Bits and Pieces

OH MY - QUICK PAGE FREEBIE :-)

2012-01-27T05:30:00.003-05:00

I'm back as hoped with a new QUICK PAGE FREEBIE for you all. It's my contribution to the monthly QP contest held at Cool Scraps Digital. This month we got to work with the awesome kit by Cocotounette called "Oh My!". It has some lovely colors in it. My QP is a 12 x 12", 300 dpi page but could easily be resized down to an 8x8 if desired. This is a png file, so it will work in different programs. If you would like to collect all the pages for a matching album, just check into the Quick Page Contest thread in the forum at Cool Scraps Digital, or check out the Quick Page Contest Gallery there. Each contestant has direct download links posted so you can easily pick up their page to add to your collection. This contest is always awesome and showcases so much talent by various digital scrapping folks! Here is a preview of the "Oh My!" kit and the QP I made with it . . .

And here is a closer look at my Quick Page . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I'm providing two different download sites for your convenience and so this will always be available when you are visiting my blog. I hope you enjoy this page and can use it in your scrapping needs! It's always a fun contest, so think about getting involved over at CSD.

We had my little grandson's 6th birthday party Wed. evening, cake and ice cream and opening of his gifts at an oceanfront pub where there is a huge arcade for all the kids to play in indoors while the adults snacked on a flavorful feast of wings since it was $0.35 wing night! I tried two different kinds and ended up loving the one called "Golden" and need now to figure out what's in the grilling sauce so I can make it at home! Mason had a blast playing with his friends and opening some very cool presents. I took a ton of pictures as usual. He has always loved birthdays, both his own and attending others. He loves to sing the birthday son, taste the icing on the cake with his finger, make a wish, blow out candles, and rip into gifts. This little guy is reading like a wizard for his age, and he does take time to open and read each birthday card before he tears into that gift; good training by his daddy there! I made it through the party with my emotions intact but had my moments of tears after I returned home pondering how much I missed his mommy being there to see him turn six. She would be so proud of her son. Time does fly by, it's true. But losing her still seems like yesterday and is still so fresh for me though a little over three years has passed. I struggle, but I am making it, and I do make myself get through everything.

I'm going to jump off here now and get busy with household chores, but I will return soon with more free templates for you and some really neat word art coming up in February! Please drop back by often to see what's new in my world of digital design attempts. I'm also going to show you what I've worked on so far in my ongoing Digital Art Journaling class. I only wish I had more free time to devote to that. It's so enjoyable and so different. Oh well, that is what we like about self-paced classes, right? You can work on them anytime when you can spare the time!

Have a great day, and I'll chat again soon!

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIE - JANUARY PAPERS

2012-01-25T04:07:00.002-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY! Can't believe it's actually 2012 already. I can remember being a pup and the anticipation I had to see the time come in my life when the year would roll to 2000. Well now, that's been awhile back already! Hope you had great holidays! I've taken a short break from everything and just kicked back and enjoyed a bit of winter laziness around the homefront. However, in front of the computer, I've still been busy as a bee! I've got some awesome new word art designs coming at you as freebies during February, so do check in often here. Hopefully, I'll post a new quick page freebie tomorrow. And, I know I'm late in the month, but at least I made it with my January Paper Pack. I didn't want to miss getting it to you, so better late than not at all.

I've been knee-deep in classes and digital projects for the last two months solid. I don't know what possessed me to take on simultaneous advanced classes, but I loved the learning and find myself homesick (so-to-speak) when not in a digi-scrap class of some sort. LOL! It's so addictive, really!

I'm working right now trying to finish 40 Christmas layouts in 12x12" format for my 2011 holiday album which I'm actually going to print by the end of this month. It's been so exciting and was part of the Tiffany Tillman's Holiday Templates 2011 class. We each designed our own custom album cover and ordered it from Persnickety Prints. I'm so thrilled with mine that I can't stop talking about how great the quality is. Designing that was a first for me, and I'm so pleased it turned out absolutely perfect! Yeah for me! I will show you my entire album, cover and all, as soon as I complete the project and am happy with all the layouts. It will most likely be in a February post.

The other thing I fell ga-ga over lately is the Digital Art Journaling class I'm in right now over at Jessica Sprague! If you don't know what that hot new trend is all about, jump over to her website and browse through the Digital Art Journaling Class Gallery. You may need to register with her site for that gallery to show up, I don't know for sure. There are literally thousands of samples to gaze through. The art journaling is a pleasant change of pace from normal digi-scrapping because it's more introspective and a lot more loose and free-style. Anything and everything goes, like no rules. It's sort of reminds me of when we had art classes in elementary school and you were used to cutting loose with plenty of imagination at that age. This sort of takes you back there to those days! Very cool.

My youngest grandson has a birthday today! My little extreme preemie is turning a big 6 years old. Hard to think how time has flown so quickly! My daughter would be so proud of him if she were here. I'll be having cake and ice cream with him this evening, along with all his little croanies and his cousins! Looking forward to what? Another great photo opportunity!

I've got a Vet appointment with my Pixie today also! She is holding stable with all of her health issues for now. Some days are good, some not so good. This is a recheck visit and to refill the meds. I've gotten swell at shooting Insulin!

I will also get back on posting the rest of my free templates for you very soon. I got swamped as Christmas neared and didn't get to finish the daily download of them like I had intended. But we will get back to it soon.

By the way, check out my Etsy shop to see my handcrafts. The link is at the top of my blog where the Etsy showcase gadget is. There's usually a discount coupon for my Etsy shop in each digi-freebie download. The shop is picking up speed now, so I'm feeling good about the time I've devoted to it.

Okay, on to your FREEBIE of my JANUARY PAPER PACK. This is a collection of 7 papers which are 12x12", 300 dpi, jpgs. I'm not fond of winter, especially the grayness of January and February and can remember it well from the first half of my life spent in the North. Luckily now, my winters are mild and mostly sunny here in the South. The robins returned here yesterday! Today was a warm, almost balmy type day; no jacket required! Yeah! Anywho, I created these papers thinking back on the Northern winters and starting off with the idea behind this monthly project, the January text paper shown here . . .

Here's the preview of the whole pack . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I'm still providing you a choice of download sites, box or 4shared. I'm always afraid of running out of bandwidth at one or the other.

I hope you enjoy these papers. Leave some love if you download. It helps to spur on the freebie flow from me. I had to take down my chat widget from the side column as I see it's not free anymore. So, what else is new these days?! Postage is up, service is worse. Don't even get me started! I vow to not speak of politics or religion here. LOL!

Be back soon (hopefully tomorrow with a free quick page), so check back often!

TOOTLES!!

QUICK PAGE FREEBIE - PAPILLONS

2011-12-27T02:15:00.001-05:00

Hope you're having a Holly-Jolly Christmas season with your loved ones! As you can see, my well-laid plans for giving a template freebie daily until Christmas went haywire about a week ago! I will make up for that by simply continuing to post my free templates as often as possible until I achieve where I wanted to be mentally with sharing my designs.

For today, I have a Quick Page FREEBIE for you! I accepted the invitation to participate again in the monthly QP contest over at Cool Scraps Digital. We were given the kit, PAPILLONS by Scrapper's Delights, to work with, and our pages are due in on Dec. 28th (tomorrow). Needless to say, with all the hub-bub of the holidays, I had to stop and focus on making my page last night. Here is a preview of the full-size kit . . .

I made my QP in both 12x12" and 8x8" sizes at 300 dpi, and you can select what you like from the download links below. Here is my page preview . . .

Of course, the actual QP will not have the CSD logo on it that you see in the lower left corner above.

DOWNLOADS from BOX

Get the 8 x 8-inch page HERE

Get the 12 x 12-inch page HERE

DOWNLOAD from 4Shared:

Both sizes in one zip HERE

If you like to collect free cohesive quick pages for an album, be sure to visit CSD and check out the Quick Page Contest Gallery for this month to view all the pages designed by the rest of the contestants. They are available for free direct download, and the links are posted in the Quick Page Contest thread in the forum.

Meantime, more Vet appointments revealed that my youngest Yorkie (14 yrs. old) has four different health issues going on simultaneously. We are, of course, hoping that all of them can be dealt with and brought under control. Our kitchen counter is loaded with her medications, and my DH and I are taking turns daily with her regimen. She seems to have two good days, then one bad day . . . repeatedly. We can't tell yet if we are making progress, but we are still hopeful. Will keep you posted.

I'll return in the next few days with more FREE TEMPLATES! My DH is off for 5-6 days of vacation here at the house; and that, no doubt, will again throw me somewhat off my blogging schedule!

Talk soon!

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIE - TEMPLATE #23

2011-12-17T16:50:00.001-05:00

How is your Christmas schedule going? I'm sure we all realize how fast December is speeding by, and we are now only a week away from Christmas Eve!

Today I have my TEMPLATE #23 for you. I guess by now we all kind of know that I most often scrap and design in the 12 x 12-inch format, 300 dpi. This download includes a layered psd, tiff, and all pngs. I do this in hope that most everyone will be able to use my things no matter what scrapping software you work in. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I hope you will enjoy using my collection of template designs somewhere in your future scrapping. Don't forget to leave some love if you download. Stated love keeps us going!

I'm having all kinds of problems today on the "puter" with everything being way too touchy and jumpy. Think my memory needs a boost and I need to clean a bunch of stuff off the internal drives. Ugh, love that chore!

Hopefully, I'll return tomorrow with another template freebie for you, so drop back by.

I took a little time toay and gathered up the Traditions collab from the Blog Train Blog. That took a little time, but it's so cute! Go check it out; you may want to make the rounds before they expire on Dec. 31st.

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIES - TEMPLATES #21 & #22

2011-12-16T15:20:00.001-05:00

I missed posting yesterday completely. I had my mind on other things and attended "Taste Of Our Church" last evening which was their big Christmas musical production after which lots of homemade goodies were served. This goes on for an entire week each evening, and they serve probably over 2,000 folks each evening. Tons of work goes into it, and it was simply joyous to be in the congregation and soak it all in. I really enjoyed it and was moved to tears by the resounding carols sung by one female performer in particular. Wow! What talent!

Okay, today I will catch you up with two FREEBIES. First, I have my Template #21 for you. It's a 12 x 12 inch, 300 dpi and includes a layered psd, tiff, and all pngs. There are two download sites for you to choose from, too. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Second, I have my Template #22 for you. It also is a 12 x 12 inch, 300 dpi and includes a psd, tiff, and all pngs. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I hope you have fun now or later scrapping up some pages with my templates.

I've tucked a special discount coupon in the files for you which is good at my Etsy Shop in case you need or want anything from there for Christmas. The coupon is good through the month of December. I've had a few sales there now, and that's encouraging!

One of my pooches is still sick, and I'm not having a good feeling about what's going on with her. She is 14 yrs. old, and my inner instincts are telling me what I don't want to face. Lord, be merciful.

I'll try to post again tomorrow with another template for you. Meantime, HAPPY HOLIDAYS and keep scrapping as your time allows.

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIE - TEMPLATE #20

2011-12-14T23:49:00.002-05:00

Well, the night-owl is back with your next FREE TEMPLATE, and at least I did make it slightly before the stroke of midnight.

Without delay, I have my TEMPLATE #20 for you, a 12x12 inch, 300 dpi which includes a psd, tiff, all pngs, and even a sample layout. Here is the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

It's a rather strange bird, if I must say so myself, so see what you can do with it! LOL! Judging by the number of downloads, it looks like plenty of you are playing with the Christmas Tree Quick Page. That's good! Glad you like it!

Be back tomorrow with Template #21. Stop back by!

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIES - TEMPLATE #19 + 7 QUICK PAGES

2011-12-13T16:56:00.001-05:00

Greetings! Happy Day #9 of my attempt to post a bunch of FREEBIES for the Holiday Season for you! I hope you are enjoying this!

Today I have a Christmas Tree Quick Page in 7 different colors for you! I got stuck playing with the design (which is not over yet!), and then couldn't decide what background paper I liked best! So why decide? Take them all. Seven is my personal lucky number anyway! I left it otherwise plain so you could add your own elements and journaling until you're happy with it. Here's a preview of what's in the download . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Have fun with that, and I'd love to see your finished pages if you want to email them back to me. I'll post them here.

Next up is my TEMPLATE #19. Again, it's 12 x 12", 300 dpi, and includes a psd, tiff, and all pngs so anybody can use it. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, I'm making an effort to provide two download sites so you don't go without if I run out of bandwidth at one site.

Hopefully, I'll see you here again tomorrow with another goodie! Hope all is well in your home!

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIE - TEMPLATE #18, DAY 8

2011-12-12T23:50:00.001-05:00

Here I am posting in the late night again, just before midnight. Would love to get my posts up at about 6 a.m. so they are there for you all day, but I'd have to set them up on "automatic scheduled posting", and that's okay, but if I'm doing it live I sometimes just take that opportunity to talk. I took care of one of my grandsons after school today, and he literally is able to eat me out of house and home. I raised girls so am not used to the way boys can eat when they are growing and playing sports, etc! Wow! I had to scrounge and get creative to fill him up today, and that's just his after-school snack eating!

I played designing a little tonight, and if you visit back tomorrow you'll benefit from what I played with. I will have 7 Quick Pages for you!

Your FREEBIE tonight is TEMPLATE #18, a 12x12", 300 dpi, and the zip includes the psd, tiff, and all pngs. I even have a web size sample layout in there for you to see. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, I'm providing downloads from Box and from 4Shared as I expect to run short of monthly bandwidth at least on one of the accounts, and don't want you to have to wait on that to renew at the first of each month.

Hope things are going well for all of you as the holidays progress. Stay safe! Be back tomorrow!

Please leave a little love if you download. Your comments help to fuel the desire to give things away for free. I did have a sweet lady send me a layout she made with one of my QPs in email today, and she expressed how much she loved everything about the vintage looking QP I had done. I will resize her layout and maybe post it tomorrow. It made my scrappy day!

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIE - TEMPLATE #17, DAY 7

2011-12-11T23:22:00.001-05:00

I'm back, later than I'd like to be, but at least I made it to my post today before midnight strikes! No matter how hard I try, I just don't get peace and quiet until the very late night. Full day, even for a Sunday. Also had my grandbabes over for dinner this evening while parents attended company Christmas parties. We got into some Christmas crafts together, and my 9-yr. old grandson loves the art of paper folding and is so precise at it. He got one of his projects completed this evening to the point that it's ready for spray glue and glitter! Aahh, another evening's project, hopefully outside on the patio in the sun! LOL!

For you, I have my TEMPLATE #17 which is a little different. It is very simplistic but will make a good vacation page for some of you. It's 12 x 12 inches, 300 dpi and includes a psd, tiff, pngs, plus a bonus Quick Page version and the bonus background paper which is my shot of the local ocean here. I've included a sample of my layout with the zip too so you can see how I used it. In the psd I have that background paper sitting at 60% opacity, but you can bump it all the way up to 100% and judge which way you like it personally. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE

I have only one download site for you to use on this one because the zip file was too large to upload to my free box account. Hope you don't mind the waiting at 4Shared to get it. Sorry about that and will try to keep most of these remaining templates on the smaller file size if possible.

Hope your days during the pre-Christmas are going well and you feel happy!

Be back tomorrow with Template #18 for you!

TOOTLES!!

FREE TEMPLATES #15 & #16, DAY 5 & 6

2011-12-10T15:03:00.003-05:00

Well, I knew it would happen during the busiest month of the year! I missed posting completely yesterday, so I'll make up here today. I have two templates for you to download today, and we won't get into any other chatty topics 'cause I have a ton of things that I have to jump on today or else!

Here is my TEMPLATE #15, a 12 x 12", 300 dpi which includes a psd, tiff, and all pngs in the zip.

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Next up for you is my TEMPLATE #16, a 12 x 12", 300 dpi also including a psd, tiff and all pngs.

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

See, I can be brief and to the point! LOL!

Be back bright and early tomorrow morning with another FREE TEMPLATE for you, and the next one will include a Quick Page with it! It's kind of different. Don't forget to leave some love if you download. Afterall, this is the season for spreading LOVE!

TOOTLES!!

FREEBIE - TEMPLATE #14, DAY 4

2011-12-08T23:59:00.001-05:00

Hi all! Glad to see you back! It's DAY 4 of my template gifts already! Hope I can keep up with myself! I'm just under the wire today as it's heading toward midnight here. YIPES!

