You. Are. Awesome.

/ LivE / 13 Comments

Truly, you are.

Thank you so much for partying with us and joining us on our first-ever birthday bloghop bonanza! Thank you for taking the time to hit the Comment button and leave some love. Thank you for coming a while and sitting on my blog porch… and I hope you know that you’re always welcome and I’ve saved your little spot for you with a cup of hot cocoa or a tall glass of iced tea anytime you feel like passing by for a chat or two. 🙂

In case your bus / train / cab got a wee bit delayed and you’re coming in just now, and you’re feeling sad that the bloghop party’s over, don’tcha worry my friend! Most, if not all, of the You Are Awesome mini kits that belong to this wonderful mega collaborative kit are going to resurface in our shop today! And pssst! Here’s a bit of good news… today (Monday the 21st) is also the last day of our storewide sale, so you have the chance to grab these already low-priced bloghop mini kits at a further 20-off discount! Now how’s that for some cheering-up news? 😉

Here are the mini-kits that will be in the shop today!

You Are Awesome by Linda (In the Making Design)

You Are Awesome by Kari (iKari Designs)

You Are Awesome by Nisa (Splendid Fiins)

You Are Awesome by Jan (The Queen of Quirk)


and You Are Awesome by Liv (Liv.Edesigns) … (wait. that would be me! 😆 )

(Images are linked to the shop pages to make it easy for you! 😉 )

And here’s a fabulous layout created by the uber-talented CT member Miki, right on time for Fathers’ Day yesterday!

Party (Freebie) Hangover!

And just because everyone knows what it’s like to have a bit of party hang-over, here’s another wee freebie for you!

Click on the image above to download (and thank you in advance for the love you leave! It just thrills me to hear from you in the Comments section! 😉 )

It coordinates with this larger pack of huge Summerific labels, also available at my shop. (Image is linked to the shop page)

And here area couple of layouts created with them by our uber-fave and uber-fab JessicaSprague.com Creative Team!

by Miki

by Jenn

Keep Updated!

In case you’d like to keep updated with my blog (and … ahem… give me another awesome reason to come out and play on my porch more often) — you can click on the RSS icon over there on the top right side (yep, that would be the little green icon right below “Keep me updated”, or subscribe via your email inbox (right under the RSS icon)  and get notified each time a new post comes out.

Now if anyone knows a way to spread my arms around the entire world so they can reach over to you and give you a GREAT BIG SQUEEZE, let me know! Because I sure would like to give you the most humongous hug ever! Again, many thanks, and see you soon!

33 Freebies to Celebrate 3 Years!

/ LivE / 133 Comments

I love birthdays! I love goodie bags! And I love that my favorite playground / Spraground in the entire world is turning three years old this month!

Man, it seems like just yesterday when we beta girls crashed Jessica’s site for her first-ever Photoshop class (Up & Running). I stayed awake for close to 24 hours just to sign up for a course that was probably intended for 20 students–but quickly grew to about 200 (or was it 2000?) in the first five minutes that the registration gates were thrown open. And now, we’re a family of… guess. It’s way beyond 2000, that’s for suuuure. 😉

Three years after, (3 x 365) days filled with overflowing creative passion and tight friendships formed around the world, and here we are! For me, the journey has progressed to courses that I am honored to co-teach with Jes (Type+Writer 1 and Type+Writer 2), a growing chest of digital design work that I am thrilled to be able to sell at the best shop (with the best team of designers and the most awesome Creative Team), and an ever-growing family of the most awesome Spraground fellas ever!

Thank you, Jes and Jared, for creating this home for all of us. Thank you, my awesome Spraground family, for being so caring, so amazing, so absolutely awesome! And thank you, YOU who are reading this, for coming to my little blog-porch today and sitting a while. You are awesome.

And no, I have not run out of adjectives that begin with A… the repetitive use of the word “awesome” is intentional, meant to lead you to…

(drum roll)

THIRTY-THREE awesome FREEBIES to celebrate three years of jessicasprague.com magic… and to celebrate you, because YOU ARE AWESOME!

(Yes, I am screaming! And yes, I am jumping up and down! And yes, I am handing out birthday trumpets and throwing confetti and popping the caps off cases and cases of… you guessed it! Diet Mt. Dew! 😆 )

And they’re all yours to collect from 10PM (EDT) tonight all the way till 10PM (EDT) Sunday! Just because we like celebrations that last an entire weekend! 😉

Here’s how the game goes!

See? We love you so much that we decided it wasn’t enough to just give you 33 birthday goodie bags this weekend! There’s more! We’ve included a little quote strip in each of our bloghop freebies (so make sure you unzip those goodies right away! 😉 ). Collect them all as you unzip each freebie from each of our 33 blogs.

