Cricut Cards from Class last night

Made some fun cards last night for Cricut Class.  Here is the Wicked Halloween Card.

The card base was cut at 5 1/2 on the cricut.  The decorative layer in gypsy purple was cut at 2.2 to fit over the front of the window.

The inside of the card the witch was stamped with Exclusive Inks Grey Wool and the sentiment and cat were in Exclusive Inks Black.  I colored the witch's stockings with the Exclusive Inks Gypsy marker.

We made 2 other cute cards that I will post later as I have not taken pictures of them yet!

Next up are the cards I'm teaching at the Trinity Lutheran Church craft fair Saturday November 5.  My class is $5.  I'm teaching one class in the morning from 9 - 10 am and again in the afternoon from 1 - 2 pm.  At least I'm pretty sure that's my class times. 

If you are interested in signing up, please email me and I will send you the information.

First up is a Chrimstas card in traditional reds and greens.  Sorry the picture does not do it justice!  I'm not the best photographer.

Next are some cute tag cards cut at 3.8" and adorned with other cricut cut shapes and stamps.  These are the perfect size to put on top of your gifts.

Check back again as I will be having a Christmas card workshop with 25 cards for $20.  I will be making up the cards shortly and post them.  One class will be Tuesday November 15th 6:30-8:30.  The 2nd class is still TBD but might be Saturday December 10th which would still give time to get them in the mail.

Don't forget THIS Saturday is UFO day - bring your UnFinished Objects and some food to share and we'll craft the afternoon away.  I'm making potato casserole for dinner.  I'll start around 1pm and end around 11pm.  Sorry folks but I'm teaching Sunday school now and I need my rest if I'm going to handle 3rd and 4th graders at 9 am!

The Big Reveal - New Craft Studio

I've been talking about this on facebook a bunch.  We decided to exchange my craftroom for the family room and turn my old craft room in a movie room with 'stadium seating'.  So last Sunday we began this process with some good friends helping us move all my cra.... I mean crafty stuff into the family room.  It took about 4 hours but finally most of it was moved and a few shelves were hung. 

My husband is still trying to figure out how I had all this stuff in the smaller room.  The new space allows me to have tables up all the time for classes.  It's really nice.  Plus it's in the daylight basement so for our crop today it stayed fairly cool even though it was 90 outside.

I still have plenty of stuff to go through, organize, and get rid of.  However, this is way better than what it was.

Let me know what you think.

Fall / Winter Swaps are here!

Every new catalog my CTMH Director, Julie Reynolds, holds a swap.  She emails out a list of projects for each new paper pack and we email back our selections.  Then we make 41 of the same thing to send back.  In return we get back 1 of each item for a total of 40.  For all her time and trouble Julie keeps one of each for her display boards.

Here are the pictures of what I received.

Everyone did amazing work as always.  I hope you like it as much as I do.

A great article to read...

I was checking out the CTMH bulletin boards when I ran across a great article by a fellow consultant Kristen.  I was nodding to myself - yes I do that and oh I should do that.  So I decided to put a link to it.

If you're looking for good ways to back up your photos and keep from having them trapped on your computer where no one can see them, then check out this article by Kristen, here.

Thanks to Kristen for pointing out all the problems my little name change created on my blog too!

Is it a journaling spot or a bithday card?

Here I am as usual scrambling for an idea for a birthday card. Harrison, my 9 year old son, is attending a birthday party today and I'm drawing a blank for a card. So I as I'm sitting here on facebook chatting with Kim, I'm also checking out the rest of the Fabulously Artsy blog hop.

And Voila, there's my idea. It takes care of gift and card all in one! Right there on Elizabeth's Broken Treasure's blog! She's turned the Decor Journaling spots (X1461 $5.95 for 12) into fabulous gift tags for Christmas.

So I 'scraplifted' her idea and made this cute little birthday card for the party today. I'm off to Target to add a gift card to it now. I used the cupcake from the new Art Philosophy cricut cartridge and scraps from my bins. I added one of the bling buttons from Bling Assortment (Z1466 $4.95 for 18 pcs) and some bitty sparkles (Z1263 $2.95 for 100).

