This latest edition to our “Bring Back My Pack” collection includes a slimmed down paper pack, updated colors and a new sticker sheet bursting with images, titles and accents for a variety of crafting projects. As you see, these papers will add a vibrate yet soft touch to your handmade cards and scrapbooking layouts.
Along with the papers, two favorite stamp sets from the past have been brought back to give you the ability to make custom accents for cards and layouts. The first, A Budding Friendship, has beautiful layered flowers sweet sentiments to celebrate friendships.
The second stamp set that was brought back exclusively for this special, Your Own Kind of Wonderful, has beautifully detailed butterflies and sentiments that are appropriate for both cards and layouts.
I’m very excited to have the chance to create with this beautiful collection of items again. The papers and stamp sets are available individually or you can buy a bundle of products and save 20%. The bundle includes the paper pack, sticker sheet, 12 sheets of coordinating solid paper and both stamp sets. See the complete collection>>
On Tuesday, June 30, Close To My Heart will be hosting a live workshop using the Brushed Bundle of product on the corporateFacebook page. Details about the projects will be announced soon, so be sure to jump over to that page and turn on your notifications.
Check out the complete schedule of events coming to the Close To My Heart Facebook page. If you’d like to participate, be sure to place your order a couple of weeks ahead of time to make sure that you have the materials to create along with the class. Before the Brushed workshop, there will be workshops for the Aurora Cardmakingand Scrapbooking workshops.
I’m very excited about the virtual workshops planned over the next few weeks. Please join us for fun, creative times!
Make Father’s Day unforgettable this year with two exclusive stamp sets.
Celebrate the man who means the most in your life by making a card, layout or gift using the exclusive stamp sets available through the Legendary Father’s Day special.
The first stamp set, Legendary Father’s Day includes a complete wardrobe for your guy. Stamp the shoes, hat, watch or shirt plus great sentiments like to let him know that he is special.
The second stamp set, Someone to Look Up To, is a single stamp so you can create quick cards or layouts in one step.
I know you are going to want both of these set, so be sure to add the bundle with both stamp sets to your cart and save 20% off the retail price!
Take your creativity to another galaxy with the Aurora cardmaking workshop kit.
This workshop includes materials and instructions to make 16 standard size cards, 4 of each of the designs shown above. Not only are they cards beautiful, but they include such positive sentiments. In this current pandemic, I bet you know someone who could use a “smile across the miles”!
In the kit you get an exclusive stamp + Thin Cuts set, paper from the Aurora collection, cardstock, Silver Glitter Gems, card bases, envelopes plus full color printed instructions.
Before we move on, click on the image above and zoom in on the thin cuts. With the kit you get both sides of the world. Isn’t that the coolest?
A little extra sparkle was added to these cards using a Mint Shimmer Brush. This was used to paint some pieces like the world and also to add splatters.
To make the cards as shown, you’ll also need Glacier, Charcoal & Peacock ink pads plus adhesives, including Thin 3-D Foam Dots or Tape. Now let’s take a closer look at the cards.
This kit includes the materials to make 16 cards pages. In the kit you get a full color printed workshop guide with step-by-step directions. If you’d like more instruction on this kit, Close To My Heart is hosting a virtual workshop on June 16. Details coming soon on the Close To My Heart Facebook page.
Who do you know that deserves a “I’m proud of you card”? I bet you have at least one person in mind.
So many people have stepped up to the challenges during this current pandemic. Here’s a few that come to mind: teachers, medical professionals, parents, truckers and grocery store workers. Of course there are also the students who have continued their education as their school year changed completely and graduations without the normal pomp and circumstance.
If you’d like to make this card and send to someone you are proud of, you just need to order May Stamp of the Month, Time to Celebrate, from my Close To My Heart website. This stamp set is only available in May and is discounted to just $5 when you add it to your cart of $50 or more. Everyone who purchases this stamp from me will receive a kit to make the card above (or one of the variations below) in the mail!
This stamp set is filled with script and print sentiments for all occasions. You can easily change up the kit to make tell someone “happy birthday” , “thank you”, “congratulations” or any other of the sentiments on this fully loaded stamp set. In fact, I used same materials included in the kit to make this Father’s Day card.
Besides switching out the sentiment, I made a few other changes for this card. Because our patterned paper is double-sided, I turned over the paper at the bottom of the page to show the check pattern instead of the plaid.
Another change was to flatten out the pinwheel. Although the 3-D pinwheel is a lot of fun for cards that you are hand delivering, it doesn’t fit in an envelope well. I was afraid that even if I was able to fit it in an envelope, it would get crushed into an odd shape in transit. So I used a Bone Folder and working from the inside of the pinwheel out, creased each of the spokes of the pinwheel.
