2 Days!!

Is all it took for me to fall off the bloggin' routine! I hope all had a great week! Mine was fabulous and I have so many fun things to look forward to and share with you all! After you've read this post, don't forget to scroll down and pick up the Calendar Topper freebie that Tanya made for everyone using my newest kit.

First off - a sale! A major sale! Everything in my SBB store is 50% off! No coupon code needed! Just go and shop - everything is marked down!

Next, I scrapped again! Not once, but 3 times even! Thanks to my incredible fortunate of being on the most awesome Creative Teams - I got 1 layout done and 2 brag book layouts done too! Heather Roselli has a new kit out called "Win or Lose." It is the perfect kit for scrapping all of those fun Game Nights and favorite games. Here's a layout I did using Missy Strand's template at SSD and Heather's kit.


I am finding it a little hard to look at this layout though - they both look so much bigger now and that was only a year ago! Check out Heather's kit - Win or Lose. It has a wonderful free with purchase deck of cards right now that you don't want to miss out on! Also, if you haven't checked out Heather's team blog. You definitely need to! Lots of goodies and prizes being given away.

Once again the amazing Traci Reed has come out with an incredible kit. I so want to grow up and be Traci! She's years younger than me yet she possesses such incredible talent and wisdom beyond her years. Her kit called "In the Air Tonight" is beautiful! It is totally perfect for so many pictures of Zoey and really all the kids. It is girly but not so much that I couldn't use it with Eli's layouts too. Here is a little brag book page I did using Darcy Baldwin's fabulous Brag Book Templates and Traci's newest goodie!



And another one using Traci's Sunshine Playground and Darcy's templates.



And speaking of Darcy Baldwin! I consider myself a very lucky girl to call Darcy a friend and to have had the opportunity to spend time with her and and wonderful boys in person! Sooo, when it came to creating chore charts for the kids - I immediately grabbed Darcy's chore charts and went to town. If you are looking for a chore/responsibilities chart to start the school year off right - Darcy has the best. Here are Zoey's and Aidan's charts - both using kits by Traci!




If you are still with me a big Thank You! This was a far longer post than I intended. It's just that there are so many great things being put out there right now by my digi friends I had to brag about them!

Please say Hello! and let me know you stopped by. I am off to take a shower and then I think we are going to go bowling again. A new family hobby! Have a great day! Play hard and make great memories! And thanks again for stopping by! I really appreciate you!

It happened again!!!

Yep, I scrapped! And I designed! :) Holy cow - was there a full moon yesterday?

Does anyone have tips on organizing kids rooms and getting the kids to keep it that way? Inexpensive ones? I don't understand how I can spend hours cleaning the kids rooms, organizing them and then within a week you would have absolutely no idea I had ever been in there. We bought some closet storage "solutions" this weekend because we simply had to do something. Our downstairs hall closet was becoming known as the "Zoobomafoo" closet. For those of you who do not have young children or young children who love that show - Martin and Chris have a closet that when they open everything from balls to animal food falls out of knocking them down. It's funny in the show but not in real life!!! But back to the real topic - how do I inspire Aidan and Zoey to put their toys back where I have now put them???

Well I have to run - one of my clients has already emailed me a long list of things to do this morning. But before I do, I want to show you the layout I did yesterday using Traci Reed's fabulous new kit Blue Skies and Flutterbies.


Those photos are of Zoey after a soccer game last year. She's so pretty (if I say so myself) and even after running around in the Texas heat for an hour.

Oh my now we have progressed to screaming from upstairs and another email! I must go! I'll be back tomorrow with a look at Maria LaFrance's and my new kit coming out tomorrow called "Gabrielle" and a birthday wish for Eli!

Thanks soooo much for stopping by! I really appreciate it and love reading your comments! :)

2 Days in a Row!! New Record

Anyone there? I know at least one person read my blog yesterday. Thanks Tammy! I owe you a pm and I'll do that today!

We had a fun family day yesterday! We bowled, had lunch, did a little shopping, had ice cream and watched a movie at home. I have a cute photo of Eli bowling with his paci in his mouth that I'll have to share tomorrow.

I scrapped! I scrapped! I worked on a layout using Heather Roselli's fabulous party kit yesterday. She designed the kit to celebrate her 1 year Anniversary at Sweet Shoppe. It is a fabulous kit and was perfect for Eli's 2nd Birthday photos.


