to eat lunch today. I only remembered at around 7pm, when a dull headache triggered the part of my brain that connects to my stomach. (Voice in my head: Yo, woman, you have not put anything inside your body except cups and cups of that brown liquid that comes from ground beans…)

Sshhh. Don’t tell anyone though. It embarrasses me how something so basic as a basic meal, for crying out loud, can go unnoticed by me. But I have to admit, after 3 consecutive near-sleepless nights, my brain has turned a bit into mush. I’ve been working on editing about 70 articles for a project (deadline: yesterday 😆 )–some of which had to be completely revamped–and tomorrow we meet from 1pm to forever, however long it takes to get the project through its final, final stage… before we send it off on its final leg of the journey. How I wish I could be more specific!!! But I have to be patient and wait… till I can shout it out to you. When I do, you’ll probably get so sick of hearing everything about it (I’m collecting photos to document the whole thing for you too!!! :D)

So anyway, please forgive me. I’ve had less than a tiny sliver of space to work on the freebies I’ve been dying to give you… but I’ve missed you so much that, with 15 articles left to edit, I decided to just say STOP!, take a break and work on getting these freebs up for you. I have been sooooo wanting to give them to you to play with (come to think of it, I have been soooo wanting to play for the longest time! I feel like a little kid with the measles, looking wistfully out a window at all her playmates having fun and wishing the itchies would go away soon so she could join them. :D)

But before anything else, I want to say

THANK YOU FROM THE VERY DEEPEST RECESSES OF MY HEART.

thank you for your warm and encouraging reception of my Ripples poem. (Yes, Deb, I’d be honored…). thank you for all the warm fuzzies that keep me all cozy and just so full of overflowing love for all of you. thank you. there should be better words to express what i feel, but Webster and American Heritage have not put them down in their dictionary lists yet, so these are all I have to go with: thank you thank you thank you. Oh, and did I ever say I love you? Have I said it enough? Can I say it again?

Here’s a great big bear hug for all of you, my dearest friends.

Bring it on!!!

And now, what I’ve been wanting to give you for the longest time:

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This 4th set of the Pinky Promise kit has 2 papers, both slightly textured and with inked edges. I used a flower brush that I made myself 😀 on the first one (the paper on the top part of the preview), so it has a slight pattern. The paper on the lower part of the preview is a cousin of one of the papers in the Set 3 freebie, but it has more texture and less grunge. 😀 There’s a paper strip ribbon as well, which is 12 inches long so that you can stretch it across your layout (you can also make it smaller if you wish). I also included a jumbo eyelet–in the preview the biggest one at the bottom is the actual size that you’ll be getting; I just played around with downsizing it to show you how you can play with it by varying the size. 🙂

Here’s the funny thing: while I was playing around with the preview, I thought of turning the eyelet into a frame to show you what else you could do with this jumbo baby, and I thought… hmmm, what if I made this into a frame? So I did, and then I thought: since I’ve made it, why don’t I throw it into the mix as well? So there you have it!!! A bonus round frame included in the latest set of your Pinky Promise kit! Hope you find some use for it! 😀 (Oh, and the drop shadows are, as usual, only for preview purposes, so you can apply any sort of shadow you want). Special thanks to stock.xchnge for the photo I used on my preview.

Download it here. Zip password is freelunch (guess why? 😆 )  Thanks for the love you leave as you download!!! I truly appreciate the time you take to type in a few words!

ETA: Sorry, link is no longer available.

Enjoy, and I’ll be back with more soon!

PS. I just realized… the bottom part of the preview doesn’t have inked edges because I mistakenly placed the top half of the paper instead of the lower half (the one that had the inked edges at the bottom). So the bottom part of the preview actually shows the top part of the paper… but don’t worry because when you get the file, you’ll find that all the edges are inked. (Error on the preview due to lack of sleep. hehe. Excuses, excuses.)

This is believe: it’s always a good thing to reward yourself with some serious playtime after having spent a lot of energy on solid hard work. So today, in celebration of a week and a day of having slaved away at a million and one things (and in anticipation of the rest of the slaving away I have to do again beginning tomorrow 😆 ), I played hard. And you do know what happens when I play hard, right? I end up with… some goodies for you, my sweeties! Woohoo!!! 😀

I think I’m going crazy with pink now (thank you, Deb, you are responsible for this 😆 ) because I normally create more neutral, perhaps even more boyish stuff (with 5 sons, is it any wonder? 😀 ). But since my darling Deb planted the idea of pink in my head, I’ve been on a roll of thinking pink!!! So here’s more Pinky Promise stuff for you to play with!

