A Little This and a Little That; a Scrapbook Page and a Blog Award!

Happy New Year, Everyone! I hope that you had a fun and safe New Year's Eve. Sweetie and I just stayed home, ordered a pizza, and watched T.V.  That's what we consider a PERFECT evening...until I woke up around 1:30 a.m. running to the bathroom with the stomach virus that he'd had earlier in the week. UGH!! Not exactly how I envisioned ringing in 2011! Needless to say I've been a total slug and out of commish for a couple of days, but am feeling a little better today...the fever is gone, I'm just weak and have a headache. On the upside, (if there can be an upside to a stomach virus!), I lost 4 lbs. by not being able to keep anything down...so there is a little jumpstart to my new year's weight loss plan - LOL! (How pathetic is that?!?!?)

Before getting sick, I was really enjoying my week off of work! Mike and I joined a gym, (part of our New Year's resolution - get into better shape!), so I went to the gym a couple of times. Our goal is to go 3 times a week! I'd also like to lose 15 pounds by the end of May, so keep your fingers crossed that I'll be successful with that!

On Thursday morning the Fed Ex man delivered my CTMH order, so I spent Thursday and Friday as happy as a kid in a candy store playing with the new stamps and paper that I ordered! (My dining room table and spare bedroom, which also houses my craft supplies, is a complete disaster now - ha! I've got to get everything cleaned up and put away this afternoon.) Anyhoo - I love the new products! I spent some time on Thursday and Friday designing the prototype for my January workshop, (photos and a tutorial to come soon!), but I took a few minutes to whip up a fast scrapbook page layout using some of the new stamps. I still need to add a journaling block/tag, but for now here's what I came up with:

First, here's the random stamped background on its own:

And here's the layout that I created from it:

I decided to use a family picture on the layout, but since I haven't yet ordered our photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas day I just ended up just using the one taken of us on Thanksgiving. I random stamped a piece of Colonial White cardstock with the images from the new CTMH "Wings" and "Find Your Style" stamp sets. I used the following CTMH ink colors:

• Juniper
• Vineyard Berry
• Sweet Leaf
• Black

Other CTMH cardstock colors that I used are:

• Buttercup
• Juniper
• Black

I "ruffled" a piece of scrap paper from the new CTMH "Wings" paper collection and added it to a couple of punched pieces of cardstock and a layered stamped image to create the decorative element located a the bottom left hand corner of the matted photo.

I had some Juniper grosgrain ribbon left over from last year's "Jingle" creative basics paper pack, so I incorporated that with some black brads to the right edge of the black photo mat to give it a little extra "pop".

Switching gears....my blogging friend Ann over at November Rose   nominated me for the "Stylish Blogger Award! (Thanks, Ann...you totally made my day!!) Be sure to check out Ann's FABULOUS  blog...you'll enjoy her fun posts and incredible creativity!!

I feel so humbled and proud that I've now been nominated for this award twice! Thanks to all of you for reading my blog; as well as encouraging and inspiring me...I appreciate you all!!

To accept this award I must do the following:

• Thank the person that nominated me - THANKS, ANN!!! You're a doll!
• Tell you 8 things about me that you probably don't already know...so here goes:
• I drive a 2007 Mustang...which I LOVE!! Such a fun, fun car!!
• My favorite color is buttercup yellow...it's a happy color!
• I collect quotes and keep them in a little file box organized by category.
• I used to teach pre-school...a very fun and rewarding job!
• I grew up in the country and I'm still a country girl at heart!
• I was "Miss Afton" 1985.
• I like watching John Wayne movies.
• I was a Longaberger Basket Consultant for 5 years...I even went to Dresden, OH and wove my own basket at the "Basket Bee" in 1997.
• Pay it forward...so I am picking a couple of great blogs that, (to my knowledge!), haven't yet been selected for this award:
• Lisa Fowler at Lisa's Loft of Joy
• Heather Martin at Heather's Creative Haven

Be sure to take a minute to check out these gal's blogs...they've got lots of great crafty ideas!
Have a GREAT week!!