Think Spring!! and a Disney Hop WINNER!! :)

Hello, my amazing bloggie-land friends!!  I hope today finds you with the sunshine shining and good things happening!!  :)  I'd like to thank those of you who have taken a few moments to send me an email or note to see how I'm doing these days...  I miss spending time here on my blog, but sometimes you just have to work when the work is available, ya know???  :)  I've always looked forward to January being a month where things slow down a bit so I can catch up on all the things I've put off for months (like cleaning and organizing and crafting!!), but I'm thankful that I've been able to continue working...  Please know that even though I don't get to visit everyone as often as I'd like, I'm still enjoying all the wonderful projects I get to see via email -- Keep up the awesome creativity!!  :)  Okay, okay...  Enough jibber-jabber, right???  :)

Today, I wanted to share a card that I made a while ago, but didn't get to share here on my blog...

The weather has been quite cold here the last several days...  And by cold, I mean BITTER cold...  The kind of cold that makes you run to your car in the parking lot and then WISH that you had an automatic starter so you wouldn't have to sit and shiver while the cold creeps all the way to your bones!!  Brrrrrrr.....  These are the days that I like to start thinking about SPRING!!  I don't know why, but thinking about Spring always seems to make me feel just a little bit warmer (and, no, it's not just because there's a roaring fire just four feet away!!)...  So, in the hopes that my reminder-that-Spring-is-on-its-way card will warm up your day a little too, here it is:

My card is a standard A2 card (4.25"x5.5") and features some "photo boxes" paper from Creative Memories that I've had in my stash for far too long (I believe it's the Simply Beautiful line)... The adorable giraffe digi stamp is courtesy of the very talented Dustin Pike...  The giraffe was colored with Copics and then fussy cut so that I could add him to the blue paper...

I used the "Live the Life you want" stamp from K Andrew Designs (click here for savings from 6%-60% on remaining stamp sets!!)...  The original digi stamp did have the giraffe holding a sign, but it wasn't big enough for my sentiment stamp, so I simply changed the sign by covering up the old one and cutting and adding the giraffe "hands" to the front of the sign with pop dots (the sign is also popped up a bit for dimension)...

Not only does this card make me think of Spring, but it also reminds me that we get to live the life we want to live...  That doesn't mean that we can have all the material things we want "just because" or decide that we don't have to go to work or pay our bills anymore, but we get to decide to be happy with what we have and where we are and what we do...  And day to day, that really is what helps us to feel better and live better!!  My wonderful mom has always maintained a positive "can-do" attitude through every obstacle she's ever faced...  Almost to the point where others never even knew that she was experiencing anything difficult in life.  I find that to be very inspirational, and when I'm having a bad day, I try to remember that I get to decide what kind of day I'm going to have...  Do you have secrets that help get YOU through the tough times?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!!  :)

I hope you've enjoyed my card today...  And I hope I'm able to share more with you in the coming weeks (but if I don't, I hope you know that I'm still thinking about ya and hoping for sunshine in your days!!)...

As promised, I have a WINNER to announce from the Disney-Pixar Blog Hop this past weekend!!  If you didn't get a chance to hop through all of those fabulous posts, there are some great projects that you don't want to miss!!  You can check out all of the links by CLICKING HERE...  And now, without further ado...  Random.org was kind enough to select the 6th comment...

 ...so the WINNER is....  Melissa, who said:

Congrats, Melissa!!  Please email me at scrapbookingwithamy@gmail.com with your address so that I can send your "A dream is a wish your heart makes" sign out to you!!  I hope you enjoy it and it keeps you excited for your next Disney vacation!!  :)

If you'd like to win one of my hand-lettered signs, I have another giveaway going on HERE, and you'll want to keep on checking back for some other GREAT GIVEAWAYS that I have in store!!  :)  Wishing each of you a wonderful day living the life you want...  :)

Until next time,