BACK TO SCHOOL THEME KIT

Hi ya'll! Can't believe that summer has flown by so fast and the children in my area are preparing to return to school already! Yikes! My 7-yr. old grandson LOVES school and looks forward to returning. He gets very attached to his teachers each year and dislikes the move from one grade to another and having to get used to new people and locations, but he always loves going to school. He's a smart little fella and loves to read, learn, do math, and play sports. We can only hope his younger sister who is almost 4 yrs. old will follow his studious ways. She is the more out-going of the two and the more likely to get into trouble because she is never quiet.

Okay, to celebrate the time of year, the design team at DK Designs has a brand new colorful kit for you called "Back To School" available at iscrapbook. It's chocked full of creative school themed elements and great papers and is so easy to work with. Here's the kit preview:

Isn't it just too cute! I'm a granny, so I love kits that I can use to scrap up my grandbabies!! The gals even have designed a matching Quick Page Album for those with less time to leisurely enjoy scrapping. Take a look:

Adorable, right?!! Hurry over the iscrapbook and pick up yours! Here's what our talented CT has done with this kit so far:

By Amanda . . .

By Anjanette . . .
By Brandy . . . And by me . . .
We celebrated Dee's last day of 1st grade at my house with one of those large cookies by Mrs. Fields from one of the local malls. Just so happens that my youngest daughter is "Mrs. Fields" by marriage, so the cookie guy who waited on us was cracking up and fearful that she was the real Mrs. Fields there to check up on them! It was a riot! Dee achieved all kinds of school awards such as winning a spelling bee, no days absent, perfect report card, and math shark award. So, we felt he deserved a slight celebration in his honor. He really enjoys participating in school, and I just hope it stays that way for him. I'm sure it makes learning a lot easier, not to mention being a good student makes it nicer for the teachers, too! We have lots of schools in our area, and; since he will be in the second grade now, he will move to a completely new location which will take him a little getting used to before he is totally comfortable again.

Well, I have a busy day tomorrow and need to make this a shorter post so I can get some decent sleep tonight. I am so guilty of staying up until the wee hours because it is so peaceful and I consider it "my time" to think straight. But tomorrow I must give of myself to others, so I think decent sleep is in order tonight.

Do check back by soon. I'm working on some beach themed freebies for my followers here and hope to be posting more of them soon! I believe they will be useful in scrapping up your vacation photos if you took a trip to the shore.

Until I return, Happy Scrapping!

Tootles!

GREAT KIT FOR BOYS + FREEBIE!!

Hi everybody! I've got to show you a new kit by DK Designs that's especially good for scrapping up your boy shots! My BFF is the mother of three boys and grandma to one boy so far, so as with her, lots of scrappers are looking for less flowery kits more in tune with rough little guys! This one is perfect if you're the mom or grandmom of males!! It's called "SNIPS, SNAILS & PUPPY DOG TAILS", and it's adorable! Have a look:

The gals have even made a set of Quick Pages from this kit for those with less time to scrap! Visit iscrapbook to get these great creations for yourself!

Here's what our CT has done with this new kit:

From Amanda . . .

From Anjanette . . .From Brandi . . .
From Cynthia . . .
and, two from me . . .

You can feel the little guy masculinity, right? Notice what a great alpha is included in this kit! Just love it! I have two little grandboys, so I had to make a LO of each one!

Next, just have to show you this LO because it turned out so well, at least I think, anyway. See what you think . . .

He's my little 3-yr. old preemie grandson "in motion" at the ocean! This was made from a gorgeous mini kit called "OCEANSIDE" by Genia Beana Scraps of Scrapable which was used in a class in the forums there. We are urging her to expand this kit and release it for sale. Don't you think so, too? Take a look at the kit preview:

I just love the colors, the coconut palm trees, the sandy frame, the shell elements, and I could go on and on!! Drop by Valerie's blog and let her know you'd like to have this kit!

