Last Day of the Polar Express!
TGIF ... again! Well today's entry is going to be short and sweet, because I have a fun filled day of things I need to get done around the house. I was just saying last night to Jason that I can't believe how much laundry and how many dishes only two people generate each day! I can't imagine having a full house to do them for, well, I guess when we have guests visiting I get a feel for the increased number of dishes, but generally they take their dirty clothes with them – LOL! But before I depart for my domestic chores, here is the blog train goodie for today! This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page will only be available for 24 hours. If you've miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store very soon! And speaking of the Digitals Store, don't forget to pick up Day 6 of my Vibrant Vintage Featured Designer Daily Download today!
Have a great Friday all!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
Fantastic Designs, Layouts & Polar Express – Day 11!
As I mentioned in my “back to blogging” post earlier this month, one of the things that has been occupying a lot of my time recently is teaching my Digital Design Fundamentals Workshop @ Digitals. I've enjoyed it so much as it's allowed me to teach again albeit in a different manner. And, as anyone who teaches any subject can tell you, one of the greatest things about teaching is getting to see your students succeed. And yesterday one of my CT members, Rhonda Hooftallen a.k.a. RhonDoGG, who was also one of my very first students in my design class, shared with me that her first products have been put into her store at the DigitalArts Cafe boutique! Her first collection of for-sale products includes a brag book that she created with my Scrap-a-Sketch Layered Brag Book Templates – Designer Resource Version! I am thrilled and honored that she chose to use my templates in her designs, and the brag book pages that she made certainly live up to their name.
Rhonda created this little brag book with her Perfectly Lovely Page Kit & Add-On Kit which also are beautiful. You can find both of these kits, as well as the Perfectly Lovely Brag Book in her store at their new release price of 50% off! She also has some fabulous free add-ons to this collection in her store there as well, so be sure to take a peek.
And not only has Rhonda been busily designing, but she has also been creating fabulous layouts with my designs as well. The most recent of these, shown above, were created with my Vibrant Vintage kit. I absolutely love the placement of everything on the top layout which Rhonda called “Postcards from the Past”. The coloring of her photos not only works perfectly with the background paper and elements that she chose to use, but I love how they flow down the page, creating a beautiful border. And, the way she intertwined the knotted ribbon through them really creates interest and draws your eye right to them when you first look at the page. In the second layout called “Mom & Robin”, Rhonda also chose another great combination of colors; these offset the lighter colors of the clothing, house, etc. found in the picture. As an aside, this photo also brought back memories great memories for me of a strikingly similar photo taken of my grandmother holding my mother's hand in front of their home when my mother was small. Both my mother and grandmother wore similar clothes to Rhonda's mother and her sister, and Rhonda's mother's hairstyle is exactly the same as how my grandmother wore hers when she was younger! I wish I could have found that photo to post here so you could see those similarities, but as I couldn't find it in my collection last night, I'm thinking that it's one that's still back home in RI in one of my Mom's family albums. My Dad has been bringing these albums to me a few at a time whenever he comes to visit with us here, so hopefully one day I'll have the actual photo to look at again :)
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 12 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion.
I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & the last goodie for the Polar Express Blog Train! And don't forget to visit the Digitals Store today to pick up Day 5 of my Vibrant Vintage Featured Designer Daily Download.
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
A Quiz, A Crop & Polar Express – Day 10!
Yesterday, I was showing Jason my blog award and then Teri's blog so that he could see where I
was nominated, and he noticed that she had a little block on it that said “My Nerd Score ... What's Yours”. At this point he says, “Hey, I bet your nerd score is pretty high.” And, me being more interested in the scrapbooking stuff and hadn't even noticed this little block, I reply, “What the heck are you talking about?” So he points out the graphic and tells me that I should go get my score. I then huffily say, “So you think I'm a nerd then?” and he gives me one of those what I call his Bart Simpson smiles ... where he's trying to look like an innocent, little angel when in reality he's being a little imp. So I click on the little box to be taken to the quiz, determined to prove my non-nerdiness, and as you can see from the little box, I failed horribly much to Jason's delight - LOL! In my defense, I have a Master's degree in Chemistry and taught for several years which also helps to ingrain subject matter into your brain; so, a lot of the questions there, I did know the answers to i.e. who scientists were from their pictures, the numerical value & units for the speed of light, the brand of my graphing calculator, etc. And, yes, I had to take advanced level math courses in college and grad school, but that doesn't mean I actually liked them - LOL! They also asked several questions about the periodic table of elements, which any good Chemist has (most) of committed to memory. So, according to this quiz, yes I am a nerd- LOL! But as my hubby pointed out (no doubt trying to make up for his being somewhat snarky earlier), I should be proud of it as it was a lot of hard work getting there. After thinking about it for a while and despite my best efforts – LOL – I had to agree with him, so I decided to post it here. So now you all know ... I am just a big nerd!
