Drumroll, please...

Today's the day I announce the winner of my Courtney's Closet birthday celebration blog candy!! First of all, thanks to everyone who left such sweet birthday comments, even if you didn't play along. It was soooo much fun checking out everyone's cards! And I have to say - also a bit surreal to surf around Blogland and see my baby girl's face all over the place! LOL One of you called her a rockstar - it almost felt like it as I visited all of the blogs! :-) And boy oh boy, what WONDERFUL creations you all made!!! In the end we had 31 *FABULOUS* entries!! More on that in a minute - without further ado I had better announce the winner... Courtney did a perfect job of reaching into the bag and pulling out a winner, and then even holding it up to pose (!!!)... and the winner is...

**** CHRIS aka Mudmaven!!! ****

Hooray Chris! I have your snail mail address so I'll get the box of goodies out to you on Saturday (and catch up with ALL the OTHER mail I have been meaning to send out, geesh!! Sorry ladies!) (but I refuse to go to the post office with Carter anymore, maybe I'll have to tell that story another time, LOL - suffice it to say he's 3!). Here is her yummy card, I just LOVE the little hearts on the cupcake!! I also have to admit - I'm thrilled the winner is somebody I *know* has been visiting my blog for a while now. Nice picking, Courtney! :-)As most of you know, I like to summarize all of the card entries in my blog post - but I usually only have a handful of participants!! If I posted each card individually this week and added my editorial comments, this would be the world's longest blog post ever!! LOL I debated what to do - in the end I decided I'd list everyone's links here, and then hightlight a couple of my favorites, then show them all in a Slide show. I also put my card as well as the girls who helped me out with samples in the Slide show - it's fun to see all the cupcake goodness compiled together!! :-) Here's the list of awesome women who played along (I *sure* hope I didn't miss anyone - not everyone posted a comment on the correct post - ahem... ;-)):
Berenice, Stacey, Nic, Diane and Diane, Anita, Kathryn, Dina, Ashley, Sarah, Amber, Gabriela, Marti, Christy, Kim, Sharon, LeAnne, Julie, crystalkbk and a few ladies who played but didn't post their cards anywhere but emailed to me instead - Diane, Laura and Ananya.

Now for a few that I especially loved... First up is Donna, who had the *fabulous* idea to use liquid pearls as icing! I'm definitely going to have to try that!! Plus her clean and simple cupcake design is just too cute. (not surprising from a stamping superstar like Donna!) ;-)My favorite project was made by Karen. OMG!!! It's a gift card holder! I just adore it. You must visit Karen's blog for all the details!And my absolute favorite card came from Elena! Again you need to be sure and visit her blog - the little cupcake you see is actually hidden by the box, then revealed when you pull up on the lid. Sooo sweet!!
Thanks again to all of you who played - it was so much fun seeing all of your wonderful creations! I wish I could give candy out to everyone, but alas, I cannot. But... if you have a sweet tooth and want more candy, do be sure to stop back by tomorrow - I'm going to have some more goodies to give away and you won't want to miss it! And I'll be back in a bit today with this week's From Courtney's Closet challenge!! I leave you all with a Slide of all the fun creations - thanks for stopping by today!!