Then, as you struggle to hold all your goodies in both arms at the end of your bloghoppin’ bonanza, take those 33 quote strips, play around with them, and arrange them in the correct order. When they spell out the quote that reflects our fondest wish for you, type it out in an email… then seal it with a kiss and send it to tori@jessicasprague.com. This AWESOME friend of yours and mine – and an amazing Spraground admin officer who just *loves* support tickets 😉 – will gather all the correctly-arranged quotes and include them in a raffle for some really amazing prizes! So don’t forget to grab your chance at winning too! (Just make sure you send them in before 10PM Eastern on Sunday! 😉 ).

And now, in case you’re shifting weight from left foot to right, thinking “Right. Now let’s get on to the freebie, girl!” … I hear ya!

Here’s my goodie bag waiting to jump into your arms!

Click on the image to download my part of the mega collab You Are Awesome kit!

If you happened to arrive right here on my blog porch first thing this evening, you’ll need to know that you’ve landed at the second blog out of 33. You’ll want to go to the beginning of the bloghop to make sure you didn’t miss a single one of the 33 freebies… so head on over to the Blog of all Blogs that belongs to the Queen of Digi-Skill-Growing and the Diva of Photoshop Fridays and one of my very best friends!

Click on the image below to go to Jessica’s Sprague Lab!

When you’re done a-grabbin’, hop on over to the next blog, which belongs to… my dear, dear cereal-lovin’ friend and super-talented designer-mate, Nisa Fiin!

Click on the image below to go to Nisa’s blog (feel absolutely free to click your heels too! 😆 )

Remember to keep hoppin’ till you get all 33! And if you need to rest, you’ve got till Sunday to hop around! 😉

Oh, and if you could take a minute to leave some love on my blog, that would be… AWESOME! (Did you expect another adjective, maybe? 😆 )

Now, after you’ve unzipped all the goodies, you’ll probably be dying to start playing with them! Have I got the perfect excuse for you to  tear the wrappers off your birthday gifties from us and play with them: come join our challenges, going on at the same time, right on our General Forum area! Click on the image below to get to the Spraground!

Happy Hoppin’ my dear sweet friends! 😀 And thank you for the love you leave on all our blogs! ❤

ETA: If you have difficulty downloading (the download links should work for macs and pc’s alike :D), the likely cause would be kinks from simultaneous multiple downloading, so please try the links again… and remember you have till sunday 10pm EST to grab the freebies! 😀 Thank you soooo much for your patience and for playing with us!

Up for a challenge?

/ LivE / 5 Comments

Perhaps two? Or even three?

The first one of three going on this entire weekend will be up at 10AM Eastern! Led by Chrissy, it’s surely going to be a (birthday) blast!

See you at the jessicasprague.com General Forum later! (Check out the Spotlight Area right at the top of the forum to find Chrissy’s challenge!)

Grab a free class! Challenge yourself! And grab more freebies!

/ LivE / 1 Comment

Have you ever looked through the card aisle at the bookstore or stationery department and thought, “Nope, nope, that doesn’t quite capture what I want to say…” Or perhaps, with a wistful  sigh, whispered to yourself, “Mmmm… I think I could do that, if I only knew how…”

Well, let me tell ya, YOU CAN capture exactly what you want to say on a card, and you CAN make your own cards, and best of all, your cards will come with a lot of love and not a lot of cost! Too good to be true?  Blink your eyes, pinch yourself, and let’s see… yes! You’re still here, and yes, it’s true!

If you haven’t registered yet, come to jessicasprague.com and get your name on that ever-growing list of avid learners! Because you get in for FREE (yep, that’s right! Spell it with me, F-R-E-E!) if you register yourself between now and the 28th of June, which is when the class goes live!

Read more about Jessica’s newest and latest (and did we say, FREE?) class, Computer Tricks for Cards!

Click on the image below to get to our homepage where you can learn more about how to grab this free class!

Birthday Bonanza Times Two … This Week!

We’re celebrating three years of awesome-ness at jessicasprague.com this month of June, and here’s what’s happening this week!

Challenge Yourself!

We’re having not one, not two, but THREE back-to-back 24-hour daily challenges (cos we love the number 3 this year! 😉 ), where you get to tickle your creative instincts, grow your skills, and make new friends (or play with old ones!).

Beginning Friday at 10AM Eastern, check out our General Forum Spotlight Area for the first challenge, to be led (for the first time!) by our Creative Team member Chrissy! You’ll have 24 hours to do the challenge (digi, paper, or hybrid scrapping at its best!) and by 10AM Eastern the next day, my challenge goes up! Then on Sunday, as my 24-hour challenge ends, Linda’s 24-hour challenge begins!

