Template 22

I told you I was freebie happy today, didn't I? LOL, 3 freebies all in a row. Be sure to check out the previous 2 posts for my color challenge expansion kit and template 21!

Template 22 is based off my LO from our speed scrap the other day. It's a single page LO in PSD format. Here's the preview:



You can download it here.

As always, I'd love to hear back from you and see your pages with my templates and kits! Also, if you have any requests, just let me know and I'll see what I can do about them;)

Aaand it's nearly 4 AM (again...) and I need to get some sleep. But first, I need something to eat. I WAS going to have cereal, but the milk went bad - 4 days before the sell by date. Grrr. I hate when that happens. Anyway, off to the kitchen for food, and then time for bed!

Retro Rainbow Expansion

I finally did my expansion from our March color challenge blog train! I had to finish Emma's ABC book first, but now that that's finished and sent off to print, I can work on my myriad other projects.

It took me forever to get this uploaded, since our internet is very tempermental about upload speeds. It was around 30-40 Kb/s when I finally got it to work, but it was more like 5 Kb/s when I tried earlier...and 4shared kept canceling it as a result. Very frustrating. But it's now up and available for download! Here's the preview:



Retro Rainbow Expansion includes everything shown in the preview and a full alpha (used for the title in the preview). It's a full 12x12 size kit in 300 DPI. For some reason, one of the papers wouldn't open as a JPG, so I had to save it as a PNG instead. *shrug* I have no idea why, but it works;)

Here are your links:
Alpha
Elements
Papers 1
Papers 2

**Edit: fixed alpha link. Sorry about that! I accidentally uploaded it twice, so I deleted the duplication. I already had the link pasted and I guess it was for the one I deleted. It SHOULD work now. Let me know if you run into any problems!**

If you haven't picked up my blog train minikit yet, you can do so here.

As always, I'd love to hear back from you and see your LO's with my freebies:) I have an addon for Emma's Toybox in the works, and I've started on April's color challenge for BAM. I got to pick the palette this month, so I got a head start;) I had to try out the colors a little beforehand to make sure they'd look good as papers and such. I also have 2 new templates; one in the post before this, and another is coming in just a few minutes in the following post. LOL, I'm freebie happy today!

Template 21 and April Fool's!

It's my turn to host the color challenge on BAM. It's a monthly challenge where the hostess picks the palette and everyone makes a LO or a minikit (3 papers, 3 elements) using those colors. The minikits will be posted as a blog train at the end of the month.

So...since it's April Fool's Day, I HAD to make an ugly palette and post it as the real one;) I loved reading the responses after the truth was revealed! Everyone was very tactful until I edited the post with "April Fool's" and the real palette:D Oh gosh it was hilarious. Here's the nasty, ugly, April Fool's palette, just so you can see how hideous it is:



Isn't that awful?! I was going for ridiculously bright, non-matching, and diarrhea. I think I succeeded:D The REAL palette is pretty, but I'm holding off on sharing it for now;) Go join BAM (Baby and Me) if you want to see it;) We have an awesome digiscrap section, FYI.

I've got a new template for you! It's based off my Y LO, but with more slots for pictures or papers, or what have you. It'd be way cute to alternate between pics and papers on the small squares, or use 2 papers and alternate between them. Feel free to play with it as you wish! Here's the preview:



Template 21 is a 12x12, single page LO in PSD format. As always, I'd love to hear back from you and see your pages with my templates:)

You can download it here.

My expansion for the March color challenge is done!! I'm uploading the last of the papers now, so it will be posted in just a little bit! AND I have yet another template for you today. Lots of freebies today:D They'll be in separate posts, so stay tuned!!

Thank You and A Speed Scrap Story

Many of you have left me very awesome comments on my templates, kits, and LOs. Thank you for all your kind words! It really means a lot to me. LOL, 3 people now have pointed out that I had a typo on the back cover of Emma's ABC book. Thank you! I fixed it before I submitted it to print. Now I just have to wait for it to come in the mail. I hope it gets here in time for Easter! If not, oh well. Emma has plenty of other gifts for Easter - my mom sent us a package full of stuff, plus I'd already gotten her a few things as well.

I'm really excited to see Emma's book in print! I ordered a 6x6 board book from Treasured Ink - it's gotta be toddler proof...and it ended up costing less than I expected, so that was a nice pleasant surprise:)

I'm working on the expansion for Retro Rainbow, my minikit for March's color challenge on BAM. It's looking great so far! I took pictures of random textures around the house after tonight's speed scrap and made overlays out of them.