In less nerdy news – LOL – tonight is my Featured Designer's crop at Digitals! The very talented and sweet, DeDe Smith will be co-hostess, and we'll meet at 9 PM, EASTERN in the Digitals Chatroom where we'll be cropping with this quick page (preview above) that I made from my Vibrant Vintage Kit. So come and join us to get the download link and password for this great little page! And, if you post your completed page in my Digitals Designer Gallery, by next Wednesday (07/30/08) at midnight EASTERN, I'll PM you a link to matching quick page in the set. We'll also be raffling off one of my Vibrant Vintage Paper Packs, Vibrant Vintage Element Packs, AND my Vibrant Vintage Brag Book which is going into the Digitals' store later today! Also, don't forget to pick up Day 4 of my Vibrant Vintage Featured Designer Daily Download.
I also just have to share with you an absolutely outstanding layout that Donna created for my Christmas Template Challenge @ Divine which is going on until Friday. As I said to her yesterday in an e-mail, when I created this template, this is exactly the type of layout I pictured the template being used to create ... pictures of family or traditions throughout the years and journaling about what makes them special. Now I just need to create one of my own! I may just have to scraplift Donna idea and use my Christmas Cheer kit too; the colors on her page are just so much fun!
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 11 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion.
I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
An Award, About Miss Molly & Polar Express – Day!
I am both blushing and beaming today because one of my CT members, Teri Merkins has given me this blog award! I never win anything; we're talking not even a free coffee from one of the peel-off stickers on the cups at Dunkin' Donuts – LOL – so I am thrilled that Teri gave this to me! You can check out the other talented ladies that she nominated as well on her blog.
Here are the “rules” of the award:
1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you’ve nominated.
So, here are my nominations:
Angela Sharrow
Dea Spina
Kathryn Estry
Michelle Pieters - Loofah
Sarah Meyer
Scrap4Brains – Cristina Guillermo
Simply Yin
We also received some wonderful news yesterday regarding our female basset hound, Molly. As those near and dear to me know, Molly is my “baby”. Out of all of our pets, she is hands down my favorite. Shhh! Don't tell the other animals – LOL! But she holds that special place in my heart, because when we first adopted her from Sun Coast Basset Rescue here in Florida, she was an absolute mess. Her previous owners had allowed her to get pregnant, and then dumped her out on the streets to fend for herself. Thankfully someone found her and brought her to the rescue, but by that time she had all kinds of health problems. We had been on the waiting list for a female basset, and when Molly came in they called us to let us know . We drove about 2 1/2 hours to Hollywood, FL to meet her (we brought our male basset, Baxter with us to make sure they would get along), and oh boy was she a mess. She was dirty, smelly, had all kinds of infections ... the poor thing! On top of all that she was really timid and jumpy from all that she had been through. Jason was somewhat leery about taking her, because we were going to have to work with her a lot and nurse her back to health. But, as with most things, I talked him into it – LOL! He's grateful now of course, because he loves Molly to death as well, but it took some doing that day to convince him let me tell you. Well, it took about a month to get her physically healthy again, but after only a few days in our home she settled right in and became the most affectionate and sweet animal I've ever met. This is one of my favorite photos of her that I scrapped a while back using kits from Julie Mead's From Girly to Grungy collection. So, back to the good news ... recently I found several lumps on Molly while brushing her; two on her side and one on the side of her tail. So we brought her to our vet right away, and he decided that it would be best to remove them and have them biopsied. He told us that he suspected they were benign cysts, but after the surgery was over, he told us he was somewhat suspicious of the one on her tail, because he found it was actually very large once he “got in there” and was in an unusual location. So, we've been waiting with baited breath for a week for the results of the biopsies to come back, and the doctor called last night to say that everything came back negative! I cannot tell you how relieved we were that they were nothing serious. She still has all her stitches and this funky bandage wrap on her tail, but she's been taking it all like a trooper. Much better than hubby when he had his wisdom teeth out a few years ago – LOL! So a huge thank you to all of you who knew Molly was going through all of this and send good thoughts and prayers our way :)
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 10 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion. And speaking of Digitals, pick up Day 3 of my Vibrant Vintage Featured Designer Daily Download.