I was horrified recently to find that the website Designs in Digital had been the victim of a hacker attack and the gallery, etc. was completely lost. I had most of my layouts posted there and have always found it to be such a fun site to use. I participate in a lot of the monthly challenges in their forum to gain digital scrapping experience because participation in the challenges makes you think outside of your norm. I'm pleased to tell you that the administrators at DID have a new secure server and are rebuilding the site for us, and it will be much safer in the longrun! Poor dears! That's a lot of hard work! We all had to reregister with them and start over. However, I vow to repost all of my LO's there again as I get time to work on the credits, etc. for each one. Whew! Let me show you a few of this month's challenge layouts I've completed so far:

Above is a printable digital card for the DID August Card Making Challenge. I scrapped my card using the "Friends Forever" kit by Gabby Palmer Digitals for NDIDDS. I had no idea what kind of dimensions to make my card for printing purposes, so I decided large was best and did an 8x10" to fold in the middle and fit a large envelope. Afterall, high resolution can always be scaled down easier than vice-versa, right? This can be printed also at 6 x 8 or 4 x 6 easily. Yipee, see you learn as you go!

This was my LO for the DID August Mission Digital Challenge, where we had to use at least 8 photos in the page. This one is titled "Car Wash Day", and I used DID kit "A Friendship Blooms" by Day's Digi Designs for NDIDDS to create it.


This one is titled "Deep Thoughts", and I made it for the DID August "O is for Out of Bounds" Challenge which taught us to think outside the box and place our photo and elements slightly off the page. See, this is good for me because I tend to naturally stay too symmetrical with my things. For this one I used DID kit "Cutie Pie" by Scrappy Sasha Designs for NDIDDS.

I totally got way deep into this layout. I named it "Testament of Love". This was made for the DID August "P is for Photo Mask" Challenge, and we were given a wonderful set of masks called "Messed Up" photo masks by the challenge host, Green Elephant Designs, to use. I chose the DID kit "Believe" by Mrs JayBob Designs for NDIDDS to scrap it up with. It had just the right colors for me (my favs) and wonderful spiral elements and perfect word art, not to mention the hummingbird! Just happy with the way this one turned out. It was a very special moment in time for this couple who are the parents of my DH. The photos of this event are even more beloved now as Pop has passed since this shot was taken. He was the kind of person everybody knew and loved; a humble hard-working man who loved his life, family, home, state and country. He was strong, spoke softly, had a tongue in cheek dry sense of humor that you didn't want to miss a word of, and he left such a presence behind that others try to emulate.

As you can see, my DH is doing a good job following in his dad's footsteps, just a younger version with more gab and larger humor but all the same essential values that one finds so important. This LO was for the DID August "Word Art" Challenge, and we were given a nice sampler of word art by Day's Digi Designs to use for this. I made my background paper from a photo I'd taken of the ocean in July and I used my very own texture overlay on it, and well, taadah! Not bad at all. I hope you can read that word art. . . it says "A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in". Aaah, yes! Living at the beach almost feels like a vacation every day. Teehee!

Okay, above is the last DID challenge LO I'm showing you tonight. I titled it "Spring Season" and made it for the DID August "Photography" Challenge. We had to scrap photos of sports. Easy for "mimi" since I have a 7-yr. old ambitious baseball fiend grandson! I went to almost every game he had this season, camera in hand. I used DID kit "Dunkadelic" by Mad Genius Designs for NDIDDS. This is actually a basketball theme kit, but I was able to convert pieces of it to my baseball idea. The acrylic frames, which I doubled layered are from DID designer, Page Frocks. Love her stuff!!

My point here being this: Don't be shy! Boldly LEAP into participating in the great forum challenges hosted each month at any of our wonderful digital scrapbooking websites! They are truly fun, and you will surely learn a lot as you go! It doesn't matter how newbie you are at scrappin', just jump in and get 'er done! You'll be so proud of yourself, and there are lots of freebies and rewards involved aside from all the knowledge you gain by participation!!

Alrighty, then! If you've stayed with me for this long post, you certainly deserve a nice FREEBIE! So, here you are! I've begun designing from scratch a new series of Quick Pages called "MY BEACH", and I'm giving you #15 right now! These will be great to scrap up your seashore vacation photos, etc! The background paper is fashioned from a photo I took recently, and I've added a highly textured overlay of my own making. As always with me, it's a 12 x 12", high resolution suitable for printing. Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Leave your comments here or at 4Shared if you download. The love goes a long way to spur one on to design more freebies! Most of all, enjoy!

