Celebrating the Chaos

Sunday, 9 November 2008Sunday, 9 November 2008 / LivE / 28 Comments

Ever tried climbing the walls lately? I think the past weeks have made me an expert.

But I like to call it celebrating the chaos. It sounds so much nicer than freaking out does, doesn’t it? 😆

It’s been a very demanding 3-4 weeks, what with three of my babies sick with pneumonia. Endless trips to the doctor, nebulizing round the clock, too many meds to keep count of… (yep, I totally needed to create an Excel file to keep track of what to give whom when, and here’s proof):

Ahem… it’s also proof of how awful and messy my chicken-scratch penmanship is… so thank goodness for Photoshop Blur! 😆

So I’m so sorry, my friends, if I’ve been missing in action lately. I’ve been missing you too! But you know what happens when real life takes you by the collar, right? You stop whatever it is you’re playing with and you come running. (Ha! Lots of climbing and running, wish it had effects on my body! ROFL).

But I’m back! My boys are on the mend (for good, with no more relapses, I hope!), thanks to all the prayers of all my wonderful friends worldwide. Like I always say, how can heaven not listen when there are pleas from all ends of the earth? 😉

A friend of mine told me something the other day. She said, God’s weakness is in prayer and our strength is in prayer.

I think that’s totally beautiful. God grows all soft when we pray to Him, and we on the other hand gather strength from Him when we pray.

Awesome.

So. I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things… and I know that I owe you the last set of my friend Lynne’s and my Fall Into Fall freebie collab!

I also know that DSD has come and gone and I totally missed giving out DSD gifts (awwww 😦 ) and to make it up to you, I’ve come up with not one but TWO final parts for the Fall Into Fall freebie! (About time too, as the seasons are quickly changing and Christmas lights are starting to blink all around! 😆 )

So here we go: Fall Into Fall Set 4, the Paper Pack!

These papers coordinate perfectly with the other papers from the previous Fall Into Fall sets. There’s one patterned paper here, and the rest are solids–all highly-textured and grunged a bit. I hope you like them!

Click on the image to download. And thank you so much for the love you leave on my blog!

Now I’m off to bundle up the rest of the elements so I can get them up here too! (PS. Lynne has three more awesome elements to share with you!)

I’ll be back soon, so don’t forget to come back for the elements in this last set of the Fall into Fall Collab freebie!

Have a happy day, my sweeties! 😀

Mamma Mia!

Thursday, 23 October 2008Thursday, 23 October 2008 / LivE / 19 Comments

Here I go again… (hehe)

I loved the movie (didn’t get to see the play)… Loved Meryl Streep, great actress that she is, and incredibly funny too (I totally get her humor in choosing to do this movie to embarrass her kids, bwahaha). And maybe Pierce Brosnan doesn’t make me swoon when he sings, but he doesn’t need to because he makes me swoon even without opening his mouth to say a word. 😆

So anyway, inspired by Mamma Mia and the Spraground Weekly Challenge last week on scrapping travel photos, I decided to pull out the 11-year-old old photos of our trip to Santorini, Greece (yep, back in them good ol’ days when long hair didn’t drive me crazy yet and I had the bravado to wear mini skirts 😛 ) and finally scrap them!

What was supposed to be a single page layout turned into a double-whammy.

Here’s what I came up with:

The Beauty of Santorini

(You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish)

CREDITS:

AnnaAspnes-TornNTatteredTemplates; KatiePertiet-MyCountry & SpotDots3 Papers; TailedJournalers; LooselyLabeled tag (recolored); DigitalDates stamp; LedgerPieces2 Flourishes; NancieRoweJanitz-ChalkedOverlay; Diogenes & TraditionalSansXLight Fonts

And because you know I love to share, here’s the template for the double-pager for you!

LivEdesigns Santorini Double-Page Layered Template

Click on the image to download the 24×12 layered template (this is huge!)

Now if you’re more comfortable doing the pages on their own as two 12×12 layouts, you may want to download the double-pager as two separate sides (the left side and the right side). I’ve gone ahead and created that for you as well, just to make things easier (yep, I’m all for easy!) 😆

LivEdesigns-Santorini Double-Page Layered Template-12x12 times 2

So click on the image above if you want to download the two 12×12 layered templates that make up the left and right sides of the double-pager.

Both downloads come to you as layered .psd files.

Have You Joined the Bandwagon Yet?

Everyone and everyone has joined the Stories in Hand bandwagon at our Spraground! Have you signed up? If you have, yipee-doo! You’re probably busy getting your supplies for this great event ready!

