New Layout :-)

Isn't she just too cute?!? One of my new pics taken with my new S3! :-) I'll post credits in just a bit....after I see if this post actually gets published or not.......I'm really starting to dislike blogger. I see typepad used a lot......maybe?

Been Busy.....Freebies....Cool New Stuff.......Reminders!

Wow! Where does the time go? I can’t believe it has already been over a week since I posted last…... Guess what I got?!? Yep, got my camera! J Don’t remember which one I wanted? Take a look. I’m the proud owner of a brand new Canon S3.

Now, if only it will stop this constant raining so I can go get some more shots.

Have all of you been over to Digital Scrapbook Place lately? Today is Monday and that means they have a new freebie up. I’m ecstatic about this week’s freebie! Check it out…

While you are there, don’t forget that DSP has a whole GALLERY of freebies…be prepared to be there a while.

Speaking of freebies – have you been visiting the Apprentice Gallery at Scrapartist and seeing all the submissions to be a designer on part of the Scrapartist team? Did I mention that all submissions are freebies – each consisting of three papers and three elements? Don’t forget to leave love for those you download! Click here to go to the gallery.

And…have you seen Scrapartist co-owner Michelle Coleman’s new kit? Written in the stars is fabulous and lives up to the reputation Michelle has made for herself. I’m now the proud owner of the Written in the Stars paper and element packs:

Don’t forget to check out the new Magic of Fall kit while you are there! And oh, can’t forget School Days – the collaboration kit with designer Gina Miller. That is only available till the end of this month and then it is GONE! Hurry – go get it now! What are you still doing reading this????

ARGH!!!

argh!!!! Had this whole long awesome post.......with links for freebies and new kits, etc. And of course wouldn't you know it??? Blogger errored right when I pushed the publish post button. And no, that back button doesn't work and go back to it. :-(

Check this out!!! Awesome freebie.....

From someone all of you will be seeing a lot more from in the future! And yes, I can brag and shout cause she is my sister! :-) Chris LeDoux Word Art

New!

So, you all have seen my collage slide down below in the footer of my blog but I just added another of new layouts in my sidebar! Check it out.......

And you'll also notice I added more stores on my sidebar. Under the title "More digi sites I'll probably spend a lot of $ at:"

Digiscrapping sure should come with one of those addicting warning labels in addition to restraints from making my mouse click on the "add to cart" button......sigh. LOL

Check back soon cause I'm going to add a "my fav sites for freebies" section in my sidebar. You definitely don't want to miss out on that!

Do you know Sara Carling?

If you don't know the digi designer named Sara Carling - let me introduce you to her kits. They are all fab! These are the four that I have recently required below. You can find her stuff at Scrapbook Graphics (link is on my sidebar!)
What do I like about these kits? Well, first thing that draws my attention when scanning through a digi store is color. When the color draws me in, then I look at the style. Then I look at everything within the kits. Colored .png files (some call them stickers) really get me excited. I love all of Sara's flower .pngs in her kits. And I like how she matches and coordinates everything in her kits. You can tell she has an eye for design and I just love it when all the elements and papers really coordinate well. Without further making you wait - here are the 4 new kits I recently acquired. Haven't used them yet...but I'll let you know when I do!


In the order of appearance: Sunwashed Hideaway, Amelie (check out that alphabet!!! And see that floral .png image? Very cool!), Golden Moments (awesome floral .png image!), and In the Rough.

I'm back!

I'm back - just returned from a 3-day work trip.......thank goodness it is over. Gosh - I feel soo out of touch every time I have to leave town. To get myself back in the groove, I just went shopping....check out what I got today over at DSP:

Mackenzie's Dreams by Lisa Carter:

Remember September by Lauren Bavin:

Check back tomorrow to see what I picked up. I've been eyeing a few things at Scrapartist and their coupon that is sent out to newsletter subscribers expires soon. I gotta use it and I know just what I'm going to use it for!

Where were you on 9/11?

