{Featured Follower Friday}

The first Featured Follower Friday is HERE! Check out this post to learn how to become a Featured Follower!

I've looked through the profiles of all of my followers (and browsed your blog if you have one!) and I want each of you to know how much I appreciate that you think my blog is worthy of following. We all have busy lives and time is precious, so if you actually spend a few minutes of your day clicking on my blog and viewing my projects and reading my ramblings, I am truly appreciative.

This world of blogging is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Once you step into it, it becomes a part of your daily life. Or maybe I'm the only one who's addicted to the blogging world? OK, enough with my ramblings...without further ado I'm thrilled to announce my first Featured Follower is...

Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle.

Let's give a big round of applause to Kristin! I am fortunate enough to know this very talented lady in real life. And, She has even credited me with inspiring her to create her own blog. She makes time for art now, and does more creating because she has a blog to post to. I am also very excited that Kristin was just published in the July/August issue of Somerset Studio magazine! How cool is THAT! This is her first time being published! Again, let's give a big round of applause to Kristin!

I'm glad I inspired Kristin to start her own blog because her blog inspires ME! I didn't know what her art of choice was when I was first talking with her about creative blogging (which was last summer) and when I clicked on her blog for the first time and browsed her mixed media projects, I was instantly in awe. She created art that I had only ever seen in magazines.

Kristin is an incredible mixed media artist and here are just 2 of my favorite pieces of hers:

Not only is she an amazing artist, photographer and writer, she's also a wonderful mother. Our daughters are in the same class at preschool. Most days, my precocious Taylor barges through the doors of her preschool, with me not far behind trying to catch up with her comb in my hand, pleading with her to let me comb out her bed-head. I'm always frazzled, running late, and almost always arguing with Taylor about something. I'm often greeted by Kristin, who is there with her gentle demeanor and her undeniably adorable daughter, Kendra. Somehow despite the hustle and bustle of a busy morning surrounded by energetic preschoolers (some happy to be with their friends, some in tears as they're pried out of their parents arms), Kristin remains calm and smiling. Kristin and Kendra have a very special connection that I cannot put into words. Kendra and Taylor had been at the same preschool for over a year before Kristin told me Kendra is adopted. I was shocked. Kendra looks so much like Kristin, I couldn't believe that she wasn't her biological daughter.

So, given Kristin says I inspired her to start blogging and given that she inspires me as a person, an artist and a mother, I thought it would be perfectly fitting for Kristin to be my first Featured Follower. So, be sure to stop by and visit her and then come back here and let me know if you're just as inspired by her as I am!

Oh, and she has me wishing I had kept my daughter's beloved pacifiers. She keeps a collection of Kendra's pacifiers in a jar in her studio. What a clever idea!

Kristin - Please be the first to grab my Featured Button and post it on your blog!

P.S. Be sure to become a follower of my blog so you have a chance to be a Featured Follower!