Well, here it is, the November collaboration from ADSDesigners. This is an amazing kit, and here is my share of the collaboration:




You can download the papers and elements by clicking the previews, or they can be found here, along with the alphas:
The other designers taking part are:
Please be sure to visit their blogs and see what they have been up to. All the kits on offer will be available all of November, so you have plenty of time to check them out!







This is just a quick post to let you all know that the ADSDesigners November Collaboration, After dusk, is due for release tomorrow. I'm just in the process of uploading mine to 4shared, so watch this space! I've seen the previews, and the kit looks amazing, so it is well worth taking a look and seeing what you can pick up! There are some really talented designers in the group.

Here's a sneak peak of my contribution:

I'm out all day tomorrow, so will try and post before I leave, but the collaboration will be up all November, so it gives you plenty of time to visit everyone's blog!



As an accountant here in the UK, between now and the end of January is my busiest time of year as I struggle to get all the tax returns and accounts sorted by the tax return filing deadline of 31 January. Since I don't have anyone to help me do the accounts, this means that I work all sorts of hours and most days of the week in order to get all the work done. As a result, I have very little free time although I am taking some time off at the moment to have a play with Photoshop!

This week has been particularly busy as I have been out at a client's premises most of the week and it will be the same for the next two, possibly three weeks as I have two large sets of accounts for different clients to do. I get so busy I forget to not only look at the clock to see what time it is, but also at the calendar and forget what day it is and where we are in the month! I had mad panic this week as I actually looked at the calendar and realised that our car needed to be taxed at the end of this month, so we would have to get it MOT'd on the next week.... one frantic phone call later to the garage, and it was booked.

Anyhow, since I've had most of the day off so far I thought I'd let you have another freebie. I've been playing around with cardboard styles and trying to recolour them and this is what I came up with:


You can either click on the preview or here to download, and it is for personal, commercial or scrap for hire use. Whilst they are not quite the prime colours someone requested, they are the best I can do at the moment as I am still working on blend modes, recolouring, hue/saturation, etc. I love all the different things you can do with Photoshop, but there is just so much I still don't know how to do.
I'm off to do some work now and then I need to do our church notices for tomorrow as well as try and have an early night, which would be going some if I can get all that done since it is now almost 4 pm here!

Well, I've not been around much because last week, I took a trip to St Andrews as our 17 year old son wanted to go see the University since they had an open day last Wednesday. I went to St Andrews myself for four years, and I had completely forgotten just what a wonderful place it is. It has really got to be one of the absolutely best places to go to University in the whole world (not that I'm biased, mind;)).

The weather on the way up was atrocious. We left at 5 in the morning, and were faced with this on the way up:

The above is the traffic on the M6 - it wasn't actually raining at this point (or if it was, it was only very light rain), but just take a look at the low clouds. But shortly after this, once we had managed to get through Edinburgh (I took the wrong turn just as we hit the outskirts of Edinburgh and it then took us an hour to get form one side of the city to the other with all the roadworks and what not!), we were on the Forth Road Bridge in torrential rain:

The drive from there to St Andrews was awful, with spray and all sorts on the road. But when we finally arrived, what a change in the weather. We had a beautiful afternoon, with blue skies (albeit cloudy at times) and glorious sunshine. Of course, I was in my element taking loads of photos! Here are the old ruins:

We used to revise in the grounds there in May before our end of year exams. There is a long wall which you can't see in the photo but it is a real sun trap so you can revise and get a tan at the same time!

And this is the harbour:



Looking across to the pier:





The Atlantic Ocean:


A misty shot of the castle ruins:


Looking back from the pier at the town:


On the pier looking back at the old cathedral ruins:


Part of the castle ruins:


This was taken on the Wednesday morning - we have brilliant blue skies all day and it was absolutely gorgeous, really warm and sunny:


And a better shot of the castle:

Sam loved it, and is going to apply here, so it remains to be seen whether they make him an offer and if he can get the required grades.

I'll be back some time this week with another freebie - don't know what yet, or when , as I have four tax returns, amendments to a set of accounts and a set of company accounts to do plus a trip to Warwick University tomorrow for their open day! It's a busy week!

