Creekside Cottage Designs

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-03T13:28:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to get on and wish my country a Happy Birthday! I made a layout of my Dad, Bob and a couple of my uncles in their uniforms from World War II. I used Wordart from Words To Delite at DSO called Our Military! And it's on sale!

Here's my 1st layout. May get another done.....if I do, I'll update this.

I used a freebie kit called Celebrate America from MA3 at Scrapbook Max.

Happy Birthday, America!

Heritage Blog Hop

2009-06-01T00:19:00.011-04:00

The As Time Goes By heritage blog hop by DigiScrap Express goes live today! Here's the list of bloggers participating:

Kolor'Scapez! Freebies - http://kolorscapezfreebies.blogspot.com/
BeaconScrap - http://beaconscrap.livejournal.com/
Purple Dragonfly Creations - http://purpledragonflycreations.blogspot.com/
Creekside Cottage Designs - http://creeksidecottagedesigns.blogspot.com/ YOU ARE HERE!
Angi's Place - http://amtamburo.blogspot.com/
Crystal's Creations By Design - http://crystalcreationsbydesign.blogspot.com/
Desert Bloom Designs - http://desertbloomdesigns.blogspot.com/
VanJo Designs - http://harley310.blogspot.com/
Digital Keepsakes - http://digital-keepsakes.blogspot.com/
Kez Creates - http://kezcreates.blogspot.com/
MoveFearlessly Designs - http://movefearlessly.com/blog
MLH Scraps & Such - http://missladyhawke.blogspot.com/
Lindas Dream Designs - http://lindasdreamdesigns.blogspot.com/
Scrapin Daisy - http://scrapindaisy.blogspot.com/
Digi Cyber Scraps - http://digicyberscraps.com/
Designs by Teri~ - http://terisscrappinplaytime.blogspot.com/

And here's a preview of my contribution:

Click the links below to download:

Digi Design Academy Charity Blog Hop

2009-05-26T22:12:00.011-04:00

Welcome to the Digi Design Academy Charity Blog Hop! Recently our dear friend, Trish had a Breast Cancer scare and she decided to use her experience to remind and encourage others to take exams regularly.Early detection is vital! So all of her friends at the Digi Design Academy (and Trish herself) have put together this great mega kit for all of you!

A donation is not required of course, but would be greatly appreciated. The charity that Trish has chosen as the benefactor is http://www.breastcancer.org/ and the donation button below will take you directly to the site to donate if you wish.

This bright and fun mega kit contains:50+ beautiful papers! 70+ incredible elements! 4 amazing full size alpha sets! and set of 5 lovely word art pieces!

Here's my contribution: (not all items are shown in preview)

Papers Here

Elements Here

And here's the blogroll for the rest of the contributions to this great mega kit!

http://melissas-place.blogspot.com/
http://waiteforthemomentdesigns.blogspot.com/
http://creeksidecottagedesigns.blogspot.com/
http://abyscraps.wordpress.com/
http://kimberkattscraps.blogspot.com/
http://cindyrelly.blogspot.com/
http://amberpony.blogspot.com/
http://skrapperdigitals.blogspot.com/
http://www.mitsybelle.blogspot.com/
http://digitalscrapbooking.grabthe411.com/

Another quick tip!

2009-05-19T09:42:00.003-04:00

Thought this was an easy tutorial for making those custom shadows on your layouts. You know how some elements look like they're bent higher on one side because the shadow is larger and farther away just on that one side? Well, here's a very easy tutorial for PSElements (since we don't have the warp feature necessary to do it the quickest way).

I found this at Digi Scrap Addicts website under their tutorials. It's by Megan Turnidge and is really easy to follow. The pictures really helped me to understand and I can see where it would get quicker with practice. Anyway, thought I'd share it with you! Click on this link here:

http://digiscrapaddicts.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1224

Be sure to join up while you're there! Looks like a great place! I see several tutorials there I want to try.

Want to make those great bent and curled frames that they say can't be done with Photoshop Elements? Try this tutorial that I found at Scrapable Digi Scrap Paradise.

http://www.scrapable.net/forum/showthread.php?t=335

Ok, gotta run. I'll be at a family reunion this Thurs through Tues so probably won't be back on but the Hope for the Cure collab kit by the students at Digi Design Academy goes live on WED right after I get back so be sure to stop by and get your links to the other blogs donating kits.

Hugs, everyone!

Just a quickie!

2009-05-12T13:09:00.003-04:00

I've been working on two different kits for you, one the heritage blog train I mentioned before (which doesn't seem to be as big as I had hoped. Too many people are busy this spring, I guess.) The other is one I'm doing for the Digi Design Academy that got me started on this journey!

Sherah Kraan of Skrapper Digitals is the teacher there and she has another great lady who helps her out with the PSP users. This "lady" (don't know if she wants her name out there or not) just found out she may have breast cancer. Of course we are all worried for her but in the process of discovering her diagnosis, she has decided she wants to help out by donating to the Hope For A Cure. The students at the DigiDesign Academy have agreed to help by designing a Hope For A Cure charity collab kit. It will go live on May 27th so I'm gonna be busy this next week. More about this later.

I just wanted to pop on here and let you know where I found a GREAT and inexpensive (read cheap) tutorial on building a "light studio". Great and fancy name for a box that you put your flowers or jewelry, etc into to take photos that you can then extract. I had a terrible time figuring out where and how to take pictures without shadows. Here is a link to a tutorial on how to build one from just a box in your basement and some of that plain white tissue paper left over from your Mother's Day gift bag. Just set a bright lamp beside the box and "Voila!" The only thing you may not have laying around is white poster board but for 50 cents you can get a really great "light studio"!

Click here to go to the tutorial. Be back later with more info as I find it.

A Thank You and National Scrapbooking Day!

2009-05-01T09:31:00.003-04:00

I have to say Thank You to all my friends who left me comments on my last post. You guys are the BEST! Thanks for all the praise and encouragement you've given me. And, as I said, I will still be around.

Some of you thought someone had been "mean" and were ready to stand up and fight for me. LOL! I'm very glad to have the backup as I'm not much of a fighter. Just ask my little sister. Bwahahahahahahahaha! (Now SHE's tough!) But, No! They weren't saying anything mean to me. As a matter of fact, I went looking for the constructive criticism and it was very well meant and very well received. They very helpfully let me know where I had messed up and how to fix certain things and that's what I've started working on. Leaving it up to you, my friends, I wasn't growing because, being my friends, you all bragged on everything I tried whether it was good or not! LOL! I love ya for it but it wasn't helping me improve. So, I went to some others to get an unbiased eye and this is why I'm trying to correct the way I do things. But, you all can keep patting me on the back all you want!!! Feels good and brings a big smile to my face! As I said, you guys are the absolute BEST friends anyone could have!

Now, did you all remember that tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day? Well, plan to spend the day on the digiscrapping sites because EVERYone is having a big celebration! I'm going for the sales but there will be prizes and challenges and games and monkeys and elephants and high wire acts.........Oh, well maybe not the high wire act but I'm sure we can find monkeys and elephants in many of the stores!

Some of the places I"ll be visiting that day:
http://www.godigitalscrapbooking.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11240

http://digitalscrapgarden.com/parlor/showthread.php?t=2374

Stone Accents Studio is celebrating ALL MONTH LONG because they have a new owner and are redesigning the entire forum and store! You can win a YEAR of products at the Extreme Makeover Challenge!

http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=146

Digi Scrap Obsession is having a 50% off sale ONE DAY ONLY on all PU and CU items:

http://digital-scrapbooking.org/shop/products_new.html

Can't miss the home of one of my favorite Fantasy kit designers, Lorie Davison:
http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5540

Well, that's just some of the places celebrating tomorrow. Be sure to stop by!

Time off

2009-04-24T09:14:00.002-04:00

Hi, all! I know, I've been missing since Easter. So sorry. And I'm going to be taking the next month off from designing, too. I'll still be around. You'll see me in the forums and galleries and I'll be making some layouts for Jazzy. I'll be letting you know here on my blog what I've learned and how I'm doing. But I won't be creating any freebies.

I've had some friendly constructive criticism from a few sources and I've decided to stop giving any more freebies until I have a chance to back up and start out again. I have to apologize to you all for the kits I've been giving away. The only good thing I can say is that they were free and you can throw out the bad stuff and keep only what you want and you won't be out any money.

I'll be concentrating on "quality control" as Jazz always says. She tells us her stuff "has gone to quality control and if it's OK will be in the store soon". I don't have a quality control department other than you folks out there. And when I found out that some of my stuff isn't measuring up to the standards, I decided that if I want to do this, I should do it right. So I'm going to stop giving (for a LITTLE while) and do some more practising on my own before I come back and start giving again. I don't want to get a bad name before I ever put my stuff into a store. I have the Heritage Blog Train pulling out on June 1 and I've already committed to that. So, see? I really will be back.

Thank you all for coming back time after time even when there were things that were sub-standard in the kits. You're all a great bunch of friends. Anyone with constructive criticism can let me know here. Without criticism there is no improvement. Just click on the word "comment" below this post. Anyone? Come on. You really will be helping me.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T00:13:00.005-04:00

With the holiday weekend upon us, I began to reflect on what Easter really means. Today is the day my Lord died for me. And for you. Three days from now is the day He arose from the grave. If you truly believe that, and have asked the Lord to forgive you your sins, then I'll be seeing you in heaven! If you haven't yet, then I pray you soon will.

From my earliest memory, my family attended church at least 3 times every week. Sometimes more. If we attended every function, the only night I would have off was Saturday night. My mother, younger sister and I sang as a trio in church. The old time gospel songs are so much a part of my memory that I sing them as lullabies to my grandbabies.

I picked out a few of my favorites and made them into wordart for you. They are very simple so you can fade them into your backgrounds if you like for a subtle touch or make them stand out on the page. I thought they would go well with landscape photos showing the glory of God's creation or they can make a statement all their own as seen in this simple and quick layout I made of my cousin's husband and son. The background paper is from a kit called Fantasy Land.

"The Dawning of that Day" would be a good one for those beautiful sunrise photos you can take Easter morning after the Sunrise Service. "Precious Memories" is perfect for those old family photos. I'm sure if you think about it a little, you'll find lots of uses for these. They are all done in black but can be easily recolored to match your layouts, as I did for mine above.

Here's a preview:

And here's the download link:

Easter Wordart

I hope you all have a very Happy Easter and that you take some time to thank the Lord for your salvation.

