December Stamp of the Month Blog Hop "Reindeer Crossing"

Welcome to the Australasian CTMH stamp of the month blog hop, if you arrived here from Lauren Moore's blog you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance I hope you see something you like and you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

The December stamp of the month has some wonderful Christmas sentiments and a sweet sleigh, but the reindeer doesn't always have to be used with a Christmas theme. They can also be used for other projects.

My first project is a lovely Christmas gift bag, to make the tags I have used the sleigh and Merry Christmas stamps. The cute gift stamps are now discontinued but worked really well with the sleigh. The lovely green plaid is from the Mix In paper pack, and the large gems are from my stash that I have had for a very long time. This was  a quick and easy project.

This Christmas card uses the pine cone stamp which I have stamped, coloured and fussy cut to make a wreath. The card is 5"x 5", the red paper is 4.5" x 4.5" and centre white cardstock is 4" x 4".

I decided to make a masculine birthday card using the reindeer stamp, I have used another of the Mix In papers and also craft cardstock. I used sapphire ink to add a pop of colour to the card.

Thank you for stopping by, to see more great ideas hop along to Danielle's Scrappy Chicks I am sure she will have something wonderful to share.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Holly Jolly CTMH blog hop

Welcome to the CTMH Australasian Holly Jolly blog hop, if you arrived here from Doreen's blog you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance, just click on the link at the end of this post to see more great ideas.

This collection uses the traditional Christmas colours with some really cute stickers that will be perfect for our Christmas layouts.

Even though I don't usually have any use for snow flake paper, I love this soft blue and it works so well with this beautiful pink. I have used this paper in my card and it's nothing to do with Christmas or winter.

Christmas is so special when there are young children in the family. I loved working with these photos, seeing Mia hug Santa is so precious. I found inspiration for this layout on Pinterest and these papers made creating this layout so easy. The Lace Border Thin Cut it is so intricate and beautiful and it accented my page so well.

Thank you for stopping by to see some more great ideas hop along to Maz Wood's blog  I am sure she has something wonderful to share.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

November Stamp of the Month "Family Time"

Welcome the CTMH Australasian stamp of the month blog hop, if you arrived here from Lauren Moore's CTMH Craftings  you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance there is more to see by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

As with all of CTMH stamps this is a very versatile stamp set, it can used for cards and layouts. I really like the font used for the sentiments

For this card I used the hugs for you stamp, which I think is perfect. Each flower has two layers to give them more depth. This soft colour combination looks beautiful together. A few gems and some pen stitching finishes off the card nicely.  

Spending time with the younger children in my family always brings me joy. When they come to visit with me during the school holidays, I try to make sure they don't spend too much time on their electronic devices. So we go to my local park and we always do some baking or cooking. My brother gave me a big bag of lemons which allowed us to make lemon butter in the morning and then lemon tarts in the afternoon. I really do count it a blessing to be a part of these kid's lives. I love how these flowers look on this layouts. As you can see leaves don't always have to be green.

Thank you for stopping by, to get more inspiration using this great stamp set go to Doreen's blog I am sure she will have something wonderful to share.

Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

Weekend Retreat

I spent a wonderful weekend away at a CTMH retreat run by my niece Laura. It was great to be able to create at leisure and not have to worry about the trivialities of life. Here is a special layout that I completed.

This amazing young woman is Laura's daughter, who is now 17 years old and these photos were taken for her year 12 school ball. It has been my privilege to be a part of her life, I was one of the first to visit her when she was born. I love her dearly.

     Here she is as a wonderful and brand new addition to our family. Laura and Michael was so thrilled.

When she was old enough to happily leave her mum and dad, it was my great pleasure to have her visit and stay with me for a few days. Xanthe loved dressing in pretty clothes, she would rather wear a dress or skirt rather than shorts and top. On this occasion I painted her finger and toenails and she loved it. Funny how things change, she still loves to dress up but mostly she wears jeans and a T shirt now days.

Photo and memory preservation is so important, I love that I can look back on these pages and relive these precious memories.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and why don't you spend some time reminiscing and hopefully you have your own albums that allow you to relive special memories.

Hawthorn Blog Hop

Welcome to the Close To My Heart Australasian Hawthorn blog hop, if you arrived here from Doreen's blog you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

At first glance to me this collection shouts autumn or masculine but with CTMH's great design team there are always other options.

I do find making masculine rather difficult but I am happy with this one, I have used the motorcycle sticker, the sentiment stickers and some of the lovely papers.

I didn't have any photos printed suitable for this collection to make a layout so I decided to make an off the page project. The white daisy background is 9"x 9" you can put it in a shadow box frame but it will also look lovely as filler page in my album.

This is what it looks like framed and I think it looks great.

On this final card I have again used one of the stickers but I have also added two stamped leaves that I fussy cut. I thought I would stamp part of the sentiment on the leaf sticker.

Thank you for stopping by to continue the hop go to Kylie's Blog Creating with Kylie and see what great project she has created. Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are always appreciated.

October Stamp of the Month "AutumnAir"

Welcome to the CMH Australasian stamp of the month blog hop, if you arrived here from  Lauren Moore's CTMH Craftings you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance click on the link at the end of this post to see more great ideas using this stamp set.

