Color of the Year ~> Sea Glass

I am completely in love with this color. I'm not sure why because this is generally a color I would NOT gravitate to, even though it is in the green family and I usually like anything in the green family. Of course I needed to immerse myself in it. This last weekend I spent playing with all things sea glass.

This card I made using of course the Sea Glass and the new Blossom paper and ink. The Sea Glass glitter paper is amazing. It doesn't leave a lot of fall off glitter when you cut or use it. When you rub your hand over the surface its NOT like most glitter papers where the surface catches everything.

Created by Andrea Marie Sherman at girlpluspaper.blogspot.com

This card was created using the Sea Glass papers, cricut and the new Rustic Home Fundamentals.

This is the beautiful NEW Everyday Life Album in Faux Leather

The NEW just released in the Holiday Expressions Everyday Life Album is beyond beautiful. All you planner girls will gush over how wonderful the surface feels. It's like butter. It will last much better over time when used as a planner. I can't wait to see what the NEW planner insert pages are going to look like. 

Here is another card sample using the Sea Glass colors and the October stamp of the month. Isn't it beautiful!

Created by Robyn Holfeltz

Supply List

• S1610 Yuletide Joy October 2016 Stamp of the Month
• 1385 White Daisy Cardstock
• Z891 Versamark Ink Pad
• Z2067 Silver Embossing Powder
• Z3240 Seaglass Glitter Paper
• Z2873 Slate Ink Pad
• Z2013 Silver Sequins
• Z3274 Clear Sparkles
• Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape
• Z3263 Uptown Fundamentals
• Z1912 Corner Rounder

New Product Highlight: New Style Ink Pads and Other Color Tools!

The NEW style ink pads are available in all the NEW Adventure colors: Pansy, Emerald, Willow, Lemon, Tangerine, Blossom and Raspberry.

Click here to download the Ink Chart.

The description on these babies is very accurate. "Sleek" is the word but a written description is just not good enough. You have to see them and play with them to really get the feel for how different and much more "usable" they are.     

SIZE
NEW vs OLD

Overall size -        3  5/16" x 4  7/16" vs 2  15/16" x 1  1/16"

Pad size - 2  7/16" x 3  7/8" vs 2  7/16" x 2  15/16"

Here is some basic information on what type of inks all the CTMH products provide. You will see we are very diverse!

Here is a handy ShinHan Touch Twin Marker guide for you to use as well. Click HERE to download.

While were at it here is a wonderfully useful Watercolor guide that gives you formulas to match as closely as possible the CTMH colors using the Watercolor pallet.

Click here to download a copy for yourself.

I hope you find these documents useful in your color quest. Visit www.NinasArtSpot.ctmh.com to purchase your NEW Close to my Heart products or www.NinasArtSpot.etsy.com for your retired and gently used Close to my Heart products as well as kits, handmade items, planning items and more.

New Product Highlight: Rustic Home Fundamentals

Today I want to highlight the Rustic Home Fundamentals. I was floored by the quality and diversity of these papers. This paper pack comes with 12 sheets of 12" x 12" paper (2 each of 6 designs). Some are in Kraft paper, one on vellum with copper foil accents.

I immediately fell in love with them. For my first attempt at playing with this paper I tackled a 24 card Thank You workshop. 

24 Thank You Card Workshop Created by Karen Pedersen

Download a copy of the workshop for yourself HERE

Now of course I had to spice it up a bit from the original intended workshop. I will of course list the changes I made so you can make your own decisions if you want to recreate these for yourself. I still made 24 cards but instead of using the Hearts Thin Cuts (Z3260, pg 79 of your AI) I used my Cricut.

Here is my Supply list:

• Rustic Home Fundamentals - Z3262, pg 29
• 24 White Daisy Cards & Envelopes - X254, pg 101
• 2 Sheets White Daisy Cardstock - 1385, pg 95
• 1 pk Enchantment Cardstock - X5781, pg 98
• Versamark Ink Pad - Z891, pg 106
• Ranger White SuperFine Embossing Pwd - Z2068, pg106
• Pearl White Embossing pwd - CTMH no longer carries
• Happy Hearts Stamp Set - A1192, 49
• Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge - no longer available

Now the Art Philosophy Cartridge is no longer available for sale but I'm sure there are other cartridges with equally usable hearts for this project. On page 26 of the Art Philosophy book I found one that will cut an outline and do a solid. I chose my large heart to be 3", my medium heart to be 2 1/2" and my small heart to be 1 1/2". Because the cricut cuts out the center on the outline you can spice it up and use the slightly different heart shape as well. 

