Time off

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

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???

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!!!

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!

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......

.....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?

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!!!