No fooling around tonight, I still have some digital class work to do yet. I had a good day; busy but good. Even talked with my girlfriend for a nice late afternoon catch-up type chat. That's always good. Fixed tacos for dinner tonight, soft and hard shell; and I put my own twist on them this time around by putting everything in the skillet with the meat to heat in the seasoning; sauce, tomatoes, cheese, (didn't use any lettuce), and used some Taco flavoring rice (from a packet) instead. This made a much heavier bunch of bulk along with my 2 pounds of burger. I have a Hungry Jack to feed daily, and he liked my Twisted Tacos this evening. All is well in the world.

Here's your GIFT, TEMPLATE #14, which is again 12x12", 300 dpi. The zip includes the psd, tiff, and all pngs so just about everybody can use it no matter what program you use to scrap. I designed these back in early 2010, and they've been sitting on my hard drive since, so I need to catch up to date. You'll note as we get deeper into this template catch-up project of freebies that the designs get a little more complex and fun. So stay tuned in here. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, two different download sites to choose from. I anticipate running out of bandwidth before December is over, so you need options, not delays. Yes?

Okay, I'm going to show you just one layout I whipped out today for inspiration.

I ran across this wonderful template last night in the forum at Natural Designs in Scrapbooking, and it's free if you do the December Template Challenge there. It was designed by Scrappily Ever After and is free only until Dec. 15th if you would like to hop over there and pick it up for yourself. I'm making a 12 x 12" album in the class I'm taking now, and wanted to include some pages about past Christmases. Now I like it so well I'm going to do one for each member of the family capturing lots of their Christmas faces through the years. Each will have their own tree page. Cool, huh?

Okay, my peeps, that's all for now. Talk again in the morning with another template!

TOOTLES!!

DECEMBER PAPERS + TEMPLATE #13 FREEBIES !!

2011-12-07T21:58:00.001-05:00

Sorry I'm late posting today, but it was a busy day filled with unexpected things happening. I won't get into all that and promise to keep this on the brief side. Here's a short funny side story; well, funny to me. I have a brand new nickname which is "2.5" and I'm afraid it's going to hang on forever! I accompanied my DD and friends to our annual Christmas boat regatta (parade of boats on the waterway, all decked out in Christmas lights). We had to get to our chosen viewing site early because traffic for this event was hideous, naturally. We decided to view the waterway from a nice local restaurant on its shores, so we had sushi and a good chardonnay while we waited for the parade to begin. It's not news to me (who drinks very little) that wine goes a long way with me. However, I've managed to keep that secret from my kids for over 30+ years. I never get too loose in front of my own children; it's just the way I was raised I guess. Anyway, this particular evening the bar was wonderful and full of lots of folks we've known for years here, good music, good food, etc. Time seemed to stop for awhile as we tried lots of different shushi. Before the regatta got underway, I had finished two large goblets of chardonnay; and, of course, my great bartender had filled 'er up again. I consumed just a little over half of that third glass before we headed outside to the lawn along the waterway to watch the parade of decorated boats. I took lots of pictures, night shots. Later as we were walking to our vehicle leaving, words started coming off my tongue backwards, and everybody in my group got a huge kick out of me. Hence, my new nickname is "2.5", my cut-off point which they now all know and are feeling so smug about knowing. Heck, I've known that all my life!!

I do love wines though and recently have been turned on by the Moscato which has a wonderfully smooth, light, and sweet taste. One I particularly favor is by Castillo del Poggio which I tried when dining at the Olive Garden not long ago. There are lots of less expensive brands which are good (I've been testing them out), and so far I can highly recommend the Moscato by Barefoot which is comparable to a more expensive brand.

Okay, onward with my FREEBIES for you for today. First, I've completed my December Paper Pack for you, inspired by my desire to create some paper with text on it (doing the months of the year right now). Here you get 9 background papers made with the holiday season in mind. They are 12 x 12", 300 dpi. Here's the preview . . .

I had to divide this zip file into two parts to get it uploaded to my box file sharing account, so be sure to pick up both packs if downloading from there. Or you can download just one larger file from 4Shared, your choice.

From box:

Dec Paper 1

Dec Paper 2

From 4Shared: HERE

Next up I have another template for you in my daily effort from now till Christmas! Here you get my TEMPLATE #13, and below is the preview and download link. Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, providing two sites for downloading in case I run short of monthly bandwidth.

That's all I have for you, my peeps, today. Hopefully, I'll be back earlier tomorrow with another template for you. I'm off to do some of my own digi-scrapping right now! Can't wait for this time of the evening! Yeah, it's here finally . . . my time!

Talk soon!

TOOTLES!!

ANOTHER TEMPLATE FREEBIE !!

2011-12-06T20:42:00.001-05:00

I'm back already, Peeps! I'm really going to take a stab at posting a template for you every day until Christmas, so here is my second one in this current lineup. I give you my Template #12. This is a 12x12", 300 dpi, and the zip includes a layered psd file, a tiff file, and all pngs. This one is simplistic, crisp and clean. Remember, templates are just a starting idea, like a prompt to get you going. Feel free to deck them out with as much of your digi stash as your heart desires; change the template around to suit yourself, add to it, delete parts of it. For me to get one posted each day, I won't have time to make you a sample layout right now. Too much "elfing" to be done in December, and I am the HEAD ELF! Here's the preview of my Template #12 . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, I'm providing two different download sites as I expect to run out of bandwidth at one of them because of the number of FREEBIES I'll be posting and the number of downloads. I love using box.net for file sharing, but my free account there has some limitations on bandwidth. When you run out of bandwidth for a particular month, you have to wait for it to renew the following month. For that reason, I am backing you up with 4Shared, although I despise their "waiting routine" and the irritating pop-ups, etc.

I will be back in tomorrow morning early to post a great FREEBIE paper pack I made for December. Here's a look at the one text paper I made as my December inspiration . . .

Pretty wild, right? Hopefully I will have another template prepped and ready to post tomorrow also. My FREEBIES don't expire, so feel free here to gather goodies until your heart is happy! If you find any links that are not working, please leave me a note about it in the comments so I can fix it right away. Visit often, and leave some love.

Oh, and have I mentioned I am loving my Tiffany Tillman's Holiday Template 2011 class??!!! It's being taught at the Renee Pearson website, and we are having a blast! So happy I got involved. I'm getting a jump on a major project!! Yipee!! Also, taking some classes over at Jessica Sprague and can't say enough good things about that whole group of awesome folks!! Check 'em out!!

Be back soon!

TOOTLES!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS + TEMPLATE FREEBIE

2011-12-05T05:36:00.001-05:00

Alas, the busiest month of the year has arrived, good ole DECEMBER! I'm going to keep my posts short and to the point this month to save us all some time! My brief highlights include that I've been playing nurse to my youngest Yorkie, who is 13 yrs. old and who has had a severe head cold or sinus infection since early October!! I've always had lots of dogs all my life, but I've never had a dog get sick like this; it's been brutal, and I've felt so sorry for her. We've had two visits to the Vet, lots of phone conversations with the Vet, lots of pills to give, and I've been running a warm steam Vicks vaporizer now for over two weeks. The liquid Vicks Vaposteam is awesome, and the vaporizer seems to be the thing that has done my dog the most good. It has actually produced some results by helping to break up the mucus in her head which she has been expelling over the last few days now by doing some actual doggie sneezing. You can't begin to imagine the cleaning I've been doing, and luckily I have mostly tiled flooring! No matter how hard I think this has been for me to play nurse-made to her around the clock, I am compassionate that this has been harder for her. She was so clogged up that getting her air sounded like croop as she was breathing through her throat rather than her nose. She would get so choked up that she has had several faint away episodes which scared the life out of me! We were worried it was pneumonia or something worse in her lungs. A good Vet check laid those fears to rest, and the rest of this has just been dealing with getting her meds in her, keeping the vaporizer going and cleaning. It's not over yet, but it's getting better. Darn thing is; she's a house dog so we don't know how or why she got so sick. I am going to blame this on a new liquid floor cleaner my DH brought home and used while I was away up north for two weeks in October. She came down sick shortly after I returned home. I began to hunt for answers, thinking she may have an allergy to something. When I read the back of that jug of floor cleaner, I noted that it contains bacilla and live spores and may cause respiratory irritation. Well, that was enough for me!! I read that to my DH and told him we were discontinuing the use of that no matter how well it cleans! My Vet even seems perplexed by the duration and severity of this illness and said we may need to take her to a specialist. I'm going to trust my instincts and my homeopathic type treatment. Will give you an update post on this later as she hopefully gets completely well.

I've started my treat as of Dec. 1st, my Tiffany Tillman's class, Holiday Templates 2011, so I'm deep into that with my spare time at night! Yeah! We are making a 12x12 post-bound album, complete with a cover we each design. Hope to have it completed and ready for print by early January. We have mega discount coupons for that from Persnickety Prints, and they do have a late January expiration date, so the push is ON!! My album will totally document this December's happenings in my immediate and extended family, as much as I can capture photos thereof. It's already a ton of fun, and I ALWAYS take oodles of pictures anyway, so I'm all set for sure!

Also, be sure to check in over at Jessica Sprague! She has new classes on sale now, inspiration galore, a new rewards program, a free holiday project class starting today, Free Template Tuesday every week, and just so much fun going on in the forum and throughout her blogs and entire site!! By the way, she announced the return of PhotoShop Friday episodes starting in January 2012, available now by subscription! I'm hoping Santa will put this in my stocking, oh yeah!! I've loved those from the start!!

Okay, that's enough chatter from me right now. On to your FREEBIE! Working with the class templates of Tiffany's inspired me to make one of my own for use with some vertical shots I wanted to use of my grandson, Mason. I wanted to show his little body, the expressions on his face, and not so much of the background of the photos. So here is the layout I did . . .

Supplies used in this LO are from our Tiffany's class kit, a collaboration kit called "Oh Joy" by both Creashens and Paisley Press. From this layout, I decided to whip up the template of it to share. This is a 12 x 12 inch, 300 dpi psd and the download includes the a tiff file and all pngs, so you can use it in just about any scrapping software. Here is the template preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, I'm providing two different download sites in case I run short of bandwidth at either. Leave some love if you download. It means a lot to get a feedback for the time we spend creating things to share for free!

I will be back soon with a DECEMBER PAPER PACK. I designed the focal text paper back in August, so I'm working on the rest of the papers for the pack for you! Check back!

I'm also thinking of bringing another effort up-to-date really quick-like this month. I have up to 40-some templates already designed and used to post one each Tuesday ("Template Tuesdays"), but I somehow fell off the wagon on getting those posted for you. I LOVE templates, and I'm sorry I let that run aground. I'm a template junkie, so I should do better for you. What say I post one each day for the next 20 days or so??? Good deal??? If so, leave some love about it; and, if there is enough interest and love, I will push to get 'er done!! Remember, templates are just having a starting point, like a sketch to work with. You can change anything and everything about them, so it just makes scrapping quicker and easier on occasion when you need to make the most of your time.

Have a great month and "Happy Holidays" to you and your loved ones. I have lots to show you, so do drop back by!

TOOTLES!!

HORIZON QUICK PAGE FREEBIE

2011-11-15T04:03:00.001-05:00

Greetings my peeps, and happy middle of November already! Turkey Day is almost here, the stores are brimming with the flood of Christmas merchandise, and my DH is drooling as he watches TV commercials that show roasted turkey. He did tell me that he would settle for nothing but plenty of pumpkin pie though! LOL! This year we will cook. I've gotten in the habit of alternating years of cooking at home, dining out, and traveling to enjoy the holiday with relatives. This is also a month of mega birthdays in our family, so bringing all the loose ends together is an intricate affair.

I received an invitation from Addie over at Cool Scraps Digital to join this month's Quick Page Contest, so I jumped in and worked up my QP layout yesterday. We used the kit, HORIZON, by Mariscrap; and here is a preview of the kit . . .

This is a huge kit, the papers are beautiful, it's loaded with elements to play with which I don't believe are all contained in this preview. If you hop over to the forum at CSD and check out the Quick Page Contest thread or the Quick Page Contest Gallery, you'll be able to collect all the QPs from all the participants right there by direct download links. This is a great way to collect enough pages for one or two complete albums that match!! There are usually over 40 participants monthly in this CSD contest, so it's well worth your time to grab a cup of java and visit their site!!

I've made my QP in two sizes, an 8x8" and a 12x12" which are both included in my download. I got totally hooked on the little boat cluster element and built my whole page around featuring that element! I had no clue what I was going to do when I started, but that element was my inspiration for this page, and here's how it turned out . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I'm providing two download sites in case I run out of bandwidth at one. Participants in this contest have until Nov. 20th to get their QPs uploaded at CSD, so check back after that date to be sure you collected all of them. They are usually available to download for the entire following month after the contest ends (i.e., these should be available through December). A poll will also go up in the forum after Nov. 20th so you can vote for your favorite QP. The winner gets a prize!! It's a really neat contest, I love the way it works, and we ultimately are all winners for getting to play with a beautiful kit! It doesn't get much better than that when you love to scrap!!

Leave some love if you download, it spurs me on to make more for you! Also, unzip promptly to find a special time dated discount coupon from me to you, good at my Etsy shop online, where I feature my handmade items. Do come by there for a visit too, especially if you're shopping for something unique for someone special, even a pet!

Thanks for stopping by! Talk again soon!

TOOTLES!!

DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY + NOVEMBER PAPERS FREEBIE !!

2011-11-07T15:23:00.001-05:00

Lord knows I should celebrate "Digital Scrapbooking Day" since over the years it's become such a main hobby in my life! I'll try to make this short as my day seems to be slipping away quickly, and I have a long "to-do" list yet to go!

We'll jump right into the FREEBIE I have for you! It's my paper pack for NOVEMBER! As with my previous monthly paper packs, there are 9 papers, 12x12", 300 dpi, and focused around my chosen color scheme for this month; blends of brown, beige, rust. Very Fall-ish for your scrapping. Once again, here is the paper with text that sparked the entire pack . . .

Yeah, I get kind of crazy during my late night design sessions! I never know what's going to come off my brain. Here's the preview of the whole paper pack . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Again, I'm providing two sites for downloading since I may run out of bandwidth due to popularity. I try very hard to keep all my freebie links working and active at all times.

Next up, I'll simply and hopefully give you some inspiration through showing you what I've scrapped just recently. I travel with my kids and grandkids on Halloween for the candy gathering, and we have one great huge neighborhood we always go to for that every year. I'm the designated picture taker, and below is just a small smathering of what I took. I got hooked on doing the pumpkin templates this year, love them!

Above shows my precious preemie grandson as "Spiderman" (top left). He didn't want to wear the mask, so his daddy painted an awesome Spiderman face on his with makeup, etc. Very artistic with web and lots of color! My other two grandkids are "Skeledono" and "Draculeena", you can also see Amy Winehouse and Damon Wayans, a second adult change on my DD in the bottom, and the pumpkins carved. An oh yeah, that's me up in the stem! This template was free from the Template Tuesday Challenges at Jessica Sprague. I used actual photos of the kid's candy dumped on the floor for my background paper. Paper and elements used from kits available at Jessica Sprague and also one called Halloween Fun by Scrap N Sassy at Go Digital Scrapbooking.

Above shows a pumpkin filled with the 5 years of Halloweening done by my preemie grandson, Mason. This is how scrapping can help one to heal from the pain of loss. I found an old photo of Mason's mommy (my oldest DD) who only lived long enough to see three of Mason's Halloweens. I loved the photo of her in the witch's hat as she hosted Halloween festivities at her home one year, so I extracted her from that photo and placed her in this layout as if she were watching over her son. I think Mason will be pleased with this page when he gets it from me someday as a man. The whole purpose of digital scrapbooking is leaving something for posterity. This template was purchased from GDS.

I did this last layout last night as I ran across a great free template at Gotta Pixel in their Project 52 category in their forum. I could visualize this one as I looked at the template, it just was already in my head, perfect! Yes, I'm just like you, love to gather the freebies to work with! However, I've purchased my fair share over time, and this year I added a giant Halloween kit to my paid-for stash! Just needed some new things to work with that make me happy!

And, to end, I will advise you that I have signed up today for Tiffany Tillman's upcoming class at Renee Pearson called "Holiday Templates 2011", a 25 day class chocked full of 24 templates, a mega holiday kit, and plenty of daily video lessons. You can just never stop learning, and this will be an awesome class (i.e., Christmas gift to myself)!! You should check it out, today is the last day for a discount off the registration cost. You have until midnight to get that!