Here are each of the cards close up from this work shop doing it My Way = Spicy!

I choose not to do any distressing on the card stock pieces. I carried that throughout the entire workshop.

On card #3 I choose not to back the vellum with the Peacock cardstock. I felt it looked too dark. 

In this image of card #4 you can really see the raised design on the kraft paper.

On card #5 I left off the white strip at the bottom. I felt it was too distracting. You can see I choose a different size poppy and saffron hearts for the focus.

On card #7 I tried using some old pearl embossing powder on the stamped hearts I wasn't thrilled with how it looked against the bright of the White Daisy cardstock and White embossing powder. On the 3 of this design I changed out and played with the die cut hearts getting a variety of different "looks" out of each of them. 

On card #8 was the only place where I found a bit of a cutting discrepancy on the workshop instructions. They call for these each to be cut at 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" but doing that as you can see left no room to leave space between each of the square's. I choose to butt them up to each other rather than trim each of the pieces down to 1" x 1 1/4".

I hope you have enjoyed this New Product Highlight! It sure was fun creating and playing with these new products!

"Well Hello Beautiful...."

Every year in August the new Annual Inspirations comes out. This as you may or may not know is Close to my Heart's annual idea book and catalog. It is chocked full of ideas, new and fun products and many inspiring projects. Just seeing that front cover when it finally comes out always brings out that statement for me..."well hello beautiful" and then I can't wait to get my hands on it.

For me its a ritual. I first write my name on the cover with the words Master and the Year. I then create a Key on the first page. Yellow highlighter is always HAVE and blue highlighter is always NEED. Because I'm a consultant the lines of want and need are very much blurred. Upon that initial peruse through that blue highlighter focuses on "all the things" I must have...the wants. As I look back through my "OLD AI" (Annual Inspiration from last year) I see I've added items I feel I need to expose my customers to, have been asked to demonstrate or I've discovered a new use for. That darn old blue highlighter seems to grow and many turn green as time moves along through the year. Green on the key are those items I wanted but then purchased and are now haves...because blue plus yellow does make green. 😉 Once this ritual has been complete I then trek to the nearest copy center and have my binding cut off and have the entire thing spiral bound with a clear plastic front cover and a black plastic back cover. It is now ready to survive the onslaught of the new Close to my Heart year and I and filled with a sense of satisfaction. Temporary satisfaction but satisfaction all the same. 

So how can you get yours you may ask? There are multiple ways you can get yours. 

1.  You can purchase an Annual Inspirations. The item number is WC1171 for $6 by either clicking on the CTMH store tab from the blog or click HERE and join the current online order and place your order.
2. You can host a Facebook online gathering and get your Annual Inspiration FREE. Contact me at Nina@NinasArtSpot.com for details.

So lets peek at some of the awesome NEW items in the 2016~2017 Annual Inspirations. 

Welcome to a NEW thing called the 

Color of the Year

The color of the year is available for this Annual Inspirations only, this trendy color comes in a variety of products. Such as Ink Pad, Re-Inker, Mini Pigment Pad...just to name a few.

Can you guess what the AI 2016~2017 Color of the Year is?

Card Supply List

1. Dandy Essentials Acrylic Stamp Set ~ M1151
2. Sea Glass Mini Pigment Pad ~ Z2507
3. White Daisy Cardstock ~ 1385
4. Sea Glass Glitter Cardstock ~ Z3240
5. Raspberry Cardstock ~ X5788
6. Hello & Thanks Thin Cuts ~ Z3259

This year's color is....... 

Sea Glass

Welcome to the NEW ADVENTURE line up

New on the ADVENTURE scene is Pansy, Emerald, Willow, Lemon, Tangerine, Blossom and Raspberry. Bright and bold they are welcomed new friends to come play. Having new ink color friends means an update on an old friend. The CTMH Exclusive Ink Chart needed a revamp. Here it is and see even mine needs some of our new friends to be added. 

Download yours today HERE!

Stay tuned here for more breaking news on whats NEW from the AI all August long.