Learning Curve

So, I have learned that if I want DigiFree to actually show the real freebie that I am giving away in a day it has to be the first layout on the page so it can be identified correctly. So, here is the layout that you can download from 4shared as a quickpage.

Credits: Unconditional Love Kit by Late Night Scraps

Of course, you are going to have to read through (or at least skim through) to the bottom of the post to collect it – it is my blog you know lol.

Instead of spending any time scrapping, I spent today going through my existing pages trying to figure out what galleries each page was in. This would not normally be necessary but one of my CT designers asked for all the links for her pages which got me thinking that I wasn’t sure where everything was AND my records of these things were awful. I really don’t like the way that you can only add 5 pages per day to most galleries. I am trying to add all of my pages to two or three galleries and it is going to take a long time since I just realized I have done 75 pages since the first of the year. Now, I am happy with the progress but … On a positive note I AM ALMOST CAUGHT UP ON ALL OF MY CT COMMITMENTS!! I only have one more kit from Bouquet of Pixels that I need to use and I have the perfect pictures for it so it is just a matter of having 30 minutes or so to create. I also spent a lot of time today cataloging my kits and figuring out my next projects.

Since I enjoyed going through my pages so much I am going to post some more of my more recent layouts here.


I needed a front page for my cruise book so I made this one:

Credits: Friendship kit by TCS @ Scrapgirls.com

Credits: Teen Style Kit by BVS; Template by LJD

Credits: Unconditional Love Kit by Late Night Scraps; Template by Arminia

Credits: Unconditional Love Kit by Late Night Scraps; Template by 3's Enough

Credits: Unconditional Love Kit by Late Night Scraps; Template by 3's Enough

You can down the quickpage HERE.

Freebie, Challenge and Playing Catchup

I promised myself that I was actually going to blog my life – eventually I want to make this into a book for my kids – but to do that I actually have to keep up with what is going on in my world.

Last weekend our Women’s Ministry group went on their yearly retreat up to Gruene, Texas (pronounced Green) for shopping, study and socialization. It was an awesome trip up but I have to tell you, the woman I was following was going 95 MPH and I swear I just knew that I was the one who was going to get busted. Sure enough, just as I slowed down to 60 to exit for a pit stop, a sheriff pulled up behind me. I was sure he was going to doom me but he just followed until I pulled into the gas station.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived around 3:30. The bed and breakfast was absolutely beautiful. It was an old mansion built in the 1800’s and was added to as the town grew. The out buildings were each designed differently with German townhouses, Victorian homes and rustic cabins. Each was decorated with period furniture and each had a slightly different decor. Here is what mine looked like.

Master Bedroom (up winding staircase - STEEP winding staircase)

Balcony in the Master Bedroom

Sitting room with day bed and trundle underneath. (I know, it would look so much nicer without my backpack on the bed, but I wasn't thinking about that part while taking the picture)

Paint work done on the wall and ceiling. You can't see it but the vine wraps around the ceiling fan several times. It really was pretty.

A real old fashioned claw foot tub with real lace curtains.

Those really Skinny spiral stairs.

We spent Saturday shopping at the Gruene Trade Days and I found some of the prettiest new jewelry. My husband was impressed with my find, if not the price tag associated with it. It was all silver, gold and tiger eye. I also found a pretty blue stained glass set. Of course I was planning on taking a picture and showing off my new "bling" but I am too busy wearing it to take a picture. I will get around to that I am sure since my future daughter in law will insist on seeing them and she doesn't come home from college until Easter.

Because I had to serve on the video team at church on Sunday, I left early and made it home around 1:30 Sunday morning. Wayne and Ben both stayed up waiting for me, which I thought was sweet. We made it to church on time, a bit tired but church went off without a hitch, thankfully. I did discover something during church though. I was playing with my wedding ring (I normal habit) and realized that my stone was so loose that it was fixin to fall out. I took it off and wrapped it in a bulletin then took it in on Monday. They said that too much more wear and I would have lost the stone. I guess I hit it on something up in Gruene but I never did notice it.

This week I have been spending a lot of time scrapping, studying for my midterm and trying to stem the tide that is my cluttered house. I need to find a system that I can use that will keep the house clean and my sanity intact. I'm not sure I am doing a really good job with that. I have tried Flylady but the constant stream of emails drove me nuts, I tried the 10 minute chores (where you take 10 minutes and do something) I just never seemed to get enough done. Any ideas? I am not willing to hire a maid though. I had one and I wasn't very happy with the results. Neither was my hubby.

