Guest: Trudy Sjolander

Happy Thursday! As you know, tomorrow is the 1st which means, our May releases will be available! I'm excited and I hope you all are too! So to tie us over, I present to you our 2nd special guest this week - Trudy! Or best known as True. She sent me an email some time back that included a most amazing card featuring our little digi unicorn and I instantly fell in love with it! It was whimsical and glittery and lotsa sugar and sparkle! So let's meet her!

Trudy Sjolander
www.truesgiftsfromtheheart.blogspot.com
How long have you been stamping?
I have been stamping since May of last year when a friend of mine told me that people were selling cards on eBay. I started with hand drawn and painted cards but they took up sooooo much time. Stamps are AWESOME!

What's your tool of choice?
I could not live without my Fiskars paper cutter or my Wizard and Nesties!

Describe yourself in 3 words.
Outgoing, crafty, fun



If you had a stamp line, what would you call it?
Funny, I am working on getting some of my digi stamp creations up for sell. They will be "True's Digis From The Heart." So far all images have at least one heart incorporated into them. :)




What's your favorite TGF stamp set?
Love them all but "Down By The Pond" has got to be #1



If you were a color, what would you be? Why?
Green. Love new grass in the spring, green eyes and money! LOL!



Describe your crafting area.
Very neat and organized. My craft room is my "ME" place. I have a large table with tons of shelves and storage at arms reach. On another wall, I have my sewing area. Another wall has all of my packing and shipping area, and the last wall has kitchen cabinets and a counter top for everything else. I have pictures of it at the bottom of my blog... www.truesgiftsfromtheheart.blogspot.com



When making cards, what is you favorite colors to use?
Most of my cards have some shade of green in them. I think Greens and blues are my favs. Every now and then I will throw in something odd like orange and teal just to mix it up!



Do you listen to music while you stamp?
I usually turn on the TV in the craft room and "listen" to it.




3 wishes:
Health, happiness, and longevity for my family. The 4th would be an endless supply of cardstock. LOL!


Ooooh endless supply of paper is a good wish. I think my wish would be to magically have the designs in my mind appear in rubber instantly! Then I could have like 20 new releases each day! lol!

Today's question is: Did you ever take a bad yearbook picture?

Ugh. All of them were bad. I looked like a boy in most of them. No make-up, short hair - split in the middle, oversized polos.... my goodness. No wonder I didn't have a boyfriend. hahahahaha.

PLEASE READ

PLEASE READ

Greetings again friends. I need your thoughts on this subject today regarding our paper packs. If you have already received your paper, you will noticed that the shipping cost was significantly higher, especially all the international orders. Shipping is pricey because of the paper size. So I wanted to know if you think it will be fine if I chop the 12x12 sheets and offer them in 6x6 packs instead of 12x12? I think this will really help in lowering the shipping costs for all of us, otherwise I will probably have to raise my shipping rates, which I'm really reluctant to do.

Chopping it will probably take me a few days and I will also have to order new plastic packaging for that size unless it doesn't matter if I put them in little ziplock bags. In that case, they'll be available on the 1st with everything else.

Let me know what you think please! Thank you so much!

Guest: Jenn McMillan

Hello on this whimsical Wednesday! Hope all is well there in stamping land! Today we have an amazing guest by the name of Jenn McMillan! Jenn first caught my eye with her amazing Cup of Stuff cards back during Xmas! I have never seen anyone work that set like her! She has a wonderful eye for palettes and beautiful layouts. So read on!

Jenn McMillan
www.jennmcmillan.blogspot.com

How long have you been stamping?
I’ve dabbled here and there in stamping for the past 3-4 years, but I’ve become a full fledged stamp addict during the past 2 years! I’ve been scrapbooking and card-making for about 6 years.

What's your tool of choice?
My nesties! I don’t have ALL of them… yet (*wink)… but I love the simplicity and versatility of these great tools!