If you haven’t signed up yet, whoa! What are you waiting for? Come and join the par-tay! 😀 Sign-up is till November 8th, and I did mention the whole course is free, right? With loads of surprises! So come on, hit this image below (or the one on my sidebar) and go straight to the sign-up area! I promise you, you’re going to be in good GREAT company! 😉

Stories in Hand - SIGN UP NOW! (if you haven

Update on the final set of Fall Into Fall Freebie:

This one is coming soon. I know, it’s trudging along way more slowly than I would have liked, but I’ve been busy caring for my three sick kids (bad colds gave way to pneumonia… so I have turned my home into a mini hospital with three poor little patients… would appreciate a little prayer sent to Heaven for them! Thanks in advance!)

Have a happy, scrappy day! 😀

Life on these islands…

Friday, 17 October 2008 / LivE / 18 Comments

… is funny. It’s great almost all of the time; sometimes it gets poopy (really now, what country has things going great for it all of the time?). But mostly it’s funny. The people are funny.

That’s one thing I love about these beautiful 7000 plus islands. The people have such a great sense of humor. There is a saying we have which, loosely translated, means, “Everything can be solved if it is communicated properly.” (hmm. Somehow the English version loses much of the flavor of the native language, but it’ll have to do). Anyway, the point is: part of that communication, no matter how serious, is always offset with the lightness of humor. I think it’s the belief that if you can laugh about it, it can’t be *that* bad yet. Something can still be done. There’s hope.

Yep, this same sense of humor is what we ride on in the best of times, and it’s what carries us through the worst of times.

And many times, it’s apparent everywhere you look.

Case in point:

Remember this character? (He’s been around since the early 1900s apparently):

Felix the Cat

Now, check out the name of this barber shop, as featured in one of our biggest dailies:

How funny is that? (I’ll bet the barber’s name is truly Felix, too!… Wonder if he’s both barber and manicurist?) 😆

A Freebie, Sweetie!

It’s freebie time! Time to reveal what this was all about:

It’s a layered template for you! 😀 Here’s the full view:

LivEdesigns-Time of Year Template

Click on the preview to download.

The template comes with a curved text path, and you can absolutely change up the hanging strings and the bottom accents with stuff from your digistash so that it fits your taste. 😉

Here’s the layout I made with it:

LivE - Time of Year (Christmas Layout)

(Yeah, I know, it’s a Christmas page… what can I say? Gotta get those Christmas photos scrapped before new ones come flooding in, in about 3 months! 😛 )

CREDITS: (all from ScrapbookGraphics.com)

Meredith Fenwick: Crazy Beautiful-paper; Antique Paper Swirls (recolored)
Natali Designs: Christmas Needful Papers-paper
Studio Flergs: Denim Blues Strap; AptD Screw & Glitter; Rough & Timple Gemstone & Staple
Traci Sims: Flourish Date Stamps

Update on the Fall Into Fall Freebie

Yep, the last set is still being worked on, but check back in a few and we’ll have it for you! 😉 (Hey, that rhymes. Bahaha!)

Have a happy day, my sweeties!

Two and Three

Tuesday, 14 October 2008Tuesday, 14 October 2008 / LivE / 11 Comments

Two. Two seconds of “fame” 😆

I got a text message from my dear bro-in-law Jun this morning:

And because I’m basically an obedient person (hehe), I did. Well, guess what I found?

My first (and only) two minutes of Youtube “fame.” ROFL!

The Master with the Extras (bwahahaha!)

What can I say?

Nothing. Except bwahahahaha. 😆

(Well, I have nothing to say about me. But lots of good things to say about Jun! But… that’s for another post on another day. 😉 )

This is Three.

Set 3 of my friend Lynne’s and my collab freebie, Fall Into Fall.

This set contains ALL the hard work of Lynne. The last download was my work; this download today is Lynne’s. Wooohooo!

Here’s what Lynne came up with for you:

Lynnea - Fall Into Fall Collab Freebie - Set 3

What this set contains: three 12×12 papers made by Lynne, one leaf stamp in .abr and .png format made by Lynne, and eight real nature elements also made by Lynne. Yep, my friends, this is all Lynne’s goodness and hard work! I’m so proud of her!

As usual, we’ve divided the set into two downloads to make it easier for you.

Click on the image above to download the eight real nature elements.

Click here to download Lynne’s papers and the leaf brush/stamp.

On Lynne’s behalf, thank you so much for the love you leave for her at my 4shared account and on my blog as you download! 🙂

PS. There should be one more set coming up before the Fall Into Fall kit officially closes. 😉

Encore!

