Hope you had a wonderful Halloween and a great weekend!   Happy Monday!  Big thanks to all who played with us for Scraptoberfest; it was a great success with so many entries and it's awesome how we inspired you AND you inspired us!  With that being said, remember I had a giveaway for one lucky winner who also posted at Challenge YOUrself?? The lucky winner of this and MORE ( Surprise!  I added more goodies to it- can you say Flair buttons, washi tape and more to it) is:
    SHARON a/k/a sksgranny
 Sharon, please send me your snail mail to:  bluequeen4@hotmail.com.

Despite 2 sick kids in the bed today, "I" am finally back down in my studio!  I hadn't been down here in about 5 weeks and so it feels weird to play with paper today!  Am cleaning and dusting and getting some RAKs together as well so the first one up for grabs is one full of Prima goodies!
all you have to do is be a follower!  Up to you if you want to spread the word :):)   I'll be posting a couple of RAKS all week; winners will be chosen on May 23rd (my Thing 2's special day)  -Good luck!

I have been AWOL for a bit...all due to this nasy thing called the flu...it ran amuk throughout my whole house; hitting each and everyone of us in different ways.  It figures that it would hit me last and hit me the worst!  Without giving you all the gory details, just know I was actually BEDRIDDEN for 5 days in a medicine induced sleep coma since I had this high fever that refused to budge.  Thank goodness my son is so responsible; his dad had to leave him home alone with me in the evenings and he did his homework, got his snack, and did his nightly reading all by himself while I slept and slept.  I lost all sense of time....BUT, that being said, I felt 75% better on Sunday and just in time to break out the Lysol and rid the house of germs, get a shower and get to the PRINCE concert (my Mother's Day surprise)...

Everyone that knows me knows that I have been a diehard Prince fan since I was 17 years old -DIE HARD...Imagine my surprise when I got to the concert hall, walked into the venue towards the seat check-in and a perfect stranger walks up to me (I was by myself) and gives me a ticket for a FLOOR SEAT!  There was a story behind it as to why he was giving it away and of course I took the ticket!  CAN you say ROW 3???!!!! I am used to giving RAKs and receiving them too, but nothing like that!  It was such an amazing gift and one that I will remember for years to come.  Of course I cried LOL....I'm still in shock ):)

“The catch phrase for the day is 'Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile.'”

Thankful Thursday-thanking all my blog readers for always coming back,  lifting me up and leaving love and encouragement !
We had 59 entries for the SOS challenges this month and that's BIG considering how busy we are in the summer!  My randomly chosed winner of the $ 25 Gift certificate to Paper Issues
 
 is JULENE MATTHEWS!  Unfortunately, there was a small glitch in the link with the winner and so I will also send a little RAK to Heather (#33).
As always, thanks for playing with, creating with us and inspiring us!   Hope you'll play with us in August!

I am counting down the days to my birthday and as I said before, I am gifting away some awesome prizes this month!   The first one is over at the Scrap Our Stash blog where I am this month;'s sponsor of any awesome prize-hop over to SOS (check their sidebar) for your chance to win!

My prize today is for all my stampers and mixed media fans!  I just started branching out and trying my hand at mixed media since I cannot draw or stamp to save my life -A few months ago, I took Jamie Dougherty's Bloom Girl class and was hooked!!  I surprised myself!

This is my first Bloom Girl canvas  and while she isn't perfect, I left her "as is" so that I could keep working on my drawing and stenciling and mixed media skills....Bloom Girls class and youtube helped with my skillz.

NEW RELEASE!!!

All you have to do is spread the word on facebook, twitter, Pinterest, blog...wherever....AND, send me a link/comment on this post stating you did ALONG with any project/creation you have worked on this month!! Easy peasy... I will pick a winner on my birthday, so this SUNDAY is the lucky day for one crafty diva!