It is hard to believe that we will be celebrating his 3rd Birthday on Tuesday already. He's grown so much in the last year. Of course he has!!

Anyways, we are organizing closets today and cleaning house. Hopefully we will also go swimming as it is supposed to be 102 here today. Yikes!

Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by. Leave a comment and say Hello!

It's been forever!

Hi everyone! Remember me???

First things first! Thank you to my wonderful Creative Team who has managed to continue to post here on my blog despite my complete disappearance from the digital scrapping world. Without them I think everyone would have totally forgotten about my designs and me! Thank you girls!

I have been busy busy busy trying to start a Virtual Assistant business. So far it has been going fairly well but I am so busy that I don't have time to do very much scrapping or designing. I am excited though that things are starting to settle down and I am getting some time to do both. In fact, before my family and I run off for a fun family day, I wanted to stop and share at least one new thing I have up at Polka Dot Potato.

This fun little mini kit is called "Boys Room Mini" and is only .99 cents! Not only is it a steal but it is super cute! You can pick it up here.

Well I told the kids I was going to kidnap them today and have a fun family day. So we'll see what kind of fun we can find on this ridiculously hot August day in South Texas. I suspect we are either going to go bowling, mini golfing, swimming and/or all of the above. I want to make use of the weekend to be with them now that I am a WAHM.

Have a great day everyone! Thanks for stopping by!

:)

A New Page with Summer Serenade

Hello everyone. I just wanted to show you a page I did using a couple of Amy's wonderful designs.
First off I used her gorgeous Summer Serenade kit.


I love these wonderful colors & the elements are fabtastic!!! it even comes with a beautiful alpha!
I also used her Starting Blocks Set 4.

Terrific template set. I have so far used 3 of them & can't wait to use the last one. There are simply terrific.
Here is the page I made using these fabulous items. Click the pic for full credits!!!
Thanks for looking. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your summer!!!

July Desktop Calendar

Hello out there in blog land! Pam here with a very late July desktop calendar! I'm so sorry it's late but it seems that the first and part of the 2nd week of July has gotten away from me!

I used Amy's new mini kit Summer Spunk for this month's Calendar. I hope even tho it's late you can get some use out of it!

Here is the download link:
http://www.4shared.com/account/file/53094787/f9726a84/ableser-summerspunk-julydesktop.html

And a little preview of the calendar:

Enjoy and have a great week!

New Products from Amy

Hi everyone! This is Lydia, here to show you a few of Amy's new products. I meant to do this post yesterday, but I was up in the mountains with DH's family, and we didn't have an Internet connection. So, sorry I'm late.

Without further ado, I would like to show you two of Amy's newest kits, Summer Serenade and Playdate (which is 30% off right now!). These kits are both so fun and versatile! Hop over and check them out (all images are clickable)! And, here are two layout that I did using these kits. These pages went together really quickly because the kits were just so easy to use.





Thanks for looking! Go out and scrap some memories today!

Look at the cool new Mini kit that Amy has released. Cute colors & those elements are so pretty. Another super cute girlie page. Pic is linked so check it out!!!

Heres a page I made with it. I'm not particularly fond of fish, but my ds said I couldn't catch one so I had to show I could. After he put the worm on the hook of course!!! Click the pic for full credits!

Hello again everyone. I just wanted to share with you all this amazing new mini kit Amy just put out. It's called Zoey's Wardrobe & it is so fun & beautiful.

Here is a page I just made with it. All the colors go together so nicely & everything flows. I used just about everything in this kit. I did leave a few things out though. Click the lo for full credits!
The kit pic is linked so go check it out. You will love it!!!

Just look what these kits can do!!!!

Hello everyone. I'm new to Amy's CT & it is a wonderful place to be. Amy is an amazing designer. I love working with all her kits. So I thought I would share with you some of the lo's her CT members have made using these fabulous kits.
I'll start with one I made using Spunky Girl
Heres a fabulous page made by Pam using Purple Paradise

How about this touching page made by ltarbox using Little Boy Blue


KMBaker has this gorgeous page using Hope Springs Eternal

Heres one made using Rainy Day Sunday made by Jamie
I just want to say that it is an honor working with these talented ladies & with such an amazing designer. Amy's designs are fun, funky & gorgeous!!!
I hope you all have a terrific June!!:)

June Desktop Calendar Freebie!

