A NEW YEAR OF GOODIES!

I've added something special above for your listening pleasure during the holiday season. Take a few moments to acknowledge and appreciate the reason for the season with this beautifully performed Christmas carol. Enjoy! If my regular music is on, please scroll down to the bottom of this page and turn off the volume on that, then come back up and click on the arrow above. Stay awhile and listen to this as much as you like.

Stop laughing now!  I've been MIA for a good while (since mid November!), but I'm back now!  How can winter turn out to be busier than summer??  I added the music video above so it would post with each blog during the holidays, but as you can see I didn't make it back.  Oh well, I'm leaving it on here at least one time because it was very beautiful and I was very taken with it myself.  I went through a lot of pains to resize it just to get it on here.  Stop laughing.  Better listen to it and watch the beauty.  I will only leave it for this post.  Sorry it's so late.  I'm one of those that celebrates the 12 Days of Christmas, so I'm into January with all my decor, etc. 

To update in the least amount of words since my last post:  The Thanksgiving trip was a huge success; totally surprised my parents beyond their imagination.  My younger DD, my oldest grandson and I traveled together in a mad 5-day dash.  We managed to deliver a rescue dog to her new owner an hour from our hometown up there.  My DD is the Canine Fairy Godmother, and the new owner is so happy!  It was a thrill to be a part of that adventure.  We totally prepared the big T-dinner, shocked my folks with it, visited with friends, and managed to hit all the new hot-spots in town before returning home.  I took lots of pictures and have scrapped up some of them.

Christmas seemed to rush in on me this year, or maybe I was just too busy to notice it creeping up so fast.  I enjoyed having all the confusion around me, especially the grandkids.  They landed here at least 3-4 times to play together before finally splitting up the toys for the final trip to reside at their individual houses.  I love watching them all play together while they're still small.  Mason has his 5th birthday this month on the 25th, and Donovan's 9th one is on the 30th.  Party On!

I'm coming up out of my post-holiday depression.  Our weather has been pretty yucky for the south; gray and too cold for my liking.  I don't do well with gray days as I am very sunlight oriented.  No sun, no happy.  I've thrown myself into personal scrapping and more designing practice.

So, HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!  I have lots of FREEBIES to come your way!  This one I created with a friend in mind.  We recently chatted by phone about her need to stop smoking and discussed how she may need to involve herself in a hobby that would give her another mental focus.  We talked over her supply of digital photos; and, of course, I was rambling on about digi-scrapping and trying to explain that there are ways to scrap pages without the use of photos containing people.  I wanted to show her an example, and that's how this framing idea was born in my mind.  I worked up the following layout and over 300 different word frames to date!

I took that photo last February, and I've scrapped it a dozen different ways!  I just love the glistening ocean water, even on a winter day!  This frame lends itself to a lot of flexibility too.  I've made it a full 12 x 12", 300 dpi png so you can easily resize it to your own desires.  You can recolor it, apply styles to it, or clip your own papers to it.  Then, don't forget you can adjust the opacity for even more options on the look of it.  In the FREEBIE I've included the fully opaque frame and one at 30% opacity just for fun.  In using it, you can lay it on top of a full page photo as I've done above, or you can fill all the sections with different photos or a combination of photos and papers.  Don't forget to add your own things such as journaling or decorate further with pretty elements or your favorite brush stamps!  I'm starting your FREEBIES this year with a sample of the month frames I worked up.  You get JANUARY here; and, since I've shamelessly neglected my MASON JAR project throughout most of 2010, I've decided to focus better on it in 2011, the complete year's worth of these frames will be a set offered there in the next couple of days.  The complete set will offer January through December, and there will be a 30% transparency frame of each month also.  So keep a watch on the MASON JAR!  Here's the FREEBIE preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

I will be offering sets of frames with different words throughout the year, so watch carefully for ones that peak your interest.  There will be a freebie from each set.  If you have ideas that you would like for me to make for you, please just let me know by leaving it in your comment when you leave me some love!  Your download is coming to you from box.net for ease and without annoying ads and wait time.  GO BOX!!!!

I've been knitting this winter too!  I'm very spastic when the days are gray and overcast.  I stopped into my local knitting shop recently and got all inspired by the huge group of chatty ladies sitting around the large project table Knitting Up A Storm!  That's the name of the shop too!  LOL!  It's so cool in there, lots of plump sofas to lounge on while you go there to shop and/or knit with the company of others.  There's always a helpful instructor close-by in case you get stuck and need to learn how to do something, she's there to get you over the bumps that are new to you.  I grabbed up two great patterns and some cool yummy yarns and came home all inspired.  Knitting is always good to help get you through the winter!  The instructor, Molly, turned me on to a great website for knitters and crocheters at www.ravelry.com so check that out if you even remotely play with yarn.  You can set up your own space there and connect with others, share patterns, get ideas or help, catalog your projects, and lots more!  It's very cool.  If you go there, Molly's space is called MollyMatters, and you can see what she is up to and has to offer.

Post-Posting Entry:

If you are not familiar with my Mason Jar Project, please use the navigation labels in the right-hand column of this blog, click on "The Mason Jar Story" and read for awhile.  It's my heart-felt attempt to help my little miracle grandson in some small way since the Lord has seen fit to take his precious mother on home so early.

Here is the complete set of Month Word Frames for you as discussed in my post above.
There are 24 png files in this set which include all the 12 months, January through December, in both full opacity and also at 30% opacity.  These are 12 x 12" in size, 300 dpi.  You can easily resize, recolor, or clip papers to these frames.  You can overlay one on top of a full page photo as I did in the layout in today's post on the home page, or you can fill each section with a different photo or a combination of photos and papers.  Of course, you can continue on by adding journaling, your own elements, and some brush work if desired to complete your layouts.  I will have a lot of these sets coming your way this year as I've just begun and have over 300 done already!  Yes, I'm a digi-addict!  I'm including a copy of that layout in this file for inspiration.  Price of this set is $2.00, and after you purchase I will send a download link to your email, so be sure to include your email in the space provided for that.  Here is the preview:

Enter Email Here

Thanks for your consideration!  See with more real soon!
  

That's it for today!  I didn't make any New Year resolutions, but I should have vowed to shorten the length of my posts and make them more often!  LOL!  I'll try to keep that in mind.  Do come back!

TOOTLES!