Impressed with another Friday Five!

Time to announce another Friday Five! These are the favorite embossing projects as chosen by the Design Team. Click the photos to get a full image view of these lovely creations:

Congratulations ladies - beautiful artwork! Your Friday Five badge info will be sent out later today.

Are you in the next Friday Five? You could be but you have to play along! There's still time to enter your Halloween (or pumpkin) project - deadline is Sunday night at 10 pm EST.

See you Monday with another new challenge!

It's getting spooky around here!

What a great turn-out last week - thanks to all who participated in the embossing challenge! One of you was drawn randomly to receive the prize that our wonderful sponsor, Carissa, was offering and that winner is......#39 Courtney Milburn! Congratulations Courtney! Please contact me with your mailing info and I will pass it along to Carissa.

And a BIG thank you to Carissa for being a great sponsor! Remember you can visit Carissa at Just Peachy Creations and all of our sponsors by checking out the sponsor page.

Now on to a new 4 for 40 week! You did it last week - we know you can do it this week too! All it takes is 40 players and one will win a goody package of 4 cards created by Design Team member Kelly! Here is Kelly's fabulous artwork for this week's challenge and a great tip to share as well:

"I love to be a girl who thinks ‘outside of the box’! My goal in creating artwork is to try and come up with a creative way to use products in a new and unique way. So I have a few tips for using Close to my Heart Products in unexpected ways. First, for this layout, I have used a page from Close to my Heart’s new Mix and Mingle Album as a unique embellishment rather than just using it in creating the standard mini album. Next, at the time I created this layout I did not have any of Close to my Heart’s new Hooligans paper pack (which is our new darling Halloween themed paper pack in the 2010 Autumn/Winter Idea Book.) However, I was not worried! There are several paper packs in our collection which are perfect for this event! Here I have used the very versatile "You Rock" Level 2 Paper Pack with its 'perfect for Halloween' colors of Sunflower, Pansy Purple and Garden Green. Which is my second tip for you – don’t ‘box’ yourself in to the implied theme in each of our paper packs! Many of our paper packs are perfect for all sorts of different events and celebrations! For incorporating the use of the Mix & Mingle album on my layout - Here I have used one of the bracket shaped acrylic pages to create a unique 'dimensional' embellishment for my layout. First, I distressed the acrylic page with black Stazon Ink - in order to really make the shape of my acrylic piece 'pop'. Then I mounted it to the layout by using brads, attached directly to the layout, as spacers and covering the pre-drilled holes with our new Licorice Opaques (new black pearls!!). By placing some of my stamped and cut-out elements on top and behind the acrylic enabled me to make my witch appear as though she was flying over the moon."

Fabulous artwork once again from Kelly! You can see Kelly's layout on her blog at Stampin' All Day. And be sure to play along to win some goodies from Kelly!

Now on to the challenge and the rest of the team samples. Have you guessed that this week's theme is Halloween? Now if you don't celebrate Halloween, that's ok! You can also create your artwork featuring a pumpkin (or 2) and that qualifies too. Just be sure to use CTMH products!
Here is what the rest of the team created -
 

Deneen

Mary

Andrea

Jamia

Mandy

Jessica

 
Does that put you in the mood to create some Halloween/pumpkin fun? We hope so! Post your project and link back here by Sunday at 10 pm EST to be eligible for our prize of the week and our Friday Five. Be sure you add a link that takes us to the page that your post appears on, not the artwork alone. We want to be able to leave you a comment so we need the right link in order to do so!
 
Have a creative week and we'll see you again soon!
 

"Leave" it to our Friday Fivers!

We had so many TREE-mendous entries in our Trees and Leaves week and we had so many nominees for our Friday Five that it was a really difficult decision narrowing our choices down! But a call was finally made and I hope you will congratulate the following talented winners:

Fabulous work, ladies!

If you were not in this week's Friday Five, there's another chance this week! Check out the current challenge and enter before 10 pm EST Sunday night!

See you Monday with a new challenge!

A new week - a new challenge - embossing!

So many exciting things going on at H2H - let's get right to it!

