What a ride the end of 2023 and the start of 2024 has been. So much so that I have been neglecting my blog and other things that were deemed not essential to allow me to keep moving myself and my family forward. I’m sure lots of you can relate to that, and will forgive me my lapse.

The biggest change has been the closing of Close To My Heart at the end of April for it’s Makers, they are still currently closing down fully and still have things for sale on their website if you want to duck over and grab a bargain. I believe that it is closing fully to public sales at the end of May.

This change left myself and my fellow Makers in limbow for a while, but thankfully Close To My Heart helped to facilitate the opportunity for their Maker community to transition over to Stampin’ Up! if they choose to do so. After a lot of soul searching and talking with my crafty friends, my team, my customers and my family – I made the switch over to Stampin’ Up! The 1st of May saw me start that journey as an Independent Demonstrator.

Stampin’ Up! as a company have been very warm and supportive, and very generous. They purchased from Close To My Heart some of the paper ranges that had already been produced for May-Aug, and from my understanding the designs for further paper based products aswell. The purchased products are being release one range a month. And are only avaliable for purchase from a former Close To My Heart Maker, or if customers had registered email addresses with Close To My Heart. Stampin’ Up! are also allowing us to continue to sell our Close To My Heart inventory until the end of the year. So if you make it to any of my inperson events, you’ll still see for sale things that I have left. As the year goes on I shall also clear out more and more of my ‘treasure’ stash of stamps and papers etc.

The change has also changed my family economy and as such I’ve gone back to work full time – the first time in almost 13 years. So it has taken some adjustments. And my kids are getting older and it seems that they have more and more activities, medical appointments etc. My eldest is now in year 7 and my youngest in grade 3. And two are budding football stars, and two are still in Scouting.

Thankful I feel like we are heading to the homestretch of the adjustments and I’m starting to find myself with more pockets of time to get some personal crafting in, along with creating to share with my crafty community.

So I’d like to share with you some layounts that I created using the “Enjoy the Ride” paper collection.

The collection includes all your favourites from CTMH – paper, stickers, co-ordinating two tone cardstock, scrapbooking workshop, cardmaking workshop, and stamps.

Appologies for the funny angles – but these layouts are hanging up in my craft room and in an effort to get these out to you quickly I just took them where they were. I used a full pack of the pattern paper and stickers with some White Cardstock for the bases. Time to print some summer fun photos and put them in an album.

Along with the Close To My Heart branded products, May is also the release of the new annual Stampin’ Up! catalogue for 2024-2025. It is full of some fun products. Stampin’ Up! has a slightly different way of doing things. For example they don’t have two tone cardstock, but they offer the cardstock in 12×12 and A4 sizes. At this stage they don’t sell packs of single colour 12×12, but that may change as Stampin’ Up! have committed to explanding their scrapbook offerings. I have noticed the paper weight is a bit thinner – but that doesn’t change the overall way I’d use their papers. They have lots of cutting dies (thin cuts in CTMH speak), and they also have offerings of punches too. So far I am loving what I’ve had the chance to look at and play with. I hope you do too.

Until next time, have a crafty day.

Danielle