What an awesome way to get three layouts (or more) done in an entire weekend, right? And that’s not all! We’ve got prizes to give out via a random.org raffle to all those who participate in our challenge!

If you’re a challenge veteran at the Spraground, this is for you! If you’ve lurked and read about the challenges but never got the guts to actually participate in one, this is for you! And if you’ve never ever participated in a challenge before, well, then, this one is for you too! And because our Spraground is full of love, we want you there, whether you’re a beginner, an intermediate, or an advanced scrapper!

Click on the image below to find yourself in the General Forum … remember, it starts on Friday morning at 10AM EST!

And FREEBIES GALORE!

Who doesn’t love a freebie, huh? We all do! And best of all, we love giving them out at the Spraground to celebrate our third birthday! Goodie bags galore! A major goodie BOX is more like it, filled with AWESOME (wink, wink) goodness for you to play with the entire week… and forever (we like “forever” at jessicasprague.com… take any of our courses, and you have them–tadah!–forever! 😉 )!

The designers of the jessicasprague.com and the creative team members have teamed up to produce a mega, super, awesome bloghop bonanza for the entire world! Our bloghop begins on Friday, 10pm Eastern and ends on Sunday at 10pm Eastern!

We’ll have a special add-on game while you grab the freebies, and I’ll tell you more about how it all works on Friday! So be sure to come back here (set your alarm clocks, ink it in your calendar!)

For now, I’ll leave you with this little teaser:

Don’t forget… I’ll see you right here on Friday morning, 10AM Eastern for the challenges, and 10PM Eastern for the birthday bloghop… and we’re going to PART-AY the weekend away! WOOOOOT! 😀 😀 😀

Are you wearing your party hat yet?

/ LivE / Leave a comment

My favorite place in the whole wide webworld, JessicaSprague.com, turns three years old this June! WHEE!

JessicaSprague.com Turns 3 in June!

Have you heard about all the awesome activities that have been going on? Lots of goodness overflowing at the Spraground!

* All current digital products in our shop and self-paced classes are 20%-off till June 21st! (Twenty percent off for two whole weeks! Grab what you’ve always wanted! :D)

* A brand-new FREE (spell it with me, F-R-E-E) class, Computer Tricks for Cardmaking, will open its registration doors on June 14th! Mark your calendars and make sure you sign up for this great class (and for the great company too! heehee).

* MORE fun-filled activities are lined up for the coming weeks so be sure you hop on by! You won’t want to miss the awesome party games and the goodie bags too! (And don’tcha worry, cos over at the Spraground, we’ve got cookies! 😀 )

Just click on any image above to find yourself in party-land… and don’t forget to put on your party hat! 😀

See you there!

And we pause regular programming…

/ LivE / 1 Comment

… for some ear candy!

I’m marvelous… I’m marvelous… oh, marvelous! (must listen to this when I’m not feeling too marvelous 😆 )

One love, one love, one life, you gotta do what you should…

… and what I gotta do, what I should do RIGHT NOW, is get some design work done!

So toodle-loo and I’ll see you around in a bit! ((((big squeezes!)))))

Just sighing…

/ LivE / 2 Comments

So. The national elections are over. I have remained quiet for the entire duration of the campaign period, never saying a thing publicly, because I somehow think that political discussions are taboo and can cause great big arguments, to which I am highly allergic.

But just for today, now that it’s all over, I want to let out a sigh. A quiet sigh. One that I really do not wish to be a stimulus for any kind of argumentative discussion (gosh, no, no, no. Did I say I don’t like arguing at all? 🙂 ). But since my blog is a kind of journal of my life, I just felt that I needed to get my thoughts on this, post-elections, down just so I can record this part of my life.

So bear with me, and if it’s not something you wish to read, carry on… and as always, you can sit on my porch and pretend you don’t see me typing, and we can sit in silence as friends, you with your iced tea and me with my mango shake. 🙂

In a nutshell, here’s my post-election reaction:

Hay naku, Pilipinas, heto na nga’t nasa harap niyo ang pinakamatinong kandidato: maka-Diyos, maka-pamilya, maka-tao–ngunit hindi ninyo lang siya tinanggihan na maglingkod sa inyo at iangat ang nakakarami sa kahirapan, dinurog pa ninyo sa pamamagitan ng kasinungalingan ang katauhan niya. Pagkalipas ng panahon, inyo sanang magunita ang laki at bigat ng konsikuwensya ng inyong kabulagan.

Photo from Wikipedia, by Mike Gonzalez

It’s in Filipino, because that is the language of the heart in this country. Know how things can get lost in translation? Some things need to be said in one’s native language in order to really hit home, and in this case, this entire emotion of mine just found its way to my brain from my heart in Filipino, never mind if 98% of the time I express myself in this language with which I write, the language that I grew up with.

