Forgive me for being MIA … life has been pretty much a blur this past week (Can you spell hectic?).
But it’s all good. Because at the end of the day, the simple fact remains: a busy life and an exponentially-growing To-Do list might be overwhelming sometimes, but no one can deny it’s great proof of how wonderful it is to be alive and kicking. 😉
So fitting, then, that the  Wordpress Photo of the Week Challenge was: SIMPLE.
Here’s my take on it:
And just to add to the fun: here’s an old and awesome song from more than a decade ago:
On this most wonderful, most magical, most holy of nights, I wish you, my dear friends, the very best of the holiday season and the most blessed of new years!
Isang dalaga’y maglilihi, batang lalaki ang sanggol At tatawagin siyang Emmanuel, Emmanuel! (Kahuluga’y Nasa atin ang Diyos). Magalak! Isinilang ang Poon! Sa sabsaban siya’y nakahimlay. Nagpahayag ang mga anghel:Â Luwalhati sa Diyos!
And for my friends across the oceans, here’s the translation of the song:
Behold, a Virgin shall be with Child and shall bring forth a Son And they shall call His name Emmanuel, Emmanuel. (In other words, God With Us). ~Matthew 1:23 Rejoice, the Savior has been born! In a manger the Christ Child is lain. All the angels throughout proclaim: Glory to God!Â
PS. I will be spending the rest of these last days of this year in the bosom of my favorite blessings in the world (my hubby and my 5 boys) and our families. I will see you after the first day of 2012 with the promise of lots of happy surprises for you throughout the new year!
Have a wonderful time bonding with those you hold dear, and may the coming year be filled with even more love and laughter for you and yours!
And a world where  all children (who possess a quiet wisdom that often surpasses ours as adults), born and unborn, are treasured for the gifts that they are.
I love the everyday, ordinary day. There is so much treasure that lies hidden under the most common, routine things, if we only choose to see with eyes wide open with wonder and amazement: the early morning sun whispering its wake-up greeting from behind the drawn blinds. The sweet fresh-morning-dew breath of the young child softly snoozing (cherish it; when they grow up, that sweet breath disappears, haha). The perfect sweetness of the orange that, squeezed and emptied into a glass, sacrificed itself so you could drink its delicious essence (oh, to feel like an orange after a day of serving others is to know it was a day well spent!).
So much of what is special and precious in our lives lies tucked in moments that look suspiciously ordinary. And some of us choose to preserve these memories in photographs or layouts. Which brings me to one of my favorite products…
Day Brushes – Reloaded
The first version of this was created about the time I started selling my designs at JessicaSprague.com (there were just two of us selling our designs back then – Jes and I 😆 Then we grew and grew and now we’re privileged to have so many awesome designers in our team!). The brushes were popular back then (thank heavens!), but –and here is where the learning curve began– I realized that since I had put in the year as a background to the brushes, they weren’t really very useful once the year was over. 🙄
So I re-designed and re-created and enlarged the original pack, and this is what came out of the oven (and now you can use them year after year after year…) :
liv.edesigns Daybrushes - Reloaded ~ just $1 today!
Here’s a closer look:
You can “stamp” these directly on to your photos, or you can use them on layouts. If you’re a Photoshop or Photoshop-Elements user (or if you use a program that allows the use of .abr files), you’ll be glad to know that the .abr files allow you to stamp in whatever color and size you want. If you don’t use Photoshop or PSE, you can still totally use these because the whole pack comes with transparent .png files!
Oh, and did I mention that you get 4 complete sets in this pack? That’s right: you get a bunch of solid and dotted-line stamps and rub-ons in clean and grungy versions! They come with 8 built-in basic labels plus a blank one so that you can customize it with your own labels. How awesome is that? 🙂
More awesome-ness: Eye Candy!
I just love the wonderfully-creative masterful ladies on our JessicaSprague.com Creative Team! Here are some of their layouts using my Daybrushes-Reloaded:
I love how Jen P filled the empty spaces in the stamp with patterns and stickers! Even more awesome, she used the stamps themselves as frames for her daily photos. Can you spell awesome? *Happy sigh* 🙂
Layout by JessicaSprague.com Creative Team Member Jen P
I am in love with the way Miki used the stamps, both fully on her photos and then overlapping the photo and her background paper! Wheee!
