Scentsy Giveaway Winner!

Congrats to Melissa Hepburn, winner of the Scentsy Warmer from Scentsy Consultant Clerissa Lewis. Melissa, you'll be contacted to choose your prize!

My "helper" picked the winner, and provided the end-of-show big finish. She's such a shy, demure little thing.

Creative University Online, Fall Centerpiece

Check out this lovely centerpiece created by Creative University Online teacher Bobie Glassette. How gorgeous would this be on your Thanksgiving table? Love the mini banner and those beautifully shaded leaves. Click here to see watch the recorded episode.

Don't miss the chance to catch Bobie TONIGHT as she repeats her Sticky Note Holder Class. 5 pm pacific, 6 pm mountain, 7 pm central, 8 pm eastern

Go to show page.

Giveaway! Still Time to Enter!

Don't miss your chance to win! contest open through Monday, Aug. 29.

Click here for details and to enter.

What a Day!

I am still basking in that warm feeling of being completely tired and completely happy. Creative University Online was a huge success, I am just overwhelmed at the amazing teachers, the happy chatters, the incredible turn-out of viewers and all of the support we received from those who passed the word along on their blogs, facebook and twitter. Over 800 viewers tuned in, and many of them stayed for much of the day.

My first class demonstrated the Joseph's Coat technique with the September Stamp of the Month, Thriller. You can get this stamp set Sept. 1- 30, for $22.95, or make an additional purchase and receive the set for a discount, or even for FREE! See my website for details on the Stamp of the Month program.

Close up of the technique. How very spooky. Well, not really. But very...sparkly, yes, that's it.

Close up of the spiral roses. I almost didn't have time to show these in the class, so I just did a quickie demo. But I got it in, by gum, and they look lovely, don't they? Are you digging these new colors from the summer pallette? Sunset (Orange) and Cotton Candy (pink) below. The blue and purple above are new too. Lagoon (blue) and Gypsy (purple).

For my second class of the day, a canvas wall-hanging. It was a simple project with this adorable coffee cup stamp set called A Sip. You'll be able to purchase it beginning Sept 1. I used Cranberry ink and versamark with clear embossing powder to give it a glassy texture.

I used acrylic paint on the canvas and chipboard letters, with chocolate ink for distressing. Mmmm... chocolate and coffee.... Wait, what? Oh sorry, I got sidetracked.

Burlap adds lots of homespun charm and texture. Wouldn't this just be darling in a country kitchen?

My little Jessica wanted to help out as a hand model. Just her size!

If you missed any of the classes, you can find the recordings on my channel page.

Unfortunately a few of the classes did have technical difficulties and do not have recordings or have only partial recordings. Darn! But keep your fingers crossed, I am working on rescheduling the shows so that the teacher can repeat them, and we'll have a second chance to save the recording. And you will have a second chance to catch them live!

First rescheduled show:

Sticky Notepad Holder with Bobie Glassette

Tune in on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at 5 pm pacific, 6 pm mountain, 7 pm central, 8 pm eastern to see Bobie Glassette repeat her show on the Sticky Notepad holder. You won't want to miss it, she'll be live and would love to have you join her in the chat room. I'll be there!

Coming tomorrow, more project pictures and links!

This is Big! Creative University - Online!

Today's the big day! Nine hours of FREE live classes on my ustream channel.

Feel free to snicker at my commercial. I must have had too much coffee, I cannot hold still for one second.

Read about it.

Go to the show.

Looking for the blog hop? It's right below!

Blog Hop, How Thrilling!

Welcome to the Close to my Heart New Product Blog Hop! Over 50 Fabulous Close to my Heart Consultants are celebrating the upcoming release of the Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book by giving you a Sneak Peak of some of the great products available in the new Idea Book starting September 1st.

If you have come here from Brae Montgomery's blog, you are on the right path!

I've been having a blast with the September Stamp of the Month, Thriller. Just a little bit creepy, a little bit whimsical, and a whole lot of fun.
I created this card on my last Fabulously Artsy show on ustream. I demonstrated how to create the background using the Batik technique, which uses heat embossing, sponges, and inkpad... and an iron! Missed the show? You can watch the recorded episode on my ustream channel.

Want to see more of this stamp set?

Tune in for my class tomorrow morning for Creative University - Online at 9 am pacific (10 am mountain, 11 am central/ 12 pm eastern). I'll be kicking off 9 hours of FREE classes by myself and other Close to My Heart consultants. For the opening class, I'll be using Thriller to create an Ed Hardy inspired notebook cover with the Joseph's Coat technique.

