So Much To Share.....BUT....

Hey gals! This has been one exciting week/weekend. I have been cuh-razy busy and there is so much to share!!! But some of it is going to have to wait. At least for a few days. I will give you a few hints to tide you over. Of course, it ALL has to do with the scrapping world.

First up, remember I mentioned a few posts back that I was working on some projects for a DT call? Well, the good news is....I finished my projects! I have absolutely NO idea if I will make it and I won't know for a few more weeks. The exciting part is that I did it!!! I have always wanted to try for a team, but in the past, I never felt I had enough time to give it my all. I am a real stickler for only committing when I think I can do my best. Another reason I have never answered a call...fear! Plain and simple. We all fear rejection, but this goes even further for me. I know we all pour our heart and soul into our pages and for me, submitting my layouts to actually be judged felt like I was being judged. Sounds silly, but it was my reality. Not anymore. This new "lovin' myself" way of life is actually quite nice. It has freed me from this fear...at least where scrapping is concerned. I'll let you know about the other areas of my life another time! LOL!

Below is a sneak peek of one of my submissions. I will post the others later in the week after they have been loaded in the gallery. AND I will give you all the reasons I think this will be a most wonderful place to hang my hat. I promise I will also divulge the name of the site in case any of you want to participate in the call. It runs until the 26th so there is still plenty of time. Why the secrecy? I think I must be more superstitious than I ever knew. I'm afraid to say too much until I see my projects in the gallery...I'm afraid I might jinx them! LOL! Here is the sneak peek I mentioned.



Other late breaking news...I am going to be the Guest DT at Butterfly Crafts in August! My name was chosen randomly for this spot and I cannot wait! My LO will be going up on the first. Be sure to stop by and leave me a tiny little show of support. I promise it is OK to lie...I am not above the token lie to help boost my self confidence! LOL! Of course, they have a wonderful DT and you will not be disappointed with your visit.

And you just have to stop in at Forward Progress! There are some changes in the works that I think are totally awesome! We are gearing up for some wonderful new challenges, more posts to get you thinking toward forward progress and we are adding guest designers to our team! We will be announcing our first 2 Guest DT members very soon. Be sure to check in often to see if you know who they might be. Also, we will be looking for future guest artists so be sure to let us know if you are interested.

Finally, I have several awards to mention. I have been such a bad, bad person. These awards were given to me over the past several weeks and I have yet to post them. I hadn't forgotten. It just seems summer vacation has turned my schedule upside down and I can't seem to right it. I received this award from Karen at Time Crafted.



It is for an "attitude of gratitude". I told Karen it is perfectly OK to take this back as I have not been showing an "attitude of gratitude". I haven't even acknowledged her kindness. (So sorry Karen.) I have to add that I just love this girl! I have only been visiting her blog in recent weeks but she has the most fun, creative spirit.

Peggy, Treasured Memories, gave me 2 awards.




Of course you all know how much I love Peggy. She is my super artsy pal from Belgium. The next award was given by two special ladies, Lexie and Michelle. Bloggers and scrappers that are a real treat to know.



And finally, this award is from Mommyscraps at According to Jane Austen. I always have such a great time when I visit...lots of fun and some scrapping eye candy to boot!



These last two require that I post random, "honest" facts about myself. I believe one asked for 10 and the other 7. I will give it a go and see how far I get.

1. I am an over-achiever. I graduated Summa Cum Laude from college in 3 years. I did this by taking as many as 24 hours a semester and I worked while doing this. Of course, these over-achieving ways have long since been thrown out the window. LOL!

2. I got my first job at the age of 11. I played piano for a voice instructor's students. This was what we call "learning the hard way". I was a decent piano player, but you learn just how good you are when you are handed a piece of music and you are expected to follow the singer, even when said singer doesn't follow the music!

3. I run and jump in bed every night...I'm still afraid of what might be lurking underneath. AND i still sleep with a stuffed animal.

4. I need order of some kind in my life. If my life is in order "internally", then my external world can be a little less orderly and vice versa.

5. I can't remember numbers to save my life, but I work in the accounting field. ?????

6. Multi-tasking used to be my middle name. Now....not so much. I do better if I give projects my undivided attention.

7. I work best under pressure. Good thing, because I can sometimes be a procrastinator.

8. I would love to sport a 6-pack just once in my life.

9. With regard to No. 8, will probably never happen because I can't let go of my love for all things chocolate.

10. Finally, I am "honestly" very happy to be me. Flaws and all!!!

I want to send my most heartfelt thanks to you ladies for these wonderful awards. It is always such an honor to be thought of. I want to pass these on to anyone who comments today. And I WILL be watching to see who posts those "honest" facts!!!

Catch ya later!
L.

P.S. I am working hard at catching up on all my blog reading. I know I've missed so many of your posts. And I go out of town again this week. After that, things should slow down a little and I should get back on track. I really do miss reading about what is going on in your worlds! {hugs}

A Challenge Layout & A Few Awards

Wow! How is it that another week is flying by? Can you believe June is almost over? More than that, can you believe 2009 is half over??? It is so very true...time really does move at a much faster pace the older you get. I feel like I can hardly keep up. No complaints...life is too full of good times and good "stuff" to ever complain. I just want to be sure I'm taking the time to enjoy all the good stuff! KWIM?

