New Artwork

This is a card I made for the 50th Wedding Anniversary of an amazing couple.  The picture does not show some of the details as well as I wish but I hope you can see them.  The background colonial white card stock has been embossed.  I am really loving the new embossing folders Close to My Heart has given us to work with.  This very simple technique adds so much interest to all types of paper crafting.  Also used on this card is our Color Ready Ribbon.  This product is so versatile.  It can be used in its natural state as a white ribbon or it can be inked in what ever color the project is. 

The trip to Israel continues

A valiant effort was made, but unfortunately the book for Israel has not been finished.   In May, our core scrapbooking group took our annual trip to Gastonburg for a 5 day cropping retreat.  Several days were dedicated to the book, but once again I had totally underestimated how much time it would take to get it done.  Working on the journaling alone turned into a mini bible study.  I have needed to put it aside for a few months to focus on monthly workshops and annual convention for Close to My Heart (much more on convention and the new book will be posted soon).  I have high hopes for getting back to it before the end of the summer.  Stay tuned.

Progress is being made on a steady basis.  There are three layouts sketches that still need to have paper choices matched up with them and there are 9 total layouts that still need to be put together.  The majority of the pictures that will be used in this book were order through StudioJ.  I love that option for printing pictures that are sized other than 4 x 6.  The shipment will be delivered on Thursday and then it's time to separate them into their layouts.  My regular monthly workshop is this weekend so scrapbooking time this week will be spent getting ready for Saturday.  That leaves 10 days until the end of the month.  Doesn't look like my self imposed completion date of May 1st is going to happen but I am still working hard.

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.