Pickle Post #34 - Where in the world is Mrs. Pickle?...and an AMuse Challenge!

Hi there! I have missed you, my crafty friends! HOW ARE YOU?!

I guess the bigger question is how am I? It's been a LONG time since I last posted. Life has been crazy hectic! Work, lack of sleep, family stuff and schedule changes all took their toll on me...I truly lost my mojo. :(

No matter what I did to rekindle my creative energy, projects just sat on my craft desk - half done, sad, forlorn, gathering dust. Seriously I was just in no mood to make or finish anything.

Then I sustained a workout injury to my leg and hip right in December that wouldn't allow me to sit or stand or even lay down for lengthy periods of time without major pain. Try crafting while in pain and lacking mojo...no fun!

I am just about back to 100% and I am finally getting back on track! To all of you who handle chronic illness, full time (or even very busy part time) jobs and family obligations and still post your creativity to your blog on a regular basis - I salute you! :)

My goal is to keep posting at least twice a week. I am working on some new projects to post, but today I am going to share what I created for the weekly AMuse Studio Challenge! I am this week's hostess and my theme is 'Bloom Where You Are Planted' - to create something with flowers. Use flower stamps, paper, felt - whatever puts you in the mood for Spring! Come and join us over at the challenge blog for a chance to win some free AMuse goodies! :)

Here is what I created - it is in honor of YOU, all of my crafty friends who still love me! :)

My flowers are created using blue satin ribbon that I twisted and glued onto big glue dots. I accented them with ivory pearls and stamped leaves. That fabulous blue chevron ribbon is new from AMuse - LOVE IT. The white face of the card is embossed with a diamond pattern and placed onto blue shimmer cardstock, which is GORGEOUS in person but so hard to capture with my little Kodak camera. You can kind of see the shimmer at the top of the card. The sentiment is stamped with black pigment ink and embossed with clear embossing powder.

Stuff I Used (all AMuse Studio products):
Stamps-True Blue Friend, Leaves Trio
Cardstock-Sugar, Bermuda Shimmer
Ink-Onyx and Grass pigment ink
Other Stuff-Harlequin/Woodgrain Embossing Plate, Bermuda Satin Ribbon and Chevron Ribbon, Ivory Pretty Pearls 
  
Thank you for stopping by to visit after such a LONG LONG time. :) 
I am so happy to be back and blogging! I will have more stuff to post and a fun surprise to share by week's end - so stay tuned!