Happy National Paper Crafting Month

Every January, we celebrate National Paper crafting month as a way of acknowledging the pure joy of playing with paper! Because isn't playing with paper just the best? We scrapbook with it, we make cards with it, I make mixed media canvases with it, we decorate with it in many forms, we craft with it! So this January we are celebrating the joys of paper crafting with a beautiful "Welcome Home" home decor wreath kit.    

This kit comes with pre-cut pieces you can simply pop out and attach to the sturdy chipboard wreath base, making a welcoming decor piece for your home. The wreath kit can be yours for just $18.95, or you can get it FREE with a qualifying $60 purchase. 

The Welcome Home wreath kit is an all-inclusive project kit, meaning it includes everything you need to create a beautiful home decor piece - - all you need to add is a quilling tool or the CTMH tweezers and adhesive! Featuring paper succulents, rustic wood-grain paper and gold foil lettering, this trendy wreath is sure to make a beautiful accent anywhere in your home. The kit contains seven sheets of die-cut shapes, two sheets of stickers, one thick chipboard wreath base and instructions with simple assembly tips!

Item number #CC1210 ~ Pop on over to the Nina's Art Spot CTMH website and order yours today! 

This kit is available Jan 1, 2017 - Jan 31, 2017 while supplies last.

I'm am going to review some of the basic's of putting together your wreath. Bookmark this page now so when your's comes in you can refer back to this information. I'm sure it will be quite helpful, especially if you have never put together die cut flowers before.

Here is a list of the extra items not part of the kit that I used to put mine together.

• Z679 Liquid Glass
• Z726 Sponge Daubers
• Z2835 New England Ivy Ink Pad
• Z2850 Fern Ink Pad
• Z1795 Quilling tool or
• Z1382 Tweezers 
• Z3316 Gold Shimmer Brush (NEW)

To start out with I choose to daub a bit of contrast onto the tips of my succulents. I only did the grey/green colored succulents to add a bit of variety to my final wreath.

I suggest you daub them before punching them out of the carrier sheets. It saves you time and a lot of ink waste on your fingers. 😊 I used New England Ivy for the darker succulent leaves and Fern for the lighter. 

Here is a short video demonstrating how to put the succulents together.

Here is a video demonstrating how to put the white flowers together.

Wala ~ Here is my final version. I actually spaced my succulents out further and thus did not have room for the final one. 

Chris Lothian from Christine's Creative Caper's is so creative. She took the inside piece from the wreath form and created this Home Decor piece. 

It is my hopes that this has made putting together your Welcome Home Wreath a bit easier and less hassle free.

New Product Highlight: Swan Lake Creative Collection

Swan Lake is fairy-tale meets elegant holiday.  The featured colors for this collections are: Black, Canary, Fern, Glacier, Goldrush, Peacock, Poppy, Slate, Whisper and White Daisy. 

In this collection are the standard items:

The Paper Pack

The Complements, Grey enamel gems and Black Shimmer Ribbon.

and

The Workshops Your Way

Scrapbooking Kit

 Where you can make these 6 layouts

and if you add a few items to your purchase

you can also make these items.

By just adding:

• Z4007 Thankful for you Thin Cuts Bundle
• Z2823 Goldrush Stamp Pad
• Z2849 Peacock Stamp Pad
• Z2852 Poppy Stamp Pad
• Z2872 Whisper Stamp Pad
• Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape
• X254 White Cards & Envelopes Value Pack
• Pocket Plus Protectors

I also got the opportunity to use Shannon Buck's Swan Lake workshop. I made a few adjustments to fit my needs. Here are my results and here is the workshop for you to download.<CLICK HERE>.

Here are more items made using this collection:

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!

Basically the Best.....Constant Campaign

Brand new scrapbooking papers are here, and you can get some FREE!*

What could be better than treating yourself to brand new scrapbooking paper? How about getting even more paper for FREE!

During the month of August, when you order our Whimsy, Adventure, and Enchantment Fundamentals paper you can choose to get either the Rustic Home or Uptown Fundamentals for FREE! Both of these Basics packs feature foil designs and specialty materials for making your artwork unique. Yep, this deal is basically the best!

Whimsy Fundamentals ~ Z3255

thistle, crystal blue, glacier, juniper, sweet leaf, canary, flaxen, sorbet, pixie and smoothie

Adventure Fundamentals ~ Z3253

pansy, pacifica, lagoon, emerald, willow, lemon, tangerine, blossom, raspberry and cranberry

Enchantment Fundamentals ~ Z3254

eggplant, sapphire, peacock, new england ivy, fern, saffron, goldrush, poppy, pomegranate and ruby

The Fundamentals come with 24 sheets of 12" x 12" paper, that's 2 each of 12 double-sided designs as shown in each of the color pallets.

So purchase each of the above and pick one of the following for FREE!

Rustic Home Fundamentals ~ Z3262

black, slate, whisper, cocoa, chocolate, saddle, cashmere, champagne, desert sand, bamboo, kraft paper, vellum and copper foil accents

or

Uptown Fundamentals ~ Z3263

black, slate, whisper, cocoa, chocolate, saddle, cashmere, champagne, desert sand, bamboo, vellum and gold foil accents

The Rustic Home and Uptown Fundamentals come with 12 sheets of 12" x 12" paper, that's 2 each of 6 designs.

Our new Fundamentals papers feature incredibly versatile patterns in a wide selection of colors, so they can be used for any and every project! Because they come in our exclusive colors, you can mix and match them with the themed paper packets from the Seasonal and Holiday Expressions. 

But the bonuses don't end there: Workshops have been created using these products and you can download them here for FREE! To complete them, you'll just need a few extra items and then you can follow their cutting diagrams, patterns and instructions to replicate the artwork or spice it up a bit and make it your own!

Click HERE to download the Scrapbooking workshop or Click HERE to download the Cardmaking workshop.

Bonus to the Bonus: When you take advantage of this campaign, you'll automatically qualify for the Stamp of the Month for only $5.

*with qualifying purchase. Offer valid August 1, 2016 (9:00am MDT)- August 31, 2016 (11:59 pm MDT) while supplies last. Shipping/handling rates are based on the full retail price of free items. Tax is not charged for free items.