Okay, I'm off to hit my chore list for the rest of this day! Thanks for stopping by. Leave some love if you download. And don't forget to unzip my freebies ASAP, I have special timely coupons in there for you!!

TOOTLES!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN + FREEBIE !!

2011-10-31T02:48:00.001-04:00

Can you believe October is at an end? It's been a busy month here which included a trip up North to visit with my parents and help them with their overwhelming Fall yardwork! I was way more active physically up there on their property than I ever am here at home in my small environment. I happened to hit a really great seasonal time up there. The leaves were gorgeous colors, and millions of them came tumbling down in two consecutive days, thus the raking began. One of their 50+ years old apple trees was over-laden with delicious apples with hundreds hitting the ground beneath the tree daily. Their huge black walnut tree was the same as the apple in its bounty, and the chestnut trees were running a tight third place. I worked out in the yard every day until I didn't think my spine could take anymore. We got the lawn cleaned up of produce, gave lots of it away, sold some to the local markets, and I returned home with a truckbed full to cook and can. That's done now too! I took lots of Fall photos! Think I'll take November a little easier! Here's a LO of the black walnut tree . . . and this template was free from the Template Tuesday challenges over at Jessica Sprague . . . (if you're a template addict, like I am, you should check that out since you get a free one each Tuesday) . . .

And here is a LO of a great odd shot I took while traveling across one of our popular mountain ridges up home, this being shot upward from the forest floor . . .

And here is a LO of our favorite roadside market only a little over 2 hrs. into our journey going North; I always have to stop here and browse all the goodies . . . (another free template from JS) . . .

And here is the last LO for now, just a couple of the trip moments I luckily captured; mom with one of her geraniums, yours truly with my DD on the mountain-top lookout, and my dad pulling a bucket of apples up the driveway in the old red wagon . . . (another JS free template) . . .

November is full of family birthdays, so that will set a pace of sorts to my schedule. Better put my mind on some homemade cake recipes!!

I've been enjoying some quality time with my three grandchildren doing pre-Halloween activities like making some party crafts, Halloween cards, candy apples and popcorn balls. Here's a LO of one of those evenings with them "mugging for the camera", of course. There are getting pretty self-conscious these days in front of the lens . . . (free template from Tiffany Tillman's blog) . . .

Okay, enough about me! Here is something for you! I was spurred by ghosts, goblins, and ghouls and knowing October is ending to make you something for scrapping those photos you'll be taking tonight of your own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or all those kids coming to your door for candy (I take pictures of them, too). I present your FREEBIE, another in my large collection of photo mat/clipping masks, this one "SPOOKTACULAR". This is a png file, 300 dpi, aproximately 8 x 6" and can be used in most software programs. It can be easily resized to larger or smaller, easily recolored to use as a photo mat, or you can clip your favorite paper to it, or you can clip your photo to it directly making the photo take on the png's shape for an interesting effect. Hope you can use it and have some fun with it. Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I'm providing two different download sites as the freebies have been so popular lately that I run out of bandwidth using just one download site. So I hope this helps.

Until next time, TRICK OR TREAT! (I prefer TREATS!)

TOOTLES!!

CHALLENGE FREEBIE + OCTOBER PAPERS FREEBIE

2011-10-06T05:36:00.001-04:00

Happy October, one and all! Time is certainly flying! I tried something new for me and got involved in a neat challenge over at Cool Scraps Digital and tried my hand at a little design work. The challenge is called "CU for a PU Freebie". The hostess of the challenge, Addie's Designs, provided a pack of CU (commercial use) elements, and the contest participants had to make something with them. I'm definitely a newbie at this, but I worked up a pack of 6 papers and 10 elements. The papers are full size, 12x12", 300 dpi; and the elements include 1 invitation, 2 frames, 2 recipe cards, 2 stickers, 2 brads, and 1 journaling card. Hope you like! Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

Hop over and visit the CSD forum to collect all the other freebies available in this challenge! There are some beauties! Better still, if you hurry, you can participate in this challenge yourself. The winner gets a $5.00 gift certificate to the store, and all participants get to keep the CU Pack of goodies!

By the way, from my last post, nobody guessed my middle name correctly so I suppose we'll just keep that a secret for another time! LOL! There were some good attempts!

Next up, I have a second FREEBIE for my faithful followers! I present to you my OCTOBER PAPER PACK. I've assembled 9 pretty full size papers with fitting color for this month, so I hope you can use them! I also hope to keep this going throughout the year. It started with me trying to design a paper with some text on it for the month, and it sort of grew from that. These are 12x12", 300 dpi, and here is the preview . . .

and here is a closer look at the one paper idea that started this, the focal point of this pack:

DOWNLOAD HERE OR HERE

I'm providing two places to download for these freebies, as I experienced running out of bandwidth for my downloads last month, and that's such a bummer for anyone trying to gather up some goodies!

Unzip your downloads promptly, as I've included a little something special in them!

I believe I've got a busy month ahead, but I hope to check back in before the goblins hit my front door! Take care and enjoy the cool crisp air of Fall!

TOOTLES!

REMEMBERING 9/11 + FREEBIE + CONTEST !!

2011-09-11T05:40:00.003-04:00

I'm going to begin this post with two New York City skyline photos taken before 9/11/01, so have a look at these and stop a moment to remember . . .

"Ten years ago I watched those beautiful towers fall. I sat on my couch and cried. Not just at the destruction of those landmarks, or from fear, or from anger, but at the loss of something precious that I will never be able to truly share with my children. - - What I will share with my children is what the towers stand for: Our freedom. A freedom that was hard-fought, that continues to be hard-fought, and that is something priceless. Freedom can be taken away; we take it so for granted, but it is not and has never been free. - - On 9.11.11 I will remember the towers. I will remember our freedom. I will remember those who died to grant us freedom, to protect our freedom, and to preserve our freedom. - - I know this day will be different for all of us, but I invite you to reflect and share your memories. I leave you with favorite photos of NYC before 9.11.01 at twilight with the twin towers lit in all their glory." - - exerpt from The Studio newsletter by Toiny Westberry

So appropriate that I had to post most of it for you, my peeps. Toiny's favorite photo is the middle one, and I added my favorite NYC skyline, the bottom photo, and another Studio member just added the top photo for us. Thanks, "rabbitrun"! The Studio's newsletters are so good, that if you aren't currently subscribed to them, you should do so. I always look forward to reading Toiny's personal stories and seeing the photos of her family while living the military life in Germany now.

Today also marks many other happier special events, so lets mention those also! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my BFF, and you know who you are! I hope you have a very special day to remember! This is also my youngest DD's wedding anniversary, so to you, have a HAPPY DAY!

Last, but surely not least, this just happens to be my 100th blog post! Woohoo!! So to celebrate that, I have another FREEBIE for you, and I've also decided to have a little fun contest complete with a digi-prize! During a recent dabbling design session, I played around making colorful flowers, oodles of them! For you I picked out 27 of my favorites. WARNING: Some of them are pretty bright and cheerful! I figured this would help lift your spirits today! True to our American philosophy, we must keep our spirits high and keep on plowing forth to our dreams! So I hope you can find use for these to brighten up your scrapping pages; enjoy FLOWER FUN #1, and here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE

If the above download link is out of bandwith, try downloading HERE. There's been a huge response for this pack of flowers! Yeah!

Now, I'm not quite finished having fun, so keep reading! To further celebrate my 100th blog post, I'm having a contest for any of my faithful followers, and it's super-easy. I hope you are familiar with leaving a comment below this post. Do so, and also take a stab at guessing my middle name! Anyone who gets it exactly right wins and receives a FREE digital download of my OVAL MONTH FRAMES pictured below . . .Be sure to leave your name, your email if you want so I can contact you (or just leave your name and I will post a list of the winners in my next blog post and leave you my email so you can then send me yours, whichever you prefer). I'll even give you a couple of hints: My middle name has 7 letters and ends with E. Have fun! Can't wait to read all the submissions! LOL! This is wide open and there can be as many winners as get my middle name exactly correct and spelled correctly. So have at it! Here's what you'll win . . .

I think these frames are such a classy accent to add to a page, I love them! They've been available in The Mason Jar, but hopefully lots of you will win them now! Contest closes Sept. 18th, 2011, at midnight EST. That's a full week to find me and make your guesses!

Don't forget to leave me some love! The more love I get the more I give away! Talk to you soon!

TOOTLES!!

NEWS & LABOR DAY FREEBIE !!

2011-09-05T16:55:00.002-04:00

HAPPY LABOR DAY ALL! I hope you're having a nice holiday weekend! Enjoy this last fling and stay safe.

I've been cranking out some work lately, and you'll notice some slight changes and additions to the top of this blog page. Yep, that's right! I finally got my CRAFT STORE open online at Etsy, so I've put easy links to stay on this page so any of you interested will be able to browse my shop easily when you feel like it. To celebrate my Grand Opening there, I've posted a coupon code for 10% off all purchases for the entire month of September! Yeah! Please do hop over and drop in for a look-see over your mug of coffee. This store is for my real handicrafts which have taken over my house through the years. My digital creations will remain freebies here on my blog.

But enough about me, lets get on to YOU! In celebration of Labor Day, I am giving you a nice pack of papers called "SEPTEMBER". I have noticed lately that I love papers with text already on them, especially the month names; so I decided to try my hand at designing some of my own. Success! I have more than half of the year's made, so around the first of each month here you'll find a FREEBIE paper pack by that month's name. Hopefully, there will be several papers in the pack, and one will definitely have the name of the month text on it. My creations so far are hugely different from one another, so don't worry about things looking the same. They won't! Colors also will be geared to the time of year on these. I did well for September, there are NINE papers in this FREEBIE. Here is the pack preview . . .

and here is the preview of the month paper with text

DOWNLOAD HERE

(There's been a huge response to this paper pack, so I'm providing a secondary download site. If I'm am out of bandwith at the above link, try downloading HERE.)

Unzip this freebie right away, there's a coupon inside for you!

I'm amazed that I've managed to accomplish this much lately. I set some goals and tried to stick to them, but I've also been busy with family activities and sitting with my grandbabes. They are growing like weeds and so full of energy. I'm completely exhausted after my days with them, but it's nothing some good sleep won't repair! LOL! I'm happy to say that all three of mine are delighted to be back in school. They love going and love learning, and they love sharing all that knowledge with each other. Oh, I remember those days myself!

I'll be back soon with more digi-goodies for you, so return often! Meantime, I hope to see you visit and leave me a message at my new craft store! I've made so many friends online that it still amazes me to pieces! Hugs to all of you!

TOOTLES!

IN LOVING MEMORY

2011-08-20T16:50:00.001-04:00

To my beautiful firstborn,

I miss you every minute of every day and always will. You will forever live on in my heart and memories.

September 24, 1971 - August 20, 2009

FREE QUICK PAGE + EXCITING NEWS !!

2011-08-16T02:41:00.001-04:00

We'll jump right into the heart of things as I post late tonight! The August Quick Page Contest is in full swing over at Cool Scraps Digital, and I've just finished creating my page with the beautiful kit, AFTERMATH, by Chili Designz, which was provided free to all participating in the contest. CSD is running the contest a little differently this month, and you can still sign up to participate this month until August 29th if you can complete and submit your QP by the end of this month. That's just awesome and more relaxed for those with a super busy schedule and those of us that have a hard time keeping up with dates and deadlines. If you're not familiar with this great contest, hop on over to the forum at Cool Scraps Digital, and check out the QP Contest thread. If you haven't been there before, you may want to register in the forum so you'll be able to download all of the Quick Pages made by everyone! There is also a QP Contest gallery where you can see all of the pages made this month and probably for previous months also. And, last but not least, there is a Freebie thread in the forum where you will also find these pages to download eventually. I can't say enough good things about Cool Scraps Digital and all the wonderful designers and visitors there.

Here is the kit preview of AFTERMATH by Chili Designz . . .

We were instructed to make our pages in 8 x 8" png format so that those collecting the entire album would have pages that match up in size already, easy to print at home, etc. Here is a preview of the page I made . . .

Below is a closer look at my page and my finished sample . . .

My completed sample page . . .

You can visit Cool Scraps Digital to download my free QP in the 8 x 8" png format.

And for those of you who prefer the 12 x 12" png format, I'm offering that right here as well. Of course, both of these are 300 dpi for best print quality. I chose to slip just one photo I liked behind the element I opened up as my frame; but, if you are slick, you could also slip nine different photos into position behind that frame! I challenge you to see what you can do with this one! Have fun!

DOWNLOAD HERE

Alrighty then! In other news, I'm working on a big, but fun, new project of my own right now. I've always been a very free spirited crafter all my life. In my younger days I ran the circuit of fairs and festivals throughout each year with my crafting soul sisters, and we would have a royal blast selling our lovelies. I had a street-front shop from 1978 to 1995 (until I moved south) where I sold supplies, finished items, and gave classes. OMG! I just realized that was about 17 years of having a shop!! Time flies when you're having fun, for sure! At any rate, I am "more mature" (snicker) and still crafting away, always learning new things. Life is about all the knowledge you can soak up along your journey, my friends.

The news is: Since I am "more mature" these days, I've decided to let the internet save me some leg-work! I am opening a shop online at Etsy, and I plan for it to go live on September 1st! I hope you are familiar with Etsy, which is just wonderful. They only allow the sale of three things; handmade items, craft supplies, and vintage items (things over 20 years old). I have my storefront up and visible. The name is SunBum Studios. I am still working on all the listings I will put in the shop, and those won't be visible until September 1st. I will have a nice array of handmade lovelies offered there, so do drop in for a visit, bookmark the site, and visit frequently to see what's new there. I don't plan at this time to offer any digital creations there, any of those for sale will still go into "The Mason Jar" here on my blog, which remains my effort to help my very special angel baby grandson, Mason, with his needs in the future given his special circumstances.

Here's a very small tidbit of what you'll see in my new shop . . .

Woofie Wraps (hand knitted, easy on/off cozy jackets for dogs) . . .

Vintage hair accessories . . .

And lots more to come soon!

Again, thanks for stopping by my blog for a visit! I'll be back soon with the second set of circular word stickers for you real soon, so stay tuned!

Meantime, get those kids ready for school, and don't forget to take pictures as you go!

HAPPY SCRAPPING!

TOOTLES!

HAPPY AUGUST + FRIDAY FREEBIE!

2011-08-05T05:40:00.001-04:00

Welcome to August already! Can you believe how fast summers always seem to fly by?! It seems that my grandchildren just got out of school, but they are registering now to return. I will have two in the first grade, a boy and a girl; and my eldest will be in the fourth grade. My, my, growing up so fast! We've managed to cram in lots of activity over the summer, and I know when they hit their beds at night, they sleep well! Haha!

Right now our temperatures here in the coastal south are extremely high along with unbearable humidity, the normal for July and August. We've just begun to get some rains in the last week that are enough to drench the ground. It's been dry all year until now, and like a lot of places, we have our share of wild fires popping up all around us. The rain is welcome!

Our highways are still overflowing with tourists and will be until after Labor Day. They, too, are a welcome sight; but it makes just getting to the grocery store and back an all-day affair. It's bumper to bumper out there, and the lines are long everywhere. You can forget getting ice cream from the store to home between the long delays and the heat. Rather we opt to pick up melons and fruits of any kind that we can cut and cool quickly. I must say I've had the good fortune to pick some great melons this season. Yumo!

A highlight of the coming weekend in our area will be the annual Carolina Classic Arts & Crafts Show held in one of our convention centers. It's a huge juried show, so all the items are top-notch. It's a pleasure to simply sight-see the whole thing and enjoy the specialty foods along the journey. It's a 3-day event, and this year they are issuing a free return ticket with admission so one can shop all three days. Good idea given the state of the economy.

I have for you today a fun FREEBIE which you may find useful over and over again. I was browsing Tiffany Tillman's blog and happened across a video link which I decided to go watch. The tutorial taught how to make a dotted circle or text circle in PSE. Wow, Tiffany is an excellent instructor with a beautiful crisp clear voice! I've been playing around in my program since the middle of 2008 or so, had fleetingly wondered about this technique, but had just not stopped long enough to get "into" the idea and pursue the method. Afterall, there is so much to learn, use and do that one could potentially stay busy in that program forever! Haha! Anyway, I was inspired after the tutorial to play, and I made some word art stickers type thingys. I decided to give you the basic black png versions as they will serve more as a template. You can resize them, recolor them, clip papers to them, add shadows, add backgrounds, and well, you get the idea. Go crazy creative! I made 36 today and will divide them into three sets of 12 for you to pick up here. I'm including a blank one so you can add you own text to it in your very most favorite font! These are all 300 dpi. Here's a look at the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD HERE

If you like this type of element, leave me some love to inspire me into more creativity.

