Looking Ahead... And NOT Turning Back!

That's for dang sure! I'm so elated that 2007 is behind us. It's been one tough, emotional year and I want to move on to brighter moments, so I pray that 2008 is filled with them for me and my family... we desperately need them! But don't get me wrong; I don't regret what all we've been through and a won't forget the difficulties we've faced, because it's through these aspects that we have grown. I just hope for more strength and ways to be more positive and focused. I'm optimistic for this new year.

So, New Year's was quite uneventful. We didn't do a thing. I took zero pictures. In a nutshell, we were being boring people. I don't know, I always feel as though New Year's is all so much hype. But yea, I made a few appetizer type finger foods for us to snack on, we watched the ball drop in Times Square and then all most immediately after, we went to sleep... real exciting stuff! There's always next year... lol.

Nothing much going on this week, but I am excited because I just got my entry submitted for the 2008 Design Team Call at one of my favorite places... Create My Keepsake (CMK)!

We had to submit a questionaire along with 3 projects (a card, a layout and an altered item). I had so much fun doing all of these over the weekend. Here's my card that I did...

~ SHABBY FLORAL FLOURISH CARD~
We had to use common product on the card in a unique way and I choose to use the "negative blank" of the chipboard flourishes from fancy pants designs...

Here's my layout then which had to incorporate at least 4 products from the same manufacturer...

~ A Perfectly Matched Corsage ~

I chose to work with my favorite, fancy pants designs, and actually used 5 of their products on here... patterned paper(Kewl and Botanical), acrylic Chic Alpha stamps, Sassy buttons, Sassy crocheted posies, and chipboard flourishes.

Then finally for my altered piece, I had this old ugly letter/bill wall organizer hanging up in my kitchen, and I have been thinking about fixin' it up for awhile now, so I had an excuse to play around with it. Here's what it looked like before...

and now this is what it looks like after...


Here's some top, middle and bottom close-up pix too...

I think it looks sooo much better now! For this I used Christine Adolph paper by Creative Imaginations and I used antiquing gel medium over the paint to add a distressed, shabbiness to the piece. Well, it's all submitted now, so there's no turning back here either! My fingers are crossed :)