Taste of Summer Blog Hop

Welcome to the National Scrapbooking Month Taste of Summer Blog Hop. There are approximately 40 bloggers participating in this hop. This hop is one big circle so if you just keep clicking on the link (typically near the bottom of the post) to visit the next blogger you will eventually be brought back to where you started.

For National Scrapbooking Month Close To My Heart is offering both a paper back (shown in the blog badge above) and a stamp set. The paper pack is only $8.95, no qualifying purchase necessary, and includes 12 sheets of B&T Duos™ Papers — two each of six designs. They were exclusively designed for National Scrapbooking Month.

The stamp set is D-size and includes 15 stamps. The stamp set is $17.95. The images outlined in red coordinate with cuts from the Cricut® Artiste Collection (Z1790).

You should have arrived here from ***Clearly Cards by Jeanie Burch***. If you get lost along the way, a complete list of participants is listed at Melinda Everitt's If You Bling It.

I was excited to play with my new stamp set and a little intimidated to cut into my beautiful paper (I might have to purchase another package so I can hoard some sheets, do you ever do that?) so I started by creating a card just with stamps and cardstock:

The lemon and lime that are not part of the border were double stamped, that is, I inked the image and stamped, then repeated. I used sponge daubers to ink the phrase to get a bit of an ombré effect. If you are wondering how I stamped the phrase, since the stamps are bendable, I wrapped the part I did not want to stamp around the block's edge, inked, stamped then re-aligned my stamp on the block for the remaining word. I inked the edges of Canary cardstock with Topiary ink, but it might be too subtle to see in the photo.

I really wanted to create a card that highlighted at least one of the beautiful papers in the pack so I flipped though the CTMH How-To Program books and found something that jumped out at me. My second card was inspired by the card on page 72 of Originals Card Confidence Program™ (9036); the pattern is Clean Cut™ on page 105 which was designed as a 7" x 5" card, but I modified it to fit a 5 ½" X 4 ¼" card base.

I used the rock and roll technique to ink the berries, but I wasn't sure they stood out enough from the pink B&T paper. I was going to change entirely to the flowers inked in Honey, they remind me of strawberry blossoms, from Flowers for Mom, but I started playing around with the fussy cuts and came up with the blossoms and berries combined.

The die cut frame was not intended to be a Cricut® cut (the red outline is around the phrase "Orange You Sweet" not the frame), but I played around with the image in Cricut® Design Space and found settings that I thought work well. I blogged about my process on May 4.

Before you visit ***Pam's Clearly Crafty Corner***, additional information about how my project was created is below.

All supplies are from Close To My Heart except where noted:

• Taste of Summer Paper Pack (CC1038)
• National Scrapbooking Month Taste of Summer My Acrylix® Stamp Set (CC1039)
  
• My Acrylix™ Flowers for Mom Stamp Set (B1473); Flowers for Mum (B1474) would also work
• 5 ½" X 4 ¼" White Cards & Envelopes, Value Pack (X254)
• 12" x 12" White Daisy Cardstock (1385)
• 12" x 12" Canary Cardstock (X5772)
• 12" x 12" Topiary Cardstock (X5635)
• Canary Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad (Z2643)
• Topiary Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad (Z2155)
• Hollyhock Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad (Z2128)
• Cranberry Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad (Z2116)
• Honey Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad (Z2162)
• Sponge Daubers (Z726) or Value Pack of 12 (Z1938)
• Scallop Border Punch (Z1851)
• Bonding Memories™ Glue Pen (Z553)
• 3L® E-Z Dots® Adhesive (Z3022)
• Thin 3-D Foam Tape  (Z2060)
• Originals Card Confidence Program™ (9036)
• Cricut® Artiste Collection (Z1790)
• to fit the frame stamp - this has to be done in Cricut® Design Space or Cricut® Craft Room: DS code #M39B85 or Accent 3 (without shift) on page 33 of the handbook; image proportions unlocked and size set to a height of 1⅞" and a width of 2¾"; if you would like to use my Cricut® Design Space file, you will find it here; if you would like to use my Cricut® Craft Room file, you can download it here, just click "download" to save the file to your computer
• Supplies not from Close To My Heart: Cricut® Design Space, Cricut® Explore, Glass Cutting Mat, Craft Knife

If you are not already working with a CTMH Independent Consultant, you may purchase all of the supplies I used at my Online Business Address.

If you have a moment, please leave a comment letting me know what think of my cards. So you do not have to scroll up, the next stop on the hop is ***Pam's Clearly Crafty Corner***. Thanks again for hopping with us.