Cards with Echo Park Paper - and a Giveaway!

If you're new here and visiting from Cutters Creek, welcome! I'd love it if you'd take a look around at some of my other projects while you're here.

I have been extremely lucky, and got my hands on both the 12x12 and 6x6 Country Drive from Echo Park Paper.  I immediately had a project in mind, and used some product to make three thank you cards for some very special people!

All three 6x6 cards were made with papers from the 6x6 pad, some embellishments from the 12x12 collection and a few items from my stash.  You can see the details and supplies used over on the Cutters Creek Blog today.

I also have a giveaway for you today!  While at CHA, the nice folks over at Northridge Publishing let us have complimentary copies of some of their beautiful publications.  Kim at Cutters Creek will be carrying several titles, so to celebrate I am giving away BOTH the August issue of Scrapbook Trends (Kim has September available for preorder) AND a copy of Cricut Cards (which Kim also has available for preorder).  In order to win, you need to leave a comment both here and on today's post over at the Cutters Creek blog.  All comments posted by Midnight Central Time this Friday August 12, will be eligible to win.  US and Canada entries only please!  Of course, we would love it if you would also follow or subscribe to both blogs as well!

My Word for 2011...

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Last year, I tried "organize", which didn't really seem to get the job done.  We have a problem with clutter, and I am just as guilty as everyone else in this house.  The problem is, that for me it causes depression (which means I overeat and gain weight, which makes me depressed...), slows me down, and makes me lose my focus.  I swear, I have NO energy anymore.  Plus, it just plain makes me mad!  I am determined to conquer the clutter this year, streamlining our household, change the way I do things, whatever it all entails.  I want to be in a happy place again, and this will help me do it!

I was actually inspired by an article I saw inline at the grocery store.  A woman last year blogged about her attempt to remove 500 pounds of clutter from her home in one year, and she managed to succeed!  I'm currently trying to find a home for a non-working TV, which would probably get me a good chunk of the way there, lol, but I'm not setting a specific number goal.  This is like weight-loss for me -- I'll do better if I keep working on it until I feel better about it and I don't know where that is yet.  I do hope to track some progress, and even share it here, but success is not about a number for me.  And I'm starting with that 50 pound behemoth in my living room -- as soon as I'm done here, I'm off to find a place with electronics collection going on soon, then I'll assign my hubby a honey-do task to get it there!  Because if I have to take it myself, I will be a very unhappy camper.

To this end, I will be blogging "light" for a couple of weeks while I tackle a couple of timely projects around here.  Besides the TV, I'm currently cleaning my craft room, hoping to keep things more organized this time around and actually get some stuff used up!  This week, I hope to tackle the pile of outgrown kids clothes and my closet for the consignment store and/or Goodwill again.  I actually just made two trips to Goodwill last month, but it really wasn't much in the way of size, and I need to make a habit of getting things there more regularly!  So at least until the craft stuff is in a usable condition, you probably won't be seeing any posts of new projects.  Hopefully I'll be back crafting by the end of the week!

But take heart!  I do have plenty of giveaways planned, starting this Thursday.  I can't afford a trip to CHA right now, and I know most of the rest of you can't go either for one reason or another.  So to make us all feel better, I'm giving stuff away!  And as an added benefit to ME, I'm getting a few more things out of my house.  I'm sure my hubby will be happy!