Hopefully, I'll be back soon with lots more for you. Do pop back in often!

Tootles!

HAPPY GO LUCKY BLOG TRAIN - CHOO-CHOO!!

Our cool CT at Genia Beana Scraps is having a Blog Train to celebrate the release of Valerie's newest kit, "HAPPY GO LUCKY" which you can pick up at Scrapable!! It's huge, colorful, and downright awesome; and to beat all, this blog train will give you a lot of ingeniously designed freebies to go along with the new kit! Get your cup of coffee and get ready to have some fun as you visit each site listed below! But first, I know you want to see the new kit preview:

I can hear the oohs and aahs! It's really such a neato kit (as we used to say back in my day)! Now here's a preview of the 12 x 12", 300 dpi Quick Page freebie I created as my contribution to our blog train! Hope you like, can use, and most of all enjoy slipping your photo into and journaling on! I "luv" making quick pages!!

DOWNLOAD HERE

This kit has lots of groovy retro elements that I adore! It's such fun to play with! Be sure to visit all the sites listed below to gather up all kinds of teriffic free goodies to add to your scrapping stash that will coordinate with the Happy Go Lucky Kit!!! Plus, you're going to visit some GREAT blogs, so I know you'll want to bookmark them to your favorites list and return to visit these gals quite often in the future! They are talented designers and always giving things away on their blogs! Have a blast! You'll be cyber-traveling all over the country! I've seen all their previews, and I'm too excited for you!! Yipee!!

BLOG TRAIN

Janytime <-----------you are here

Genia Beana Scraps

Janine

Brandi

Zeee

Belinda

Angie

Lauralea

Amanda

This is my first time participating in a blog train, and I'm having a ball enjoying myself! If any of my links to the sites above don't work for you, please leave me a message here so I can fix them pronto for you! And please, leave the gals some love; they've all worked very hard on their designs for you. We hope you'll visit Scrapable and snag up that new kit for yourself to cherish. And, sshhh, I believe there's something special for you in one of our downloads, so be sure to visit everybody so you don't miss out! You'll be so pleased with everything you get on this train! Choo-Choo!!

See ya soon with more news and more goodies! Until then, HAPPY SCRAPPIN'!!

Tootles!!

MY FIRST BLOG AWARD!! YIPEE!!

I'm so honored!! Dear, sweet Amanda of Scrapping Words has bestowed upon me my very first blog award, and I couldn't be more thrilled! It was such a nice surprise to find! Thank you, thank you!! Amanda is a CT member with me at DK Designs, and she has an awesome blog herself just chocked full of delicious word art for all your scrapping needs, so be sure to check it out for yourself or you'll surely be missing out on goodies you really need!!


Here are the rules of the award:

1. Put the Award on your blog.

2. Include a link back to the person who gave you the award.

3. Nominate 7 or more blogs to receive this award.

4. Leave a message on their blog letting them know they have an award on your blog.

Here are my 7 nominees:

Teri Mayo

June

Crops

Joni Gray

Valerie

Scrapin Granny

Anna

It's all about spreading the love, gals! The ladies above inspire me! For me, it's difficult to stop at 7 blog sites because, believe me, I'm a blog hopper and visit oodles of scrapping blogs, and there are too, too many totally awesome ones!! I shall treasure my first award because inside myself I still rate myself as a newbie to digi-scrapping, blogging, designing, forums, html, etc., and I know I have much yet to learn to get where I personally desire to be! Thank you sweetly for this kindess!!

And now, for tonight's FREEBIE!! I have for you the 6th in my Blooming Borders paper pack collection. There are four 12x12", 300 dpi textured powder blue papers with coral-pink floral impatiens borders in various positions. Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Leave me some love if you like! Enjoy!

I'll be back around midnight on Friday night with a really nice bunch of freebie surprises for ya'll, so don't miss tuning in again! I promise it will be worth it!

Tootles!!

NEW KITS! NEW KITS!