I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
Merry Messages & Polar Express – Day 8!
With all of this talk of Christmas this past week, I thought I would share a few more of my Christmas designs that are on sale at 30% off @ Digitals. The first of these, is my Merry Message Word Art Collection which contains 10 cute little pieces of word art to use on your Christmas pages, cards, gift tags, etc. The collection contains both the colored pieces of word art shown in the preview as well as all of the graphics in pure black and grayscale so you can re-color them in your graphics program however you'd like to match any of your creations! You can grab them for just $2.10 HERE at Digitals until August 4th.
And speaking of being able to customize, one of the reasons why I love creating and using templates, is that there are just so many options for how you can use them. When I originally created my Dad's 2006 Christmas card for him, I used my Evergreen Tapestry Kit and came up with the design shown in the preview above using a photo I took of him feeding lorries at our local zoo during one of his visits to see us here in Florida. One of my creative team members at the time asked if I had thought about turning the basic design of the card into a template, and so I did! You can also grab this Scrap-A-Card Template for 30% off (sale price $1.75) HERE at Digitals until August 4th. And for those who prefer the card ready to just add a photo to, I also created both a PNG and JPEG version of my Dad's card that I called Beautiful Holiday Season Card (based on the sentiment I used on it). And while you're in the store, don't forget to pick up Day 2 of my Vibrant Vintage Featured Designer Daily Download.
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 9 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion.
I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
Featured Designer Daily Download & Polar Express – Day 7!
It's been a long time in coming (and this is one of the reasons why I have been designing like a mad woman recently – LOL), but I am SO very pleased to announce that starting today and running through August 4th, I am the Featured Designer at Digitals! For this whole time my entire store (excluding classes, E-Books, and items already at 50-75% off in my clearance section) are on sale for 30% off. Additionally, you'll want to visit the Digitals Store every day to collect two great items (preview above)! You'll want to visit between midnight mountain time one day until midnight mountain time when the next day begins; this is Digitals server time and when the daily download is switched out in the store. So for example, Day 1 (today) was put up at midnight, mountain time last night and will be available until midnight, mountain time tonight when Day 2 will replace it. During this time, you can collect pieces of my brand new Vibrant Vintage Eclectic Alpha Collection which contains 3 gorgeous, complete alpha sets: an embossed metallic alpha, an inked jewelery tag alpha, and a silver-rimmed, stamped vellum tag alpha. Also included in the set are matching blank tags and fasteners. Additionally, during this time, you can collect the pages of my new Vibrant Vintage Cosmo Cricket “Jack” style album. If you miss a day, don't worry ... both the alpha and the complete album will be available, separately, in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion.
The Cosmo Cricket “Jack” album was created with my new Vibrant Vintage Collection which is a custom paper pack and element pack that I created for one of my talented creative team members, Donna Handville aka Donnatopia! I asked each of my girls to provide me with a color scheme and/or a theme for their “dream” kit if they could have one made for them, and Donna provided me with these absolutely fantastic shades of ivory, mustard, fern, teal, and chocolate and asked for heritage items with lots of texture, and this is the kit that I presented to her. I think it hits the mark if I do say so myself – LOL! This collection is now available in the Digitals store either separately as the Vibrant Vintage Paper Pack and Vibrant Vintage Element Pack or as the Vibrant Vintage Kit which includes all backgrounds in the paper pack and all embellishments in the element pack at a savings of over 10%. And, make sure to grab these during my featured designer spot you can pick any of them up for 30% off! And while we're mentioning great sales/prices, if you haven't picked up my Gotta Grab It Items at Gotta Pixel, today is the last day to get them for just $1.00 each. You can see the 5 items HERE before they go back to their regular prices.