See you on Saturday!

Your next stop on the Blog Hop:  Jennifer Kodjer's blog, A Glittery Mess. Be sure to visit all the consultants at their blogs for great crafting ideas and see the new Close to My Heart products. Make sure to leave lots of love, bloggers love comments!

Remember, the Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book goes LIVE on September 1st!

**Link not working? Missed a Blog? You can see a list of all Blog Hop participants HERE.

Tomorrow's the Big Day! Creative University - Online!

Click here to visit the show page

Class Line-up

Classes begin on the hour and will last up to 50 minutes, some will be shorter.

First class begins at 9 am Pacific/ 10 am mountain/ 11 am central/ 12 noon eastern

Class 1: Tresa Black - Joseph's Coat technique, notebook cover

Class 2: Bobie Glassette - Holiday Centerpiece

Class 3: Denise Anderson-Turley - Clear Cards

Class 4: Haley Dyer - Jewelry

Class 5: Aaron Brown - Paper Sack Christmas Card

Class 6: Bobie Glassette - Sticky Notepad Holder

Class 7: Sheila Bennett - Card with Pinwheel technique

Class 8: Christine David - Scrapbook page

Class 9: Tresa Black - Technique class

All classes will be recorded for later viewing.

Giveaway! Mmmm... something smells good!

Have you heard of Scentsy? Oh my heavens, this stuff is so yummy. I love a fab room fragrance, and with a houseful of kids and a dog, let's just say my house doesn't always smell as beautiful as I'd like. I'm hosting an online party and can't wait to have my home smell like Mochadoodle, or Toasted Caramel Sugar. I love that the warmers use a low watt bulb to shine a soft light and warm the scented bars, and there's no flame to worry about. Oh, and your house can smell like Sugar Cookies. That's always good.

My Scentsy consultant, Clerissa, is generously donating a full-sized warmer to one of my lucky blog readers! Wow, that's up to a $35 value! To qualify, visit Clerissa's website and sign up for her newsletter, then leave a comment here on my blog that you visited her site. It's that easy! If you'd like to also order something from my online party, you'll receive a second entry for the give-away. To shop my party, just go to the website and click on "The Stamp Goddess Party!" I even got my own exclamation point, thanks Clerissa! The party will close on Monday, Aug. 30, so hurry and take advantage of the fabulous 10% off sale.
Update: to make sure your purchase is included in my party, remember to click on "The Stamp Goddess Party" link of the home page. Or just click HERE to shop directly at my party site.

Here are a few of my favorite warmers. So hard to decide, they have so many!

I'm loving this old-world style and the blue and brown color combo.

Of course, the black and white will go with anything. So elegant.

And check out the little plug in warmer! So sweet!

Tonight's Class

Just a quickie post today, thought I'd make sure that everyone knows that my Wednesday evening ustream class will be broadcast tonight, as scheduled. Wouldn't want anyone to miss it! The Creative University online classes are on Saturday, but I'm still going to hold my Wednesday class.

Tonight's class, faux batik technique.
See you there!

7 pm pacific

8 pm mountain

9 pm central

10 pm eastern

Just a Wee Bit of Technique

When you want to experiment with a technique, but don't want to invest a lot of time or materials, try it out in a mini-size. Here, the bandana technique, in pink!

Get Your Craft On!

 

Mark your calendars, it's less than a week away! The first Creative University - ONLINE!

Nine hours of free classes, presented by Close to My Heart consultants to kick off the new Autumn/Winter Idea Book and Catalog. I have assembled a top-notch team of co-hosts for this event, with a variety of demonstrations to showcase new products from Close to My Heart.

9am-6pm pacific

10am-7pm mountain

11am-8pm central

12pm-9pm eastern

Classes begin on the hour

Teachers:

Tresa Black (that's me!)

Bobie Glassette

Denise Anderson-Turley

Haley Dyer

Aaron Brown

Sheila Bennett

Christine David

The event is on my ustream channel. Sign up (it's free!) to chat live with teachers and other viewers.  Ustream account is not necessary to view the classes, but if you'd like to chat, you need to sign up.

Help Promote This Event, Grab a Badge from the Sidebar!

Bandana Technique, Page in Progress

In last night's ustream class, I demonstrated the "Bandana Technique". There are several ways to get the Bandana look (patterns on a dark background defined by white highlights), I used two in this class. I'm going to be finishing up this page, but not as soon as I'd hoped. Probably over the weekend. My messy house and neglected family are crying for attention. Nothing too fabulous about scrubbing the terlit and sortin' socks, but it's gotta be done.

