Fall Festival Blog Train..WOOT!

It's time for the Stuff to Scrap blog train to leave the tracks!! I have done up 3 quick pages for you using Maurine's part of the kit, which is fantastic! It's a great mix of "real" elements and hand drawn characters, so you can get lots of different looks! Great for so many types of layouts. Here is a preview of the full kit:And here is a preview of my quick pages for you:And everyone please note, there are passwords on my downloads!! If you have any trouble, please email me so I can fix it for you, and please leave me your email address as well, as I have had several wonderful people message me that there was a problem on previous downloads, but I had no way to contact them to let them know the issues were resolved. If you're using a blogger account, make sure your email is enabled, otherwise I get the dreaded "no-reply(at)blogger.com" which means I can't reply!! I'm honored that you even download my pages, so I want to make sure you're able to get them!!

For my first layout, I used a photo of my kids from last year, as it was my daughters first Halloween, she was only a month old. The fonts I used were DJB Angel Baby and Elephants in Cherry Trees by Kevin and Amanda and the date stamp font is FH Ink. Images are linked, password is leaves.For my second layout, I chose a hunting photo of my son and his Daddy out hunting, they brought home Chase's "first" chicken. Relax all, he didn't shoot it!! lol Daddy knows he's a little young yet for that! For the background text I used Depot, the title is DJB Angel Baby, and the date font was Lexographer. Images are linked, password is leaves.
For this layout, I used a photo of the leaves in my front yard, can you believe the leaves are turning here already?! Sucks. Summer is officially over lol. I extracted some of the leaves to scatter across the page, to match the hand drawn characters (aren't they great!), as there are some leaves included in the kit, as you can see in the previous layout. I also removed my text and paper from the frame, so you can use this page for two photos if you like. The font I used was Libby Script. Images are linked, password is leaves.
So that's it for my portion!! Special thanks to Maurine for letting me use her kit to create these for you! Git going now and grab the rest of the parts to this fab train!! Here is the whole blog list, in case you get lost lol

Dreams Inspired
Strawbeary Designs' Blog
Ginger's House
Manda's Scrappin' Creations
Samantha Scraps
Adriana's Cafe
Scrappin' Serenity
Scraps by Andrea
Stuff To Scrap
Christins Creations
Elegantly Funky Designs
Designed by Anya
A valóság tükre
Nibbles Skribbles
Saphira's Scrapdesign
Shel Belle Scraps
Pretty Pixel Designs
Grandma's Templates
The Scrappy Kat
Tonisha's Playground
Always Be Neighbors Designs
Threeunderfour Designs
Noelle's Little Corner in Scrapland
Every EverAfter Moment
Mommy Me Time Scrapper
Let Me Scrapbook!
Lovin' My Scrappy Life
Becky aka SAHM Scrapper
Seal Scraps
Life is Not a Cereal (You should have arrived from)
Rants N Random Ramblings (You are here!!)
Designs By Mel (Next stop!!)
Borsmustár
Digi-Scrapz by Christi
Scrapping Rainbow
JW-DigiScraps
My Digaddiction
nitasthings
FlowerScrap
Tricia's Treasures

Happy Travels!! WOOT WOOT!

Digi...

Ok, so this designer stumbles across my blog, and likes what I've shown here for layouts...so she offered me a spot on her CT! If you haven't been to Oopsie Daisy's blog, you should check her out HERE. She has some great kits, and I'm really looking forward to playing with her designs! I'm so honored that people like my layouts. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that likes what I've done!!

I'm also considering starting a separate blog for my digi scrapping posts. They are taking up so much of my blog lately, I kind of feel like my original followers may be disappointed, as I used to post a lot more about crafts. I still have the crafty bug, so I may start a new blog to have someplace separate to post all about my explorations in digi scrapping, and keep this one as more of a crafty blog, like it was when I first starting blogging almost a year ago!! Any thoughts or suggestions regarding this?? If I did start another one, what should I call it?? (I'm hoping to have something cooking for my blogiversary as well, so stay tuned for that!!)

On another note, hubs and I went to go see GI Joe tonight. Totally guy flick, to which I think I'm gonna have to make him suffer through The Time Traveller's Wife for making me sit through it! It was alright, although I didn't really get into it until half way through. The beginning seemed a little hokey to me, with Marlon Wyans being the token "black-comic relief guy". There was a lot lacking in plot and characterization, although apparently hubs says that is how the cartoons are. There is no history given, it just jumps right into the show. I don't watch and never have watched the GI Joe cartoons (and I don't plan on watching them either!!) So for me, it was just alright.