This latest set has 2 papers: one is a solid soft pink with inked edges; the other is totally a wild experiment that I did with textures, brushes (including a floral brush I made), and colors. I’m not too sure I like it but I figured it won’t hurt to throw it in with the mix as well. Then there’s a jumbo wooden striped brad which I really like because you can actually use it for anything and everything (as usual, I made it big for greater flexibility). In my preview I used it as backing for a word… I’m thinking you can even line them up and make them form a word using your fonts, sort of like alpha tags? I’m sure you would easily find a million and one uses for this. 😉 Then there’s a grungy two-toned chipboard alpha for you to play with (all this pink and no dirt? Couldn’t resist!).  There are no capital letters in the font I used, but it comes with the basic punctuation on a png file (to be used with the marquee tools and copy-paste commands).

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Download here. Zip password is thinkpink 🙂 ETA: Sorry, link is no longer available.

More coming soon! Oh, and I’d like to thank all the wonderful scrappers who found my freebies through the search engine who took the time to leave some love: you know who you are. It really matters a lot. (And to my dearest girlfriends who always leave love, you rock, sweeties!!! Love you back! 😛

PS. I should tell you: last night I actually dreamed that I got more requests for particular freebies… now is that a sure sign of design addiction or what??? 😆

Enjoy, and visit soon for more freebs! 😉

but it has taken me TWO hours to put up my happy post… the one right under this. TWO bloody hours. There must be something about wordpress that makes it inaccessible on weekends… and there must be something about wordpress that’s been making it really iffy to use these past days… but it’s enough to turn the 😀 in me into 😳

I want to post the freebie right now, but let’s see how it goes, huh? Keep your fingers crossed for me…

Here’s the last part of the Lavender Porch Kit… and one of the packs I’m proudest of (mainly because it took such hard work to get it right!!! Food for thought: aren’t the things that you work really hard for,  more valuable than those that just drop into your lap? I find that this is true for many things in life).

There are 3 bows and 3 strips of ribbons plus a bonus plum-colored paper (I used a texture for the paper from a kit I bought, but I can’t remember which one… oooh, sorry… will do better with that next time. Just didn’t want you to give me credit for the texture of the paper…). The ribbons are 12.5 inches in length, long enough for you to stretch across a 12×12 layout as a border, if you want to. Or you could always downsize them if you want them smaller (I always think it’s best to give as many options as possible! 😀 ). The drop shadows are there for preview purposes so that you can use the elements in whatever orientation you want to. But the creases and shadows on the ribbons themselves (on the strips and on the knotted portions of the bows) are really there… for added realism. 😉

EDIT: While I was fixing up all the messy folders of my digital stuff in my compy, I found the source of the texture that I used for the bonus paper, and I re-read the TOU and I was a bit uncertain as to whether I could put up a freebie using that texture. So I took down the link for a little while so that I could change the paper into an original texture to make sure that I don’t step on any toes (I know how difficult designers work on their designs so I really would rather err on the safe side than risk hurting or offending any designer). I have put up the new bonus paper with the same ribbons and bows; I hope you don’t mind the shift in the bonus paper, and I truly hope you understand… 🙂

Now I’m on to working on other single freebies and I hope to be able to make a mini kit with pinks, as requested by my friend Jeanne in the comments (see? I hear ya, honeys!!! 😀 ). Also, I’ve joined the Stand Up & Scrap contest, so that should be keeping me busy for the next six weeks… but never too busy to keep making freebies for you! 😀 So do drop by and don’t stop visiting, okay? There will always be iced tea or freshly brewed coffee waiting for you here on my porch swing. 🙂

Download the last Lavender Porch offering HERE. Zip password is ribbows (the “w” is not a typo… it really is a combination of ribbons and bows… hehehe).

ETA: Sorry, link is no longer available.

Enjoy, and thank you so much in advance for the comments you leave in my blog! 😉