Last week was a 4 for 40 week and YEAH - we had 40 entries!!!!  Now I know, some entered twice, and I think one may have been a duplicate, but I don't care - there's 40 entries and I'm awarding Jessica's 4 pieces of artwork to one lucky player. And that person, chosen by Random.org is ......   #5 LINDA NORMAN!  Congratulations Linda - please contact me with your address so Jessica can send out your prize! 

This week, our prize is sponsored by Carrisa Peach. Carrisa will be sending one of our lucky participants a complete KEY TO MY HEART set from CTMH. This is an older promotional item that is not available any more so it's a little rare! I will have a photo of it as soon as I can get the photo to cooperate. Thank you Carrisa for sponsoring us this week! You can visit Carrisa's blog at Just Peachy Creations and check out her adorable artwork!

This is also our last week to be highlighting our Guest DT, Lorrinda, and her artwork for this week's challenge is gorgeous! But then again, have we seen anything less from this talented lady?  Our challenge for this week is EMBOSSING - dry or heat embossing. To start off our inspiration, let's take a look at Lorrinda's card:

Lorrinda used 4 different embossing styles on this beautiful card. If you want to get all the details, head over to her blog for more information. Thank you for joining us this month Lorrinda! We loved having you as part of the team!

Here are the rest of the DT samples:

Andrea

Mandy

Mary

Deneen

Jamia

Jessica

Kelly

WOW! Everyone did such a great job and I hope you're inspired to give some embossing a try this week. Create your project (*and be sure to use Close To My Heart products) and then post your artwork to your blog or other public gallery. Be sure we can leave you a comment on your post in case we need to contact you. Then come back here and leave a link to your post. It's that easy! Details on our challenge "rules" can be seen in the sidebar to the right.

Have a wonderful week~

Time for our Birthday Friday Five!

Thanks to everyone who played along with our Birthday challenge last week! We were really inspired by all your great artwork but we had to narrow it down to our favorite five based on creativity, overall design, use of color and product, degree of difficulty and execution. Our five choices then for this week are:

Congratulations! To see the complete project, click on the picture. Friday Five badge info will be sent out to our winners later today.

There is still time to enter the Trees/Leaves challenge. We want to see YOUR best work! See you again on Monday!

New challenge - Leaves and Trees

Welcome back to our challenge blog - we love seeing all the returning players week to week as well as new players!

Last week we had some terrific birthday entries! This week, the challenge is to create something using leaves and/or trees.

Before we get to the DT sample artwork, I want to announce our prize winner from last week's sponsor, Nichole Lewno. Chosen at random.org, the winner is Jennifer Hawkins!!  Congratulations Jennifer! Please contact me at mbryt1@bex.net with your mailing address so I can get the info to Nichole. And if you haven't stopped by Nichole's blog, I encourage everyone to stop by and leave a little message of thanks for sponsoring our challenge last week. Thanks Nichole!!

This week we have another opportunity for a lucky player to win in our 4 for 40 contest! If we get 40 players, one person will win a set of 4 cards created by a member of the H2H Design Team. This week, the lovely Jessica will be the 4 for 40 hostess and she has a few thoughts to share with you:

"One of my very favorite attributes of CTMH is our coordinating colors and embellishments. When I got ready to make my card for this challenge, I knew I would have everything I could possibly need for my card to match perfectly! Cardstock, Inks, ribbon, and embelishments. Even if you don't have the exact match all of our colors coordinate so well together that you can easily mix and match. I find that when I am using non CTMH products I have to move around to several different light sources in my house to see if my paper and ribbon match because the lighting in my scraproom is less than ideal. However if I am using CTMH and I am using Cocoa paper I know my ribbon will match perfectly! Our color coordinated products truly make papercrafting Faster, Simpler, and Easier."

Here is Jessica's card for the week - and also one of the cards you could win in her package of goodies so be sure to play along:

Beautiful!  Be sure to tell everyone about our challenge this week so we can get 40 players and someone will win this and 3 more gorgeous cards from Jessica!

Deneen

Kelly

Mary

Mandy

Jamia

Andrea

What a tree-t to see all those fabulous samples!! Did I leave anyone out? Ok, so my tree and leaves humor has a lot to be desired. But we hope that doesn't stop you from playing along! Link your creation here by Sunday at 10 pm EST and we will stop by and see your entry. You might just be in our next Friday Five group!

Friday Five knocks out the ABC Challenge!

