It's only the beginning of April, but what a year it has been so far.  Several wonderful trips have been taken, to include a 10 journey to the Holy Land.  I returned home with over 1300 pictures to sort through and organize.  I spent about a week organizing layout ideas and choosing the paper combinations.  Lucky for me, some of the workshop pages that we have been making over the last few years worked perfectly so that is a few less pages that have to be made now.  I have an ambitious goal of having this scrapbook finished by the end of month.  I will post updates to let you know how it is progressing.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem

The Mediterranean Sea at Caesarea

Offically here

After "patiently" waiting for several weeks, those in attendance at my semi-annual open house have now received their free copy of the Close to My Heart Fall/Winter 2013 Idea Book.  We spent this morning looking through the pages and dreaming of all the possibilities with the new products.  Of course, everyone has their own favorite new paper pack.  Mine is the fall themed pack called Huntington, with Sarita being a close second.  What's yours? If you haven't had a chance to come by and pick up your personal copy of the new book, please take a few minutes and look at it on the website. http://kimmcconnell.ctmh.com/CTMH/Content.aspx?id=/en/OBA/Products/Online_Idea_Book.aspx 

We also took some time to put our hands on some of the new products.  Attendees picked one of these new products to take home with them.  I love being able to give away free stuff to my faithful customers.  

I will be planning out the fall workshop schedule in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, our workshop for August will take advantage of some of the well designed layouts from the CTMH How to Books and use up some of our leftover papers from the past idea book.  The workshop is scheduled for Saturday August 17 and is from 9:30-11:30.  For those of you who do not scrapbook, you have the option of making homemade greeting cards.   I love our workshops as we gather for a couple of hours once a month to have a wonderful time with our friends while doing something we are very passionate about. 

This is a great time to join us as we transition into the new idea book.  Feel free to join the group that meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month, or if you have a group of around 3-9 friends and would love to start a workshop group of your own, please contact me and we will get it started

It's that time again.  The new Fall/Winter 2013 Close to My Heart Idea Book will be revealed at my Open House.  The first Saturday in August please stop by between 9 and 12 to pick up your free copy of the new book.  As always, the new book has lots of wonderful new stuff and our new paper packs to carry us through the end of the year.   I will have some of the new items and paper packs on hand for you to see.  And let's not forget, of course there is a new Cricut cartridge sold exclusively by Close to My Heart.  I can't wait for show you how amazing this one is.

New Year and new creations.  One of the really useful projects sold by CTMH is what I refer to as a perpetual calendar.  It has a page for each month but simply lists the number of days, not the days of the week.  This is perfect for writing down birthdays and anniversaries.   The tops of each month are blank so you can embellish however you want.  Here are a couple of months that I have done just to give you an idea.

 The blank calendar can be purchased from the online website.  If you would like to purchase a kit of precut papers to embellish each month please contact me.

Convention was awesome

I am home from the 2012 CTMH Convention which was held in Dallas.  To say it was awesome seems to sell it just a little short.  This was my first time attending and now I know why all of the consultants that have been are always to excited.  We were all given a copy of the new 2012 Fall/Winter Idea Book and I couldn't be more excited about the products we have for the next 6 months. 

The new idea book "goes live" on August 1st.  If you have been considering hosting a gathering in your home, my home, or online, now is the time.  If you would like to become part of a monthly workshop making either scrapbook layouts or handmade cards, please contact me.  This is an exciting time to be connected with such a wonderful company that makes beyond beautiful stuff for us to preserve our memories.

Stayed tune for a sneak pick at some of the layouts we made at convention with the new paper packs.

It's time to do some serious scrapbooking.  I used this weekend to get my work area organized and ready to be put to use. 

It always amazes me at how cluttered this place gets in no time at all.  This is not a place that inspires beautiful page making.  But in just a few short hours ...

I discovered there actually was a work space under there.  Now that makes me want to get to work.  And just in time.  I have decided to start making scrapbooks for hire.  If you want to have those precious pictures turned into a book that will tell your story in a special way but just don't have the time to get it done, let me take care of it.  Prices will range from $125-$250 depending on if you have supplies that you want to use or if you just want to bring the pictures and I supply the rest.  The books will be 12X12 books with 20 layouts (that's a total of 40 pages).  Feel free to contact me so we can discuss your needs.

New Year, new creations

Well, its two months into the new year.  I haven't been very diligent in the blogging world, but at least there has been progress in the scrapbooking/cardmaking world.  In January, the workshop was a "Thank You" (free) workshop for my loyal group.  They made cards or pages from supplies I had in inventory.  Look at a few of the beautiful cards that were made.

Then came February and the brand new Idea Book was revealed.  What better inspiration to work with in the dreariness of winter than this amazing beach themed paper pack.  Look at all these pages made with the Footloose Workshop on the go (with the addition of the complements dimensional elements and the stamp set Kick Back).

 This is the showcase layout from the workshop.  The stamped images are made using four different ink colors and the sponge daubers.  Aren't they just as cute as a button?

The picture on the right is of the second layout in the workshop kit.  It also uses the multi-colored stamps.  They look so amazing on these pages.

The Footloose Paper has Dimensional Elements instead of Stickease.  They are self adhesive and so easy to use.

The Kick Back stamp set goes perfectly with the pages from the Footloose Paper pack.  Oh, to be able to sit in that chair under the umbrella.