EDITED: I was asked about my terms of use on this wordart set. I should have included my usual TOU, I guess, but I wanted this particular set to have no restrictions. I leave it in the Lord's hands and in your own. Let your light shine with them.

Another one???

2009-04-05T22:18:00.003-04:00

Can you believe it? I got Kimb's Color Challenge done EARLY! Yippee! I'm so glad to get that out of the way. Hahahaha!

This time her colors made me think BOY and since I got a new grandson back in December, I have had boys on the brain, anyway! So, wanting to do a kit for the new Boy in the family, I was thinking and thinking and then, while shopping, I saw a cute little onesie for Caden using these exact colors! So that's the theme I went with. Aviation! Caden's big brother, Cameron is obsessed with helicoptors ever since he saw his dad take a ride in one. So the chopper on the front of the new shirt fits perfectly into the family! And I'll be able to make some cute layouts for the boys.

So can you! Here's my part of Kimb's Color Challenge. A preview is just below. Notice the big "X" over the girlie color. (We only had to use 3 of the colors for the challege.)
And here's where you can pick up the kit:
Aviation elements

Aviation papers

Now, gotta pop on over to Crops2dawn's blog. She says she's got a couple things for me. Why not stop over there and check her out!

FREEBIE!!!

2009-04-01T00:44:00.005-04:00

It's been so long since I gave you one, I wanted to be sure you saw this! LOL! It's very late (or very early, depending on how you look at it) and I'm headed to my bed so this is just a quick post to let you see what I did tonight. I got it up on Kimb's challenge thread 1/2 hour before the deadline, but at least I did it! LOL! And Kimb's going on holiday for 2 weeks and probably won't even see it. bwahahahaha!

Oh well, I hope someone sees it in the gallery and likes it. I couldn't believe no one else saw Sherbet in these colors!!! Don't you see ice cream sherbet?

That was the first thing that popped up in my head when I saw the March color swatch but thought that everyone else would be doing the same thing. I was working on genealogy and didn't think I'd get around to anything this month but then Kim stopped by last week and was so nice NOT to mention that I hadn't done a kit for her challenge (even though I DID do a heritage layout for her) that I started feeling like I should TRY to make a little mini one. AND since no one else saw ice cream sherbet, I already had the theme in mind. Hahahaha! AND because I just love Kim to death (she's just so sweet) I quickly went to work. Be sure to pop by Digi Scrap Obsession and get the many other beautiful freebies Kim's friends have all made. And the April colors are already up, too! So be watching for the freebies there to start soon.

Here's the preview:

And here's where you can get the download:

DSO March Color Challenge - SHERBET

Oh, and tomorrow I'll be back again. Renee at By Dezign gave me a blog award for being "Totally Awesome, Loyal and Hard Working". How GREAT is THAT???!!!!! I just hope I'm worthy........and can find 10 other people to pass it on to that don't already have it! LOL! And you just HAVE to go see her new blog layout. Kimb made it for her and it's Totally the PRETTIEST blog on the net!!! See you later!

Spring!

2009-03-26T09:25:00.003-04:00

Time to change the blog again. Spring is here! I'll work on the blog this weekend.....maybe. Doing some genealogy again, for a change. I've only got just so much time, people! LOL! My love of genealogy gets in the way of my love for digi-scrapping and my love of living a comfortable life gets in the way of both!

Yeah, I have to work a full time job, sometimes 2 jobs, to be able to take care of myself and my family. Just like a lot of you. So my "spare" time has to be divided up between my favorite pasttimes. Genealogy won this week. But I love the research involved and I sometimes jump up and do the "Happy Dance" when people I'm looking for pop up and say "Here I am!" Then I'm on the phone saying, "Mom! Guess what I found!" She's the one who got me started in genealogy and she's the only one who still gets as excited as I do.

Well, almost as excited as I. LOL! I think she's a little jealous. When she was researching our family tree, she had to do it all in her own handwriting, make umpteen trips to the local libraries as well as the archives in Washington, D.C. She had to write letters then wait weeks for them to be answered or visit all the relatives and interview them. (Thanks, Mom for passing that all along to me!) Now, in the "modern" age of computers, I can find a ton of things out from my comfy chair, sitting in my comfy room with a couple of grandbabies on my lap. (Thank you, Bill Gates and Ancestry.com)

Researching my family tree has given me a better understanding of time and of family. In genealogy, the American Civil War wasn't that long ago. My grandfather was born in 1881, just 16 years after General Lee surrendered to General Grant and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Granted, my grandfather was in his 40's when my dad was born and my dad was nearly as old as I was when I became a grandmother when he had me. But still, it doesn't seem like it's that long ago when you think of who in your family was actually alive then. By researching each and every one of them, they become alive in my mind and I can see them as well as I can see my grandparents. I know what they did for a living, where they lived, who their neighbors were. Sometimes, you even know which ones were rascals, which ones were lazy and which ones worked themselves to the bone to provide for their families.

You know that someday in the future, someone's going to want to know who their ancestors are. What will YOUR descendants find out about YOU?

Ok, I felt guilty......

2009-03-17T00:31:00.006-04:00

.....for not being here more often and then not having anything to give you when I DID get back here so made you a small freebie. It's just a couple of Wordart masks you can use when scrapping the little ones. You can clip your photos to it or clip a paper scrap and make it a mat. And have you seen the kits where designers make "tape" to put on your layouts? I was just thinking, a piece of tape would look cool over the best friends picture. I haven't worked on making tape yet but you can get them a lot of places. Try it! I was picturing the best friends necklace we shared when I made this but I know my best friend could always patch my broken heart. Here's a preview:

And HERE is where you click to get the download. Awwwww.....it feels good to give!

Wow....how many days has it been?

2009-03-15T20:16:00.008-04:00

A couple of weeks anyway. I'm sorry if you've been stopping by, hoping to catch up on what's been going on with me. I've been busy with odds and ends, here and there.

I've signed up for a Heritage Blog Train due to pull out of the station on June 1st. The heritage style and colors really appeal to me so have been tinkering around a little already on what to include in my "box car". I also found Facebook is a nice place to catch up with my family and friends! I've never been on there before this and WOW! I've been runnning around, looking at everyone's pictures, getting updates on their "status". My favorite scrapbooking sites have "groups" and a ton of fellow scrappers are now "my friends" on there, too! Even my favorite authors have pages and groups. It's been a lot of fun!

I DO have some new layouts of my own to show off. I used to do ALL the challenges I could get done in a month. I like learning new techniques and styles and of course, the posting bonuses for doing their challenges are always worth it, too! Plus, it's nice to read the comments from everyone on a layout I've done. Here's some of my latest layouts.

I just LOVE how this came out. I used a kit by Lily's Designs called Dark Angel. And to be truthful, the background IS the paper. But I extracted my niece in her wedding gown from a picture I took at her wedding and adjusted the photo a bit (worked with the contrast and highlights, etc.) I had to take the photo on some stairs so we could get a good shot of the train but the photo itself really left something to be desired. But once I got it onto this background, it just became magical! I got some swirlies from Flerg's kit "Color Theory". I faded the edges of the 2nd photo and made it sepia to match the background.

Jazz's new wordart was the perfect addition to the layout! It just came out in the store at Digital Scrap Obsession and is at 25% off for this week. It's called "I Thee Wed" and has everything you could ever want for a wedding layout or album. Here's the preview.

This is page two of my niece's wedding layouts. Used the same Dark Angel kit and once again, Jazz's wordart was the perfect touch. I faded the edges and took the opacity down to fade her photo into the background a bit, then just a few more touches and it was done! This layout was nominated as Layout of the Week at My Scrap Shop. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I won't know if it won until next Sunday.

This next one is a layout I did for my cousin. It has my Aunt Jean and Aunt Kitty and Kitty's daugther, Paula. Mirror images of each other to my mind. I used Skrapper Digital's A Treasured Past, JulieO's Vintage Dream, Jean Daugherty's A Stitch in Time and a freebie from Ambowife called Bearly Remember.

After I did this one, I decided the photo of Paula was too blurry. And even though I loved how well their smiles and expressions were exact matches, I decided to try to get a better copy from Paula. She sent me a larger file but again, the photo was just too grainy, the eyes too blurry. But when she sent me the 2nd photo, she included a couple more of her and one of her mother, too. The expressions are not exact matches but I loved how they still resemble each other though each woman is looking a different direction. This is the one I decided to keep (with some additional changes) and added it to our family tree.

For the AD challenge at Stone Accents Studio (their posting bonuses this month are a collab kit called Fairy Garden) we had to use an old soap ad for inspiration. I got to finally scrap this photo of my grandson. Used Jofia Devoe's Sweet Melody and Lily's Design's A Secret Garden.

Well, hope you liked what I've been working on. I'm not sure if I'll get a kit done for Kimb's Challenge this month. If I get a sudden inspiration, I might tackle it but right now I'm drawing a blank. But there are TONS of freebies already in there. Go See!!!

A HERITAGE kit this time!

2009-02-28T19:49:00.005-05:00

Yea! I just LOVE doing my family genealogy (although, I admit....digiscrappin has taken over a big portion of the time I used to spend doing it.) At My Scrap Shop, the theme for Feb was Heritage/Vintage and every posting bonus was designed with this theme in mind.

One of the challenges they have there is the Members Design A Kit, or DAK for short. Trish picked the color pallette for this from a site for old house colors. Here's the link to where she got the idea. http://www.oldhousecolors.com/2007/0...-house-colors/ There are some interesting color names there like DRAB, SHUTTER GREEN and Inside White vs. Outside White. LOL! But they made for interesting colors for my Heritage kit.

It's just a mini this time, 12 papers and a few embies. One is an 1870 US Fed Census that I "doctored" up to look older than the scanned images at Ancestry.com (which is where I got this one listing one of my ancestors.) Hope you like it.

I only had 2 days as I did Kimb's challenge first and that was after procrastinating on it for about 2 weeks. (grin) Well, I do tend to put things off 'till the last minute. LOL! So, anyway, I will probably get around to doing an add-on to this one as I like heritage kits so well. And the wordart add-on that I did for Grandmother's Parlor will go with this kit nicely, too! I especially like my gold scrollwork that you could use as a border on any of the papers and the scenery of the barn is a picture I took of the old barn at the family farm that's been in our extended family since the early 1800's.

Here's the preview:

And here's the links to download:

So that's it for this weekend. Hope you can use this kit for your own family tree pages!