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 8 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion.
I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
A Warm & Fuzzy Christmas & Polar Express – Day 6!
It's now Saturday and our little Jasmine (a.k.a. Jasbean, Beanie Baby, Jazzy) is settling right in as you can see from this photo of her (left) and Tinkerbell (right) that I took yesterday. She really loves being with Tinky and follows her around everywhere, doing whatever it is Tinkerbell happens to be doing at the time. While this has definitely been a good thing in terms of her learning to potty in the litter box, when to eat, and where the comfiest (ans skunked approved) spots to take a nap are, yesterday Tinkerbell decided she was going to be mischievous and try to open our trash cupboard. We have magnetized baby latches on all the cupboards and drawers, and the skunks know that they don't open so usually they try once to open them, and then leave it at that. But for some reason yesterday, Tinky was determined to get it open. So she attempted the usual lay on her back and push with her paws on the edge of the door method without success. I heard her thumping around out in the kitchen, but didn't think anything of it, because I knew she couldn't get it open. Well, the next thing I know, I hear twice the thumping. Well, when I got up to investigate there was little Jasmine beside her big sister, on her back, pushing away at the cabinet with her paws. Trying, no doubt, to “help”. It was just too funny, and amazing that she learned so quickly what to do – LOL!
This actually reminded me of our youngest basset, Klaus, when we first brought him home. He followed around our two tri-colored bassets, Molly & Baxter, incessantly, doing whatever they were doing. They were also very patient with him as Tinky has been with Jazzy, but the bassets weren't nearly as mischievous so I've been wondering what else Tinky's going to “teach” Jasmine. My Dad actually taught Klaus one bad thing when he came to visit us the spring after we got him ... to think he's a lap dog! For whatever reason, my Dad just liked Klaus more than any of the other animals and he gave him tons of attention while he was here which included picking him up and letting him sit across his lap. As he was still a puppy then and didn't weigh more than 20 pounds, it was fine, but now that he's full grown and pushing a whopping 60 pounds, you don't exactly want him laying in your lap – LOL! I took this photo of my Dad with his new “grand puppy” that spring, and later that year when I asked him to choose a photo for me to use in his Christmas photo card to send out to family and friends, he choose this one. As soon as he picked that one, I knew exactly what I was going to make for him, and it was so much fun making a pet themed card! I used my (then) newly released Canine Christmas Capers kit (preview below). I had several e-mails from people asking me if I was going to make the card available in my stores for purchase, so I ended making the blank PNG as well as a printable JPEG (for those who wanted to print out the card and then adhere their photo in a more traditional, paper scrapbook way) available and called it my Warm & Fuzzy Christmas Card which to this day is still one of my favorite designs! Both the kit and the card are on sale for 30% off at Digitals, for $4.90 and $1.40, respectively, this weekend :)
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 7 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion. And don't forget to visit all of the other girls' blogs (list of links posted in Thursday's entry)!
I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
New Christmas Cheer Brag Book & Polar Express – Day 5!
TGIF! That about sums up how I'm feeling today. Well, maybe I could choose one more descriptive word ... exhausted. As I was trying to fall asleep last night I realized, I don't think I've had a moment for myself since we got back from vacation at the beginning of June. I'm sure you all know how that goes! First, I was playing catch up from being away - things around the house, designing, etc. - but then just normal life got super, super busy. I honestly don't know how so many of the ladies who are designers and have little ones at home (and some work outside of the home too!) do it all; I am in awe of them. I often feel overwhelmed with just my husband and pets to take care of! So, I'm hoping that perhaps once things calm down with my “designing life” next month, I'll get a bit of a reprieve to get some extra things around the house done, organize some things that really need it, even scrap some, hey, maybe even just relax with a good book - LOL! But for now, the busyness has to continue :) I have tons of things designed that are just waiting (okay probably some of them are actually crying out because they've been sitting on my hard drive for so long – LOL) to have previews created. I just always seem to put off doing this despite how hard I try, because I really just don't like making previews for whatever reason. I guess the designing is just so much more interesting and challenging – LOL! But, I did manage to create a preview of my latest brag book (shown above) made with my Christmas Cheer Kit, and it's been uploaded to my store at Digitals. Both the Christmas Cheer Brag Book and Kit are part of the 30% OFF sale! From now until Saturday at midnight, mountain time, you can grab the brag book for just $2.80, and the kit for just $4.55!
