HAPPY NEW YEAR iCANDY !!!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!! I'm kicking off the new year with some blog candy (which I fondly call iCANDY on iSTAMP!) Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching my counter in the 90,000's, and was really crossing my fingers that it would hit the big 100,000 on New Year's Day ... oh well, it's close enough for me!

I haven't talked much yet about our Christmas, and won't go into a whole lot of detail. My brother and his family (the four on the right of the photo) came to Phoenix from Iowa for five days. Their last visit was seven years ago, so this trip was much anticipated! We had a WONDERFUL Christmas with lots and lots of food, games, food, visiting, and more food! This is my favorite photo from their trip, taken after church service on Christmas Eve (which was my favorite part of the celebration ... the church service was beautiful and inspiring!). We also spent a day driving to Tucson to visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place. It was so-o-o cool!

Onto the iCANDY ..... Have you seen all the new Designer Papers in the NEW Spring-Summer '08 Catalog & Idea Book? You know I've got a weakness for Designer Paper, and I need to make room for new. I'm giving away this assortment of 27 full 12 x 12 sheets of Stampin' Up! retired Designer Series Papers from Petal Patch, Spring Showers, Spring Flowers, Au Chocolate, Loves Me, and Notations.
How do you win this iCANDY? See the book of Gummy Lifesavers in the photo below? Five years ago, I started a Christmas Eve tradition with my kids and my foster sister's kids. The first Christmas gift I buy every year is a book of Lifesavers, and start wrapping it over and over and over again until I either run out of wrapping paper or get so sick and tired of wrapping it that I can't possible wrap another layer! The wrapped package in the bottom of the photo is the finished product from this year. On Christmas Eve, the kids gather in a circle and take turns unwrapping one layer at a time, and counting the layers as they go. The person that unwraps the very last layer wins the book of Lifesavers. It is fun to see how many times I wrap it every year, as I don't keep track while I'm doing it, and also fun to see which kiddo wins it each year.
To win the iCANDY Stampin' Up! Designer Paper assortment, leave a comment with your guess as to how many times you think I wrapped the book of Lifesavers this year. The person with the correct or closest guess wins the dp assortment. In the event of a tie or ties, I will use random.org to choose a winner. A winner will be chosen the evening of Thursday, January 3.

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR to each and every one of you that stops in to read my blog! Good luck !!!

Edit to Add: Due to cost of shipping, U.S. and Canadian shipping addresses only.