Also, I made this today:
It's zucchini apple crisp, and I totally thought I blogged about it once before. I just searched my blog and apparently I haven't. I'll have to do up a recipe card for this one later. So here is the recipe:

Zucchini Apple Crisp

8c zucchini, peeled, seeds removed and cut up like apples for pie
1/2 to 3/4c lemon juice
2tsp cinnamon (I use more on occasion)
3/4 to 1c sugar

Place zucchini and lemon juice in a large saucepan, cover, cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until tender (about 15 minutes.) Then add sugar and cinnamon until dissolved. Place mixture into 13x9" glass baking dish. (It should be a little saucy, my zucchini this time around had very little moisture in it, and the lemon juice almost totally boiled off, which made the final product a little more dry as well. Add more or less lemon juice depending on how much moisture you think the zukes have!)

Topping:
1c plus 1/3c sugar
1c flour
1c rolled oats
2/3c margarine

Blend together and sprinkle over top the zucchini mixture. Bake at 325F for 25 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, sprinkled with cinnamon.

This is a great recipe as it uses up a lot of zucchini, I find if it's a fair size it will use up the whole thing. You can also have more or less if you like, just adjust the lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon amounts that you use. So enjoy, and I'll be posting my part of the Stuff to Scrap blog train tomorrow, I've got some more QP's in store for you using Maurine's part of the train!! Yay...Gotta love freebies. Until then, this is me, over and out!

Innocence QP!!

I'm on a CT!!! I know, I know, deja vu, right?? Well, I had the honor of playing with Cheri's from Dream Big Designs new kit, called Innocence. This kit is just beautiful! It's good for boys and girls, even though it looks princessy (is that even a word??), and is good for every day type layouts as well. Here is what the whole kit looks like:Here is one of the layouts that I did with it. I recolored the music symbol (sorry to all music buffs but I'm brain dead, which I blame on my children, and can't remember the technical term for that symbol...treble clef??!!). Anyways, back on point, I recolored it to be pink, as it was chrome to begin with. The "music" word art is from the alpha included in the kit (it's awesome!) and the font I used was CK Ali's Hand. This next layout is one I did of my son (told you it can be used for lots of stuff!) I used the triple frame and cut out a single frame for this one, recolored the glitter at the top of the blue page to match, and used the photo mask to create the brown splash behind the photo. I recolored the tag to match my layout, and the date font I used was Trashed from Dafont.com, and the journalling font I used was Pea Kawaii.This next layout I just love!! I love the photo mask (which I think may be offered as a freebie from Cheri, so you'll have to watch for it!) I added a glittery star behind the mask, and added paper in the heart openings so you could see the hearts better. I cut the glitter so it fit the width of my photo, as well as making it a little longer on the ends by copying and pasting some sections. I just love this page! Again, I used the awesome alpha that comes in the kit, and for the word "simply" I used CK Ali's Hand.And surprise!! With a little help from Cheri, I was able to turn this into a QP for you! The mask was a little bit more difficult for me but I think it turned out great! In the folder I included the page with the word art and without, so you can add your own text instead if you prefer. I know, I'm awesome like that :P
Click on the image to download, the password is beauty. And if you haven't grabbed this kit yet, what are you waiting for?? Can you believe she's selling it for only a dollar?! Click HERE to go to Cheri's store to grab this kit, and make sure to visit her blog and see what other freebies the other members of the CT have for you!!

Also, if you haven't grabbed the Summer Camp QP's that I did for the August blog train, now is your chance! I'll be removing the links once the September blog train is on the tracks! That's it for now, over and out :)

Can't Wait. But Have To.

I.Seriously.Can't.Wait.82 days.

Gigantic Smish Smash and Bits Left Over

Ok, first of all, would you let your 8 year old do THIS???!?

I don't think I would!! Crazy British parents I say lol. At least I think they were British. And with an old man driving the plane to boot!! lol. So not happening here! Second thing up, I placed a bird feeder outside my house when we moved here 3 years ago, and this summer, birds have finally found it! They ate up the 3 year old bird seed that was still in it and I just refilled it. I love having them come hang out on the deck and fence and eat! So cute. We had up to 40 the one day! I think I am going to be going through a lot of bird seed this winter! I also took a picture of the front of our house, now that the flowers are in full bloom and fall seems just around the corner. I need to do a new photo of the backyard, as it looks alot different than the photo I posted this spring!