This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 6 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion. And don't forget to visit all of the other girls' blogs (list of links posted in yesterday's entry)!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday, and I'll see you all tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
Great Christmas Gift Ideas & Polar Express – Day 4!
With all of these “Christmas in July” festivties going on at the various digiscrapping sites, I've been starting to think about what kinds of Christmas cards and gifts I'm going to make this year for family and friends. I'm usually done with my actual Christmas shopping early, because I tend to pick up things all year long whenever we're out shopping if I happen to see something; but, usually (as with all of the creative things that I do) I am last minute on making gifts. I think I just design/create better under pressure for some reason – LOL! In the past I've created calendars, brag books, bookmarks, framed photo collages, etc. and while sometimes they don't get the oohs and aahs that my paper scrapping gifts have gotten in the past (I think people just love the dimensionality of those types of projects), they are always appreciated by all. So, I'm always on the look-out for great ideas, and this year I've found three already! The first of these came from a project created by one of my CT members, Teri Merkins. She created a fabulous little Baby's Book of Numbers for her son, Dominick, using my Scrap-A-Sketch Brag Book Templates.
I thought it was so cute and clever that she took photos of all of his belongings to use, and that she used a mixture of different kits that are all so fun and brightly colored! My husband's best friend, Paul, and his wife, Katie, had their first baby, a little girl they named Molly (who is just SO cute BTW) in December 2006. So I thought this would be a perfect gift for her! Unfortunately, I don't have photos of her personal things to use, but I'm sure I can come up with something. My thought is that if I were to have the photos printed and laminated and then bound them together with something soft and “baby approved” ... still trying to think of something good for this – LOL ... then she would be able to handle it as much as she wanted, and it could also be easily wiped clean. So a big, huge thank you to Teri for such a great project idea! And if any of you would also like to use my templates to create a similar book, please click on the preview above, and then use the coupon code 1014fad07c during the checkout process to get 25% off the set. This coupon will expire on 07/31/08.
Another project that I've actually been wanting to do not only do for myself for some time, but also to give as gifts to my family members, is to create a digital cookbook of favorite family recipes. Right now all of my recipes are either on index cards or scraps of paper in a tin box. Not only is it a pain in the rump to find something when I need it, but it's not exactly pretty either - LOL! Well Sarah Meyer must have been reading mind, because as her Polar Express Blog gift, she's been creating and sharing a wonderful collection of 8.5”x11” recipe quick pages on her blog. These are exactly what I've been looking for, because as I've mentioned in a previous post, I am such a SLOW scrapper that creating recipe pages from scratch has always seemed so overwhelming that I probably wouldn't have attempted it any time soon. So a big thank you to Sarah :)
The last type of project is actually what spurred me to offer a Cosmo Cricket Jack album as my Polar Express goodie. When I was in college, I loved to create collages and decoupage (a.k.a. “alter”) things which is why it wasn't a big surprise that when I first tried paper scrapping back in 2001 I fell in love with it! But let's face it, decoupaging and paper scrapping are usually messy, require you to spread out all over the place, etc. which is why I ended up transitioning to digi in the first place. Well, as I mentioned before, it just seems that whenever I show people my digi albums or give them a digi-only gift, there is always just that slight sense of disappointment in the air. But, I think I've found the perfect solution this year with these new hybrid albums! I can do all my scrapping on the computer, and then when I get several completed, I can adhere them to the physical albums and decorate them all in one sitting! Then I won't have anywhere near as big of a mess to clean up, I get to create digitally, AND now the albums that I give will have more of that paper-scrapped feel to them! So, I'm hoping that this will be a win-win for everyone. Another of my CT members, Donna Handville, said that she's used regular ole' modge podge to adhere her printed digi pages to the albums without there being any smearing of the ink, which was my main concern. There are actually two great tutorials on hybrid albums that you can find HERE, written by Beth Rimmer, our hybrid guru at Digitals.