I tried to clean up the out-of-date links on my side bar, and I added my DD's grooming site. She's been super busy with vacationers bringing in dogs to board while they are here at the beach. Seems more folks prefer to bring their pets on vacation and board them close to their hotels than to leave them behind at home. They come to visit their pets and take them out for outings, then return them for overnight when they have to be in hotels that don't allow the pets.

Hope all is well where you are and that you're managing to stay cool. I'll be back soon with more digital fun for you, so do stop back by. Meantime, Happy Scrapping!

TOOTLES!

FREE QP's! GET YOURS!!

2011-07-23T05:26:00.001-04:00

Yes! Another whole month of summer has flown by, and I've been somewhat MIA from my blogging! I can only hope this post will make it up to you. Summer is just a busy time!

How about a collection of 45 gorgeous Quick Pages for the taking, would that be a good peace offering? Follow me as I explain the fabulous monthly happening over at Cool Scraps Digital. Each month they have a superb QP contest, and I've been participating for a few months now. It's such fun! For July, we were provided a bright, cheerful kit, HAPPINESS, by PrettyJu Scrap Designs. Take a look at the following previews:

Isn't it just grand?!! Now I'm a busy gal, but I just had to get my QP designed for this contest, so I played with the kit for the first time last night, and here's what I came up with . . .

and I made this layout just to test out my page design . . .

That was a happy day, my birthday; and we were up bright and early with a spiked breakfast smoothie in hand on our way to The Big M Casino boat for a day of gambling and sunning on the sea. What's not to be happy about? LOL!

All the Quick Pages we contestants submitted to Cool Scraps Digital are in 8 x 8" png format so that the collective album is uniform. You can head over there to the forum and look for the Quick Page Contest thread where you will find in each post a direct download link for the other 44 pages. If you haven't visited there before and want to get all these, you'll need to register in the forum so you'll be able to see the download links in each post.

I'm offering my standard size 12 x 12" png Quick Page right HERE for download.

Do go have a look see at all the other pages offered. It is truly the best contest I've happened across, and I look forward to participating each month. You'll be astounded at all the gorgeous pages for the taking!!

Try to hang on with me and check back often. I have great intentions on getting my freebies out to you very soon. I have a huge quantity designed and usually do all that very late at night. The problem right now is our weather is so hot and humid during the day that it's almost impossible not to be submerged in the pool during the daytime. We've had very little rain all year, everything here is very dry and brittle. The grass crunches beneath my feet.

My Outer Banks jaunt was such a nice break; great to see my dear friends, and all over too quickly. I found it most relaxing, even the journey itself. I have vowed to myself not to let so many years slip by between our visits.

Catch you later, and keep scrapping!

TOOTLES!

VINTAGE QUICK PAGE FREEBIE!

2011-06-18T03:25:00.001-04:00

Yes! Another whole month has flown by, and it's that time again! I'm talking about the Quick Page Contest over at Cool Scraps Digital. For June we were privileged to have the opportunity to work with a beautiful vintage feeling kit, DEVOUT MEMORIES, by Karen Kleiman, aka KakleiDesigns. Since I'm preparing to make a quick jaunt to the Outer Banks to visit a friend for a few days, I prepared my contest QP last night and wanted to get it posted here so all my peeps could snag it up quickly. Be sure to head on over to the forum at CSD and browse through the QP Contest Gallery to see all the entries; but more important than gallery gazing is to be sure you visit the forum thread about the June QP contest as it contains all the direct download links to all the pages submitted. You can gather up a really nice QP album if you spend some time there. The entries so far are awesome! I think all entries will be posted by June 25th for your pleasure. If you have not visited their forum before, you will need to register before you'll be able to see the everything (registration is free, just a user name and password is all it takes!). Here's a look at the kit previews:

And here is the Quick Page I designed using Devout Memories . . .

I'm offering my QP in two sizes, so you have a great choice! You can pick up the 8 x 8" size by visiting the June QP Contest thread in the forum at CSD and just click on the direct download link in my post there.

Or, if you prefer having the 12 x 12" size you can click on the link below:

DOWNLOAD HERE

I hope you enjoy this goodie!

In other news, I just had my ?? birthday this week, and no, I'm not telling my age! LOL! Suffice it to say I have 3 grandchildren and we'll just leave it at that! I've learned to celebrate the fact that I am here, was born, not count the years. It keeps me happier that way! LOL! I was actually born on Father's Day the year I came into being. Needless to say, I think my Mom gave her all providing my Dad with a live gift like that! LOL! Anyway, to celebrate, my DD surprised me with a yummy tropical smoothie she made for breakfast, and off we scurried to board one of our local casino boats for a day of off-shore gambling on the ocean! Wasn't that special!! While onboard, we took in a delicious buffet style breakfast on one of the upper indoor decks of the boat, took a lengthy sunbath on the uppermost outer deck using #30 and #80 sunblock on our fair hides, danced a little to a live band on yet another deck, and watched lots of folks having a blast feeding the one-arm bandits. We took lots of pictures and thoroughly enjoyed our day on the water in total appreciation of where we are fortunate enough to live. I'll post some pics of all this in an upcoming post if I got any good ones. I haven't put them in my computer yet, and I'm not sure how they turned out given the rocking of the waves. LOL!

I'll be back in a few days after my trip with more freebies and more pictures to share with you. In the meantime, HAPPY SCRAPPING!

TOOTLES!

FABULOUS FRAME FREEBIE !!

2011-06-06T01:25:00.001-04:00

Here is is, Monday again! Seems that day of the week rolls around faster than the other six! I've been busy lately stepping up the "Mimi" roll by attending my grandchildrens' end of school award ceremonies, graduations, and all their sports championship games. Whew! I'm pooped from being on the run so much, especially in the heat we've been having already. Our temperatures have already soared to a few degrees past 100 F., and it's still what I would call early in our heat season here. If it's any indicator of what's to come across the rest of this summer, we are in for it! Thank goodness for the ocean and a community pool just steps from my front door!! Anyway, all the events I've taken in recently have provided me with excellent photo opportunities, so I've built up a nice stash of pics to scrap in the coming months. Check out my "layouts page" with the tabs at the top of this blog to browse through my latest scrapped pages. I'm in the process of attempting to bring that page up-to-date. Seems there is never enough time in the days to entirely complete the lists I have going. LOL!

I worked a little on designing yesterday, and the result of that is a good size FREEBIE for you! I made frames from a stash of my own textured papers that are dear to me, so I hope you like and can use these in your scrapping. There are 17 frames in different colors. These are png files at 300 dpi, easily resized larger or smaller to suit your needs. I had to break the the set into three zip files since I'm using my free account at Box.net to bring you the downloads without waiting or hassle on your end. So be sure to download all three links below! Here's the preview . . .

DOWNLOAD LINKS

SET 1A

SET 1B

SET 1C

I'm keeping this short and sweet for now as I have much else to do for others right now, not to mention that list I have going. At the moment I'm dog sitting with three extra fur babies that belong to my DD while she's on a well-deserved fun excursion for a few days with her family. This means there are a total of 5 canines in my house currently, that's 20 little legs running around! I have to be careful I don't trip over them myself! Seems all we get done is eating, drinking, and going outside for bladder relief! In case you're curious, it's three full-blood Yorkies, one Yorkie-Maltese cross, and one terrior/hound mix. Oh my, I should try to snap some pics of them so you can see the madness! LOL! My DD is a local all-breed canine groomer and also handles boarding which is quite popular in this area when vacationers bring their pets to the beach and not all hotels allow them in. Her facility is handy to the beach, and she allows folks to check their pets in and out daily during their stay so they can romp on the beach together. Most people seem to prefer having their pets near them while they vacation rather than leaving them boarded in their hometown. At any rate, seems we always have plenty of fur babies around.

If not out already, most schools will turn the children loose for the summer this week. I hope you have plans for a wonderful summer ahead. Have a great week!

I'll be back soon with more goodies for you. I want to get back on giving you some regular template freebies. I love designing templates, and I have a nice stash ready to throw at you, so stay tuned in here! PSE10 should make its debut very soon. Keep an eye out at your local Costco for a great deal on it when it arrives on the shelves! Can't wait to see what's new in it! Just like a kid at Christmas!

Back soon! TOOTLES!

QUICK PAGE FREEBIE !!

2011-05-20T00:15:00.001-04:00

Hi all! I'm back with a quick update of my May 15th post. The nifty Quick Page design contest is underway over at Cool Scraps Digital, and there are a total of 44 contestants entered this month. All of the Quick Pages will be posted in the gallery for viewing as they are completed by each person, and the free download links will be posted in the forum under the thread about the May Quick Page Contest. Each page designer will make an individual post in that thread which will contain a link to the gallery view, a link to her blog, and a direct download link for her page. If you haven't visited Cool Scraps Digital before, you will need to register in their forum before you'll be able to see everything I'm talking about. Registration is free; just a user name and password. To recap a bit for you, we are working from "FLORAL SURPRISE" kit by Created by Jill. Here's a look at the kit . . .

My method of madness is my own. I'm always excited to get a free kit to play with, so I download, unzip it and get right to work on my first impressions without looking at any other person's work at that point. That way, I know my creation is inspired by my own observations in the kit and what impresses me first. Here's the first Quick Page I did at that point and the one I am submitting as my freebie . . .

I hope you like it well enough to hop over to the forum at Cool Scraps Digital, pick it up and collect any of the other 44 that intrigue you. You'll have a great opportunity to make a wonderful Quick Page Album totally free! All pages have been instructed to be at the 8 x 8" size, 300 dpi, png files so that folks can print at home if desired.

I've grown very fond of this particular monthly challenge as I find it works completely as I had always hoped a challenge of this type would work! I plan to be a part of it every month, so you can watch for my monthly quick Pages or, better still, follow my instructions above to start collecting the entire QP albums! Clear up some room on your hard drives!

Hope to be back soon with some more of my own freebies for you! Until then,

TOOTLES!

PENCIL SKETCH - DIGI STYLE!

2011-05-16T02:14:00.001-04:00

I came across a cool technique while browsing forum posts at my favorite playground, Jessica Sprague. Anyone who hangs out there much will come to know a fellow named "Earl", and he's such a sweetie to share so much knowledge. I immediately dashed over to Earl's blog and watched the videos in his May 7th posting and then tried this out for myself in PSE6. It worked beautifully! This is all about how to take a digital photo and transform it into what looks like a "pencil sketch". Of course, you can tweak it until you are happy with it, and results will be better on some photos you use than others. I had a recent photo of my folks at a beach-front stop-off we like to use, and I just liked how they were positioned in the picture, so I played around with turning it into a pencil sketch and then made a layout using that as a large focal point. Here's how it turned out . . .

Mind you, this is my first attempt but I was happy with how it turned out. The technique is simple enough and gets rather addictive as you go along. LOL! You'll find yourself wanting to try it on all kinds of your photos. I'll show you another layout below so you can see the original photo I chose to work this technique on. The original photo looks quite good and just appealed to me.

The pencil sketch was done using the top right photo above, a couple of easy steps to follow, and you can see the results; very cool! The above layout was my submission for the 15th Template Tuesday challenge over at Jessica Sprague using the template provided by Monica Lifferth and the kit is "Strawberry Lemonade" by Jessica Sprague. I just love using templates for a jump-start, so I love getting free ones on top of the ones I design myself. If you are interested in collecting free templates or getting into doing the Template Tuesday challenges, the templates are posted each Tuesday morning for download on the JS sister blog, Digi Lovely. After you complete 10 and post them to the gallery, you have earned a $5 off purchase of $10 gift certificate good in the JS store.

Okay, I'm off. My scrapping juices are flowing, so I'm going back to that for awhile. Just wanted to share. Be back soon!

TOOTLES!

MAY NEWSFLASH!!

2011-05-15T01:24:00.001-04:00

Hello my peeps! Spring brings warm weather very early on here at the beach, often as early as mid February. Our early warm weather combined with spring breaks in schools and colleges allows for the flow of personal company to begin in my home during the month of March, and I've been so busy I'm just coming up for air. I apologize for the length of time between my posts and freebies lately. My very dear elderly parents were here for Easter this year which was such a family treat. My 88 yr. old dad got to take in a Pelicans baseball game with his granddaughter and great-granchildren while here, so what a treat for him! To prove how small the world really is, the nice couple sitting next to him struck up conversation and were from a small city we know very well only 30 miles from where my folks live up north. They had lots to talk about in common, the weather was perfect, and the Pelicans won the game! Yeah - a great day for Dad!

Our local annual Blue Crab Festival is in progress this weekend along with a Harley Davidson Spring Bike Rally, and our local seams are bursting. We took in an early morning soccer game and then headed for the festival which is full of a multitude of yummy food and wine vendors as well as arts & craft vendors from near and far. Music, entertainment, tantilizing food scents, and the buzz of happy people fills the air for the entire weekend along our Intercoastal Waterway front where there is always a gentle breeze blowing to cool you down some from the heat. Everyone comes out to feed and browse around for the entire weekend. You've never seen so many happy people in one place! It's a sight; a good one!

Okay, but I've popped back on here to tell you about the May Quick Page Contest over at Cool Scraps Digital. If you're a digi-scrapper with a blog, you'll want to hop over to check this out in the forum there. The contest has it's own thread in the forum, you'll see it. You need to register in the forum if you haven't been there before, especially if you think you may want to participate in this contest. Sign-ups to participate started on May 14th and run through May 18th. The kit to work from is FREE and will be given to you on May 18th. You simply design one 12 x 12 inch Quick page at 300 dpi and post it to their gallery with a download link. You'll be able to collect all the Quick Pages as the competition progresses and even after it is over. Last month was totally awesome! This month's kit is "FLORAL SURPRISE" designed by "Created by Jill". Have a look . . .

So cool, right? How could anyone not want to get involved? This is such a wonderful contest, it's so fun to make a Quick Page, the kit is free, and you have a chance at some great prizes too! Head on over there and check it out for yourself! I'm in, so I'll be back soon to show you my own Quick Page with this kit.

Alrighty then, that should hold you for a few minutes if you're looking for something free and fun to do. I promise to get back on my own blogging schedule with plenty of my own freebies to come your way very soon. I just need to sit for awhile to get them organized, the hardest part of anything we do . . . the organization end of things!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend and enjoying some great weather where you live! Be back soon! Until then, Happy Scrapping!

TOOTLES!

FREE MOTHER'S DAY CARD!

2011-05-05T22:02:00.001-04:00

I'm back with this FREEBIE just in time for you to print and send! Divine Digital has a brand new monthly challenge in their forum this month! That's right! They have a suggestion box, and some of us suggested they have a monthly card challenge with templates provided to make it fun and easy for us to design and print. It saves so much over going to the store, plus you can say what you want to say for a change! Princess Lala Designs was kind enough to take on the job of hosting the first card challenge and provided us with two templates we can use. Head on over to the forum and pick up yours! I chose to use one of the templates to create my Mother's Day card for my own Mom, and I used a mini add-on kit called Bright & Eclectic by Willow Grace Designs, also of Divine. Without further mish-mash, here are my card previews:

Here is a closer look at my front,

And, here is a closer look at my inside,

Wow! Sorry I didn't put a thin black border around that inside preview so you can see the edges of it better. Oh well. Can't think of everything. Here's the scoop: My front measures 6 inches wide by 4 inches tall. You can easily use the jpg file and even make it your own desired size in your program. It would easily resize to 7" wide by 5" tall, or 8" wide by 6" tall. My inside measures 6" wide by 8" tall, simply print and fold in the middle horizontally at the 4" mark across. Have fun! See what you can do with it.

DOWNLOAD HERE

I hope you're having a great month of May so far! April was super busy for me with lots of company and the Easter holiday. My last company left today, and I'm a little sad now going back to just the solitude of only my DH and self in here! Always shifting gears and changing pace. Just remember the old saying that "nothing is constant except for change". How true!

I'll be back soon with more free goodies for you digi-scrappers. Meanwhile, don't forget to check out my Mason Jar and things on my other pages using the tabs above. I'm adding layouts, photos, recipes, and some needlework patterns for those that want to hang out here and peruse the pages.

Have a great week, weekend, and to all you Mothers, HAVE A BLESSED MOTHER'S DAY! I hope you can hold your dear ones near!