Can you believe it's the end of May already? I can't imagine where this month went but it's gone and to get you into June with a good start I've made a desktop calendar using Amy's Playdate kit.


Here is the download link hope you all enjoy it and the month of June!

Download link

Brag Book Templates

Hi, Crystal here stepping in for Lydia with this week's product spotlight. I will try and keep it short today. I often find myself scrapping more moments than events, so for me one photo templates and smaller size templates are very useful. Something I started a while back was making 4x6 layouts for Lukas (my son) to put into a little album to look at. He will sit for hours and look through it, but there are still many spaces to be filled that I haven't gotten around to scrapping. Which brings me to my pick for product spotlight, Amy's new Brag Book Templates. These will be perfect to help me create layouts for his book, but they will also work great to make quick and easy presents for family members.
For this week only you can pick them up for 30% making them a bargain at only $4.20 for 10 Brag Book Templates as well as a front and back cover, giving you a total of 12 templates!!
Currently they are available at either Digital Freebies or A Cherry On Top.

Let's talk speed scrapping

Hi everyone, I was sat here wondering what I could possibly talk to you about, and I got to thinking about a few things. I have spent all of my time since Sunday trying to move everything important onto my external drive, because my computer started making a weird noise and I didn't want to lose anything important. Now during that time I have cursed the amount of time doing this has taken. In my mind there were so many other things I could have been spending my time doing. I haven't been able to scrap a single layout, and I have missed that creative outlet. Now they way my mind works is it wonders, frequently lol. So that thought led to thinking about all the othet times I have wished for more "Scrapping" hours in the day. I know I can't be the only one who is still printing/assembling things the night before they are needed lol. But the problem is birthdays and anniversaries etc may well give us a year's notice they are coming but then somehow they still seem to be able to sneak up on us and throw us into a panic. Although I am still searching for that elusive 48 hour day, to give me those extra hours I have stumbled across a few ways to make better use of my scrapping time, and get more done in less time. My first answer to this problem is quick pages, they give you a nice base layout that can be finished simply by adding a photograph. But if you own the coordinating kit you could also add to them and really make them your own. Luckily for you Amy has lots of beautiful ones available for sale. Let's start with some traditional 12x12 quickpages. Amy currently has quick pages available in this size using no less than 9 different kits. I have linked up the abbreviations of the stores each set is available for sale at PDP=Polka Dot Potato, ACOT=A Cherry On Top, DF=Digital Freebies.

B3 Bounce Bounce Bounce (designed by CT member Pam Bumbuca) PDP and DF Flowers For Mom PDP, DF and ACOTFor The Love Of Clover (designed by CT member Pam Bumbuca) DFLittle Boy Blue PDP and DFLittle Man (created by CT member Pam Bumbuca) DFOh What A Mess (Created by CT member Pam Bumbuca) PDP, DF and ACOT Purple Paradise PDP, DF and ACOTRainy Day Sunday PDP, DF and ACOTSpring Morning 1 - Single (created by CT member Pam Bumbuca) DF Spring Morning 2 - Triple Pack (created by CT member Pam Bumbuca) DFAs you can see you are not exactly short of choice, there is something for boy and girl pages. But what if you don't want to make square layouts? Well Amy can help you out there too, with her selection of quick page albums. These will make creating a beautiful hybrid gift super simple.

Flowers For Mom - Bracket Album (created by CT member Pam Bumbuca) PDP, DF, ACOT Flowers For Mom - Mini Heart Album (designed by CT member Tanya Tong) PDP, DF and ACOT Grammie's Apron - Bracket Album (created by CT member Pam Bumbuca) DF and ACOT Rainy Day Sunday - Brag Book (created by CT member Tanya Tong) DF and ACOTThere's also this fab album that accompanies Amy's newest release, a collaboration with Heather Roselli, Hope Springs Eternal. Here's something you may not have known if you pick up the kit before the 23rd (which is Friday) you get the gorgeous 2 Ring Heart Album which is worth $4.99 free. You don't have to do anything, it's included in the download, now how's that for a deal!