And speaking of hybrid albums, here is the blog train goodie for today! This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 5 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion! And don't forget to visit all of the other girls' blogs:
Amanda Thorderson
http://flamingo-amanda.blogspot.com
Beth Rimmer
http://www.bethscreativechaos.blogspot.com
Chris Beasley
http://seebeesfreebies.blogspot.com
Christine Smith
http://christinesmithdigital.blogspot.com
Dea Spina
http://deaspina.blogspot.com
DeDe Smith
http://designsbydede.blogspot.com
Diana Burton
http://www.dbdesigns.digitalscrapbookpages.com
Georgia Oliver
http://dreamsinkdesigns.blogspot.com
Glenda Ketcham
http://scrapville.blogspot.com
Jennifer Maceyunas - You Are Here :)
Juliana Gordon
http://www.thejulianablog.com
Kathryn Estry
http://kathrynsdigitaldesigns.blogspot.com
Katie Mann
http://katiemann.blogspot.com
Lynne Simmons
http://digidigs.blogspot.com
Maddy Fernandez
http://oilnwine.blogspot.com
Nini's Notions
http://ninisnews.blogspot.com
Sarah Meyer
http://sarahbscraps.blogspot.com
Scrap4Brains
http://scrap4brains.blogspot.com
Shawn Walter
http://csuramsrule.blogspot.com
Silvia Romeo
http://www.silviaromeo.blogspot.com
Sophia Davies
http://www.sophiadaviesdesigns.com
Spellweaver
http://dizzyb13.blogspot.com
Tallula Moon
http://tallulamoon.blogspot.com
See you tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
Divine Template Challenge, More Cuteness & Polar Express – Day 3!
Another busy, busy day yesterday ... at one point I actually put the bag of coffee in the refrigerator which was not necessarily a bad thing, I should probably do that anyway to keep it fresher, BUT then I put the creamer in the cupboard. That was definitely NOT a good thing – LOL! Fortunately, I had to go into the cupboard shortly thereafter for something else or I would have not only had a wet cupboard, but I wouldn't have had any creamer for my coffee which would not have been a good thing. I have a metallic sign in my office hanging over the doorway that says, “Give me the coffee and nobody gets hurts" ... enough said!
I have some more Christmas in July festivities to share with you today! This time it's at at Divine Digital where my entire store is 25% off until the end of the month, but, I am also hosting a holiday template challenge in the forums! Looking back at all of my Christmas pages (both paper and digital), one thing that I've noticed is that while I have photos of family members, parties & gathering photos, our house decorated, the tree, our pets decked out in their holiday bandannas (yes, DH spoil our pets - LOL), etc. but the one thing that I don't have is a page that documents either the holiday traditions I grew up with or those that my husband and I have started since we've been together. Since these traditions, both new and old, are very important to me I want to document them and add them to my album, so that I can always look back and remember why Christmas has always been such a special time of year for me and so that future generations can do the same! For the next 48 hours (until 11:00 AM, EASTERN on Friday July 18th), you can download this template in the Holiday Template Challenge Forum at Divine.
I chose to use the word holiday in case there were some who celebrated holidays other than Christmas, and so that perhaps it could be used again to help you document traditions you and yours have during other holidays like Valentine's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. So, my challenge to you is to use this template with one of your favorite kits to scrap your Christmas/Holiday traditions Please make sure to properly credit the designer whose kit you use to create your page. When your layout is complete, please post in THIS GALLERY and post a link to your page in THIS FORUM so I can leave you some love and PM you a posting a bonus!
"Posting bonus?" you say ... that's right! Post your layout by Friday July 25th @ midnight, EASTERN, and I'll PM you a link to a little sampler that coordinates with my Christmas Cheer Kit. If you have any questions about the challenge, please don't hesitate to contact me via e-mail with the little GOOGLE mail widget on the right-hand side.