So, during my layout frenzy I have done the following layouts in order to TRY to catch up with the zillions of layouts that I still have to accomplish. I know that it isn’t like I have some sort of obligation to scrap, I just figure that I am 15 years behind and I would like to make sure that it doesn’t take 15 years to do the rest of the layouts.

Layout: Gruene, Texas
Credits: Girlpower by Calalilly; template by Kimi's Kreations

Layout: Be Yourself
Credits: Juicy Pop Quickpage by Creations By Rachel




Layout: In Stitches
Credits: Juicy Pop by Creations by Rachel; Template by Kimi's Kreations



Layout: Making Lasagne
Credits: What's Cookin? by Man in the Moon; Template modified from NoReimerReason

AND just so you don't think I am sluffing off my CT duties I did some layouts for two of my designers (who have AWESOME Kits). The first is from the Charity Collaboration from Bouquet of Pixels which can be found here. These layouts are also being used as Quick Pages which are available in the store as well. Also don't forget about the FREEBIE brag book page in the previous post.

And I played (again) with one of my favorite kits by Late Night Scraps called A Black Tie Affair which looks like this:

And is available at her store at Pretty Scrappy HERE.



I finished Josh and Liz' prom layouts: (Template by M'Originals)




And Wayne and my Christmas party layout:

If you have gotten this far in my posting, I am giving away the last layout of my formal Christmas party as a quickpage which you can get at 4shared HERE.

Check back this week for another freebie from Late Night Scraps kit Unconditional Love.

Please leave a comment if you download, either here or at 4shared to let me know that someone is reading this blog :)

Brag Book Freebie

As you saw on my previous post, Bouquet of Pixels has created a charity collaboration called "For the Kids". In order to ensure that it gets the attention it deserves, I am offering this FREE bragbook page for you.





You can collect this page HERE.

Charity Collaboration

Bouquet of Pixels designers created this charity collab for Linda's (Linda's Dream Designs) nephew & his family. Linda is a designer here in our store.

Here's a little of their story: Joey and his wife, Karri, have 5 children: Kylie (12), Emily (10), Nathan (9), Cayden (8), and Braden (6). They were among the families tragically affected by the tornadoes in Oklahoma in February of 2009. They had a fire in their home during these storms, and they lost everything. They were unable to afford insurance and are, therefore, left with absolutely nothing. Their fire was due to the grass fires that happened and the storm winds stoked the fire that caught their home on fire. Thankfully, nobody was home at the time it happpened, and they are all safe. They are staying with family for a short time.

This fun collaboration includes 84 papers (300 dpi) and 119 elements. Also included are 2 templates (psd and png files) and 1 FULL alpha! Don't pass up this amazing deal and let's help Linda's nephew and family! Thanks!

This great kit is only available until May 1st, so grab it while you can! All profits will go to the family mentioned above.

Get the kit HERE

Don't want to get the kit but still want to donate money? No problem!!! Just use this button to make your donation:

Journaling

I have been surfing the web for the last few weeks to find a better way to journal. Up to now I have put maybe a few sentences on a page and called it a day. If I was feeling ambitious I could get a whole paragraph. Searching the blogs of such wise people like The Fabulous Adventures of Listgirl, Simple Scrapper, Focus on the Story, and others I have started to rethink my journaling and started writing out the stories I want my kids and grandkids to know.

Today I started writing about Josh's birth. I found a list of questions and wrote in my journal as if I was being interviewed by my son. He would ask such questions as: When/How did you find out you were pregnant with me? What was your reaction to the news? What is the story behind my name? I was amazed at what I remembered, and what was fuzzy. Josh is 18 now and as I look back to all the funny stories, first steps, first tooth, first haircut memories that I have to put down on paper I thank God that most of these stories have been told to my kids by both my ex-husband and myself for as long as I can remember.

I am sure there are some fish tales, some stretching of the truth and just plain fabrications mixed in with all the old stories but I want my kids to know more about themselves and their parents than I do. I am lucky, my parents are still around for me to ask them but my ex's aren't and we have a lot of history that has gone down the drain.

Journaling has become passe as of late. The more artistic layouts are cropping up, even my own quick pages reflect this trend but I don't want to make the mistake of doing all "artsy" pages and miss out on sharing the history with the boys, their kids and the generations to come.

