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/.