Please Welcome Our November Guest Designer!

You may have noticed that we have been without a guest designer for a few months due to various reasons, so we are especially thrilled to have the lovely and talented Hansi Brittain joining us as our November guest designer!

The creative process soothes my soul.  Who can think about the complications of life when you are creating?  I fell in with a group of amazing women who get together for fellowship, fun and paper crafting.   One day, a friend invited me to a monthly group to which she belonged ...just for fun.. .no need to buy anything…  Yeah, right!  I loved the Close to My Heart products.  It was in monthly group that I discovered card making which has become both therapy and ministry.  After I get the pleasure of making something, I can brighten someone’s day by giving it away.  By participating in challenge blogs, I have learned so much from fellow crafters who share their work and techniques. I am honored and humbled to be the guest designer this month.

Welcome, Hansi!  Thanks for joining us as our November Guest Designer!

Welcome "Ms. August," Our Guest Designer

Please join the Heart 2 Heart Design Team in welcoming our August guest designer, Sue Reynolds!

Hello! My name is Suzanne Reynolds, originally from Buffalo, NY.  I am married with three grown children and five grandchildren. I was a part of the work force for many years, but am now retired, residing with my husband in the Phoenix Metro area along with the rest of our family.  I was a workaholic and worried what was I going to do in retirement. About 25 years ago I did  scrapbook and made Christmas cards each year so paper crafting is not new to me.   In my blog, click on the tab for Scrapbooking and see some of my old scrapbook pages from 25 years ago and note the changes and advancements of papercrafting.  

It didn’t take me long after leaving the workplace to bring out my stash of old cardstock, design papers, stamps and embellishments to share my creative side in Heart2Heart Challenges. Of course I had to get updated supplies…this was easy because my daughter is a CTMH consultant and I think I'm keeping her in business.  Sometimes a risk taker with my art, I like developing clever ways to utilize materials and trying both old and new techniques. So it is confirmed…I have transitioned from workaholic to cardaholic. Enjoy my creations this month!

When I’m not crafting, I may be sewing, or you may find me at the fitness center (not so much) or enjoying the pool... or quite possibly on a cruise or vacation.  In fact the first two weeks of August we will be traveling north to get out of the heat. 

Introducing Our July Guest Designer

The Heart 2 Heart Design Team is delighted to welcome Gretchen Stumme to join us this month!  Here's a info about her.

Hi!  My name is Gretchen Stumme and I have been a crafter/artist for as long as I can remember.  I’ve tried a variety of mediums at one time or another, but paper-crafting has stuck as one of my favorites.  I bought my first stamp to use on the back of my wedding invitations and was instantly hooked. 

I am a Marketing Specialist as well as a Close To My Heart consultant.  I love teaching workshops in book making, paper arts, and quilting.  If you don’t find me in my studio behind my paper cutter or sewing machine, I’m probably out and about behind my camera.  The local zoo animals are my favorite subjects! 

I grew up in Connecticut, but have lived in Upstate New York with my husband Dave since our college years.

Please welcome Gretchen!

Man Oh Man....

This week at Heart 2 Heart challenges we are all about the men in our lives! The challenge this week is....Man Oh Man! 

Man Oh Man...what are we looking for this week you ask? We are looking for anything to do with the men in your life wether they are 6 days old to 60 years old, the fathers old or new, your masculine theme projects (card, scrapbooking, home decor), anything that celebrates the men in your life. 

To provide some inspiration, here are some projects that our design team put together for you. Firs up this week is our very talented Guest Designer April and you can find her fabulous blog here, she is very talented and has a lot of great projects that are sure to inspire you!

Guest Designer Artsy April

Brandi R - crzy4scrapbooking

Alyson - Create with Alyson

Cynthia

Lauren Moore-  CTMH Craftings

Thank you for stopping by, now lets see your creations, we are super excited to see your take on our Man Oh Man challenge!

Please Welcome Our June Guest Designer!

Tomorrow morning we'll be unveiling our first June challenge, so today we'd like for you to join us in welcoming our June guest designer, the talented April Watkins!

