Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!!

Hello everyone! It's time for the Memorial Day Bloghop for Operation Write Home! It's hard to believe that it has been almost a year that I have been involved with making cards for our troops. What an amazing time I have had - so many new friendships made - so much inspiration gathered - so much sharing to be done - I love it all!

Thanks for stopping by on your blog-hopping journey and if you are not part of the hop - you will love this! You can begin here at stop #1! If you came here from Bekah Jo's World you are on the right path! You have now arrived at Scrap Happens! Where things may be a little off the beaten path. Maybe a little outside the box! I hope you enjoy your stop. Please follow me if you like and stop by now and again - I do feature lots of card ideas and even have my own YouTube channel with video tutorials and other fun stuff to share!

And now, on with the show! Some of you may recognize this card from a previous Stars & Stamps sketch challenge that I was able to participate in - I love the sketch challenges!

I have decided to share another similar card for the bloghop with a few directions on how to make these red white and blue denim greetings! I was inspired to make these cards for the troops because of a letter that I saw from a hero saying how they missed the simple comforts of home - good food, their bed, a favorite pair of jeans. I have been hoarding this blue denim paper for a long time and this seemed like a good time to use it! I would hope that the look of a favorite pair of jeans would bring a smile to the face of a deployed hero! What do you think? And that pocket is functional - perfect for a photo or even an extra love note tucked inside.

Here are a few tips for making these jeans-style cards! Take a good look at a pair of real jeans. Their edges are not dark - they are lighter in color from being washed and worn. So I distressed the edges of the paper with a light blue and a white colored chalk. I cut out separate pieces for the hem, the belt loop and the pocket. I stitched each piece down to a dark blue cardstock base using some gold floss that matched the stitching on the pants I was inspired by. I'm sure that someone with a good sewing machine and know-how could really do a bang-up job of this - I did mine with a stitching template and stitched it all down by hand. The brown tag was made FIRST by cutting out a small piece of tan colored card stock. I got it wet by spritzing it with a little water and crumpling it to mimic how a tag looks after going through the wash a few hundred times. :) Another spritz and crumple - and then I pressed it flat to dry. Note - you should not try to stitch the tag down until it is good and dry - a damp tag will just tear! I stamped the sentiment on it also, after drying. That is a cute little Close To My Heart stamp, by the by. :) The little red tag is a small piece of red cardstock that I cut and folded in half along the left edge. The red tag was stitched down along the edge of the pocket and I used a white gel pen to add the lettering. The pocket was left open at the top edge.

Here is a card recipe for those of you playing along with the card recipe project!

(for more card recipes, read back on my blog!)

Just click for the bigger image, right click and print for your files!

Now then - I'd like to thank everyone for stopping by for the bloghop - and to our heroes for keeping us safe here at home and for upholding the freedoms that we enjoy so much every day! To add a little more goodness to this day - I am also offering a - HUGE BLOG CANDY - I will be drawing a winner to recieve a card kit from Express the Moment just for entering. These monthly card kits are awesome - and I always post lots of examples of what you can do with them! Here is a photo of the kit you will recieve. . . thanks Kim for sponsoring the OWH bloghop candy of awesomeness! Kim says to hop over to her blog, Momemts that Matter Most. . . for even more chances to win!!!

To enter: You must be a participant of the blog hop too. (Not just a reader - your blog must also be on the hop.) Please leave a comment to this post and tell me what YOU would miss most about being so far from the comforts of home. Make sure that your comment has some kind of link back to your blog so that I can contact you later.

Thanks so much for stopping by - please come back again and enjoy some video tuts and card ideas - Scrap Happens here! Huge hugs!

-Nancy

On with the hop! Your next stop is over to Donna's  at

 Donna Inks!!!

Do you like my blog hop banner? You can take it for future blog hops if you like. :) I love to share!

Sketch challenge #18

If I have said it once, I have said it a million times. Say it with me now. Scrapbooking is cheaper than therapy. Seems like there are always those days in life that really make you go, hmmm! I was glad to find the recent challenge and supplies to take part in the current sketch challenge at Stars & Stamps! So thank you, Stars & Stamps, for your contribution to my sanity. What little of it I have left. . . .