I've been tagged!

2009-02-26T00:42:00.007-05:00

I almost forgot. Bunny Cates tagged me this morning. I have to go to My Pictures, go to the 6th folder and then to the 6th picture in the folder. This is my photo. It's my grandmother, Lillie Missouri Gay Spiker and do you see what she's wearing to rake the hay field????? A DRESS!!!! For goodness sakes. Can you believe it?? LOL!!

Now I have to tag 6 other people to do this same 6th folder, 6th picture thing. So hear's my choices:

1. Crops2dawn

2. PkDoll

3. Vanessa

4. Bekah

5. Eilajean

6. Cindyrelly

You've been tagged, ladies! Let's see those pics! Here's your instructions:

•Go to your photo folder in your computer

•Go to the 6th folder of photos

•Go to the sixth picture

•Put the picture on your blog and a description of it

•Invite six friends to join the challenge

•Link them in your blog.

Layouts to show you

2009-02-26T00:08:00.008-05:00

And they all used my new kit, Bring Me A Dream! I just love it when I find layouts people used my kits to make. I enjoy seeing the different ways they used all the elements. This first one is from my loyal friend, Crops2Dawn, who always cheers me up and pats me on the back whether I deserve it or not. She even had a "pity" party for me on my birthday and got "skunked". Well, she pretended to get drunk. LOL! (See my comments area on Fri 13th) She's a dear, dear friend even though we've never met. I love this layout of hers!

The next layout is from my ever faithful follower, Eye! And just look where she put Mr. Sandman! LOL! So, so cute! Great page, Eye! I just LOVE it!

And this next one is from another good friend at SBM and DSO. Makeyesup made this wonderful layout of her granddaughters just one night after Christmas. I doubt Mr Sandman had a hard time getting them to sleep after such a busy day. Aren't they sweet?

Thank you, ladies for your beautiful work and for letting me show them off! I'm glad you like the new kit. I just love seeing sleeping children, don't you? They are so warm and sweet and innocent.

Ok, just one more and this one is my own layout of 2 of my grandsons. And yes, there's Cameron the model for my Mr. Sandman! He loved playing the part and was so patient with me taking his picture. I love you, Cameron!

I have a couple things on my desktop that I'm working on. We'll have to wait and see what gets done first! Keep checking back for the next chapter in my journey to become a digiscrap designer.

Freebie for you!

2009-02-22T22:32:00.006-05:00

I always liked the song. The words changed depending on who was singing........a man or a woman but it always made you want Mr Sandman to turn his magic beam your way! As I told you, these colors just didn't sit well with me. I couldn't get anything from it until I was singing this song to my grandbaby and......well, here's what I did with Kimb's Color Challenge this month.

A little different from all the flowers and hearts others were doing but I hope you like it. Here's the prevew. Not everything is included in the preview as I did several colors of some of the elements. Lots of glitter and stars and even a sparkle so you can make everthing shine!

You even get my own Mr. Sandman if you want him. Or make your own little man into Mr. Sandman!! His bag of sand is separate so you can use it anywhere with anybody. Your downloads are here:

And don't forget to stop by Kimb's challenge to collect all the free kits in this color palette so you can have one MEGA sized kit!

I know, I KNOW!

2009-02-19T09:37:00.003-05:00

There's just one week left to get my kit done for Kimb's Feb color challenge! My excuse? Well, Feb's a short month! It crept up on me faster than normal! Hahahaha! Awww......you know me. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow! But I am working on one. If you go to DSO, you can still get TONS of freebies already from those crazy people who always seem to get theirs done EARLY! Like Crops! She even had the nerve to do an ADD-ON already! Hahaha! And it's gorgeous, as always!

These colors were really NOT my style. I saw 60's psychedelic (goodness! How do you spell THAT one?) right off the bat! Long hair, bell bottoms and hippies dancing around with flowers in their hair. But I kept looking at them, trying to see ANYthing else. Started going off on the spring side with hyacinths and crocuses, some tulips........ but just couldn't get it right. So I'll save those for later in the spring. FINALLY, I think I may have hit on something.......Want a hint? Ok, but you gotta sing this in your head as you read it...........you ready?...........Are you sure?...........nah, let's leave it a surprise...................... No?................Ok try this...............Mr Sandman, Bring Me A Dream! Uh HUH! Had to sing it, didn't ya! Now, if only I don't change my mind again. Guess it's STILL gonna be a surprise then, huh! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Check back next week. (Better make it that weekend. sigh)

Forgot to tell you.....

2009-02-16T22:10:00.002-05:00

I've got my own MONTH! Bwahahahaha! Yep, Eilajean made up a month JUST FOR ME! Eilajean was someone I met through Crops' blog and she never fails to entertain me. For my birthday, she made me a very special card using my Dec Color Challenge kit. When I read her post, I burst out laughing. I can't tell you any more. You've just got to visit her blog and check it out. See Friday 13th post. And thanks again, Eilajean! You're the BEST.

I've got some pretty layouts....

2009-02-16T04:18:00.009-05:00

And I just HAVE to show them off! Another good friend from SBM, SACannon, has made a layout using my Grandmother's Parlor kit and allowed me to show it off to you! Sue had my name for our After-Christmas gift exchange at SBM and sent me some wonderful things from her area of Ohio, USA. Her layout is of a wedding photo of her aunt and uncle! Isn't it a beautiful photo?

And then my good friend, Eye has sent me another one. She is making a wedding album for herself and is trying to include something from every person at SBM! I am SO honored to be included in her album. Wasn't she a beautiful bride?

I just love having people send me their layouts!! If YOU use any of my kits, will you please send them to me? I'd love to show them off!!

I've been working on some CT layouts for Jazz this week. She has been VERY sick with pneumonia and has been trying to stay in bed and OUT of the hospital so she hasn't been blogging since the end of Jan. I miss her! She could REALLY use your prayers. But she did manage to get some new word art into her store at DSO! Last I checked it was marked at 25% OFF and is called Love Day Tags! Hurry here and get it before the sale goes off! Want to see a preview? OK!

REALLY cute, huh! And they aren't specific to lovers. So many of them can be used with children or grandchildren layouts as well. Gotta love THAT! Sue used one of them in her layout above of her Aunt and Uncle!!

I haven't used any of these YET! But I did use some of her latest kits. These next two are of children of a friend of mine. I used Jazz's Girl Power for this first one.

I did this layout for Jazz's Photo Op Challenge at DSO! She hosts a challenge where all you have to do is "change" your photo is SOME way. Doesn't matter if it's sepia or b&w or something a little more advanced but you have to include HOW you changed it so that the rest of us can try the same technique! And your posting bonus is always some kind of wordart! Cool, huh! For this layout, I extracted the little girl from the original, hit copy layer, then turned the "eye" off so it would be invisible. Then working on the original again, I used smart blur to soften the picture so it looked more like a watercolor. For the top photo, I did the same but then used the Hard Light blending mode and faded it into the background. Then turned the "eye" back on for the extracted girl so she would be still in place over her blurred image but she would still be clear. And voila!

For this next layout I used Jazz's Tiny Love Notes from DSO. This layout has been chosen as a Gallery Standout at DSO! I'm so tickled. By the way, my layout of my parents kissing (see the Jan 29th posting below) has been nominated for Layout Of the Week at My Scrap Shop! I'm on a roll! LOL! Anyway back to THIS layout. This is the baby sister of the girl in my above layout. Aren't they both just the sweetest things? Perfect little posers!

I made this one while practicing on my cluster work. I just love how it turned out. Wasn't sure about using wordart for this and asked my SBM friends for their opinion on the clustering and got some great advice! (I can always count on my friends there to help me out! Thanks, guys!)

Well, guess that's it for today. Stop by the SBM gallery and leave my friends, Eye and SACannon, some lovin' on their layouts, will ya? And tell them I sent ya!!

What a night.......

2009-02-15T21:16:00.004-05:00

It certainly didn't turn out the way we planned. The girls surprised me early in the day to say we were getting pedicures before we went to the restaurant. WHAT??!! But I didn't shave my legs! That's OK, Mom. I'll bring you a razor to work. Can you get off early? Sure, we had several cancellations so no prob.

That's when the trouble began. Rachel took her 4 kids to her dad's place as her stepmother promised to watch all the grandkids for us. (Her first time alone with all of them.) Cassidy met her there and dropped off her 2. Then, for some reason, Rachel's dad insists she get tires on her van before we go out. In the mean time, my boss lets me off work at 3:00. BUT I have to wait on the girls. At 5:00 as my co-workers are all leaving, he says "Are you sure they're coming?" Rachel has no cell phone so I'm wondering the answer to this myself but I continue to wait. At 5:40 they pull up and haven't even gotten her check cashed yet. "We'll be right back." Ok. So I'm rolling my hair when they get back. Then I have to shave my legs. In a sink that hangs off the wall. So here I am with my leg all hitched up in the sink when the girls knock to get in.

Now, I KNOW they have my camera out there and I'm just sure that's what they are planning so here I am trying to keep the door locked while shaving as fast as I can. They find the key and are breaking in, I'm pushing against the door, still with one leg in the sink.......well, we were certainly having FUN! And NO you can't see the pic! Bwahahahahaha!!

We got our pedicures done and came back to pick up my cell phone and saw there was a message. Seems the stepmother was suddenly too sick to watch the kids. We couldn't find anyone else to watch them so the girls headed out to pick up their kids and I headed home alone. Stopped by Chick-fil-a and got a sandwich. I hate February.

Late that night the girls called and said to meet them at the ER. Stepmother had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance and they need ME to watch all the grandkids. So now I'm feeling bad because I thought the kids were just too much for her to handle alone. I am SUCH an evil person. I WAS actually going to send a Thank You card after my evening out but now it will have to be a Get-Well card! I go and pick up the babies. Next morning I find out they couldn't find anything wrong with her and were just putting it down to a virus. Hmmmmm........

One good thing, I think the girls were as disappointed as I. We were all getting along and having a good time teasing each other. Then BAM....February rears it's ugly head..............But we do have pretty toe nails. Wanna see?

Doin' the Birthday Shuffle

2009-02-13T08:59:00.003-05:00

I can't dance. Ask anyone. I just sorta shuffle around so......I'm doin' the Birthday Shuffle! Looks kinda like a Boot Scootin' Boogie but it's not! And stop laughing, you guys!

