I am absolutely thrilled and tickled to share that I had a page picked up for publication by Creating Keepsakes Magazine! I have long wanted to be in Creating Keepsakes, but they only pick up five layouts a month, plus they have all the Hall of Famers and such to choose from. So, I figured my chances were pretty slim. Nevertheless, I made it a goal of mine to keep submitting to them all year in the hopes that something would get picked up. So, you can imagine my surprise and delight when I got the e-mail! Yahoo! The page... Read more →

Well, it's Thursday! Time for the second Art Inspiration Challenge! Here is the work of art I was assigned: And, here is my layout: To create the background: 1. I started with a white piece of paper and used three color of watered down acrylic paint to fill the space (green, blue and brown). 2. I stamped circles with variously colored pigment inks (yellow, brown, green) and embossed them with clear embossing powder. 3. I covered the entire page with a layer of green Walnut Ink TintZ (it’s translucent), and wiped it off of the embossed areas. 4. I used... Read more →

Six days. It has been six days since I've posted anything to this blog! My non-crafting world needs to calm down so that I can get back to creating! In the meantime, here's a quick list of ten things on my radar: 1. There are three books and a magazine sitting in my suitcase (still unpacked from a trip weeks ago) that I'm dying to read: Design Basics for Creative Results by Bryan L. Peterson. I've never bought a design book before, I mostly go off of intuition, but I thought it would be good to actually make some conscious... Read more →

There are so many fabulous challenges out there on the internet! I thought I'd share a few of my favorites: Serendipity Scrapbooks offers a new scrapbooking challenge every day (and sometimes more than one). They have also recently started up a very cool new challenge, called "Dear Diary," which, "celebrates the every day by telling your story to your Dear Diary. This is where you will find journaling prompts and tips to help you on your way. Tell your weekly story about your family and your daily routine." I know I've blogged about the "This is Me" Challenge before. It's... Read more →

Each month, Serendipity Scrapbooks features certain items. This month, I was assigned a collection of papers by Luxe Designs. You can see my creations (and the rest of the design team's) in Serendipity's gallery. Last night I sent a few of them to Tricia at Luxe Designs. Today, I received an e-mail from her letting me know that she was going to post one of the Luxe blog. You can see it here. I was flattered that she decide to base this week's challenge on my layout. Here's what she said: For this weeks challenge, I was inspired by one... Read more →

This is a book review that I originally wrote for Craft Critique. It appeared on that site, last month. I recently had the very good fortune of taking a class from Jan Beaney and another one from Jean Littlejohn. These two Brits are fiber artists. I was so inspired by their classes, that I had to buy their book, Stitch Magic: Ideas and Interpretation. The book is divided into seven chapters: 1. Beginnings This section is basically a discussion of things to think about before stitching: will you use a frame? How will you organize your sampler? What are some... Read more →

I am thrilled to share that I had a layout picked up for the Fabulous Friends book being published by Memory Makers! According to the e-mail, they received over 800 entries! Wow! I'm very excited to see the book and will keep you posted on when it will be published! I went to a two-day crop here in New York City this weekend. Our lovely hostess opened up her office to us. It was great fun and I finished this layout today: Lots of doodling here. I highly recommend the Uniball Signo. Best white pen around. The title was inspired... Read more →