TOOTLES!

QP CONTEST at COOL SCRAPS DIGITAL !!

2011-04-17T13:57:00.001-04:00

You just have to check this out! Head over to Cool Scraps Digital and browse through the amazing Quick Page Contest going on. I'm participating, and we get the opportunity to work with an absolutely gorgeous kit called "EARTH" designed by Nydia Scraps. You can pick up all the QPs being made by all the participating contestants by free download. The contest runs through April 25th, and new QPs are added daily until then. Visit there often so you can collect them all for your stash! You will even get a chance to vote in the poll for your favorite page! This is all happening in the forum at Cool Scraps Digital, so you may want to register at the forum if you haven't visited there before now. You'll find a bunch of your favorite designers hanging out there, so come along! Here's the preview of the kit, "EARTH"

and here is the freebie QP I designed with it,

So head on over to Cool Scraps Digital and gather up some fabulous QPs. There are lots of contestants which means you'll have a gorgeous free QP album by April 25th! I promise it will make you happy! The voting poll will probably go up toward the end of the contest, so you'll have a chance to vote for your favorite page. Thanks!

Sorry to have been away from my blog for so long, but I took an advanced digi-scrapping course online which totally absorbed by focus for a really long time and was very awesome! I'll get back in the saddle here with lots more freebies for you as we roll on into Spring!

TOOTLES!

SATURDAY SPECIAL - FREEBIES GALORE!

2011-02-05T03:30:00.002-05:00

Hey there! I wish for you a GREAT WEEKEND! I've done my part to enhance it for you! I've worked fairly intensely for the last two days to make, organize, pack up & upload all of the following for you. It all started with a tutorial I watched which inspired me to get to work on the idea for this. I've had the winter blahs as a lot of folks do after the holidays and with the dull colder winterish weather. I'm just not a person that does well when the skies are gray. I so need the yellow sunlight! So, with that in mind I went to work on a rather spring-like thought to brighten your mood (and mine!). Thereby, all of the following was born just for you, my followers.

We'll start with the FREEBIES! I have 5 sets of new GARDEN TAG elements for you today! Each set includes 5 tags which are png files at 300 dpi. They can be easily resized larger or smaller. The photos used on these were taken by me of my plants growing in 2010 in my flower beds, hanging pots, planters, and around my home. I'm always snapping pictures of pretty things in bloom or just nature in all its glory, so this was a good use for some of those. My thoughts for you are along the line that perhaps you can use one or so on a spring or summer layout to brighten up a spot on your page. I also made a couple of these with photos of my grandkids in them and titled the tag with "Seedling", "Sprout", etc., but we'll look at that another day. Okay, here we go with the previews and download links:

DOWNLOAD SET #1 HERE

DOWNLOAD SET #2 HERE

DOWNLOAD SET #3 HERE

DOWNLOAD SET #4 HERE

DOWNLOAD SET #5 HERE

Whew! Happy yet? All of these tags have room for some journaling on the triangular bottom area, and some are blank at the top so you can add a title, some I added a title to already. They do not have a drop shadow so you can add that when doing your layouts if desired and be in control of the shadow adjustments. Alrighty then. Now, here we go on to 7 more sets of these which I have selected to put in my MASON JAR. You're going to say, "She saved the best for the Jar", and I kind of knowingly did. I promised myself to work more intensely on this project for my little grandson this year by making a lot more to include there. So, I hope you will see fit to support my efforts occasionally in this by taking a look in the JAR when you visit here, and grab something once in awhile that takes your eye! Each of these sets is only $0.75 and each set contains 5 different tags. Should you purchase, just enter your email in the space provided, and you'll receive the download link by email from me within 24 hours of your payment. It's very easy to use these buttons if I have them working correctly. Should you find a button that is not working, just let me know in the comments section or by emailing me so I can fix it promptly. I try to check them as I post, but occasionally I find one that just didn't copy in correctly. It's usually my fault, I am not a guru of html code know-how. LOL! I do get there eventually though. Okay, here we go with the previews, etc.

MJP_Garden Tag Set #1

MJP_Garden Tags_Set #2

Enter Email Here

There you have it, two full days of devoted digi-work! If you made it this far, you are loyal and I LUV ya! The downloads are from box.net, so they are easy, quick, and without delays or annoying pop-up ads, etc. I love them! I know you will appreciate my using them too! Spread the good word about them to others who do file sharing and uploading of files. Their free account works beautifully. There are a few space and file size limitations to the free account, but I can work with it. I've been with them for a good while now, and in my book they seem like quality! - - - Leave me some love if you like my freebies! I read all comments and thank each of you who take time to leave me a message. It means so much to know that somebody will enjoy my labors, really!

I had a freebie for Australia Day on Feb. 26th, but I didn't get a chance to blog; but I'm going ahead and post that anyway in the next few days. Shoot! I didn't mean to miss giving that to my Aussie buddies in a timely manner. Sorry about that.

I hope all this makes sense; I'm such a night-owl but sometimes wonder how I have any brain power left at these late hours! LOL! Our weather is cold (40's is cold at the beach), dreary gray, and drizzling rain; just not too pretty right now. I'm thankful though that I'm not having to deal with being buried in tons of snow. My dad is nearing 88 yrs. of age and preparing next week to have laser cataract removal of his eyes, one at a time. He and mom have such a hard time traveling through the snowy weather to nearby cities for their doctor and hospital appointments that it scares me to even think of them out in the winter hazards trying to maneuver at their ages. A younger neighbor has offered to drive them to this surgical appointment which will require an overnight stay before returning home, so I hope that works out okay. If it doesn't, I will motor a day's journey north for a few days to do their driving for them. Burr!! Dad will be so much better able to see when his two eyes are done!! That surgery has come a long way from the olden days!

We had a huge pot of mixed beans for dinner (navy, pinto and black beans) and some yummy cornbread. I flavored the pot of beans with fatback plus cajun seasoning, onion powder, and butter. I think they were the best pot of beans I've made to date! My hubby is a country boy and loves his beans! I ate too much and got lazy after dinner. Sweet cornbread is one of my weaknesses! I think I'll add a photo page to this blog for plain pictures, so watch for that. I shot those beans cooking; I do crazy things like that - they were pretty as they boiled! LOL!

With that, I'm going now. Stay inspired! I'll be back soon with more goodies for you. Winter is such a good time to create new things. I'm trying my hand at more elements, frames, and have a lot of great templates to come your way. Check in here often. Give a shout in the chat box on the right to let me know you stopped by. In the meantime, I will keep the goodies coming at you! See ya soon!

TOOTLES!

A NEW YEAR OF GOODIES!

2011-01-22T10:47:00.003-05:00

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:

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!

THANKFUL + TURKEY = NOVEMBER + FRIDAY = FREEBIE!!

2010-11-19T02:57:00.001-05:00

I don't know how your month is shaping up, but mine has turned out pretty busy so far. November is loaded with lots of birthdays to celebrate (both family and friends), and my grandson's football activities peaked this month as his team made it into the play-offs and WON the championship! YEAH! Been spending some time at the field cheering him on as the evenings get darker earlier and become increasingly chilly here on the oceanfront. I know, I shouldn't complain. The days are still plenty warm here, but as the sun drops the ocean breeze can feel damp and cool now in November. I am not a fan of returning to normal Eastern Standard Time as we always do at the beginning of this month. I much prefer Daylight Savings Time so I can have my extra daylight hours in the evenings, so I am one of those who would lobby to leave it on Daylight Savings Time all year-round. There is something about light that makes me much happier, the same as bright yellow sunshine does against a clear blue sky!

Today is my only granddaughter's 5th birthday! My DD is giving her a Rock 'n Roll themed party for her little friends in the garage of their home this evening. I'll be there to rock on, but first I must whip up and print out a digitally designed birthday card for her with some cute fairies on it. I'll be sharing some party photos with you later on some scrapped pages for sure!

What are your Turkey Day plans? Do you have that menu all worked out? I think my plans will include something about 4 wheels and about 800 miles. Oh me! However, if you need some food inspiration or some new recipes, check out the November Recipe Challenges in the forums at Digital Scrapbooking Studio and Designs in Digital, or you can look in the galleries at all the recipe cards being designed and displayed. Maurine of LetMeScrapbook always hosts the monthly recipe swap at DSS, and if you submit a recipe card you will get all of the others at the end of each month. Fabulous!! Santa's Digi Express is happening right now at Designs in Digital, and it's oh so much fun! There's a long list of challenges for it posted in their forum,one of which is a recipe card swap. I must say, both of these site challenges are going extremely well. I have been working on each project in that challenge list, posting my completed ones each day; and today I won an entire kit! We also received a surprise gift just for participating already, a digital Advent Calendar we can customize and print out. My grandkids just love to use those in December, so that was really sweet!

I'm still taking my weekly PhotoShop Friday lessons from Jessica Sprague for a dollar weekly, and I can't say enough good things about those self-paced lessons to help one learn more and more about how to use all the tricks within PhotoShop, PhotoShop Elements, and the CS series. The video tutorials are just awesome! Jessica records those at just the perfect speed, and with the ability to stop, start, fast foward, rewind, and replay them at your heart's desire; well, there is just nothing you can't learn about your software from her!! She's giving a totally FREE class starting Nov. 29th (see and click on my top side-bar ad), so you may want to check that out and get yourself registered for the fun coming up soon! She always gives a free class annually this time of year! They are self-paced, meaning you don't have to be at your computer at any certain time, the lessons are there for you whenever you have the time. So don't be skeptical about signing up because of your schedule. It's great to have something to do when you do have free time.

Also, FYI, Scrapper's Guide has changed their name to Digital Scrapper, and Linda just closed registration on Nov. 15th for a discounted combo class of instruction on learning the changes in PhotoShop Elements 9. I'm a Premier subscriber annually, so I get her monthly kits, quick pages, and video tutorials. What can I say, another fabulous and energetic digital instructor!

I believe I also read today that Digi Design Resort will be offering 24 daily classes free by video online, so I'm going to have to check that out. It starts toward the end of this month, maybe between the 25th or 29th. It's probably posted somewhere in their forum.

Alas, I'm about two full months behind in providing you with layout inspiration; but fear not, I've done a ton of personal scrapping so it will be forthcoming! For now, we'll just focus on some FREEBIES!

For today's FREEBIE I've designed for you a collection of PHOTO CORNERS, 14 sets in a variety of colors (56 pieces in all). These are png files at 300 dpi so you can resize them to suit your needs. I think everyone needs a bunch of these in their stash! They can always handle a photo when nothing else seems to fit. The download is stress free from box.net, and here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Leave a little love if you like my freebies. I'm not quite finished with Halloween as Turkey Day fast approaches. Therefore, I'll be back soon with a couple of freebies for each holiday. Seems I can hardly decide what facial design I'm carving into my pumpkin as I hear TV and radio ads for "Black Friday". Geez! I would like a chance to enjoy one holiday at a time. Is it me, or is the world moving too fast? Just one of my pet peeves . . .

See ya soon! TOOTLES!

HALLOWEEN QUICK PAGE FREEBIE !!

2010-10-30T14:48:00.001-04:00

It's time to get those knives out and carve those pumpkins! In years gone by my family has hosted carving parties for friends and relatives with real competition for the most elaborate design complete with prizes! They were always a huge success and loads of fun until it came time for the after-party clean up crew to get to work! Teehee! This year we've taken the easy route and just the family gathered to carve; plus we pretty much winged our patterns right from our own minds. The kids had a blast, and I've not seen that much pumpkin guts flying around for a long time! Here's my pumpkin, my own free-hand sketch of a Tim Burton design and then our collective effort is below that:

I've decided to accompany my grandchildren on their Trick or Treating adventures which begin tonight with a big Halloween fling in one of our local parks and will end with the collection of candy from good neighborhoods tomorrow night. It will provide me a great opportunity to have some fun with them and take lots of little goblin pictures to scrap later! Yeah! Want to see my costume? I'm going to be a Punk Rocker "Mimi", and my oldest grandson has already put his seal of approval on my look! I had a blast surprising him in it already by picking him up from school with it on the day I got it. Now, the look on his face at that moment was PRICELESS! And alass, I did not have my camera in hand! Live and learn! The mask has horns!

Hope you're in the mood to celebrate the seasons as they come and go! With that thought in mind, I present you with another FREEBIE for this holiday. I have a cool QUICK PAGE for you which is a 12 x 12 inch png, 300 dpi. I left it sort of bare on purpose so you could clutter it up with your own favorite elements and just pop your photos in place. The download is not too large and coming to you from box.net for ease. I hope you will enjoy this! Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

I completely forgot to mention in my last post that another reason I was MIA during most of September and October here on the blog was due to my getting involved in the September Birthday Bash at Digital Scrapbooking Studio. I not only participated in most all of the month-long challenges during the party but entered the layout competition in hopes of landing a spot on their site's layout CT as there were three openings, and the final top three layout artists would be landing those spots. It was a five-week competition with probably 50-60 digi-scrappers competing in my category. This went on in addition to the designer competition which was awesome and offered so many free downloads of their new designs as it went along. My division had to make a layout with a new kit each week, and I made it to the final week before getting cut. So, I was happy with that! We got so many wonderful prizes along the way, and it was just so much fun to be involved. They are one of my most favorite site's to hang out in online, so if you haven't checked them out, you should. Sign up for their newsletter too, there's always nice freebies in it and good fun stories from The Piggy. At any rate, I got involved in that competition while having two sets of company during the month of September, so you can just imagine how many late nights I pulled on the computer! I'll show you some of my layouts from that in posts to come.

For now, I've got to run and prepare the rest of my costume for this evening. The park shindig begins at 5 o'clock. I'll hopefully be back tomorrow with another Halloween goodie for you, so do stop back in.

BOO for now! I mean, bye.

TOOTLES!!

A "38-SPECIAL" FREEBIE FOR YOU!!

2010-10-28T04:33:00.001-04:00

There's a pun in that title; isn't that a gun or something! Teehee! First, I apologize for going MIA for almost two months, so sorry. I had that bad cold in September which really drug me down, then two sets of company arrived for Fall visits, so I did a ton of heavy cooking and entertaining. We had loads of fun, and I was really sorry to see them leave. During this time I focused on taking pictures and doing personal scrapping late at night rather than trying to design and keep up with blogging. Please forgive. I'm back and will try to make it up to you in the coming days and weeks.

Does everybody like Halloween? I've shared in running around over this beach looking at costumes for my grandkids and watching them change their little minds in the process. It makes me recall my own younger days of planning and "making" my kids' costumes. That's right, I sewed them up from scratch and sometimes put many sleepless nights into getting them finished. Oh, those were the days! I'm grateful that they always loved them and never minded that they were homemade! That saved a ton of money even then. It also brings to mind how my younger brother loved Halloween better than any other holiday of the year, even Christmas, as he was growing up. We lived in a great neighborhood where all the residents participating in giving out candy. The neighborhood was therefore always beseiged with hundreds of children, and back then there were no restrictive hours of Trick and Treating. Kids would show up at the door before dark and it continued well into the night. It was a tough choice, even as a kid, whether to dress up and go out and gather the candy or stay home and see the hundreds of kids coming to our door in full costume! But not for my brother! He ran as hard as he could, alone or with buddies, to cover the entire town! His sack would get so heavy he would come home and dump it out and leave again. He was like a Halloween maniac! My sister and I couldn't keep up with him, he was out-of-control. He still loves the whole process even as an adult. He lives across the country from me now, so I don't get to see his adult version of Halloween in his home, but I'm sure it massive. We had fun parents too who would dress up in costume to hand out the candy. My dad was especially fun-loving and took great pride in pulling his own brand of pranks on the little kids as they came up our long sidewalk to the front door. He would dress up in goulish garb and jump out from behind our shrubs to scare the kids and even their parents as they arrived. Some took it well, some didn't; you can just imagine. But my dad would laugh until tears would roll down his cheeks, and then mom would shame him if the children's reaction was bad. I remember we always had to have loads of candy on hand for the numbers that arrived at our house. It just seemed to grow larger every year, and my folks are still like little kids themselves, now in their 80's, but having already busted open the massive bags of candy on hand already to "taste test it" to see if it's any good before they give it away! We always carved a pumpkin from scratch with a huge butcher knife, too! It was such a glory to put that candle in it and watch it glow through the night. We always had a light dinner that night, something nourishing but quick so we kids could get started. What hub-bub, what fun! We had pumpkin pie often during the fall, we saved the pumpkin seeds, ate some, planted some the following spring. I even crafted with some way back then. It seemed nothing went to waste.