I already gave you your gift so now it's time for me to get goodies! ...............................uh hum..........yeah, that's what I figured. Everyone at home is still in bed on this special day. And I'm sitting here at work waiting for the mad rush of calls from yesterday's wind storm. BUT.....they promised to take me to a Japanese Steak house and sushi bar tonight! Yippee! I love that place except when they throw the food at you. Hahahaha! Never been to one, you say? Well, it's quite a treat. Ya gotta try it at least once. But watch out! All the ones I've been to have this one moment when they throw a bite of food at you and you're SUPPOSED to catch it in your mouth....................right. I NEVER let them throw my food at me but the guy next to me will invariable miss and it lands in my hair. Yuck! I try to time my bathroom break for that "one moment". (Good tip there for you.)

And yes, BABY sister, I DID get the large one that swivels........ so I don't have to turn my glasses upside down like Mom! LOL! And remember, you've had bifocals a LOT longer than I have!!!!! See Crops! You aren't the only one with evil sisters! But I sure wish they were all 3 here to go with me to the Steak House tonight. (Yes, Jean. That means you too!) But the BABY is in Florida and I don't think she wants to fly 2 hours up and 2 hours back just to go to the Japanese Steak house with me. She could be here before the others who are in West Virginia yet still nearly 4 hours drive from me but it would cost her a good bit more than them. But if she REALLY loved me....................

Well, the calls are starting so I better get to work. Hope your day is bright and shiny! (And that I GET something bright and shiny, too. Heehee!)

I'm Baa-aack!

2009-02-12T09:46:00.002-05:00

Couldn't stand it anymore! I missed my computer! Sad, isn't it? That I couldn't get out and find something else to do? Well, I did but it was shopping for a new monitor! LOL!

Sorry, Crops! I just don't want the hassle of Vista if I can get around it. I took Eilajean's advice and got the new monitor for now. I remembered Circuit City was going out of business so got a good deal on one. I am UP, SET and BACK on TRACK! Now when my computer goes down, I'll still have a good monitor to add to the laptop I'll get then. I really want a laptop so I can do my creating anywhere I want......in the car, on vacation, etc. But I'll hold out for a little longer anyway.

Thanks everyone for all the comments and downloads of Grandmother's Parlor and the wordart add-on. You've all cheered me up immensely! And now I can get back to working on new stuff! Yippee!

Wow! This wind is ferocious! 40 and 50 MPH winds here with a lot of damage everywhere! My day job as a CSR for an auto glass replacement company is about to get even busier. (sigh) We are still trying to catch up after the ice storm and now THIS! I'm at work right now and the front door keeps getting SUCKED open! That's right! It opens outward and is being sucked out! Then things in the office keep getting blown around. It's gonna be a bad day. Yeah, it's February. At least there's no damage at my house.........not yet. We've tried to prepare and have everything "battened down" that we can think of. Hope you all are safe where ever you are!

Computer trouble

2009-02-09T16:42:00.005-05:00

Well, shucks! My computer monitor went kerpluey. My repair guy says "Replace it." But now I have a choice to make. Buy just a monitor and keep my computer tower with XP and hope it doesn't go next or buy a notebook with that yucky Vista on it. I'm going to wait to see what my Tax refund might be, could be I can't afford the new notebook anyway. But this curtails my designing until I can make a decision. Luckily, I already uploaded your birthday gift and I'll give it to you early, just in case something else goes wrong. (It was going to be handed out on Friday the 13th. Yep! Every so often my birthday is actually on Friday the 13th!!!) I can still get online at work, so let me know if you like it or not. That will cheer me up, anyway.

I hate February. I know it's my birthday month but if something is going to go wrong in my life, it happens in Feb. My husband left me on my birthday, then the divorce was final in Feb. My dad died in Feb. My 1st cousin died in Feb. Last Feb, my mother was gravely ill and we almost lost her. She has since promised me NOT to die in Feb! LOL! These are just SOME of the things but they are the most devastating. So, here we go again. Keep your fingers crossed for me as this is just the beginning of the month. Who knows what else can go wrong before March 1st!

Ok, my birthday gift to you! (Say a prayer as you download. My bad luck has never rubbed off on anyone else before this but it helps to be on the safe side!) I just made up a little group of genealogy wordart to go with Grandmother's Parlor. I love genealogy!! Hope you do, too!

Here's the preview:

And you can go here to download:
Grandmother's Parlor Wordart Gift

Ok, hope this works and you can see the preview. I've never tried to put an image from photobucket on here before. I always upload a pic from my computer so hope you can see it and that you like genealogy as much as I do! Until next time - BIG HUGS!

Workin' on somethin' new!

2009-02-04T15:52:00.002-05:00

I've got a birthday this month so thought I'd give you all a gift! LOL! Well, they are all gifts as I'm not confident enough yet to apply to a store and.....well....... I just like doing the freebies so I don't disappoint anyone. If I mess up, you can throw it out! LOL! Anyway, I'm working on something to go with my Grandmother's Parlor kit and, if I get it done, Kimb's new color challenge at DSO has PURLPLE in it (as in Amethyst, February's birthstone) so thought I'd work with that and see what I come up with. Purple is my sister, Bobbi's and my daughter, Rachel's favorite color so I can't name it after either one or the other will get jealous! Bwahahahaha!!! I love you, guys!

So be sure to check back on the 13th for my birthday gift to you and watch for my color challenge contribution, too!

Layouts to show

2009-01-29T21:50:00.005-05:00

Eye from SBM did another layout for me using my Grandmother's Parlor kit. It's of her beautiful daughter, Sheena. I love the way she used the frame over and over to create a new frame. And she used one of the flowers behind it so it looks like ruffles. Isn't that creative?

And Jazzy has new wordart in her store at Digiscrap Obsession. The first one is called Funky Love Lines and I used it for this layout of my parents. The kits I used were called Flitting Fall Faeries and Rough to the Touch by Studio Lorie at Scrapbookgraphics. Gives their romantic kiss a Gone With the Wind look, don't you think? The photo was taken about 1944.

And here I used her new Girl Power kit. This is my beautiful granddaughter, Tayler. I love her SO much! I used 2 of Carena's Designs kits to make this. Her Princess Story and Susan kits.

So go check out all these new kits from everyone and enjoy your weekend! We'll be watching the Super Bowl at my house. How about yours?

Grandmother's Parlor

2009-01-25T15:03:00.004-05:00

My Grandmother's Parlor was just inside the front door. It had double doors that slid back into the wall on either side. It was where the family gathered to share their day, play games (no TV, you know) and sit and watch their siblings court their future spouses. I never saw it in it's heyday. My father was born during the depression and after most of his siblings were grown. I never even knew my grandparents. But the old home place is still in the extended family and the parlor has been remodeled after going through 2 major floods. But in my mind, I imagine a room with lots of flowers on the upholstery and hand-made pillows, prizm fringes on the lamps, antique pictures on the wall and cherry woodwork everywhere.

With this picture in my mind, I designed my new kit using the colors of Kimb's Jan Color Challenge at DSO. Sorry it took me so long to get it to you. Time just seemed to get away from me and here it is the last week of Jan already. I struggled with the prizm fringe for a couple weeks. Still not what I want but it's OK. Anybody know of a good tutorial for prizms? LOL! After this I don't care if I see another prizm. I included an old antique photo of a relative of mine. You can always kick him out if you don't like having him around. The hatbox and gloves were gifts from a family wedding. I hope you like this one.

The scrapbook, hatbox, gloves and rose in the bottom corner of my preview are a cluster but all parts are included individually, too.

You can go here for your downloads:

See ya, next time!

Awwww......

2009-01-20T22:15:00.003-05:00

Look what I got to show off!! Finally I've found someone who's used my kits! My very good friend, Eye, from Scrapbook Max sent me this layout she did of her kids, Sheena and Ethan running into the house from out in the cold. They live WAY up north. I absolutlely LOVE what she did with it!

Isn't this "Cool"? Thanks, Eye!

Eye was one of the first friends I made at SBM. She gave me lots of pointers on doing layouts (as I was a complete idiot!) I had never done digital scrapbooking and when I found SBM it was so EASY! I loved all the things I could do and I didn't have to cut or paste anything! LOL! And I didn't have to buy the same thing again because I cut or pasted it wrong! Hahaha! Eye taught me how to make Out Of Bounds pics for the first time, too!

She is so very generous with all her time and efforts at giving us lots of freebies herself that I'm so glad I can finally give something back to her. Come on over to SBM and look in the Embellishments for some of Eye's freebies. Thank you, Eye for everything you do for all of us at SBM.

Jazz's New Wordart

2009-01-18T22:03:00.003-05:00

Hahaha! When Jazz sent me her new wordart, I just sat and laughed my way through it. Then of course, I had to start thinking of which photos I could use for these.

Her new wordart is called Humor Fest! Get the idea? And they are just cute little sayings that will brighten your spirits. Here's the 1st photo I thought of when I read this quote. We'd gone to Disney World and Universal Studios. My sister's husband broke the rules by riding this........."caterpillar"? It's in Dr. Seuss Land so I'm sure that's not what it's called. It's in the "baby" gym area with the slides and the springy rides and the cushioned floor. Wanting to make my grandkids smile, he climbed into the saddle. But he had quite a time getting back OUT of that saddle after he got in! Bwahahahahaha!

Here's the simple layout I did. Just blended the "best" photo into the back ground so you'd be sure to see him real good! Hahahaha! The kids really liked Universal Studios and getting eaten by Jaws was a real "treat".

Awwwww......such nice memories. We'll have to think about going back again soon.

Look for Jazz's Humor Fest wordart coming this week to her store exclusively at DigiScrapObsession.com.

No comment on Grandmother's Parlor. I promised to work on it and I did.........I just didn't get it done with 6 grandkids running in and out. But I made a lot of progress. Should be ready soon.

Just one more!

2009-01-16T22:28:00.003-05:00

Ok, just one more sketch effect done in PSE of my new grandson, Caden. The kit is from GoDigitalScrapbooking.com and is their January Collab kit called Winter New Year. The fairy is from a kit called Enchanted Forest by Madame Mim and Milla Designs. The wordart was done by my friend, Bekah_E. It's a freebie from the Magical Moments Challenge that she is hosting at her new store, Enchanted Studio Scraps! I'm so happy for her! Way to go, Bekah! I wish you luck with your new endeavor.

I'm going to be working on Grandmother's Parlor this weekend! Promise! I've just had so many commitments I haven't had much time but I WILL try to finish it this weekend. See you on Monday!~

Cold! Brrrrr!