Watch the show! CLICK HERE

In Case You Haven't Heard

 

If this is the first time you've visited my blog, or you've been away for a long time, you might not have heard me shouting from the rooftops, shamelessly promoting my newest passion, broadcasting live on ustream.

There's a show tonight, hope you can tune in!

And mark your calendars for Saturday, Aug. 28th. A full day of tutorials on my ustream channel! I've invited some amazingly talented and generous Close to My Heart consultants who will be sharing their mad crafting skills with you. More to come!

Fresh Flowers

Ahh, flowers! My favorite embellishment. These are extra special because they're all hand-made (well, except the little white crochet one) so they are customizable to your project. I like making my own flowers because they can be any size, any color, any style. See how they're created on my latest ustream class HERE.

I did make a few tweaks after the show. I usually do. So you'll notice a few small differences on the peach flower, since I added another hand-cut flower for backing, and replace the blue (it didn't match) center for a rolled cardstock rose.

Back to Life

I hate being sick. When I was a kid, it was kind of fun. Get to stay home, lay on the couch and watch game shows all day. Now, it's just a waste of precious time. I have things to do, darn it! Kids to care for, a house to keep, and artwork to create. I had no warning, not a clue. Just wake up one morning and BAM! There it is. Down for two days, I barely managed to crawl out of bed.
And I am one ugly sick person.

Now, it's day three, and I'm baaaaack!

My regularly scheduled ustream show on Wednesday had to be postponed, so if you're free tonight, join me at 7 pm pacific time

(8 pm mountain, 9 pm central, 10 pm eastern)

for part two of the mini wall-hanging. I'll be making hand-made dimensional flower accents.

See you there!

Oh, and if you can't make it Friday night, the show will be recorded, and I'll be back to my regular Wednesday night schedule on the 18th.

Whatever Wednesday...Ephemera Collecting

Ephemera

Function: noun

1. something of no lasting significance —usually used in plural

2. ephemera plural : paper items (as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles

More than 5 years of teenage fashion tags saved by my oldest daughter. She had filled an entire drawer with them, and decided to create a collage to decorate her new apartment. She made two, and we framed them in a narrow shadow box. Like a hunter who displays mounted deer antlers, this is the trophy of a shopper.

Getting Geeky (a sharing tutorial)

I'm not a techno-savy gal, believe me.

I didn't grow up with this stuff, and I've had to learn everything by trial and error. There are some things I feel like I'll never get (like photoshop, I'm a total flunk-out), but I thought I might share some of the things I've found that have helped me join this new fangled world wide interweb.

Today's post is about sharing. The Close to My Heart bulletin board for consultants is a favorite of mine, I check on it pretty much every day. It's only for consultants, but there are lots of other bulletin boards in just about every subject you can imagine. If you belong to one, and would like to share a link or a photo, here's how. (Disclaimer.. this works for bulletin boards that allow html code, so it works for me.)

You can make the instructions larger by double clicking on them.

Save any of these directions by right clicking and saving as a picture. That will allow you to refer back to it anytime you want. Each set of directions is a separate picture, so you need to save each separately.

When you'd like to share a website address, you can always just paste it into your message on a bulletin board post, but that makes the reader have to go to the extra step of copying your address, pasting it into their browser and leaving the site, or they have to open a new window to paste your address. I'm kinda lazy, I usually will skip any of those options and just don't visit the site. It just takes so much effort to move my whole hand to copy and paste, when I could just click on a link with one finger. (laughable, but it's sadly true of most readers. Don't shoot the messenger, I bring you the truth). Here's how to get more of those lazy people like me to visit your link:

Lastly, how to combine both of these ideas....
making a picture clickable.

I love this.

People like to click on things. When you make the photo clickable, the reader can click the photo and go directly to the place you want them to. Even if it's a different place than where the photo is at. So I can show you a picture of a card I made, then set up my link so it takes you to my website to purchase the stamp set I used. I feel like the master of space and time when I can do something so clever.

You can also just make the picture clickable to go to the site. Like sharing a photo that's on your blog, allowing the reader to click on the photo to go to your blog and see more.

Hope that helps some of you! I'll have more tutorials in the future on the Fabulously Geeky side of me, like messin' around with your blog settings.

Sparkles and Ruffles!

I like to multi-task, but I'm not a good multi-tasker.

I've learned that the more things I try to do at once, the harder it is to do any of them well.

But this weekend, I managed to pull it off. I've been putting off the last thank-you cards for my blog contest winners, and I'm also very behind on youtube videos. So... I worked on both at the same time. I think they turned out pretty well, despite the multi-tasking.