Speaking of tonight's speed scrap...there's a crazy story to go along with it. For those of you who don't know, the way a speed scrap works is you have 2 hours to complete a LO. The hostess (well, usually a hostess - I've only run into one male digiscrapper, and by the look of his blog, I'm pretty sure he's gay;)) gives out instructions over the course of the first hour. You then have an hour to finish your page after the last clue is given, plus a 15 minute grace period for saving and uploading.

Well tonight, about 20 minutes after the last clue was given, our lights flickered. I frantically saved, and tried to post about it...but then the internet died! Thankfully, we still have power, but it's hard to upload a speed scrap page with no internet! I texted Kimi and Elly, since they were both participating (actually, Kimi was our hostess this round as well). I'm not sure if Kimi saw the messages, but I know Elly did, and she let everyone know what was going on for me. Thanks Elly! I finished my page in time, but still no internet. Boo. But, they were all super nice about it and decided to wait until I can upload to do the voting!! Thanks everyone!! I really appreciate that:) My internet came back up (after 3 hours of MIA) and now I can post my page!! I already posted it to BAM, so now it's time to post it here!

These were tonight's parameters:

1. Choose three photos. Crop them so they are exactly the same size and shape (or as close as you can). You may use different pieces of the same photo if you wish (close-up on face, zoomed out view, etc, I'll count them as separate photos). You may rotate the shape. Be creative!

2. Choose exactly three papers, no more no less. One must have a visible print of some sort. One must be plain-textured. One must be either worn, folded, torn, or messed up in some way. You may use them as many times as you like, in any way you like.

3. Find an element that in some way mimics the shapes of your photos, and layer it behind each one. It can be as large or small as you like, and only needs to be visible enough that you can tell it's a similar shape. You may use your papers for this piece if you need to, but try to find premade elements. You MAY use 2-3 different colors of the same element.

4. Add exactly three ribbons, strings, or ricrac strands (long straight or curly ones, no bows unless they're part of a bigger piece).

5. Pick exactly three more elements and use them any way you like, as many times as you like.

6. Add a THREE WORD title, using at least two different fonts. You may use alphas, as long as they are different.

7. Journal and/or date if you wish, and three cheers, you're done!

And this is what I did with them:



Credits:
Papers - me, Retro Rainbow expansion (still working on it )
Ric rac, acrylic glitter frame, flower - Kimi's Kreations, Ready for Sun
String, ribbon, glitter splatter, buttons - geniaBeana, Playtime
Fonts - Too Much Paper, Tracy
Atomic Cupcake action - wild tear

Anyway, that's all for tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some sort of freebie for you. Either a template or my expansion kit. Or maybe even both!! Anyway, goodnight!

Emma's ABC Book - Complete!!

Emma's book is all done!!  Here are all the pages, plus the cover and table of contents.  I went back and did some editing on all the pages.  Mostly, I just fixed the shadows, but some pages got makeovers as well (of varying degrees).  Phew!  This took a long time, but it's sooo worth it!



Credits:
Paper - me (using CU overlay by LBCreations)
Fonts - Too Much Paper, My Own Topher, Vaguely Repulsive (for paper)
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome, painted wood

This page also has a "by Sara (last name)" in the bottom left corner, but I don't want to post that all over the internet;)



Credits:
Paper - me (using CU overlay by LBCreations)
Fonts - Too Much Paper, My Own Topher, Vaguely Repulsive (for paper)
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome, painted wood
And of course, all the credits for the following pages, since it has thumbnails of each one;)



Credits:
Background paper - SSarducci, A Walk in the Park
Green (now torn) paper - NewlifeDreams, A Walk in the Park
Scalloped paper - JG, A Walk in the Park
Tree and apple tag - Raspberry Road Designs, Apple Festival
Alpha - Marie Stones, Apple A Day
Apple pyrimad and WA state - Kyra, Washington State
Other apples - courtesy of a Google image search, extracted by me
Atomic Cupcake actions - simple tear, rub on



Credits:
Baby girl paper - me
Pink argyle paper - Brahm's Lullabye, Plum Dumpling Designs
Teddy bear - Ninie, Je T'aime
Bottle/pacifier doodle, stroller, baby girl label, crocheted flower - Raspberry Road Designs, Kimmy
Baby girl stitched element - Kaccii, Sweet Moonshine Baby
Shoes - Kaccii, Baby
Font - Merced
Atomic Cupcake actions -colored chrome



