Birthday Month Giveaway

It's my birthday month. I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy baby; born on the Fourth of July--which some say, accounts for my red hair and fiery temper! When I was little, my mother got out of having too many kiddie birthday parties by telling me that I was so special everyone in America celebrated my birthday and the day was one big party...with fireworks to boot.
This year will be my first birthday without my mother calling me up to wish me a Happy Birthday and then tell me the story of how she missed the fireworks that year to have me. My dad would always tell me I was my own kind of fireworks. I think maybe, my long suffering hubby concurs with that.
But I digress... The purpose of this post is really to let everyone know that for my birthday month...I'm having a giveaway on my blog. Starting today--this art box/art book is up for grabs. It's called 'Flower Of Inspiration'. I created it over a period of about a month or so in the early spring.

It's entirely hand-painted; with four muses around the sides of the box and a goddess of Inspiration on the bottom. The top of the box (which I forgot to photograph) is done in flowers and hearts.

Inside the box is a fabric flower which is the actual book itself. I took the flower apart; adorned each petal with a word or phrase cut from old books. The words and phrases are randomly chosen for inspiration: key to life, fragrance, cake, blackbird, snow are a few examples. I hand stitched the flower back together. It nests inside the box, but is removeable in order to be read.

The inside of the top lid has 'directions to the muse'--cut from old books.

I made this with the intention that it would be a sort of trigger for my own muse; for my own inspiration...but I want to pass it along and send on the inspiration.

So...here's how this will work:

To enter to win "The Flower Of Inspiration" post a comment here and I will count that as one entry. If you post a link to this post on your own blog, that will count as an additional two entries. On Wednesday, July 22nd I will put all the names in a hat and draw a winner. That way--with shipping time--you should have the Flower in your hand by month's end.
Good Luck to everyone...and Happy Birthday month!