2009-01-15T04:03:00.002-05:00

It's so cold here (and going to get colder) that I was inspired to change my desktop to one a bit more appropriate for winter. (Mine still had Nov's calendar on it! LOL!) I used another kit from WaterLO Project and it's FREE! Yea!

This is my digital sketch of my granddaughter, Adreanna. Doesn't she have the most beautiful eyes? I think this looks considerably more "chilly" for a wintertime computer desktop, don't you?

New Layout!

2009-01-14T20:09:00.005-05:00

I've been so busy that I've been ignoring my duties as CT for Jazzy at Words to Delite so I made a layout for my daughter, Rachel, of her new son with her dad at Christmas. (My ex-husband...... so this was a labor of love for my daughter.......and I do mean LABOR!) Nah, it wasn't so hard! I just kept looking at that smile on Caden's little face! One of his first! Isn't he just adorable?

I used a kit by WaterLO Project called At The Goldmine and scraplifted a layout I saw there by Libca. The Caden Ornament was given to me from a friend at Scrapbook Max, Mommabird, when Caden was born.

The beautiful wordart is from Jazz's Tiny Love Notes available at DSO. I did recolor it so you could see it on the dark background. Here's a preview of her new kit.

I'm still working on Grandmother's Parlor but I'll have it done soon! I promise!!

"Surprisingly Simple" challenge!

2009-01-14T08:31:00.002-05:00

EilaJean has challenged all her readers to post this on their blog today. Seems there is a "surprisingly simply" way to help with world hunger. Just a simple click and money will be donated to the Hunger Site. So, because I'm one of her readers and because I believe we should all try to help where we can (and because I love to do challenges) I'm going to paste her info here on how YOU, too, can help stop world hunger. Doesn't cost you a penny, just a moment of your time each and every day. Put it on your homepage, put it in your favorites, paste a sticky note at the top of your computer; whatever you have to do to remind yourself that someone needs your "click" today!

The link is below - if you would like to head over now and check it out...
http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=1

(quote:EilaJean) "This is the post on Snopes where I checked out the validity of it... I pasted it in the blog so you could read it yourself. So now I have done one more thing to make the world a little better place... and there are still 11 1/2 months left in 2009. WOO HOO! I really do hope you will check it out... do it, and pass it on."

snopes.com: The Hunger Site http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/hungersite.asp

The Hunger Site Claim: You can direct money to hunger relief simply by clicking a button on a website.Status: True.Origins: Over the last few years we've seen a plethora of altruistic appeals circulate on the Internet, each one claiming that you could donate money to a worthy cause or right some terrible injustice — at no cost to you — merely by taking some simple action, such as forwarding an e-mail message. (See our Jessica Mydek page for one example.)

All of these messages were hoaxes — until The Hunger Site came along. At The Hunger Site, you can "donate" money to hunger relief simply by clicking a button. How? The Hunger Site, the creation of John Breen, a 42-year-old computer programmer fromBloomington, Indiana, was funded by various companies who sponsored the site for a day. Every sponsor donated the approximate cost of 1/4 of a cup of food to the United Nations' World Food Program for each user who clicks on the site during the day. (If multiple companies were sponsoring the site, the amount of food donated was multiplied by the number of sponsors.) Breen created the site in June 1999 as a personal project to help deal with hunger in developing countries, and the response was soon so overwhelming that he spent most of his time administering the site even though he received no income, loans, grants, or donations to compensate him for his time and effort or pay his expenses. Eventually The Hunger Site became part of GreaterGood.com, a shopping portal where customers could direct up to 15% of the cost of every purchase to causes they selected. GreaterGood.com ceased operations in July 2001, and The Hunger Site was temporarily shut down until CharityUSA.com took over its operations a few weeks later.

Other sites also offer similar means for visitors to aid various charities:

l Animal Rescue Site
l The Breast Cancer Site

Additional Information:

World Food Program
The Hunger Site (World Food Program)http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/hungersite.asp?
print=y (1 of 2)1/13/2009 9:40:19 AM

snopes.com: The Hunger Site
World Food Program

The Hunger Site press release (World Food Program)
Last updated: 8 October 2007
The URL for this page is
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/hungersite.asp

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2009 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com. Sources Sources:Kirby, Carrie. "Millions Eat Because People Click a Button."San Francisco Chronicle. 20 December 1999. Rowe, Peter. "Fighting Hunger with the Click of a Button."The San Diego Union-Tribune. 15 July 1999 (p. E1).
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/hungersite.asp?
print=y (2 of 2)1/13/2009 9:40:19 AM

Oh, dear!

2009-01-12T16:20:00.003-05:00

There's a couple of new shows coming on that I've just GOT to watch, 24 and American Idol being the top two. How am I ever going to get anything done in the designing field? 24 is on AGAIN tonight. Part 2 of the season premier. Then tomorrow and probably Wed and Thurs, too, is American Idol's pre-Hollywood tryouts. I used to have a cheval mirror that stood in the next room and was angled so that I could see the TV from my computer chair but the grandkids knocked it over and broke it. My computer has a TV tuner built in but PS uses so much memory that I wouldn't want to bring them both up at the same time, can't see it well enough behind the PS window anyway since I need that screen BIG! LOL! Well, this is a problem that I'm just going to have to fix! Guess I need a new mirror! Hahahahaha!

(silence.........) Well, isn't my life just the most exciting thing. I've got nothing new to share. But what can I expect? I spend my time at work or in front of the computer or the TV. Maybe I should go visit Kimb! She ALWAYS seems to be having fun! Hey, Kim! Here I come! (in my dreams.)

It's almost done!

2009-01-11T19:26:00.003-05:00

I worked off and on all weekend on my DSO color challenge kit. I decided to go with a victorian feel and named it Grandmother's parlor. Get the idea? But now it's 7:30 PM and I have to get stuff packed away so I'll be ready to watch one of my favorite TV shows, 24. The season premier starts tonight!! With the writers strike, 24 got put on hiatus last year so it's been a LONG wait! But a new day is about to begin.

So anyway, I've run out of time to finish my kit. But be looking for it in the next few days. I think you'll like it. AND, I'll TRY to get on here more often. Now that the new baby's here and Christmas is over with, I think I can get back into the swing of things. I've got LOTS of layouts to get done!! Gotta run!! Jack's back!

57 Flavors

2009-01-04T20:09:00.008-05:00

I thought my daughter had all the kids in the room with her, she thought I had the littlest one, Adreanna. Has that ever happened to you? Probably so. Well, I walked into the kitchen and the refrigerater door was standing wide open!

I yelled back into the other room, "Who left the door open?" I heard this little tiny "Me!" from behind the fridge. When I looked over, this is what I saw!
She'd opened the children's yogurt. ALL 6 OF THEM! Bwahahahaha! I couldn't help it. I ran for the camera! Of course, if she'd spilled them, I'd have been a bit more upset! Haha! But no, she had a couple spoons in a couple of them and was trying all the flavors! OK. Maybe not 57 but all 6 flavors!

Most of them were on her face! Here she looks like she's looking around saying "What? What are you looking at? I didn't do it!"

She tried to share with her brother after we found her. But then we managed to get her to take them to the table.

Could you be angry with this little face? Me, either! Hahahahaha!

Well, I'm working on a new kit for the DSO Color Challenge. It's a very soft color swatch this time. I'm thinking fantasy or English garden maybe? Of course, I've never been to England so I'm guessing about how their gardens look. LOL! I'll let you know soon what I decide.

Ok, you get 2 today!

2009-01-01T16:28:00.004-05:00

I just had to show off this pic of my new grandson, Caden. Look at that hair!!! It's so long! LOL! If you knew us, you'd know why this tickles me so much. My family always has bald babies. Or mostly bald. And they tend to stay that way for the first YEAR! Caden's hair is so soft and long. We know it's probably going to fall out soon and wanted to be sure we got good pics of just how MUCH hair he used to have before he joins the ranks of the other babies in the family........and his Great-Uncles Jeff and Gary. LOL!

Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-01T12:53:00.014-05:00

I hope you all had a happy and safe New Year's Eve. I spent the evening reading a good book! LOL!

I wanted to share a few of our Christmas pics with you. I love seeing children unwrapping gifts, don't you? The excitement is mostly mine, I must admit. LOL! I can't wait for Christmas to get here and then.......just like that, it's over. Oh well, it'll be back next year. Above you can see the cake we had for Christmas Eve. My sister, Cathy, made it all. Even the trees and the cookies for the people.

Below is my mother's tree with most of the presents under it. A couple people came after this bringing more. In the background you can see my grandchildren looking for reindeer tracks in the mud. (We didn't have a white christmas, just a wet one.)

Then this is my daughter, with 2 of her children and Tyler on the floor waiting to start!

Adreanna opening gifts!

Cameron and Tyler LOVE the new gun. Tyler already has one like it so now they can play soldier together! It makes lots of noise and has a flashlight for night playing.

A group shot toward the other end of the room. You can just see my grandchildren, Rheanna and Tayler in the foreground. We had a total of 29 people there all unwrapping gifts at the same time. Course, most of it is just for the kids. I was sitting in the center of the room, taking pics toward both ends so it's a huge room and THIS year we each got a trashbag for our corner before we started so the paper cleanup was a breeze! Except for my poor brother, Jeff, who had to carry out 12 garbage bags to the road for pickup! Usually, we have paper piled waist high and someone has to go through and gather it all up afterwards. LOL!

Caden got to meet some new relatives. (And they got to meet him!) Here's his great-grandmother (my 80 year-old mother). And below, Caden meets his cousin, Derek.

Before I go, I want you to see a "pencil sketch" effect I did of one of my granddaughters. This is the original shot of Rheanna from Christmas.

And here's how the "sketch" turned out!

Cool, huh! I did one of all 4 of Rachel's kids. I'll show them to you another time. Hope your new year is bright, happy, healthy and prosperous!

I told you I was tired.

2008-12-22T09:03:00.002-05:00

I just noticed in the preview, I picked the wrong skipoles file. It wasn't cleaned up yet. Please, oh please, tell me I didn't include it in the kit. If I did, and you don't have the software to erase it, just leave me a note and I'll re-do that zip with the correct skipoles.......or you could just pretend it's snow! Hahahaha! I'm so sorry. Beginner's mistake. I need to remember to delete the files I clean or change as I go. Hopefully, I picked the right one for the zip.