March was truly crazy-not only did I have the hand injury, but I got sick over the weekend and since I couldn't shake the fever, I actually was one of the crazy people who got "half dressed" (translation=sweatpants over pajamas, tshirt, slouchie cap and sneaks) and drug herself to the Minute Clinic on a SUnday...2 hours later, a strep diagnosis, some RX, some tea and I was back home in my bed...today, back up and running!  Amazing this gift that man calls modern medicine!  It wasn't pretty I tell ya and my son deserves an award for being the GOOD SON while mommy was sick-it was just me & him for 90% of the weekend and he kinda had to fend for himself which included eating poptarts and potato chips for dinner one night-he'll never see that again!
So anyway, it's APRIL but not an APRIL FOOLS DAY!  I said I would have two winners of my little treat boxes (BELOW) for some lucky Scrap Our Stash birthday crafters and dang, ya'll blew us out the starting gates last month!! ALMOST 300 ENTRIES and still going!!!!!



As always, I use an extremely scientific method of randomly picking winners-I ask my kids for a number :):)  So, the TWO LUCKY WINNERS OF MY RAK's ARE  
#141 SANDY W and # 233 BARBARA G! Send me an email to: bluequeen4@hotmail.com
I am gonna be traveling soon and so who's to say that I might pick another winner of a surprise RAK after the Scrap Our Stash bday bash closes and I get back?? Check back sometime after the 7th and see!

the winner of yesterday's prize MME pack is:  TAMMI BENNETT!   Congrats girl!
Since  it's a wonderful Wednesday, I decided to gift TWO prize boxes full of bits of my favorite things to two lucky blog followers (of MY blog) who participate in ANY of our March birthday challenges at Scrap Our Stash !

Not everything is pictured (some of it has to be a surprise) but here are the boxes :):)-as I keep cleaning my studio, I may add some more things in them :):)


*** I will pick both winners on March 30th..all you gotta do is link up at least one Stash A Thon March birthday bash project to the SOS linky and I'll take care of the rest!
  Keep checking in at Scrap Our Stash for daily challenges; you can do one, five or all-Our goal is for you to be inspired and to use your stash!!

Send me your mailing info ASAP to" bluequeen4@hotmail.com  :):)  Thanks for hopping with us and I apologize for the posting delay :):)

Happy Monday!  And if you are here for the Christmas in July blog hop with Stacy, then you have started in the right place!  I am first on the blog hop & my project to inspire you today is an upcycled project! For some crazy reason, I save my Birchbox boxes-they are just the right sizes for all kinds of stuff....

so, I decided to upcycle one box (top and bottom) into a shelf decor for Christmas-you can put it in the kitchen or bathroom for a touch of whimsy!  Separated the box and covered both boxes with washi-I did not make mine match just because I don't like matchy matchy-I just coordinate:)
The last thing to do is to embellish your way!  I grabbed papers, washi, ornament pieces, chipboard and stickers...I admit it, I buy Christmas stuff after Christmas when it's marked down cause I never know when I'm gonna need things for an altered project! Forgot why I got those silver balls, never used em for the intended purpose but they came in use today! I attached them to the back of washi covered chipboard with more washi!

I apologize for the blurry photos; it was raining (storming) when I finished and then by the time I finished cooking dinner, it was dark...will retake the shots tomorrow afternoon :)

and I ended up with this!

  I am gonna add some fake snow, some ribbon at the top and I left room at the bottom for a favorite photo before hanging.  This is a great way to use stash and washi (for those of you who have asked me how to use more washi tape in different ways.)
Please leave me a comment for the RAK (yesterdays post-winner will be drawn on my birthday July 13th)) and now hop on over to see the lovely cutting master, Melisa from Paperlicious Designs!  Thanks for hopping- hope you were inspired!

blog hop order:
Kat     http://kateblue.blogspot.com/
Melisa     http://melisawaldorf.blogspot.com/
Seleise     http://www.amethystcat.blogspot.com/
Cynthia     http://www.scrapgirlz.blogspot.com/
Rita     www.ritaholmes.blogspot.com
Christy     http://tencraftyfingers.com/
Stacy:  http://stacy.typepad.com/