Credits:
Papers, pawprint alpha, meow word art - Audra's Little Scraps, Love My Pet
Overlay - LBCreations (on text)
White frames, cat frame - Gunhild Storeide
Cat and mouse frame, bowl, yarn - JenV, Love My Pet
Circle frame - Monique Drost, Love My Pet
Paw print - Kreative Karma, Love My Pet
Cat element - Paula Phillips Designs, Love My Pet
Papers grouped with frame - juliemarie, Love My Pet
Atomic Cupcake actions - simple tear, puffy felt (on bowl, and yarn)



Credits:
Red paper (slightly recolored), stack of books - AllieKat Creations, A Good Read
Argyle paper and star - A Work in Progress, Primary Grunge
Green paper - A Work in Progress, The Great Outdoors
Blue paper - SSarducci, A Walk in the Park
Brackets - Ginger Scraps, Beach Glass
Atomic Cupcake - simple tear, colored chrome



Credits:
Papers and elements - Jessica Edwards, How Sweet It Is
Alpha - Ellie Lash, Kiss Me
Atomic Cupcake - simple tear



Credits:
Papers and elements - Jessica Edwards, How Sweet It Is
Alpha - Christie Lemon Designs, Wonderland
Atomic Cupcake - simple tear



Credits:
Cherry Moka kit by digiscrapbooking.ch (several designers)
Newspaper alpha - Ginger Scraps, Jack O' Lantern
White alpha - A Work in Progress, Granny's Attic (fitting, no?)
Word art - Elegant Word Art by Bethany



Credits:
Cherry Moka kit by digiscrapbooking.ch (several designers)
Stitched alpha - Melany Violette, Brown Stitched Alpha
Block alpha - Jillybean, Wooden Block



Credits:
Kit - Kimi's Scrap Kreations, Peaches & Cream
Ice cream elements - ScrapGirls, Refresh
Ice cream photos - Google image search, extracted by me



Credits:
Kit - Kimi's Scrap Kreations, Peaches & Cream
Alpha - Ginger Scraps, Oh Holy Night (appropriate, don't you think?)
Painting - The Lord is My Shepherd by Simon Dewey, scanned in from March 2008 Ensign
The Living Christ - PDF available on lds.org (I printed the PDF, scanned it as a PNG, and changed the opacity to 50% over the painting)



Credits: 
Papers (from bottom layer to top) - Silk, Marta; LaRessie's Digital Designs, Cool Color Papers; Shabby Princess, Sweet Serenity; Brenda Smith, Free Paper Pack; GothKittie, Vite Vite Printemps
Alpha - Marie Stones, Messy Edge Alpha
Elements - ScrapGirls, Refresh
Key photos - taken and extracted by me
Staple - Shabby Princess, Promise
Atomic Cupcake actions - simple tear



Credits:
Papers (from bottom layer to top) - Silk, Marta; LaRessie's Digital Designs, Cool Color Papers; Shabby Princess, Sweet Serenity; Brenda Smith, Free Paper Pack; GothKittie, Vite Vite Printemps
Sun, brads, tab, tape - ScrapGirls, Refresh
Moon - Braham's Lullabye (colored chromed)
Star - A Work in Progress, Shabby Christmas (lightened and colored chromed)
Staple - Shabby Princess, Promise
Light bulb - Google image search, extracted by me
Light photos - taken and extracted by me (do you know how much a pain it is to extract something when the background is practically the exact same color?)
Baby sign photo - taken by me, from a Discovery Toys poster on baby signs
Font - vaguely repulsive
Atomic Cupcake actions - simple tear, colored chrome



Credits: 
Background paper, solid pink paper, solid green paper, curled corner paper, flower paper, ribbon, button, swirl - Happy Birthday collab, Miss Vivi, Tinette, Digiscrap_ch, Nini-lolo, Kafrounette, Choukette, and Newlife Dreams
Pink argyle paper - Plum Dumpling Designs, Brahm's Lullabye
Green striped paper - Raspberry Road Designs, Annie
Pink scalloped mat - Kathryn Estry
Bracket frame - Mel, Down by the Lily Pond
Bracket mat - A Work in Progress, Candy Dream
Butterflies - Fairly Fabulous, Love Thee
Pink glitter mat and rose (changed saturation) - Miss13, Storia Bella add on
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome, painted wood



Credits:
Paper - Purescrap, Barcelona
Moon (colored chromed) - Brahm's Lullabye 
Trees - Le Pingouin Designs, Winter Wonderland
Cloud (puffy felted) - MeganB Designs, Rainy Days
Stars - Obsidian Dawn, Stars brush set
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome, puffy felt



