{BIG} news and {BIG} Giveaway!!!

I have the most amazing news and although I've known for a couple weeks, I'm still a little shocked and speechless. I made the My Little Shoebox 2011 DT!! - Check it out here!! So this means that I get to play with their fun, adorable, and whimsical pp nonstop for the next year....and I can't think of anything more fun than that :) Exactly two weeks ago I got a call from the wonderful ladies at MLS and it was so amazing to get to speak to them in person. I actually cried a little, and I'm so not a crier...LOL It was ana amazing phone call and I'm really looking forward to being a part of such a talented team.

Sometimes this scrapbooking business can be full of ups and downs and I know I couldn't have made it this far without all the support from you guys - all my friends who were there for me, who take the time to visit my blog, who inspire me with their own works. For this reason, I thought it was time to do a giveaway...and this will be a BIG one, just to show how thankful I am to have all of you in my life.

Contents:
- All 6 pp sheets from the brand new Pink Paislee Hometown Summer line!
- 3 Pink Paislee Hometown Summer borders
- Maya Road Chipboard binder album with envelopes
- 3-pack of large Stickles
- All 12 sheets from Making Memories Vintage Findings line!
- Making Memories Vintage Findings vintage plastic flowers
- Making Memories Vintage Findings ephemera pack
- 4 paper butterflies from Iamroses.com
- Creative Charms vintage buttons
- Creative Charms vintage jewels
- 3 sheets of Jenni Bowlin pp
- And a huge pack of brand new 3Birds "Adorning Alphas" 12x12 sticker sheets (26 sheets!) of borders, journaling spots, and alphas!!

HOW TO ENTER:
How's that for a giveaway? And all you have to do is be a follower (or become a follower) and leave a comment on this post! If you're awesome enough to take the time to blog about this giveaway or post on your FB profile, leave a comment with the link and I'll put in another entry for you into the drawing...and if you do both, that's 2 extra entries. I will ship anywhere in the world :)

DEADLINE:
You have until next Friday night (4/8/11) to enter and I will pick a winner next Saturday morning (4/9/11). I will ship anywhere in the world :)

Other good news...my LO "Peek A Boo" was picked as a Sketchy Thursdays Fave!! - Announcement here.

Color Room #51

OK, as I mentioned, I had purchased the Emma's Shoppe (Crate Paper) collection pack and I haven't had time to play with it because I was working on various assignments. But I managed to get a day and I saw that the TCR palette #51 was perfect for this collection pack, so of course I had to dig into it. Here is the result - "Morgan @ 4.5"

Peek A Boo!

I have a quick and simple LO to share today, using all 3 Birds supplies (except the brads). The pink background cardstock is glittered - isn't it pretty? I wanted to play along with another fun sketch up this week at Sketchy Thursdays. You should check it out :)

A couple fall LO's for Scrapmatts

Hard to believe that it's fall in Australia, which is where Scrapmatts is based...so we're all scrapping fall pics!! Although personally, I love having a good excuse to scrap a different season - it's a nice change of pace :)

So I scrapped a couple fall pics. First up is "Carefree Moment". To create this effect on the laser-cut chipboard, I heat embossed the floral design with dark brown embossing powder. After that, I cut it up and then arranged it around the flowers. The paper is old Basic Grey (anyone remember Romani/Gypsy?? - or am I the only one still collecting ancient BG? LOL) Don't you love it when you can dip into your stash? The perfect way to use some older product is to pair it with some new product - that way it freshens the older stuff up and makes it look more modern :)

I also have a layout using Harmonie's new line, "Fable de la Fontaine". It's a pretty flexible line and could easily be used for summer, spring, and fall, which I absolutely love about it. I've already made several LO"s with it that I'll be sharing down the road, and I do have a few from summer (beach and pool), as well as spring, and now this fall one :) This is DS this past fall, just a few months ago. I colored the flower vines and the little frames with chalk ink. The little frames I used to frame images I stamped with the stamps that coordinate with this line. This one is called "Fall Is In The Air":

Ready for Spring?

How about just one last winter LO before we move on....just one, I promise!

"Snow Pink" Supplies:
- Vintage Poppies with Pearl Brads - PASTEL PINK
- Vintage Poppies with Pearl Brads - PINK
- Gradient Gem Sticker - PINK
- Shimmer Flowers with Pearl Brads - Green & Black
- Vintage Pearl Brads - PINK
- Vintage Pearl Brads - WHITE
- Chipboard leaves and topiary are by Scrapmatts and the pp is old Cosmo Cricket

I also made a little card using new 3Bugs in a Rug pp that's in Scraptacular's March kit and a felt Creative Charms train:

Supplies:
- It's a Boy - Felt stickers & Brads
- Gradient Gem Sticker - BLUE

I updated the Creative Charms blog with these projects today :)

What a difference lighting makes!

I decided to re-photograph the two LO's from yesterday since I never did manage to get good pics of them, and I'm much happier with today's results. Lighting does make all the difference in the world!

Sketches Galore!!

Continuing to have time to scrap just for me, I decided to do some more challenges just for fun, so I have 2 layouts to share today :)

First up is "Boat Sailing", using Echo Park pp. I mixed 2 collections - Sweet Summertime and Little Boy. They actually go together pretty well. This one I did for the sketch challenge over at Sketchy Thursdays, and this new sketch just went live yesterday - it's a fun one! The chipboard flowers are so cute and are by Scrapmatts, of course ;)

The second LO is for the March sketch challenge posted on My Little Shoebox blog. It was a great one for using up scraps, and perfect for me since I've been having way too much fun with this pp and I only had little scraps left LOL

In other news, I was super happy to get a huge DT box from Scrapstreet today. In it was the Emma's Shoppe Crate Paper collection I ordered, along with the layered chipboard and trim. Also, Pink Paislee sponsored the team and let me tell you...they were so nice and super generous! I got the Hometown Summer collection, with the entire pack of 24 sheets, as well as the stamps, the sticker die cut borders, the baubles, the punch outs, and a white Chishies Expressions alphabet. Super excited to work with that, very cute paper by none other than Collage Press, recently turned Collage Press Studios.

Also I took the kids to the playground since it was so nice and warm, and then we went to Friendly's and I totally scored when Morgan didn't eat much of her Monster Mash ice cream (yep, that's the mint chocolate chip one!) and I got to eat it. And then we went to a different playground. So I'll leave you with a couple pics from today.

Really fun news and TCR #49

First off I wanted to share some fun news I got today - I was invited to be a Guest Designer for April for Back Porch Memories! They have really cute kits, so you should check them out. Also, if you want to be GDT for them (and you reside in the US), they have a sketch challenge every month and the winner gets to be the GDT for the following month! So I wanted to share my LO that won the sketch challenge. I used a couple different lines from OA, as well as Scrapmatts chipboard butterflies, and the brads are by Creative Charms.

Also, I've finally had some time to scrap just for fun (LOL...it's always fun, duh!), so I decided to do TCR challenge - my first one. This is palette #49. Tons and tons of Scrapmatts chipboard here...don't you love the leaves and the large swirls and the bird cage?

So next month I'll be sharing what I create with my Back Porch Memories kit, yay! :)