Thanks to Elizabeth for her great idea and to Tresa (www.fabulouslyartsy.com) for having the blog hop!

Having fun with Roxie and Sophia

As some of you may have heard Macie and Raina are fund raising for their trip to Washington DC. We've made a ton of clipboards, notebooks, and I've supplied a large pile of cards thanks to the many swaps I have participated in over the years.

Well last week we had a Mary Kay consultant stop by our table. She loved the clip boards but instead of using them for pictures she wanted lap boards to hold order forms for her parties. Lucky for me Mary Kay has this big thing with roses, bees and zebras. Roxie fit the bill perfectly. I added the little bee from a retired stampset I had and got creative.

So here is the sample board I made up for her approval. If she approves I'll be making 11 more of these.

She also asked for a matching 3-ring binder for her to keep her business organized. Of course thanks to the CTMH bulletin boards and Dana's post about her binder I knew exactly what she was after. I'll be making that after I get approval for her boards.

The next gal that stopped by liked our small boards but wanted something more durable for her small daughter and it needed to be pink, pink, pink, princess, and pink. Did I mention it had to be pink?

So I took off the 4th of July paper from a board we hadn't been able to sell (the small boards just aren't that popular), put on some Sophia, cut out her name using the new Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and made this very pink board. In fact that was the first thing Kathy (my twin sister) said, "It's sooo pink."

A little mod podge and voila a very pink, princess board to entertain a little princess while in the back seat of the car.

By the way, these are the first things I have ever mod podged. It was totally fun. So I don't know which is worse, my new cricut cartridge or mod podge. I'm having way too much fun with all of it!

New Fall / Winter Catalog available today!

August 1st means time for a new catalog and that means fun new products and great new lower prices! My acrylix stamp sets have new lower prices. Paper packs have been given a make over with new cardstock weight background and texture papers.

August 1st also means a new thing for my blog. I'm participating in a blog hop for the first time. I've joined the Fabulously Artsy blog hop sponsored by Tresa Black. Tresa is another Close to my Heart Consultant and she is Fabulous and Artsy. Her blog address is http://www.fabulouslyartsy.com/

Here are a couple of sample items using the new fall products. The first card is a swap spoiler for Julie Reynold's catalog swap. It uses the Mischief paper pack (X7144B), All Hallows Eve My Acrylix stampset (C1462), and Antiqued Copper Designer Brads (Z1410).

This next card uses the new Elemental paper pack (X7141B) along with the Elemental Compliments (X7141C), Milepost Shapes which are cool corregated cardboard shapes (Z1464), and to top it off I used Close to my Hearts new Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge and custom My Acrylix Art Philosophy Tags stamp set. Also present is the always must have bitty sparkle (Z1263).

If you want to check out the rest of the catalog you can find it on my website http://ctmh.com/karencpa. If you have any question or want to get your hands on a copy of the new Idea book please you can call me at (503) 310-8141 or email me at karen.gerlach@comcast.net Now enjoy the rest of the Fabulously Artsy blog hop.

Convention and Disneyland! - Wow!

It was a fabulous week at convention. I learned loads of new things and got to play with some of the fabulous new products in the fall / winter catalog. All I can say is WOW!

The week started out with a very early flight out of Portland to Anaheim. We were running late trying to juggle bags so we would only pay for 1 checked bag. I kept weighing it to make sure we weren't taking too much. We ended up carrying our shoes in our carry on bags because we had so much food and snacks in the bag it was heavy!

When we got there all the signs in the baggage area were down and we found the wrong carousel to get this heavy bag. Well, let me tell you the people in baggage claim at John Wayne airport are very efficient. By the time we found where we needed to be my bag had been locked in the office and the office personnel had left. We had to call to get my bag out of lock up!

Then we had to wait for a shuttle. We did that for an hour. The supershuttle was extremely busy and we had to wait. Grrr - all I wanted was to be in the park! However, we finally made it! Amy and I got our photo with the guy in charge - Mickey himself! That was a treat to see him.

