My May Close To My Heart Giveaway!!

 

Hello!! Happy National Scrapbooking Month!!! I just wanted to share my May Close To My Heart Giveaway with you all. This month I will be giving ONE lucky customer a "Freshly Picked" Cricut Cartridge!! The drawing will be held on May 31st!!

To be eligiable to win you must:

     #1 Go to my shop: www.carolynmendoza.ctmh.com, join my Giveaway and make a purchase = 1 entry

     #2 Join my Giveaway, purchase $35 or more and add the Dream Pop paper pack to your order = 2 entries

     #3 Join my Giveaway, add the Dream Pop AND Stamp of the Month = 3 entries

Remember this Giveaway is only when you purchase from MY shop. 

If you have any questions about my giveaway, please feel free to ask questions in the comment section or click through to my shop site to access my contact information. You may also find me on Facebook and twitter. See links at the bottom of this post.

In honor of National Scrapbooking Month, you can get the yummy Dream Pop paper packet for only $10 when you spend $35 in May! This exclusive paper packet includes 12 cardstock sheets as well as 12 B&T Duos^® papers that were specifically designed for this promotion only — you can’t get these sweet colors and patterns anywhere else! Start National Scrapbooking Month off right with a unique paper packet at a bargain price and get your creative juices flowing!

*Shipping/handling and tax apply. One Dream Pop paper packet per order. Not available for purchase at full retail. Offer valid May 1–31, 2013.

May 2013 Stamp of the Month: Pinwheel - available for one month only, for just $5—that’s over 70% off retail! When you place an order of $50 or more in Close To My Heart products, you qualify for this special Stamp of the Month pricing. This Stamp of the Month is $17.95 without the $50 qualifying purchase.

The best way to take advantage of this offer is to add $40 worth of AWESOME Close to my Heart product to your cart, next add the Dream Pop and then add the Stamp of the Month. Total before tax and s&h = $55!! PLUS you will be entered to win the adorable Freshly Picked Cricut Cartridge!! LOTS OF LUCK!!!

Find Me on: Close To My Heart * Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest

Color Dare #37 - Juniper

Hello, Welcome to Crafting With Carolyn!! Today I have a new challenge to participate in -- the Color My Heart - Color Dare Challenge!! Every week a Close To My Heart color is chosen and used for color inspiration!! This week's color inspiration is Juniper!! I think it is SO pretty. Love this color!!

I have been dying to craft all week but, I've been helping a friend paint her house so I haven't been home much. I'm a stay at home mom and I typically tend to do chores before crafting (a bit of clean freak in me) so I woke up early on purpose - on a Saturday - JUST to join in on this Color Dare! I told my husband who leaves at 8am to make sure I was awake before he left! Haha. I was NOT going to waste prime time to craft!! I managed to get up but then I started cleaning and I made breakfast for the kids, something I don't do too often because they're usually up before me .... and then cleaned some more ... Yeah I know .... CLEAN FREAK! I was finally able to sit down and craft after lunch! I flipped through the 2013 Spring Summer Close To My Heart Idea Book  looking for some inspiration and I found the adorable little card on the bottom of page 111 with it's little ruffles!! I love the way that card looks and wanted to make my own version of it. Here's what I came up with...

As you can see I used Juniper but I also used a sheet from the For Always paper pack. I thought this black, white and juniper combo was perfect!! I cut out my "ruffles" and flowers using the Cricut Artiste Cartridge and then realized I had the perfect opportunity to use my Anna Griffin Cuttlebug!! I haven't gotten to play with my cuttlebug much yet but, I love it already! I'm new to embossing. This cuttlebug is my first. I used one of the border folders to add this leafy pattern which I think goes perfect with the flowers on the For Always sheet.

My daughter and I have decided we want to help celebrate all the teachers/faculty/staff birthdays at our Elementary school not just the ones we have each year. They are after all, a team. We love our teachers too so it's not a hardship. Knowing we have our work cut out for us I decided to make 6 of these cards. There are two different patterns in the same style.

What do you think?? I kind of love both styles but that For Always flower is definitely trying to steal the show!! The final touches are the bling gems from the Boutique Assortment which are in the While Supplies Last section for only $1.50!! ((Ahhh! I need to go buy more before they're all gone!)) And the black glitter ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all go out and get some inspiration from the Color My Heart - Color Dare Challenges!!

