Cross Canada Blog Hop - What we Love about Spring

Welcome to our March Blog Hop featuring artwork inspired by What we Love About Spring. To purchase any of the items seen in our blog hop today, contact your local consultant to place an order.

We hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we love to get feedback from our viewers....whether it was something that you really liked or some new technique that was used that you would like to learn how to do....by leaving us comments, we get to hear what you like, and what you want to see. Thank you… now on to our hop!

If you have just hopped onto my blog, you can start here as this is a circular hop, plus it just so happens that I'm the first stop when hopping from East Coast to West Coast. If you came from Kristine's blog, Life Documented, then you are in the right place!

I just love spring, the grass turns green, the robins and other animals come back, and we have Easter.  My kids are still fairly young, so we have Easter egg hunts.  This year however, I don't think they will be outdoors, that is unless we get some warm weather and the snow melts.  Here are a few Easter cards I made for this hop.

This first card uses a mixture of papers from the current paper collections, some pink twine and Pattern 21 from MIFYH Volume 4.  I used the Easter Animals stamp set and the Easter Basket stamp.  I stamped the images in Memento and colored them using the Watercolor Pencils.  I did some blending with the waterbrush.  I little doodling around the sentiment and done.

For my second card I used the same pattern and mixed up some different patterns, added a splash of watercolor pencils blended behind the sentiment and some enamels and it is a whole different card.

Your next stop on the Cross Canada Hop is Colleen's blog, Stressed is just Desserts spelled backwards.


If you get lost along the way, you can come right back here:

Michelle You Are Here

Colleen

Brae

Kristine

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you to get creative using some of the designs, products and techniques seen along the way. We hope you will join us again next month when we will be featuring Celebrations. So mark April 15th on your calendars and hop along with us.


Always craft with  <3

Easter Wishes with AHSC

Over at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge we have a fabulous sketch for you to be inspired by. If you aren't just sure in what direction to take this sketch our design team has numerous variations on it to inspire you further.

Here is this week's sketch:

Here is my creation:

I used the new paper collection Hopscotch found in the 1st Edition of Seasonal Expressions.  It just screams Springtime and Easter, don't you agree.  I used the images from the retired stamp Some Bunny and the sentiment is from the Seasonal Expressions catalog Hopping By (D1633) which I stamped in Indian Corn Blue. 

So I hope you will Hop on by the Sketch Challengea and check out all the fabulous creations from the Design Team.

Easter Cards( a little late posting)

I hope everyone had a fabulous Easter Weekend.  I was a little under the weather and didn't get to post some of the cards I had created to give to my family and friends.  So I'm sharing them with you today.

These are just a few of my latest creations. The first 2 photos are creations that I made using cards from our current catalog for inspiration.  I used the the Quatrefoil and Chevron Embossing folders and sanded the embossed area to reveal the white core.

This second card I used the Tone on Tone technique to stamp the vine to create my own background.  For the background of the sentiment, I swiped the cardstock right over the top of my ink pads to add color.  I used the Alcohol Markers and Alcohol Blending Pen to color the flowers.

 These cards were so much fun to color.  I absolutely love the Some Bunny Stamp set.  For the cards on the left and bottom I used an overlay found on the newest Cricut Collection, Artbooking.  The other card is made using the Lollydoodle paper and the Quatrefoil Embossing folder for some texture.

Bingo

Welcome to our March Art Philosophy/Artiste Blog Hop!   As you know, both the Artiste and the Art Philosophy cartridges are available exclusively through a Close to My Heart consultant.  If you don't already have a Consultant that you are currently working with, please contact one the Consultants in our hop with any questions you have!

If you have just hopped onto my blog, please start at the beginning at Lucy's blog Love 2 Create .  If you came from Jennifer of 4 Hearts Scrapbooking then you are in the right place!

 Our challenge this month features not only one of these amazing cartridges but also a "BINGO" card!

Here is the BINGO card that our Consultants were given:

 

The Consultants were told they could  make anything they wanted using the Artiste OR Art Philosophy cartridge AND you work off the BINGO card posted above. Basically, you make a "BINGO" by going across, down, or diagonally and you have to use everything in that bingo line.

My project uses the center line across: sentiment, 3D & buttons.  I used the Artiste to cut this cute little basket from the Chantilly paper.  This basket can be found on page 55 and assembly instructions can be found on page 29 of the assembly booklet.  The sentiment is from the stamp set and is stamped in Pear Ink.  The Frame is from the stamp set Frame Flair and is stamped in Cotton Candy Ink.  The stamp has a matching cut on the Art Philosophy cartridge, which I cut in White Daisy CS and then 1/4 of an inch larger in Cotton Candy CS.

The buttons are from the Clear Button collection which I inked in pigment ink, then added clear embossing powder and then heat set, so that I had buttons that matched my project.  To do this technique you will need tweezers to hold them in place to heat set them.  I used Sunset for the large, Cotton Candy for the medium and Pear for the small.  I have seen this technique done my a few consultants, but I don't remember where and who, but would like to give credit where credit is due.....

So, I also wanted to make this basket so that it could be versatile, so I stamped a second sentiment from the same stamp set, Happy Mother's Day.  The frames are adhered to a straw which I then adhered to a quarter and placed at the bottom of the basket before filling the basket with Easter Grass and Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Your next stop on our "BINGO" hop is Traci of  Paper Crafting 101.

Here is the complete lineup in case you get lost along the way:

1. Lucy ~ Love 2 Create 
2.  Theodora ~ Celebrate Crafts
3. Penny ~ It Makes Total Cents
4. Michelle ~ My Flights of Fancy
5. Melissa L- MyWatermelonMoon 
6. Jennifer ~ 4 Hearts Scrapbooking 
7. Michelle ~ My Creations with Michelle You Are Here!
8. Traci ~ Paper Crafting 101 
9. Stephanie ~  The Quilted Scrapper 

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you.

Card Class Creations

So just this past Friday evening I had my monthly card class where we created some awesome cards used Chantilly and Claire, 2 of our newest paper patterns.

Here is a small sampling of what we made.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of our creations over the past few months.