I'm a Top Chef Designer!!

So did any of you notice the new little block over on my sidebar? My sweet, talented, and all-around wonderful friend Linda asked me to join her Catered Crop Recipe Challenge design team!! YAY! And best of all - I get to call myself a Top Chef! Do any of you watch Top Chef on Bravo? It's one of the few shows I cannot miss. I'm loving the all-stars this season, although I was sad to see the man I love to hate get booted last week. (I have no doubt I am in the minority on that one!) :-) When Linda announced her new team, she said we were the "Tom Colicchios and Paula Deans of the paper craft world". Oh she has no idea how that made me beam with pride! :-) The other ladies on the team are MEGA TALENTED. I'm not at all sure I can hang with them. But I shall do my best. And on that note, here's my card for this week's challenge!


Linda's challenge is a recipe challenge - for each new challenge she picks one of the entries from the previous week to use as inspiration. The card this time was an absolutely ADORABLE creation from Jeanie Witmer, who's has also now become a Top Chef Designer. Oh my goodness do I love this woman's stamping!! Here are the things from her recipe that inspired me:

- Polka dots (Go figure. I'm a polkadotcrazyfanatic!) Also a flowery background paper.
- Stitching. I watched her fabby tutorial and broke my habit of almost always doing a zigzag stitch and did straight stitching instead this time, even though zigzag is FAR MORE FORGIVING of my crooked tendencies. :-)
- I also tried sponging with chalk inks and watched another great tutorial from Jeanie. It's pretty subtle on this card, but I really love what it added. AND I love that I actually USED my chalk inks that usually just sit in a drawer, unloved.
- Paper piecing.
- I also borrowed quite a bit from the layout of Jeanie's card.

I used my What's Cookin'? set from Taylored Expressions for my card. Do you like how I kept the recipe/Top Chef theme going? hee hee I won this awesome set from playing along with a TE blog hop. Thanks Taylor!! And also, do you like how I put the butter up in that circle? It's like it's floating on high, and angels are singing the praises of butter...! Oh, and the sentiment - OMG it CRACKS ME UP!! The entire reason I picked this set.

The way Linda does her challenge - a new challenge goes up every other Sunday (yesterday!). On the following Thursday (this week!) she will post the DT cards for inspiration (me! yay!) and then the challenge closes the following Thursday, in this case February 3. So there's still a TON of time to play along, and I really hope you will! Linda truly is one of the sweetest ladies I know and I would LOVE IT if you'd support her and her fun challenge! Oh yah, and there's a prize too. :-) (The Stamping Boutique!! The images are GORGEOUS!)

Happy Stamping!

• Stamps: What's Cookin'? from Taylored Expressions
• Paper: SU Real Red & Vanilla, October Afternoon DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic marker (on butter)
• Accessories: Spellbinders dies, black embroidery floss, machine stitching