Oh, and a friendly reminder, for those who may not scroll down to my post a few days ago 😉

Come join us! The course has all of the Spraground goodness for FREE!

Sign-up day is October 20th (that’s barely a week away, yay!). Come and join us! We’d love to have you on our Spraground!

Looking for my DID circle template?

Got a message asking me to fix the download link for the circle template that I released some time ago…

I have no idea why sometimes the links at 4shared go awry and say “link is no longer valid” (Does anyone know what causes this? Is it connected to number of downloads? All I know is that I’ve experienced this same strange thing sometimes when I try to download freebs from other blogs… so if you know why, I’d love to hear it! 🙂 .

Anyway, just letting you know that I’ve re-uploaded and changed the link in the original post. It’s working now, Deanna! Do let me know if you’ve managed to snag it! 🙂

Oh and one last thing… I have a new freebie coming up soon… (it’s not related to Fall Into Fall, but you can use it with the kit–how’s that for a clue? heehee). Here’s a sneak preview of what I have in store for you…

Alrighty! With that, I now go back to playing with Photoshop! Have a happy day, my sweeties! 😀

The Secret Is Out!

Saturday, 11 October 2008Saturday, 11 October 2008 / LivE / 18 Comments

It’s October 10th, friends, and you know what that means! Sneak peeks have been unveiled, the story has been handed over 😉 , and now it can be told to all the world!

Over at our Spraground, we’re having a huge, big, major course party, and you’re all invited! (Yes, that’s you, you, you, you, and you! And you too!)

COME JOIN US ON OUR SPRAGROUND! It's FREE! And it's for YOU!

I have a feeling you’re going to be seeing this wonderful reminder quite often on my blog! (hehe) Don’t you just love how the words form a heart in the hands? That’s how awesome our stories are… the stories of our lives are the stories of our hearts… and we can do nothing less than make sure they get told, somehow. And that’s exactly what Jes is going to do with this course! She’s going to take us by the hand and give us some fab, fab ways of making sure that our stories get told… by us!

Find out more about it on the Spraground! (The image above is a link… Click on it and it will take you to our Spraground homepage where you’ll find the awesome Why’s, When’s, and How’s of this latest super-goodie!)

Oh, and don’t forget to grab the course updates via Jessica’s blog too!

And oh (again), did I mention that this is FREE? And that there’s no limit on registration? And that registration will begin on October 20th? And that it’s open to ALL! Photographers, scrappers, non-scrappers, young and old, with children and grandchildren and without, as Jes says: as long as you have stories to tell (and who doesn’t?) this is for YOU.

So please join us as we party on for a week! We’ve polished the swings and slides and we’ve put up extra lemonade and cookie stands just for you! I hope to see you and your friends over there! (Yeah, in the spirit of “the more, the merrier”…let’s spread the word, folks!) 😆

Latest Scrapped

Over at Oscraps, Shaui of Feistuff Designs is featured as the designer in the spotlight. The challenge she gave (as well as the awesome freebies she shared with us so we have all we need to complete the challenge) grabbed me by my collar and didn’t let me go till I produced a layout! hehe

So here’s my latest scrappy thing:

I wanted to keep it really simple and make it look like an artist’s palette. So major restraint used with supplies. LOL. This was absolutely fun! I loved creating the little paint-daubs on the left. (For once, it felt great to be “mixing” paint without having to go through the clean-up after and the washing of my brushes–I think that might have been the part I least liked about oil painting, which I really should start up again one of these days… but I digress 😀 ).

If you want to join the challenge, head on over to Oscraps and get your layout uploaded! You have till October 12th to join.

CREDITS: Everything by FeiStuff, plus Nancie Rowe Janitz’s Inked Overlay. Font is AvantGarde.

Speaking of free…

Here’s the next set of our Fall into Fall freebie collab kit! Everything in Set 2 was made by me… keep looking out for Set 3 which will carry more of Lynne’s great stuff!

What you’ll be getting here is five more of the highly-textured 12×12 papers (you might have noticed by now that my favorite thing to create is papers! At least for now, haha!) plus a complete alphabet (with uppercase and lowercase letters) along with numbers and some of the symbols we use most often when we create pages. Since the items are highly textured, the downloading may take a wee bit more time. So I’ve taken the liberty of separating the paper set from the chipboard alpha set. That way, hopefully, it’s not going to take as long downloading them in two separate sets as it would’ve in one single zip.

