Year at a Glance – 2015 Floral Calendar

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Kristie Sloan

Welcome to Make It Monday blog hop! If you’ve come Gina’s site at GinaZee.com, you are in the right place!

Now it’s my turn to show you an idea! If you’ve been following along lately, you know that today is the day that the Creative Christmas Bundle goes on sale! 15 Crafters/Designers – 15 products – 1 low price – for 1 week only!

My contribution to this special bundle is an online Art Journaling Basics class! You can find out about it here, but don’t order from that page, because for a few dollars more you can get the entire Creative Christmas Bundle!

Today, I want to show you a project using Karen Fitting’s contribution to the bundle. Karen takes photos of flowers through the whole year, and then finds her favorites to create a calendar. She has put one each month of the year on a separate photo and save them all as 4×6″ .jpg images. That way, we can use them however we want to!

I decided that I would like to make an at-a-glance type calendar in a 12″x12″ size. I created a digital template with twelve 3″x4″ segments. Since the the original images are in a 4″x6″ size they don’t size down without losing part of the image, or changing the proportions. I chose to size them down as much as possible and then just leaving off a bit of the image. That way the photo and calendar remain proportional.

Images from Karen Fitting’s contribution to the Creative Christmas bundle.

After I got all the images on, I linked them all together and sized the entire block of images to about an 11″x11″ square, and changed my background to black.

I added the “2015” text so I’d know the calendar year. Pretty smart, right? Save it all in a single image and it’s ready to print!

Right now, during the month of November, you can print two 12″x12″ layouts from Close to My Heart’s Studio J, for $5.00. This may be a good time to get some of your photos onto pages, or just print your calendar. You could print the calendar on both sides of the double layout, and you’ll have a calendar to give and one to keep!

Watch how to create the calendar page in Studio J.

CTMH #Z2016

CTMH Item #Z2015

Now, hurry over and check out how Beth Soler from Scrapping Wonders is using the Bundle to prep for her December Daily album! If you’re not sure what that even is, it’s an album to capture all the memories of December in one great place, urging you to capture bits of each and every day in December!

Don’t miss out on the Creative Christmas Bundle!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

Creative Christmas Bundle – 1 Day!

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Kristie Sloan

Just one day until the Creative Christmas Bundle launches!

One of the products in the bundle is a set of adorable advent calendar pockets designed by Connie Hanks from Clicky Chick Creates. The numbers I’ve been using in the countdown are from her set!

Meet Connie Hanks:

Life continues to take me on an amazing journey. I’m a mommy, wife, photographer, scrapbooker, crafter, volunteer-extraordinaire and child of God who never outgrew seeing the world as colorful as a fresh box of Crayola crayons! I’m blessed to live with my “4-family” in beautiful San Diego, California with my loving husband Steve with whom I fell madly in love with at just 19 years old (many, many moons ago!), and my 7- and 5-year-old daughters that you will see are the stars of most of my photographs and scrapbook pages. I love to dream, travel, play with my daughters, sing while my hubby plays guitar and rarely miss an opportunity to be behind the lens when I’m with family and friends. No matter what title I might bear, or what hat I wear, I am a creative soul to my core. I love writing my memories, my stories to share, pairing them with photos and getting inky, dirty-fingers creating layouts, cards and anything crafty. I am creative. Behind the lens. At my desk. In the kitchen. With my daughters. It all makes me a happy, blessed, grateful wife and mama <3

I started Clicky Chick Creates in 2013 as a way to share my colorful view of the world in photography and crafts. In 2014 I began sprinkling in lots of creative tips and tutorials. I hope you enjoy my creations and join my mailing list so you don’t miss a single colorful adventure!

Connie’s Holiday Tips:

Making a teacher’s card, a handmade gift for a best school friend, are fun ways to get crafty time not just for me, but with my children.

Sign up for email reminders and hold tips.

Creative Christmas Bundle – 2 Days!

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Kristie Sloan

Just 2 more days until the release of the Creative Christmas Bundle! It will only be available for one week, November 24th – December 1, at a VERY special price. So don’t miss out!

One of the 15 crafters and designers contributing is Beth Soler from Scrapping Wonders. Like so many of us, Beth uses her phone to take a lot of photos. However, she also USES those photos. She loves to find apps, tips, and tricks to make it easy to get those photos off the phone and actually use them. I think a lot of people are worse about using their photos from their phones, than they are just getting them off their camera!

Beth’s contribution to the Christmas Creative Bundle is a class showing us apps she uses. She has made it easy for us by using videos to walk us through how she does it! If you ever use your phone for snapping photos, you won’t want to miss her class!

