Harmony, Guest Designer Spot and Blog Award Thanks!

Happy Tuesday, everyone! There are some people I need to thank today before I get to my project. I am so excited to have been gifted with blog awards from two amazingly talented women! First is Shen of My Curious Crafts, who honored me with the Versatile Blogger Award, Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award and A Thing of Beauty Award, and the second is Chris of Get Inspired with ChatterScene, who passed the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award to me. THANK YOU so much Shen and Chris! These women are both so fantastically talented and creative and genuinely nice, and I am so happy to have met them in blog land! Please stop by their blogs to see their fabulous creations! You won't be sorry!!

I am so excited to have been asked by Rhonda and Amy to be a guest designer tomorrow for their awesome new challenge blog, Decorate to Celebrate! This such a fun challenge blog...it truly pushes me out of my comfort zone of making cards, the occasional scrapbook layout or wall hanging. Every two weeks they post a new challenge where you come up with decorations for a theme. It's so much fun and I hope you will stop by tomorrow and join in!

I have a project today to enter into Getting Cricky With K Andrew's Simply Sunday Challenge - Penned Entries. I love visiting Kristal's blog...she is always so motivating and uplifting and again this week, her message is so powerful.

For this challenge, you are supposed to use pens on your creation. This was the perfect opportunity for me to break out the Cricut markers I purchased months ago but have yet to use. I was lucky enough to visit Japan a few years ago and just loved the beauty of their culture and country. This 6 x 6 wall hanging will remind me of that amazing trip. All of the paper is from DCWV's Far East stack. I used the Pagoda cart and the Cricut markers to draw the kanji in the top right corner, which represents the word "harmony". The screen is also from Pagoda, and I cut around the edges and then lightly scored at the point where the screen would bend to give some dimension and attached it with foam dots. The crane is also from Pagoda and I added glossy accents to make it shine (I have a little problem called lack of patience, so is hasn't dried completely and is still a bit milky in the pic). I used the Cuttlebug bamboo embossing folder for the pink paper, and then inked it with Tea Dye distress ink to bring out the  texture. I used tea dye inside the kanji as well. The word "harmony" is from Lyrical Letters, and the beautiful twig with pink beads I won from Barbara and Peggy and the Grandma's Pearl lot a few weeks ago.

Thanks so much for visiting and thank you again Shen and Chris! And don't forget to stop by Decorate to Celebrate tomorrow for my guest designer spot and a super-fun challenge :)