Blends Join Hands Blog Hop!! Fabulous prizes!!

Hi everyone and welcome to the BLENDS JOIN HANDS Blog Hop, hosted by the fabulous Jessica of Jessica's Craft Shaque!! Jessica is celebrating her 1 year blogaversary (Happy Blogaversary, Jessica!!) and has invited her nearest and dearest Blends (Blog + Friends) to join in her celebration! Each Blend has selected one of Jessica's past creations to inspire us to create a new project!

If you've hopped along from Cindy at Tools of a Cropping Queen, then you are in the right place!! If you are just joining me from your dashboard, or reading this via email, please be sure to CLICK HERE to start at the beginning with Jessica's blog!!

Not only will  you see some awesome projects inspired by our hostess along the way, but there will be some AMAZING prizes up for grabs!!

Stephanie of Whimsical Designs is our Grand Prize Sponsor! One Random Hopper will be selected to win the entire New Release of Whimsical Designs Stamps! This is a fabulous stamp set with wonderful and unique images and sentiments. You are sure to find a sentiment to fit every occasion!!

Julie K of A Little Bit of Bling and 3 Girl JAM is also a Prize Sponsor! One Random Hopper will be selected to win the entire Valentine's Day Bundle! This colors are vibrant and the prices are outstanding!!

Jessica is also offering not 1, not 2, but . . . 3 Unity Stamp Goody Bags to 3 lucky Hoppers!!! Each bag is filled with 16 random Unity Stamps!! PLUS, she is offering 2 Lucky Hoppers 1 set (5 per set) of her Handmade Corsage Pins for you to use in your own creations!!

But that's not all!! For a final prize to a lovely Hopper she will offer one $10 Gift Certificate to be used at Pink By Design!!

Aren't those prizes amazing??!! And, there is SURE to be more awesome CANDY along the way!! I have some, too :)

Now to my project!! I had a really hard time choosing which project to use because all of Jessica's are so gorgeous!! I decided on one she featured on her blog on February 20, 2011. See her original post HERE!

Jessica's beautiful wall hanging is actually double-sided, but I made mine one-sided. Those of you that attended the Getting Cricky U R So Sweet Blog Hop on Friday might have seen my note about finding a sale at Michaels on a bundle of 10 canvases. Well, here is project two of ten :)

I prepped this canvas the same way I did my project on Friday...I Mod Podged old sheet music to the canvas and then sponged over it with white and burnt umber paint. I printed the flag on vellum and secured it with Mod Podge. You can't tell in the picture, but you can see through to the sheet music in person. I cut the stars from George and Basic Shapes on DCWV Metallic Copper paper, scored them and popped them up with foam tape.

The circle is a Spellbinders Nestabilities die. I have a large wooden stamp with the words of America the Beautiful and I stamped that on the circle with Tim Holtz Faded Jeans Distress Ink. I inked the edges with Fired Brick Distress Ink and lightly stamped Old Paper Distress Ink over the rest of the circle. I hand-cut the envelope, ran it through the Cuttlebug with the Stars Embossing folder and inked it with the same two distress inks. I attached a grommet with my Crop-a-Dile and threaded ribbon through, including some all-American blue jean ribbon :) I added some ivory tulle behind and attached the circle with foam tape.

For the three sentiments, I printed out a border from Elegant Edges and attached two together with foam tape for dimension. I stamped America the Beautiful on them as well and inked the paper with Old Paper Distress Ink. Another reason I was excited to recreate this project was the chance to use my K Andrew Designs Freedom Isn't Free stamp set...the very first K Andrew Designs stamps that I owned!! All three sentiments plus "Freedom" on the circle are from this stamp set!

I have BLOG CANDY!! All you have to do to be eligible to win this beautiful paper package and matching flowers is:

1. Be a follower
2. Leave a comment with a way to contact you

That's it!! Easy Peasy!! I will announce a winner via Random.org on Thursday, January 26th! PLUS, I have two other BLOG CANDY giveaways going on right now!!

• To enter to win a Cricut cart, click HERE!!
• To enter to win a K Andrew Designs stamp set, click HERE!!

I want to sincerely thank Jessica for inviting me to help celebrate her blogaversary!! Your next stop is Beckie at Just B Creative Crazy!  Here is the entire lineup in case you get lost along the way!!

1. Jessica - Jessica's Craft Shaque http://jessicascraftshaque.blogspot.com
2. Candace - Scrappin' 2 Lil Princesses http://scrappin2littleprincesses.blogspot.com/
3. Luisa - Creative Designs by Luisa http://www.creativedesignsbyluisa.com/
4. Cindy - Tools of a Cropping Queen http://toolsofacropingqueen.blogspot.com/
5. Lisa - A Mermaid's Crafts http://indymermaid.blogspot.com/ < YOU ARE HERE
6. Beckie - Just B Creative Crazy http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com/   < NEXT STOP
7. Julie - A Little Bit of Bling / 3 Girl JAM http://jk-littlebitofbling.blogspot.com/
8. Carri - Double Click Connections http://doubleclickconnections.blogspot.com/
9. Sonia - Cards, Crafts, and Kids Projects http://cardsandschoolprojects.blogspot.com/
10. Cindy - cre8ivecindy http://cre8ivecindy.blogspot.com/
11. Robin - The Cricut Scrapper http://thecricutscrapper.blogspot.com/
12. Nataliya - Love Crafts Forever http://lovecraftsforever.blogspot.com/
13. Stephanie - Whimsical Designs http://www.whimsical-designs.com/