Pinch Me...

...I think I'm dreaming!!! Depending on how you arrived at my blog will depend on whether or not you have ANY clue as to why I said to PINCH ME! If you got here via Lauren Meader's blog then you know why you are here and you'll know what my news is. If by some other means or because you are a follower (thank you by the way) then this may be NEW news to you :-)

Lauren Meader announced recently on her blog that she is starting her own company. She will be designing her own line of stamps, new fabulous and unique templates, called Pretty Packages© and will also have a whole new offering of Pretty Printables© (digital paper) for this brand new company which is called My Time Made Easy (don't you just love it!?) You can read all about Lauren's dream and announcement --> here.

Meanwhile... I got this super amazing invitation to become a member of Lauren's Design Team for My Time Made Easy and I STILL have to pinch myself to believe it's true. I am so honored and humbled and EXCITED by this invitation -- I will do my best to make Lauren and her products SHINE! SO - here we go - I'll share my first project with you then give you more info about me at the end...

Our first new Pretty Package© from My Time Made Easy is called In a Pinch ©MTME! Here's my "reveal photo" that Lauren used to announce us:

Now is that just the CUTEST little package or what? I used three Pretty Printables © digital papers, (12 Days of Snowflakes, That Hit the Spot and Throw Me a Line), to decorate my In a Pinch box. I chose a pink color palette because the gift that is going INTO the box is this lovely pink scarf that I picked up as one of a set of goodies for an "angel tree" gift for a young girl. You can see why the template has this clever name - the middle of the top part folds in to create this adorable shape. It's also generously sized - a large hand lotion from Bath and Body would also fit! A piece of satin ribbon ties off the pinched-in middle and is finished off with a bow. I added a band of soft pink pom poms to keep with the "snow" theme and to coordinate with the soft pink fabric of the scarf and besides, pom poms are "IN!" LOL Finally, I used some fun snowflake embellishments that I adhered to punched Regal Rose snowflakes (MS punch).

Of course I had to make a matching card and those brand new digital papers Pretty Printables © are fabulous (designed by the amazing Kristin Beuter!!!). Lauren will be releasing some brand new STAMPS in January and you are going to love, love, love them. You will see how beautifully everything coordinates!! Since the In a Pinch is a pre-release Lauren has not yet released her stamp line so I used my Magnolia stamp called Snowie With Bells for my image on the card. Since this is a gift for a young girl how could she NOT love Snowie...!?

Here's a close up of Snowie and check out that great paper! It's SO fun and pretty and easy to print one or several sheets. The darker pink of the striped paper coordinated quite nicely with my SU Regal Rose. I carried over some of the elements from my In a Pinch gift box to my card; the snowflake embellishments, the satin bow and then I added some adorable mini jingle bells to coordinate with the bells that Snowie is holding.

Finally, here are a couple of close up photos. First is the sentiment on the top of the "In a Pinch" Pretty Package ©. I stamped this Gina K sentiment from Very Merry Christmas and cut it out with my petite oval nestie - inked the paper with some Pretty in Pink SU ink and then added a whole second oval punch underneath. It's popped up with dimensionals. The top of the In a Pinch is perfectly sized to accommodate a sentiment or other embellishments!

Next is a close up of the front of the box so you can see more of the GORGEOUS paper, the fun pom poms and the other two digi papers along with the satin bow.

Lastly, Lauren asked us to share a little about ourselves so here's some info about me:

I actually started stampin the first time about 25 years ago when I bought my own unmounted rubber images and my DH made me blocks of wood to mount them on. Then I had children and "life" took over until about 8 years ago when I began scrapbooking. I did that intensely for 3 years and took a break. Then I stumbled upon Stampin Up from a girlfriend who was a papercrafter. I rekindled my love of stamping and have been going strong in the past 3 years. I discovered Lauren's amazing blog many, many months ago, I started a blog, I began to enter various challenges and I was part of Lauren's My Time To Create Challenge team for several months. I have been a CenterStage Spotlight Designer for StampTV and a Guest Designer for Theresa Momber as well. Finally, I recently had a hand in establishing a brand new challenge site called Just Us Girls! Life is good - my hobby is fun and I hope in some small way I can inspire you AND that you will fall in love with Lauren's designs and products as I have already!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope to see more of you in the future.
PS - stay tuned for another idea using another new product from Lauren... It will be posted after this post goes live to you all.