Describe yourself in 3 words.
Crafty
Genuine
Honest



If you had a stamp line, what would you call it?
E3 Designs – long story; my grandmother had her own business, and my mom had a similar business with the same name back in the day, and so I always said that if I ever had my own “business” it would be the third with the same name, which starts with an E… so E3 Designs!

What's your favorite TGF stamp set?
Cup of Smiles! Those adorable little mice are great for any type of card! I find myself often cutting the cup off of the mouse and making the mouse peek out from another part of my card! Too cute!



If you were a color, what would you be? Why?
I’d be a dark eggplant/purple – because it’s different and interesting… bold… mysterious… powerful… all things I’d love to be in real life! LOL!



Descibe your crafting area.
Right now it’s a disaster! When I have some spare time, I do tend to tidy it up, but until I get some new storage (just moved a little while ago) it will be in a permanent state of disarray… so long as I can find what I need and have enough space on my desk to work, I’m good to go!



When making cards, what are your favorite colors to use?
I tend to use brown or black a lot layered behind my designer papers – I find that they make the papers pop more! My favorite color though is the new CTMH color Juniper – for those who don’t know CTMH colors, it’s a really nice soft teal green… I used it on my Rock the Farm Anya card.. I find that color very calming to me. I think I might just paint my studio that color!



Do you listen to music while you stamp?
Normally I’ll have the TV playing for background sound… but I get easily distracted if a favorite show comes on! But if hubby is home (and not watching hockey) he’ll have music playing on the computer, so I just sing and bop along to the music!



3 wishes:
Sorry - I don't want this to sound fake but I don't have any wishes; I only have one hope - to be a positive force in this world, and the kind of thing I need to ensure happens. Only you have the power to make your dreams come true!

Gorgeous work!!! =) We have a double back guest this week so tune in tomorrow for another special spotlight! =) Oh btw, we did decide on a name for the 3 girls. We went off of Ms. Melissa Craig's suggestion of Sprouts. Actually we tried several versions of it and decided upon Wild Sprouts. It was a tie between that and Sassy Sprouts but we wanted to have the possibility of having boy sprouts too so decided on Wild Sprouts.

Today's question is: What's the strangest food you ever ate?

Hmmm... I believe the weirdest food I ever tried was jelly fish at a Chinese restaurant. And I have to say.... it was quite delish.

Winner of the Case of the Curious Card III

Happy Day friends! Hope all is well. It's Tuesday! Almost middle of the week already. We had some super awesome entries for CCCIII and here is the result!



The Card to be cased By Jessica

and the winner is...

By Jacilynn Cox

Jessica: Wow! This was a SUPER hard decision as there were so many adorable cards! I'm honored that so many people chose to play along! I hope to post some of your cute cards on the Club Anya blog in the coming weeks as well.

After ooh-ing and ahh-ing, I had to give my vote to Jacilynn for her Hannah Montana card! I absolutely LOVE how she altered her hair and made her look TOTALLY like Hannah! My 9 year old daughter is a huge fan, too :) I also love the different colors and textures on this card along with the beautiful script around the image. Great job and very innovative way to use Anya!

Jacilynn, send me an email for your free stamp set!


Onwards to our lovely lineup!

What a yummy card by Kadie! I can practically smell the fresh baked cupcakes!


And oooh my goodness I just had to pluck this cutie out from the galleria by Kim Nath! Great texture, layout, and what a cutie!


A shimmering goddess like Anya by Miss Mercy!


An adorable little card of a fairy trio by Amy!



Have a great day! Join us tomorrow for our guest spotlight!

Today's question: Name one instance in which an opportunity door closed and another opened for you.

Hmmm I think that when I moved here to Colorado, I was trying really hard to get this one position at Girl Scouts and then was sadly disappointed BUT then it forced me to seek another route and it was Stamp Designing!!! So thank you Girl Scouts! lol.

Happy Hello

Greetings Friends! I hope your weekend was swell and restful. =) We had a great time at Scrapbook Destination on Saturday! Angela was there creating beautiful Anya Make-n-Takes and I got the chance to meet several friends of the farm. =) Then afterwards we got to crop! Yayyy my first crop! Well I didn't really crop, I kinda colored for most part. haha. Everyone had a great time and we had lots of laughs. Oh and I'd like to give a shout out to a new buddy of mine which I will refer to as 'Charlie'. haha. Yea Charlie, you know who you are.