I also did my first hybrid! What's a hybrid you ask? It's when you use a digital kit to do something on actual paper! (Again, scrap booking!) So I made my nephew his first birthday card using the Happy Hoppity kit by Lliela. It was so cute, and the elements fit nicely. I altered her string and used the alpha bead alpha by Ziggle Designs instead so I could add my nephew's name. I got the alpha as a freebie on her blog, but the link is gone now, you can find a similar one HERE. So first, I used my Storybook Creator program to place my elements onto a 4x6 size page, and I sized them anywhere between 2" and 4" depending on what the item was. I figured I would save a couple bucks this way, we're trying to cut down on costs. Then I realized I don't have any white card stock. Well, I do, but it is patterned and would print out like crap, so I thought I was going to have to go buy some, and then wished I had just hit the dollar store and bought a card instead lol. SO I went downstairs into my paper scrap booking stash (which has sat largely untouched since I started digital) and found a lovely paper that matched the colors of this kit, and decided to use that as my background and cut out my elements, instead of designing it and just printing it out. So I printed out my two designed pages on 4x6 matte photo paper. (I ended up printing them twice as the first time I printed my printing program cut off the edges of the photo, and some of the elements, which actually worked out in my favour at the end). Then I used very tiny sharp scissors to cut out all my elements as closely and carefully as I could! I cut my cardstock background paper to match the size of a miscellaneous card I had in the drawer (which was weird like 8 1/4" by 10 1/2", and then folded it in half, so my finished card ended up being 8 1/4" x 5 1/4". I used my scrap booking double sided tape to attach most of the pieces. Some of the elements I cut out twice, as the first time I printed, they were slightly larger, so I thought I could use them anyways and add some dimension to my card. I used "pop dots" (double sided tape foamies) to add the smaller elements directly on top of the larger ones, like the flowers and balloons, and one of the mushrooms I did by itself. I thought it looked a little plain, so again, checked my craft stash and found this great brown ribbon which I decided to add to the top and bottom of the card with a little hot glue (try not to use too much though or else it shows up as a lump under the ribbon!). And here is a larger shot of the outside of my finished card! On the back I also wrote with scrap booking marker at the bottom "Hand made with love for you by Auntie Rose". My sister has a stamp that she uses to emboss on them, but I needed something quick! (My nephew's party was the next day lol.) I thought it turned out pretty well!

Also, on August 15, we had a part for my parents 40th Anniversary. Can you believe my sister and I made these two cakes?? I know! We rock. First time ever using fondant icing, many thanks to P-Dubs' post on fondant to give me the idea to try, and my sister for trusting me that we could do it! I LOVE fondant. Had it on my own wedding cake, which was fantastical. Want it for Rayna's first birthday. I'll show you our fanciness after her party next month! I also black and whited this photo and brought back the color on the cakes and roses for effect. Bee-yoo0-t-ful!And here is the cake table at the party, along with a digital page I did up for the occasion, showing photos of them then and now. (Sorry to say, I have permanent brain damage from having kids and don't remember which kits I used to make it! I think Magical Harmony by Thalaris, and also Whimsical Spring by Shabby Miss Jenn). We also bought a plain dollar store cake knife and added velvet ribbon to it to match the cakes. Nice!And I'm sorry to do this to you, and follow such sweet pictures with this, but does anyone else out there think this is totally disgusting, or cool? This gigantic spider (I've started referring to him as Big Daddy) is living outside my window, and he's a good half inch in size (at least). I took this photo of him eating a grasshopper through my front window. My husband has started tossing daddy long legs and grasshoppers up into his web, and I've never seen anything move so fast. It grosses me out, but I find myself compelled to take photos of it. The top of the photo looks blurry as I have white bars in my window and the angle I was at was catching that bar. It's ok though, as I'm sure you're seeing more than you want to! I also have photos of him shooting web out of his backside and flipping poor hoppy around and around wrapping him up, but I thought this one would be sufficient for you to get the idea. Ugh. {shudder}. Ok, that's it for my smish smash post. You'll think twice before reading another, because my blog is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get!

Dirty Pictures?!

Wow, I found this cool plug in for photoshop regarding textures and overlays, so cool! Check it out HERE. They're giving it away to one lucky winner!! Check out this little tutorial on how it works, this is the kind of thing that keeps me playing on the computer long after I should be in bed!

I'm on a CT!!!