Credits:
Background paper - East West Scraps, A Walk in the Park
Textured overlay (on hills and background) - Tammy Jackson
Crumpled overlay (on hills) - Princess Kate Designs
Sun and clouds - Kasie:)
Leafy trees (recolored) - Waterlo Project, In the Sleeping Orchard
Bare tree and bike - NewLife Dreams, A Walk in the Park
Birdhouse - Jamie Dell, Spring is in the Air
Bird - Choukette, Sweet Envy
Butterfly - Scrapidea, A Walk in the Park
Kite, bee, caterpiller, snail - Goth Kittie, Vite Vite Printemps
Flowers - Nanine, Waiting for Spring
Paper grass - Redju, Paper Grass CU freebie
Font - My Own Topher
Atomic Cupcake action - painted wood



Credits:
Background paper, pink flower, and "sceptor" star pin - Sweet Blossom Designs, Enchanted Forest Collab
Castle (extracted from paper and desaturated)- Russian-Dutch Heart Design, Knighthood
Tree - Scrap Mania, My Little Magic Garden
Grass clump - Jaelop Designs, Spring
Flowers (in front of grass) - Tiramisu, Summer Breeze
Rose - Miss13, Storia Bella add on
Mushrooms - A Work in Progress, Enchanted Forest Collab
Crown - geniaBeana, Queen for a Day
Tiarra - Jamie Dell
Font - Merced
Atomic Cupcake action - colored chrome



Credits:
Paper (grayscaled and used as an overlay) - Quilt Papers (no TOU)
Elements - The Maltese Scrapper, Sewing
Quilt - 3 wonderful ladies from church made it for us as a baby shower gift. It's too pretty to use as a blanket, so it's hanging on the wall in Emma's room.
Font - kwekel
Atomic Cupcake actions - fabric, stitches



Background paper, clouds, rain - Megan B Designs, Rainy Day
Textured overlay (on hills) - Tammy Jackson
Crumpled overlay (on hills) - Princess Kate Designs
Sun - Kimi (kit not released yet^_^)
Rainbow - Jennifer Fletcher, March Daily Download #4
Rainbow stripes on text - me:) It's part of a new kit I'm working on
Font - Waterfalls
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome



Kit - me, Emma's Toybox
Atomic Cupake action - tear



Kit - me, Emma's Toybox
Atomic Cupcake action - colored chrome



Credits:
Kit (majorly changed the umbrella) - MeganB Designs, Rainy Days
Overlay (on umbrella for texture) - LBCreations, Blog Gift 3.9.09
Font - My Own Topher



Credits:
Kit - GingerScraps, Eat Your Veggies
Font - My Own Topher
Atomic Cupcake actions - wild tear, tear, fabric, stitches



Credits:
Kit - Flower Scraps, Shabby Watermelon
Font - Cry Kitty
Atomic Cupcake action - colored chrome



Credits:
Papers - Kimi's Kreations, Ready for Sun addon
Xylophone - me! Will be part of Emma's Toybox addon
Font - Andy
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome, acrylic (and oak for xylophone)
Music brushes - Obsidian Dawn


Credits:
Kit - Choukette, Sweet Candy Addon
Atomic Cupcake action - acrylic



Credits:
Photo - Kimi's husband (thanks Kimi for sending it to me!! I love the fact that it's 12" wide - PERFECT for this page!)
Green paper - Kimi's Kreations, Ready for Sun addon
Zebra paper - Tripalee, Put Me in the Zoo 
Font - Twelve Ton Goldfish



Credits:
Papers - me
Fonts - Too Much Paper, My Own Topher, Vaguely Repulsive (on paper)
Atomic Cupcake actions - colored chrome, painted wood, wild tear

This page also has a "Copyright Sara (last name), 2009" centered on the bottom.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed my ABC book project!  Now to get it printed:D

BAM Color Challenge QP and Z!

If you're looking for my minikit for the BAM blog train, it is now 3 posts down. It'd be quicker to just click on the blog train label;) This post features a QP made using a minikit and 2 addons from our color challenge.

I finished my Z page today!!! That means Emma's ABC book is done! Well...sort of. I need a cover and title page (because of how I want to print it) and I'm revamping some of my pages before I go to print. I want them to be perfect^_^ Here's my Z page:



Credits:
Photo - Kimi's husband (thanks Kimi for sending it to me!! I love the fact that it's 12" wide - PERFECT for this page!)
Green paper - Kimi's Kreations, Ready for Sun addon
Zebra paper - Tripalee, Put Me in the Zoo
Font - Twelve Ton Goldfish

Special thanks to Kimi and her husband for the beautiful zebra photo! I thought I had a zebra element in my stash, but either I was wrong or somehow misplaced it. I emailed Kimi to see if she had any zebra pics because she has an annual pass to an awesome zoo (we plan to go there with her this summer!!) and she takes lots of pictures there. Her husband snapped this one and she graciously sent it to me. I really appreciate it - thanks!