Hi everybody! I have a lot to show you, so lets just roll on . . . . . The design team at DK Designs has a wonderful new kit for you to play with called "WHITE CHOCOLATE", and it's in the store at iscrapbook. Here's a preview:

It's great and girly, and it has some fantastic sort of brushed metallic elements which I just love! They have even worked up a Quick Page album for those that have less scrappin' time:

I just love how they make it so easy to become a great scrapper! Here's what our fabulous CT has done with this awesome kit:

By Amanda . . .

By Anjanette . . .
By Brandy . . .
By Cynthia . . .
by yours truly . . .

Be sure to check out DK Designs blog too! I picked up some free newspaper frames there that are going to come in soooo handy in my scrappin'!!

Next, be sure to check out "TIME TO GET AWAY", the July Mega Collaboration Kit at Scrapable! Here's a preview:

My designer's (Genia Beana Scraps) contribution to this mega kit looks like this up close:

The papers remind me so much of many wonderful hotels I've stayed in during vacations, seminars, etc. Many compatible photos kept popping in my head while looking at these sharply detailed papers. I'm sure I'll work with this one a lot, but here's my first layout with it for now:

There's always a story behind our pages, right? This is a friend who grooms dogs in my daughter's shop, and we were all attending a big annual dog grooming expo where they were on their feet all day in grooming competitions, and you can bet they were DOG TIRED!! Teehee! Just had to get that pun in!! Seriously, a hotel bed never looked so good as it did to those two groomers! Me, I was along just for the fun.

I'll be back soon as oodles of new things are popping, and I received a nice surprise from another blogger which I want to share here in the next day or two as well as my normal freebies I hope! So do stop back by!

Tootles!

I WON A FREE KIT! YIPEE!!

I've been hanging out in the forums of digi-scrapping sites like DigiShopTalk (DST) and DigiScrapAddicts (DSA) to mention only two of MANY! You get to know a lot of great folks that way, and there are fun scrappin' challenges going on every month to participate in if you want to strive for more experience. I even won a free kit from a very lovely designer, Emma Moore/Eyelet's Scrap Designs, who sells her designs at Divine Digital, which is another of my favorite places to shop for wonderful kits! I won her brand new kit, "Summer Grunge", which is just so colorful for scrapping all your spring and summer shots! Personally, I will always be in love with the grunge style! Here's her kit preview and two layouts I did with it just tonight:

The first LO above is of my DH taking an early walk on Easter morning, and the second is just random shots of my brood. I wanted to show some of the very different pieces to the kit, and there's a lot more. The papers are just awesome; I love the window type frame and the stitched outlines, and there's another frame I just couldn't work into these two layouts . . . but I'm for sure not finished with this great kit!! Ya'll jump on over to Divine Digital and check out this great kit! Tell Emma that Janytime sent ya! Thanks, Emma, for your generosity; and it's nice to get to know you!!

I don't know about ya'll, but I'm having a DIGI-BLAST lately!!! Sure hope you are too!!! And, yes, I'm trying to keep up with my real life daily duties also. Today I helped my DH with his maintenance duties on a large home we caretake for an elderly man in our area, baked a yummy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, made a huge bowl of chicken salad for dinner, picked up my granddaughter from her preschool at 5:30pm, fed her and her mother (my youngest DD), cleaned all that up, took a walk about the neighborhood just for the exercise, all before scrapping a thing today! So there!! I am desperately trying to manage my addiction! Teehee!! Pays to be a "night owl" like me! It's such the solution !! Oh to give you an idea about the rest of that dinner we had tonight and the heat of July here in the coastal south, we simply slapped that chicken salad on whole grain buns, added good ole greasy chips to the side of the plate, cold fresh peaches over cottage cheese, a slab of carrot cake for dessert, all washed down with freezing cold limeade (what a thirst quencher) and a slice of watermelon to boot! One tries very consciously to not turn on the oven just for meals during the summer, so the grill is imperative, kinda like your washer and dryer. I made sure everybody really wanted that carrot cake too before I turned the oven on for that this afternoon. I had to see the drool come off their tongues first! Haha!!

Sorry, didn't mean to make you hungry! (Grin)

I'll be back soon, hopefully with your next freebie or maybe even two freebies, as I feel a little behind on those.

Tootles!

CT 'ing FOR A SECOND DESIGNER!!

