My BOOK: "A Year of Flowers"!

Good morning and HAPPY NEW YEAR! I'd originally planned to wait just a bit longer to tell you my news, but since I am starting to find this info is out there, and the new year is all about new beginnings and chapters in our lives....I decided today would be the day I should tell all of you friends here on my blog about my newest venture, something that has been in the works of over a year, and is now finally here... my first book,"A Year of Flowers" has just been published. Squeal!! I'm an author (lifelong dream come true), hip hip hurray, praise the Lord!
With this book, you can create 36 lovely handcrafted cards for all occasions, organized by month and holiday! Enjoy a year's worth of beautiful card designs that demonstrate popular stamping techniques. All projects will use "A Year of Flowers" stamp set as a starting point, but with different techniques and layouts, clean and simple to more complicated ones, whimsical to vintage. Detailed, step-by-step instructions and photos make it easy for crafters of all experience levels to enjoy making stylish, handmade cards using a variety of unique color palettes and sketches. With the built-in perpetual calendar, A Year of Flowers will not only allow you to grow and perfect your card-making skills over the course of the year, you can sit down, plan, create, and get cards out on time!

$14.95
64 pages

The "A Year of Flowers" stamp set is not required to follow the tutorials, you can of course use any other florals (or even my coordinating sets or the flowers from the new "Stately" series!) to recreate the cards or use other images with the techniques! But, if you DO have the set, you can copy EVERY design in the book! This one-of-a-kind set has flowers for every season and will take you through the whole year. :)

I have so much more I want to tell you about the book itself and how it came to be (what a story!), but I will reveal all that in some upcoming posts so this does not become the longest one in the world! I have to say thank you today to all of you who have offered me so much encouragement and support these past four years, reading my blog and enjoying my sets, especially all the love you've had for "A Year of Flowers" stamps, which inspired me to write this book!

I do also want to share now that one of the sweetest moments of this journey is receiving a surprise message just this week from the very first person (that I know of) who bought it, Christine Monzingo (think she was online shopping for something else and just happened to find a rogue copy that got listed early, LOL!) Christine is a StampTV member, whom I did actually have the pleasure of meeting one time at a luncheon over a year ago, but she is not a close friend or relative, I promise!) She gave me permission to share it here with you.

"Melanie,

I love the book. It is gorgeous, clear, inspiring, and joyful. Thank you.

Please do many more!"

Well! That is everything I hoped it would be as I worked on it, I was just elated to read how much she is enjoying it! I pray that those of you who buy it and support feel similarly! (Oh, and Christine, on that last line, from your lips to God's ears!! :) I hope there are, too, it is my plan if it is God's will!)

I have to give a shout out to the whole team at DRG who did such an amazing job on the back end with all the staging, graphic design, photography, etc. Everyone who has seen the book so far agrees how terrific it all looks! Now, this is biased of course, but as I created all the designs, my friends who are local and knew I was working on it, all kept echoing ,"These are the prettiest cards you have EVER made!" Honestly, I think so, too, with my favorite stamp set, and so greatly motivated to share with you the very best ideas I had in mind for it! I hope you love them and they inspire countless more cards and projects!

Now my understanding was that it would not be available for purchase until January 6th, but I already see it listed on the Annie's Attic site, so go ahead and try to order it now if you'd like! There are more peeks of projects on that page, as well the ability to "like it" on Facebook (I would SO appreciate your helping me spread the word!), and even buy the "A Year of Flowers" stamps there, too! :) Of course, the stamps are always available at Gina K Designs! :) The book will be available at several other stores (Archiver's!! eek!) and online sites soon, but for now, this is where to go!:)

Thanks for reading! (Were you surprised?) More to come! Again, happy new year!