Finally, on the Father’s Day card, I painted the button with the Sapphire shimmer brush. Keeping with the change in color, I sponged the edges of the card base and papers with Sapphire ink rather than the Toffee I used in the first card.
Get Your Free Card Kit
When you purchase the Time to Celebrate stamp set on my Close To My Heart website (at full or discounted price), I’ll send you a kit to make this shaker card! If you have not tried our our new Pinwheel Thin Cut, you will love learning how to do this. I did a tutorial in my Creative Friends facebook group earlier this week. You are invited to join the group and check it out!
Kit includes
– Card base
– Pre-cut Aurora papers and cardstock, including piece cut with the Pinwheel Die-Cut
– Silver Brad
– Wooden Button
Additional supplies needed to finish your card as shown:
– Sapphire Ink
– Clear Acrylic Blocks
– Sponge
– Adhesives
– Toffee Ink (optional for sponging)
– Sapphire Shimmer Brush (optional)
Here’s a couple more variations using the kit.
If you’d like one of these kits, simply place an order on my Close To My Heart website that includes the Time to Celebrate stamp set.
In light of the continuing popularity of our My Acrylix® Let’s Stay Home stamp set, Close To My Heart has released two new exclusive stamp sets featuring sentiments and icons to help you capture more of what is happening in your life right now.
The Great Indoors Stamp Set
This stamp set if filled with fun sentiments that are perfect for your memory keeping as well as other crafts. Take a look at the projects below created by the talented artists at Close To My Heart including a beautiful layout, cards and candy wrappers.
On Repeat Stamp Set
This stamp set also has relevant phrases, plus the adorable cat and dog decked out in masks! This set have been specifically designed to give you images and sentiments to use in your craft projects. Take inspiration from layout, cards and MASK created by the Close To My Heart art team.
Both of these new stamp sets are available now. Order yours for your next craft project! Learn more>>
When life is tough, sometime the only thing you can do is “just keep swimming”. Find out below how you can get the stamp set I used for this card for just $5 and get a kit to make this card for free!
I just sent this card to my daughter who is working so hard in college despite the chaos caused by moving to online courses and sheltering in place. I’m proud of her and thought she might need a little reminder to just keep moving forward. I’m sure you know someone is also facing challenging circumstances due to the Coronavirus outbreak and needs some encouragement.
I absolutely love the April Stamp of the Month, O-Fish-ally Awesome! It has all kinds of sea life: fish, star fish, crab, coral and sea grass. Plus you get the aquarium, bubbles, sign, sand and more! The sentiments are filled with under water “puns”.
This fun stamp set is only available to purchase in April 2020. It is a “size D” (AKA large) stamp set and regularly priced at $18.95. However, when you have $50 in your cart, you can add it for just $5!
FREE CARD KIT
When you purchase the O-Fish-ally Awesome Stamp Set on my Close To My Heart website (at full or discounted price), I’ll send you a kit to make this shaker card! If you have not tried our our shaker window tools, you will love learning how to do this. I did a tutorial in my Creative Friends facebook group last week. You are invited to join the group and check it out!
To finish the kit, you’ll need some ink, markers (or colored pencils) and adhesive. On the sea floor and sea life, I used Mink, Smoothie, Sage and Intense Black ink and for the sentiment, Sapphire ink. The fish and shells were colored with various TriBlend markers.
If you’d like one of these kits, simply place an order on my Close To My Heart website that includes the O-fish-ally Awesome stamp set.Start shopping now>>
Are you looking for a new supplies for your next creative project? You don’t want to miss this sale! I’ve dug through the inventory left over from the CKC Convention and have slashed prices on lots of retired products!!!
The sale is tomorrow at 10 am on my “Creative Friends” Facebook group. You are invited to join the fun and get some great deals! Join group now>>
Yesterday, I finished going through my boxes and deciding what to put in the sale. I found some good stuff and have marked it way down so that it can leave my house!
Check out these discounts:
Embellishments $.75 – $1
Embossing Folders $5
Paper 30 – 40% off
Stamps 50% off
Thin Cuts 25 – 70% off
Scrapbooking Workshops 25% off
Sale starts Saturday morning at 10 am. I’ll be showing you all the products through a series of live videos in my Creative Friends Facebook group. In the message for each video, I’ll post a link to a document for your reference showing all the products & prices, as well as how many of that item are available. You don’t have to wait for me to show a product if you see something on the list that you want!