I also have some more cuteness to share with you today! Sorry, no more photos of Jasmine yet – LOL! But, I do have some adorable pages that my CT members have put together these past few days! First up is Nancy Calderon, who created these absolutely beautiful pages with my Cute & Quited Denim Brag Book. Not only are her grandkids cute, but the photographs she took of the little bunnies and flowers in her backyard are just absolutely stunning! I sincerely wish that I was such a good photographer, but, that is definitely one area where I am lacking in expertise.
Kim Kolk also created another darling page of her little ones for my July Sketchy Details Challenge @ Digitals, which is running now until the end of the month. To create this page, Kim used my Scrap-A-Sketch #23 along with my Cute & Quilted Denim Plaids & Pockets Add-On Kit. Neither of these items are required to participate in the challenge, so come by and create a great layout, share it with us HERE, and you'll get my cute little World Traveler Mini Kit as a posting bonus!
And now for the blog train goodie for today! This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages will only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 4 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion!
And, last bur certainly not least, thank you so much to all of you have been leaving such lovely comments either here on my blog or at 4shared; they are much appreciated, and I'm so glad that everyone is enjoying the Jack album! See you tomorrow with more news & goodies! Until then ...
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
A New Family Member & Polar Express – Day 2!
What a whirlwind of a day yesterday! Not only I am still busily designing, but we added a new member to our family ... no, not a baby (sorry Mom M.), but another girl skunk! I know most of you probably think all of our more “exotic” critters are strange – LOL - and I can't blame you. I never knew people had skunks as pets until about a year before we got our first, Tinkerbell. They have actually become very popular in the states where they are legal to have as pets, and after having had Tinky for 4 years now, I can honestly say that they are super critters. They're very clean, affectionate, and smart; I wouldn't trade my black and whites (what members of the skunk organizations typically call them) for the world! So, of course I need to share a picture of our new little girl who we've called Jasmine. This is a picture of her sitting on the futon in my office where I work and scrap ... notice she's knocked down the cushion. Did I mention they were also mischievous as well – LOL! The skunks and bassets usually hang out there with me when I work, and seeing as the futon is the only piece of animal approved furniture in the house they tend to take advantage of it. Jason gets credit for coming up with her name, but I liked it right away. She's actually now sitting here on my lap as I type which is making it go much more slowly than normal, but what are you going to do – LOL?
Now to share something else cute with you ... a layout created by one of my talented creative team members, Kim Kolk. I just love the expressions on the faces of her little boy and girl in this page, and the tile is not only cleverly done but oh so appropriate! She tells me that they're not so little anymore, but that she also loves these photos. To create this page she used my Cute & Quited Denim Kit and Fat Dot Sticker Alphas – Darling Denim Colors (preview shown in yesterday's blog entry), both part of the Gotta Grab It $1.00 Event at Gotta Pixel this week!
And now for the blog train goodie for today! This download has now been removed. Please note that today's page and future pages are only be available for 24 hours. I'll be posting to my blog again tomorrow morning sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back tomorrow after that time for the Day 3 download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion! Don't forget to visit all of the other girls' blogs (also listed in yesterday's entry) to download their presents.
See you tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
All Aboard the Polar Express Blog Train and Gotta Grab It!
I have so many fabulous things going on this week it's hard to know where to start! But seeing as I have to start somewhere, let me start by telling you why you're going to want to visit my blog everyday, starting today and going until Friday, July 25th after NOON, EASTERN each day! The last blog train at Digitals was such a huge success, that the designers have decided to take the train to a new destination for you ... The North Pole ... and this time, my blog is a stop along the way! So please join me and the other participating Digitals Designers as we celebrate the "12 Days of Christmas in July". In addition to the The Polar Express Blog Train full of goodies galore, there will also great sales and coupons from over 20 designers as well as a Christmas Treasure Hunt in the Digitals Forums.
Throughout this event, all of my
Christmas Themed Items are on sale for 30% OFF – including my Christmas Glow Kit which coordinates with my Polar Express Goodie that I'll be giving away this week – a beautiful album designed to fit the Cosmo Cricket “Jack” Album!