Oh, and if you can take the time, please do leave me a note and a link in the comments section of my blog (right here. Press that button, you know you want to! 😆 ) in case you’ve used the goodies on a layout or project! It totally thrills me to see your great work! (And if you give me permission, I’ll hang your creations on the walls of my little blog too! 🙂 )

Thank you also for the warm fuzzies you leave on my blog as you download 😉

Set 2 of Fall into Fall Friendship Freebie Collab:

LivEdesigns - Fall into Fall Freebie - Set 2

Click on the preview above to download the papers.

Then click HERE to download the alpha.

Okay, now I really must go to bed… I’ve been nodding off here and there for the past hour or so.

Have a very happy day today, my friends! 😀

It’s here! It’s here!

Saturday, 4 October 2008Saturday, 11 October 2008 / LivE / 29 Comments

Finally, it’s here!

After spending the last few days and nights (and dawns) working on this project in secret, I am incredibly excited to share with you the very first collab kit that I have ever made with a friend!

But first, a bit about her: my friend Lynne is a Spraground sis and one of the sweetest, kindest people I have ever known. I have loved watching her grow and experiment and play with Photoshop from our very first days on the Spraground, and I love how she just takes an idea and runs with it. Lynne is such a natural at playing with Photoshop. But even with all these great qualities, what I love best of all about her is her gentle humility and selfless generosity. In this day and age where these are rare commodities, finding them in one person is truly a treasure.

Here are Lynne and me when we were kids (we still are, in a way–we love playing with Photoshop! 😆 )

Aaaand here’s the first part of our collab kit, Fall Into Fall:

Our first set contains five highly-textured papers in yummy autumn colors and eight real nature elements (3 flowers, 1 flower with stem, 2 autumn leaves, 2 wood leaves) which you can arrange together to form clusters, if you wish.

Click HERE to download the papers.

NOTE: If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to download the papers in the past few days, that’s because the original link gave up 😆 I’ve reuploaded and changed the link, so you can go ahead and download again now (thanks dj for letting me know! )

Click HERE to download the elements.

Thank you for the love you leave (for Lynne too!) in my blog and in the 4shared links. I’m sure Lynne would love to get warm fuzzies from you as well (and these days, she’s sitting on my blog porch with me so your warm fuzzies will sit nice and comfy in her arms!).

More than anything else, this kit we’ve been working on is a celebration of friendship! So come with us and celebrate friendship–yours, ours, and the ties that bind us all over the world! (And maybe share your story of a friendship you’ve formed on a playground too! 😉 )

Oh, and PS. if you’ll notice, this is Set 1… that can only mean that there must be more coming, right? So hang on and check back soon–we’ll have more fall goodies for you to (hopefully) fall in love with!

Have a happy day, my dear friends!

CREDITS: Katie Pertiet – Stacked Vintage Frames 2, Tailed Journalers

DST September Newsletter Out!

Wednesday, 3 September 2008Thursday, 25 September 2008 / LivE / 32 Comments

Zooming right onto my blog porch to deliver the news!

The September edition of the Digishoptalk newsletter is out! My friend Kel, who is the newest editor-in-chief of the newsletter, came out with a super-fabulous issue of Firsts! I love the look of the newsletter, love the editorial piece of Kel, love the theme, love the inside look at designers’ first kits redone… in fact, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a DST newsletter as much as I have this one! AWESOME job, kel!

Oh, and here’s a little whispered tidbit: I have a little article there too, if you’re interested in reading it. 😆 The newsletter is free, but you have to be registered at DST (also free)… if you are one of the few who aren’t yet registered, go run and get yourself counted among the minions! 😆
Here’s a screenshot of the first page of my … uh, rather lengthy but (I hope 😛 ) inspiration-filled… article on Recording Firsts:

DigiShopTalk September Newsletter: First Love Article

And with great apologies for putting this up here a bit late (was totally consumed by working on the Type+Writer course, so my memory bank went pffft for a little while), here’s the freebie with items I created especially for layout that I made for the DST article:

LivEdesigns First Love - DST September Newsletter Freebie

Click on the image to download.

Thank you for the love you leave in my blog as you download! I love reading your comments, and am always grateful that you take the time to leave some warm fuzzies.

One little thing I wanted to point out: please note that the papers in the preview are not included in the freebie download (because in the article I had written that I would release as freebies some of the stuff that I created in making my layout that appeared in the newsletter, and I did not use these papers on my layout). BUT I will be putting these papers–and MORE– as free downloads within the next day or two, so if you want them, be sure to come back and grab them! 😀
All right, my workload is calling my name once again, so it’s back to the saltmines for me! I hope to see you soon again!

Huge hugs to you, my sweeties!