DIY Meal Planner

The hubby and I have been making great strides in improving our health and part of the process is eating well.  Meal planning is really important to ensure we can eat as healthy as possible without huge amounts of stress on me.  Nothing worse than having a busy day and then coming home without any idea what to make for dinner.  I usually do my planning on Friday night or Saturday morning and do my shopping on sometime during the weekend.

I saw these great free printables on ScatteredSquirrel.com and so I put together a binder that will contain all our meal plans for the year in one place.  It's really great to be able to go back and see a particularly good meal plan and then copy it for a new week.  This works well when I'm short on time or imagination.  I can also make notes about changes I made and whether it was a hit or miss.

I printed each page on Hammermill Premium Inkjet & Laser paper and then scored and folded the pages in half to create 8.5" x 5.5" pages.  I glued the bottoms of the pages together with score tape to create pockets (good for holding new recipes I want to try or coupons for shopping) and then used my Cinch to bind it all together.  The covers are just black chipboard cut to 8.5" x 6".

There are lots of other planner printables on the site I used so I'm sure I will be creating some other organizational helps.

Valentine Card

I had grand plans to make a bunch of Valentine cards this year but I just didn't have time to do it.  I did get this card done for my hubby.  It looks like a really simple card but it sure took a long time to glue everything down!!  I found the couple silhouette doing a Google image search and unfortunately I was never able to figure out who to credit with it (if you know, leave me a comment and I'll update this post).  The little hearts came from the Close to My Heart Artiste Cricut cartridge.

The card base is a Close to My Heart pre-made card base.  I use these all the time - they are always perfectly cut and scored and the price can't be beat!  I think they are the greatest value in the whole CTMH line!!  For $14.95 you get 50 cards and the envelopes and the quality of the cardstock they use is awesome!

Butterfly Shaker Card

I had lots of fun making this card for my sister for her birthday.  I pulled together lots of tips and tricks I've picked up lately on making shaker cards.  I also had some trial and error while making this card.  I started out by creating the card front on my Cameo.  I drew a 3.75" x 5" rectangle first and then grabbed a simple butterfly silhouette from my stash of svgs.  I placed that at an angle  near the top of the rectangle and cut it out of white cardstock.

I've picked up a tip from several crafters to use fun foam as the base behind your shaker to give your card a more substantial feel and to help make sure your shaker stuff stays where it's supposed to.  I tried just cutting the same shape out on my Cameo but I learned that you can't cut fun foam with your Cameo.  So...I ended up laying my base on top of the fun foam and tracing it with a pencil and then cutting it out by hand.  Just make sure you cut everything a tiny bit larger than the opening so it doesn't show when you glue it all together.  Also, trace your design using the backside of your card front just in case your pencil slips like mine did.

Then I adhered some plastic I had leftover from some packaging (always save the plastic!) and used distress ink in peeled paint to give it some color.  Here's another lesson I learned - don't adhere the plastic until you've finished your inking.  I stamped the sentiment in Topiary ink and drew some faux stitching around the edge of the card and the butterfly.

I glued the fun foam to the back of the card piece.  Then I laid my sequins down on a piece of patterned paper and glued it to the fun foam.  Then that whole piece was glued down to another piece of coordinating patterned paper.  I then glued that whole thing down on a Colonial White card base.  

There are lots of tutorials on YouTube if you've never made a shaker card before.  My favorite YouTubers would be Jennifer McGuire, Sandy Allnock, and Kristina Werner.  You won't go wrong with any of them.

Supplies:

Kirby Teesdale Studio Patterned Paper from The Paper Studio

Topiary Ink

Your Own Kind of Wonderful Stamp Set

Sakura Jelly Roll White Pen

Colonial White Card Base and Envelope

Fun Foam from Hobby Lobby

Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive

Scotch ATG Tape

Awesome Albums!!

During the month of February, when you purchase one of Close To My Heart’s coated canvas albums you will be eligible to receive a second album of your choice at half price. That is a savings of over $17!

These albums are available in a gorgeous variety of colors and patterns in both post-bound and D-ring styles—perfect to pair with traditional, Studio J^®, or pocket scrapbook layouts.

This offer is only available while supplies last, so make certain to get your order in early to ensure you can choose the styles and colors you love. They’re going fast and are built to last; so don’t delay—place your order today!

Dates: Offer valid February 1, 2015–February 28, 2015

Artfully Sent Birthday Card

I love all the Close to My Heart Cricut Cartridges but I think Artfully Sent is turning into my favorite!  Between the cartridge and stamp sets included in the bundle I am using this thing all the time.  I'll have a link below if you want more information about this cartridge or would like to purchase one for yourself.  It comes with the cartridge (over 700 images), three large stamp sets, and a pack of 12x12 White Daisy cardstock.

I dug into my scrap box for this card so I can't tell you exactly where the papers came from but the base was cut out of CTMH Daisy White cardstock.  I really love the way this cardstock cuts in both the Cricut and the Cameo.  Once I had cut out the celebrate layer I ran it through a dotted embossing folder for some extra dimension.  For all the different scraps I just rough cut them so they wouldn't show through the neighboring letters and stuck them down with plain old scotch tape.  When it was all finished I adhered the panel to the card base with my ATG.  You will want to make sure and use a strong adhesive due to all those layers and the embossed paper.  This card is a great stash buster!

Supplies:

Close to My Heart Artfully Sent Cricut Cartridge

Daisy White Cardstock

Darice Dot Embossing Folder

Scotch ATG Tape Dispenser

Various paper scraps from my stash

New Project

I thought I'd give you a sneak peak of something other than paper crafting that I'm working on.  I just started this sweater and so far it's coming along wonderfully.

Stay tuned for more progress pictures!!

Joy Fold Thanks

I had a lot of fun with this card.  I learned this particular fold from Schell Fabian.  I'll link her video below so you can learn how to do this too!  It's not hard but really turns out a beautiful card that everyone will think you spent hours and hours on!!  Besides...Schell is an awesome teacher and produces really nice videos so you should go check her out!

This is the final card in my big thank you card series for our upcoming cruise.  Although...there is one card that I won't be showing you until April.  That particular card is my absolute favorite but it's using a stamp set that won't be released until April so stay tuned for that one!

Supplies:

Close to My Heart Skylark paper - this paper is unfortunately retired now but we do have some Picture My Life cards featuring these designs still in the catalog.  Check it out here and here.

Close to My Heart White Daisy Cardstock

The Paper Studio Pearlized Cardstock - this stuff is absolutely gorgeous!  I wish the pics would have shown the sheen you get with this paper.

Close to My Heart A Tree A1124 - this stamp set is only available through the end of January 2015 (while supplies last) and then it will be retiring.

Close to My Heart Thanksgiving Wreath Hostess Stamp Set B1454 - let me know if you want more info on how to earn this stamp set.

Close to My Heart Chocolate Ink

Schell's Video:  http://youtu.be/l6U3VJezUvI