This download has now been removed. Please note that each page will be available for only 1 day. I'll be posting to my blog each day sometime before NOON, EASTERN, so you should check back each day after that time for the download link. If you miss a day, don't worry ... the complete album will be available in my Digitals Store at the end of the promotion!
Other Digitals' Designers Participating in the Blog Train:
Amanda Thorderson
http://flamingo-amanda.blogspot.com
Beth Rimmer
http://www.bethscreativechaos.blogspot.com
Chris Beasley
http://seebeesfreebies.blogspot.com
Christine Smith
http://christinesmithdigital.blogspot.com
Dea Spina
http://deaspina.blogspot.com
DeDe Smith
http://designsbydede.blogspot.com
Diana Burton
http://www.dbdesigns.digitalscrapbookpages.com
Georgia Oliver
http://dreamsinkdesigns.blogspot.com
Glenda Ketcham
http://scrapville.blogspot.com
Jennifer Maceyunas - You Are Here :)
Juliana Gordon
http://www.thejulianablog.com
Kathryn Estry
http://kathrynsdigitaldesigns.blogspot.com
Katie Mann
http://katiemann.blogspot.com
Lynne Simmons
http://digidigs.blogspot.com
Maddy Fernandez
http://oilnwine.blogspot.com
Nini's Notions
http://ninisnews.blogspot.com
Sarah Meyer
http://sarahbscraps.blogspot.com
Scrap4Brains
http://scrap4brains.blogspot.com
Shawn Walter
http://csuramsrule.blogspot.com
Silvia Romeo
http://www.silviaromeo.blogspot.com
Sophia Davies
http://www.sophiadaviesdesigns.com
Spellweaver
http://dizzyb13.blogspot.com
Tallula Moon
http://tallulamoon.blogspot.com
And, I also have another very exciting event going on today! Our second Gotta Grab It Event at Gotta Pixel has now begun, and I have 5 great coordinating items available today thru Sunday, July 20th for just $1.00 each! Here is my collection of items called Cute & Quilted Denim:
You can find all of these items by clicking on their images above, or my visiting my Gotta Pixel Store.
See you tomorrow with more news & goodies!
Happy Scrapping,
Jen
Wonderfully Wordy - July 2008!
It's time again time for my Wonderfully Wordy Challenge @ Gotta Pixel! Above is a preview of this month's word art that you can download and use to participate in my challenge. Click HERE or on the preview above to be taken to the Wonderfully Wordy challenge forum where you'll find all of the challenge details and a download link. This piece of word art is actually from my newest collection of word art called Dog Quotables, but I thought that it would work for just about anyone or anything that was cute! If you like this piece, and have a special furry friend you enjoy scrapping, you can find the complete set of Quotables Set #4 – {DOG – Set #1} word art in both my Gotta Pixel and Digitals stores.
For whatever reason, I've never really created much word art before, but by hostessing this challenge the past several months, I've discovered that I really enjoy creating it; I love working with all the different fonts and matching them up! I guess it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, because I've always loved quotations and often use them on my layouts either by themselves or to compliment my journaling. I am currently working a layout of Jason and one of our doggies (one of my works “in progress” ... see previous post – LOL), and I wasn't able to find many sets of dog or even pet themed word art anywhere. So, figuring that I was definitely not the only one who would like some sets like this, I began creating and additional set, and before I knew I had created 6 complete sets, plus a few extras. And, I still have several more ideas up my sleeve, so doggie lovers be sure to stay tuned! In addition to the first set, shown above, I also have uploaded a second and third set called Quotables Set #5 – {DOG – Set #2} and Quotables Set #6 – {DOG – Set #3}, respectively, also available in both my Gotta Pixel and Digitals stores.
And as a little treat for all of you who've visited and read my blog today, I have one of my creations to share with you all :) I decided to make a more generic one that would work for dogs, cats, or anything else furry that you or your little ones might have as pets!
You can download the word art HERE or by clicking on the preview above. And if you enjoy it, please leave me a little comment and/or share the link to my blog (not the link to the file or the file itself please!) with your friends.
Happy Scrapping,
~ Jen ~