In my own adult years with grown children, we have refined our pumpkin carving to a fine art using patterns and mini saws, and even hosting pumpkin carving contest parties. I haven't used a butcher knife on a pumpkin for many years now! LOL! I'll see if I can dig up some photos of our best pumpkins and get them up here for you to see. Now, this is giving way to me dressing up and going along with my grandchildren to watch them as they have fun. I did get myself a special "look" for the spooky night, so if anybody thinks to take my picture, I'll get it up here so you can see how groovy this "Mimi" is.

Enough with the walk down memory lane . . .

I've got some goodies coming your way over the next few days, so do Trick or Treat at this blog! The first FREEBIE for you is a huge pack of Halloween Word Art. There are 38 png files in all, 5 word stickers in lots of variations to match up with whatever paper colors you may choose as your page backgrounds. Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Let me know if you like this, I appreciate the comments you take time to leave. You know love and appreciation spurs us on.

I've made some Halloween Quick Pages and Photo Masks/Mats to give you, so be sure to drop back by in the next few days to snag yours. I've also made lots of templates and fall papers which will be coming your way as I get back on some type of schedule here.

In the meantime, don't get a toothache from helping your little goblins eat all that candy! Have lots of fun, and do be careful out there!

TOOTLES!

TEMPLATE TUESDAY - FREEBIE !!

2010-08-31T05:59:00.001-04:00

As promised, I'm back with a neat FREEBIE template for you! I'm trying to stick with my own mental weekly schedule of goodies, and I don't sleep much anyway. So, today I have my 11th template to give my peeps! While working on this one, I formulated plans for another one to come to you later; I just love how my own creativity flows. I'll have to make notes so I don't forget the next design while it's in my head now. Check!

This one is a 12 x 12 inch, 300 dpi and includes a psd, tiff, and all the png files so everybody can hopefully use it. Here's the preview and download link below that (from Box.net) for ease.

DOWNLOAD HERE

I worked up a layout using this template to give you some inspiration. There are various things you can do with the geometric shapes on this one, but here's what came to me as I worked:

I used the kit "NEW BEGINNINGS" by none other than Janice Ward of JW-Digi Scraps since I'm so hooked on her designs and try avidly to collect everything she makes! This kit has pretty soft colors in a nice variation and lots of pretty elements for inspiration. You could place papers in a bunch of the spots where I chose to place photos! Have your own way with the template, and most of all enjoy the scrapping!

I'm making my posts on the short side on purpose. I've finally caught my DH's bad cold, so I'm not feeling so good as it's coming on. UGH! I really avoided him and tried not to get this, but alas, it's got it's old nasty claws into me anyway despite my evasive measures and a ton of disinfectant spray! There's just no escape from these types of viruses! Nothing can be so pleasant as having a heavy wet cold in the summer heat here! Woah is me! So my tissues and I will say bye for now and will return in a few days hopefully feeling better.

TOOTLES!!

"MASON JAR" MONDAY PROJECT

2010-08-30T23:53:00.002-04:00

Hi all! Today's project going in the "MASON JAR" is one for the tweeters!! No, I mean the real tweeters . . . the birds. This handmade lovely is entitled "Home Tweet Home" Gourd Birdhouse_01. I took a look at my current selection and chose a pretty mottled purple one for you today because so many folks just love the color purple. A little about this item: I grow the "birdhouse" shape gourds myself each year, but when I don't have enough of them I do buy field grown ones here locally in my area. The process of crafting with them is a long one. They must be totally dried out which can take up to a year from the time they are taken off the vine, which here is in December/January. They are usually green at that point but turn a light brown when completely dried, and you can hear the seeds rattle around inside when they are dried out nicely. I scrubb off the outside with a scratchy pad (like you would clean your pots and pans with) and some clorox water. This gives me a nice clean smooth outside surface to work on. I cut the entry hold with a handmade sawtooth tool my DH made me for this purpose, but one of those pumpkin carving kits with the little toothy saw in it would work just as well probably. My tool is much more sturdy though. These gourds are like light-weight wood when dried. I use fine grit sandpaper to round up my hole, and then use an ice pick tool to make my holes in the top for my hanging wire or cord. After I've removed all the seeds and fiber from the inside of the gourd using forceps and a scraping tool, I then apply my own "secret" texturing compound to the outside. That's the part I love doing because each one turns out looking different. Sometimes while the compound is wet and workable I apply other decorations to it, sometimes not. This step has to cure out for a few days to dry completely. At that point, I have fun with painting the surface in different ways, and when all happy with the look I apply a sealer so the finished piece is weather-proof. Most always, I make a curly coiled wire hanger of some type for the top. Tah-dah, finished! These are sturdy, weather-proof, and unbreakable! They should last you and your fine feathered friends for quite a few years!

This particular one has a wooden twig perch, and the overall dimensions are approximately 8 inches in height by 6 inches wide. The price is $12.00 + $7.95 shipping. These non-digital items offered here are on a first-come, first-serve basis because at a given time I may not have multiples of the same item. If you see it listed here, it's available. When sold, I will edit this post and remove the item possibly replacing it with something else. Here's the preview:

Enter Your Email Here

NEWS ABOUT MASON: My extreme preemie grandson, little "Miracle Mason" is now 4-1/2 years old and just this week got accepted to a local preschool, head-start kind of program which is free! Yeah! Our family is so tickled pink over this!!! Application and testing for this program was in June, and Mason's dad had received a letter later during the summer that stated that Mason did NOT get in. However, at the last moments as the season begins, they shift things around and end up with certain numbers due to people moving and whatever else happens, and they then call some of the applicants back and take them into the program. So, that's what came down. I had been praying over this recently, and I feel my prayers were answered for Mason to be able to attend this program. His dad is a self-employed handyman and doesn't always have enough work to afford the extras, such as paying for a preschool program for Mason. I therefore worry over the future for Mason, the things of reality like the cost of college education, medical insurance for now, needs in general. He is at such a disadvantage not having his mother so young and not having the additional income that a second working parent can provide. God brought Mason through his extremely premature birth circumstances, and without any disabilities whatsoever. He is so smart, so lively, and such a really pleasant mannered, intelligent little child who is just a lot smaller than most children of his age. Maybe he will catch up physically someday when he is a teenager or going into male adulthood, maybe not. But I feel a need to contribute to my miracle grandson in some way, and being unemployed for the last two years has been a real bummer for both my DH and myself. The economy here is based around the tourism, and it's been way down for several years and we were both cut from our jobs. My DH just found a job again this month, so at least one of us is back up on his feet. Maybe I will be next. That's why I developed this "MASON JAR" project. I've always been a crafter since my youth, and I have a lifetime of experience at it. I do everything imagineable, from oil painting, glass fusing, jewelry designing, to all types of stitching, etc. I felt a need to turn that creative time into something that Mason will benefit from for perhaps a small contribution from me to his educational fund. I can't replace his mom in his life, but I can be the best "Mimi" I can be for him.

I added these notes about Mason in hopes that more of my followers here will read up the past posts covering "THE MASON JAR" STORY. Some just glance at the "buy now" buttons and think I am just another digital store, but not so. I invite those of you that actually read, to read a little deeper to understand what is going on here. I am the grandmother of a true miracle child that God must have a purpose for, and I feel a calling to help him in some way since his own mother has been taken. We don't always understand the whys in life, but what I do know is that while we are here, we must do the best we can do.

And with that, I will stop my ramble and jump off and prepare tomorrow's FREEBIE for you peeps! Wonder what you would like??? Hummm. . . .Well, guess it will be a surprise! Nighty-nite!

TOOTLES!

FRIDAY FREEBIE - PAPER PACK !!

2010-08-27T03:51:00.001-04:00

I've been busy, and I don't know where this week went so fast! I'm still getting used to my DH not being off on the normal weekends; it's strange but okay. Just kind of throws me off mentally a bit! He's been sneezing for 2-3 days now, seems everybody at his work-place has a virus of some kind right now, some with fever, some without. I've been pumping him full of extra vitamins lately, so maybe that will help him past the unavoidable exposure to rampant illnesses one is subjected to when working out there in the public environment. I've done the vitamin thing, even laying them out for him the night before so he won't forget to take them on his way out in the morning, mainly because he is dieting hot and heavy right now trying to knock off 15-20 pounds. I'm not sure he is getting enough nutrition for a working man! At any rate, my week has flown by, how about yours?

I won "Layout of the Week" at MissesBeeHaven in the Thursday Template Challenge last week for my layout in a previous post with the "I Collect Seashells by the Seashore". It's cool to have something you've put together get noticed like that. Made me smile!

I've completed by two-week, self-paced "BrushAbilities" class and 15 PhotoShop Friday lessons at Jessica Sprague. I absolutely love having the lessons to do whenever I can sit down and focus. I so look forward to each and every one. I was able to take advantage of a hefty discount coupon for the BA class, and I get the PSF one at a time weekly during her "One Buck Wednesdays". It's so great to feel like you are getting so much knowledge and instruction for such a discount! This week, I designed my first set of 3 brushes, and after I test out their quality in a project or so, I'll probably share them here with you. I'm a stickler for quality in my finished designs! I learned more about various ways to use brushes, such as erasers, clipping masks, etc. We finished up the BA class by designing new blog headers with varoius techniques learned throughout the course, so after I refine mine a bit more as to its needed size to fit here nicely, I will probably be sporting a new header and have more fun changing that more often! Teehee! I designed so much this week, I think I only finished one layout, so here it is:

The learning focus in this one was the swirly element at the bottom of the photo. It was a brush used as a clipping mask, then transformed into a "sticker" look. I love the design of it! We received so many cool items in JS's downloads for class. Yummy!!!

I took time back-tracking and upgraded my freebie in the August 16th post as promised. There are now 4 tags (instead of 2) in the tag sample and 40 tags (instead of 20) in the MJP. Better value since I learned how to "stitch". Haha! I think I will start breaking my label descriptions down further in the right side bar navigation so you peeps can find what you want easier. Sound good?

I'll share a short story: My mom is 82 yrs. of age, very super-active. She had the mitral valve heart surgery in February this year so she could be ready to mow her 2 acres all season beginning in April in her part of the country, and she normally has had a garden every year of her life for as long as I can recall. However, she has had to remain quiet this summer due to a seige of nosebleeds which began right after Memorial Day weekend, off and on. She ended up in her local ER three times with hemorrhages which required nasal packing. Basically, in cases like this, physical activity just has to be next to nothing until "the weak vessel" heals. Consequently, she has had an excruiating summer of dullness compared to what is normal for her. We've spent a lot of time on the phone because she is bored and going stir-crazy from being so idle. No bending, stooping, lifting, running, or even fast walking; nothing to get that heart rate up and cause blood to pump faster. Her restriction was up on August 18th and she had a scheduled recheck with her doctor that mid morning. Wouldn't you know, she hemorrhaged again early that morning, requiring the ER once again!! This time they were able to clean well enough to identify the source as a nasal polyp (tumor) on her septum about mid way up. They surgically removed it, and she is now healing from that, on restriction again. At least, if I can keep her from going nuts with all this inactivity, this may be the end of the red river seige she has been under!! Heart surgery and that recovery went so fine to have her summer ruined by her nose problem!! Humph!! I'm sure in larger cities with larger hospitals, this nasal polyp would have been identified and removed much quicker. Just the trials and tribulations of living in a small remote little area that I lovingly refer to as "the sticks". End of that saga. . .

I have another medical story I can impart, but I'll save it until I have more updated news on it. I've always found medicine very interesting. It's also good to share what you know or have learned as you may be able to help someone else learn something they will be able to utilize somewhere in their own future. Ya just never know . . .

Alrighty then . . . it's FREEBIE time, and I have a nice one for you today! I've collected lots of brushes during taking my classes, so I've been practicing using some of them to make papers! Today I have for you a nice set of an even dozen 12 x 12", 300 dpi background floral papers in a subtle range of colors that should work nicely for some of your scrapping. They are textured, and the florals in this set are only up and down the left side of the papers, so you have plenty of room for your photos, elements, and journaling. I think they are cool, so I hope you do too! I'm working on several more sets to bring along to you later with more grunged up edges and different focal points, so keep checking back in for those. I've named these "Floral Essence, Set 1" and here is the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Luckily the zipped file ended up being small enough I could upload it to Box.net, so it should be a quick and uninterrupted download on your end. Ahh, yes!! I think of you!!

Well, that's wraps up my time here today. I've got to go figure out how I can finish up this week in a productive manner. I'll be back soon with lots more digi prizes!! Stay tuned!

TOOTLES!

MASON JAR MONDAY + WHOPPER FREEBIE !!

2010-08-23T06:55:00.001-04:00

Do the weeks just seem to whiz by, or is that just me? I'm going to lift us all up and start your week with a NICE HUGE FREEBIE! I read the comments you leave, and one sweet follower told me she was especially enjoying the frames, so my sizeable FREEBIE today was designed with her in mind. She will know it pays off sweetly to take a second to be kind or encouraging to a rookie designer, especially yours truly.

First, it's Monday again, so follow me as we add another project to THE MASON JAR. I've designed 12 monthly oval accent frames that match the "Season Accent Ovals" offered as a freebie in a previous post back in July, I think it was. I use this type of accent on my own layouts quite often because it's such a clean, sharp, elegant look and helps me get away from the cluttering I tend to do so well. These are png files at 300 dpi and can be resized larger or smaller without loss of print quality. They can be used to accent a photo, to journal within, to encompass a calendar grid, and the list goes on. So, be sure to think outside the box a little when you need an extra touch of nice that won't be overpowering. I hope you can enjoy these for many years of scrapping! When you purchase, include your email in the space provided, and you will be emailed the download link inside of 24 hours. Here's the preview:

Enter Your Email Here

Onward we go now into FREEBIE -LAND! I think I got wound up on frames this weekend! I have a really sharp design that I enjoy using, so I went overboard and made you peeps 35 of them!! I don't think you'll be able to get the beauty of the real McCoys from this tiny preview. I worked extra long and hard trying to get a decent preview built for you, but I know I can't see much from this. You'll just have to trust me that these will be pretty awesome when you move them onto your layouts! The zip contains 35 png files at 300 dpi, and I built these in a 8 x 6 landscape aspect, but don't forget you can turn them for 35 more frames in portrait. Wooohoo! You can resize them and more than likely recolor lots of them to your own liking or clip papers to them even. At any rate, hope you have as much fun using as I did making!! I've named them "Frame Sophisticates" because of their ultra clean design. Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

As much as I would like, I cannot tarry here today. Much to do, and deadlines to meet. Oh boy, gotta get my racing shoes on for sure today, my list is growing!

Have a pleasant start to your week, and watch out for the little children walking to and from school and school buses again. Slow down, use caution. Take care!

Be back soon!

TOOTLES!

REMEMBERED IN LOVE

2010-08-22T12:46:00.002-04:00

In the rising of the sun
and in its going down,
In the blowing of the wind
and in the chill of winter
we remember them.
In the opening of buds
and in the rebirth of spring,
In the rustling of leaves
and in the beauty of autumn
we remember them.
In the beginning of the year
and when it ends,
When we are weary
and in need of strength
we remember them.
When we are lost, sick at heart,
and have joys we yearn to share
we remember them.
So long as we live,
we remember them.

Posted for others who have also suffered loss and in loving memory of my Lorie. This came to me in the mail this week, and I couldn't have expressed my daily feelings any more clearly.

SPECIAL WEEKEND FREEBIE MASK !!

2010-08-21T01:44:00.001-04:00

My intentions were good for another FRIDAY FREEBIE, but I got detained from my work here, so it's a SATURDAY SPECIAL for my peeps! It will give you something to play with over the weekend, if you have any spare time! Haha! I realize for those with children school is beginning this Monday in a lot of areas, so you may be pressed for time in reality getting those supplies in and everything ready to send your babes packing once again. My own 8-yr. old grandson loves school so much that he looks forward to returning and finds it difficult to occupy himself fully across the summer. He loves learning and having new mental challenges that much; what a blessing!

Bye the way, I have fixed the one bad "Buy Now" button that wasn't working in The Mason Jar offerings. Thanks gals for letting me know!! Please do if you find any buttons or links on my blog not working correctly. Nothing expires, so everything should work all the time here! I try to test everything as it gets posted, but sometimes broken html gets past me for a bit, so thanks for the shout-out.

