California or Florida?

Today is Leadership day for Close To My Heart's annual convention. The convention is being held at the beautiful Walt Disneyland in CA and this is the first year in 6 years that I have not been in attendance! With my husbands busy travel schedule this summer for work, there were no other options. So, I am waiting on pins and needles to hear all the details for the convention that is slated to be the biggest convention since the announcement of the My Acrylix Stamps! As soon as I hear the details I will post what I know. What I do know is that the brand new Autumn/Winter Idea book have left the corporate offices and are on there way to me. This idea book will be available to all customer August 1st and will hold all the secrets to the big reveal going on in CA right now. I am so excited I can barely stand it!!!

BUT, God is good, and if I couldn't go to CA, He brought me to the other side of the nation and planted my big tush at the beach! YEAH!!! The kids and I are having a blast. Mike has been working tons - late nights and over the weekend . We have barely been able to see him but thankfully he was able to get out at about 6pm last night and we all decided to go to the beach and do a little swimming together. Our big purchase for this trip was buying everyone goggles and snorkels so we could all search for fish together. It has been amazing watching all the fish swimming around our feet. We even got to see a Sting Ray!!! It was so cool!!! Without the goggles we wouldn't have been able to see him. God and his infinite wisdom created the big thing to match the bottom of the ocean perfectly! It took me a little while to see him after Mike did, but as he moved, he caught my attention. I followed him for a little while and was able to watch him and see how cool he really was. He was about 2 1/2 feet in length and absolutely beautiful!!! We stayed out for about another hour and then saw hundreds of fish all in one area. It was like being in the Finding Nemo movie. Everywhere we looked we saw hundreds of fish as far as the underwater eye could see. It was stunning! It was also a little terrifying as we realized it was probably close to feeding time which meant it was time for us to get out of the water! It was, however, absolutely beautiful! I wish I had an underwater camera so you could see just how beautiful a sight it was!

The Best Thing I Have Ever Seen on the Beach

We took our daily trip to the beach today. Princess met a new friend who was here from Colorado and they spent the day together riding her boogie boards and searching for seashells. In a mess of seaweed that came floating upon them, they found a small crab that they affectionately named Claw. All the kids were super excited and spent most of the day watching himself bury himself in the sand in their bucket.

While watching the crab, Bruiser came running over and yelled, Mama, look over there.... those people are getting baptized. Sure enough their was a group of about 50 people looking upon a 3 people in the ocean, one of whom was getting baptized. It was so awesome to see them proclaim their faith to all who were there. Everyone stopped to watch and many cheered!!! Tears were filling my eyes as I rejoiced with the people and the angels as one after another proclaimed to everyone they loved Jesus! It was absolutely beautiful to watch and be a part of. Praise God!!!

Hello from Boca Raton, FL!

My hubby has had to travel a lot this summer, something that we are not use to at all! After several trips away, we all realized this was not working for our family. We decided a couple weeks ago that we would tag along. Our first destination was OH. This was a very simple trip but the kids loved the indoor pool and the hotel was great on providing a full breakfast every morning and even a full dinner one night of our stay. That trip went so well, we decided to tag along on this next trip. Mike was going to be gone for 2 weeks - 2 weeks was way to long for us to be with out him! This trip was much further away but would definitely have more a vacation feel for me - Boca Raton, FL! Actually we are staying at the Delray Beach which is absolutely beautiful!!! Poor Mike has had to work long hours every night and all this weekend but we have been enjoying the beach and sunshine.

The hardest part about these trips is that I haven't been able to work on my scrapbook and card projects. We didn't have enough room in the car for me to bring my supplies so I had to say goodbye for a couple weeks. I got so sad today that as I was flipping through channels on the tv, I came to a Spanish channel that was scrapbooking. I sat and watched for a whole half hour just to feel like I too was scrapbooking!!! :) How sad, I know. That's o.k., now is the perfect time for me to use Studio J and have some fun. Once I complete my ten layouts that I get Free Shipping on, I will post the layouts for you to see.

Here is a small card I created when I was in OH. I had only minimal supplies and papers that were pre-cut and left over from a CK expo that I did several years back. Remember, my supplies were minimal but I thought that it came together pretty well. I used the July Stamp of the Month for the shooting stars at the bottom of the card. I will probably add a small star dimensional element when I get home but for now this is what I have. Enjoy!

Perfect Placement with Studio

The last of the Studio J tutorials in this series - Perfect Placement. I've shown you how to change the papers, pictures and now it's time to work on the embellishments. Embellishments like brads, buttons, ribbons and the like are what can take your layouts from blase' to fabulous. This video will show you just how easy you adding embellishments can be with Studio J. The best part, you can use all the embellishments you want with Studio J - with no extra charge!!!

Another Studio J tutorial: Using the Photo Editing Tool

Good Evening! Tonight I wanted to post another Studio-J tutorial - this one focusing on using the photo editing tool. This amazing feature allows you to change color balance and saturation; remove red-eye, blemishes, wrinkles and whiten teeth! Wow - if only I could do that in real life!!! :)

Enjoy the video and let me know it works for you! Still looking for your amazing artwork!!!

Plan now to Get a Way in November

OK ladies - get your calendars out and plan now to join me as we take a weekend scrapbooking trip to Grand Oaks Retreat in Scottsboro, AL. For the last year, I have run into several people who have pulled me aside and told me I just had to try this place. Now this place is normally booked for a year out but we were blessed enough to get in for a rare opening in November. Though this isn't the usual time for our annual getaway, we will take it an be happy! However, please be aware this trip will replace our normal January trip and will be our only getaway for the next year or so.

Get a sneak peak into the retreat house through this video.



If you still have questions or want to see more, check out their website at www.grandoakretreat.com.

The nitty-gritty details:
When: November 18-20th
Cost: $225
Includes: All meals from when we arrive to when we leave, plus 2 workshops
Other options: Their is a massage therapist available for half an hour and full hour massages. E-mail me at HeatherHicksCTMH@gmail.com to reserve your spot.
Deposit: A non-refundable $50 deposit must be made by June 30th to reserve your spot.

Studio J: Focus on the Photos

I hope you have been enjoying the Studio J videos I have been posting. These videos are a great little tutorial to help walk you through Studio J and all it's benefits. Here is the next video in the How to series. This one focuses on making your beautiful photos the highlight of your layout.

Studio J is Free for All in June!

To help celebrate Studio J and to encourage everyone who hasn't tried it out yet, Close to My Heart is giving everyone a free Studio J jpg during the month of June. All you have to do is log in or create a new account to Studio J here and create a double page layout using Studio J. When you go to checkout, you will have a Free Studio J jpg credit into your account.

I would love to see your studio J layouts. In fact, I have a special gift for the first person who send me a copy of their free JPEG. Send me a copy of your JPG at www.HeatherHicks@MyCTMH.com or upload it to my facebook profile for all to see. Looking forward to seeing all that you have created!