The Story of the Spotlight Blog Hop

Hello, and welcome to the Spotlight Blog Hop!
It's a quick one with only four stops along the way, but there's about a million prizes to make up for it. Ok, so that's a slight exaggeration ;-)

The order of the Hop goes something like this....
Aimee Dow
Kim Jeffress
Leeann Pearce
and then me!
Make sure to visit all of these girls and follow their specific instructions on how to win each prize. 

I've been a VIP member of Spotlight for the longest time. I can't even remember when I signed up. It gives me discounts and all the normal benefits that usually comes with a membership like that, but the best bit has always been getting advance warning of when the scrapping celebrities are coming to town!

March was a particularly exciting month. To celebrate National Craft Month my local Spotlight had in-store classes from both Amy Tan and Heidi Swapp. And even though Judah was less than 2 weeks old I knew this was an opportunity too good to miss.

Amy came on a Saturday which meant both my girls got to come along too. I'm pretty sure they were just as excited as me and they didn't hold back in letting it show. Many hugs later I think they considered her their new best friend. And let's not mention that at one point I wondered if we would ever get Judah back from her in return ;-)



And when Heidi came to visit three days later (notice how I seem to think of them both on a first name basis now!) I most definitely needed to drag myself out of pajamas again to pop in. Especially since I knew it would also give me the chance to meet IRL for the first time some Aussie scrappers whom I've admired online for a long time - Kim Jeffress, Leeann Pearce and Aimee Dow.

There were lots of photos taken of course. We all wanted to scrap the event in our own way. And now we all have! We decided to do a blog hop to celebrate the occasion and before we knew it, Spotlight were on board to sponsor a truck load of prizes! Thank you sooooo much Spotlight :-)

Each of the girls has a different lot of prizes on their blog, and we all have slightly different ways on how to win them too, so make sure you pay attention!

I've got two prizes to giveaway today!!

The first one is only for the Aussies I'm afraid. (Postage costs and all that jazz)

It starts off with a paper pad from both Amy Tan and Heidi Swapp's latest collections and ends with ... well.... EVERYTHING else you see here!

Whilst the second prize is up for grabs for another lucky winner, no matter where they live ;-)

So many fun embellishments and Project Life cards here.

How do you enter to win my prizes?

1. Leave a comment here on this post, making sure to mention where you're from as well. That will score you one entry. 
2.  For a second entry you need to pop over to my Instagram account, make sure you follow me there and leave a comment on the appropriate post. 

The competition is open until 8pm AEST Wednesday 17th June and the winners will be drawn at random from all the combined entries.

Good luck, and happy hopping!

The Story of Meeting Amy Tangerine

Little Moodles has quite the quirky personality at times. I can't help but giggle every time I see this photo of her. It captures her craziness perfectly.

Shoving handfuls of noodles into her mouth, not to mention sitting up at the dinner table topless with scribble marks all over her belly! (Yes it's true that perhaps this photo also captures a mother who might not be too fussed about being "proper ladies")

So a crazy photo needs some crazy fun bright colours and happy embellishments.... and messy stitching to emulate all those dangling noodles. All the patterned paper here (apart from the background one) is from my new 6x6" Amy Tangerine Sketchbook paper pad.

I'd heard that the Amy Tangerine collection (and other American Crafts and Crate Paper too) was on sale at Spotlight which for me was enough of an excuse to pay them a visit. If you read my blog you know that I've long been declaring the Sketchbook collection one of my most favourite.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I walked in the door at Spotlight and saw advertising everywhere saying that Amy Tan herself was coming in a few days for an in-store appearance! I instantly signed up of course, and last weekend with nervous anticipation went along to her demonstration class.

 

A lot of people were quite interested in my Instagram pics I took on the day, so I'm reposting them all here for you as well. The first one is quite blurry I know (sorry about that), but there's Amy holding up two of life's basic staples..... pretty paper and caffeine :-) 



There was about 15 of us there, sitting around a well-decorated table. And we all set about making our own versions of her pretty card. Yes, we got to keep that packet of Stickers!! And any of the other scraps you might have wanted to stuff into your handbag (ahem!!)

Another blurry shot - this time of Amy and I!!! (I guess that's the unfortunate reality of only taking your iPhone and getting a non-iPhone user to take photos with it!) Never mind... it's still totally scrapable ;-)

And one more of the pretty lady being so generous with her time and signing all her papers for everyone. It was such an awsome morning.... and I'm all inspired now to do a few more Sketchbook pages, so stay tuned for that!

xxxx