Woohoo! I am lucky enough to be on the Creative Team for Kathy Winters Designs. What this means is I have early access (and free access {squeal of happiness}) to all her new kits (and any others I would like to play with) and do layouts for her to show off how versatile and cool her kits are! I am so excited and happy to be doing this! She doesn't require us to blog about it but I am so excited I have to share it with you. First off, let me show you the kit I just got to play around with, her newest release School is Cool! It has so many cool elements. The alpha looks like the chalk on the chalkboard (it didn't make it onto any of my layouts, but I still love it!). Her designs are available exlusively at Scrapable, the images are linked to her store.She also has done a matching word art series for this kit, it's totally cute and can have so many uses! This layout I extracted Chase and put him in the bus (he's only 4 so he's not quite ready yet!) and I loved the word arts so much they became most of the page. I could see so many ways to write this out! The font I used was Kids First Print font. I also recolored one of the "scribbles" to make the exhaust for the bus.This layout was so much fun and came together really quickly for me! I love that torn out notebook paper! The crayons and scribbles were perfect for photos of Chase from when he first started coloring! The artwork is something he colored recently, as I take photos of his art now as I just can't keep it all! I recolored the white alpha to match my page for the title, and used Pea Hannah Vanilla for the journalling font, and FH Ink for the date on the tag at the bottom.

So if you like, click on the previews to be taken to her store! Kathy also does a lot of word art, and it's gorgeous. She often has a freebie word art on her blog, so it would be a good idea to follow her!! (That's how I found her, all her fantastic freebies!)

Now for all of you that started following me because of my craftiness, I apologize for all my digital scrapping layout posts lately! It's just what I've really been interested in, but I promise a sewing post really soon, I have several projects in the works!

Also, I have updated my book blog, as I gave up on my last read. You can jump over to my book review blog to hear all about it, and my new book choice as well!

Romantic at heart

Anyone else want to see this?? I can't wait, and I will cry the whole way through! I'm a romantic at heart, and this is just how I roll!

Second Strawberry Nirvana QP and my first Word Art!

So I promised you another freebie, and I have another quick page for you and my very first word art! I used a photo of Rayna, as the colors in her photo matched the colors of my page. I also used the freebie frames that Maurine gave away as an add on to the kit.

Here is a closer look at the word art I did. I used a font called Howser by Kevin and Amanda, and if you would like it, you can download it for free HERE. They also have lots of other fonts available for free, and on their fonts for peas website you can even get a custom font with your own handwriting. Pretty cool. The elements are all from the Strawberry Nirvana kit. Here is a look at Maurine's Strawberry Nirvana kit if you need a reminder, or if this is your first visit to my page. The whole kit is available for free on her blog!And here is what you came for! The Word art is in the same download as the quick page, but it is a separate png file so you are able to use it on any page you like. Click the image to download, the password is nirvana. Thanks for visiting my blog, and I would love to hear if you downloaded for my page, or the wordart, and if you use it I would love to see it!

Now I'm off to make THIS!!

It's Freebie Time Again!!

Wow, I didn't think I would have another chance to do a freebie again for a little while, but Maurine of Let Me Scrapbook let me do some Quick Pages for you with her newest freebie kit "Strawberry Nirvana". The colors are gorgeous, the elements are fantastic, and the papers are beautiful. Here is a preview of the kit (you can also click on her preview to be directed to Maurine's blog):
And here is my layout, I planted one lonely little strawberry plant at the base of the tree in the front yard, and now it has spread into 4 little plants. There were two strawberries on the one plant, and Chase was so happy to finally get to pick this one when it was ready! The other one was still green, so we left it there, but it has since disappeared. Bugs or birds I suppose. Chase just loves growing things to eat! The font I used was DJB Journal Bits from Darcy Baldwin and the alpha I used was from Akizo. You can download it and several other freebies from her freebie site HERE. So here is your freebie! I did one page with the alpha title "strawberries" and one without. Click below to download.
DOWNLOAD HERE for QP 2 (without strawberry title).
DOWNLOAD HERE for QP3 (with strawberry title).

The password is nirvana.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and make sure you check back , I may have other goodies for you using this kit later in the week!

Also, scroll down if you missed the Summer Camp blog train, I have a QP freebie and the rest of the train is only available til the end of August!

ANOTHER GIVEWAWAY!?!?!?

Wow, the lovely Rachel of P.S. I quilt is having another giveaway!!
Do you think lightning could strike twice and I could win two in a row?? Stranger things have happened I suppose! Go on over and check it out! And thanks to Rachel and the Quilt Shoppe, what a great prize, good luck everyone!