I heard a radio commercial the other day that struck me....it started out with lots of different people saying, "I was driving to work", "I was on my way to school", "I was making breakfast", "I was at the drugstore"......and the list went on. I knew immediately what they were talking about. Where they were when 9-11 happened. I remember exactly where I was too...I don't think I'll ever forget. My daughter was 5 months old and the day before her and I had flown down to visit my sister who had a 3 month old baby boy. We of course had stayed up late talking and feeding the babies, etc. So we were sleeping in. My brother-in-law came and woke us up and said, "look what happened....." We jumped out of bed and as I sat there watching the news, I couldn't believe it. I remember wondering to myself if it was a joke or if I what I was really watching on TV happened. In fact, I'm embarrased to say that it didn't really hit me until later that day. Then I suddenly remember that my mom and stepdad were supposed to arrive in Newark that morning. There was rumor by that time that another plane had been hit and crashed. That sent my sister and I into a panic and we called their cellphone. They quickly returned the call and said they were ok..... You can see what used to be the towers from the Newark airport. My mom has pictures of them and billows of smoke afterward. They are from far away but strike you nonetheless.
I look back now and I can still see the 2nd tower falling as we all watched it happen live. And again...I'm embarrased to say that not even that hit me until later. It was just soo hard to believe........and yet here we are five years later. And yes, several times today I thought of all the families and people involved and I hope they know that they are remembered.

Looked what I picked up today! All four kits make up Lisa Carter's Beautiful Moments collection. You'll see some of these elements used down below in a layout I did. They go really well with some of the elements in Lisa's Sweet Innocence kit. Don't forget that if you want to get some of Lisa's stuff - all her wonderful kits can be found at DSP.

I'm on a roll......

I guess I do most of my creating on the weekends because I'm on a roll over the last few days!

I participate weekly in another challenge on DSP called MCDT (Members Choice Double Take) with Lisa Carter. She's a great designer, has a sense of humor, and is just a ton of fun.

This week's MCDT used Lisa's Sweet Innocence kit:


I ended up doing two layouts using Sweet Innocence. Mainly because I don't like the first one. I guess it is ok but I just can't do "simple". NEVER have been able to....

Here is #1 - the one that is just OK:

And here is #2 - this one I like:

Had fun playing tonight...

I've been soo busy this week. And I've been avoiding this blog the last few days because after spending hours....and I do mean frustrating hours...trying to insert that banner above, I just didn't even want to look at it. I know all those beginner bloggers out there know what I'm talking about. I still can't figure out how to decrease the white space between posts and the banner. And somehow the white margins got bigger so that this space got smaller. Sigh....please be patient until I have it looking good. :-)

Here is what I worked on tonight:



So, I didn’t start out, nor intend to be a freestyle, collage type layout. I kept opening more elements to see if they would work and then I’d leave them there to see move around and see which one I liked better. Well, this is what I ended up with. Hope you like it. J Word art by the wonderful Tina Chambers and her Feeling Fall kit. “F” is from her Pirate Dubloons alpha set. September ’05 is from Meryl Bartho’s grungy digital dates. Background paper, gold circle, Autumn circle frame, copper skeleton leaf (altered from gold) are from Lauren Bavin’s 4 Seasons kit. Green background paper along left side is from Lauren’s blackforest kit. Doodle swirl in lower right hand corner comes from Kim’s Fresh Paint Flourish Stamps Set 1. Sunflower from Scrapsy Daisy. Maple leaf comes from Gina Miller and Holly McCraig’s new Spiced Latte kit. Studded circle is from the Pavilion kit by Microferk Designs. Overlay is from Kim’s new Edge Stax – Flores. I have the credits for the copper/brown swirly doodle/leaf element but I can’t for the life of me find it in all my kits again…sigh. Will update when I find it again. Same goes for small metal swirl element on the right.

Somehow.....blog title disappeared....a GOOD thing!

So, somehow I figured out how to remove the blog title from appearing over my banner above. Don't know how I did it but I did....and didn't even screw anything up!
Still have to figure out how to remove all that white blank space between the banner and this post....

I want to get this all set up before I really start spilling digi content here! I can't wait....

Like My Banner Above?

YEAH! Figured out how to get a banner up above.......but I can't figure out how to make the "Kari's Place" go away. And what's up with that big white space below the banner and above this post???? Wish I was more tech savvy...........
Credits for the banner coming soon.

Plain Jane....ugh!

I have GOT to do something about that plain, dreary, boring, blank white box above on the top of this page. Now...how do I go about figuring out how to add something in there? Creating artwork for that is a piece of cake. But where exactly in my template do I put it - or is that even how I do it? I've scoured blogger and can't seem to figure it out. Do you know? Post a comment and let me know if you do. That white box is driving me crazy!

