REMEMBERING WITH LOVE - PLUS FREEBIE

Remembering my Lorie with love on her birthday . . .

She would have been 41 today.  The wound of her absence still feels fresh to me, even though it's been three years now.  Her son, whom she struggled so hard to have, is now a lively 6 year old first grader.  Remembering this "factoid" for those of you that knew her:  She long ago nicknamed herself L-(squared) by making her fancy cursive L and placing the little 2 up to the right of it.  She was fun-loving and did this because both her first and last name began with "L" and was truely a tongue-twister for some.  People really used to either laugh or stare unbelievingly when we would say our last name; then they would ask us to spell it to make sure they had heard right.  She had a way of coining her own descriptive words such as "crusty" or "crusting" which meant getting comfy clothes on and getting ready to lounge about.  She loved to watch movies.  She loved the ocean.  Countless minuscule facts and memories run through my mind about her each and every day.  I'm thankful for that and the gift of having had her in my life for almost 38 years.  Spiritually, Happy Birthday my Angel!

I've been scrapping almost daily along with Royanna's "40 Days of Purposeful Scrapping" prompts and inspiration over at Divine Digital in the forum.  So have a ton of others by the looks of the gallery there!!  It's just awesome!!  The prompts and gifts are daily from Sept. 15th through Oct. 24th.  I've gotten 6 pages completed so far, and I already showed you the first two in a previous post.  Following are the other 4 to date . . .

Day 3_Prompt_"Seize The Moment & The Memory" (which I felt DH & I certainly did when we had a nontraditional wedding on the beach) . . .

Day 4_Prompt_"Overcome Adversity" (which I related to my family pulling together to help my Mom get through open heart surgery for an aortic valve replacement at almost 82 yrs of age) . . .

Day 5_Prompt_"Bloom Where You Are Planted" (which happend to be the theme of my two 6 yr. old grandkids' kindergarden musical performance this May) . . .

Day 6_Prompt_"Inspired" (which brought back a phase of my life when I was truly inspired by somebody and learned how to paint with oils) . . .

So sorry these web images are so small I know you can't read the journaling on them here, but if you visit the 40 Day gallery at Divine, most all of us are typing out our journaling in the gallery photo description so others viewing can actually read it.  We are having a ball doing these pages with a purpose with Royanna leading the way.  She even tells us not to make it complicated, keep it simple.

Alrighty then, enough about me.  Since this is my 150th post since beginning this blog, I decided I couldn't just pop in here without a goodie for you.  So today I have a FREEBIE MASK.  In thinking of my daughter today, I decided it would be a good day to give you my "ANGELIC" photo mat / clipping mask.  Get creative with it, and show me how you used it.  Link me up or email me.  This is a png file, 300 dpi, easily resized larger or smaller.  You can recolor it, clip photos to it, clip papers to it, then pop a photo on top, etc.  Lots of options.  Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE or HERE or HERE

Three different options on download sites so I don't run out of bandwidth on you.  (Teehee!)  I really like Open Drive and Box because I don't think you get any hassle when trying to download from them, no pop-ups, etc.  Thanks to those of you who take a few seconds to leave comments, I'm reading them all.

Okay, I'm finished rambling.  I'm promising myself to get up and have a productive upswing kind of day today even though it's extra tough today.

Catch you later.  Have a great week!  Visit often!  Oh yeah, I have some new items in my Etsy shop, link at the top of this page if you want to visit there.

TOOTLES!!

NEW TEMPLATE FREEBIE

As promised in yesterday's post, I'm here today with my latest new TEMPLATE FREEBIE for you!  I think it's a doozie!  I hope you'll think so too!  I made this for the template exchange going on all month long over at "The Studio" as we call it (Digital Scrapbooking Studio).  It's their site's birthday month, and they are sponsoring lots of fun events all month long.  The designer challenge is going on all month, and you can hop over to their forum and/or gallery and load up on all the free kits from each week's contest.  There is a layout contest happening all month, and there is a template exchange going on all month.  Do get over there and load up on all the free templates.  You'll find download links in either the gallery descriptions or the specific event thread in the forum. 

Okay, now here is my 12 x 12" goodie!  I'm providing in my download zip a psd file, a tiff file, and the png files to this design so everybody can use it, no matter what program you scrap in.  I'm also providing three download sites in case I run out of bandwidth at one or more due to popularity, etc.

