Thin Cuts Blog Hop

Welcome to the Thin Cuts Blog Hop!

If you came from visiting Brenda Lapp, then you are in the right place.  If you just happened upon my little corner of the blog world, simply start here and continue hopping until you return here -- our fun hop is one big loop for your viewing pleasure. 

The month's bonus hop features the amazingly fabulous Thin Cuts from CTMH -- which are on special this month for 25% off.  If you have never tried these wonderful wafer thin dies, now is the time!  If you have tried them, now is the time to stock up and expand your collection!!

I have a wide variety of Thin Cuts in my personal collection -- for today's project, I chose to feature Sweet Birthday.  If you follow my blog, you know the Sweet Birthday stamp set was my favorite release in the 2016-2017 Annual Inspirations Idea Book -- however, my first thought was "No coordinating Cricut / Thin Cuts?? Ugh..."  I bought the stamp set anyways.  :-)

Then, in October, CTMH made my dreams come true.  They released a coordinating Thin Cut set to go along with my favorite Sweet Birthday stamp set.  :-)  Now I use this adorable stamp set and its coordinating Thin Cuts all the time.  I absolutely LOVE the pair!

When creating the layout below, I used a sketch from Even More Scrapping which was coincidentally called "Sweet Friend"  The sketch was fabulous because it called for multiple repeated images across the center -- perfect for the fun party hats.  It also called for a large circle on the left page which I swapped for a cut from the Cricut Artistry collection.

I plan to add pictures from my niece's recent Moana-themed birthday party.  The colors in the Adventure Fundamentals collection coordinate beautifully with the bright, fun colors from her party.  And the 4x6 and 4x3 photo spots will make it a piece of cake to finish this layout (see what I did there?  Piece of cake... Birthday party... I'm so punny!!)

To create the adorable cupcake embellishments, I stamped the image using archival black ink and allowed it to set for a few minutes before coloring the image with the CTMH watercolor pencils.  I mixed two shades of green for the wrapper on the left cupcake and two shades of blue on the right cupcake.  To blend, I used my CTMH clear shimmer brush.  I actually have two of these brushes -- one for regular use and one for blending and other "messy" use.  As for the pink frosting, I colored about a quarter inch around the edge and used the shimmer brush to fade the color towards the face.

I also added some shimmer detail to the party hats -- specifically along the bottom trim, the polka dots, and the top "poof". I just love how the shimmer brush adds a little extra "pop" to a project.

Supplies used:

*Sweet Birthday Thin Cuts
*Sweet Birthday stamp set
*Artistry Cricut collection
*Adventure Fundamentals paper packet
*12" × 12" Lagoon cardstock
*12" × 12" Lemon cardstock
*12" × 12" Raspberry cardstock
*12" × 12" White Daisy cardstock
*Archival Black stamp pad
*Shimmer Brush - clear
*Watercolor Pencils
*Shimmer Trim - silver
*Sugar Rush dots
*Foam tape

To order these or any of our other fabulous Close to My Heart products, please visit http://jddesigns.ctmh.com.

Thank you for visiting me at {jd designs} and for hopping with us on the Close to My Heart Thin Cuts Blog Hop!  Next up on the hop is Jean McNulty. I hope you'll hop on over to her blog for more inspiration.

Until next time, design with {heart}!