Like everyone else, I'm running out of time to wrap presents! Well, like most people, I'm sure. Every year, doesn't matter if I'm done shopping in Nov or on Christmas Eve, I always leave the wrapping till the last second. I hate that part. I don't even put ribbons or bows on the last ones. I just want to get it DONE! So now I'm looking for the tape I just KNOW I bought and wondering if I have enough wrapping paper for all these gifts. Wow! Did I buy all this? How am I gonna load all this in my minivan along with suitcases for 8 people plus the 8 people themselves? Hmmmmm.........nah! Not gonna happen. Somebody's gonna have to ride on top!

I'll be away for Christmas with my extended family, showing off the new baby and how much the other grandkids have grown. So, it'll be another week before I manage to get back on here! I'll be working on another kit after that. Don't yet have anything in mind but I'll be mulling some things over in my mind while I'm gone. I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season. Merry Christmas!

A new freebie!

2008-12-21T16:50:00.004-05:00

I worked all day on a kit for KimB's color challenge at DSO. Now I'm too tired to do anything but just show you the preview and give you the links. Haha! I didn't even name it! Oh, well. Hope you like it.

Here's the links to the download:

Papers

Elements

WhooWhoo.......

2008-12-15T02:09:00.008-05:00

Choochoochoochoo......All Aboard! The Holly Jolly Express has left the station! I've made a layout that I may use as a Christmas card using items from my portion.

At final boarding there were 80 stops along the route. This track makes stops all over the world so if someone's post isn't up yet (due to time differences) just bookmark it and you can hit it on the return trip.

The fare for this train ride isn't expensive. You just need to be sure to leave a nice Thank You on all the blogs in their comments before going to their download pages.

Here is a preview of my portion. Hope you can find something here you'd like to have as a "souvenir" of your train ride! LOL!

And here is where you go to download the items at my stop.

Feel free to return to the station at anytime by clicking the logobelow. Make sure you bookmark it in case you can't ride the train allthe way through to the end today.

Here's the complete blogroll :

Stop 01 - BeaconScrap

Stop 02 - Carolyn Ritter

Stop 03 - Karrie Thomas of Kez Creates Designs

Stop 04 - Crafted by Gina

top 05 - DesignsByAmilyn

Stop 06 - Michelle Angeles

Stop 07 - Throwing Some Scraps Around

Stop 08 - Country Hollow Scraps

Stop 09- ScrapinDaisy from Designs by Ruth

Stop 10 - Bits O’Scrap

Stop 11 - Wimpychompers Creations

Stop 12 - QueenBrat Designs

Stop 13- Mumure

Stop 14 - Frosted Illusions

Stop 15 - Aussie Scraps

Stop 16 - HutchsBaby Faith in Christ Scraps

Stop 17 - MoveFearlessly Designs

Stop 18 - swordascrappin

Stop 19 - Kismet

Stop 20 - Missladyhawke

Stop 21 - The Queen and the Princess Designs

Stop 22 - Vanjo Designs

Stop 23 - Angi's Place

top 24 - SotoCreations

Stop 25 - The Mathematician's Assistant

Stop 26 - Crops2Dawn Creations

Stop 27 - S.G.Rowe Designs

Stop 28 - Amy's Scraps

Stop 29 - jaydensmama

Stop 30 - Crystal Jozlin, Crystal's Creations By Design

Stop 31 - Digital Creations by Amber

Stop 32 - Kitten Scraps

Stop 33 - Grandma Pat

Stop 34 - Grunge and Glitter Scraps

Stop 35 - JIC Creations

Stop 36 - Butterfly Kisses

Stop 37 - Babyyaks

Stop 38 - Simply Beautiful Creations

Stop 39 - Pretty Scrappy

Stop 40 - TammyJo's Creations

Stop 41 - CMB Designs

Stop 42 - Christy Skaggs

Stop 43 - SnapScrapCreate

Stop 44 - Believe Designs

Stop 45 - Linda's Dream Designs

Stop 46 - MIP Scraps

Stop 47 - Miss Erin's Scraps

Stop 48 - WillowRaven at Purple Dragonfly Creations

Stop 49 - Digital Keepsakes

Stop 50 - Blind Sight Designs

Stop 51 - Dreamland Designs

Stop 52 - Hummie's World

Stop 53 - Northern Lights Designs

Stop 54 - DesignZ by DeDe

Stop 55 - twisted angel

Stop 56 - Desert Bloom Designs

Stop 57 - Rachelz_Expressionz

Stop 58 - Creations By Jessa

Stop 59 - Bits'N'Bobs

Stop 60 - Amanda's Scrappy Creations

Stop 61 - Heartfelt Perfections

Stop 62 - Candie

Stop 63 - Just For You DigiScraps

Stop 64 - Cuddlebeez Scraps

Stop 65 - Prairie Sage

Stop 66 - Creekside Cottage Designs

Stop 67 - PinkuPixie Digital Designs

Stop 68 - Mariscrap

Stop 69 - Marbled Circle

Stop 70 - Panda Bear Designs

Stop 71 - Kolor'Scapez!

Stop 72 - Stellarfairie designs

Stop 73 - Manda @ Disaster In Designs

Stop 74 - Danielle [DMK Designs]

Stop 75 - Katlen Kreations

Stop 76 - Babydoll's Scrapz

Stop 77 - Angel Flower

Stop 78 - Designs by Teri

Stop 79 - SandEz Creationz

Stop 80 - Sistermoon Scraps

New Winter Blog design

2008-12-13T11:42:00.003-05:00

I changed the fall colors to go with my winter creekside pic. This is the same creek by my house just taken from a different viewpoint. And the snowman blinkie was created by me, also! Isn't he cute?

I just wanted to pop in and remind you about the Holly Jolly Express. It pulls out of the station Mon, Dec 15th. At the final count, there are 80 different designers participating, all using the same color swatch. So if you get them all, you'll have a Mighty Mega Christmas kit!!!

One more layout of my new grandson. I promise not to bombard you with layouts of him but I just have to show you this. Their first night together, these two brothers sailed off to dreamland side by side with Wynken, Blynken and Nod. Of course, Mommy had to move the baby back into his bed later but first she ran to get me to take a picture of them. I think they are going to be best buddies!

I used freebies from friends of mine at Scrapbook Max available in the forum's Sharing Corner. The background paper is from Fourfoxes called Starry, starry night. The Old Man Moon and the ship was from Mommabird. And the "blankie" was created from freebie embellisments done by SBM designer Fiona Storey as a challenge posting bonus.

He's finally here!

2008-12-10T18:57:00.003-05:00

Caden Scott arrived on Dec 9th, 2008 at 11:11 A.M. He was 8 lbs 12 oz. and was 20 inches long. His older brother and sisters can't get enough of being around him. Each little feature is a source of wonder (and questions). "He's so soft" and "He's got little arms. I got BIG arms" and "He's sleepy. He's yawning" are heard over and over again. (Along with "Be easy" and "Not so rough." LOL!) His birth was quite easy, lasting only 7 hours from beginning of labor to delivery. Here's a layout I made of Caden and his siblings at their first meeting. This Is Love!

I used a freebie kit from Angelwithin Designs (Fiona Storey) at ScrapbookMax for the ribbon, lace, bow, buttons and tie, and journal tag (also used tag for frame around pics). Used Lashana Maya kit by Deanne Gow Smith at Scrapbook Max for the background paper (recolored) and the Our Baby and stitches over lace. Used Moonlight Pearl by Deanne Gow Smith for the larger frame with pearls (recolored). Wordart by KimB's Designs This Is Love kit. Thanks, ladies, for letting me use your kits to share our joy with the world!

Remember, the Holly Jolly Blog Train pulls out on Dec 15th! Be sure to come back to get Christmas freebies from over 70 designers (me included)!

Waiting......waiting.......

2008-12-03T09:37:00.002-05:00

As my profile to the left tells you, I am expecting a new grandbaby this week. Today is the actual due date but the Dr told her on the 20th it could be any day so we've just been waiting......and waiting.....and..... Well, you get the idea. I'm sorry you've been missing me, but the holidays and grandchildren and a little illness has kept me from getting on here to update you.

I have finished my portion of the Holly Jolly Blog Train. I'll try to get it wrapped up and sent in and you can get it and ALL the other 70 some designers' kits on the 15th of Dec. Just stop by here and I'll link you to mine and the page where you can get the rest of the kits.

I've done a couple wordarts to share but haven't felt like getting on to set them up for sharing. It's nothing serious. My blood pressure has been quite elevated, 227/110, and they gave me medicine to bring it down real fast. I'm supposed to take it twice a day but it completely knocks me out for about 2-3 hours, so I have to take it in the evening and during the night so I'm able to stay awake at work. (Which is why I haven't been able to get on here. I'm asleep! LOL!) When I went back to the Dr to have the blood pressure taken again, it was still too high so they want me to take it THREE times a day. Uh......when?!!?!! And now, I'm afraid to take it at all this week in case my daughter, who lives with me with her other 3 children, goes into labor. How am I going to drive if I'm loopy and drowsy from the medicine? So I haven't been feeling real well and now having headaches, too. Anyway, not feeling too creative at the moment. Actually this is the first time I've even been on to check out anyone else's blogs, too. I miss you guys!! I'll try to get around to everyone and will definitely be on to let you know about the new baby boy we are waiting on .......and waiting......and waiting.....

Bunny's Food Friday request

2008-11-22T12:01:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I'm a week late. That's just me! I eventually get it done. Hahaha! On Friday the 14th, Bunny Cates requested that we post a favorite recipe on our blogs and add a link for it on her blog. My new favorite is a wonderful, meaty, chili recipe my daughter, Rachel, and I made. Here's the recipe for you to try:

Ingredients:
3 lbs lean ground beef
1 1/2 Cups tomato juice
2 med onions chopped
1 green bell pepper chopped
1/4 Cup chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder (more or less)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 regular cans of light red kidney beans
Directions:
Cook ground beef in a Dutch Oven over med-high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and return to pot. Add all ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add grated cheddar cheese to top of each bowl. Good with cornbread or as dip with crackers.

There you go, Bunny! Sorry I'm late! Hmmmmm......just noticed.....she's not on my blog list. I guess I always get to her site from Kim's. I'll have to get her added!

Well, doggone it! I just noticed it was supposed to be a dessert recipe. I'll add that one later. Gotta run for now!