Hello! My name is April Watkins, and I have been a Close to My Heart Consultant for about a year and a half. I currently live in Strongsville, OH, which is a suburb of Cleveland. My husband Thomas is Active Duty with the United States Coast Guard, so we am both from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I have a Master's Degree in Library Science, and have worked as a public librarian in the past. I am currently taking time off to stay home with my adorable 2-year-old son James. I have been papercrafting since high school, but I've really become more serious about it the past five years after my husband bought me my first Cricut machine. I absolutely love CTMH products, especially the Artbooking and Art Philosophy Cricut cartridges. My artwork generally features lots of layers and heavy with embellishments, which pairs nicely with these cartridges and the coordinating stamp sets.

Please Welcome our May Guest Designer!

Please welcome our May guest designer!  (You may have noticed that we skipped having a guest DT in April so that we could have a better schedule.)  We're really excited to welcome Casandra Bennett to create with us this month!

"Hi. I'm Casandra Bennett from Levering, Michigan. Today, is my 4 year anniversary as a Close To My Heart Consultant. I have been a bookkeeper for two family businesses for over 20 years. I am a wife to my best friend, Jeremiah, and mother to two wonderful children, Jackson and Isabella. I have always been crafty. In middle school, I began selling friendship bracelets and could make just about any pattern just from looking at a sample. I even won blue ribbons at our local county fair. I also dabbled in cross-stitching. I have been scrapbooking for about 13 years now. In 2007, I was invited to my first Close To My Heart party and fell in love with the clear stamps and coordinating colors. If you were to ask me what my papercrafting style is, I would have to say "clean and simple"." 

No Rules!

Good Morning Crafters!  Today we are throwing down our final NO-vember challenge!

This week at Heart 2 Heart, our challenge was to design a project with, well, with NO RULES!  What ?!?!?  That's right, the only "rules" were that we use Close to My Heart products!  What a luxury!  Don't you just wish that life was that easy too??

First up, let's take a look at what our Guest Designer, Lilian Yeh Foryth of The Leaf Studio came up with:

  
Don't you just love it?  Thanks so much for much Lilian for sharing your creativity with us!

Now, on to our Design Team!  Drumroll please ...

Lauren Moore

 

Brandi Robinson

Haley Dyer

Lucy Kelleher

Jen Patrick

Link up your NOvember NO-RULES project using the linky below before the end of November!  You can play along with any of our NOvember challenges through the end of the month.

Have a wonderfully crafty day!

Welcome to NO-vember!

This month, we here at Heart 2 Heart Challenges are celebrating NO-vember challenge: each challenge will have "NO" requirement to it, something you're NOt allowed to use or do.  Good luck and play hard!

Before I throw down our NO-vember scrapbooking challenge, please join me in welcoming our November guest designer, Lillian YF.

"I was born in Taiwan and grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been married for 10 years and I have two little boys, a Sheltie (Jazz, the dog) and a Ragdoll (Angel, the cat).  I started stamping ten years ago and have been a consultant since 2013.

"Other random things about me... I love Arabian horses...I'm a chocoholic...I collect patterned papers and stamps...I am a "slow" crafter (it could take me 20-30 minutes just to make a card!)...but, if I'm inspired, I could craft all night long!

"I'm so happy to be back as a guest designer!  Can't wait to see everyone's creations this month!"

We're glad to have Lillian with us this month!  She is going to kick off our NO-vember scrapbooking challenge with this lovely layout:

Guest DT Lillian

Can you guess what our NO-vember scrapbooking challenge is?  

Lauren

The No-vember scrapbook challenge is NO B&T!  That's right, NO patterned, designer paper can be used on your photo project!  Sure, you can make your own B&T with card stock: maybe you want to stamp, score, crumple, or distress?  We can't wait to see your take on the NO B&T SCRAPBOOK CHALLENGE!

Adeline

Haley

Introducing Our October Guest Designer

Please join us in welcoming the talented Pam Ellison to our Design Team this month!

Pam says:
I'm a family gal, teacher, and Christ follower. I'm a firm believer that the happiest people in life do not have the best of everything , they make the best of what they have, I try to do that and hope you do too. 

I enjoy hiking, biking, and spending time with my family.  Which leads to preserving those memories by SCRAPPBOOKING!!!

I've loved all types of crafts from my youth and have been a scrapper/card maker for 15 yrs. I am a Close to my Heart Consultant. I love creating cards, layouts, and others projects to share my hobby with others.

I'm honored to be the Guest Designer for October at Heart to Heart and hope my creations are up to par with the GORGEOUS work I've been inspired by in the past.  

