FUN FRIDAY FREEBIES!

Can you believe it's the end of July??  It bothers me some when I dwell on how rapidly time passes.  Thanks everybody for the comments and for using the chat box in the right column.  It lets me know you are really out there.  Ava-j, yes those flowers are mine, grew everyone of them in this southern heat.  The watering has about worn me thin!  To another comment, I believe Box.net's free account has limitations of 1 gig of storage space and 25 meg uploads per zip file.  That won't be big enough for me, but I will use it as often as I can and figure out what to do when I fill up my free account there.  I like to leave my freebie links to never expire so that all that happen by here can help themselves to whatever they scroll around and find they like.  And to mskinsey, where do you live?  I don't see a way to get in touch with you.  If you are anywhere close to me, I could give you a free scanner.  I have a whole HP all-in-one (printer, scanner, copier, fax) that belonged to my daughter that I am storing and don't need.  Equipment piles up around here because my husband and I are sort of "techies" that keep upgrading now and again.  I'm sure he is sorry that he ever introduced me to my first computer!  I'm a giver and love to give to those in need who will use.  Hate seeing things go to waste.  If you read this and are interested, get in touch.  I think my email link is in my profile here.

I have two FREEBIES for you cats today!  Yipee!  I'm proud of this one!  It's just in time too!  It's an August 2010 calendar grid.  It can easily be resized to whatever you desire, larger or smaller.  It can be used on your desktop for the month, or you could actually print it as a calendar page and so on.  It's a png file, 300 dpi, and can be recolored.  If anybody wants or needs the whole year for a project, just let me know and I'll work on them.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The next goodie is my 8th template.  It's a 12x12", 300 dpi with psd, tiff, and pngs included. Here's a preview:

   

DOWNLOAD HERE

Here's my layout using it:

The papers used in this layout above are from a collab kit called "All The Dirt" by the designers at Digital Scrapbooking Studio.

Above is my finished layout for Lesson 11 of PhotoShop Friday using the template and materials provided by the great designers at Jessica Sprague.  This week featured learning how to make a "storyboard" which is the row of identically sized photos you see in the middle of the layout on the white background.  Very cool.  And, as always Jessica imparts a few wizardly tips and shortcuts which I just can't get enough of.  All this learning for only $1.00 if you partake of the advantage of "One Buck Wednesdays" at her site.  It just doesn't get better than that!!

Below are a few pages I made this week for some forum challenges:

Tinkerbell's page was done for a scraplift challenge at Designs In Digital, and I used the kits, "Winter Flannel" by Tiger Lily Designs and "Wrapped In Christmas" by ScrappinMint.

Above was made for a theme challenge at Stuff To Scrap, and I'm real proud of it as it features my brother in the photo and my dad seated to the far left being honored as a veteran at a civic event in my hometown where my brother had flown across country to be the guest speaker.  I used a kit called "Freedom" by STS designer, Jensen Motley Crew Designs.  Can you tell the theme was "Freedom"?

Above LO was for a template challenge at Stuff to Scrap hosted by Shel Belle Scraps using her Template_01.  I was all around in my stash for the materials for this one, but I do have the extensive credits listed in my gallery description at STS. 

 

The wild thing above was made for the Use It Or Lose It challenge at Stuff To Scrap using the mini kit, "Rock On!" provided by hostess, Digi Designs by Nicole.  The object of this challenge is to use each piece of the mini kit at least once in your layout.  This can be quite a challenge, or once deep into I tend to go overboard before stopping!  My own purgatory!

Well, peeps, this will probably conclude July posting unless something monumental happens on the last day of this month.  We had a huge thunderstorm this evening with torrential downpour, lots of lightning, thunder and wind.  It knocked out electricity for a little while.  Don't I hate it when that happens!!  The forecast for the weekend is HOT, HOT, HOT; so I'll probably spend most of it in the pool.  I hope you all have ways to stay cool.