*update* Ok, here's the REAL favorite recipe. (stupid me!) And it's a dessert! Mwahahaha! This was made by my ex-MIL (who still loves me) every holiday. It's called Paris Puffins.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup soft shortening (or margarine)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup mik
1/3 cup butter (or margarine) melted
1/2 sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 12 medium muffin cups. Mix thoroughly shortening, sugar and egg. Blend flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together then add to shortening mixture adding alternately with milk. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 20-25 minutes. Immediately roll in melted butter, then in a mixture of the last sugar and cinnamon. Serve hot or cold!

Another layout!

2008-11-16T15:52:00.004-05:00

Another layout that I made using one of my kits. This was from the Rheanna kit. Here we are sitting around the table at my uncle's place in about 1973. That's me standing behind my parents and my little sister. I'm thankful for this family God gave me. We are all very close. I used Thanksgiving Stamps wordart from Jazzy's Words to Delight available at DSO to decorate my paper and the fall foliage came from Studio Lorie's Flitting Fall Faeries again.

That's something I will have to work on. Adding enough "stuff" to make good clusters. Maybe if I were better at MAKING clusters themselves, I'd be better at designing the elements to make them. Hmmmm.......will have to study up on this. Look over kits made by people I think do a good job of including lots of "stuff", like Carena's designs. She has a new kit out called Xmas Wonderland (sorry about the "X". I hate taking Christ out of Christmas.) She has tons of goodies in there for making clusters. And Studio Lorie ALWAYS has "stuff" for clusters......so many I can never use them all!

I'm working on a freebie kit for the HollyJolly Train. Check out the blinkie to the right for the departure date! Well, I guess that's all for today. I'll keep you updated on what I find in the "stuff" department.

My 2nd kit!

2008-11-14T00:11:00.004-05:00

This post will be short but sweet. I did a kit for Kimb's DSO November Color Challenge. Loved the color swatch for this! Come on over and get the entire mega kit from all the people that made kits. I'm sure Kimb won't mind. And while you're there, use mine or any of the others kits to make a layout and get Kim's posting bonus, too! My friends, PkDoll and Crops2Dawn both made BEAUTIFUL kits. You just gotta come see them!

I managed to keep this kit down to 3 zips! Much shorter than my 1st kit of 7 zips! Hahahaha! Here's the preview!!If you like it, you can get it here!

Elements #1

Elements #2

Papers

A Layout......

2008-11-10T00:02:00.003-05:00

.....using my new kit. This is my granddaughter, Adreanna. She IS truly a little princess. She's very shy around new people and gives everyone this haughty stare. If you make a layout using my kit, please pop back in and let me know the link so I can leave you some love.

Isn't she a little doll?

My First Kit!

2008-11-09T11:07:00.005-05:00

Yea! I got an A! I only had to fix a couple stray pixels on 4 items. I've combined everything together, both the homework and extra stuff I made while learning. There are a total of 40 elements and 20 papers. Not sure why some papers came out as so much larger of a file size but I've shared the entire folder with you below. I had to make it into 7 different zips to keep them to a manageable download size of 45mb or less. Hahaha!

Special thanks to Sherah Kraan(skrapperdigitals), the teacher at the digidesignacademy, for the cherrywood frame for my banner label. We were all alone in the last chat and I told her I thought I would change the color of my banner to match each kit. Then she mentioned how much she liked the photo and I told her I had a much larger photo on my wall in a pretty cherry wood frame. She came up with this frame for my label and I just LOVE it! I added the burlap mat and it came out really nice, don't you think? Well, here's your preview:

And here's the paper preview (not all shown)

And here's the link to the folder where you can get all 7 zips. (Hahaha! Sorry!

Her Majesty's Gems folder

It's coming............

2008-11-03T10:02:00.002-05:00

This is it! Homework is done. The extras I made along the way are ready. Everything is in place. Just waiting on the teacher. Soon I'll be posting my very first kit.

I'm new to ALL of this designing stuff. I'm learning my software as I learn the design process. But I'm pleased with how it came out. I love the deep, rich colors. I mean, what girl wouldn't love the colors of Saphire, Emerald, Topaz and Amethyst? I wish I could be surrounded with it! Hahahaha! Five of them on every finger! (rotfl) Anyway, just be patient a little while longer. Gotta see how much I need to fix after the teacher sends it back then I'll let you all have it.

My friend from SBM (and most every other site I like to visit), Bekah, gave me an award called the Proximidade Award or "Friendship around the World" award. It's in spanish but very generally translates to extending the hand of friendship around the world to blogs that have that "something special". Thank you, Bekah! It's a very special award in this big world of digi-scrapbooking and I'm honored that you thought of me. I have to pass it on to 8 people. Whew! Most of the bloggers I know have this one and because it extends the hand of friendship to those around the world, I think I'll take some time to look around for people I don't know well and "extend the hand of friendship" to them! I always wanted to travel the world and meet people!

Well, guess I'll go back to work. For now, I'll be just like you. Just waiting. And waiting...............and waiting.............

A Freebie for you?

2008-10-30T01:17:00.005-04:00

Well, maybe. If this works. I got PkDoll to check out my link to 4shared. She said it worked for her so I'm gonna try to share it with you! I did the technique challenge over at http://www.godigitalscrapbooking.com/ hosted by Helen Ehrenhofer. Helen is always "challenging" us to do something new or odd or HARD! (*rotfl*) But that's the reason I so enjoy doing them! It's usually something I've never done or do the hard way! Haha. This challenge was to create and use a "word mask" in a layout.

So.............I thought and thought about what word to use. All the "traditional" words popped out at me like FAMILY, CHRISTMAS, and THANKSGIVING. But I wanted something a little different. So I thought of JINGLE and YULETIDE and even SLEIGH RIDE! But those might have been a little harder to find something to scrap with. I mean, really! I love sleigh rides! But how many of us have really taken a ride in one and would have photos? I almost went with SLEDDING because that would fit a lot of layouts but then I thought of all the family traditions we share at this time of year. So TRADITION became my word. You can use this word mask for any of your family traditions whether it be that big Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner or just the Friday Family Movie Night!

Above is my layout using the word mask. I used Studio Lorie's Flitting Fall Faeries for the flowers available at http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/ The background is my own. Here is the word mask for you if you want it.

You can download it here!

A slightly different look.....

2008-10-27T11:04:00.003-04:00

Forgot to tell you, I updated the header a bit. Very simple. Very relaxing. Made a blinkie to go with it but I think I made it too big. Hahaha! Well............. skrapperdigitals gave us 2 different sizes to pick from and I picked the biggest one! I wanted to show it off! Hahaha! Oh, well. I wanted to be able to move the butterfly around anyway so I'll try to resize when I get that part done. So hold off on collecting the blinkie if you would. But at least you can see I'm doing all the assignments! Yes, if you take the course, you have to make up a blinkie, too.

It's really easy with PSE5. It already has the Animation built in so you don't have to use an outside animater. Go to File>Save for Web and another window will pop up. Make sure to choose GIF and click on the Animate square. Colors are at 256 and dither is at 100%. Choose how fast you want the frames to move per second. And Voila! You're done! Save it somewhere on your computer. Then go to photobucket (or the storage place of your choice) and save it there so you can use the html code. (Crops2Dawn had to help me figure out how to add them to my blog so you could click and go there. Thanks, Croppy!) Check out my favorite choices in the column to the right for Places You Just Have To Go To Before You Die!

And I just noticed something about my bows! I must be holding my mouth funny or else I'm leaning too far to the left because the bow is always "bigger" on the left side. Do you see that, too? Right there! That left curved part! It's "longer" or something. Hmmmm........gotta go fix that................

Well......what do you think?

2008-10-26T18:06:00.005-04:00

I worked on several things over the weekend. I think I'm almost ready to submit my assignment. I just have to make a decorative border.......hmmmm......nope! No ideas are coming to me yet. Hahaha! But some of you asked to see my ironed flat bow so here it is.

And here's the liquified bow I made. Much better but still needs some............Ummph! I found the liquify works better with the plain bow. The decorations kept "blowing up" and "sliding" all over the place. I quess the flat one would be OK for some layouts as well so I'll keep it, too.

Have you noticed the "Blogs I visit Daily" area over to your right? I fixed it so that I always know when someone has updated their blog and how long ago. That way I'm not spending time hopping around just to see the same blog I read yesterday! If you stop by MY blog everday, you'll know who's updated, too! (snicker, snicker) Then I'll have visitors EVERY DAY!!! Mwahahahahaha!

Thanks to all my new visitors who stopped by to check me out! I hope you enjoyed yourselves and will stop back by again and again! And a very special thanks to all who left comments. You really made me feel encouraged about my decision to start this. Hugs to all of you!

Welcome.......

2008-10-24T10:06:00.002-04:00

to all my new visitors! (I hope I have some and I'm not just talking to myself.) Today is the first day that I'VE actually gone out and told the digi-world that I'm here. My fellow CT members introduced me on their blogs and I told my family they could stop in and visit but today I spent a little time letting my favorite sites know that I started this blog.

I, like a lot of digital scrappers, wanted to know how to design my own stuff. I searched for tutorials, took a few classes but never really made any progress along the journey until I took the Design Academy class at Stone Accents Studio taught by Sherah Kraan (Skrapperdigitals). As I've said before on this blog, it's such a well-rounded, all-encompassing course. We got info on how to make everything from patterns and textures to buttons, brads and bows. Yet, they weren't a "copy me" type of tutorial. She taught us how and let us use our imaginations to create our own ideas. But we also got the behind the scenes stuff that truly makes a designer. Quality checks, the essential parts of a kit, making blinkies and blogs, gathering your creative team, desiging your terms of use, how to apply to a store for a position as a designer, resources........so, so much packed into this 8 week course. And, though I say 8 weeks, it's a progress at your own pace class. You can join at any time. Some of us are on week 8 while others are on week 2. We learn from each other's questions and have weekly chats. I highly recommend it for anyone even slightly leaning toward a more involved position in the digital scrapbooking world.

Earlier, I told you I couldn't get the bows right in PS Elements 5. I may have found a way in Real Draw Pro 4 (speaking of which, check out www.esteesbarn.com for a years worth of tutorials for $25 AND, if you buy RDP4 directly from her, it's like getting the first year free as she charges you for the RDP as part of her membership. Then it's just the renewal fee after that.) But at last nights chat, I told Sherah that I found out Elements has the liquify (I didn't know that was there!) and she showed me how I could use that to make my bow........ "puffier" is the technical term she came up with. I can accept that. My bow came out very real looking, according to her, but it looked like it had been ironed flat. Which was EXACTLY how it looked! Mwahahaha! She took my bow and sent it back.....all puffy and flowing and 3D-ish and said, "Now, here! That's what you can do with liquify!" So! I'm going to be liquifying my bow tonight. Wish me luck!

