NSD Blog Train

Welcome aboard the ScrapMatters NSD Blog Train! You should be arriving here from Fiona's blog.

I hope that you are enjoying all of the fun at ScrapMatters and elsewhere this weekend! I have a made a little box for you to use for your treasures with the fantastic kit Timeless - a ScrapMatters Design Team collab, and the Not Straight Up: Hybrid Boxes by Krisi's Kreations. Remember that Timeless is free through May 12th with a $20 purchase. And let me tell you, there are some fantastic grab bags in the shop this week.

This kit has made me think back to my Grandma, and the quilts that she handmade for each child (4) and grandchild (9). It is something that I will treasure forever.

You can grab the hybrid box here! Remember that this is only available for one week and then it is gone! Sorry, Link has been disabled!

Your next stop is Fonnetta's blog. Please remember that there everyone is in a different time zone, so some posts may be a little late. If you do get a little lost you should be able to get back on track at the ScrapMatters Blog.

Birthday Blog Train!

Welcome to my stop on the ScrapMatters Birthday Blog Train. I believe that you are arriving here from Happy Scrap Girl Designs. I hope that you are enjoying the festivities so far, I know there are more planned.

I have had many memorable birthdays, among them the one in second grade where I received the chicken pox on my birthday. That was one gift I definitely wanted to return! But probably my most memorable birthday was in 1994. That year, on my 18th birthday I graduated from high school. And if that was not enough I skipped all of the graduation parties that night, and went to the Pink Floyd Concert in the Horseshoe. Talk about an amazing day! It is definitely one that I will not forget.

Now on to what you are here for. Since yesterday was my son's birthday and I needed a cute boy card for him, I used the Cupcakes & Candles Mega kit to create that card. I also made up a second version in more girly colors so today I have a couple of Birthday Cards for you.

You can find my freebie here! **Link has been disabled**

I hope that you have enjoyed this stop on your journey, and have a great time visiting all the other stops and taking part in the festivities this weekend. Your next stop along the train is Chelle's Creations!

Sarah Bennett CT Template Blog train is departing!

Due to the great success of out template train in May we are back with another template blog train! It is a little smaller than last time due to summer getting in the way, *giggle* but we still have some great templates for you! Since my "area of expertise" is hybrid this time I have gone a little bit different route and made a card template.It is based off of this card made with Sarah's Love You Always kit. I love this kit, and it can be used for so much more than just the Valentines that first come to mind when you see it. Sarah is retiring as of the end of this month and her store will be closing then. Everything is on sale 50% off (you will see the sale price in the shopping cart). Be sure to grab it before her store closes on July 31st!
As you can see you can make the card as dimensional as you like. I love those extra touches, but nothing can beat a quick print and go card when you have forgotten an event. And no that has never happened to me. Nope. No way. No how. Never. (Am I being too emphatic and ruining my credibility on the matter?)So anyways, you should be arriving here from Katie's Scraps.
And your next stop should be at Amy's Unforgettable Moments. Please be patient if not all stops are up right away. There are usually little hiccups with where each person is located and what time zone their blog host is located in. If you do get lost the master list can be found here.
And you can grab the template here!

the Sarah Bennett CT Blog train is now departing!!!

Welcome to the Sarah Bennett CT blog train. You should be arriving at my blog from Britanee's blog. I hope that you are enjoying all of these wonderful templates. Be sure to stop on by Sarah's store and pick up some of her great kits to use with these. She has a really great kit, My Buddy, being released today with lots of masculine colors!
Here is the original layout that I based my template off of. I have added in a spot for a photo as well, still keeping with the feel of my original.And here is the template itself.
Here is the link for the layered PSD template.
And here is where you can get the separated PNG layers.


The next (and final) stop on the train is Amy. If you happen to have gotten lost somewhere along the train, or have just stumbled aboard... here are all of your stops.

CT Blog http://designsbysarahbennett.blogspot.com
Trish http://justthe6ofus.net/
Katie http://scrappingwithkatie.blogspot.com
Kim http://karayannisfamily.blogspot.com/
Li http://libeingcrafty.blogspot.com/
Jamie http://jamiesscrapblog.blogspot.com/
AmyM http://melniczenkomusings.blogspot.com/
Kendall http://majorscrapitude.blogspot.com/
Becky http://hodgeypodgeblog.blogspot.com/
Britanee http://britaneesscraps.blogspot.com/
Amanda http://mandasmemories.blogspot.com/
AmyP http://amyp-unforgettablemoments.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you will enjoy all these wonderful templates.

Happy NSD Day!

Hello everyone! And welcome to your next stop on the ScrapMatters [inter]National Scrapbooking Day blog train. This train has stops ALL OVER THE WORLD!!! You have probably just come from Becky's blog . That's the stop before this one. And now you've arrived in Ohio at Manda's Memories!