DOWNLOAD HERE or HERE or HERE

The first link is Open Drive, the second is Box, and the third is 4Shared.

Now hop on over to The Studio and gather up some more free templates for yourselves!  Go to the forum and dig deep into the "Birthday Bash Events" thread for tons of free goodies!

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll be back soon with more digital sweetness! 

TOOTLES!!

EVENT - 40 DAYS OF PURPOSEFUL SCRAPPING

Happy Monday, everybody!  I'll try to keep this a short post as I have errands to do at the moment.  Just wanted to pop in and let you know of a super scrapping event going on right now and for the next 40 days!!  If you are an avid digital scrapper, like me, you'll want to take full advantage of this.  It's free, fun, and meaningful to boot!  Royanna over at Divine Digital is leading us through 40 days of meaningful scrapping.  It's all in the forum thread HERE.  She makes a daily post filled with helpful information, inspiration, a daily quote, and even a free gift to download and use if you wish.  The idea is about helping us to express ourselves through our digital layout pages.  None of us are in love with journaling, but this will help simplify that process for you.  This 40-day event started on September 15th, and even though I missed getting started on time myself and missed the 1st day's gift, I jumped in on the 16th and was inspired to catch up.  So you, too, can jump in anytime.  Go visit the thread in the forum and the matching gallery of photos and see what you think!  Here are my layouts so far . . . .

The first day, 9/15, the prompt was "I am an Artist", so everyone did their take on that idea and what that meant to them.  Here is mine . . .

I've always had a problem scrapping about me, myself, and I; but with Royanna's inspirations this came together quite easily.  If you can't read the journaling, have a look at it in the gallery at Divine where we typed out our journaling in the page descriptions.

The second day, 9/16, the prompt was "Why Do I Scrap?"  Now, for me, that's a very loaded question with over a million answers; but Royanna said keep it simple and journal about 5 reasons why you scrap.  She even gave us this free template to use if desired.  Here is my page . . .

Again, my journaling can be best read by visiting the gallery at Divine where you'll find it typed out in the page description.  Also, credits for the papers, elements, etc. that I used are in those page descriptions there.

Okay, I'm finished rambling for today.  Just wanted to pass this along to you.  There will be 40 days of fun scrapping with direction, purpose, and freebies each day!  It's like taking a digi-class for free!!  It doesn't get any better than that, folks!

I'll be back hopefully tomorrow with a free template for you, so pop back in!  I think it's a beauty!

TOOTLES!!

FARMER'S MARKET QP FREEBIE

Good Day, my peeps!  Imagine Minnie Pearl with that tag hanging off her hat giving you a big, long "Howdy" as only she could.  That's the mood I'm in today.  Don't ask me why.

My three grandchildren have returned to school after the Labor Day holiday weekend of fun at my house, the last hurrah of summer.  The oldest, who is 10 and a 5th grader, loves school and always looks forward to starting back each fall.  However, the two younger ones, who are both 6 and first graders, have already prompted notes and phone calls home by the teachers.  Seems they are both having a hard time settling back into the school saddle and giving up the summer fun.  I hope they can get adjusted and settled in soon to the daily school drill.  If not, coming to Mimi's house could be nipped in the bud, as coming here is considered one of their privileges.  Yikes!!  Poor little tikes!

Our southern beach weather could not have been lovelier over the weekend, and it continues beautiful this week.  I'm sure we will be having a long Indian summer here at the beach.  The nasty humidity of July and August will abate now, and the days will be warm, crisp and clear.  Last evening at sunset I saw the most gorgeous cloud on the horizon with a silver-pink lining.  It was just breath-takingly beautiful, and me without the camera in hand. 

One of my BFFs is having her gallbladder removed today via laparoscopy hopefully.  I will be waiting for her hubby to call and let me know it's over and she's doing okay in recovery.  It had been kicking up causing her quite a lot of pain lately, and the doc said it was full of large stones.  I'm hoping she will feel her old self once this is over.  My mom is 84 and hers gives her bouts of pain in the spring and fall, but she still keeps it.  My daughter is just 36 now, and hers is starting to give her fits of pain depending on her dietary intake.  I know she will not let it annoy her long before she decides to have it out.  She won't want the pain to slow her down.

