New Product Hightlight: CTMH's Sugar Rush Creative Collection

Close to my Heart's Creative Collection: Sugar Rush

~Sugar Rush is sweet treats meet fun and playful, hugs & kisses and all things girl.

Featured Colors:

blossom, canary, pomegranate, raspberry, sea glass, tangerine, whisper and white daisy

Like all of our Creative Collections, Sugar Rush comes in a background and texture paper packet, coordinating cardstock pack, complements and additional matching embellishments.

~Sugar Rush Creative Collection~

Paper Pack

12 = 12" x 12" B&T Duos (2 ea of 6 double-sided designs)

Sugar Rush Coordinating Cardstock

12 - 12"x 12" cardstock sheets (3 ea of Pomegranate, Sea Glass, Tangerine and Whisper)

Sugar Rush Complements

Coordinating stickers and chipboard die-cuts, including some with gold foil accents

Sugar Rush Coordinating Embellishments

Dots & Washi

Dots ~ 72 adhesive-backed glitter dots in three different colors; 4mm and 6 mm

Washi ~ 3 rolls of washi tape; 5 yards ea, 1/2" and 1/4" wide

Sugar Rush Workshops Your Way

The Workshop Your Way comes with everything you need to create three, 2-page coordinating scrapbook layouts.

Using your remaining workshop materials and a few extra supplies you can create 9 cards, 3 of each these designs.

Here are images of additional items created using the Sugar Rush Creative Collection.

The Traveler's Box: Introduction and February Release

As you probably have already seen on the Facebook page I along with Erika from Chaotic Blessing are releasing "The Traveler's Box", a box of goodies designed for anyone who loves to plan, journal, or be crafty and artistic. This box is jammed packed with amazingness. It is a great way to take your planning and journaling to the next level of creative. The bonus is that most of the items in the box can also be used for scrapbooking &/or crafting. 

Erika and I have known each other for over a year and have chit chatted over that time about our love for planning, crafting and being artistic. We both have Graphic Design and scrapbooking backgrounds. She took her Graphic Design and planning and went one direction and I Scrapbooking and fine art into another. We have now pooled both our love for these expressions as well as our years of experience to bring to you The Traveler's Box!

Each box is filled with 100% usable, coordinated themed goodies designed by myself and Erika. Plus each release we will have a guest designer to add an element to the box.

February's theme is: Victorian Love

February Release box items:

* charm

* planner clip
* pattern designer paper 

* mini watercolor travel tin
* stickers
* ephemera
* faith inspired items

All items can be used for any size Travelers Notebook, planner or journal. Patterned paper is 9.25 x 6.75, perfect to make dashboards and more. When a travelers notebook insert is included it will be in the personal size (3.75" x 6.75"). 

LIMITED QUANTITIES are available so PRE-Order yours today. Pre-order closes Jan 20 and boxes will begin to ship Monday, February 6. 

So lets take a look at some of the items available in this first Traveler's Box.

Guest designer this month is Tory, @littlemissalaska. She has such beautiful talent and graciously agreed to help us in the debut of the Traveler's Box. Aren't they so adorable. Add these charms to a clip, bookmark, elastic or more and add handcrafted beauty to any of your planners, traveler's notebook's, journals, or notebooks. What a great way to remember you are loved 💕💕💕💕 . Your choice of either Agape, Adore or both.

How beautiful is this?! A, 3-dimensional planner clip with Victorian style. Handcrafted by me. Each piece is individually made with a multitude of artistic techniques. Paired with the other items in "The Traveler's Box", you will have a unique coordinated display in your planner, traveler's notebook, journal or more. 

What an exciting way to try out watercolors in your planner or be inspired to paint in your journal. Now you can!!!! 😍😍😍This traveling watercolor set and water brush is just that, portable and reusable. Also handcrafted by me, you can refill with colors of your choice and take it on the go anywhere. 

Eeek! Papers are finalized and I can't wait to start playing with them. I'm just so excited for this first Traveler's Box and all that is going in them for you all. I love how these patterns coordinate and give a different spin to the traditional "love" theme of February. These beauties were custom designed by Erika of Chaotic Blessing.

This traveler's notebook insert(custom for this box and not sold anywhere else) is both elegant and stunning. It is a personal sized or (3.75" x 6.75"). 

Also included in the February box there will also be two journaling stencils on a jump ring so you can add more, 6 sheets of stickers, ephemera set, tip ins, inspiration faith decor, and a few other surprises. Unless indicated all items have been designed exclusively for you all by myself, Erika and Tory, and are not sold anywhere else. 

Interested in purchasing or learning more about The Traveler's Box? Hop over to the store HERE!

Follow us on Instagram @NinasArtSpot and @Chaotic_Blessin or on Facebook Nina's Art Spot and Chaotic Blessing

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New Product Hightlight: CTMH's Hello Lovely Creative Collection

Close to my Heart's Creative Collection: hello lovely

~hello lovely with it's soft floral's speaks all things wedding, love and togetherness.

