Gina's Little Corner of StampinHeaven

Oh wow.....  It's been over a week since I've posted here!  It's has been a whirlwind of activity since I got home from Utah.  I'm afraid for the next year it is going to continue to be a whirlwind.  It looks like I'll be planning a wedding!! While in Cuba for a study abroad trip my youngest daughter got engaged! What a great memory this will always be for Kayli and John.   Certainly a trip to be remembered.   Several months ago, my very good friend and fellow consultant Jaime Llewellyn created a beautiful page that was perfect for displaying in Close To My Heart's Designed Decor Shadowbox frame.  I've been wanting to offer this as a Girls Night Out project for some time but it never seemed to be the right time.  Well - I think now this is the PERFECT time!  Jaime shared her design with me (she is so talented) and I changed the colors a bit. All of the cuts on this page are from the Artfully Sent Cricut Cartridge.  Yeah - it's that cartridge for c

Have you heard the news?  Our new Seasonal Expressions for 2016 is out!  Today our SOTM blog Hoppers is hosting a New Product Blog Hop.  This blog hop will showcase some of the new products that have just been released!  If you came from Jennifer Dykstra's  blog you are on the right track!  Look for the next blog link at the bottom of my post.  Keep hopping and when you get back to me you will know you completed the hop! One of the fun new products in our SE1 is Thin Cuts!  For this hop I'm featuring the new stamp "Stuck on You" and their coordinating thin cuts! I used my watercolor paints, brushes and Watercolor paper to color the cactus images and flowers. The flower pots were stamped with Eggplant and Desert Sand Ink.   All of the images on this card had a matching thin cut.  I used my cuttlebug along with a C-plate and a B-Plate and ran the thin cuts through.  One helpful hint - I used washi tape to hold the thin cut in place.  (who knew that washi tape

This picture above represents over 900 years of combined service to Close To My Heart! I've just returned from my very first Team Builders event hosted by Close To My Heart.  The event was held in Salt Lake City, Utah from Thursday to Friday.  Over 60 Leaders from Close To My Heart attended this event and I was so honored to be among them.  In smaller settings such as this it is easy to get close and personal with the Executive Team and staff.   We had jammed packed sessions on Time Management, Team Recognition, Leadership, Mentoring and even some creative time.  The meetings at times, were frank, personal, enlightening and entertaining.   I learned so much and I'm anxious to put into place the many tips I came away with. The most special time of the entire event was when we were surprised with a visit by Jeanette Lynton, CEO of Close To My Heart on the last day.   She is such an inspiration.  You can tell without a doubt that she loves this company and deeply cares

Today, I have arrived in Salt Lake City Utah!  I'm so excited to be attending a Teambuilders event hosted by Close To My Heart.  I will get to meet up with many of my consultant friends that I only get to see at convention.   I'm actually rooming with two of my Spa Girlfriends (Krista and Jaime) that I met on my very first trip to Utah when we won a spa retreat with CTMH back in 2010. I'm looking forward to learning new things and being inspired by so many successful consultants in this company.  I wanted to make a special gift for my roommates.  And as in my usual fashion, I'm very last minute so that means I didn't have time to order things.  I wanted to create them something with new products and I just happened to have an extra set of Everyday Life My Crush Page s.  I'm thinking.... what can I do with that?  Create Layouts of course!!    So I thumbed through the pages and pulled out three pages with large quotes/titles.   Then I pulled out more pages that

It's not too early to start thinking about Valentines Day!  Recently a friend of mine asked me to design a Valentine Workshop for kids as a fundraiser for her mission trip.  I knew immediately the stamp to use!  Close To My Heart's Animal Greetings!  Not only are the animals adorable color-able images with cute sayings, it has a special purpose too! Animal Greetings - D1679 For every Animal Greetings stamp set that is purchased, $7.00 will be donated to Operation Smile. Operation Smile is an organization that provides free, life-changing surgery that repairs smiles and reshapes lives, one child at a time. Since 2008, Close To My Heart has provided support to change the lives of over 1,500 children and their families. For my workshop, I kept it simple, using our Fundamental Cardstock in Whimsy and Enchantment colors to make twelve 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 flat cards.  I layered the cardstock so that the opposite side with the pattern provides a mat for the stamped image.  These

Did you know that January is National Papercrafting Month?  Close To My Heart has an special product that you can get ONLY during the month of January!  The Picture My Life - Live Your Day  collection was designed to coordinate perfectly with the sensational Everyday Life™ 2016 Planner Pages and My Crush® Everyday Life Pages, so you can seamlessly integrate pocket scrapbooking into your 2016 planner. Whether in the planner or on their own, these cards make it easy to preserve your everyday moments all year long. To give you some great ideas on uses for this fabulous product, the CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hoppers have put together a fun hop featuring this product!  If you have come from  Terrie Shortsleeve's Blog  you are on the right track!  The hop is a big circle so when you get back to me you will know you have completed the hop! For my project, I combined the Live You Day cards with the Everyday Life My Crush pages to create a Special Days Album that we will be making

I'm so excited!  We get to start off the new year with a brand new Seasonal Expression and it is FULL of exciting new stamps, kits and more!   Let me take a few minutes and share one of our newest products - The Workshop Your Way Kit! Our brand new Workshop Your Way Kits is just one of the new products that I'm most excited about!  I think you will love them!  These kits come COMPLETE with everything you need to create 3 two page layouts, a Picture My Life two page layout!!  That is 4 layouts!  All for just $26.95.  And that is not all, use your instruction guide and scraps to create beautiful cards! There are 3 new Workshop Your Way Kits in this book - here is one example: Charlotte This kit includes: 1 – Charlotte Paper Packet (X7205B) 1 – Charlotte Complements (X7205C) 3 – Cardstock Sheets (1 Black, 2 Whisper) 1 – Black & Gold Ribbon (Z3197) 1 – Treasured Puffies (Z3203) Use the online guide to create the 3 traditional scrapbooking layouts an

  Welcome to the January Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! This month we are featuring Beloved Bouquet . This is a set of 14 stamps! If you have come here from  Haley Dyer's Blog , you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way around. If you get lost along the way, you'll find the complete list of participating consultant's  HERE . If you love base and shade stamping, this stamp is for you! I used Hollyhock and Pomegranate inks for my roses.  For three of the roses, I used second generation stamping with Pomegranate ink for the base of the flower and 1st generation for the outline.  For the lighter rose I used the same technique only this time with Hollyhock ink.  The small rose was stamped with Hollyhock ink for the base and I used Pomegranate ink to stamp the outline.  There are so many way to mix and match your inks with these stamps.  It was fun to play around with them. Other products u