I'll be back soon with more goodies for you that I'm working on, so do pop back in often so you don't miss anything.  You can use the google widget in the right column to be a "follower" of this blog, or you can also do a RSS feed to your own feed list in your browser.  I find that to be so easy.  See ya soon!!

TOOTLES!! 

SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR SUNDAY!

I'm either way late for Saturday posting or WAY AHEAD for a Sunday post for it's the middle of the night here . . . always this time when I regain my mental peace.  You've heard the joke, "I do my best work in the dark"??  Well, that's me; but not in the way that joke intends.  Teehee!  I'm more than likely an insomniac, or I've just trained myself to be like this with years of self abuse.  No matter . . . . .

I have a very simplistic but elegant FREEBIE for you today; oval season accent frames!  I'm very proud of my little design efforts and the tips and tricks I'm learning along this digital adventure in PhotoShop Elements.  I've learned to use so many functions in the software I didn't even know existed.  I think you'll like these and perhaps find them useful when you desire to be simply elegant with your layouts.  I have a hard time myself remembering that "less is more", although I've heard it all my life.  I have a tendency to overdo everything I touch.  Am I alone here???  There are four png files (one for each season, duh), 300 dpi, basic black.  You can, of course, recolor and resize these quite easily.  I'm trying a new file sharing site for your convenience and my peace of mind right now, box.net.  Please let me know if the download link does not work correctly since this is my first time trying their service, and I will fix it quickly.  Hopefully, I've gotten it correct.  Here's my preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

My very own pet peeve when digi-surfing and downloading goodies is to get hung up at sites with so many pop-ups (even though I have a strong pop-up blocker on old faithful) that you can't even get to the download link before giving up.  Not to mention names, but MF is the worst lately.  It's caused me to leave without the goodie!  I use 4Shared a lot, free account (because I'm financially challenged currently), and seems they have increased the wait time before the download link appears.  I've learned to cope with that but don't like it because it didn't used to be that way.  I suppose these changes are an effort to encourage folks like me to join a paid membership.  Well, I'm a die-hard freebie user in a lot of things.  So far, I like the way box.net seems to have no interference and no wait times on their free account.  It does have some file size restrictions, but it should serve well for smaller file downloads.  Let me know what  you think, include some comments here for me, or make suggestions if you know of better sharing sites I can try.  Sorry to rave on so, but I get my feathers ruffled easily these days at quirky things such as this.

Not much news on the homefront right now, summer is scorching us (I have to water my outside florals twice a day), and I can't believe it's half over so fast.  Here the children return to school on August 23rd.  Such a short summer vacation for them since it was well into June before they were released from tutelage!  Poor dears!   - We have a huge annual Carolina Classic Arts & Crafts show coming in two weeks.  This is a show that travels all along the eastern states.  My discounted tickets are in my inbox already, and I'm saving my pennies to attend the 3-day festivities as a shopper.  Yes, those of you that know me think I should be an exhibitor, but I rather enjoy the other side of the craft table too!  Haha!  It's just exhilarating to be among that much handmade crafting!!  Believe me, much Christmas is bought in August, no doubt!

I'll leave you with some of my recent scrapping inspirations.  I've done a few forum challenges lately, and that always helps to get my mojo back up and running.

My LO for my PhotoShop Friday lesson (above) in which I learned more about text paths.

I got a little carried away, sorry!  But at least I give you freebies before throwing all my own stuff at you (chuckle).  Hope you had nothing better to do with your Sunday (kidding).  That's it for now.  I'll be back soon with more goodies for ya!  Remember to stay well hydrated in the summer heat. - - Happy Scrapping!

TOOTLES!

WHAT THE HECK IS A GROUP-EZ???

