April 2011 Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!!!

Welcome to the Close To My Heart Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

This month we are featuring the April SOTM from the 2011 Spring/Summer Idea Book, which is D1455 Blessed, a set of 12 My Acrylix Stamps. If you have come here from Vickie's Blog, you are on the right path! The blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start here and work your way all around.

This month we have over 50 Close To My Heart Consultants sharing their creations using this month's SOTM and other great CTMH products on their blogs. To join in the fun just click on the link at the end of the post on each blog to move to the next one! Here we go!

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I created this layout a month or so ago and sat it aside because I didn’t know what sentiments/title I wanted to put on it. That is until I pulled out my April Stamp of the Month! This stamp set has the perfect sentiments to reflect my feelings for my sweet husband of almost 20 years.

For the title I used the stamp, We are so Blessed, and the stamp above my journaling says,

If I had a flower

for every time I thought of you,

I could walk in my garden

forever.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I thought I had come up with a cool new technique for the paper flowers until I saw someone else had done them about a week later on a popular scrapbook site. I guess great minds think alike! =)

To make my flowers, I took 12” strips of B&T Duo from the new Paper Packet, Bliss, that I used. I tore one edge down the 12” length and then crumbled up my paper into a ball to give it a lot of wrinkles. I very carefully opened it back up as not to tear it. I sanded over the top of the paper a little to add to the distressed look. Then I took a 1-1/4” circle, loaded it with glue dots and gathered my distressed paper strip around it to form the paper flowers that you see. For the cents I used some circles of cardstock and designer brads.

For the ruffled bottom border above, I did the same technique described above but gathered it along the border and it the gathered edge under the Cocoa ribbon. I also did something similar for the journaling box below.

The Grey Flannel Floral B&T Duos that I used for the base on both pages have also been wrinkled & sand distressed. All the paper has been edge distressed and the Chocolate Cardstock for the mats have been distressed with a Chocolate ink pad to give it a leathered look.

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Now "Hop" on over to Teresa's Blog to see her fabulous works of art! Be sure to visit all the Consultants at their blogs to get some great crafting ideas and other fun ideas using this month’s stamp of the month!

Remember, the April SOTM is only available April 1 - 30, 2011 so get yours beginning April 1st!

Shop MyCTMH Website for all your scrapbooking & stamping needs!

God bless & make it a great day!