Candice Windham Design Studio

It's time for another Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop and this one uses three of my favorite products: Westcott Brand ® Cutting Tools , Duck Brand® Duct Tape and Velcro® Brand Hook and Loop Fasteners. Westcott is sponsoring a giveaway: To win a fantastic Deluxe Assortment of Westcott Cutting Tools, go to http://westcottbrand.blogspot.com/2011/10/designer-crafts-connection-charitable.html and leave a comment to win prior to November 1st (actual prize package may vary slghtly, US residents only please). You can also get an extra chance to win by leaving a comment about the hop on the Westcott Facebook Fan Page . I once knew a photographer who said he could build anything if he had matboard, masking tape and an Xacto knife. Well, I'm here to tell you that by adding the products I received from these three companies, I could easily rule the universe. Seriously. Well, maybe not rule the universe, but I could certainly decorate it. Don't forget to click on the Designer Cra

I remembered to post that there was Sizzix Blog Hop beginning today, but I thought I was not supposed to post until next week. Boy, do I have egg on my face! Anyway, the featured die this week is Eileen Hull 's versatile Sizzix ScoreBoards XL Die - Album ,one of my all-time favorite dies. This album has a cover, a pretty scalloped edge binding and a very nice nameplate. You need to make two cuts to get both covers, but this turned out to be my pushing the envelope idea.I am usually very frugal with my mat board scraps, but was in such a hurry today that I mistakenly cut the entire plate twice rather than the entire plate plus the back cover once more. The two binding edges were laying with one overlapping the other and -Bingo!- I realized I could make a wider width album just by inverting and adding the second binding. I have been preparing class kits for some classes I will be teaching for Viva Décor at the Collins Group Fall Education and Trade Show in Houston in October, so Viva

Our good friends at Sizzix have organized a new Blog Hop to feature the Fresh Vintage Designs by Eileen Hull . Over the next six weeks, we'll be posting designs made with her mat board-cutting dies. Have I mentioned how much I love these dies? I will have a post here next week with a tutorial, so be sure to check back. In the meantime, be sure to click on the Fresh Vintage button on the left to hop to another blog in this great adventure!

"I'll report tomorrow." Famous last words. I didn't report tomorrow, or the next day or the next. I have been frantically searching for my camera since Sept. 10, so I could post photos and report on the Fork and Talk event by Craft Gossip in Little Rock. It finally appeared this morning, hiding in the black hole that is my travel purse. I had only looked there about ten times, so black hole is the only possible explanation. Melony Bradley and I left Memphis around 9 a.m. and headed west. It was a gorgeous day and with all our jibber-jabbering, the two-hour trip seemed like 15 minutes. When we arrived in Little Rock, we were 30 minutes ahead of schedule. That's when we got out our Mapquest directions. Mistake. Big Mistake. While we were trying to figure out where we were in regards to our exit, we saw the name of the street we were looking for on a big green interstate sign, congratulated ourselves on our savvy navigation and headed off on an adventure. That's

Melony Bradley and I are off on a road trip to the first ever Craft Gossip Bloggers' meet-up, where we'll meet four of the editors from Craft Gossip, have lunch at Trios and participate in a group project. I have no idea what to expect, but know that with this group, it will be fun. I'll report tomorrow....

...Time for the Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop, that is! Our theme for September is Celebrations . If you have a celebration coming soon in your life, you can probably grab the perfect idea from this hop and make either copy it or atler it to make it your own. The design professionals on this blog hop are some of the best in the business. To see more, just press the Designer Crafts Connection button to the left and hop forward or backward to the next blog. Be sure to go to Julie McGuffee's Blog to see how you can win A DVD set of the new TV show, Scrapbook Soup, Series 100 . ! went to the Creating Keepsakes event in Nashville a few weeks ago and came home with much more than I left with...or needed, but the sight of beautiful papers and gorgeous embellishments gets me every time. It didn't help that I was with my enabler buddy Barbara Rankin. We are a disaster waiting to happen when we attend these events. If she doesn't find something unique that I must have, I find