Woohoo! It's here, it's here! Cropchocolate blog hop and FWF

I've been excited about this day for a loooong time!  I love blog hops, and I'm super excited about my second term on the cropchocolate.com design team.  Not only is it a great company with a wonderfully talented bunch of women, but there are some exciting changes in store for all of you this term.  You'll see more design team members and we're divided into specific groups.  I've been assigned to the layouts/cards design team.  Well, as many of you know, cards are a joy for me, but layouts can be more of a challenge.  To get into the spirit of things, I created one of each for this blog hop.

But, first, a few other details.  As I said already, I'm super excited about this hop and the opportunity to serve on this design team.  So, I'm offering blog candy.  To be eligible to win it, please follow my blog and leave a comment on this post.  I will pick the winner early next week.  If I hit 150 followers, I will pick two winners.  (Yeah!)  There's paper, Unity stamps, ribbon, embellishments, all kinds of crafty wonderfulness for you to win. 

You should have come here from Karen's blog.  And, if you just happened upon this and want to start at the beginning, visit Amber's blog first. Isn't there an amazing amount of talent on this team?  Most of the designers are showing you their tryout pieces, but those were also my November and December projects for last term, so you've already seen them.  So, I created a couple new things for the hop.  First, the layout, which will tell you some new things about me.

This is me!(woohoo) and my old girl Molly.  She just turned 12 on Jan. 6th.  Her face is just starting to turn gray, and she has a little arthritis, but she's an athlete.  She LOVES to run! And chase her tail.  She's chasing it for all she's worth as I'm writing this post.  She must be excited, too!

I used Fancy Pants Blissful Blizzard 12x12 papers and Echo Park Wintertime card stock on this layout, purchased from cropchocolate.com.  I cut the library pocket out on the Silhouette, editing the file size to fit my purposes.  And, for my Unity Friends With Flair Peeps, I used the Unity Dec kit of the month stamps for the quote,Unity Swirling Snow stamps and various CTMH alphabet stamps (all retired) for the numbers on the tags.  The ribbon, Juniper ink and Barn Red ink are also from Close To My Heart.

Here's a closeup of the pocket, where you can read the quote, and see the snowflakes.  They were stamped with second generation stamping so they didn't overpower the quote.  On each of the tags, I wrote something about me that I didn't think you'd already know.  Here's what the tags in the pocket say:

1. My joy is cardmaking
2. I once qualified for Boston marathon
3. My first dog's name was Chien (it means 'dog' in French.  I was taking 9th grade French at the time)
4. Shaun and I have been married for 29 years
5. My favorite tea is Puerh
6. I cook as little as possible.  I LOVE leftovers!
7. I ride my bike or walk to work
8. I'm the same size now I was in high school
9. I love my Harley!
10. Kayaking feeds my soul

There you have it.  Somehow scrapbooking ourselves is very hard to do.  Thinking of these facts took much longer than anything else!  Let me know if you learned anything new about me.

And now, for a card I made for this hop, and for you, my blog readers:

And you are!  You are SO cool!  I love this world of blogging and crafting and sharing ourselves with each other.  Here's how I made it.  I used Unity stamps of course.  It's an Itty Bitty penguin called, "You're so cool".  I cut the circles out with the Lifestyle Crafts circle dies in various sizes.  I used Echo Park Winter Wishes 6x6 paper.  Two of the circles were dry embossed with a Spellbinders embossing plate. I inked the edges of the card and the circles with Tim Holtz distress ink (black soot).  The base of the card is made with Carta Bella Kraft cardstock. The charcoal baker's twine is from cropchocolate.com.  The googly eyes are from my stash.  The circle the penguin is stamped on is elevated with 3D foam tape, and so is the sentiment banner. Everything for the googly eyes and Unity stamp was purchased from my favorite online shopping site, cropchocolate.com.

That's it for me.  Please come back on Tuesday, Jan. 15 and I'll pick the winner of the blog candy. Then, please visit my blog again on Wednesday, Jan. 16.  I will be guest designing for the 3 Girl Jam Challenge blog.  I know there are some crinkle ribbon fans out there, and  3 Girl Jam has some beautiful ribbon!  Now, hop, hop, hop on to the talented Becky's blog.  You'll love what she has to show you!