Even though this stamp set is called Autumn Air and here in Perth it is now spring, it doesn't mean we can't use this stamp now. There are some lovely sentiments that can be used with other stamps that will create lovely new titles etc.

There are so many things I love about CTMH stamps but today's love is that we can cut the larger sentiment stamps into smaller parts which give you so many more options and you wont damage the stamps. I cut away the "and just like that " and was able to create a whole new sentiment by adding other stamps. I have also used the leaf stamp  and the border stamp in making this card. I find the flower thin cuts so versatile and love using them in my projects.

For this layout I have used the summer is in the air as my title with these lovely photos of the first of the summer flowers blooming in my garden. CTMH have such a variety of flower stamps that I easily found flower stamps that matched my photos

Thank you for stopping by to continue the hop go to Danielle Edwards Scrappy Chicks blog and see what great project she has created. Please take a moment and leave a comment before you move on, your comments are always appreciated.

CTMH September Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Welcome to the CTMH September Stamp of the Month blog hop, if you arrived here from Shaunna's Passionate About Pages you are in the right place I hope you like what I have created. If you arrived here by chance click on the link at the end of this post to see more great ideas.

"Random Acts of Cardness" is a fantastic stamp set, and I can see myself using it over and over again. I am loving the fonts and cute icons.

I found examples of this card on Pinterest and couldn't wait to try and make one. It's called a spotlight card you stamp the image on both pieces of white cardstock at the same time. Colour only the smaller one, mat both of the white pieces of cardstock onto black cardstock, then position the smaller one on top of the larger pieces matching up the stamped image. This sentiment is perfect for this card.

I though the sentiment "with love from" worked well on this layout as the title. It is brilliant how with our My Acrylix stamps I could easily add the from stamp to the with love and create my title. This lovely elderly couple play Santa and Mrs Clause every year at their local shopping centre.

This cute card will shortly be posted to my niece's daughter overseas. This little koala is so cute and as with the previous card I was able to use three different stamps to create my sentiment. Wanting to make the koala a girl I added the little flower from this set as well.

Thanks for stopping by, to continue the hop go to Scrapping and More with Doreen to see what great projects she has created. Please take a moment and leave a comment before you go on the next blog, they are always appreciated.

Craft On

Welcome to the CTMH Australian Craft On blog hop, if you arrived here from Creating with Kara Davies you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance I hope you see something that inspires you. You can see more great ideas if you follow the link at the end of this post.

What a fun collection Craft On is, with lovely bright colours and great decorative elements. The black die cuts will look stunning on any project.

 

As soon as I saw this collection I knew which photos I wanted to create a layout with. The beautiful papers really complimented these wedding photos.

The sentiment "Choose Happy" resonates with me because being happy is a conscious decision and needn't be the result of what's happening in our lives. This sort of card can be used for any number of occasions and was so easy to make. 

I love spending a weekend crafting with others, my niece Laura is also a CTMH consultant and her retreat was great fun. She had some wonderful projects for us to work on. I also got many of my own projects completed this weekend. 

Thanks for stopping by to continue the hop go to Doreen's blog, I am sure she will have something wonderful to share. Please take a moment and leave a comment it is always appreciated.

August Stamp of the Month "From Me To You"

Welcome to the Australasian CTMH Stamp of the Month Blog Hop, if you arrived here from Doreen's blog you are in the right place. If you arrived here by chance I hope you like what you see and you can continue the hop by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

This stamp set includes 38 great images and is perfect for the card makers but is so versatile it can also be used for scrapbooking. There are some really fun sentiments and a few icons.

I love the stitched flower Thin Cuts and they work so well on a card with a sentiment from this stamp set. Flower are so much fun to work with, either as stamps or the thin cuts.

Once I decided to use these stamps on a scrapbooking layout, I then had to find appropriate photos and these photos of the kids end of year school concert worked well. The sentiments add a little bit of fun to the layout.

This is one of my favourite stamp sets from the current catalogue, but it will only be available until the end of this month. I love to send thank you cards to show my appreciation to family and friends.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you get some inspiration from my projects. To continue the hop go to Megan Lawrence's blog  to see what great project she has created. Please take a moment and leave a comment, they are appreciated.

July Stamp of the Month "Bear Hugs"

Welcome to the Australasian CTMH Stamp of the Month blog hop, if you arrived here from Kara blog you are in the right place. If you arrived her by chance click on the link at the end of the post to continue the hop

What a cute stamp set this is, I love the mama and baby bears aren't they just the sweetest thing you've seen in awhile. All of the different sentiments make it really easy to create some lovely cards.

A few of my friends became grandmothers this year and I wish I had this stamp back then to make a congratulations card. I thought I would make one now to keep in my stash. I used a soft grey as the main colour so it could be used for baby boys or girls. The bear is heat embossed with white embossing powder.

This card was a lot of fun to make, the sponged background is so easy but so lovely. I really like the flower stamps they make a great border. The bunnies playing amongst flowers are so cute.

We all love our mama bears and sometimes we just need to tell them that.

Thanks for stopping by, now to see some more ideas using this stamp set lets head over to Creating with Kylie to see what she has created. Please take a moment and leave a comment they are always appreciated.