Sorry for the little bit late post. Somehow, Thursday always sneaks right by me and I sometimes forget to get this post ready in time for early morning. But better late than never! And this week we have some congrats to send to our ABC Challenge Friday Five - our choices are:

Beautiful work ladies!

Are you ready to strut your stuff this week for our Birthday challenge? There's still time to get your entry posted!! Deadline is Sunday night at 10 pm EST.

See you Monday when we announce this week's prize winner and next week's challenge!

Birthday time!

Birthdays are probably the #1 reason to create a greeting card so this is a challenge that everyone can really get behind because you know you're going to need a card sooner or later!

This week's challenge is to create a birthday card or other birthday item. Bring out those candles and that cake and wish someone special a very Happy B-day!

Before we get to the team's creations, I have a couple of special announcements.

This is a prize week (sorry, not enough players last week to win Jamia's 4 for 40 prize). Our lovely sponsor this week is Nichole Lewno! Here's a peek at the prize she will be sending to one lucky player -

Stop by Nichole's blog and leave her a great big Thank You for sponsoring this week! You can find her blog at Creatique Innovationz and her website here.

I am also happy to announce our Guest DT for October today - Lorrinda Holman!

Here is a little bit of info from Lorrinda:

"Hello!


I have been following and playing along with the Heart 2 Heart Challenges since day 1, and I just love the ideas and creativity this blog inspires. I am thrilled to be invited to be the Guest Designer for October! This is such a great gallery of CTMH art, and the challenges really motivate the crafty mojo.

I have been a CTMH Independent Consultant for 2 years. I joined after attending a card workshop, where I fell in love with the products. I started lurking on the craft blogs to get inspiration and ideas, and I became addicted to blog land. This year I finally jumped in, and have found a whole world of crafty online friends who share my interests, you can find me at http://isntthatsweet.blogspot.com/

I have been married to Randy for 12 years, and am Mom to Jenna (11), Shane (9), and fur baby Bentley. We live in a small border town in East Central Alberta, in the heart of Canadian oil country. My hubby is an Oilfield Production Supervisor, and an avid hunter, which is great for me because his hobby costs way more than mine, so he never says anything about the "few" craft supplies I have :) I love to cook, and have quite the collection of wild game recipes because my freezer is always full of his hobby (not always a good thing). I also like to bake and I love cake decorating for family and friends. My kids stay busy with Taekwondo and their many messy hobbies (beads, legos, clay, paint, magnetix). As a family we like to go camping, hiking, ATVing, and if we're inside we all usually have a book in our hands.

By day I am a Dental Hygienist, but most nights you can find me in my "Rubber Room" crafting up something or other! You could say that I am overly detail oriented, and you'd be nice, because I am admittedly a pain in the @$$ perfectionist. I have been a crafter all of my life. You name it, I've done it...drawing, painting, sewing, crocheting, needlepoint. I have found my passion in paper, which started because I have boxes of photos to be scrapbooked, but I find that I'm spending more time on cards and other paper crafts. I am also a TV junkie, and am blessed to have a spare TV in my craft room. Now that the network fall line-ups have started, I get a double fix of crafting and Gray's Anatomy in the evenings! Life is good. My daughter is also a crafty girl, and she shares our craft room with me, but her side is much more glittery than mine:) We are planning a "Rubber Room" reno, and we can't wait to get some decent lighting and storage in there, but first we'll have to pack up our stash of products and tools, and that is a daunting task!

I am so excited to be a part of this challenge blog, and I hope I'm able to provide inspiration to give back for all the wonderful creative ideas I have found here!"

Welcome Lorrinda - we're excited to have you join us this month! Lorrinda is playing along with our Birthday challenge this week so let's get to the artwork!

Be sure to visit Lorrinda's blog for details on this beautiful Birthday project!

Andrea

Deneen

Jamia

Jessica

Kelly

Mandy

Mary

Now it's your turn! We want to see what Birthday goodness you can create. And don't forget to spread the word - we would love a huge turn-out for this challenge. And you know you're going to need a birthday card sometime in the next 12 months so why not get creative! You might just win a fabulous prize package, a spot in our Friday Five or a chance to be our next Guest DT!

Leave your link below by Sunday 10 pm EST to be eligible for the prize. Have fun!