Everything will be sold on a first come basis. If you see something you want, comment the product name and item number. When calling “dibs” on something, be sure that you comment on the video for that shows that product. If you want multiples, be sure to say that too. Many of the items are “onsies” — there is just one available. I will go by the time stamp on the comment to determine who gets it.
Each time you “win” something, it will go on a tally. Shipping is a flat $8.50 no matter how much you purchase. If you’d rather pick up on my porch, just let me know. Once the sale has ended, I’ll send invoices via Facebook messenger (and email if I have it). BONUS: I’ll include a new May/June catalog in each order!
Remember you must be in my Facebook group to participate in the sale! Join now!
Can’t wait to show you everything. Have fun shopping!!
I’m so excited that our retired Cricut image collections are now available to purchase using my special Cricut Affiliate link! In this post, I’m going to knock the dust off the a favorite collection, especially for card-makers, Artfully Sent. Join my as to learn all the features of this amazing set of images.
History and Good News
The Artfully Sent Cricut collection was first released by Close To My Heart in 2014 in a physical cartridge bundle. This is was right after Cricut released the Explore, the first machine to use Design Space, but most Cricut users still used cartridge-driven machines like the Expression. The tiny pictures in the handbook, made this collection difficult to use on these older machines but the projects are perfectly suited for today’s Design Space machines. The collection retired a few years ago without being offered as a digital-only collection. When it retired, these images became unavailable to anyone who was unfortunate enough to miss out on getting this cartridge while it was available.
Last year, Close To My Heart began a new partnership with Cricut which allows all of our image collections, including retired collections like Artfully Sent, to be purchased using special links only available from Close To My Heart consultants! This is an exciting development because many of you missed these collection the first time around. This collection has so many fun projects and with the editing options now available in Design Space, the possibilities are endless!
This is the first post in a series focusing on the Close To My Heart Cricut image sets.
To get started, let’s watch the introductory video from 2014. Note that the stamp sets and cardstock are no longer included when you purchase the collection.
The cartridge was originally packaged with an Assembly booklet which is really helpful to know how to put together the cards. Click here to view the Assembly Booklet>>
Thumbnails of Images
Below is a preview of the font and envelopes, plus each of the the five types of cards. I’ve also included a thumbnail of each project, however as I mentioned before, these images are really small and it’s hard to see the details until you open the projects in Design Space. I’ve also includes links to a series of posts that I wrote when the Artfully Sent cartridge was originally released in 2014.
Font
The Artfully Sent font has fun decorative loops which adds a unique whimsical twist to your projects. The collection includes a full font with upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers and basic symbols. Click here for a more detailed look at the font>>
The 50 pop-up card projects have several layers including a card base, liner and icons. These complete projects are grouped which means in Design Space they are added to your canvas as a single layered image. Click here for more information about these cards >>
There are a whopping 100 in this set of cards. Each card has icons and/or sentiments cut into the card. For all of these, you can leave the cut outs as windows on the card, or cover the back with paper to add color to the design. You can also use the cut outs to make creative shaker window cards. Click here for more information about these cards >>
Sleeve and Overlay Cards
This next group of cards have tabs that when folded and attached create a sleeve or pocket. These can be used in a wide variety of ways including gift card holders, invitations or photos. Click here for more information about these cards >>
The overlay cards have a solid back and cut outs on the front of the card. Most of these do not have any theme, so you can dress them up to use at any occasion.
Pocket Cards
The last collection of projects are flat cards that can be put into the pockets of a divided scrapbooking memory protector. These are also great titles for your full size pages or even for the front of a greeting card. I also like that you can punch a hole in the top (or add in design space) and have an instant tag for any occasion. Click here for more information about these cards >>
This cartridge was retired several years ago, but the good news is that it is back! If you never bought the physical cartridge, you can now create with these images in Design Space. You can access them several different ways. The Artfully Sent images are now available with Cricut Access or can be purchased individually in Design Space for $1.99 for each project and $6.99 for the font. However, the best value is to purchase the full collection which includes all 700 individual images (projects plus font) for just $49.95. When you purchase the full collection, the images are yours forever, regardless of your subscription status. You can subscribe to Access or purchase the full collection on Cricut.com. (If you use the Cricut link in this post for your purchases, I’ll earn a small commission. Thank You!)
Here’s one more video you can watch to see even more inspiring projects made with Artfully Sent.
I hope this post has encouraged you to check out or re-familiarize yourself with this great classic collection of card-making projects.
