CAS - Clean and simple

Are you ready for another great challenge?  This is our final one for this month! We are so ready to see what you all come up with for this week's challenge. Your challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to create a project that is CAS - Clean and Simple. 

What is Clean and Simple? To most it is minimalistic, little to no embellishments, less is more style. How do you define Clean and Simple? What is your style? Will this be a challenge for you, or is this right up your alley? We are excited to see not only your project but also your take on the Clean and Simple style. 

Cynthia McCloud

Alyson Mayo

Haley Dyer

Lauren Moore

Lucy Kelleher

Brandi R - crzy4scrapbooking

Remember, we post a new challenge each week but you have the entire month to complete your challenge. We are looking forward to seeing your designs!  Be sure to go back and check out all of our January challenges and submissions before the month ends.

Color Challenge: Your Birthday

Welcome back for another great Heart 2 Heart Challenge!  We are loving your creations for our first two 2015 challenges, so we can't wait to see how you play along with this one.  You have all month to participate in any of our January challenges.  So how do you play along?  You must create a project that features the color assigned to your birth month.

It's Team Canary's turn to inspire you.

LaJeania

Nikka

Debi

Brandi

Allie

Now it's your turn to create with your assigned color.  You have until the end of the month to celebrate your birthday.

Tic-Tac-Toe

Good Morning Crafters!  Are you ready to PLAY?  (We are loving your projects for our first January challenge!  Remember that you have all month to link up to any of our January challenges.)

This week our challenge here at Heart 2 Heart Challenge blog is a popular kids' game we all played growing up (well maybe we still play is as grownups too!):  Tic-Tac-Toe!  Wasn't that a fun game?

Well here's the "board" we played off of:

So if you remember how you play the game - you have to get three in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Design Team Thistle is up this week!  Woohoo!  We have a great team of designers on Team Thistle -- some are returning members and some are new!  Team Thistle is made of Haley Bell Dyer, Lucy Kelleher,  Alyson Burr Mayo, Cynthia McCloud, Lauren Moore, and Brandi Robinson.  They are fab CTMH consultants who are excited to be back and creating projects with our amazing Close to My Heart product line!

Here is what our design team came up with:

Alyson Burr Mayo

Lauren Moore

Haley Bell Dyer

Cynthia McCloud

Lucy Kelleher

Brandi Robinson

Aren't these projects inspiring?  Well, we can't wait to see what you come up with playing Tic-Tac-Toe with us!  Just link up below.  You can check out how to participate in our challenges on our home page.

Here's to another GREAT year of crafting and challenges with Close to My Heart!

Ring In 2015: Old Is New!

Welcome to the first Heart 2 Heart Challenge of 2015!  We've rung in the new year, so it's time to get to crafting.  We hope that crafting is part of your 2015 goals and that you'll play along with us here at Heart 2 Heart!  We are offering up a few simple prizes for any first time players with this challenge.  Be sure to let us know in our comments section that this is your first time playing here at Heart 2 Heart!  We welcome all crafters of any experience level, but we do ask that you use some product(s) from Close To My Heart.  You have all month to play along, and we can't wait to see what you make.

In light of the new year, Auld Lang Syne, and all that, we've changed up our look a bit.  Please grab our "I Love Heart 2 Heart Challenges" badge to display on your blog!  Now, our first 2015 challenge is old is new.  Take something old and repurpose it in a new way, grab something that you've been hoarding saving in your stash and show it off, or put your own twist on this old is new challenge.  We are so excited to show off our current design team, which features three all new designers.  Be sure to leave a little love here in the comments section or when you check out projects on the respective Designers' blogs.  We love to hear from you!

Nikka

Alyson

Cynthia

Lauren

Brandi

LaJeania

Allie

Debi

Katy

Lucy {Coming Soon}

Haley

Do you love all the different takes on this challenge as much as I do?  We can't wait to see how you turn old into new!  You have all month to link up to this challenge, but don't wait too long.  We wish you the very best in 2015!

Happy New Year with our New Designers!

The new year is bringing about a few changes here at Heart 2 Heart Challenges, first with the addition of three talented "new" faces.  Please join me in welcome our new design team members!

I'm Nikka Geers.  I am a military wife currently in Texas, but Michigan is my home.  I have been with my hubby for 11 and half years, but only have been married for 5 once he joined the army. I have a fur baby named Bonnie.  She is a bull terrier, like Spud Mackenzie.  I have been a CTMH consultant since 2010.  When I became a consultant, I had never touched a single product from CTMH, just a catalog for 2006.  But I got the consultant kit and I fell in love.  I have crafted almost my whole life and I think I would go crazy (crazier actually) if I didn't craft.  I was super excited when I got the news that I am going to be on the design team. My hubby looked at me like was crazy.  I can't wait to create with you guys!

Cynthia McCloud here!  I have been scrapbooking since 2005, but I have been telling stories much longer -- as a journalist, since 1996. After a dozen years writing and editing at a midsize daily newspaper, I get to do what I love from home. I've freelanced for various publications, including The New York Times. I'm a part-time reporter for The State Journal newspaper and I freelance for a regional lifestyle magazine. In January, I'll start taking online classes at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. My eventual goal is to get a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction. 

Scrapbooking is a different chapter of my life story. I founded a scrapbooking retreat with a friend that we're slowly trying to grow. I have been a Close To My Heart consultant for three years. When I teach scrapbookers, crop alongside them or speak to them through my blog and Facebook, I passionately encourage them to make sure they're in some of the photos on their layouts. I'm like many women who scrapbook to record our children’s lives for them. We are a big part of that life! Moms, as the chroniclers of family history, are the people behind the camera. Caught up in recording the milestones in their families’ lives before the details fade moms overlook the missing pieces: themselves. No one’s telling their stories and if they don’t start, who will? It’s our history, too, and we should be a main character not a footnote.

The other characters in my story are my high school sweetheart to whom I have been married for 17 years; our 11-year-old daughter, who scraps with me at crops; and two fat beagles. We live in a snowy, mountainous part of north-central West Virginia.

Hi!  I'm Alyson Mayo from Barrie, Ontario, Canada.  I have been a Close To My Heart consultant since 2007 and I am a former teacher of grades 7 and 8.  I began scrapbooking when one of my nephews was born and haven't looked back since.  Cards are my first choice but I also do a variety of other types of crafting as well.  I enjoy reading, walking, and am very active in my church community.  I have a beautiful little puppy named Mika who is great source of laughter in my life.  She is a year and a half old now and weighs in at a whopping 6.4 pounds.

Thanks, ladies, for joining us for this first term of 2015.  We're excited about the talent that you are bringing to our Design Team, and can't wait to see how you interpret our challenges.  See everyone again on Monday for our first challenge of the new year.

Happy 2015!!!!!!!!!!!