It is Wednesday and that means Freshly Made Sketches has a new challenge for you but we also have a surprise cooked up for our dear friend Rita Wright!  Yep, a surprise blog hop in her honor.  Conveniently enough the sketch this week is hers (we just turned it into this lovely hop badge).

For those of you who don’t know, Rita is pregnant and getting ready to take a leave of absence from our design team.  She is a wonderful stamper but an even more wonderful person!  The teams of Freshly Made Sketches and The Paper Players have joined together for this hop.  You are sure to be wowed and we hope that Rita sees how much we love and respect her for all she does.

For my card I took inspiration from this post from Rita.  The fabrics for little Laila’s quilt are so pretty and I thought this paper from Twitterpated DSP and the images from Joie (SAB ’11, French version) were perfect.  Rita, I wish you all the joy that you and your family so richly deserve.  Hugs to you, my friend!

If you have been hopping around already, you probably came over from Jen Mitchell at I Create.  The next blog on the list is Kathy Tanner at Stamping Still.  Here are all the participants:

• Anne Marie Hile
• Ann Schach
• Cindy Hall
• Erna Logtenberg
• Jen Mitchell
• Jennifer Timko (here)
• Kathy Tanner
• LeAnne Pugliese
• Lesley Croghan
• Linda Callahan
• Nance Leedy
• Tui Nathan
• Tara Murphy Bourgoin

We have a team blog where we post our pictures and we had to keep the secret so the Freshly Made Sketches team also designed “decoy” cards so that Rita wouldn’t get suspicious.  We have all been so excited about the big day on this!  Here is my other version of the sketch:

I am so thrilled to be a part of this little party in Rita’s honor.  Make sure you drop by Rita’s Creations and leave her a note.  You can be a part of the fun too!

Rita’s Card — Stamp:  Joie (SAB ’11); Paper:  Twitterpated DSP, Daffodil Delight, Basic Gray; Ink:  Daffodil Delight, Basic Gray; Accessories:  Perfect Pennants Die, Big Shot, 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Basic Pearls, Dimensionals

Card 2 — Stamps:  Bright Blossoms, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper:  Summer Smooches, Whisper White; Ink:  Real Red, Daffodil Delight, Lucky Limeade, Island Indigo; Accessories:  Big Shot, Adorning Accents Edgelits, 1-3/4″ Circle Punch, Neutrals Buttons, White Baker’s Twine