My excitement for the week

I have to do a little toot-tooting my own horn with some fun news. I got a very surprising email yesterday - I had entered this card from my July club in Shelli Gardner's blog contest, which was to use new products, and I can't believe it - Shelli chose me as one of the winners! You should be sure to go to Shelli's blog here and check out the rest of the winning projects - they are all amazing. I'm honored to be in such terrific stamping company! Thanks to all of you who read my blog and comment and support me in so many ways - I couldn't do it without you!

Dreams

Today I have a project that represents something I'm doing for the first time - entering the monthly contest at Shelli Gardner's blog. (For those who don't know, Shelli is the CEO of Stampin' Up!) When I saw what this month's contest was, to use stencils, I immediately envisioned what I wanted to do. It took me nearly until the end of the month to find the time, but I'm pleased with the final result. I can see it framed in a shadow box and hanging on my studio wall, but for now this is what I have to show you.

The stencil I used is from the Folk Flower set that's in the mini catalog. This is a fairly large stencil so I imagined putting it onto a 12x12 background of some kind. I used sponge daubers and certainly celery, pretty in pink and rose red inks to create the design on very vanilla cardstock. I used regal rose textured cardstock with the scallop trim punches for the largest layer. I've used Gretchen Barron's tutorial for getting the right size layer to use with these punches, but Gretchen didn't go big enough for me on this project, LOL. So after some tinkering I figured out that a 9" square will work. If I get time I'll see if I can figure out some other large sizes - don't hold your breath on that one! *wink*

Here's a close-up of the flower - it's such a gorgeous image. I accented parts of the flowers with rhinestones from the Eggcellent Eggs kit, and I also used the rhinestone strips for the butterfly centers. My butterflies come from the Beautiful Butterflies die and the Beautiful Wings embosslit.

I wanted to add some kind of quote at the bottom. This stamp from Live Your Dream was perfect, even though it's (sniff) retired. I love the saying - I even have the Decor Elements version - and it fit nicely inside the oval frame die. I finished off with a nice big bow made from rose red stitched grosgrain ribbon. Since this is a large project it can take a serious statement from some wide ribbon, and I was happy to have a chance to make this fabulous bow!

I hope you enjoyed this stencil project. It was truly a joy for me to have time to create it. I really felt like I was making an art piece and I loved every minute that I spent on it.

Well, this is cool

I was one of the top 20 finalists in the Mojo Monday contest from last week! The card I made was back a few posts (click here to see it). The winners' cards were amazing so congrats to them!! You can see a slide show of the finalists here. I feel like I hardly deserve to be in such amazing company!

No time to post today, but please come back tomorrow for the latest Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge - it's going to be a fun one!