Featured Colors:

colonial white, desert sand, fern, new England ivy, sea glass, sorbet, whisper and white daisy

Like all of our Creative Collections, hello lovely comes in a background and texture paper packet, coordinating cardstock pack, complements and additional matching embellishments.

hello lovely Creative Collection

Paper Pack

hello lovely Coordinating Cardstock

12 - 12"x 12" cardstock sheets (3 ea of Fern, Sea Glass, Sorbet, Whisper)

hello lovely Complements

hello lovely Coordinating Embellishments

hello lovely Workshops Your Way

The Workshop Your Way comes with everything you need to create three, 2-page coordinating scrapbook layouts.

Using your remaining workshop materials and a few extra supplies you can create 9 cards, 3 of each these designs.

Here are images of additional items created using the Hello Lovely Creative Collections.

Head on over to the CTMH store to see all the matching acrylic stamp sets.

To Do or not To Do...List that is!

...and, YES another resource. I tell you I'm full of them! Its one thing to go without any ideas and yet another to have an abundance....because there is no such thing as to many resources. 

Now I know I'm dating myself when I say this but back in the late 80's when I was in college I was a list composer. Yes, I made list's upon list's. List's to get things done in my day. List of books I wanted to read. List of media I wanted to learn to use. I listed anything and everything, any topic even anything I thought about. I was also a brain dumper...but my brain dumps looked more like outlines or....like lists. A list with a purpose. 

I was told by a counselor during that period in my life, that I needed to stop making lists. That lists were a set up to negative self talk when you did't get things on the list done and that there was more to life than crossing things of my to do list. At the time I though "She's the professional what do I know anyway"? Well that counselor had no idea what she was talking about. 

1.) I didn't just list what I needed to get done. 
2.) I listed for the sake of seeing things more completely. For the complete satisfaction I felt when I looked at the list(s) afterwards.
3.) For a compartmentalized individual a list is total nirvana....and I don't mean the Buddist version of nirvana. I mean it is a perfect state of happiness.

Well I had completely given up on lists except maybe a grocery list (not very satisfying I might add) Then last year I discovered The Reset Girl, Cori Spieker. I read her About Me page and was pulled in by the those things I felt I had in common with her. The biggest thing about Cori that caught my attention was her Listers Gotta List or LGL. She puts out a list of prompts, one for each day of the month to get you reflecting on your life. Its not about being perfect and making sure you get them each done all though the month. Its about self discover and it is completely what this repressed lister needed.  I was in nirvana because here was an opportunity to take my list making smash it into my artistic-ness coupled with my need to tell my story for my kids and make scrapertunities. It was the "real deal" and of course another resource providing lots of scrapertunities to reflect on when needed was yet another opportunity to share with you all. Actually the LGL is nearly a scrapbook in itself depending on how you construct yours.

Some people use those refrigerator grocery list pads to compile their LGL each month, some use planners and yet others might paint theirs in watercolor or hand letter them. I use my Travelers Notebook for my LGL. 

Left to Right: Pocket Sized I use for my journaling and Bible studies. Center is a Personal Sized I use for my listing. I do a Journaling prompt insert and my LGL in it. Finally this is my Christmas TN, it is a Cashier Size and I use it to plan and track all things Christmas. *Not shown here is my Mixed Media Journal which is also a Cashier Size.

Here is a sample of Cori's LGL Prompt Download Sheet for November 2016. She creates these and posts them monthly as a FREE download.

I simply cut out the Prompt List and adhere it into my TN Insert (TN=Travelers Notebook) as shown below.

This is the Front cover of my October LGL TN Insert

This is the back of the cover page and the first page in my Oct LGL TN Insert

As you can see in this close up I like to layer my Prompt number and have printed out the Prompts on clear labels so they all look relatively the same. Generally I do mine two up on a page so I have room and those I know I have lots to write about or a photo I want to include I save the whole page.

Cori, The Reset Girl also sells LGL Kits. She offers an Essentials Kit as well as a Deluxe Kit. I purchased the Essentials kit for November in the Grateful Heart. 

Here are some of my pages using this kit. I also pre-ordered the December Essentials kit in A Very Classy Christmas. 

This is the cover page in my Nov LGL TN Insert

This is the back of the cover page and the first page in my Nov LGL TN Insert

These list generate a lot of ideas that can be turned into Scrapertunities. For example the #2 prompt for November was "Words to describe this season of my life". I can see a few ways to turn this into a scrapbook page using both photo's of myself in the roles I listed above or using textural words (via embellishments etc.) running through the page. What a way to leave a legacy for your family about how you see yourself at this stage in life. It might be nice to add the date and age to the journaling block as well. (food for thought)

Another thing Cori has recently started is her Self Care Photo Challenges. She started this for October with the following prompt list.

So all during the month of October I posted a photo to my Instagram account based on the appropriate prompt. It was very much a challenge and I was not completely successful at it but it was super fun. Guess what else it did? ....... it created a Scrapertunity! 😲 Go Figure! So Here is an example of one of my posts.

and here are the final scrapbook pages I did of this process. They are 10, 9" x 9" pages and were super simple in the layout. I even just followed the same color scheme that Cori used in her Challenge image. I did them in the 9" x 9" because my Book of Me I've been working on for my kids is already in that size. I barely used any journaling because in my Instagram posts I had already done "mostly" a journaling block already.