Also, I've just learned more about how to apply stitching, so I went back and made a set of the Old World Tags with stitching added. How cute they are! I'm going to beef up that Mason Jar offering in my last post to more value by adding the stitched set to the download file, so you will get a total of 40 tags for the price rather than 20. I will hopefully make those changes this weekend and you will see the preview change to say "40" instead of the now stated "20". Those that have already purchased will get a new download link by email to snag up the rest of that set. Yes, I believe in a good value!

I should be able to get some major digital reorganization accomplished this weekend. My DH has new days off which are in the middle of the week, so I'm getting used to being able to work on my creativity across the real weekends which is very different for me. That's life, full of constant adjustments.

Here's your FREEBIE for today, a "Harvest" photo mat/clipping mask. I love to make these things, so I hope you find this one timely for your own use as we head into the Fall season soon. It's a png file at 300 dpi, so you can resize it larger or smaller as you need for your own layout. There are many ways to use these masks. You can clip background paper to it and then pop a photo on top in the middle, or you can clip a photo to the whole mask for an awesome cool look against a contrasting background. I made a quick layout with this one and used a combination of the two methods by clipping a photo to the mask and then adding a small oval photo on top of that. I really love my clipped photo, see my layout below for inspiration. Also, let me know if anyone has a special request for a photo mat/mask wording, and I'll be happy to whip it up for you. I have a ton of these ready to go, just need to post them one at a time for ya. There's a great possibility I'm sitting on the one you really want already, so let me hear from you! If you want to show off your layout using one of my masks, I'll be glad to post it here; just send it by email or download link to me in a small web size (600x600, 72-100 dpi). My email link is in the "about me" section of this blog and also in my TOU in each downloaded file. Enough said, here's the goodie!

DOWNLOAD HERE

That's via box.net for all our sakes since it's such a small file size. Box is so uncomplicated and without a bunch of annoying pop-ups or wait time!!

Here's my layout using this mask . . .

What do ya think of those veggies?? I love taking macro photos practically crawling into the item myself as I snap the shot! Onlookers think I'm a kook, but I get some very interesting photos that way! I used another Janice Ward of JW-DigiScrap creation to wrap this up in called "Harvest Home". Cute, hey?

Onward for a small tad of inspiration just in case you need a dose (teehee):

The above layout was my PhotoShop Friday #14 lesson from none other than Jessica Sprague using the materials provided in the download for ONE BUCK, complete templete and all the papers, etc. All I had to gather in was a free font she recommended and my own photo. We practiced the concept of using oversized puntuation, such as the question mark you see above, as a focal point in the layout, then adding an off-set stroke and sticker type background to it. I like how this technique looks so much like real hybrid paper scrapping, it makes the digital practically jump off the page at you! Do you see all those questions? The page was built around the subject of the boundless curiosity most children have, and it was great fun to construct the page!

The LO above was made for the weekly Thursday Template Challenge at MissesBeeHaven with the template supplied and built around the theme of "scrap what makes you HAPPY". For me, that was easy, smiling faces on these three makes me truly happy. I used MBH product for it, Splash of Fun, which was their June Download-A-Day collab kit. You probably can't tell I'm a teal mixed with anything lover!

And lastly . . .

Here again, this LO was made for the MBH weekly Thursday Template Challenge around the theme of "scrap what you collect". I used MBH's "Splash of Fun" and "Bliss This Heart" for this page. Living at the ocean, I collect a lot of seashells constantly, so I turn them into outer decor on the birdhouses I make and recycle them back into being used again to house another of God's creatures. Pretty, durable, waterproof . . . a bird just couldn't have it any finer!! These will get a cute coiled wire hanger, maybe a little color on the texture material between the shells, a sealer and then off to market they go. If you like them, watch for one to hop into The Mason Jar eventually.

Okay, that all from me for the moment. Thanks for stopping by, and I'll be back real soon with more digital happiness for you! Have a wonderful weekend!

TOOTLES!!

IT'S "MASON JAR MONDAY" !! + FREEBIE !!

2010-08-16T08:49:00.005-04:00

I do hope you, my peeps, will consider my frame of mind as we trek on through the month of August. It's a tough month for me emotionally, and I am trying desperately to keep my mood up above the proverbial waterline, so to speak. This week on the 20th marks one year since my firstborn daughter's death and, to me as her mom, it still feels like just yesterday. I'm trying to focus and stay productive, and the digital scrapping and designing helps me keep my mind occupied the best of anything I've tried in the last year. Thus, I'm spending time trying to help my angel-baby by stuffing "The Mason Jar" with projects in an effort to help her son left behind who is now 4-1/2 years old. If your not familiar and would like to know more, read about this project by using my right sidebar navigation labels and click on "The Mason Jar Story". I hope my Lorie is smiling down upon her mom. She was an avid paper scrapper and had just begun to show an interest in learning how to also master digital scrapping, so I hope she approves of this effort for her Mason.

Today's offering is a nice set of 40 tags I've named "Old World Tag Set". I'm currently taking another class online at Jessica Sprague, this one a 2-wk long, self-paced instruction class on more PSE techniques to master. Every time I sit down and do one of the lessons, I'm so inspired I then go on and create something more of my own with the techniques I've just learned. So, last night these tags sprang forth from me! These are png files so everyone can use them. They are textured, inked, stamped, pretty cool and grungy, 20 are stitched; and I did put a very small soft drop shadow on each of them because it makes them look so much more dimensional on the layout page. I'm giving away a sample of them as your FREEBIE TODAY, so read to the bottom to snag that! If you're as enthused with them as I am, perhaps you'll wish to have this set of twenty. I tried to make you a close-up sample of some of the detail on each tag, so I hope you can see this preview well enough.

And darn while I was making that I stumbled across an entirely new technique, how to actually "slice" out the portion of each tag I wanted to use to show you the detail. Wow, so much learning is going on here with me! Now here is the actual set offering: When you purchase this by using the "buy now" button below, be sure to include your email in the space provided, and within 24 hours you will receive the download link from me. Don't be afraid, it's through PayPal which is very safe, and you don't need a PayPal account to use it either as they process all credit cards shown below the button. I've been using PayPal for years, well since it began basically and never a problem. In fact, I have some really great stories I can share about PayPal, but I'll save them for another post. I tend to get long-winded and off track. Here you go . . .

Price is $1.15 (no shipping, it's a digital download)

Here's just a tad of inspiration. I worked up this layout for a forum template challenge using a them of "friendship" hosted weekly every Thursday at MissesBeeHaven. If you're not checking out digital shop/store forums for all the fun and freebies, you need to! There are monthly, bi-monthly, and even weekly challenges in most all of them. MissesBeeHaven is great for me as they host a weekly on their template challenge, so I (being the template junkie that I am) look forward to a new one there free every Thursday!! Plus, check out the forum "RAKs & freebies thread, that's where folks like me post about and give links to personal blogs so you can run around and snag all the digital goodness you have time to download! This layout features my grandson Donovan (8 yrs. old) and his BFF.

Aren't they just so cute at 8 and 9? These guys are basically inseparable! I LUV all my LO's, but here's one that I especially like the construction of, and it was using a template provided in my PhotoShop Friday Classes by Jessica Sprague. I love how there is the larger photo clipped to a grungy edged mask and then the two smaller square photos on top of it on a small mat. That's such a cool look, I'll have to remember to use it often in my future scrapping. This below features my angel-baby's son, Mason, my personal love project.

Next is a layout of celebration to commemorate my DH's return to the work force last week! Yeah! I did it from pretty much scratch with paper and a frame I had made using again, more class techniques. Practice, practice, practice!! Do you like the coloration on that frame? It was a happy accident! Teehee! I had applied a darker denim fiber paper of my own to it and accidently had left it on when I clicked again to add another style to the frame. Oh happy days, that was the perfect look I was searching for on that light blue background paper!!

Most of the other elements in the above layout were gathered from several fabulous kits by Janice Ward of JW-DigiScraps; "My Men", "Mom For The Ages", and that awesome journaling tag from her "Resolutions" kit! More journaling tags, please, Janice!! I had a story to tell on that one and filled it up! Somebody will love reading all that one day when we are but a memory. - - - Next up, below, is another spin on that lonely single sunflower of mine using a large photo mask I made, my own papers (with a technique used on the green one) and some more of Janice Ward's elements and a crazy looking ant by Mitsybelle, both of whom can now be found collaborating and offering their goodies at the wonderful The Studio.

A couple more, then on to your FREEBIE! This year I have vowed to attempt to scrap a little more about myself. Because we love, we tend to scrap everybody but yours truly. I read so much of that in forums under the Project 365 and Project 52 threads, and I had been thinking about it even on my own. I am always behind the camera and usually never in front of it, so much so that my own family is used to not taking pictures of me themselves with their own cameras; they can't get me out of my own lens long enough I suppose. They have given up. So, if I'm not in many photos, that's why, but I can at least take pics of what I do and scrap those. Maybe I'll even learn how to set the timer on my digital camera on it's little tripod and them run and jump in the photo, you know, a self-portrait type of thing. Ooh, but then I'd have to put on some make-up! Forget that! I'm scrapping some of the food I make, that's but one of my threads on thought on this subject, I have many and will start sharing those with you in future posts. Like a photo prompt, if you need them.

Well enough about me! It's on to your FREEBIE! Here's a sample of the set of tags just put into "The Mason Jar" above so you can get an idea of how well you do or don't like or need them. I'm going to work on some more creative designs for tags, so we'll see what I can come up with soon. I'm interested in journaling tags as that should be such a large part of why we scrap, to leave our stories behind one day for posterity to read. Can you envision your great-great grandchildren as adults one day sitting on the sofa looking through your old dusty scrapbooks their parents left them and reading all the great stories you left behind with the photos??!! That's what it's about, sum total. Snag up this freebie and have a great week!

DOWNLOAD HERE

I hope to be back soon with lots more goodies, so stay tuned in! Thanks for all the great comments left and for using the chat box, too, guys and gals! I love communication, and the comments spur on my desire to create. Thank you all for the "thank yous". Let me know if you would like any of the frames or photo masks I've made and used in these particular layouts above. They could end up being freebies if you express your interest! Speak up!

I'm back doing a p.s. to this post: For heaven sakes, I just checked out Persnickety Prints for the first time, and I'm way impressed! I've just added their blinky to my blog, and I want you peeps to run right away before August 18th is over and check out their August 15th blog post for a chance to win a huge set of templates!! All you have to do is leave a comment under that post! Cool, hey? Here's the link for to their BLOG Now run along quickly!!!!!

TOOTLES!

FRIDAY THE 13TH - LUCKY DAY!

2010-08-13T11:28:00.002-04:00

WHOO-HOO! Congrats are in order at this house! After 23 straight months of unemployment, my DH has landed a job as of this past Monday! I don't have much good to say about the age we now live in where everything is "apply online" because it wasn't very productive for us. The second job he applied and interviewed for "live" he got!! You need that one-on-one, face-to-face to make your impression on somebody and for them to get a feel "of you". Hallelujah! My house is once again my domain! I'm fairly sure I will be out the door to work next, of necessity not desire.

Since folks tend to think that Friday 13th is an unlucky day, I'm out to change that; at least for today for my faithful followers here! I have THREE FREEBIES for you today!! Yipee! I'm on a good roll!

Firstly, I want to add another project to THE MASON JAR. My intention is eventually to do that every Monday. So far I haven't been able to keep up with my own intentions. If you're not familiar with THE MASON JAR PROJECT, please use the labels in my right side bar to read some about it. Below is a preview of what is going in the jar today. It's my very first ALPHA called "Shabby Alpha", and it's both shabby and grungy! It has plenty of texture and interest, should be quite versatile in your projects because it allows some background color to show through. I'm including both entire upper and lower case A-Z, numbers 0-9, and 31 symbols; all in both no shadow (ns) and with drop shadow (wds). Each element is 300 dpi so you can resize it as desired without loss of quality. Here's a closeup that I placed on a blue background so maybe you can see how the color is able to show through. You'll be able to get lots of different looks from this alpha.

Here's the offering:

Price: $1.15 and I will email you the download link within 24 hours of purchase.

FREEBIE #1: I've used the above alpha to make you a nice Fall plaque type element for your upcoming seasonal scrapbooking. Plus, I'm including a BONUS of four of the "Shabby Alpha" letters for you to play with, a set to spell "Me" in both "no shadow" (ns) and "with drop shadow" (wds). As always, everything is 300 dpi so you can play with the size to suit your needs without losing print quality.

DOWNLOAD HERE

SECOND FREEBIE: I got on a roll late one night and had some fun with DOTS. I came up with a paper template for you so it will be easy in most any software program using this png file for you to make your very own polka-dotted type, multicolored papers! Whoo-hoo! You can simply place a background paper under this template png, then either recolor the png file or use it as a clipping mask. I made it 11-1/2 inches square because I wanted to use it as an inset paper so I would have a background border the same color as the dots. You'll see when you use it, but feel free to nudge the size to 12 x 12" if you want. What fun you'll have with this!! I'm including a BONUS of two papers I made with it in jpg format. Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

I did a quick layout so you could see the end results with it:

Okay! Onward . . .

THIRD FREEBIE: Here's my 10th layout TEMPLATE for you! Yeah! It's spiffy! It's a 12 x 12", 300 dpi and includes a psd, tiff, and all png files so everybody can use it! Hope you like, give me some feedback please. I love to make templates because I personally find them so handy when I'm in the mood to scrap but pressed for time. They just speed up the process so much, so it's great to be able to make a bunch of them ahead. So far, I've designed 26 of these, but I'm slow giving them out. You'll get all of them if you just keep coming back to check in. I may be slow, but I'm sure. Tee-hee! Here's the preview of TEMPLATE #10:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Here is one of my layouts with it made with the kit, "Afternoon Delight" by JW-Digi Scraps. Love her design talent!

That's my only sunflower that popped up this year of all the seeds I planted! I think this particular flower bed is too dry to germinate the seeds. I'm lucky to get one of the things I plant in it! Not a good bed for my green thumb reputation at all. :-(

I think that's all for now, my peeps. I need to jump off and so some real housework. You know when your man goes out to work all day, he comes home and wants to know what you did with those same 8 hours of time. Geez! If they only knew all the multi-tasking a female really does in 24 hours, they wouldn't need to ask that type of question. It always reminds me of how clueless the male species can be sometimes. Or, maybe it's just me feeling guilty that I've been getting to stay home and enjoying the air conditioning all summer! Oh well . . . I deserve it.

Do check back often as I have lots more goodies coming your way! Have a great weekend!!

TOOTLES!

TGIF! TEMPLATE FREEBIE TIME!

2010-08-06T01:23:00.001-04:00

What's shakin', peeps? I'm jazzed! It's the biggest crafty weekend of the year in my city; a 3-day event starting early this morning and lasting through Sunday evening. Exhibitors travel in from all over the country to show and sell their art. We have lots of other shows throughout the year, but this is definitely the biggest. I've had to learn to discipline my spending at this event and am trying to make a habit to attend the first day just to look by leaving my purse at home. I'll take time to think about my intentions at least overnight before making the purchases. I can definitely go overboard at these events being an artisan myself and having too much appreciation for other folks' artwork. They don't allow picture taking inside this event, so I won't be able to take you on a vitural tour of it. :-(

My FREEBIE for you today is my ninth template. I hope you can use it. Seems lately everybody is going circle crazy, so I got into it here also! Just imagine what you could do with this. I did a sample layout for you using two different papers to fill the outer circles, but I'm wondering what it would look like done with photos clipped to all the half circles around the border. This is a 12 x 12" square, 300 dpi, and I've included the psd, tiff, and pngs for everybody. The zip was not too large, so I'm hoping it won't take forever to download by way of 4Shared. Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Here's the layout I worked up with it . . .

Below is a layout I made for my 12th PhotoShop Friday lesson using the template and supplies provided by Jessica Sprague. I learned how to load brushes into the eraser tool, and we used it to round certain corners on the photo and paper clipping mats. Very cool trick to know! All this plus the video tutorial for only $1.00 during "One Buck Wednesdays". You shouldn't be missing all this fun knowledge for the price if you want to learn your PS, PSE, or CS. In fact, you can get the PhotoShop Friday lesson for that price from Wednesday through sometime on Fridays. I don't let myself miss one! I hope she has them forever!! You can stop and restart her video tutorial as much as you want while you work in your own program along side the instruction. Way cool!