I'm so sorry!

2008-10-23T12:43:00.002-04:00

Oh, dear. (sigh) I've left you all hanging for the entire week! I'm so sorry. I was playing football with my 2 grandsons this past weekend and tripped over a hole in the ground (no, I wasn't tackled although, they did pile on top of me after I was already down! Little devils. Hahahaha!) and fell and must have somehow jarred my teeth enough to lose a filling and about 1/2 of my tooth! So I haven't felt like doing much. The tooth didn't hurt as much as the tongue that kept getting cut by the sharp edge on the tooth. And then, of course, the Dr had to poke and prod and make every other tooth sore, too. He did grind off that sharp knife edge that threatened to cut my tongue in half. Then, because I don't go to the dentist unless something is wrong, they had to do a cleaning............Now my gums hurt, too! I had to apologize to the hygenist as I haven't had a cleaning done in about 30 years. Childhood traumas and all that......you know how it goes. But, one good thing, no cavities! I just have to get this broken tooth extracted! Oh my GOSH! Decision time.......be put to sleep or just get knocked loopy and hope I don't remember any of it. If I have them put me to sleep, they can take the wisdom teeth out too. (Yes, I still have them! How do you think I got so smart? mwahahaha!) Oh, well. Taking a page from Scarlet O'Hara, "I'll think about that tomorrow!"

I can't believe it but I got an award! (wipes a tear) It came from my very good friend at Scrapbook Max, Crops2Dawn. Thanks Croppy! It's the "This blog has heart" award which means more to me than most people would think. I'll be spreading this around tonight, I hope. Another one of those things I have to figure out how to do. And I'll have to figure out how to link to everything on here. I've never blogged before, as you know. I've only been on forums where you CAN'T link to another site anywhere. But I just realized..........this is MY site. I can link to everything and everybody if I want to and no one can give me the dreaded "infraction" for doing so! Hahahahaha! So, next post I'll try to remember to leave you "directions" so you can find everything and everybody I'm talking about!

Did you like the sneak peek? Come on! Admit it! You looked, didn't ya. Those are just a small part of the kit. I got started and couldn't seem to quit. I'm still adding stuff. I should have it finished and submitted this weekend and then, after she checks it and I correct everthing, I'll post the homework part and the Add-ons here for you as my thanks for sticking with me.

No Peeking...........

2008-10-18T16:33:00.005-04:00

Well.........Ok, just one. You wanted to see what I've been working on and I wanted to get them together to see how well they work. So here's a preview. Aren't they pretty?

Hope you like them. I'll set them up as a freebie after the class so come back in about 2 weeks and you can get them then. The preview was an action from Mega-Doodle Inspired's Designer Preview Action 1 that you can get from MyScrapShop.com Very "professional designer" looking, huh? I love this rolled fabric look.

Look at my slideshow

2008-10-18T01:01:00.004-04:00

Well, I worked on adding a slideshow of some of my layouts but didn't have a lot of success. I did get them posted at the bottom of this page (You can scroll down and see my grandbabies) but I couldn't get them to fit on the sidebar. Too wide. And the directions they gave me were to create a new post and publish but I got an error saying it couldn't use the bar brackets around.....something or other. I'm not sure that would have put it at the top anyway, it might just have gone through as a regular post and disappeared after 7 days. But at least you can see them and I'll keep trying. Between trying to get this the way I want it and trying to put together my first kit..........I need a Me moment. "Calgon! Take Me Away!" Do they even still have that commercial?

Whoops.....

2008-10-17T16:01:00.003-04:00

I almost forgot to stop in here. I've been scouring tutorials for a good one for making bows in PS Elements. We don't have the warp that all the tuts call for to make that "curve" in the bow. If anybody's got one let me know but for now, Teacher (Sherah Kraan aka Skrapperdigitals) says I can use a photo extracted. That will have to do until I find something else.

We had our weekly chat at the Digi Design Academy last night and I sprung my blog on them. They all seemed to like it even though it's not finished. But they really liked my photo in the header so I thought I'd tell you, too. I took that photo in my back yard. It's down a bank so we've never been flooded but it's a nice creek to go wading or swimming in. Some areas are shallow and slow moving and have a gazillion crawdads (crayfish) swimming around that the grandbabies like to catch in their nets. Other areas are swift and the kids love having their feet knocked out from under them before being carried away on the current. Hahaha! And yet still others are deep enough for some good fishing! And all of these are within a 200 yard area or smaller so we can do any or all of the above. Now......don't you wish you had one?

Yippee!

2008-10-16T09:52:00.003-04:00

I'm doing the happy dance. I made a pattern last night for my "homework kit" that I just LOVE! I had to use it to make a paper in EVERY color and then made ribbons, too! Hahahaha! Now, how am I gonna pick which color paper gets to be in the kit? mwahahaha! That one little thing.......just a really nice pattern that I, myself, made........ (from a shape that came IN the software, for goodness sakes) ......... has me so excited I can't wait to show it off. ( shakes head)I'm such a ninny. But, since I haven't yet figured out how to put the slideshow up, I haven't tried the "insert photo here" part of the blogging either. So you'll have to wait until I figure that part out before I can give you a sneak peak. I can't offer it as a freebie until the teacher checks it for mistakes but then I'll share it with all of you.

After the paper-making spree, I had to watch the presidential debate and after that, Ghost Hunters was on Sci-fi. I never miss Ghost Hunters! Even for scrapbooking. LOL! So that's all I got done but I hope to work on those elements I TOLD you I was gonna make LAST night tonight instead.

Elements are HARD! Can I be a designer of just papers? I'm getting pretty good with papers. No, huh? Well, darn. I've got some elements that I'm going to make from photos but I also have to make up some items from scratch. Making them look 3-D in a 2-D environment makes me reject everything I come up with. But I'll keep trying. I'm bound to stumble onto that perfect technique, just like my pattern from last night........... and then I'll want to make one in every color! Hahahaha! See ya tomorrow!

Ha Ha! She found me.......

2008-10-15T10:09:00.003-04:00

Must have been when I used my link under "Blogs I Visit Daily" to get to her site. I got one comment yesterday from a good friend from Scrapbook Max. I haven't even told FAMILY that I've started this blog and here Paula left me my very first comment. Thanks, PK! Luv ya! How'd you know it was me?

Didn't get anything accomplished yesterday on my designer journey......well, except for starting up this blog. But that was homework. LOL! The reason being that I found Lorie Davison's new kit at Scrapbookgraphics and I just have to get ALL of her kits. They are always so unusual, so happy, so FUN! But she always includes regular items also making the kits so very versatile. Her "fun stuff" reminds me of Dr Seuss, a favorite author of mine as a child and of my grandchildren, now. Her new kit is called Flitting Fall Faeries and of course I have to get the "Collection with Everything In It" so I spent the evening downloading 16 different zips (most of them over 50 MBs). Can't wait to start using them. Maybe I can add one of those slide shows on here and show you some layouts I make. Hmmmmm........See? Still working on the blog. Told you it would change along the way.

Tonight, I hope to work on my "homework kit" that I have to make for the Design Academy. Got a few ideas for embellishments and want to work on those. I have several papers made already. After completing the class, the next step is to start creating kits for the color challenges done at a lot of sites. That's where I'll get the most exposure and will have to sit back and bite my nails until I get some feed back from the people downloading and USING the kits. Their (your) feedback will help me to continue to work on and improve my style.

My favorite color challenge is hosted by Kim Broedelet (KimB) at digital-scrapbooking.org and Kim has some new CU patterns up in her store there this week. (Gotta think "CU OK" more now than before.) One is of Halloween patterns and the other is a Geometric pattern. I also am on a Creative Team for Words to Delite by Jazzy. Her word art is sold exlusively at DSO also and she's got some Heritage Cards coming up this week probably Thursday. You should check them out!

Well. I will let you know tomorrow how the designer journey went tonight or if I was still on a "layover" from last night. I may not be able to resist using that new kit. Why isn't there more hours in a day?

The start of a new dream......

2008-10-14T15:30:00.002-04:00

My first day blogging........and I have no idea what I'm doing. LOL! I'm following a dream to become a designer of digital scrapbook products. This is my journey. Follow me as I learn what it takes to become one (and if I have IT) and hopefully soon, I'll have some freebies to share.

I started digitally scrapbooking in Nov of 2007. I had only done one paper scrapbook before going digital. It was for an album of family stories of ancestors and those still living in an attempt to preserve these stories for future generations so that these ancestors would be more than just a picture on the wall. They would have substance and meaning when we hear their names. The album turned out beautiful......and expensive! My word! I couldn't believe how much I spent on paper products. And if I didn't like it.....Oh Well! It was pasted down. I had no desire to EVER make another album. Then, a lady I ordered some paper products from recommended Scrapbook Max on her site and I bought it the same day. It was so easy! To this day, I'd rather make a layout in SBM than in my PSE 5 or RDP.

The people at SBM's forum were so very helpful in getting me started in digital scrapping. I can't name all the wonderful people who've been instrumental in getting me to this point. But I want to thank each and every one of them. Angelwithin's weekly challenges taught me a lot and the Groove's newsletter monthly challenges, too. Soon, I discovered a whole WORLD of digital scrapbooking sites and there were so many wonderful scrappers out there. I continued to improve in my layout designs with the help of all these people but then I wanted to try my hand at making my own stuff.

I took a couple designer classes, tried a few free tutorials, joined Estee's Barn RDP tutorial site and then I found the Design Academy at Stone Accents Studio. Sherah Kraan (aka skrapperdigitals) is the teacher and her class is so ........well......"complete". She includes making your own papers and elements as well as all the behind the scenes stuff like quality checks, resources, blinkies, essential & optional items in a kit, setting up your creative team, creating your logo...........and starting your first blog. So, here I am.

My blog header is non-existent at this time. I'm supposed to create my own stuff to put on it. That will come along somewhere on this journey. I like this "heritage" color so this is the template I picked but this too may change along the way. I hope to share my journey with some of you who also want to try this designer business for yourselves. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll join me again soon for some chai tea and gossip.