Today I have another FREE QUICK PAGE for you.  I joined in the September QP Game over at Digi Scrap Station where the featured kit is "FARMER'S MARKET" by Scrappy Cats.  The kit is free for committing to design one 8 x 8" QP and post it during this month.  Here is a preview of the full kit . . .

I made my page in both the 8-inch size, as required by the DSS forum contest, and also in the 12-inch size in case you like to scrap in that size as I do.  You can take your pick, or take both sizes.  Here is the preview of the page I designed . . .

and  here is a sample layout using it . . .

 

DOWNLOADS

 



8-inch QP, HERE or HERE

12-inch QP, HERE or HERE

If you would like to collect all the QPs from the September game, just visit that forum thread at DSS.  Direct download links are provided within each post by all of the contestants in the game.  Everybody has until the last day of the month to get their page made and posted, and then the links are good for 30 days beyond that.  It's a great way to get premade pages for an album!  The kick I get is getting to see how varied all the pages are though we are using the same kit.

I'll show you one more layout for inspiration.  I scrapped my sibling set of grandkids going to the first day of school with my PhotoShop Friday Series, Lesson 34 template and technique.  We learned to use text in a decorative masking technique to help decorate our page with typography.  Note the journaling above the photo in the layout below . . .

I was pleased with how that turned out when I finished up.  The PhotoShop Friday 2012 series is available at Jessica Sprague by subscription or individually.  My background paper is from one of my favorite JS kits, Fleuriste by Cosmo Cricket.  The kids were color-coordinated.  Isn't that cute!

Alrightly then, I'm off to start my daily grind.  Be back soon with more new goodies for you, so stay tuned.  Thanks to all who are leaving me comments!  I read and appreciate them all.  Chat soon!

TOOTLES!!

LABOR DAY FREEBIE - A DOZEN JOURNALING CARDS!!

Happy Holiday Weekend, one and all!  No doubt it will be a busy day for all of us, and I hope your weather is cooperating with whatever your plans may be!  Here is the South, it rose to 100 degrees yesterday on my shaded back porch!  Whew!  Humidity was intense, and it was another perfect pool day.  I'm hoping for the same today as my grandchildren will descend upon my house early today and stay until bedtime for a day of fun and food.  We will feed the ducks and turtles around the ponds, watch the fountain spray in the big pond, ride bicycles, play corn-hole, swim, eat lunch at the pool, dinner on the patio, play games on the Wii, swim some more, and whatever else we can think up.  If Pawpa and I are feeling super-energetic, we may get out some of our watercraft and the necessary gear and take them all to the river or the ocean's waterway, both fun places to get totally wet!  The kids are so cute in their life jackets bobbing around!  Nothing beats this type of free fun.

Because you're special, I have a really cool FREEBIE for you today.  I designed some JOURNALING CARDS recently during one of my inspired moments and ended up making oodles of them because it was addictive.  Today you get Set #1 which contains 12 neutral cards with a sharp outline and word on them.  They are sort of a jump-start for your bit of journaling on a layout.  These are 3.5" x 4.5" in size and are 300 dpi, png format.  You can easily resize them larger or smaller as needed.  They should work nicely in any scrapping program.  I'll dish out several more sets in different colors with different words in the weeks to come, so don't miss out snagging them up as they appear here.  Here is the preview of today's set . . .

DOWNLOADS:

From Box, HERE

From OpenDrive, HERE

From 4Shared, HERE

Thanks to those of you who take time to leave some love!  I read and appreciate each and every comment. 

I'll be back soon with another FREE QP for you as I have signed up to do the September QP Game over at Digi Scrap Station.  The kit is free for participants, and it's lots of fun and good practice.  You should get involved too!

I hope to soon start showering you with some FREE TEMPLATES.  I've made lots of them but haven't found enough time to organize the files for uploading and downloading.  I will try to focus on that part as my next "project" of discipline.  LOL!

In my handcrafts, I've been making more birdhouses this summer, designing different wine bottle cozies, and have recently begun knitting up a storm again!  I'll be adding some of these newbies to my Etsy shop probably this month.  Check it out when you have time over a cup of coffee.  Just click on the Etsy link at the top of my home page here to go to my craft shop easily.  In your downloads, you will always find a discount coupon good for the current month at my Etsy shop, courtesy for all my digi-scrap buddies.  I've come to know so many wonderful folks in this online digi-community!

Have a great Monday holiday and a wonderful week!

TOOTLES!!