For my friends around the world who wish to know the content of what I just wrote, here’s the English translation, lacking as it is in capturing the full range of emotions:

Oh my, Philippines, here right in front of you was the most able candidate: God-fearing, dedicated to the family, and dedicated to people–and yet, not only did you refuse his offer to serve you and lift the majority from their lives of suffering and poverty, you even crushed his person and character through the lies you have spread about him. As time passes, may you realize the  great error and the gravity of the consequences that will likely result from this blindness you have today.

Yes, I was a student of the University of the Philippines (Diliman). And so there is just no way that I can stand by and be apathetic, not have something to say, about my country, which despite all its warts and wounds, I still love with all my heart.

Day 2 challenge and a freebie!

/ LivE / Leave a comment

Just getting off the speeding work-train for a minute to call you all to join Day 2 of our 7 Days in May Challenges at jessicasprague.com!

The challenge today is … well, I’ll let you read all about it HERE… 😆

Remember how I said yesterday that there’ll be random freebies given our during this week of special challenges? Ya never know… today might be the day… 😉

Awwww okay, I’ll let you in on a little secret: today *is* the day (or at least one of ’em… more are coming! 😉 ). But you have to hurry if you want to grab the freebie, because during this week, the freebies for the 7 Days in May challenges will only be up for 24 hours… so grab this one before 10am EST tomorrow! 😀

Here’s a little sneak-freebie-peek:

(Image is linked to the jessicasprague.com General Forum challenge thread… just click and you’re there!)

See you there! (she says, chasing the speeding work-train as it starts to round the bend… 😆 )

Challenges, Challenges

/ LivE / 1 Comment

… Will we ever get enough of them? 😆

We just finished our {inter}national Scrapbooking Day challenges at jessicasprague.com, and boy, the amazing challenge layouts that now hang on the walls of those special galleries will make your mouth drop open in awe!

‘Course we got all revved up with the excitement in the “challenge” air, so we are moving right along into a week’s worth of daily challenges! Whee!

Back by popular demand, on its second annual run, is the 7 Days in May Challenge! A whole week of daily challenges, with a couple of surprise freebies thrown in with the challenge (not telling you which day, so you’ll have to join every day! heehee 😉 )… it’s bound to be a week of super fun and scrapping excitement!

Click on the flyer above to get whisked off to our General Forum (check out the Spotlights Area on top for the daily challenges). Our challenges are always open to all, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner, an intermediate or an advanced scrapper; come one, come all!

{ Pssst. If you went super-shopping during this weekend of oh-so-fab sales, joining 7 Days in May gives you the perfect excuse to get those goodies out and play! Just sayin’… 😉 )

Keeping It Green

Quick, answer this question: when you had to do reports in high school, how did you present them? (If you’re a teenager right now in high school, you’re exempted from this pop quiz 😉 ). I am so proud of my niece who now communicates with me via Facebook since she lives oceans away in Europe. Here a project she made for the purpose of raising environmental awareness among her peers in a way that appeals to them. 🙂

Cool, huh? I’d like to be a student again today, just so I could make projects like this.

Huh.

Maybe not. I kind of like this no-tests, grades-free zone I’ve been in for more than 25 years.

😆

Alrighty, then! Gotta get back to work! See you in a bit!

Another Challenge & Two Freebies!

/ LivE / Leave a comment

Hey hey hey! Have you made best friends with your credit cards today and gone digi-shopping? We’ve got a store-wide sale, with all designers’ products offered at 15% off in celebration of {inter}National Scrapbooking Day!

One of the best things about shopping digi is the urge to use those goodies right away! And we have the perfect answer for that need, because we’ve got a second awesome challenge going on at our General Forum Spotlight Area right now! It began at 10:00pm EDT yesterday and is continuing till 10:00pm tonight, so hurry over and play with us!

Click on the image below to fly straight to our General Forum!

Then don’t forget to hop on over to the HOMEPAGE! My dearest friend Kari (the hybrid goddess of the Spraground) and I are the featured designers for the day, and we’ve got freebies waiting for you to grab them!

Here’s mine:

And here’s another one, just cos I love ya! 😀

Images are linked to our homepage where you can simply click on them and download immediately begins! But do leave your mark and hit the Comments button because Kari and I would love to hear from you!

So hurry and grab them now because they’ll only be up for 24 hours… like Cinderella, by the time the clock strikes 12 midnight, these little babies are going to get sent straight to the shop where they’ll be at full price.

Have fun, my dear friends, and Happy {inter}National Scrapbooking Day!