Our NSD mega-collab at SM this weekend is called "Moments that Matter" and the whole theme of our celebration is all about those moments in our lives that really matter. At each stop you'll find a story about a Moment that Matters along with a freebie!! There are TONS of stops on this blog train, so you can pick up a LOT of goodies!!

OK, so the 'moment that matters' I've chosen to share is . . .

When the 2007 school year started my youngest was getting ready to go to his first full year of preschool. He attended a special preschool under an IEP (Individualized Education Program) because he was very delayed in his speech. Because this was under an IEP and the school he was being sent to was in another district within the county he received busing to the preschool. That first day of school he was so very excited to be headed back. He had loved the half a year he had attended the year before.

We had been told that the bus would probably come at the same time, but to please be outside waiting 15 minutes earlier than his pickup time the year before for the first couple of days until they had a better feel for the route. So we were out waiting at the desired time. Because of the longer ride time he was actually supposed to be picked up a little before my oldest.

I had both boys out waiting and managed to take a really great (my favorite to this day) picture of the two of them together. The expected time for his bus had come and gone with no sign of it. After big brother's bus came and his still wasn't there he got so upset. He walked to our front step, sat down started crying. Finally, about 45 minutes late the bus showed up. It had been stuck in a long line of traffic waiting for a stopped train.
I want to always remember that excitement that they had for school that year. From that year on, while neither of them hate school they have not been quite as excited about it again. It was also one of their best times getting along to date, and I even managed to get it on film.

Well, on to the blog train freebie that I have for you. I have a thank you card and an embellished heart made from the Moments That Matter - Mega Collab to share with you today. I hope that you can find a use for this.


You can download it here... link disabled.

Link will be active until midnight Thursday night 5/6. Then all these blog train goodies are getting gathered up and put into the store!

Enjoy!!! And now you're off to the next stop on the blog train . . .

Alamama's Blog!

Have fun and wonderful NSD!!!!

June DTW and party info!

Hi everyone! It's nearly the end of May so I have your June Desktop Wallpaper for you! For this month I have made two versions. Pretty much the only difference between them is that one uses yellow and the other uses pink (hit the Creative Dream Team Blog to grab the pink one) as accents. Here is the yellow one, starring my boys fishing with Papa last summer (my version only). You can grab it here, but don't run off just yet!

I have some news you won't want to miss.On Monday June 1st we are having a PARTY at Creative Dreams. Anne has a new kit coming out and we want to celebrate (otherwise known as an excuse to have a party). Hop on over there for chats and noon and 9pm central time. There will be lots of fun and goodies to be had! We will be waiting to see you on Monday!

teaser with freebie

Ok, so I have been a really bad blogger the last couple of months. I'm not sure that there really is an excuse, but I do promise to try and do better. Anne at Creative Dreams has a new kit coming out soon so that means that I have a teaser or two for you. I'll give you one today and another in a post soon.

I also thought I would share the word art that I made for this layout. You can get it here.

A first... (freebie)

Well, I have a first for you all today. I decided to jump in and make a mini kit for the color challenge at DSO. I have made some quickpages with Creative Dreams kits and given them away, as well as making things for my own LO's ( I even gave one of those away) but this is the first actual kit that I have made. All of it is made from photos that I took last summer. I hope that you enjoy it, and please don't be too hard on me.

You can grab your freebie here! And here is a layout that I made with my kit.

Also don't forget to check out the Quick Page Exchange at Creative Dreams this month. There is still a little time left to get in on it!

Another desktop wallpaper freebie

I have another desktop wallpaper to share with you all. I made it for some friends of the family, and thought why not offer it here. This one is a little different in that it contains calendars for Feb-April. I have 2 more similar photos that I will be using to make the May-Aug and the Sept - Dec versions with closer to those months. They will all 3 be made with photos of dragonflies that I took this past June in between baiting and taking fish off hooks for my boys on a fishing trip!

If you like it be sure to grab it here!

Double Heart Frame freebie

Today while I was working on making my new desktop wallpaper I created this frame. I am really rather pleased with how it turned out so I decided to make it available individually as well as part of the wallpaper. To get to the wallpaper click here. And now for the frame, you can grab it here!

I've had a house full of sick people since my last post and of course that meant I had to get sick as well, so have not gotten too much accomplished. I do hope to have more for you all soon!

More dragonflies and another freebie

After doing Tuesday's LO I decided I had to do one using all 3 of the different dragonflies I had managed to get pics of. Sadly there were 3 or 4 other types that I didn't manage to catch a shot of. For this kit I used Butterfly Bling by Creative Dreams. This gorgeous kit will be available in the Creative Dreams store tomorrow! I have many other ideas for this kit and just need the time to actually do them!

I also have the second desktop wallpaper that I promised last post. I had actually made this one first, but when I thought about which photos I wanted to use in it I couldn't come up with 2 I liked together so I made the other one. Like the other wallpapers this one is made with the Ocean Friends charity kit. It is also made for 1024 by 768 and in 72dpi like the other desktop wallpapers.

Grab it here!

I'm back.... for now.