In the past few months, I have been wanting to participate in several of the online challenges that you all have suggested. But the time-moving-faster-than-the-speed-of light thing has kept me from making it happen. I decided to find a challenge partner to provide some accountability. I just knew that would do the trick. My new challenge pal is none other than the awesome Kim Strother! This girl is holding my feet to the fire and I LOVE IT! I asked her to participate in the Forward Progress challenge this month and I suggested one other challenge. Thought we might take it easy the first month and only try our hand at two challenges. At the snap of a finger, she had them BOTH done! So I had to get my rear in gear and try to keep up.

This time I got to choose our challenge. Another dear friend, Jocelyn, made her debut this month as a DT member at Butterfly Crafts. I was so excited for her and I had promised to play along in support of her new position on the team. What would be more appropriate than to let that be our first challenge together.

The current challenge is to scrap a childhood fear. I didn't have to think too hard to come up with the subject of my page, but finding a supporting photo would be tough. I didn't have the time to find and then dig through all my childhood photos. So I decided to create my very first photo-less layout.

(As always, you can click on the photos to make them bigger.)



My biggest fear as a child was a fear of strangers. And I took it to an extreme. Anytime I was spoken to by a stranger, I would burst into tears. Even sweet elderly people at church would speak to me and I would begin weeping. Seems very silly now, but I was totally gripped by fear at the thought of having to speak to someone I didn't know. One would think that sounds like severe shyness, but I wasn't really shy. And knowing me now...you all have to be sending up an "Amen Sista'" cause there ain't no way someone as outspoken as I am could have EVER been shy! LOL! Fortunately, I eventually outgrew it.

I thought I would share a little "behind-the-scenes" info about this layout. The inspiration for it came from a shirt I wore to work yesterday. It had embroidered designs along the hem leading me to want to add stitching to my layout. I also wanted to use a color scheme that mimicked the colors in my blouse. Sticking to a textile-theme, I remembered a rediscovered piece of fabric from my scraproom re-do that I thought would be perfect. The salmon colored fabric has a suede type texture. I thought it went well with some papers from a past Studio Calico kit.




I chose to stitch my little birdie in the lower left hand corner and I stitched an arrow design on the right hand side. After adding a little zig-zag design to the corner of fabric, I decided I had accomplished my goal.



One point to note: The green leaf pattern is actually a piece of shelf/contact paper. It has a spongy texture to it and I thought it was way cool...until...I had to stitch through it! That little birdie was a bugger to stitch when I couldn't tell where my pre-punched holes were. LOL! They kept closing up on me!

Now I just have to share Kim's layout with you.



I LOVE the photo and the title she chose. With her journaling, she discusses her family's avoidance of Halloween and how she was frightened as a young girl by someone wearing a mask on Halloween night and how she still fights that fear today. I am touched by the honesty and openness of her words. There are also embossed spiders under the spider web but they aren't really showing in this photo. Kim did a great job of using them to support her Halloween theme.

If anyone wants to play along with this challenge and give Jocelyn a show of support, I believe this one will be up until the first. Then a new challenge will be posted.

Before I go, I want to mention a few awards I received. Jen, Lynette and Shazza passed this lovely award to me.



Thank you girls for the sweet honor of this award. As I've been known to do of late, I want to share it with anyone who leaves a comment today. Post it on your blog and know that you are appreciated beyond words.

That's it for today! I have been battling Blogger through this entire post and quite frankly, I'm worn out! LOL! Off to bed!

Nite-nite!
L.

My First EVER Award and a Few Layouts

Awards are always a good thing...something to be proud of. So please pardon me while I say, well, actually shout, "YAY ME!" I just received an award from my new friend Antonella Ryan !!! She has launched a cool sketch blog called Pinkalicious Sketches. I plan to participate in her sketch challenge this weekend. You should check it out.

I feel so honored and grateful Antonella would think of me when passing this award along. I'm relatively new to the blogging scene, at least from the writer's side, but I believe this means I can pay it forward by bestowing this award on several additional bloggers. I choose to pass this lovely award to the following:

Kristii Lockart (Honestly Speaking) - Not only will you find enormous scrapping talent on this lady's blog, but Kristii's wonderfully upbeat attitude and strong faith is a beautiful inspiration.

Lisa Houpt (itsjustlisa) - I recently admitted to being a stalker of this girl's blog...cannot wait for her to post her latest creations...'nough said!

Cassie (SomethingFromCassie) - You can actually feel this gal's energy leap off the screen...lol...and she can rock some layouts!

Jocelyn (Simply Me) - This lady is one of the sweetest, most encouraging people I know. She has welcomed me with open arms into this blogging world and made me feel so at home with her sweet comments. A visit to her blog lets you see straight to her heart.

Here is your award ladies...you SO deserve it!

Now for a few layouts. These are a few months old, but they are a some of my favorites. Not so much for the design, but for the emotion behind them. Friendships are something to be cherished and this first layout is of Keri and one of her best, very best, friends. They share one of those special friendships that is just there and will always be there. They no longer get to spend much time together, but the bond is strong...they always pick up right where they left off...and it usually involves silliness. One look at these photos and you get the idea.

The next one is special to me because this photo is classic Taylor and Keri...now...lol! There was a time when they wouldn't begin to get this close to one another. They have a fantastic relationship, always have, they just forgot about that bond for a few years...lol! I think they really do feel lucky to have each other...and to me that is all I can ask for!


Before I sign off, I want to thank all of you who have made these first few months as a blogger such an amazing experience. I love reading all the comments. And I especially love getting a chance to know more about you. If you visit but usually don't leave a comment, please do so at least once. I would love the chance to say hello! Happy Hump Day...tomorrow! G-night!