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If you {heart} Close To My Heart, then this challenge blog is for you!
Each Monday, a new challenge is posted, and Close To My Heart products are required to enter.
Don't have any CTMH products? Then beg, borrow, or BUY from our fabulous roster of Consultants!

Sponsored and created by Independent Consultants for Close To My Heart, all challenges will be posted on Monday mornings with the deadline to enter on the last day of the month or on the Saturday following the month's final challenge. All challenges close at midnight EST. (Each month, the final challenge date will be announced to help you play along. You have all month to play, so join us often!) You might even be in our Top 10!

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

May's H2H Addicts & Top 10

It is (finally!) time to announce our MAY Heart 2 Heart Challenge winners!  First, we'd like to give a  huge shout out to our "addicts," the talented ladies who participated in all four of May's challenges.  In random order (drum roll please), congratulations to...
*Pam Korte
*Amie Kiger
*Hansi
*Karen B.
*Kristin Holm

Pam deserves extra special recognition for participating in every single challenge of 2013 so far this year!  Way to play, Pam!!!

Now, it's time to announce our Top 10 for May:
Teacher Appreciation Week:



May Flowers:


Creature Feature:


Nip & Tuck:



It is getting harder and harder for our DT to choose our monthly Top 10!  We love, love, LOVE seeing your CTMH creations and your enthusiasm for your craft.  You are amazing!  Don't forget to pick up your blog badge from our sidebar.

Now, without further ado, it's time to unveil our May Top Chick:


Thank you again to ALL of our participants.  We hope that you will join us for any- or all?- of our June challenges!  

Monday, June 17, 2013

Photo Inspiration Challenge


I love photo inspiration challenges because you can really let your imagination go wild and take your project in any direction!  Will you create a 3-D object?  Something with a bird?  Pull the colors from the photo?  There are so many choices and we are all so excited to see what YOU do with the lovely soft vintage inspiration photo below!

H2HInspiration.6.17.13


Here is what the Design Team created this week to get you started on your own project!
Click here to visit Guest Designer Amy

Click here to visit Allisa Chilton

Click here to visit Shirley Ross

Click here to visit Melinda Everitt

Click here to visit Jayma Malme

Click here to visit Katy Taylor

Click here to visit Paige Dolecki

Are you ready to play and join the fun?  We have a few very simple rules to follow for our challenge so please be sure to read them as we hate to have to delete a linky to your beautiful artwork!
  1. Use Close To My Heart products.  Your project doesn't have to be 100% CTMH, but you must use some.  After all, this is a challenge blog created and sponsored by CTMH consultants.
  2. Incorporate this week's challenge...our vintage Photo Inspiration
  3. Link your project back to Heart 2 Heart from your blog or online gallery.  If you are linking from a blog, you must link directly to the actual post, not your entire blog.  This will let people find your work long after the challenge has past.
  4. You need to mention Heart 2 Heart (H2H) in your blog post.  
  5. Finally, we do ask that you consider turning off word verification, as it does make it easier for the design team (and others) to leave comments.
See, I told you they were simple rules!  I can't wait to see what you create and share with us this week!

Stay crafty my friends,

Paige


Monday, June 10, 2013

Tool Time

I don't know about you, but I loved seeing the entries for last week's "tropical" challenge and I hope to see more.  Remember you can play with the challenges all month, so for those of you that are Close To My Heart consultants, if you are going to the convention in Orlando (only two weeks away...yippee!), why not create some tropical cards to swap, or some scrapbook pages to reflect your trip to my beautiful, tropical home state and then link them to last weeks challenge?  Speaking of convention, if you're going, be sure to check out this post

Now on to this week's challenge...Tool Time.  What is this challenge about?  Well, if you look at the design team's contributions, you'll notice that there are multiple ways to interpret it.  For example, your project can be about a tool, whether your favorite tool, newest tool, etc.  It can also be a project that is about tools.  This is also a time of year, that we think about the men in our lives, so you could even use that for inspiration.  After all, there's so much out there that's feminine, it's nice to challenge ourselves to do something with more of a masculine feel.  Of course, you may have another way to interpret this theme that I haven't even thought about.  Whatever you choose to do, we'd love for you to mention how you interpret the theme in your post or photo description.