For those of you who liked my weekly challenge 20 page using addons from our blog train, I made it into a lovely quick page to share! Almost everything is from Ready for Sun by Kimi's Kreations (addon and blog train mini). The green paper strip is from geniaBeana's Playtime addon. These lovely kits are still available on their blogs, so stop by and grab them if you haven't already! And be sure to leave them love; they worked really hard to make these beautiful kits. Also, the LO for this QP is Kimi's template 21, which is also available on her blog.

There are 2 versions of this quick page: one with the "waiting for spring" title/wordart, and one without. The title/wordart is also included as a separate png. This quick page is a full-size 12x12 300 dpi png. LOL, ironically, I'm not really a QP person in general^_^ But it was fun to turn my page into one. Anyway, here's the preview:



You can download it here.

Now to go perfect Emma's ABC book:D I have another template in the works, so I will likely be posting that soon, as well as addons to Emma's Toybox and Retro Rainbow. We'll be starting next month's color challenge soon, and I have a beautiful palette ready for it. Wow, I've got a lot of projects! And I really need to work on Emma's baby book and revamp/redo some of my wedding pages. That was my first digiscrap project other than weekly challenges, and it's obvious;) I'm glad I didn't print them yet! Anyway, that's all for now! Night all!

Waiting for Spring and Y

If you're looking for the BAM blog train, it's 2 posts down:D LOL, I post a lot;)

Emma turned 16 months on Friday!! Can you believe it? I have a 16 month old o.O Crazy. She's doing great, by the way. She's still not really interested in talking, though she DID just start saying ball! I even got it on video:D It's too cute. She also says uh oh on occassion. And of course, mama and dada/daddy. She's also more receptive to learning some signs now. She knows please, thank you, cookie (she ALWAYS signs it...), kitty, love, and light. I'm trying to teach her book, but she claps her hands for it^_^ Emma loves to give us hugs, kisses, and high 5's. Sometimes she does it on her own, but mostly when we ask her to. Oh, and she has become obsessed with watching Sesame Street. She wasn't at all interested in TV until we bought her 2 Sesame Street DVDs. Now she points to the TV aaaaall the time...we only let her watch 2 videos a day (or the same one twice). I don't want a TV junkie! Anyway, I am overdue for a good long update on her, but it's late and I have a few pages to share before I go to bed.

First, I made an awesome page (I think so, anyway;))for this week's challenge on BAM. This was the challenge:

1. template by one of the BAM girls
2. graphic by one of the BAM girls
3. something yellow
4. black&white or sepia photo, vintage photo is acceptable too
5. personalize the font that you use in your title

This is the page I did for it, and everything I used was made by BAM girls:D



Credits:
Template - Kimi's Kreations, Template 21
Kit - Kimi's Kreations, Ready for Sun (mini and addon)
Green paper strip - geniaBeana, Playtime addon
Fonts - Too Much Paper, Acadian
Atomic Cupcake action - colored chrome

I'd like to make a QP out of this LO, and I have Kimi's permission to do so:) I'm just waiting on geniaBeana's permission beforehand. I THINK she said it'd be ok to make QPs out of her challenge kit, but I don't remember. The kits I used are addons of blog train kits, so check out Kimi and geniaBeana's blogs to get them! The full kits are GORGEOUS. LOL, I hope my expansion can live up to theirs;)

I'm hosting our color challenge for April, and I have an AWESOME palette made up for it. I'm so excited that I want to share it with the other BAM designers now, but I'm going to wait until April. But trust me, it will be beautiful, as will be the kits made with it.

I also made the Y page for Emma's ABC book today. One more page and a cover and I'm DONE!! YAY! Oh, and the way the printer I plan to go through prints requires a title page to make my pages line up correctly (I can make it a board book through them!). I just hope they can handle making a board book with this many pages...it's usually 10 pages plus a fee for each additional spread. Aaaanyway. Here's my Y page:



Credits:
Kit - Choukette, Sweet Candy Addon
Atomic Cupcake action - acrylic

Now I just need to find just the right thing for my Z page, make the cover and title page, and go through each page and fix any issues. I'm going to adjust the shadowing on most of them, too, since I only JUST learned how to edit shadows. And then resize them for the board book (6x6) and save as jpgs (I'll keep the full 12x12 psds, of course).

Aaaand it's time for bed. Night all!