Check out what I got today!

Do you have a fav digi scrapping site? Well, I have lots of them.........ones that I visit almost daily, ones that get me all excited and emailing my sis to tell her about something new, and ones that I think I have accumulated almost their whole store. LOL But I have one that gives me that feeling of "coming home to" after vacation. Digital Scrapbook Place. If you haven't been there, if you aren't involved in that site, then you are sooo missing out. I participate in a lot there and have made digi friends I can laugh with. Ones I yell "Hi" to when we both enter a chat room for a weekly event. Oh...so you probably want to know what I got today, huh? Well, check it out! Tina Chambers is the word art QUEEN and look what I got:

for using this:

in a layout. Now I don't know what is simpler.....buying a word art kit (that i would have gladly bought anyway!), using it in a layout and receiving another kit for free! Please note: I don't get paid by DSP to post good things about them here! But I'd highly recommend hurrying on over to DSP (link to the right) and buying up all those yummy kits - don't forget all of Tina's wordart!

More to come on DSP and all that I'm involved with there..........challenges, chats, and more!

Buy me or buy me not...that is not really a question. :-)

My Canon powershot A75 finally died.....it is just sad. I bought it in 2004 and loved every minute of using it. Silly I know, but I'm sad. I knew that camera backwards and forwards. However........I've picked out a new one that was just released in May. I have to have it!!! The features are soo awesome. And get this - I never thought I'd use a video camera on a digital camera but from what I hear (and from what my sister who bought this when first released says) this option is AWESOME on the S3. It has all the options I want - including an image stabilizer. I've been waiting for it go down in price but shipping to AK just hikes the price back up. But BestBuy has it on sale now for only $359 and someone traveling can pick it up for me. Should I or should I not? I know I'm going to get it sooner or later so what is my problem??? Maybe the additional $74.99 for the Sandisc Ultra II - 1 Gig memory card I need for it? Well, $435 and I have a new camera. When right now I don't have one. And it will last me a couple of years and I'll be able to take pictures of the cutest little girl in the world again. Yeah, that's worth it. :-) Check out my layouts below if you don't believe she is the CUTEST! So - here is the camera I want - the one I'd do just about anyting to get right now:
Do you have this camera? If so, I'd love for you to let me know what you think about it! I've read reviews - actually dozens of them. But tell me what you think anyway. I want to hear!

Inside puter Pics

Ok...weird, I know........pics of the inside of my 'puter. But hey...there is actually a purpose to this! I need more RAM - another gig at least. And I need an additional external or internal hard drive. I'm hardware illiterate so these pics were taken and posted here so someone could get me more of each! My poor little 'puter is only 6 months old and it already needs to be updated....sigh.

Have you ever thought about how you want your blog to look and then you get here, get started and you have no idea on how to do it? Well, that's me. I'm still trying to figure out why when I insert a picture, it goes ABOVE the text I'm typing, instead below? Does that make any sense to you? Not me.......but hmmm...think I've handled worse in my life, I guess I can get used to that. :-)

I've had scrappers' block lately. Busy buying, busy downloading, not busy creating. So, let me start by sharing some of my new layouts. Let me know what you think......and let's see if I can get the images to go below what I'm writing......

All papers and swirl are from Misty Cato's kit titled Bugs for Kaitlyn. Word art by Tina Chambers.

This layout took me just a few minutes to do....until I got to the word art. Don't ya just love word art by Tina Chambers? She's awesome! She's great! If you don't have any, you gotta get some. Hurry on over to DSP (Digital Scrapbooking Place) and buy them all up......be prepared...there is a lot! :-)

So back to the word art. I wanted the wordart to be the same as an existing color already in the layout. But color also has to be balanced without. That's my problem. To balance the color was hard to do. Couldn't do it aqua cause the aqua paper is too close. Same with the pink. Could have done yellow but then you'd not be able to read it. So I chose purple........but now the purple is heavy on the left. Sigh....what do you think? Let me know...

Well, I've succeeded in writing a post, adding images, making a joke that could have probably made you laugh and guess what? I somehow deleted it all!! Must be pressing that GO button too quickly again (as my sister would say). So, how about I start over......