I'm back from the mini vacation at my dad's. The good news is the boys had a ball and I got some good pictures too! We went to the Zoo, fishing, a pig roast etc. The boys even got to ride a pony and swim. I have only just started to work with the pictures I took while I was there but I do have one LO done. And it doesn't even have a person in the picture! While we were at the pond helping the boys fish I took some pictures of the many many dragonflies. I managed to get a couple good ones even. Here is a layout I did with my favorite of those dragonfly pictures. I did it for the DSO color challenge, because I think when Kim picked her colors at the beginning of this month she knew about that shot I would get, the colors were so dead on!

The credits are as follows : template - jenuineartistry.blogspot, photo clip - trivette's designs, background paper - WHB Designs - quiet elegance, paper on back frame - jamiescreations.blogspot, front frame - calvinawalsh.blogspot, green flower - LDrag designs, bottom flower / dragonflies - Saniscraps - strawberry vanilla, fiber rope - Atomic cupcake, fonts - Trajan Pro & Papyrus

Since getting home I have also been working on that August Desktop wallpaper that I promised using the Ocean Friends kit. I actually have 2 done. I did a one photo wallpaper and a two photo wallpaper. Today I will be offering the 1 photo version. Like the other one this one is in 1024 by 768 format and at 72 resolution.

Get it here!

Lots of news!

I have a good bit of news to share today. I am hosting my first challenge over at Creative Dreams! It is a font challenge and I would love to see what you can do with the font I chose. I am also offering a posting bonus of an alpha that matches the July released Independence kit (on sale for half off through July 31st!) in the Creative Dreams store. Here is a preview of that posting bonus.

A few months ago Anne at Creative Dreams put out a call to designers to help her crate a mega charity kit to benefit the Shriner's Hospital in Chicago and let me tell you they really came through. This kit contains over 120 papers and over 375 elements! It is in great colors for all your summertime photos. You can check out Anne's blog for more info about the kit and how it came about. This amazing kit can be purchased here!

And to help kick this off I have a freebie quick page for your desktop here. It is made for screen resolutions of 1024 by 768. I made it for this month, and since it is so late in the month I promise to also make one for August for you all. I will be posting it next week as my boys and I are headed to visit Grandpa for a few days. I hope you enjoy it!Find it here!

I just realized...

that I forgot to post my fourth and currently final Creative Dreams kit freebie! So here is the link to the QP freebie. It is the one that I used a few posts back so if you want an idea of how I used it scroll back a few days.
If you haven't checked out the new Creative Dreams Forums yet come on over and introduce yourself! We would love to see you there! Grab it here!

Challenge at Creative Dreams

Have you been over to Creative Dreams yet to check it out? There are a couple challenges there with some more in the works. One of them is a color challenge. Rachael has chosen a fun color palette for us to work with. I have done 2 layouts for it. After doing the first I didn't feel there was enough color for the challenge, but I loved the LO, so I did a second one. What do you think?

The kit I used is Dancing Feet that sweetasmel made for the challenge, and the word art is by Elegant Word Art with an atomic cupcake action used on it.

And today I will give you all the final portion of the alpha that coordinates with the Creative Dreams kit. Here are the numbers & punctuation.

Grab it here!

I'm speechless....

I have to share this today. I have a couple of the best boys. A few days ago my oldest (8 year old) came to me and said "Mom, I want to make a scrapbook page too!" I told him to write a draft of the things he wanted to say and we would work on it. Last night he came to me with his draft and said he was ready. We sat down together and he picked his which paper and elements he wanted to use. I opened a new document for him and moved all of his choices onto it. I put the picture (one he took) in the frame for him and started the text box for him. From there he took over, typed his journaling and moved the stuff to where he wanted it on the page. The only suggestion I had to make was for him to capitalize his title. And here is his LO!

The kit he used was Vintage Blush by Creative Dreams. See why I'm speechless? Isn't that pretty darn good for an 8 year old?

And on to the promised freebie. Here is the matching lowercase alpha to yesterday's freebie. Please be sure to come on over to Creative Dreams and check it out. There are more freebies to be found there from some of the other Dream Team members. Grab it here!

Its here!

The big day is here! Today Creative Dreams is going live with a new forum and gallery! The best part is that this is not only a forum for digital scrappers, and designers, but it will also be for learning how to design! Isn't that cool! Anyhow, this is where I have been hiding the last week. I am excited to be a part of the Dream Team! I have also made some freebies to share the next few days so you can celebrate with us! I made a LO to tell a little about me, and how excited I was when I found out.


Come and check us out at Creative Dreams! There are a couple challenges posted already with more in the works. Come learn and grow with us.

On to the freebie. I have created an alpha that coordinates with the Creative Dreams kit. Today you can get the Uppercase of this alpha. Check back in days to come for the lowercase and numbers/punctuation. Now the Creative Dreams kit is just one of the FREE kits available at the Creative Dreams Store! You just can't beat that, can you?

Grab it here!