Here is the sketch:

And here is the card:

That is all! Please, pay no attention to the use of glitter in today's challenge card. Sometimes, you just can't help it. No matter how hard you try. Glitter has the Force. For real!  Sorry troops, I will make you a glitter free version next time. Paper stamps and ink are by CTMH. I used the Beautiful Day set, a font called Distressed Lower, and the ink colors are Chocolate, Blush, and Desert Sand. Don't forget to stop by this weekend for the bloghop! I already have such great things ready!!!

New Card Recipes!

What a great time was had at the ETM crop this weekend - Happy Birthday ETM! What a fun celebration!

Saturday was a free crop day with some fun take-home things and loads of great SHOPPING. :)  I got to share a table with some really fun ladies - (I hope I get the spelling right. . . ) I got to sit by Rita, Cathy, Deanne and another Nancy. . . more Nancies always make things more fun right?

The best thing about the ETM crop was having the time to work with previous kits and make a few things that I haven't had the time to sit down and do. While talking to Rita and Nancy they told me that it would be handy to have more instructions for cards - so here are three new card ideas and Card Recipes to share - to print your cards just click on the small pictures so that the big ones open in a new window. Right click on the recipe and select print! Once again, if you would like to get these cards by e-mail instead, just leave me a message and I will send them. Enjoy! And thanks ETM Kim and all my crop friends for the great time!

Grand Opening Party!!! Woot!

*LET THE PARTY BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!*

Oh boy - do I have something to celebrate today! And awesome things to share too! As previously mentioned, my friend Cindy got me addicted to Close To My Heart. Hi. My name is Nancy. And I am a scrap addict. (hello Nancy!)  Well, I'm here to tell you that I love the CTMH stamps SO much that I just had to have access to them for myself and my friends - all year long! I have become an independent consultant - and that means that I now have my own CTMH website so others can buy their awesome products through me! Happy day!!!!

Let's start the celebration - and the great share-y things too! As part of my new consultant kit - I got this cute recipe box. At first I thought ok- something cute to decorate - and store glitter in! Hooray! I won't lie. I'm not much of the recipe type. I'm more of the read-the-back-of-the-box type. A hamburger helper girl. A mac 'n cheese mom! A recipe box would be handy, but really. . . wouldn't it be more fun for something like this???

That's when I came up with my plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Ok, not really, but I did come up with these.

And some of these!!!!

That's right - from now on, I will offer FOR FREE - A 4x6 CARD RECIPE with every new card created for my blog. You can click on the card recipes for the 4x6 size right click to print- and keep them for your very own card recipe box. I printed mine on some light weight cardstock so that they are more sturdy - and they file away beautifully in my brand new CARD RECIPE BOX. :)

Here are some more photos of the box and the innards. I made separate tabs for cards like thank you, birthday, new baby, and etc! Each recipe will have a sketch and an example, plus the "recipe" or building instructions for the card. You can use your own papers, ideas, embelishments and whatnot to make the basic sketch your own - or make them close to the example if you like!

Card recipes will be offered here for ALL cards, CTMH or not. . . but ALL of the supplies shown today are by CTMH. By simply clicking on my Close To My Heart button to the right, or by stopping here

My Close To My Heart Store

You can purchase those cute papers shown - they are from the Cherry-O Kit

Item Number X7123A - the kit made my whole box, the cards, and I still have a ton of stuff left over! Just $9.95 for the kit! Wow!

I also used the My Acrylix stamp set called Bowl of Cherries - it was included in the Cherry-O Workshop Kit. You will find that there are a ton of different kits and collections available depending on what your needs and price ranges are!

The recipe box itself is also available if you would like one to get it started.

It is item #Z1322 and is only $6.95 . . . You don't have to decorate it with CTMH if you don't want to, but everything you see here today is available if you do!