Day 2 included Kandi and Shandy for the all day adventure. We saw everything there was to see in a single day! We hit the new Star Tours ride twice - it is so amazing! Loved the new 3-D change and we found out there are 36 different places you can go now. We did space mountain, splash mountain, the submarines, Buzz Light Year, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Jungle tours, Tiki Room, Small World. We watched the Fantasmic show and the new World of Color, we saw the Muppets, Bug's Life, rode the California Screamin' roller coaster, Soaring over California, and the new Little Mermaid Ride. Basicall we saw it all and in between we recovered our sore muscles by taking a dip in the hot tub at the hotel. :)

Then on day 4 (Thursday) - convention started. I was thrilled and chilled all over again and without being on a ride! The whole room errupted with screams when the new exclusive cricut cartridge was annouced. The CTMH corporate staff makes up fun videos to present the new products and this year's were great as usual. They say they aren't actors but even so they do a great job.

Ok now I'll show a few pictures of what we made. Here is a cute layout featuring our new Roxie paper pack with cranberry ribbon, and the new bling buttons and pins.

At our closing crop this year we made a mini album using the kraft paper card bases. Isn't this cute it's Disney themed and uses the special stamp set the consultants received at the awards banquet. You can only get this set if you are consultant and you attend convention. I'm certainly glad I'm both because I love Disney and I will use this stamp set a lot!!!! I've only included a couple of the many pages in this cute little album.

Lastly, here is the cute roommate gift I received from Deyonne. Amy and I picked up a couple of roommates on the CTMH bulletin boards. We were lucky enough to get two great roommates. Deyonne and Denese. Below is a picture of the explosion box that Deyonne made each of us.

Denese made a great gift too, but I'll save that photo and the picture of the other item we made while there. I will share those in the next post.

Here is a picture of my great roommates. We had a lot of fun together but we didn't get a lot of sleep we were up talking scrapbooking until midnight every night.

Amanda's Wedding Album

June is finally over and all the busy-ness of school getting out and the dance recitals are too. As June came to a close I was able to spend time with long-time family friends in celebration of their eldest daughter upcoming wedding on July 9th.



As with their daughter that married last summer, I decided to tackle making Amanda's wedding album. Her colors are peach and tiffany blue. The bridesmaides dresses will be in the blue and the wedding will be outside. Therefore so as not to overshadow the blue of the sky and the dresses I chose a light peach colored paper called 'Taffy' in Close to My Heart terms. I was shocked to discover hints of this peach color in the center of the flowers within the My Reflections kit "Bliss". Taffy has always been a hard color to use, but WOW this came out beautiful! I cannot wait to see the pictures with the white dress, the blue dresses, the green of the grass and the deep browns of the huge fir trees at the Rice Museum.



Of course I panicked and sent an immediate email to Amanda's sister when I received her olive green invitation. Ashley assured me that her colors had not changed. Thankfully the green of the invitation still looks great on this paper! I cut the page protector so that they can still open the invitation. This is the first page of the album.



The next page is for engagement pictures or just nice casual pictures of bride and groom.



Then comes the beautiful bride and her bridesmades. I was so lucky with this paper pack and it's coordiating My stickease. This album went together so much easier than her sister's did last year!



Next comes the Groom and his groomsmen. Even peach can look masculine!


A page of pictures of bride and groom, rings, cake or flowers.


The next pages are for the brides family.



Then the groom's family.


Pictures of the entire wedding party.


The ceremony.


The reception.


More reception.


More reception. I expect pictures of tossing of the bouquet and the garder somewhere on these pages.


Then the happy couple heads off to begin their journey together and I hope live "Happily Ever After".


Here is the card I made to give with a gift card and the album.

I was happy that she was excited to get it. She knew after last year's gift to her sister that this was what she would get. Not much of a suprise for our favorite piano teacher, but I hope she gets many years of enjoyment from it.