With that being said, here's the projects that the design team came up with for this week's challenge.  Be sure to click on the the team member's name so you can read about how each one of us interpreted the theme and while you're there, let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

First up is our Guest Design Team Member for June, Amy Moore...
Amy Moore
Jody Gustafson
Tamytha Jenkins
Angela Garcia
Lucy Kelleher
Carol Labuski
Before I go, I have to remind you of the "rules", because failure to follow them, may cause your linky to be deleted...and no one wants that.
  1. Use Close To My Heart products.  Your project doesn't have to be 100% CTMH, but you must use some.  After all, this is a challenge blog created and sponsored by CTMH consultants.
  2. Incorporate this week's challenge...Tools (highlight a tool you use, in your project, masculine themed, etc.). Just for this week, we ask that you mention how you are choosing to interpret this week's challenge.
  3. Link your project back to Heart 2 Heart from your blog or online gallery.  If you are linking from a blog, you must link directly to the actual post, not your entire blog.
  4. You also need to mention Heart 2 Heart (H2H) in your blog post.  
  5. Finally, we do ask that you consider turning off word verification, as it does make it easier for the design team (and others) to leave comments.
Now enough of the rules and on to the fun, creative stuff. :)  We can't wait to see how YOU interpret this week's challenge.

Have a great week!
Tamytha

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Attention CTMH Consultants!

How many H2H-loving CTMH consultants are going to Convention in Orlando later this month?  Some of the H2H DT will be there, and we would love to meet YOU!
You may be thinking, "How can we find each other?" I've got an easy solution and it's an extra special "challenge": make a badge or pin to wear during Convention using your favorite H2H logo!  You can print out your favorite and wear it "as is" or gussy it up with some fun CTMH glam.  The DT Members will be sporting the DT logo.  (You may even see some of our as-yet-unannounced top secret July-December team members there too!)  By wearing an H2H logo, we can recognize each other as we're scurrying to and fro at the fantastic Coronado Springs Resort.  I'm especially hoping to see you at the crop Saturday night!  Please stop us and say HI!

If you're convention-bound, please leave a comment to let us know you'll be there.  I hope to see you soon!

P.S.  If you're not a consultant (yet) and wish you were in on all the fun, be sure to visit your favorite designer's CTMH website or Close To My Heart to sign up! ;)

Monday, June 3, 2013

If You Like Pina Coladas .................

Which actually I do!  Hello everyone and thank you for joining us at H2H!  We love having you join us each week.

Our challenge this week  is If You like Pina Coladas - Let's Go Tropical!  Somehow that song about dating keeps going through my head.  Too funny!  We are not asking you for your favorite alcoholic drink recipe.  We want to see your Tropical artwork.  After all, summer seems to finally be here in my part of the country so my thoughts are turning to bodies of water and summer breezes.

So are you ready to see our Design Team members' interpretations of our TropicalChallenge to inspire you to join us in this challenge?  Please don't forget to click on the Design Team member's name under their creation to visit their blog and see additional photos and details and don't forget to leave them some love -- they just LOVE to read your comments:


Our Guest Design Team Member's artwork had to be removed because it is being published!  Congrats, Amy! (Edited 12/24/13)

And Design Team B:




Don't forget to read the guidelines at the top left and use the 'linky tool' below with a link that goes DIRECTLY TO YOUR H2H CHALLENGE POST!  You must use some CTMH products in your project or your link will be deleted.  Thanks for understanding!

Thanks for playing along...you'll have 'till the end of the month, June 30, to link up to ALL of the June challenges.  Thank you for participating in our Heart 2 Heart Challenge!

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Welcome our June Guest Designer!

Let's give our June Guest Designer, Amy Moore, a big warm welcome!
She writes:
Hi, my name is Amy Moore and I have been a consultant for Close To My Heart for a little over 6 years. I am excited to be back at Heart 2 Heart Challenges Blog as a Guest Designer for the month of June.  I love doing all things crafty like scrapbooking, card making, and creating homemade gifts and décor. My hobbies go beyond the "craft room" though! My husband and our two teenage children stay busy with tons of activities like hiking, mountain biking, water sports and camping. I work part time for the school district as a classroom aide for early learning children. In January I also started working part time at a local florist learning flower design. All of these jobs and activities lead to a variety of scrapbook pages to create and cards to make for all the various people I meet in my life! Please stop by my blog anytime for some inspiration and to say hello!

Monday, May 27, 2013

Nip and Tuck

Nope ... we're not talking about that FX TV show!  We're taking about adding sewing to your creations this week!  That's right -- we're adding another dimension to our creations.  You can join in even if you're not a "real" seamstress or can't sew a button because for this challenge you can do it for real or for "faux"!

Before I show you our Design Teams' creations, let me show you what our guest designer this week, Kelly Brandt of Scrapper Chic, created for this challenge:


Isn't that just fabulous????  Now on to our Design Team's awesome creations:
Carol Labuski
Angela Garcia
Haley Dyer
 


Lucy Kelleher

Jody Gustafson

Tamytha Jenkins

Now it's your turn!  What kind of creations have you made using sewing (real or faux) as an element?  Be sure to link up your project below -- make sure you have you used some Close to My Heart products!

Don't forget we are looking for new Design Team members for the July - December 2013 period.  Click on this link to get all the details!

Also we are still looking for entries into our May scrapbook challenge!  Link up your project by clicking here

Have a wonderfully crafty day!

Lucy