Layout by JessicaSprague.com Creative Team Member Mikki
Jenn M turned her stamp into a tag – amazing! 🙂
Layout by JessicaSprague.com Creative Team Member Jenn M
Brenda used the dotted-line stamp which goes perfectly with her dotted-line border around her entire layout. Sweet!
Layout by JessicaSprague.com Creative Team Member Brenda
And Renee used my stamp for the bottom layer of her clustered elements. Marvelous!
Layout by JessicaSprague.com Creative Team Member Renee
Seriously. These ladies are just so awesome.
Wait! One more awesome thing!
liv.edesigns Daybrushes - Reloaded ~ just $1 today!
My Daybrushes-Reloaded pack is normally priced at $4.99 but today (until midnight Pacific time), you can grab it for just a buck! Woooohooo! Just click on the image on the left to grab it (you’ll go straight to the sale page), if you don’t have it in your stash yet.
Now isn’t it such a joy to grab stuff for a song? 😉
Speaking of songs… here’s one that matches today’s One-Buck Wednesday product from me. (Okay, so I guess I’m totally dating myself here, but I truly enjoyed this way back in the 70s… though I didn’t have the era’s famous big hair :lol:)
Happy One-Buck Wednesday, my friends! With huge hugs! (And may your every day be awesome beyond words!)
Some blogs have Wordless Wednesdays (or other weekdays), where images speak instead of words. I have Songs for Sundays (because, really, isn’t music the universal language? 🙂 )
This isn’t a new song; in fact, it’s been around for years — but I love it on several levels, all of which speak volumes about the culture of my people: the way faith plays a huge part in our lives, the penchant for song and dance, and the celebratory, joyful spirit that pervades our 700+ islands no matter what trials and tribulations come our way.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do… and have a wonderful Sunday, my friends!
I’m wide awake! I’m not sleeping! After what seems like forever, I’m back on my blogporch! YAY!
So I just had the time to skip around netland and discovered (or re-discovered, or more fully discovered, since I’m pretty sure I got the email about this at the start of the year) WordPress’ Post A Day / Post a Week challenges for 2011. And I’ll kid you not, I spent a couple more days thinking to myself, “Really now, do you need to add one more to your already more-than-full plate of things to do in a day?” Now that’s precisely the kind of thinking that got me from January (when I first received the email informing me of a way to ensure consistent blog posts) to half a year after… still in the same place.
But the fact is, I do realize I have been pathetic at sitting on my blogporch with you for so long. Not for lack of desire, no, definitely not. It’s simply a matter of not yet finding that elusive 24-more-hours-to-add-to-the-day that has kept me from indulging in all that I would really love to do (and yes, sitting with you here is pretty high on that list).
And the other fact is, realization should give way to some kind of resolution, some kind of movement towards a better point. And I figured perhaps this is the just push I need!
So (taking a deep breath) here it is, folks. A desire, a plan, and hopefully a successful adventure: I will attempt to do Post a Week 2011! I promise to show up here at least once a week (dare I say, perhaps even more?) and excite, bore, tease, delight, et cetera you with my company. 🙂 Never mind if it’s halfway through 2011; today is as good a day as any to start, right?
Because you know what they say: better late than… later! 😆
PS. If you’d like to join me on this journey, HERE’s where you can learn more about the whole adventure!
I have always loved music. All kinds of music (uh, okay… you can hold the heavy metal selections; not too hot about those 😆 ). I think there’s just something magical about how words + melody + feelings all combine perfectly to express what otherwise lies hidden, unexpressed, inside the soul. (Which makes me curious: does music play a huge part in your life too? Or can you live without it?)
Luckily, my hubby is a music fanatic too, and so are my sons, one of whom introduced me to this latest vid… an introduction which was really timely because as soon as the drum appeared (watch it and you’ll know what I mean), my creative muse stood up and started dancing, and now I’m on a creative roll! Wheeeee!
So here ya go, enjoy this very cool vid (and the awesome music that it brings) and excuse me as I go indulge in my creative whims! See you in a bit!
PS. While we’re rockin’, here’s another one of my all-time favorites!
liv.e simply 