Another Smish Smash

Grab a cup of coffee, and settle in, this is a long one! First of all, has anyone been to Face in Hole.com?? This is a great site for simply wasting a whole bunch of your time. Check out what I did with it:Of course I searched for the Twilight themes. hehe. This one is my favorite. I didn't use it because I couldn't get my face the right color to match the photo, have to use a sepia tone photo to upload. Seriously, I searched, where did they get that picture? Now please make note, I, in no way wish to be Kristin Stewart. I am not in love with Robert Pattinson. Seriously, has anyone seen how grungy he is when he's not Edward?? I would however, love to be Bella, in love with and being loved by Edward. Ahhh, I can just picture it. hehe. My face photo may not have been the ideal shot of me to put in the face hole, but I was just messing around and I thought I would share it with you. Can you believe only 102 more days til New Moon comes out?? EEEEEEE! I'm so excited. I'm going to have to re-read the book before I go. And of course, I can't read New Moon without re-reading Twilight first! I lent them both to my sister so I'll have to wait til she's done with them.

Alright, moving on! I haven't posted anything crafty for quite some time, I have been doing a lot of scrapping, so I thought I would share a little tote bag pattern that I found last year (I think) and I made one and think it's the cutest thing. It was a challenge for All People Quilt.com, and they have a few other free patterns on the site as well, it's also a great resource for anyone that is new to sewing or quilting. So here is the one I made: The one handle is longer, as it slips through the other one to carry. Cute, right? I know! (Can you hear Monica from Friends saying "I know!"? Or is it just me?Ok. Now, to get your freak on, the bag is totally reversible. That's right. So here is my inside, on the outside. hehe. Now I put pockets on mine, so while it is reversible, I'd look like a dork carrying it this way, plus I'd lose stuff. This is just for show and tell.The pockets are a good size, but I honestly think I'd leave them off next time, as I don't use them as much as I thought I would. Now a little pouch with a zipper would be a different story. But I don't know how to do that, so I would have no pockets. SAY NO TO POCKETS!!
So if you would like the pattern just go HERE. It's a free down loadable pdf file from the All People Quilt page.

Alright, moving on! At the beginning of the month we went camping, we pulled our trailer to a friends acreage, as it was close to where we needed to go (we were actually going to my Uncle's 50th birthday surprise party as well as their 30th Anniversary party!). Plus, it was free, and they took us horseback riding, quadding and berry picking. We had fun by the bucket full! Here is Chase after our Saskatoon berry picking excursion (little hint here, he won first prize for purple-est face!) He wasn't too happy that I was taking his picture lol. He had a blast picking berries, although his bucket contribution was a little on the low side, can you guess where his berries went??

His fingers stayed blue til the next day's bath!
And here is what we brought back, two of which I took home! Not a bad haul for three hours work! So I quickly looked up a recipe and made this: And topped it with vanilla ice cream:Want the recipe for this Saskatoon Rhubarb crisp?? It's very yummy :) Plus, it uses up 6 cups of Saskatoon's (of which I have plenty) and 2 cups of rhubarb (of which I have plenty as I insanely planted four plants last year!) Satisfies my sweet tooth too. You don't really taste the rhubarb.

Ok, moving on. I don't know if you remember the post I made about the giveaway at P.S. I quilt?? While I was away, I won!! I have a $50 gift certificate to use at The Fat Quarter shop! This is what I decided to get so I can make a cozy quilt for the camper (the colors are a great match to the interior)

But I also wanted this, which I just love!! I love the birdies and the colors, so pretty!Which I would then use to make this, which is a new pattern for me, as up to now I'm all about squares and rectangles. I would love to try something a little bit different (although it still has a lot of squares! What's the term, comfort zone? hehe.)Well that's about it. That's what happens when I don't post for two weeks! I still have more to show you too! I will sign off with a little question for anyone that has upgraded their internet explorer to version 8? I originally upgraded, but had problems posting in blogger, so I tried to uninstall the update, but then explorer kept freezing up and crashing on me (which is very annoying when I do so much downloading!) SO I re-upgraded, but am still having the same issue in blogger, which is that it won't let me drag the pictures down past what I can see in the "compose" box. I have to click and drop, scroll, click and drop, scroll etc all the way down to the bottom of the post. I'll have to upload my photos first next time! What a painfully slow process this post was! It also doesn't let me edit my text, as in, it doesn't insert new text, just types over what is already there, so if I go back to the middle of the paragraph and decide to change my wording or add something, it types over the text and I have to re-type the whole paragraph?? Anyone else having these issues and how do I fix it?? Till next time! (and who knows when that may be?? lol)

Summer Camp Blog Train Links Fixed!!

I would just like to apologize to anyone that tried to download the quick pages I offered in the post below and was unable to, due to my bandwidth issues...I'm brand new at offering freebies and don't even know exactly what bandwidth is, so I've moved my files to 4shared, and hopefully won't have these issues again. I'm researching the issue a little bit more so I can avoid this in the future. Thanks for visiting my blog, and again, if there are any more issues, please let me know! See the post below for the links to the Summer Camp Blog Train!!