The cards are going out today. The video will be released soon, after the editing is complete.

Oh, and I did add one more thing while creating these cards and video taping the process. I also broadcast on ustream. Two cameras, two different shows, one crazy lady.

It's a Color Inspiration Party!

I'm feeling feisty, so it's two posts in one day!

Just for fun, and because we could all use some inspiration occasionally, I'm having a linky party.

Keeping it simple, it's all about the color

YELLOW.

This is the sunniest color, and it just makes me happy. Summer will be over before you know it, and we'll all be thinking of warm browns and cozy reds for autumn, so let's enjoy these last lazy days of summer. Post your YELLOW picture using the linky gadget below, it's quick and easy! You can even crop your photo to really show off the yellow portion. Artwork or photographs, any subject, any shade of yellow, just make sure the thumbnail is mostly yellow. And of course, only upload your own artwork or photos. There's no prize, no voting, just sharing our love of color!

If you're here for inspiration, make sure to leave a comment on the blogs you view, we all love comments!

Tone it Down Please!

Have paper that's too bright, too loud, too much contrast? Tone it down with a whitewash!

The striped paper on the back of this frame is quite bright with a lot of contrast, (see it HERE). Using white pigment ink I gave it a much softer, lighter look.

If you attended my last ustream class, or have watched the recorded video, you'll recognize this wall hanging, but I made a few changes before taking photos. I toned down the pattern on the bird by using the flip side of the patterned paper, and I changed the crown by embossing it in gold. I also added a few more flowers and buttons to the page. To see part two of this project (I'll be adding more embellishments to the lower right side of the frame and finishing it off with a hangar), tune in on Wednesday, Aug. 11 at 7 pm pacific. (That's 8 pm mountain, 9 pm central, 10 pm eastern).

Want to know a secret? I don't plan my ustream classes too much. I made a little promise to myself: I'd keep the classes simple and easy enough for me that I could just log on and teach without spending hours prepping and planning. The classes are casual and fun, like inviting a good friend over and sharing a few tips and ideas. So, sometimes I create something and then decide to make a few tweaks, after the camera is shut off. If you've tuned into one of my ustream shows, you'll understand the casual approach, I had an impromptu "helper" in my last class, and I dumped glitter all over my dog. Ah well, the show must go on!

Watch the episode.

Don't Miss This Amazing Paper Sale!

You won't believe your eyes when you see the paper packs that Close to My Heart is offering for this sale. So many paper packs and My Stickease, and for as low as 25 cents per sheet? Wow! Get over to my website NOW to shop for the best selection.

 For just 8 days, August 4 through August 11 (while supplies last), you can purchase select My Stickease® Assortments for only $2 US, My Reflections® Level 1 kits for only $4, and My Reflections® Level 2 paper packets for only $6 at thestampgoddess.myctmh.com.

Like any great sale, you may experience "crowds" of other bargain hunting shoppers. This may cause some delays in loading pages, and sold-out items. To make your shopping experience as smooth as possible, here are some helpful tips:

1. If you do not have an account set up to shop on my website, do this first, so you can check out quickly.

 Click here to set up your account.

2. Once you place an item in your cart, continue to shop and check out as quickly as possible. The items in your cart are not guaranteed until you comlete your checkout process and may sell out before you can complete your order. 

3. You will be able to order non-sale items with this order.

If you have a CTMH catalog, use the item numbers to enter your order, it's a much faster way to shop and you won't have to wait for pages to load.

4. Your entire order will qualify you to receive the Stamp of the Month for a discount or even FREE! The Something Splendid set is only available for purchase this month, and I've used it several times in my videos recently, so now is you chance to own it.

Now that you're fully briefed...

go forth and shop!

I'm not procrastinating, I'm incubating

I'm trying to come to grips with my to-do list. Ever have a stretch of time where you can't seem to get anything finished? That's me, right now. I have a million projects I want to do (like re-vamping my blog, shooting more youtube videos, finally organizing the kid's toys and clothes), and I think I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Or perhaps I'm lacking direction. But I'm not going to beat myself up too much. Since it's summertime and the kids are home, I'm just enjoying the spontaneous events and unscheduled "what should we do today" days. Besides, I read an article about people who think they are procrastinators but actually they are considered "incubators". They need a stretch of free time to goof off and relax while they mentally are preparing for the big rush to finish something. Yeah, that's me. I'm incubating. The experts say so.

And while you're incubating, you can do things like dress up the dog. It's all part of the master plan.