I know a lot of people aren't keen on quick pages and consider them to be "cheating" but they really do help out when you have a short deadline, or just a lot of photos you want to get scrapped in a short amount of time. The alternative answer I can provide is layered templates, they give you a lot more freedom and flexibility. I will hold my hands up and admit I can't remember the last layout I made that didn't use a layered template. I like to have the basics of my layout done for me, leaving me to the fun task of decorating it with the kit of my choice. The downside is they take a lot longer than quick pages, but for most people a template layout is still a lot quicker than starting from scratch. Amy has a lot of great templates available for sale, from 12x12, double page and brag book to tumbler, calendar, trading card and even blog header templates. Whether you choose to use templates or quick pages you have plenty to choose from, for all your, hybrid scrapping, gift giving or just for simply speeding up the scrapping process.

Wednesday Challenge Time!

Howdy Folks! Char here, and it's Wednesday Challenge time again. Forgive me for missing the last couple of weeks. I think my weeks just didn't include Wednesdays - time goes by so fast!

So, here's your challenge for today - it's a THEME challenge. Create a layout using the theme PLAY. It could be a layout with you playing with your kids, or your husband playing with a big-boy toy like a truck or tractor. As long as it fits the theme PLAY, it counts!

In the comments, post a link to your layout, and we'll pick a random winner on Saturday evening. Winner will receive a $5 gift certificate for more Amy Bleser products!!

So, play... play... and play some more. And then create a layout for the challenge!

Happy Wednesday!

Hope Springs Eternal

Hi there! Lydia here with another product spotlight. Today, I'm gonna keep it pretty short and sweet, but I don't want anyone to miss out on Amy's new kit! This kit is a collaboration with Heather Roselli. I love the colors in this kit, and it is PACKED with beautiful papers and elements. Hope Springs Eternal is for sale right now at Sweet Shoppe Designs and will be for sale tomorrow, May 20, at Digital Freebies. And, as a special treat, if you buy it this week, you will also get this cute, cute 2-Ring Heart Album for free!! It doesn't get any better than that! So, run on over and pick up Hope Springs Eternal!

Aaaack! I missed a week!

Whoever stole the last week of my life - please return it!! :) Hehe! It didn't seem like a week ago that I blogged but well a few dozen boxes more and a couple of new kits/designs and here it is - a week later!

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! Mother's Day here was pretty much overshadowed by Aidan's 7th birthday and the move of course. But that's okay - my husband was very sweet and the kids colored the wrapping paper on their presents for me and it was very festive and fun. David got 3 kits to make stepping stones for the garden in the new house - 1 for each kid of course. It is perfect, it will be wonderful to make them with the kids and put them in the garden and see them everyday.

Aidan's 7th birthday was on Saturday but we celebrated on Friday night and on Sunday. He received lots of HO train things including a new engine, a new passenger station, box car and more track. He was in heaven! And then on Sunday we took him to the local Train Museum and he got to drive his track on their layout. He was so excited and did so well. Major kuddos to the young boys at the Train Museum who were very nice to Aidan and taught him the ropes so to speak. We all had a very nice day. We went to Bill Miller's for dinner at Aidan's request and had a fairly good and inexpensive dinner. Here's a couple of pictures:

Time for me to go and do some packing and make lunch, but before I go I want to share with you some new designs I have in the stores (links are in the sidebar)! Also, I am going to start something new here on my blog. Each week when I announce new products, I am going to give one away to one blog commenter. So that means, leave a comment on my blog saying "Hi" and which of the new releases you would love to have and on Wednesday I will pick a name out of the hat and whoever it is will get the new release of their choice. If I get lots of comments, I might even do more than 1 giveaway. Here are the previews:

First up is a cute heart shaped album designed by my awesome CT member Tanya Tong using my Flowers for Mom kit.

Next is my kit called "Grammie's Apron." Very flowery with a classic look - perfect for heritage photos and all those Mother's Day photos from this last weekend.

And speaking of fantastic CT members, Pam Bumbaca made this fabulous bracket album using Grammie's Apron. I love it and when the move is all settled and I can find my photo paper - it is going to be the first thing I make up.

Tanya's been busy this week - hehe - she also did this really wonderful brag book using Rainy Day Sunday. It is perfect for mini albums for Father's Day or just any mini album featuring the men and boys in your life!

So on that note, I am off to make lunch for my littlest nut and get some food myself! I'm starving!! Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great day and I look forward to reading your comments.