Then, of course, I couldn't stop scrapping; so I took that same template and kept turning it 90 degrees and reworking it to finish up a series of photos I'd been wanting to get scrapped of my birthday visit to Carowinds with my daughter, grandson and his friend. We had a cool weekend there, and the rides were a thrill a second! I'm a thrill seeker and rode them all. Love the free feeling of the roller coasters as does my daughter! Just another meaning for our "free spirit".

You can see this is the same template by Jessica Sprague which I just kept turning and reworking. The kit I used is Life's Adventures by JW-Digi Scraps.

Well, I've got to fly now! Hope you all have a great weekend! I'll be back soon with more goodies for you, probably some cool frames, as those seem to be getting the most downloads right now. Stop back soon.

TOOTLES!

SHARING A SUMMER RECIPE!

2010-08-02T21:43:00.001-04:00

I feel like sharing a recipe to help celebrate the lingering days of summer. Our children here return to school August 23rd which, to me, cuts in a little on what remains of summer. I'm of an older generation, and we didn't used to reconvene at school until after Labor Day. As a child, everything always seemed forever long anyway. Remember?

We are forecast a week of rain showers ahead, and we did have a nice brief one today. It didn't last very long. All in all, we haven't had that much rain over the summer here. Certainly don't know how the gardens produce.

Here's a cool congealed salad treat to try while it's still warm weather:

Lime Jell-O Treat

1 pkg. Lime Jell-O
1 small pkg. Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 #2 can crushed pineapple
(optional - chopped pecans)
(optional - 1 cup grated carrots)

Directions: Make and set Jell-O according to pkg. directions. While this is setting up in the refrigerator, blend softened cream cheese and mayonnaise with mixer. Combine whole can crushed pineapple with cheese mixture. Stir this into nearly set Jell-O. Chill until firm. Serve on a lettuce bed and enjoy!

We are working on the production of a memorial type cookbook of my daughter's recipes since she was an avid "foodie". I'm sure that's what got me in this share recipe mood.

Take care and check back tomorrow for another FREEBIE for your digi-scrapping!

TOOTLES!

FUN FRIDAY FREEBIES!

2010-07-30T00:10:00.004-04:00

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!

2010-07-25T02:34:00.001-04:00

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???

2010-07-19T05:24:00.002-04:00

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

2010-07-04T15:21:00.001-04:00

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!

OH HALE, TEMPLATE TUESDAY!

2010-06-29T01:56:00.001-04:00

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I'm a template junkie! Love to use them, love to design them! I've made you a neat sunburst type frame which has 19 separate petals to which you can clip various papers if you like. Just think, you can finally use all your favorite papers at once! Teehee! Think outside the box on various ways to use this frame once you assemble it your way. You can have half of it on the page or coming in from a corner of the page, use it to showcase a photo, some word art, or even your journaling. Be creative! I'd love to see what you make with it, so feel free to email me with your lovelies! Without further yick-yaking, here is your FREEBIE preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

I've included a thumbnail of my own layout in the zip so you can see what I did with the frame and how I used it. This is what happens when I take inspiring classes like the PhotoShop Friday lessons from Jessica Sprague. I go wild making things between the weekly classes! I'm taking a free class there now which combines hybrid and digital card making techniques, and we get a daily lesson. That will keep me busy for awhile! Yeah!

The weather is scorching hot here, the humidity is high. Thank goodness for all the water available! We pretty much stay in during the heat of the day and venture out after the sun drops in the evening to enjoy the amenities of living here. July and August will be the hottest months of the year, and after that it's back to normal fair weather the rest of the year. Ahh, yes!

My house is still busy. Today we pitched in to keep an 11 year old boy who is the son of our son's fiance who works, of course. You know how when it rains, it pours? This sweet gal's air conditioner went out in her home this weekend and her childcare person quit for greener pastures. We are fairly decent at problem solving after so many years of being subjected to the need to do so constantly, so nowdays we simply "connect people" much like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. This little guy today kept my DH so busy playing buddy all day and nearly talked his ears off. I think they both had a good day!

I will leave you with a little more inspiration, my own scrapping since my last post. Templates were used which I've collected from forum challenges where I hang out online, and I got hooked on a kit with very cool summery colors, SED_Flopped Flipped Revamp, which can be found at Enchanted Scrap Studios.

Alrighty then, as Bruce Almighty would say; that's enough inspiration for one sitting, right? The kit I mentioned above is a colorful one, hey? I fell in love with it for the tropical summer look. The ocean background is a snapshot I took on an evening outing, and in one LO I faded the opacity of it down to about 70% just experimenting. I'm going to make you guys a freebie QP from that, so be sure to stop back in to pick that up soon, may get it to you this week. I hope I've shown you something that may inspire you to create yourself. More to come soon!

Until then, Happy Scrapping!!

TOOTLES!

MONDAY MOTIVATION!

2010-06-28T05:30:00.003-04:00

No matter how helter-skelter my house and daily life are, I crave a few minutes to scrap and manage to squeeze it in (even if it's just a few minutes with my cup of java!). I'm getting lots of photos this time of year, so a "Project 365" or "Project 52" is no problem here! I'm just crazy about using templates when trying to scrap and pressed for time. Wow! They are just wonderful to help out the ol' braino get a jump start! I got these pages finished and was so pleased with them I just had to share:

These are my in-laws visiting now; Nanny in the middle (my DH's mom), her sister on the right and sister's husband on the left taken at my nearby local pier. You can see that those beautiful heads of platinum hair run in his family, and he aquired his when only 25 years of age. The base of this layout is BH_Template05 from Bhaven Designz. It's quite a good example of how sometimes "less is more" in that it is simplistic but quite lovely to showcase certain photos or portions of them. I'm certain that I will be using this template very often.

The two LO's above were made using the same template, CWC April Template Challenge from Enchanted Studio Scraps forum. I love this one and how differently it can look after loading the photos and different papers, etc. Whew! I get so excited! Both of these were put together using kits from the ESS forums Pixie Pouch Challenge made by designer Chaos Lounge and kit, SED_Flopped Flipped. The largest font on both LO's is called JI_Evzone, and I find it to be a super cool one.

That's all I have to show you for the moment; just doing a quick drive by here today! Haha! I'm staying on the move right now but hope to be back with a FREEBIE maybe tomorrow, so stay tuned in. Thanks to all who leave me their comments here and over at 4Shared when you download. I read them all and appreciate your taking a few seconds to say something and connect in some way. Chat again soon!

TOOTLES!

FLEETING JUNE + A FREEBIE!!

2010-06-25T01:09:00.002-04:00

Hey everybody! Hope your month is going well. My June seems to be flying by with the speed of light! We got "Nanny" (DH's mom) down here on the 13th to spend a month with us. She is rehabing from several occurrences in the last six months which include a stroke, back surgery, pneumonia, and complete changes in her meds. Sounds just aweful, I know, but she is doing pretty well considering all that and her 74 years of age. We told her to consider this a vacation for herself, but we are exercising her mind and body in gentle ways. She is playing some computer games which is good for hand-eye coordination as well as exercising the mind, and we have her on a walking program of three times daily. One evening this past week we took her to our local pier out over the ocean, and she walked all the way to the gazebo out on the end of it, sat and enjoyed watching the ocean waves, the sunset, and all the folks fishing, and then she walked all the way back in before dark fell. I got some good photos of that, so I'll post some of those later. I have to mention we got her a pair of "Shape-Ups" by Sketchers to help build up the muscles in her calves and thighs, and before the purchase I tried a pair on myself to see what all the hype was about. Wow! They are GREAT! They definitely do what they are advertised to do for you physically. Check 'em out if you haven't already! Their price is hefty, but I think ultimately they would be worth it if you use them faithfully.

I had a birthday since my last post, and a very cool thing was all the great digital gifts I received in my email from all the shop forums I hang out in. I didn't expect such wonderful surprises, and I surely want to thank everybody! Benefit of posting your birthday in your forum profile, very cool. At any rate, all of the sudden at my house we went from zero cake to too much cake in one day! The best cake of all was made for me by two of my grandchildren who are 8 and 4 years of age. Guys, you ROCK!!

The weather here is scorching hot every day, so we are in the pool much of the time and grilling outdoors often. Our neighborhood pool is huge and even its water is warm from the sun like bath water! Nanny has enjoyed getting in and walking in the water for more exercise too!

Even though I haven't found time for posting more often, I am keeping up with my PhotoShop Friday classes and have signed up for a free card making class beginning on June 28th at Jessica Sprague. Registration is still open for that class if you're interested. I totally love her self-paced classes. I can do them when I can find the time to spare. It ROCKS!!

I've designed tons of digital papers which I may give as freebies someday when I get happy with tweaking them enough, but in the meantime I've used some of my own creations to make today's FREEBIE for you. We all need a big stash of frames to reach for when in the mood to scrap, so I played around with my own design of an overlapping type frame and came up with two dozen to give you in this pack which I've called "FUN FRAMES". These are 300 dpi png files, easy to resize larger or smaller without loss of quality. I did put a drop shadow on them to make them sort of pop off your pages a bit. I hope you'll be able to love and use them in your own scrapping to come! Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

I will leave you with some scrapping inspiration through some layouts of my own I've just recently finished . . . . .

That's pretty much the sum of what I've gotten to finish since my last post, and summertime is, in all probability, the season when I snap the majority of my photos. I wish I could scrap as fast as I snap! (And that should be my new motto! Teehee!) Until next time . . . . .

TOOTLES!

TOTF = TEMPLATE ON THURSDAY FREEBIE!

2010-06-10T05:53:00.001-04:00

Happy Thursday everybody! I've been a busy bee since my last post! We had a couple of cook-outs over the weekend to test out a grill that's new to us, and there's no sense heating up the thing for just two so I always invite folks in for the grilling sessions! I love how it makes the neighborhood smell so good and folks just wander in on the lawn. You can be having a party before you know it! Cool! During the first part of this week, DH and I helped an elderly friend empty out a huge 4-bedroom home he had sold. We worked solid for 12 hrs. and got it all shifted around in one day, amazing what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it. I've always worked better under a time-line type pressure anyway. I get way more done when I have deadlines of sorts.

I even have managed to squeeze in some personal scrapping and design work! Yeah for me and you both! Stay with me here to see some of my layouts, and your freebie will follow!

This was made with a great Quick Page which inspired me to wrap up the Mister and practice up on doing some journaling. I was reading up on a site's monthly challenges where journaling was emphasized as being so important for posterity, and I agree, we should do lots of it. The kit is "Mr. Fix-It" by Scraps by Andrea, found at Stuff to Scrap. This QP was designed by one of their CT's who's blog is Christins Creations.

I created this for the current template challenge in the forum at Misses BeeHaven Digital Scrapbooking where the theme was your take on "blue". I just happened to have lots of current snaps where my peeps were sporting lots of blue, and isn't that hydrangea gorgeous!

Doing another challenge in the Misses BeeHaven forum, I worked up my desktop for July with a theme of "summer picnic" using "Summer Smiles" by Kim Cameron of Groovy Scraps and "Spring Picnic" from the Blog Train of the Stuff To Scrap designers.

This is just a fun page I whipped up from scratch and inspired by a conversation had with my youngest DD who is a groomer and mother of two. Please vote for her project submitted to Pepsi Refresh for grant money to build a "no-kill" doggie shelter on her land. You can do this in the gadget box at the top right of my blog. You register and sign in to the Pepsi Refresh site, and you can then vote daily to help her win. This is an ongoing project and voting spree as each month the top 100 finalist in each monetary category move on into the next month's running for one year. She has managed to stay in the running so far, but she needs to finish in the top 10 one month to get the grant she has applied for. I surely would appreciate your support as often as you can think kindly of a doggie! Thanks all! In this page, I practiced up on "stroking" in PSE, and the font used is called "Fancy Pens", probably from DaFont for free.

These four LO's were made using a blog train collab, "All The Dirt", by the designers at Digital Scrapbooking Studio. The 4th one uses a wonderful free template by Le Pingouin Designs I found available at both Digi Scrap Depot and Divine Digital. These pages feature none other than my little extreme preemie Angel Baby, Mason.

And, now for your FREEBIE treat! Here is my very own Template #6 for you. I'm becoming a real template junkie myself, loving to both use them and make them! Here's the preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

As always, this is a one-pager, 12x12", 300 dpi and includes the psd file, tiff file, and all png files so it can be used by a variety of software programs to suit more folks. I hope you can use and enjoy it. If you like it, please leave me some encouragement either here or at 4Shared. It helps to spur my creativity and giving nature. Here is my own LO using it again with the "All The Dirt" collab kit:

Oh to be that young again!! Don't we wish?!! That's all my jabber for today. Thanks for dropping by and come back real soon. I've a lot on the burner for ya!

TOOTLES!

SATURDAY SPECIAL + HOME AGAIN!

2010-06-05T02:17:00.001-04:00

That's right! I'm back from my whirlwind jaunt up north once again, and whew!! I've been exhausted! I took yesterday totally off from any physical exertion just to recooperate. We took a more scenic route this time to stop in at Rustburg, VA, (suburb of Lynchburg) to check up on my DH's mom who is staying at his older sister's gorgeous 12-acre farm there. His mom is 72, a widow of several years, and has had a difficult time over this past winter with some lower back surgery, a bout with pneumonia, and then a mild stroke. It's difficult to be so far away during these times, all the while feeling like you should be there to help out more. It's the "catch 22" of life, in general, for sure. If all goes well with her rehab program she is doing now, we plan to bring her down to the beach to visit for a month this summer. We enjoyed getting to see the farm for the first time and all the new animals, not to mention his relatives and two new babies! I got some great photos! We took this detour stop-in going up and coming back, so even though the visits were short, they were worthwhile.

At our northern-most destination, our hometown, it was great to see my parents and my brother once again as the town honored my Dad as having been a war veteran; and my brother flew in from Phoenix, AZ, to bestow the honor and be the keynote speaker at the ceremony since he is retired military also. I got to see my bro in full military dress uniform even though I think the temperatures had to be in the 90's that day! I felt for him! His speech was wonderful and brought tears to my eyes as he recounted to those present all his memories of local veterans who had served and passed, belonging both to our community and to our own family. My Dad got to ride in the town's closing parade on Memorial Day, and all these festivities were held during their local annual Dandelion Festival. It was a good weekend! We relaxed, visited, and ate well. LOL! My mom is doing so well, too! She is so saucy!! Here's a layout I've done already with a couple of the oodles of pics I shot:

The photo on the right is what remains of my immediate family. We once were five but have been only four since 1969 when I lost my sister who was two years older than myself. Losing a firstborn seems to be a repeating scary trend in my extended family on both sides. My Mom is my inspiration to try to overcome and keep going through it all. She is so "gritty" tough, and I say that with love. - The photo on the left shows my Dad and brother on stage in a decorated gazebo before the ceremony and speech. By the way, I constructed this LO using "Afternoon Delight" by JW Digi Scraps and her "Mom For Ages" cluster frame. Font at the top is "Phoenix" and font at the bottom is "Park Avenue".

Next up for your learning inspiration, I've totally enjoyed completing my 5th PhotoShop Friday lesson from Jessica Sprague. I simply cannot rave about these mini lessons enough!! The following two layouts will show you what I learned so easily in this "less than 30 minute" lesson, so look at them closely:

Above is my LO before the technique is applied . . .

See how the photo is now black and white all except for that popsicle? Amazing, right?!! You should treat yourself to these lessons, one each week for a buck! Sign up at the website for a reminder email weekly so you don't miss "One Buck Wednesdays". The cool tricks and time saving techniques Jessica teaches are totally awesome and easy!! The template and all papers you see above are included in the download for the price! That's a deal!! Plus, your tutorial video is always available online at the website in your account for you to review anytime as often as you like, forever!!

Alrighty then! On to your "Saturday Special" FREEBIE! I have my very own 5th template for you today! Hope you can use and enjoy it. I whipped up a quick LO with it using my BFF's new puppy which she just got this week! Isn't he adorable?!! She tells me he is a Danish Sheppard and that the breed is used for service dogs, extremely intelligent. This little fella is only 11 weeks old.

Again, I used "Christmas Card Stock" by JW Digi Scraps to whip this together of this pooch. Can't tell I'm a fan of her's, huh? Here's my template preview:

DOWNLOAD HERE

As always, I've included a psd file, tiff, and all pngs so hopefully lots of software users will be able to utilize my templates. This is a 12x12 inch, 300 dpi. Enjoy, and please let me know if you like my work by leaving me some love either here or at 4Shared. It so helps to spur me on! I read them all.

Thanks for tuning in again, and please do come back often! I have oodles of goodies to share! Until next time . . . . .

TOOTLES!