Flowers of Hope Card

My friend Joy sent me this lovely stamp recently.  It is from Close to My Heart and it is called "Hope" (A1153).  You can find this stamp on Joy's CTMH website HERE. 

If you haven't heard by now, there is a special offer this month for people to join CTMH as consultants.  In addition to the fabulous Starter Kit you can also get one of the three Cricut Cartridge Bundles (Art Philosophy, Artiste or Artbooking) which regularly sell for $99 absolutely free.  Joy is also giving this stamp to everyone who joins her team (while supplies last - she has had a lot of people join already and so she may have to change and offer another similar gift.).  You can see all of the details about this April joining special on Joy's blog HERE.  Joy is a great person to work with and I know you would love being on her team.

I created a mat for the stamped image by using the new update to the Silhouette Studio software.  The version 3 now includes support for scanning directly into the program.  There are some issues with the new update but this feature worked beautifully and I was able to easily create a custom mat for this very irregularly shaped stamp.

I tried stamping the image in several different colors.  While this is a perfect stamp for coloring with pencils or markers I wanted to try a single color image.

I used these three colors of ink to stamp the images in the photo above.  Joy shared a tip a while ago about using a dark brown color like the Cocoa instead of black for stamping.  It gives a slightly softer look to the image but is still bold and clear.  You can find all of the colors of inks on Joy's CTMH website HERE.

I ended up cutting a white shape to fit the stamped image and two additional mats, one narrow and one a bit wider, using the offset feature in the Silhouette software.  I hope that eventually the Design Space program for the Cricut will include an offset function - it is very handy to have!

When I looked at the stamp design, it reminded me of some floral patterned cardstock in this old DCWV stack - Nana's Kitchen.  The flowers are quite similar and the green color is very close to the Pear ink I used to stamp the image.

I cut a typical A2 card base in some light blue Bazzill cardstock and added a wide piece of stitched ribbon down the center of the card.

When I add ribbon like this, I put a strip of ScorTape on the back of the card layer and wrap the ribbon around the edge, catching it with the adhesive.  Then I apply adhesive around the edges of the card layer, running over the top of the ribbon.  The extra adhesive that holds the ribbon also help to adhere the layer to the card.

I layered the stamped image and the two mats to place over the ribbon.

I added foam circles to the sides of the center image to avoid attaching it directly to the ribbon.

I tried the brown stamped image - it definitely stands out more but I preferred to have the green image that coordinates with the floral paper.

To make the image a little more impressive, I used a Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust glitter pen to fill in all of the open spaces of the floral design and the words.  This gives it a nice shine that is hard to capture in a photo.

The card design is very simple to compensate for the busy stamped image and background paper.

I think this is a lovely sentiment as we move into Spring - the season of new beginnings and hope.

I'll share more details about how to create the custom mat in another post - it was great to be able to scan and import the image at the exact size.  This may be Silhouette's answer to one of the attractive features of the Brother ScanNCut machine.

Be sure to visit Joy's blog, Obsessed with Scrapbooking to get all of the details on her special Close To My Heart joining offer.  It is a great deal!

Image Sale Reminders

The Cricut Spring sale with 30% off on cartridges is ending on April 6th (Sunday).

If you were thinking about picking up any of the Creative Memories cartridges, don't miss getting the discount on top of the sale price.  I just ordered the only CM cartridge I still didn't have (Total Sports) just to complete my collection!  All of these re-released Creative Memories cartridges were still available as of Friday evening.  You can find my post listing my favorites of these cartridges HERE.

Best of Times  $19.99
Be Young  $19.99
Stork's Delivery $19.99
'Tis the Season $19.99
Total Sports $19.99

Divine Wedding $24.99
Reminisce Accents $24.99
Tiny Treasures $24.99
This and That $24.99

Click HERE to go to the page with all of the cartridges.  They won't last much longer at these prices!  Remember, you can also use the code SPRING30 to save an additional 30% on all images.  This makes the $19.99 cartridges just $13.99 and the $24.99 cartridges just $17.49.  The 30% off sale runs through April 6th.

These cartridges are sold only in physical form, while supplies last, and won't be available as digital cartridges or as a part of a Design Space subscription.  So this is your last chance to get these images.  Three cartridges are already gone and the rest could run out at any time...

There are also more than 75 digital image sets that are now on sale - most are 50% off.  Some are cartridges that were also available in physical form and some are digital exclusives.  You can see all of the digital sale images HERE.  If your trial subscription has run out and you want to subscribe you will find the subscription page HERE.

There are also some amazing deals in the clearance section.  I just got a big box of Cuttlebug folders, some were as low as 75 cents each.  Click HERE to go directly to the DEALS page.  Be sure to check all of the pages (choose "all" in the "results per page" drop down menu at the top right of the page).

I am an affiliate for Cricut.com and I appreciate it when you use my links (by clicking HERE)  to go to the Cricut site to shop.  There is no additional cost to you when you use these links and it helps to support my blog (and keep me supplied with chocolate!).

Have a great weekend - it rained a lot Friday night but maybe it will clear up so we can get some work done outside. Even my non-green thumbs are itching a bit to get things looking pretty again.


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