Products used include:

Bliss Workshop on the Go Kit -G1020

Bliss Level 1 - X7132A

Bliss My Stickease - X7132C

Bliss Level 2 Assortment - Z1355

Opaques Mocha - Z1333

Opaques Licorice - Z1335

Opaques Pearl - Z1336

Designer Brads - Z1349

Wooden Buttons - Z1387

Chocolate Ink, Grey Wool Ink, chocolate and colonial white ribbon were also used.

Bliss will retire July 31st. If you want it and instructions on how to make your own fabulous wedding album, please email me at karen.gerlach@comast.net or check it all out on my website at http://kbgerlach.myctmh.com/.

Whew - we did it.

We worked our tails off this weekend. It got a little snippy towards the end of it. However, we managed to make 42 boards. I have 3 specialty boards to make one night this week to deliver on Saturday.

As you can see we have a western, lots of flowers, beach and 4th of July. I'm working up an idea for sports team boards. More to come on that.

The first picture shows a board made with the current Close to My Heart Mayberry papers. Love the greens, browns and that great smoothie pink. The other is a western themed made with the semi-retired Sarsaparilla papers.

I say semi-retired because you can still use this paper for layouts using the fantastic Studio J online software. The program is free to use with access from my website at http://kbgerlach.myctmh.com. You can save your projects for up to 3 months AND for the month of June you will receive a free JPG for one layout which you can share online, via email, print at your favorite printer. Once you try it you'll love it and if you love it - then talk to me about the benefits of becoming a member. Members get more!

These next boards are made with Silhouette and Magic Moments. Both papers are also available only on my very fashionable clipboards ($10 profits go to sending Macie and Raina to DC) or at Studio J.

Then we went for the 4th of July Holiday with Blue ribbon and here's another version of the Magic Moments papers. You have to love the double sided Background and Texture papers of Close to My Heart. They are so flexible!

Yes I know we have not yet stamped or attached the title so they look a little crooked in the photo because I just set them there for the picture.

The last of the photo clipboards are a beach theme using Majestic Blue and a outdoor theme using Back Country.

This final board is a work in progress. It is 6x9 size and I've added some Silhouette papers and rosettes to decorate the handle. I envision this board decorating wall space next to the phone for messages or to jot down that grocery list. What do you think?

Craftroom sweatshop - DC fund raiser day 1

Here are the latest boards. We have 2 each of these colors but 1 of the lavender boards is already sold. The girls have sold 8 so far. That's a good start but they'll have to sell 450 each to pay for the trip. :) Lucky for them I have other items made and that we can make to sell to earn their trip to Washington DC. Also, need a babysitter? Both are 12 and willing to babysit. I even overhead them say they could help clean house to earn money for their trip. They are motivated! I'm really impressed with their enthusiasm. These are great lessons about working hard for something you really want, how to run a business, and how hard it is to earn a buck.

If you'd like to support the girls the clip board photo frames are $10 + S&H (if not local) each and we are taking orders. If you'd like one please call or email me. You can select colors and masculine or feminine versions. We also have planned some pet and horse/western versions. We will be working on wedding today.

Cards & Things

I figured I'd do some catch up with the blog by posting some cards from recent workshops. The above card is from a workshop I did for the ladies at work. We decided it was time for something for a guy. This one with browns and dark blues is perfect.

This card I found on the Close to My Heart bulletin boards and loved it so much I promptly scrap lifted it. It is a great use of the those small scraps we all have. Of course it's the exact opposite of the man card.

This card I did for the monthly unit meeting based of a sketch from the mojomonday blog. Finally a chance to use that cute horse from the Howdy stampset D1435.

The last one is also done for the monthly unit meeting from a sketch. I had lots of dimensional elements hanging around along with some retired majestic blue paper. I played with my new "bow-easy" that Kim got me. I won't go anywhere without that fun little tool now. I just love it.

If you want to learn how to make some cool cards you can come to one of my workshops. If you want to earn free product schedule a gathering. We can make a cool card, learn a new technique, and earn you some free product at the same time.