Also I'd like to thank all of those who participated in the Case of the Curious card. I will reveal the winner tomorrow! =) The entries were awesome! I wish I could just bottle up all the talent and energy. It's like magic!

All Farmer's Market orders were shipped out on Friday. And our release is... this Friday!!! Right? Is it this Friday? I think so, May 1st. So if you missed out on our new sweet little girls and the paper, you can look forward to catching them in the shop on Friday.

Enjoy today's cute lineup!

Here are Cheryl's card! And they feature our new Paper Pack: Sunny Glen! As well as our newest stamp Dahlia.



A beautiful and delightful card by Faith using the Susie Surprise cupcake set!


Here's Elena's adorable little Rescue Ian!


Ok... fabulous card by Kadie! Definitely a page right out of a story book!


And this cutie patootie Grad card was sent in by Janna Smith! She is adorable with the darling dp!


Have a wonderful beginning of the week everyone!

Today's question is: Who/what was on your wall during your pre-teen/teen years? (e.g. music idols, celebrity hearthrobs, boy bands... lol)

OMG, so embarrassing. I think for the most part, I had Sailor Moon (anime) posters but then I did go through a dreadful era where I had this korean boy band up on the wall. Gahhhhh.......

Cards Galore!

Happy Friday friends! Thank you all for a fabulous Farmer's Market yesterday! In other news, I said earlier this week that that our fun day at Scrapbook Destination was rescheduled to tomorrow (Sat) at 4:00pm. So if you're in Colorado, or somewhere near that vicinity, drop on by! =)

Scrapbook Destination
8214 S. Holly Street
Centennial CO 80122
(303) 779-0024


And now for a super awesome lineup from the best DT ever!




By Cindy



By Elena



By Kadie



By Melyssa




By Cheryl




By Faith



By Randi

Have a great weekend everyone! And if you haven't check Club Anya today, go that way.

Today's question is: I'm looking for a name for the 'Dahlia, Annika, Reeta' series. Any suggestions? If I select yours, you get all 3 girls. =)

Farmer's Market

Happy Thursday to all! Welcome to another exciting opening of Farmer's Market! Where we have a really sweet sale going on! Of course you know because I've been talking about it all week. haha.

Before you start shopping away I did want to note something about the papers that I forgot to yesterday. In real life they are actually more muted and 'dirty' looking but it's really hard to catch that on camera since everyone's monitor setting is a little different. The actual prints are kinda vintagey looking because I put a distress overlay on top of the image. These packs will be reg. $12 when they are released in May.




Please remember sale prices are only available if you purchase off the blog! While supplies last.

MARKET IS CLOSED.

Happy Shopping!

Today's question is: On average, about how many cards do you make a week?

Sadly I don't know. I haven't really had time to make any cards lately but hopefully that will change soon once I finish organizing and packing rubber. =)

Woo Hoo!

Good day friends! Yes! So I have some exciting news for you! THE PAPERS ARRIVED!!!! I am so relieved. I feel like I've been waiting for eons. So I thought it'd be a treat if I add that to the presale on Thursday! How do you feel about that? =)


Sunny Glen Paper Pack
(12 sheets total - 2 of ea. double-sided design)


So here's today's lovely lineup! I must go and drown my excitement in packing and shipping now. hehe.

Double fluttery cuteness by Cheryl! And a cutie Rescue Ian and tin elephant!





Awww willya look at this soft little deer that Cindy did. So sweet!


Several spoonfuls of sugar by Maria!





This is Elena's cute little rainbow ringleader and elephant!



And another cute Elephant by Faith!



Have a wonderful day everyone! I will see you there bright and early at the Farmer's Market tomorrow. Remember 7:00am MST! While supplies last!

Today's question is: If happiness had a smell what would it be?

Baby smell!