Just a quick pop-in to let you know that I've been accepted on a second Creative Team just this month! I'll be working with Genia Beana Scraps, and her gorgeous designs are available currently through Scrapable. Be sure to check out her blog to keep up with her latest kit releases and any freebies she may be kind enough to post for us! I'm so excited to be on her CT as it's quite large and I'm going to have the opportunity to get to know a lot of great scrappers and have loads of fun. The first kit I chose to work on for her is TRANQUILITY which is loaded with all of my personal favorite colors, teals of all shades, so this kit will be among my favorites forever!! Here's the preview:

Here's my first layout with this kit, and I'm sure I'll enjoy doing oodles more over time with this gorgeous kit.
I posted this layout in the Scrapable member gallery, and it was chosen for LOTD (layout of the day) on July 18th! Yipee! That's quite an honor for me! I was thrilled! I entitled this "July 4th My Style" because I took the photo on the beach that evening as I was people watching while waiting on the fireworks display at the local pier. It does look tranquil, doesn't it? We post our work for Valerie at DSA and DST in the galleries and forums there, so do hop around and check all the interesting things happening!

Below is a "welcome board" that Valerie of Genia Beana Scraps posted to welcome all her brand new CT members, and these are just the newbies with her. She has a large team of well seasoned scrappers as well, so I've got a lot of new friends to get to know!

We are deep into chattering back and forth already, and we are spread all over the country, so I'll have some new things to keep you posted about in the future.

Hope you are enjoying your summer months and some rest and relaxation along the way. Doesn't the time fly?!!

I'm trying to squeeze in some personal scrapping and take more active part in some monthly challenges in the digi-scrap forums, and one of my personal favorite places to hang out for that is Designs in Digital. Check it out!

Do come back by as I have plans to give away some really nice textured papers very soon and some brand new beach theme quick pages that are of my own design that I think you'll like.

Talk to you soon! Tootles!

NEW KIT ANNOUNCEMENT AND A FREEBIE!

The ladies of DK Designs have another great new kit ready for your pleasure called "DENIM RUST", available at iscrapbook. This one has a bit more boyish or masculine feel, so it's super great for scrappin those guys you love! Here's the preview:

They have also worked up a darling Quick Page Album for those with less time on their hands, so check this out too:

Here's our CT creations with this kit:

From Amanda . . .

From Anjanette . . .

From Brandy . . .

From Cynthia . . .

And from me . . .

What fun we have!! Hurry on over the iscrapbook and check out all the wonderful creations awaiting you by DK Designs!!

Well, I finished my two-week class at Jessica Sprague online in Photo Editing: Frame-ups & Special Effects. I'm feeling like I'm sorry that it's over, it was so much fun and totally self-paced. It was a groovy thing to look forward to her daily class notice in my email box and know that I could work on my class and projects at my own pace when I could find the time. I'm just going to have to take some more of her classes; they're GREAT!! I took the ones for my software I'm trying to learn, PSE6 & PSE7, and it totally helped me sooo much! I don't feel so very lost now inside that software, so I'm going back for more of her step-by-step instructional videos!! Yipee! With her and with Linda of Scrapper's Guide I am bound to conquer that software eventually!! I'm determined. Let me show you a few things I learned how to make that I'm so proud of (I can't show you everything, too much, just the ones I am super-proud of):

Here's a storyboard I made; too cool to now know how to do these so easily!!

Then I learned how to make what they call a 9-grid (9 identical photoholders in grid shape); take a look at these (one in natural color with a little brush work, the other with hue and saturation adjustments except for the middle photo which is a really neat technique too):

I'm just all enthused with what I've learned in just two weeks! The nice thing too is that the class and instructional videos are always on the site in your account so you can go back and refer to them and watch them over and over again. You'll never have to feel like you forgot a technique. How nice!!

Well, if you've made it this far with me, you certainly deserve a Freebie! So here it is; #7 in my Abstract QP+ series. I believe this one has a light plum frame, and here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Have fun with it. I have about three more of these to give to you, and then I've made some brand new grunge papers, both plain and floral, that are coming to you free soon!! Yipee! Who doesn't love grunge?!! Leave me some love if you download.

I have a lot more to share with ya, so I'll be back posting soon! Stay tuned in!

Tootles!