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Buzz and Bumble Blog Hop

Hello! Today I am participating in the Buzz and Bumble Damask Divas Blog Hop! This blog hop officially starts on April 1st so if you run into any dead ends with the links please come back later. (Thanks!!) What's a blog hop you ask? Well a blog hop is when a group of people get together and link to each other's blogs so that you go in a big circle and "hop" from blog to blog until you've seen them all. Usually each blog hop as a theme and our theme is the Buzz and Bumble paper pack from Close to My Heart.

If you've come from Lilian Yeh's blog : theleafstudio.blogspot.com you are in the right place!! If you just happened across my blog then please start from the beginning or make sure you follow through and visit everyone along the way. I promise you will not regret it! Go to:

When I first saw this paper I was like... EEeek!! Bees!!! I mean bees?? I'm not a big fan. Then I started looking at it and I thought, well this is kind of perfect for Spring isn't it?! Bees, honey, flowers!! Idea!!! I was totally excited because I thought I wouldn't be able to pull this off. This is actually my second blog post of the day, BUSY week and I ran out of time!! Hopefully there are no major mistakes ;) and if I left out any info please feel free to ask questions in the comments section. On with the hop....

 

I decided to make a cute birthday card. I'm not sure where it fill find it's home but that will come to me later. I pulled out the super cute Bugs & Hugs stamp set and thought the flower border stamp would be perfect for this card layout. It also allows me to add a pop of color to my card without messing up the theme. I used the bee stamp from that same set and stamped using black on the Buzz and Bumble honey comb paper to make two cute bees. I just cut them out free hand after I stamped them. The flowers I cut using the cricut and also the hexagon shape and tag at the top which I stamped Happy Birthday using the Joyful Birthday stamp set. I inked the flowers and the tag with Goldrush ink and stamped the happy birthday using cocoa ink. I used colored pencils to color in the border at the bottom. Final touches are the Opaques Mocha Adhesive Gems and I added gold glitter to the center of the flowers. 

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my blog. I hope you have fun with the blog hop and are inspired to try something new!!  Now don't forget to check out Traci Williams blog along the way I hear she has something special for one lucky viewer. Happy Easter!!

Next up on the hop is: Sharon Chapman's blog : paperfiesta.blogspot.com

Find Me on: Close to My Heart * Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest

Easter Treat Bags

Hello!! Welcome to my Easter Double Header!! I honestly didn't mean to have two blog posts go live on Easter but it just worked out that way. Just one of those weeks where you think you have all the time in the world and then you're up at 1am trying to get it all done so you can get some sleep!!! Hahaha. Honestly for some reason I seem to work better with a deadline...

For my first post I am sharing this week's Heart 2 Heart Challenge - Easter!!  I decided to make little treat bags for my nieces and nephews for this challenge. I used the Chantilly paper from Close To My Heart for this one but I have used it so much all I had were scraps! I definitely need to order another pack ASAP!!! The colors in Chantilly just work SO well with Spring and Easter I couldn't dare use another paper set.

I also used some Sky Blue, White Daisy, Blush and Black Cardstock and  and the Glamour Lowercase Alphabet with Black Ink.  The green cardstock was just something I had on hand. I added glitter for extra sparkle!! The adorable treat bags are also from Close To My Heart : 20 large Paper Pouches for only $3.95!! I took them and ran them through my Cuttlebug with a flower pattern folder.

So, there you have it! My first project post of the day. I hope you take a few minutes to check out the Heart 2 Heart Challenges! Nothing like a challenge to get your craft juices flowing!! Happy Easter!

Find Me on: Close to My Heart * Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest

Mini Easter Baskets

Hello! Thanks for visiting Crafting With Carolyn! Today I decided to get a major jump on my Easter crafting. I don't make much anymore for Easter but I do enjoy making treat boxes/bags for the kids and their friends at school!

This year a fellow CTMH Consultant shared her craft with me and it inspired me to make my version of the same thing. Mini Easter Baskets!! Thanks so much for sharing your Mini Baskets with me Ashley Gréaux!! To check out her Mini Easter Baskets click here: cutesyandsillscrafts.blogspot.com

Aren't they just SO cute??? Small enough for one plastic egg but totally adorable. They were super easy to make too!!

I used a retired paper set from Close To My Heart - the Dotty For You paper. I loved the cute dotty paper but just could not find the right project until now!!! These were cut on my Cricut using the Close To My Heart Artiste Cartridge. This particular cupcake wrapper is on page 70, Accent 4. It is a cupcake wrapper with a circle glued to the bottom and a handle added. The cupcake wrapper I used is 8" wide.












