My "EPIC" Project Makes its Debut - Nesting Newbies Latest Issue

I've been alluding to an "EPIC" project that I was working on but was very hush hush until it launched. Well, without further ado, I can finally talk about it! The creators and editor-in-chief (Lea McIntosh and Jodi Murphy) of Nesting Newbies had a fabulous idea, what about making a lampshade pendant out of clay flowers. I jumped at the chance to work with these two fabulous and creative women. Jodi emailed me and said she got the lampshade/pendant and I couldn't meet her so I told her to drop it off and I would contact her when I received it. Well, little did I know how big this pendant lampshade was going to be. It was HUGE! I think literally it was 18-20" tall and the mouth was about 13-14" in diameter at the biggest part. She envisioned all white flowers with accents of yellow and green. I flipped out when I got the lampshade. This was no small task that lay before me.

I had to reorganize my schedule and fit this into my already busy wedding season, but Jodi and Lea are such great colleagues, I wouldn't let them down. I literally worked on this for 5-6 days straight. It was over 200 flowers - a mixture of poppies. peonies, cattleya orchids, English roses, ranunculus and hydrangeas. It took over 30 packages of white clay to create this piece. I had no idea what I was doing, but in the end, it looked fabulous. Lea told me after the photo shoot not 3 minutes into them putting it up a woman walked into the Room & Board showroom and asked to buy it! LOL.

So, for those of you wondering what happened to the lampshade pendant, well... You have a chance to win it via Nesting Newbies' Inbe'Tweet contest that starts in July. Make sure you fan them on Facebook and visit their site often for more details.
The 3rd issue has SO MANY amazing articles from cooking, entertaining to decorating! They continually outdo themselves with each issue and I know they have some amazing things cooking for the 4th issue! You would think that based on an online digital magazine such as Nesting Newbies that they have a large staff to produce such amazing photography, editorial and more. Well, it's a handful of very talented individuals who spend countless hours on this baby! They continually raise the bar and do this because they love it and are driven by the response from readers to create amazing eye candy and useful and well written editorial designed to help the reader create a stylish home!
Don't forget to enter to win the "bluebirdbag" swag mag contest! Another lucky person will win over $1500 worth of FABULOUS items from various sponsors!

I can't wait to find some time to read all the articles and try the recipes!