Share your Favorite stamp or stamp set

Welcome! This month at Heart2Heart we are focusing on our favourite things...and this week our  challenge is to use your favourite stamp or stamp set! 

This month our fabulous Guest Designer is Donna Digby, and here's her amazing card:

Donna

Let's have a look at the projects from the rest of the Design Team to see what their favourite stamp or stamp set is.

Lauren



Brandi

Lucy

Haley

We can't wait to see YOUR favorite Close To My Heart stamp set!  Share some of your love and talent with us this month.

~~~~~~~~~

Please Welcome Our September Guest Designer!

We're excited to welcome Donna Digby to our team this September!  She has graciously agreed to help us show off all that you can do with Close To My Heart this month after being a recent Top Chick.

Donna writes:

In October, I will be 39 years old. I have had a very interesting life with many high and low moments and I choose to make the most of each day. 

I have crafted my whole life, but I have been doing some form of scrapbooking since I was 15 years old when I first joined the yearbook committee in High School.

My true passion is photography and love taking photos of my family and friends; especially my 16 year old daughter, Amy, my soon to be 3 year old son, TJ, my almost 11 year old pug, Sparkle and my husband of nearly 18 years, Trevor. We have a lot of celebrations in October. 

I love losing myself in my craft room and inspiring others to make the time to do the same.

August's "Inspired by..." Series & Scrapbooking Challenge

For the month of August, we here at Heart to Heart will inspire you with our "inspired by..." series.  Of course we are all being inspired by the release of the new CTMH Annual Inspirations Idea Book!

Before I unveil our August Inspired by... scrapbook challenge, I'd like to introduce our guest designer, Gail Gross.

Hello!  My name is Gail Gross and I’m so excited to be a guest design team member this month.  Challenges have become a source of inspiration to stretch my creativity.  Heart 2 Heart is special because it is a CTMH community.  I’ve been a consultant since 2011, and my upline is the consultant who did the gatherings back when I was introduced to stamping over 16 years ago!  Then it was a social outlet for my group of homeschooling moms.  Now, it’s a passion.  My husband of 28 years is a huge support in all that I undertake, and even though my two boys out of the house, they still give feedback on my projects.   My biggest challenge is keeping the dog from eating my projects – she has an affinity for paper.  I just returned from the CTMH Convention and am looking forward to working with the great new products for the challenges this month.   It will be fun to see what you come up with as well, so please, join in!

Thanks for joining us this month, Gail!

Our August scrapbooking theme is Inspired by... nature!  We can't wait to see how you interpret this theme.  There's just one more thing: you need to also incorporate some distressing on your layout.  How you accomplish this is up to you, so be sure to share your technique.

Now, are you ready to be inspired?

Guest Designer Gail

Lauren

Allie

You will have until the end of the month to participate in this month's Inspired by Nature scrapbook challenge.  We can't wait to see how you interpret this!  Don't forget that this challenge must use some CTMH product and be some type of photo art/scrapbooking project.

Introducing Our July Guest Designer

Please welcome Gina Brandstetter to the July Heart 2 Heart Design Team!

Hi My name is Gina Brandstetter.  I'm so honored to be asked  to be this month's Guest Designer.   I've been a Close to My Heart Consultant since 2006 and I have loved every minute of it! Several years ago I started looking for way to challenge my creativity so I began following Blog Challenges.   Heart 2 Heart was one of the first challenges that got me started.  I now keep a list of challenges that I love to check out each day and it is the first thing I do every morning!  I may not have time to play with each one and sometimes I may only get one done in a week but I still love to follow along!    In addition to my passion for paper crafting I do have a full time job, two grown daughters, a wonderful husband who appreciates my papercrafting business and a Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Remi who actually thinks he is Human.

So come on and join in the fun with the H2H Challenges this month.  They are going to be fun!  I look forward to seeing everyone's creations!

Welcome Our June Designer!

You've already seen two of her great creations (and many more if you've visited H2H for a long time), so it's time to introduce our June guest designer, Cheryl Even!

My name is Cheryl Even, and I live in sunny Southern California. My hubby and I celebrated our 22^nd wedding anniversary this year, and we are blessed to have two wonderful little boys. I’ve always loved drawing and sketching, and I won my first contest for artwork when I was in first grade. I stumbled upon scrapbooking in 1998 when I was invited to a home party to try it out. I fell in love and have been scrapping ever since. I added card-making to my repertoire a few years back, and enjoy stamping on my cards and layouts.  Between crafting, blogging about crafting, taking care of my family, and my church responsibilities, I am one busy but blessed lady!

