I hope everyone is having a beautiful Monday!  We’ve had a rocky few days with our bugga feeling pretty unwell.  But today is my birthday and it puts everything into sharp focus of gratefulness.  So it’s a wonderful day!

Since your support and warm wishes have been a wonderful gift to me, I wanted to celebrate with you a little by having a birthday sale!  And so everything (really, everything) in my shoppe is available for 32% off for three days: Monday 19 July, Tuesday 20 July, and Wednesday 21 July!

Ooh and don’t forget to swing by Crystal’s blog today as she gets us started with Week Two of the Grow With Love project.  You can dive in any time, and we hope you do!  We’ve really loved seeing all the beautiful pages so far!

Hope you all have a celebrate the everyday kind of day!

I feel all a bubbling with emotions…overwhelmed by all the support and all those who played along with my NSD freebie for a chance at a summer guest CT spot.  SO grateful and humbled that such talented scrappers would want to work with me and the girls.  SO excited and energized about those who will be joining us.

And also a little heavy-hearted for those who I can’t say “yes” to this time.  As a scrapper-at-heart I know how hard it can be to put yourself out there and how deflating it can be to hear “not this time”.  And now, as someone having to say it and not hear it, I just want everyone to know that hearing a “not this time” never, ever means that your pages aren’t amazing or important.  Because they are.  Sincerely, every page and every gallery I looked at was special and inspiring to me in some way.  The talent in this digi scrapping community is mind boggling.  So thank you for putting yourself out there.  And no matter what “just keep swimming” and just keep scrapping.

ANYhoo…before I get too rambly I wanted to say again a HUGE thank you to everyone who played along!!  I loooved seeing all the fabulous plays with the template!  And I have to tell you there was no way I could keep it to just “3”..goodness if I could have taken everyone on I would have.  Seriously.  SO I picked a few more than that.  And also a few for an autumn term too (September, October, and November).  Woot!

And the autumn guest CT swallowtail girls!!

YAY!!!!  Thanks again to EVERYONE!  Since this was centered around the blog and not email, I had to do things a little differently than I might otherwise, but hopefully everyone who played along should have received a message from me (at the location of the gallery they linked your page to me) and everyone should have received a little goodie too too.  If you have not received a message and goodie please email me.  Thank you.

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!  Keep your eyes peeled here for a special freebie later in the holiday weekend.

Well so I guess now I’m fully bloomed.  LOL!!  That’s right, it’s official…you can visit me at zinnias and swallowtails at After Five Designs!  I’m really excited and a little bit nauseous, but mostly I’m so honored to have been
encouraged and supported on this fresh journey along side the kind and
talented designers there!  Can’t wait for you to get to know me and my template designs.  And I so hope you love them!

So here I am taking the first steps (or planting the first seeds, if you will) of a fresh adventure and journey and just like with any new venture I’m feeling SO very excited and a little apprehensive.  But most of all I’m thrilled and grateful for this opportunity to grow and I can’t wait to share it all with you!

If you know me, you probably know that I’m completely out-of-my-gourd in love with scrapbooking.  It all started many years ago when I was first drawn to explore my creativity and storytelling as a paper scrapper (which I’m sad to say I was never terribly good at, but oh how I loved it).  Then in May 2008 I finally delved into digital scrapbooking.  And I haven’t looked back since. I was smitten from the very first
click. The digital medium has given me the confidence to really explore
my own creativity in ways I hadn’t been able to with other crafty
projects. I love love LOVE capturing the everyday moments of my family
and sharing our stories through my scrapping.

Recently, I was encouraged by friends and loved ones to explore template design.
In some ways designing templates seemed like a new evolution for me and
my creativity. But ultimately, it comes down to this: if I can be a
part of, and encourage others to scrap their memories, share their
stories, or create their art in any small way…I would love that.
Because to me, the creation and the remembering–it’s one of the most
beautiful expressions of ourselves for those we love.

And so my goal is to create template designs that will help you do just that: plant your story, scrap your memories, write your love song to your loved ones, express your creativity.  My hope is, through varied offerings — of both “cleaner” and more detailed designs and some that focus on storytelling, or playing with techniques — scrappers of every style will be encouraged and supported in their scrapping.

In just two days I will be debuting my template designs at an established digital scrapbooking shoppe.  I can’t tell you *just* yet where that will be, but I can say that will be working along side some fabulously talented and sweet designers.  Stay tuned here for lots of news, sneak peeks, information, giveaways, and an exclusive freebie in the coming days.

On Saturday 1 May everything will go live and the fun begins!