My Creations® Craftable Containers - More great gift ideas

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I'm loving these Close To My Heart videos and am working on my next order.  I'm catching up on several of them as I am confined to resting today.  I slipped this morning as I got of a bed, turning my ankle and ended up getting x-rays of my right ankle.  The swelling was pretty impressive and while the doctor thought it might be fractured it seems to be only a sprain.  I now have an aircast and crutches.  So I'm spending the day in bed with my leg elevated and an ice pack on my ankle. I'll be off it the next day or two at least.  We'll see how the swelling goes.  

Anyways, this gives me the opportunity to start thinking about the holidays and making a list of things I still need to get for gifts I want to make.  So if you find yourself with a quiet or rainy day watch the videos along with me for ideas and inspiration.  

30 Days of Gratitude

I'm starting to prepare my pages for Cathy Zielske's 30 Days of Gratitude beginning November 1st.  Hard to believe it's mid-October already and I know I'll need time to get this put together.  
I'm using her printable kit from 2012 as I still haven't mastered Photoshop.  The link describing it is here:

http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/10/30-days-of-thankful-a-gratitude-album-project.html

Cathy's blog just announced the 2013 kit  (a digital kit only) and you can find that information here:

http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2013/10/announcing-the-30-days-of-thankful-album-project-for-2013.html?cid=6a00d8341c5c3753ef019b000ca98d970c#comment-6a00d8341c5c3753ef019b000ca98d970c

This is my first year doing a gratitude journal but I hope it will be the start of a regular practice.  
What about you?  Do you keep a gratitude journal or gratitude album?

Note:  The wood veneer in the photo at the top is Cathy Zielske's design and can be purchased at www.studiocalico.com

This is the Close To My Heart Designed Decor Black Frame.  Simply add your favorite photos, embellishments and/or notes/journaling, really, whatever you feel like. It's only limited by your imagination!

The bottom photo is a close-up of the lower half and the photo above that is a close-up of the upper half.

This was really simple to do and did not take much time.  The stamped card was made with Close To My Heart's September Stamp of the Month "Poster Tidings"

I'm making several of these as Christmas gifts this year.  I think these would also make great gifts for weddings and baby showers.

For more information or to order go to my online store http://craftycreativity.ctmh.com

Designed Décor Frame Kit

I'm so excited to share this video from Close To My Heart with you.  It covers one of the two reasons why I decided to become a Close To My Heart consultant again.  The Designed Decor Frames are new this fall and I think they make great gifts for a variety of occasions.  This particular kit makes it so easy to quickly put together a personalized and meaningfulgift.

Check back tomorrow and I'll share what I've created with the Designed Decor Black Frame.  Both items can be seen and purchased at my online store:

http://craftycreativity.ctmh.com/

Happy Fall!

Fall is my very favorite time of the year.  The cooler temperatures are energizing and everyone is getting back into a routine from the easy going summer days.  I also love the colors of fall and have already begun decorating my home for the season.  At the end of last fall I threw out several fall items that were showing signs of wear and tear.  I've been cruising Pinterest for ideas and decorated this pumpkin with ribbon for a different look.  I love decorating with pumpkins and this way I don't have to worry about them deteriorating in the house.  

How are you decorating this year?  Where are you getting your inspiration?

Fall Bucket List and Cricut Artbooking Cartridge>"?

Last weekend I started a couple of projects and I'm in the process of finishing them this weekend.  One of them is my Fall Bucket List.  This project gave me the opportunity to start playing with my new Cricut Artbooking cartridge.  I haven't even started playing with the 3 stamp sets or 2 sheets of chipboard shapes that came with the Cricut Artbooking Collection!

One of the items in the cartridge I was really excited about were the variety of overlays available on the cartridges.

I hadn't even thought of how much use I would get from the same overlay shape by changing the color of the cardstock or the position of the overlap.  The white and yellow overlay are the same overlay.

Plus you can change the size of the overlay.  This overlay is part of the Christmas mini-book.

So I played with the color of the overlay and the base cardstock until I found a combination I liked.

Then I added some print paper and cut it the size of the overlay.  Base cardstock is 12 x 12 inches and the print paper and overlay is 11 x 11 inches

To increase the sense of depth I added a variety of color blocks cut from cardstock to some of the overlay openings leaving some open to see the print paper.  I can't wait to use these overlays and adding photos to them!

Here is the finished Fall Bucket List after embellishing it.  

A close-up of the left page.

And the right page.

Close-ups of various sections of the two pages so you can read parts of the list.

I used a variety of items to embellish the pages which gave me an opportunity to use up items in my stash some of which I've had for years.  A lot of items  were leftovers from sets.  Always good to use some things up.

I typed the list of items on vellum and then cut them out.

There are no photos but I'll use this 2 page layout in my Project Life album to introduce the "fall" section of the year.

Fall is my favorite time of year.  I love all the colors so creating this was a lot of fun!  This is my second seasonal bucket list.  I don't expect to do everything on the list but it comes in really handy when my husband and I look at each other at the end of a long workweek and say "what do you want to do this weekend?"  Summer and fall always seem to go so fast and it's a great way to make sure you do all your favorite or some "new" favorites before the season ends!

Do you create "Bucket Lists"?  If so, what kind?

For more information on the Cricut Artbooking Collection please click on the Close To My Heart icon to the right of this post.

Artboooking Made Easy (S01E02): A+ School Layouts

I am so excited to share this video with you!  I am so impressed with the Artbooking Collection.  I think this is the most versatile Cricut cartridge there is.  This video shows elements made with just two of the keys!  I'm playing with the cartridge here at home and hope to have some elements to show you soon.  Until then check out this video and let me know what you think.  For more ideas and inspiration check out my website http://craftycreativity.ctmh.com