Are You Ready for Some FUNN?

Yes, it's time to have a little FUNN and introduce our May guest designer, Mary Gunn FUNN!

Mary writes:
It is such FUNN to be the Heart 2 Heart Blog Challenge Guest Designer this merry month of May.

Here is my bio in a nut shell: I love being a Close To My Heart Consultant because the CTMH family is awesome, the products are the best, and the corporate backing is second to none.  I will always stop and talk to someone about the joys of scrapbooking, card making, and spending time with craft buddies because those things have brought such joy to my life.

If I ever quit paper crafting I would be the saddest person on the planet.

Join us this month by playing along with your own entries! If you aren't up to that, please leave the contributors a kind word!

Thanks, H2H, let's go have some FUNN!

Please Welcome our April Guest Designer!

Has spring fever hit anyone else?  We are on break this week, which helps to explain (a little bit at least) why I am posting a bit later than I would like.  Please join me in welcoming our amazing April guest designer, Katrina Brown!

Katrina writes:

I am so excited to share some of my “scrappy” ideas with you this month as a guest designer!  I hope I can give some inspiration as so many have inspired me here at Heart 2 Heart! 

“Research” as my son and husband call it is one of my favorite pastimes.  I am entertained and inspired by all the videos from CTMH, the pictures on CTMH site, and of course the great creations on Heart 2 Heart Challenge Blog!  

I think I like the creative process more than the actual project itself; I believe that is a trait I take after my dad who would always do all the work to figure out something and then not actually make it!  

I adore my family, friends, photography, horses, music, and paper!  When I can combine two or more from that list, I’m ecstatic! 

My favs:  periwinkle, bread, ice cream, coffee, flip flops, jeans, Brahms, Donny Osmond, ,,,and a day without a clock!  You can fill in the categories!  

I love, love, love my CTMH consultant!  I’ve known her since the moment she came into this crafty world........she’s my daughter!  Four generations of us enjoy spending time together playing with all the goodies from CTMH; how much better does it get?

March's Guest Designer

We're lucky to have the talented Pam Ellison joining us this month as our guest designer!

She is super excited to have advanced notice of this month's challenges and to share her interpretations with you.  Be sure to give her a helping of H2H love this month!

February Guest Designer

Please join the H2H DT to welcome our February guest designer, Lilian Yeh!

Hello, everyone! I'm so excited to be the guest designer for the month of February!

I was born in Taiwan and grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been married for 10 years and I have two little boys, a Sheltie (Jazz, the dog) and a Ragdoll (Angel, the cat).

I was working in Taiwan when a friend taught me how to stamp...that was ten years ago! And I was addicted!

About a year ago, I joined CTMH as a consultant...the kit was full of wonderful products, that I couldn't resist...   I make mostly cards, but I'm trying to scrapbook more. I'm glad I found H2H for it challenges me to create (when I'm not busy with the boys or with work)!

Thank you, H2H team, for this great opportunity!

New Year, New Guest Designer

It's time to introduce our January 2014 guest designer, Debbie Bonczek!  We're so glad to have her help us kick off the new year.

Crafting has always been a part of my life, with early memories of a potholder loom and door-to-door sales when I was very young in the 70’s.  But there was a day back in 1997 when my sister-in-law’s sister took me to a scrapbooking class, and I was hooked.  It turned into a love of all things paper . . . and stamping is one of those!  I love stamping and ink, and I became a big fan of Close To My Heart shortly thereafter.  What’s not to love about those gorgeous clear stamps? 

I love the entire creative process, and these days it is my therapy and keeps me from quitting my day job, which supports my inky habits.  After a long day at the office, I try to enjoy some time cutting, folding, inking, and gluing.  I’m a big fan of challenges, because they push you to explore creativity from different angles and to think outside of the box.  They also give you the opportunity to look at everyone’s creative designs inspired by the very same challenge.  I hope you will all play along with us this month.  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s creativity. 

Welcome Our December Designers!

It was so much fun having Hansi playing along with us again last month that we decided to invite all of our 2013 guest designers back to celebrate all month long!  They are graciously giving a little something extra of themselves this holiday season to inspire us all.  Enjoy seeing them again!