have a tradition (it is actually a German tradition) in which the kids write letters to Santa, stick them in their shoe, and then wake up the next morning to find a small toy or treat as a hint to what Santa will bring them on Christmas.

Here is a close up of the Beaver on the Thanksgiving page (again sorry about it being out of order)

My boys have their Birthday a week a part from each other. Logan's is right after Thanksgiving! We have a big party for them between the two days (yes on their day they still get a cake, balloons, their choice of meal, and their presents from us)and we call it Brother's Day. I always like to include it in the Holiday album.

Here is the Christmas page. I really like this one for this year. I stink at designing Holiday pages, but this year I love it!

A close up of my tree and girl.

I stamped her (CTMH), used my tonic markers to color her in, and used this puffy type stuff to make the snow. I then pop dotted her and placed her on the page making sure to leave an open space to slip a picture under it.

The following photos show how I made my pocket. First I used my oval cutter and cut half an oval on one of the flaps:

Next, I placed a continuous strip of adhesive around the edges:

Finally I sealed it up! Now, instead of an accordion album I have a useful 4 page mini album!

I look forward to seeing what you create for your holiday LOs! Make sure you upload your link in my comment sections so I can go leave you some love! I will post the next challenge on Nov. 12 and it is a fun one in which you will be altering ;-)

Holiday Challenge #2!

Are you ready for a new challenge? I actually have two for you today. Originally it was going to be one, but some of you I thought were itching for a Layout challenge so I came up with one of those to! So here is your first hint regarding the first challenge:

Carmel apples? Say what? Do you think you know what it could be about?

Here is another hint:

Now do you get it? I want you to create a LO with "apples" as part of it. It can be an embellishment, photo, title, or paper. I love this time of year because we have great produce and my family's favorite has to the be apple. Here is my Layout for this challenge:

My homemade apple pie that is huge is what I scrapped about. I also stamped the apples In the pail and played with my Copic Markers to color them in! Again, you don't have to do a LO about apples, just incorporate apples into the LO. You could do something about fall or the first day or school or something like "The Apple of My Eye". Just be creative and spend some time creating!

Now, this was my original challenge: Make favor boxes for your Thanksgiving table or Halloween. Or alter something as a hostess gift if you are not cooking this year. I usually do not do dreary and scary for Halloween, but decided to alter these boxes for my kids. I was kind of sick of looking at the typical orange, brown, and purple I usually do for Halloween. Instead, I took three take out containers that I had in my stash for like FOREVER and glimmer misted them. I then altered the fronts with Waffle paper and a few different embellishments. I finished each box off with the first initial of my child's name. Here they are:

Make sure you post a link to your blog on my comment section so we can all go check them out and get inspired. I can't wait to see what you come up with! Your next challenge will be posted on Oct. 29! Can you guess what that will be?

Challenge Oct. 1

Are you ready for the upcoming holiday season? I don't know about you, but I can't wait! This is by far my very favorite time of the year. To kick off the holiday season your first challenge is two fold. First, make your holiday cards! I know it is early to do this, but it always seems that a week before the holiday is when I get around to making the cards and I don't even enjoy the process because I am in such a hurry to get them in the mail. This year I want to enjoy the process! Take the next two weeks to get a good dent, if not all of your holiday cards done! Here are a few of mine:




Now, don't stress about this. I am actually not a card maker. I have to lift ideas all the time and that is okay. If you are having a hard time coming up with ideas then just use a sketch or lift the cards that I made.
Ready for part two of your challenge? I want you to address them, seal them, and put a stamp on them. Now, you may be thinking "but if I make all my holiday cards how am I gonna know which ones to mail off and when?" Of course you are not going to put your Christmas cards in the mail right now. I know this, but you can keep track of them by placing a small decorative stamp in the lower right corner of the envie. For example, if they are Halloween then you can stamp a pumpkin. Or for Thanksgiving you can stamp a turkey or leaves. Don't have a stamp? Then put a sticker on them. Or you can take an orange pen, for example, and draw a heart for the cards going out for Halloween and a different pen for the other set of cards. By doing this you stay organized and on top of things and your recipient thinks that you are so wonderful and thoughtful for sending a handmade card in a cute envie ;-)
I want to see what you create so please paste your link to your creation in the comment section of this post. Please do not E-mail me your pictures because I can not promise that I will be able to upload them. You have until 11:45 pm Friday October 15 to get this done. Have fun!