Are we burning up from the hot humid summer weather yet?  The absolute most unbearably hot months of the year here are July and August, the latter of which is usually more rainy.  Thank goodness for the "cement pond" and the local rivers.  DH and I took the grandkids to the riverbanks last weekend with the canoe, lifejackets, and a picnic in hand.  Mind you, this is two 4-yr. olds and an 8-yr. old; and even though I've been trying since they were born, this was the first time I got all three of them in one of our watercrafts at the same time!  They did just great!  I think they had the greatest fun though right on the sandy riverbanks, running downhill at break-neck speed and flopping into the water.  There were several labradors there all afternoon playing among my grandkids.  I'm always amazed how that breed of dog just adores the water.  They were fun to watch.  I took a ton of photos!  By the end of summer I'll be way behind already on my personal scrapping again!  Whew!

I practiced last night following a short tutorial in PSE and then went off and did some of my own designing.  I came up with some neat rounded-corner rectangular frames which I'll be sharing with you over time.  For your FREEBIE today, I took one and made some frame clusters or, as I'm going to refer to them, GroupEz!  There are three "GroupEz" in this pack plus a single bonus frame for ya!  I hope you'll be able to use these.  Sometimes when we are pressed for time, as I know my BFF always is, reaching for a frame cluster can speed up the making of a layout page.  These can be resized easily and are 300 dpi pngs, as usual.  Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

If you like this type of thing, leave some love and I'll make more.  I always read all the comments.  

This week in my PhotoShop Friday lesson from Jessica Sprague, I learned how to "stitch" in different ways.  I did a layout using examples of my stitching techniques, but the stitches are so small I doubt if you will be able to see them in this . . .

Pretty blossom of mine, hey?  The template and everything you see above (except my flower photo) was provided from JS in the lesson download.  Awesome!!  We also just finished up a great free 2-week class called "Computer Tricks for Cards", and it was great fun!! 

I like to check in on the monthly challenges going on in all the forums where I hang out.  I completed a Quick Page for the July exchange at Stuff To Scrap and can't wait to get all the other QP's at the end of this month!  Yipee!  They are gorgeous!  I always check on the card making, font, quote, and template challenges.  Yes, I'm a template freak!  Love them!  Come back by tomorrow, I'll likely have one for you of my own.  I'm also going to compile the full resolution cards I've designed and put them into the Mason Jar for anyone interested. 

Divine Digital is back up and running!  Yeah!  Missed you guys something fierce!!  The forum is up, and I'm amazed they were able to retrieve and restore so much info.  They are still working on the boutique, but at least we can all communicate again!

I simply have to mention a new collab kit by Angel Hartline and JW-DigiScraps called "CLICK" which is available at Digital Scrapbooking Studio where Janis Ward has joined as a designer.  It's a huge kit and so colorful!  Will be wonderful for so many things and seasons, etc.  Check it out!

My only neice got married Saturday!  Congratulations Jessica Nicole!!

Be back soon!  TOOTLES! 

HAPPY JULY 4TH !!!! + FREEBIE

ENJOY YOUR LOCAL FIREWORKS TONIGHT!

I managed a creative few minutes today, so I made you a patriotic FREEBIE to use in scrapping up your July 4th events photos.  The pack of bands includes twelve individual png files, all different, all at 300 dpi so you can resize easily larger or smaller without loss of quality.  Hope you can use these!  Remember, think outside the box and get creative.  I may hook a few together and use to frame up a photo or something.  I'd love to see whatever you do with them.   Here's the preview:

 

DOWNLOAD HERE

We've had a welcome reprieve for two or three days from the high levels of humidity which are normal here for this time of year, so the weather has been absolutely sunny, gorgeous and, most of all, tolerable!  We usually head for the oceanfront around dusk on July 4th to watch the fireworks show put on by our closest local pier owners.  In our opnion, it's the best on the beach!  Tonight, however, since we will also be ushering our house-guest along, we've decided to head for dinner out and viewing the fireworks along the Intercoastal Waterway at one of our quaint malls on the water.  There they offer friendly large white rocking chairs along the storefronts for those who tire easily, so we are thinking those rockers may be a good idea this year for resting along the way. 

Enjoy your picnics, cookouts, family, friends, and whatever you have planned today.  Remember how valuable our freedom is to each and every one of us, and remember today those that devote themselves to defending it.

Be back soon with more goodies!

TOOTLES!