You might be a winner...

If you haven't heard about The Creative Connection Event yet, you have been missing out. If you've been reading my blog for a while you know how much I loved this happening last year. I was able to meet so many of my creative sheroes including Amy Butler (the absolute highlight of my whole TCC experience! There's even a picture of me meeting her in the issue of the Where Women Create magazine wrapping up last year's event.) I'm hoping I'll be able to attend this year again, but it's not a sure thing. The wonderful people over at TCC are having a giveaway and you might be able to win a pass and hotel stay for you and a friend to attend the event! That is a huge value and a phenomenal opportunity but you have to get over to their blog before tomorrow, Thursday August 4 at 11:59 pm to get your entires in. Don't miss out on this opportunity to win a great prize!

Valentine's beauty

I've been stalking the mailman all week (not really, but I have been looking out the window about every five minutes since Monday). You see, back at the beginning of January I committed to taking part in a Victorian Paper Heart Swap organized by the lovely Danielle Muller over at the Vintage Dragonfly. Of course, at the time I committed to this very fun creative opportunity I didn't realize that I would be having surgery a short time later! This just meant I would have to speed up my creativity a bit and move up my own personal deadline to get everything sent off to Danielle.

The dozen of us that participated were each charged with creating a large hanging heart constructed of papers and other lovely vintage-y elements. We were also to create a dozen little packets of vintage-y art supply goodness to be contained in a space about the size of a postcard. Now each artist is anxiously waiting to get our fun mail with a big heart created by another wonderful soul and twelve little packets of new artsy stuff to play with! As we speak I am looking out the window at our mailman to see if he's carrying a box for me!!!

While I'm waiting, I thought I would share a pic with you of what I created to share with the others. After a fun trip to one of our great antique stores to supplement the supplies I already had, this is what I came up with. Bits of tulle and tatting, vintage french music sheets and a cute little couple of french children along with a touch of my calligraphy. I think I was trying to put myself back in my high school french classes! I only hope they like it as much as I LOVED putting it together!

I'm published!!!!!

OK, not really, though I have been published four times in some of Somerset's other publications. But imagine my excitement tonight when I was visiting our local bookstore and grabbed a copy of the newest issue of Where Women Create to peruse over my chai. As I opened the magazine and reached one of the very first articles which was recapping the fabulous Creative Connection Event from last September. In taking a quick glance at all of the pictures, I noticed a pic of my hero, Amy Butler, and realized it was me with her in the photo!!!! She's holding my business card and talking with me!!!!! You can't see my face or anything, but you see my arm, my Nikon camera strap, my blue dotted shirt and my hair. I was just so excited to see the moment I had been most looking forward to actually in print. Not that I needed a picture to preserve that amazing moment for me, but it is really exciting as Amy is the person I was most excited about meeting and hearing from at the conference. She is an amazingly talented person, so real and genuine and down to earth and most inspiring to me as she has stayed true to who she is and become a fabulously successful woman. Thank you for letting me share my ridiculously over-the-top excitement!

Sew4Home feature #2!

I had intended to post about the fabulous purse I picked up while in NOLA a few days ago, however our wonderful North Shore weather and string of gray days is not giving me good light to take pictures of the beauty to really do it justice. So, on to other happy news! The wonderful women over at Sew4Home have been kind enough to feature me on their wonderful blog once again. You can pop over their today and grab my pattern for the Dual Duty coasters I've created.

The coasters I stitched up for them use linen and  my Family Forever fabric at Spoonflower. I tatted all around the edges to add even more vintage feel to them. I'm thinking of stitching up some more in the next couple of days using my Bottoms Up fabric to make up some quick hostess gifts for all the fetes this season!

In other fun news, check out the Where Women Create for another day of giveaways in their 12 Days of Holiday Traditions event!