God Bless

Blog Train!!!

Aubrey’s Mom Designs has released a new kit at Hooked on Digiscrap called Nature’s Bounty. As a present to you, we are offering a blog train of quick pages for this kit.


You can find these Quick Pages here and here and don't forget to head to Aubrey's Mom Designs blog for the remainder of the train.

New Designer, New Kit and 3 Free Quickpages

Next week is spring break for the boys and I am actually going to be minus the eldest :) He is going to go up to Waco to spend time with his girlfriend and audit the required classes for his senior requirements. YAH, he graduates June 7th!!!!! I have only been waiting for that day for several years. Ben will probably be a ghost, spending time outside getting dirty and hanging out with his girlfriend. Prayerfully he will shower between the two or I feel sorry for Lauren.

This week Liz (Josh’s girlfriend if you haven’t been keeping up) was on spring break and has been spending time with me, hanging around the house, cleaning, cooking (which is not her strongest suit but she is at least willing to learn) and grociery shopping. We have also spent A LOT of time scrapping, learning tricks and tips, and trying to catch up on our projects. Wednesday night Liz tripped over the cord on her hard drive and knocked it off the desk, cracking the drive and rendering it KAPUT! She is going to send it off and spend $300 - $700 to try to have them recover all of her pictures, college papers, notes and scrapbook kits. I could only watch her cry.

I decided to try to take her mind off of her loss by spending the day teaching her how to make quick pages - which is ultimately good for you since I am putting all the completed pages up on my blog as freebies. I am actually having fun with her around since I am accomplishing A Lot. Who knows, a few more weeks and I could be caught up on 25 years of scrapping! No? Yeah, I didn't think so.

My kit of the day is Cheryl’s Closet from Late Night Scraps which you can find here at the Pretty Scrappy Store. Here is the preview which is so cool. I love the fact that while I only did girl pages (and no, I have no idea why I didn't do the backlog of pictures that I have for the boys) these are so versatile for boys as well.

The quickpages, like normal, are linked and you can pick them up without the adorable pictures at 4shared.

Layout 1:

http://www.4shared.com/file/92767127/7b28e8c0/Cheryls_Closet_QP_1_copy.html

Layout 2:

http://www.4shared.com/file/92766355/615fac20/Cheryls_Closet_Layout_2_QP_copy.html

Layout 3:

http://www.4shared.com/file/92766745/7f4d35bd/Cheryls_Closet_Layout_3_QP_copy.html

New Quickpages

It has been an absolute zoo here the last few days and I am having a hard time believing that my boys are not the direct cause of it. You see, both of my boys have girlfriends and the last few days I have had all 4 of the teenagers over at the house "socializing". Liz and Josh are curled up on one couch and Ben and Lauren are on the other. Now, I have had plenty of time to get used to the idea of Josh having a serious girlfriend but Ben is 15 and this concept is really throwing me for a loop.

I know that they don't stay little forever despite our best wishes but I thought I would get to be the only woman for a few more years. I love Lauren, don't misunderstand me, I am just finding it difficult to adjust.

On a much more sedate note, I have been having so much fun playing with the new kit I picked up from Aubrey's Mom Designs that I made some more layouts and quickpages as freebies.


Here is the kit I used and here is where you can get it.

Since I haven't figured out to link pictures yet, you can get the freebies (without the pictures of course) at 4shared individually.


Here:

Here:

Here:

Here:

Please leave me a comment if you use these quickpages and don't forget to visit Aubrey's Mom Designs Blog.

Inspiration and new CT

I have finally found another inspiration to scrap - my neices and nephews!! I called my sisters and asked if I could post pictures of their kids on my blog and of course was granted permission as long as I don't give out where to find them, and make sure they are clothed. Of course, since that is what I do with my own kids it wasn't a difficult adjustment :). So, I have an adorable group of neices and nephews which you will be introduced to over the next little while. If you are interested in the layouts that are not CT challenges, you are going to have to watch the slideshow at the bottom of the blog to see what new things show up. I don't like the fact that layouts take up so much of the page and I don't get to watch the slideshow :)

In other news, I became a CT for another (and probably last) store today. I am now a member at Bouquet of Pixels because they have some awesome kits, creative designers and interesting challenges.

Keep a watch on this blog, I intend to continue to post layouts and quick pages frequently.

Have a blessed day!