The end of 2011, my last two Christmas cards and a couple of announcements!

Well, tomorrow is New Year's Eve and the last day of 2011. Can you believe it? I can't! I have to say that this year has been something... not all good but certainly not all bad either. Finding myself without a job has presented a fair amount of problems, to be sure, but I have managed to stay in my house and keep my car and for those two things, I consider myself fortunate. Many people have not been quite as fortunate.  My hope for the new year is that our nation's leaders will learn to work together to do what's best for this country and its citizens... ALL of its citizens! No doubt it will be a long, hard road for all but the wealthiest among us but the people of this great land have always been resilient and we must find a way to weather whatever storms may come on this road to recovery. Sadly, we aren't the only nation that has suffered economic struggles and my prayer for the world is much the same. That countries around the globe learn to work together to bring peace and harmony to our lands and that we as the citizens of this planet find ways to repair the damage that we have done to it over the past couple of centuries so that it will survive for our grandchildren's grandchildren.

On a happier and crafty note, I have been blessed to be part of some incredible design teams this past year and beginning in 2012, I will be part of a new one... for WOW! Embossing Powders!!! This is the secret I have been hinting at over the last couple of months and I can finally say it! Suzy West, who many of you already know through your ties in the crafting world, has created her own line of embossing powders as an extension of the WOW brand and they will become available to you in the very near future. They are being debuted at Winter CHA and many members of the design team have been busy as little bees creating beautiful projects to show them off. Due to a prior commitment, I won't have anything at CHA this time but as the term for the team is a full 12 months, I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities for Summer CHA as well as other trade shows and events. As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, they come in some very yummy colors. I haven't had a lot of time to play with them yet but that time is coming so look for them in my upcoming projects! I am so excited and honored to be part of the WOW! Design Team and you won't believe the incredible talent! You will probably recognize many of the names and faces.  In fact, when you have a few minutes, I would love for you to visit our new WOW DT Blog!   

I apologize for not posting as frequently lately. Between the holidays and other previously mentioned commitments, I just haven't had the time to spend writing blog posts and even creating new projects as I did even a month ago. I have been crafting but I haven't been able to post those projects yet because they are for a guest designer spot I'm doing for Quick Quotes Scrapbook Company next month! If you have not yet visited their blog, it is awesome and they have some extremely talented designers on their team. I have been participating in some of their challenges over the past few months and was ecstatic when they invited me to join them for the whole month of January! What an honor! And they sent me a whole box of their beautiful papers and other products with which to create my projects for their blog! I have had so much fun playing with this stuff, I can't even tell you! I hope you'll check them out and that you'll visit their blog frequently next month to see the pieces I have made with their product and maybe even participate in their challenge. They give a fantastic prize to one of the participants in each challenge so it's truly worthwhile to enter.

If you're still with me, I appreciate your stamina! I also want to show you the last two of the Christmas cards I made for this year before it is gone forever. These are the two I mentioned in a previous post that are alike in design but different in color scheme. Since I have rambled on so long, I am going to cut to the chase here.

So these are my last cards for 2011. The images, as you can imagine, are by Phee McFaddell and were colored with Copics. The patterned paper is by DCWV and the cardstock is by Paper Studio. That's all, folks! I wish each and every one of you a safe and happy New Year and I hope you'll continue to follow me on my new adventures in 2012. Peace out, and until next time...

Happy crafting!!
Anniebee