I am so excited to share with all of
you the new Close To My Heart special. We all know that February 14th is just around the corner and that is a day dedicated to
expressing our love and appreciation for the special people in our lives. I
don’t necessarily think that we should only take that opportunity one day a
year on Valentine’s Day though- do you?
This month’s special is called Love Blossoms and when
you see it, you will understand where I am coming from. This kit really got me thinking
about those special people in my life who I need to show some love and
appreciation to. It gave me ideas of some creative ways I can do that.
Of course you should show your significant other some love
all throughout the year, but especially on Valentine’s Day. That’s a given. J But what about your
sister or best friend that is there for you through thick and thin? What about
that co-worker that has helped you get through so many long shifts? If there is
anyone in your life that you would really like to say “I love you” or “Thank
you” to, this kit will help you make the most beautiful cards for that exact
purpose. This kit is perfect to use for any time of the year. No holiday
required.
Let’s take a peek at what you will receive in this kit.
This base kit comes with enough cardstock and envelopes to create 12 cards. You also get a pack of silver embellishing thread to add a little shine to the cards. The color
palette is an array of soft and beautiful pastels.
Save 20% when you order the complete kit which includes a size E (extra large) stamp set, four mini-ink pads and Swiss Dot embossing folder. The exclusive stamp set includes gorgeous layered images to create watercolor floral designs. You’ll also get sentiments like “thank you”, “I appreciate you more than you
know”, “thankful for all you do” “you are so loved” “lucky to have a friend
like you” and “you are fabulous” and more. Note that words for both the front and inside of cards are included.
This stamp set is also free to anyone who hosts a $350 party. This can be a live or virtual event. We still have time to make this happen — give me an email to get started!
Happy New Year! I hope 2019 is off to a good start for you. Hang on to your hats because this is a long post — there are just so many great new products to tell you about!
2019 marks 35 years since Close To My Heart Founder & CEO Jeanette Lynton first started selling stamps, and the cover of the Seasonal Expressions Idea Book kicks off our celebration!
Here’s my top 5 list of new products:
1) Story by Stacy Stories I Love Workshop
You probably have certain photos that capture your heart. This album gives you a place to gather the photos that mean the most to you and document the stories that go with them! the instructional workbook explains how to explore the memories behind these treasured pictures and write a detailed story to capture all the elements of that moment. Kit includes a 6″ x 8″ album plus supplies to create 9 layouts about your most cherished stories.
I love the fun and ferocious the primary color scheme of the Something Fierce collection. The fearsome (yet whimsical) dinosaurs are perfect for projects celebrating the boys (young or old) in your life. But never fear (see what I did there?), if you are looking for something less dino you can use the reverse side of a couple themed papers and use these papers for all kinds of projects. In fact, the card workshop for this collection features very non-prehistoric ice cream cones and pineapples!
When I’m scrapbooking, I often am in production mode and don’t slow down to do stamping. But when I do, I always love that custom color coordinated look you can only get by “getting inky”. The new sports stamps are perfect to add a stamping touch without a lot of fuss. This collection includes Game Day (D1829) and seven mini sports stamps: Basketball (M1212), Football (M1213), Soccer (M1214), Volleyball (M1215), Baseball (M1216) Hockey (M1217) and Lacrosse (M1218).
These M-sized stamps are just $3.95 each and with a little ink you can add one to a page in just a couple minutes. Even better, use repetitive stamping to take the sport theme across the page. The layout above is a perfect example. It uses neutral patterned and solid paper and just a little stamping to create a custom themed page.
This new Idea Book includes a number of stamp sets that include stamps that can be stamped together to complete a colorful image. The most striking is Love in Bloom (D1819) which uses 6 stamps to create a single, beautiful image. Look complicated? Don’t worry, the stamp envelope includes a step by step guide.
Stitching is both classic and trendy! To help you be on point with your crafting, we have three new stitched thin cut sets: Stitched Square Frames, Stitched Rectangle Framesand Stitched Quilt Shapes! Each of the framed sets include 3 dies that each create two shapes: a stitched frame and a smaller stitched square (or rectangle). The Quite Shapes set has 10 dies. Four of them add stitch lines to your paper without cutting a shape! You can add stitching where you want on any paper that will fit through your die-cutting machine.
These images can also be used with thin cuts in our existing collection!
That is just a small sample of the new products in the Seasonal Expressions Idea Book. If you’d like to see more highlights of new products, check out this post on the Close To My Heart Blog.
Would you rather see it ALL? Click on over to my Close To My Heart Website to flip through a virtual catalogor see all the products in my shop.