Please feel free to stop by my new store and check out the brand new summer catalogue and you can even play with StudioJ - the new online digital scrapbooking program by CTMH - I have tried it and it is a ton of fun just to play with and get great ideas. Plus it's a great way to see all of the neat products that you can purchase. But for me, those acrylic stamps are the best. I already see several that I have to have!!!

As a grand opening special - I will be tracking all of my sales for the month of May and no matter how large or small - I will send a bonus gift pack of stamps to one random customer. My store is open 24/7 which is also a great bonus. . .fantastic for late night browsing and idea-searching! Hey, thanks for checking it out and don't forget I am always here! Leave me questions or email me:

nancykeller at ctmh.com

And stay tuned for more card recipes for download - I hope to have a few new ones each week and I will make a big index of them at the bottom of my blog so that you can collect them all!

OH - If you have trouble downloading, clicking or printing the card recipes - leave me a message with your email. I will create a mailing list and mail out the card recipes every time I have new ones.

Stars & Stamps - Sketch 16

Sketch of the week! This is an easy one, I already did it! Hooray! I rec'd this sketch after the last blog hop for OWH and here is what I made with it. . . to use a phrase from Sandy, I had been hoarding this denim paper for a really long time because I love it! It looks like jeans, but it's really paper. I stitched it down to some dark blue cardstock using a yellowish-brown jean-stitching colored floss, and made "patches" out of some other fun fabric-looking paper - I stitched these down with other different colored floss. The "I MISS YOU" sentiment is made from some rub-on letters and I added some random buttons and snaps for the centers of the flowers - finally I also stitched on that little red tag and I wrote on it with a white gel pen - it's folded in half like a real "levi's" tag so it sticks up. Those flowers are also curled so that they stick up. . . what a fun sketch to work with! Thanks for stopping by!

Color Challenge

Another one for Stars and Stamps' color challenge - the object of this one was to create a card using your favorite color! I must admit that this is way too hard for me - I love so many different colors - we could be here forever! I love jewel tones the best. Ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue. . . but I do love blue and one of my favorites to work with is a pretty denim blue. Richard's grandma, Miss Bonnie, also loves blue. "Bonnie Blue" she says they used to call her. Somehow, that makes me smile. :)  I made this card for her in what I think might be "bonnie blue" and it will be for her Mothers' Day tomorrow - we're glad that she has stuck around for another Mother's Day - we will go visit her tomorrow and have cheesecake. Blueberry, maybe. :)

I can't take credit for the layout on this one - it's similar to one found in the new idea book I got from CTMH that is called "Wishes" - an awesome book by the way. . . and the patterned paper and stamps (except for the letter stamps) are also by CTMH. I'm still playing with all of my new goodies and loving every minute of it!

Happy Mother's Day to all of my Mom friends out there - hope that your day is as special as you are! Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas in May?

It snowed today! After much discussion among friends - I did find out that this was indeed my fault. The story starts like this - I went outside to head to work last evening and on my doorstep was the biggest Box of Christmas I have ever found! I recently got into Close To My Heart via my friend Cindy and I am loving it. I have a lot to learn and this is fun - stamping of course is a big part of card-making and I have really been looking forward to refining my stamping techniques and adding to my collection of stamps! CTMH has a great selection to choose from and I love that they have the acrylic stamps that are so handy as far as storage and organization. More about this CTMH excitement soon - I am a total noobie baby CTMH girl and I have so much to figure out. :)

For now - here are a few of my first baby CTMH creations (mostly, I just wanted to share with Cindy. .  .hee hee)

This one was made with the stamp set called "You're Great"  - I love this Elephant, he sort of reminds me of Horton. :)  Paper is from Nana's Kids - DCWV

Stamp set is called, "Over the Rainbow." How appropriate!

Paper is by DCWV spring stack!

So much fun - these tindy stamps are called "Happy Holidays!"

Paper is by Imaginisce

That's all for today -time to thaw out and sort through all of my Christmas Gifts in May. More fun new things to come soon- thanks for stopping by!!!

AND THANK YOU CINDY!!!!!!