Free For All Friday & Exciting News!!

Happy July everyone!  Can you even believe the year is half over?!  Time is flying by!  Here is a card I made using The Vine stamp set by Melanie Muenchinger, just released on Thursday evening!   This card uses the technique Reverse Spotlighting, which is an easy & fun technique!  Here is a link to my challenge .  I hope you will play along (you have until Thu July 6) for your chance to win a free stamp set from Gina K Designs valued up to $24.95!  You don’t have to use Gina K stamps to play, but if you do you get your name entered in the drawing twice!  You must share a newly created card for this and all GKD challenges at StampTV. 

And now for my EXCITING NEWS!  I finally achieved my goal of being published in a national magazine!!  I got the news on May 9, I will never forget that day; I came home from work on a Monday and John was washing dishes (sweet), and I saw a plain white envelope and the sender was Scott Publications, I knew right away it had to be a copy of the magazine!!  I squealed and screamed with delight, scaring John from his work.  I didn’t have to say much, when he saw the magazine and I was reading the letter, we both got tears in our eyes and I said quietly, “I finally got published” because I was choked up.  He immediately congratulated me and hugged me, he knew how long and hard I had worked tirelessly at that goal! 

I sent in several original cards for the call (Country & Western using Theresa Momber’s Out West set) back in January and had no idea if they would accept any of them, having no idea how long the process takes.  I immediately called Melanie & Theresa to let them know, I was so excited!  Melanie has been an inspiration with publications, and my cheerleader all these years.  Jennie Harper, fellow GKD DT member said just a few weeks prior that she knew it was going to happen for me soon and she was right! 

I also called my sisters, DMIL and my best friends who are all so proud of me!  Here is a picture of my card on the page.  I ordered extra copies of the magazine to send to Theresa & my sisters.  It was so cute my sister Deana called me a few weeks ago to tell me she was so excited to see my name/card in the magazine!  I sent it without including a note because I wanted her to find me in there and I ran out of time to do so.  She said she wasn’t sure at first why I sent the magazine (guess she had forgotten my news), did a quick once over through it and then later went through it very carefully and finally found my card – she was so excited, sharing it with her Goddaughter and bragging, “Donna made this card, isn’t it cool – she got published in this magazine!”, it totally made my day.  My sisters are very proud of me, making up for us not having our parents here to be proud of me and it means so very much to me.  They mean so very much to me.

**Mark your calendars for Tuesday, July 5 when Gina & her design team will be back with 3 days of inspiration hops using the new stamp sets!!

Card details:
Stamps: The Vine; Bold & Beautiful (sentiment); Timeless Textures 
Cardstock: Lemon drop, Just Peachy, Crème de menthe pure luxury
Inks: Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories: white brads, circle punches