WooHoo!! Exciting News!!!

  I am not sure how many of you follow the amazing blog of Jennifer McGuire, but I sure do and she's been one of my favorite designers for a long time.  I've also had the pleasure to meet her and took two fabulous workshops with her when she last taught at my LSS!!

  On top of loving her style, I'm also a huge fan of Hero Arts products and Jennifer designs for Hero Arts and uses many of the products in her daily posts and videos. She and Kristina Werner, also are the creators of the super Online Card Classroom and I'm thrilled to have taken EVERY class they offer and have already signed up for the next Holiday Workshop which you can join too, by going HERE!!  The class starts on November 11th and I now it'll be awesome.

  Another thing I love about following Jennifer is that she always shares great ideas of organizing and a vast array of fabulous products, which often easily enables me to shop for some of her favorites.  She has introduced me to other wonderful creative stores and often has a lot of fabulous giveaways as well as special promo codes and links to sales at the stores she loves.   I always comment on products and ideas she shares and always HOPE that someday I might win something...I also tell her in advance in my comment if I already own a procuts, so that she can draw a second name, if needed.  But, that was not the case when she recently featured an awesome new store (OrganizeMore) to me and it's a store that makes a wonderful array of organizational products --- Right up my alley!   I love to be organized and have recently been working on a major organization in my craft room.   I immediately feel in love with the amazing "Ink Storage Units" and loved that they have a nice variety.  I quickly added the store to my Favorites and thought I would share a link with Hubby with my Christmas Wish List.

  Well, imagine my surprise when I received an email from Jennifer yesterday, telling me that I was the VERY LUCKY WINNER, of one of their awesome Ink Pad Organizers...and it's a nice large one that holds up to 48 ink pads, which is perfect for me, as I'm kind of an INK junkie and own well over 48!!  But, this is going to hold my favorites which are all my Hero Inks Shadow Inks, plus all my brand new "Luxe" inks, (by Memento), which is now my absolute favorite Pigment Ink...they are so vibrant and ever color is amazing.  They are also perfect for embossing and work really well with all stamp types!!    I can't wait for it to arrive and then I can begin on my next project!     I'm so excited and very very thankful to have been a winner and I know that I will LOVE this organizer and likely be shopping more at OrganizeMore!   My special thanks to both Jennifer and OrganizeMore for offering this great prize!!  WOOHOO!!!

  And if that is not exciting enough, on a more personal note, I only have one more day, before I see my son, Brian -- (who now lives in San Diego).  He's currently in flight now and will be arriving in Boston tonight!!  He is spending the night there with friends and then will be heading here tomorrow!  Only one more day and I can HUG my son, for the first time since I visited them, back in January!!   I am also starting to plan another trip and hope to go again during the winter to get away from the cold!!  I loved being out there last year and can't wait to go again....but for now, it's so nice that he's coming HOME and this is his first trip back, since they moved there, just a little over a year ago!   The only hard part is that he is only here for five days and is coming for a Wedding, not to mention trying to see all his family and friends in a few short days.  But, as long as I have some time to HUG him ...I'm a Happy Mom!!   The only sad part is that Meghan, could not come home with him.   She just started school again and is working on her Masters which makes me so proud of her.   I was thrilled when she decided to go back and even more happy when she called to tell me she was awarded a Scholarship for a project she designed, when she applied to this program! Way to go Meg, some day you can design me a fabulous new craft room and if I ever win the lottery, you can design me a brand new home!!

  And speaking of happy, even though my back is a bit out, I have had been able to create today and have three new cards to share.   The first two were both created after being inspired by the MUSE Challenge and the wonderful card that was designed by Darnell Knauss!   I am sharing a copy of her card below and you can also visit her BLOG to see more of her wonderful work!!   I think it's very sweet that she made a card to promote "Breast Cancer Awareness", which is always a very thoughtful theme for the month of October!!

   This is her beautiful card and I loved her design so much that I knew right away and that I wanted to use that as my inspiration for my card.

Darnell's Muse Inspiration Card

My Card

   I have to admit that I am not one who at all like to "tear" paper....I feel like it's almost a crime and a lot of times, when I see torn paper, I will change up things, so that I don't have to do it...it makes me want to cry...silly, but I know I'm not the only one...I just LOVE my papers so much that I have a hard time tearing any!  But, in this design, I loved the look so much that I even torn mine...imagine that!!   I started with this new little tree stamp that I picked up on clearance at my LSS.  It's from Inkadinkado and I loved the simple design.  I inked it up with my Hero Shadow Inks (Green Hills), and stamped it directly onto a piece of white cardstock.  I then chose to use some my favorite new Christmas Paper, which is
"Peace, Love, Joy" by Lawn Fawn, and I picked out paper in white, green and red for my card.  I then added on some red gems to my tree and adhered it all onto a Hero Hues NoteCard, also in the same Green shade.   My sentiment is from a brand new PTI set that I just bought along with the matching dies....!

    And after realizing that I liked the design so much, I was quickly able to make a second card, using a lot of the leftover on my desk.  I did stamp the tree again as a background onto some "Foliage" cardstock by Hero, and then die cut this cute little "Mod" tree for this one.  It's another of my many from Simon Says Stamps.   I finished off this tree with a little wooden red heart that I colored with my Copics to match!  For this card, I'll add my sentiment to the inside, when it's time to send it out!

   In addition to the MUSE Challenge, this second card is also being submitted to the "Oh Christmas Tree" Challenge being hosted this week over at Papertake Weekly, as well as the "Anything Goes" challenge be hosted over at the "Through The Craftroom Door" Challenge Blog HERE!!

    My last card today is another card that I created using these super fun Circle Stamps, again from Simon Says Stamp.   In case you hadn't noticed, I've become a big fan of their exclusive dies and stamps, even since Kristina Werner first starting designing them and now I'm loving even more with Shari Carroll also now is part of this creative team!   It's also been awesome to have a discount to shop at SSS because of taking the classes at the Online Card Classroom.  Heidi, the owner is very generous and not only offers a discount to each student, but she also gives away a ton of prizes on the Simon Says Blog and many others, like A Blog Named Hero, just to mention another of my favorites!