Meet Beth

I have been scrapping and crafting for ten years. I love preserving and sharing family memories, recording history for my husband and three active kids, extended family and friends. I love all things crafty as well.

I am a phone-photo NINJA, stealthily snapping photos, then swiftly and skillfully transferring, organizing and using those photos in super-fun projects to save and share.

My techniques and project tutorials will train you to be phone-photo NINJA, too. As an independent consultant for Close To My Heart, I am also your link to exciting products to make your projects shine.

Sign Up for Updates, so you don’t forget!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures,

Creative Christmas Bundle Countdown – 3 Days Left!

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Kristie Sloan

Just THREE more days before this bundle of creative goodness is available!

Today, I’m sharing another podcast by Melissa from Digital Scrapping HQ, featuring another contributor to the Creative Christmas Bundle. This time she is interviewing Jen Weber from Funk and Weber Designs.

Meet Jen Weber

Jen Weber

Hi I’m Jen Funk Weber! I learned to embroider about the time I learned to read. I also learned to sew, thanks to a crafty mother and an unattended sewing machine. Barbie clothes and furnishings were my first specialty.

As a member of the 4-H Sewing Club, I began designing clothes and crafts, cutting patterns from taped-together newspaper. I took up embroidery again while winter care-taking for remote lodges in Alaska. Ribbons won at the State Fair called attention to the designs and led to requests for patterns which led to Funk & Weber Designs. Together, my husband Mike and I create colorful (usually), playful patterns that bring together our love of nature, wildlife, puzzles, and subtleties.

In addition to print and digital patterns, Funk & Weber Designs offers online stitching and finishing classes.

Podcast

Jen is crazy about needlework. She even creates patterns! Here is what she is offering as part of the bundle. I haven’t stitched anything in a LONG time. This is so cute, it is very tempting!

Jen’s December Tip:

“We all have routine things we do at this time of year. Pick one thing and mix it up! Doing the same things over and over can get boring and sap your creativity. Change things up to reinstate the creative fun!”

Meet the Crafters & Designers of the Creative Christmas Bundle!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

Christmas Creative Bundle Countdown – 4 Days Left!

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Kristie Sloan

Just four more days until the Creative Christmas Bundle is released! You are going to love the creative jumpstart it will give you on your holiday preparations!

The bundle includes:

Scrapbooking templates and digi supplies (use them as sketches for paper scrapping)
Pocket page scrapping cards
Advent calendar printable supplies, tutorials, and suggested daily activities (This number “4” is from Connie Hanks’ Advent contribution)
Cut files for Silhouette and Cricut
2015 Calendar
Gift ideas and tutorials
Christmas-themed cross-stitch patterns
Printable Christmas cards
Tutorials for making photo gifts
Tutorials on using smart phone apps deal with photos & printing
Art Journaling tutorials
PLUS bonuses galore

The bundle is perfect for makers, scrappers, and crafty people who are looking to make this Christmas their most creative one yet.

Melissa Shannon from DigitalScrapbookingHQ is doing a series of interviews with all the contributors. Here is

Cara Vincens from the Hooting Pirate joining Melissa to kick off this season of the Scrapbooking Inspiration Podcast. (The podcast is below Cara’s info.)

Cara Vincens

Hi, I’m Cara, I’m a Canucklehead (Nova Scotia) living in Luxembourg with my tall, dark and hot hubby. He’s French and the reason I came here in the first place. Wouldn’t we all do anything for love? Though, it’s not like he had to twist my rubber arm to come to this fairy tale land, we love Luxie! We have 6 children… nope, not a typo! And only one of those is a girl. As you can imagine, she’s a spitfire.

As far as crafting goes, I’m a mixed media artist and I do a lot of paper crafts but I absolutely love scrapbooking. I love every single moment of the process, from the stories (oh, how I love to tell a good story!) and the photos, to the design, techniques and product (who can resist all those gorgeous products!). I love bright, happy colours, lots of white and lots of white space and lots of layers and clusters!

My first love was sewing, and I can usually incorporate it into my scrapbooks. Sometimes however, my cheating heart strays… it’s usually as Carnaval approaches and all those fabulous costumes are tempting me. I get that itch to sew on fabric (gasp!)… and I cheat on Scrapbooking, but she always takes me back.

Cara’s December Tip

“Plan ahead! If you start early there’s not a big rush to get things done. It’s not too late to start now, especially if you have the projects in the Creative Christmas bundle!”

Cara’s Creative Christmas Bundle contribution

Check out these fabulous printable cards!

The Creative Christmas Bundle

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!