When I am assembling more than one of an item I like to set it up assembly style. First I put all the wrappers together and I used my atg to make sure they wouldn't open on me! Don't they look like mini lampshades here?

Since the bottom of the cupcake wrapper is open I cut circles out using the gray dotty paper and glued those on. Ashley had another method but I didn't want to go the same route.... This was actually pretty easy! I used tacky glue! I just poured it onto a styrofoam plate and  dipped the bottom of the cupcake wrapper into the glue then placed it on the circle.

It didn't take long to dry at all! Once they were dried I checked to make sure there weren't any spaces that I missed with the glue and if there were I just filled it with the tacky glue to seal. My circles were slightly too big and some went on crooked so being the perfectionist I am I took scissors and trimmed the excess!

For the basket handles, I thought white would be perfect. After I finished them all I thought hmmm... maybe I should have used color!! Haha. Typical.  Anyway my paper trimmer is kind of blah lately and even with a replaced blade it doesn't do a clean cut. It's always rough.

Rather than try to cut all those straight lines by hand I whipped out my Gypsy and decided to use a 8.5" x 11" white cardstock sheet for my strips. On the Gypsy I used a basic straight rectangle and made it 8.7" x 0.5" -- I then placed these on every 1" and at the bottom it was on 0.8". I made them bigger than my sheet of paper purposely so that it would not go across the edge of the sheet and pull up my strips. As you can see it worked very well.

 

I used the atg to attach the handles. For the grass I decided I wouldn't go out and buy the plastic stuff (I hate that stuff!! It gets everywhere!!). Instead I just took 4 shades of green 8.5" x 11" cardstock and fed them to my paper shredder.  Now I have grass for my Easter baskets!! These seriously took NO time at all!! I cut all the cupcake wrappers and the circles on the first day then assembled all 50 on the second day. My oldest saw them and requested 4 for his group of friends so I'll make those tomorrow. All that is left to do is fill with candy and hand them out!! ...The perfectionist in me wants to add something to those white handles though!! We will see who wins. The Easy Breezy Gal or the Perfectionist!!

Thanks again for stopping by! If you have any questions or comments please don't be shy!! 

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Chantilly! Mustache??

Happy Tuesday everyone and welcome to Crafting With Carolyn!! I'm trying to stay crafty and carve time into my day to day for crafts, blogging and most importantly me time!!

Today I am working on yesterdays Heart 2 Heart Challenge: Mustache. I got the email and was like what?? I have to use what??? A Mustache. Fun... I must admit, I'm not particularly fond of mustaches, I can't imagine what I would craft with it so I had to sit and think for quite some time. Sometimes the best way to come up with an idea is to think of who I am crafting for. Once I figured that out the rest followed in no time. Here's what I came up with:

I know a certain teacher who is obsessed with all things Smiley faced and I was betting she didn't have any smileys with a mustache!! So here it is. Yes, that is the same Chantilly paper sheet from yesterdays card!! What can I say I'm loving this paper pack! The paper and stamp are all Close to My Heart. White Daisy, Black, Buttercup and the Card Chatter - Birthday stamp set. I also used a bit of Sunny Yellow ink around the edge of the card. I can't help but SMILE... How about you?? ;)

Have a Great Day!! Thanks for visiting my blog and make sure you join in the Heart 2 Heart Challenge fun!!

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Mojo Monday #285

Hello!! Welcome to Crafting With Carolyn for another Mojo Monday!!! I just could not get enough of the Chantilly Paper Pack from Close To My Heart so I'm using it again this week! This time I'm focusing on another sheet in the pack the blue and yellow design.

I used almost all Close To My Heart products: Lagoon Cardstock behind the Chantilly Sheet and not sure you can see it but I added a light blue vellum over the Chantilly. I used White Daisy and Buttercup for the scallop and circle, White Daisy inked with Lagoon for the flower and tied it down with the Creme Brulee Twine from the Paradise Assortment. The only non CTMH items are the vellum and the glitter corners. I haven't decided what to use this card for yet so I left it blank.

Here's the Sketch by Julee be sure to stop by and check out the Mojo Monday blog and play along!!

 

I cut the 4 pieces of the vellum just in case I tore it, but I didn't so I thought I'd add it to the inside of the card. Same design like the front just smaller.  I got to play with one of my new toys today!! The Xyron Create A Sticker came in handy when sticking the vellum down!! LOVE It!

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