It was absolutely freezing here this morning when I got up, and if it is like this now in early October, then just how cold will it be in December/January? I love Autumn, and Winter, but never look forward to the cold mornings when I have to allow at least 5 minutes before the school run to get rid of all the frost on the car windscreen and windows! We changed our car last October, and the one we have now has heated seats for the driver and front passenger. I thought these were just a luxury item and not a necessity (our car was not new when we bought it, so it is not something we had to pay for specially), but oh, boy, do I appreciate the heated seats when the mornings are cold!

Have you seen the new Autumn kits that have been released in the digital shops recently? I don't know what it is about Autumn, but as well as the usual pumpkins, and Harvest stuff, plus what seems to be the obligatory Halloween kits (I'm afraid I don't "do" Halloween), there are also lots of owls about in the kits. So I thought I'd have a go at making an owl myself, and came up with these:







The first one is an owl template, in both a psd file for those with Photoshop and seperate png files for each layer for those using other programs, and the second one is a set of owls made with different papers. The template is for commercial use, but the individual owls are only for personal use.



Download the template here and the set of owls here or click on the above previews. Let me know what you think, as this is the first time I've done anything like this :).

I have just read Pioneer Woman's latest blog entry and if you have never read her blog, you must go check it out:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/ (Sorry, I just can't get the hyperlink thingy to work today so you'll have to copy and paste this into your toolbar!)

It is awesome, and always makes me laugh, cry and run through a whole gamut of emotions. The latest blog is about how when she and her hubbie were first courting, he took her out to the back of beyond (where they now live!)and she saw a woman mowing the grass in her bra and knickers, 'cos you never see anyone out there in the back of beyond, obviously, so you can do that sort of thing. Then in order to take a photo of an amazing sunrise, Pioneer Woman recently dashed outside wearing only a small white curtain wrapped around her like a toga and a pair of really ugly sandals...only to find that at the crack of dawn, there were one or two people about to watch her looking somewhat less than glamorous in her very fetching curtain!

Living in the middle of rural Shropshire (the county that most people have never even heard of!), means you never see sights like that and are more likely to come across a ferocious spider rather than someone half naked pushing around a lawnmower. And talking of ferocious spiders, I walked into our garage this morning (half of which has been converted into my office) and in the large sink there was positively the most enormous spider you have ever seen. I dashed into action, turned on the tap and practically flooded the sink and garage floor with water in an attempt to get rid of the spider. But it refused to go down the plughole (it actually wouldn't fit, it was so big) so when I thought it was dead, I turned the tap off.....

Did you know spiders can breathe underwater? I'm sure they must be able to because it was underwater for ages and as soon as the water had all drained out, it started uncurling its legs and trying to get out of the sink!!!! I must have tried three times to get rid of it, obviously without touching it as there was no way I was going to do that, until eventually, I ended up putting the plug over it as it was stuck in the plughole, and then our youngest son had his big brother dispose of it for me later.

It just goes to prove the old adage that men (or teenage sons in this case!) are good for three things: putting out bins,lifting heavy objects and killing spiders!

You know, when I signed up for this collaboration, I though I had loads of time, and yet before I knew it, the end of the month had rolled round and I was panicking over how much I had not done! I'm still hoping to get at least an extra hour in each day (in lieu of the 48 hours a day and 14 days in a week I really need) but so far, my prayers have been unanswered. Guess all I really need is better organisation!

Anyhow, the Sugar Shoppe collaboration is released today, and here is the preview of my contribution:














Download the papers here, and the elements here (or click on the papers and elements previews).

The other participants and the links to their blogs are shown below:

A Zone for Digiscraps

Adventures in Scrapland

Andrea Whitt

Angel

Ann (mumsy)

Arvita Elam

BeaconScraps

Blind Sight Designs

Brooke & Joni of Ahhh Scrap!

Burkhart Scrapzone (Michaele)

Buzybee (Penny)

by God's design

Carolyn Ritter

Charlie

City Scribe Scraps

Creative Digital Scraps by Chiara

Deanna at Flower Scraps

Deb aka The Scrappin Cop

Debbie

Doodle's Designs

Erika {aka PinkuPixie}

jeanniebs designs

Jody of Munchkyn Scraps

Judith of Just Another Scrap Kalo Designs

Kathy Goldstein Designs The Scrap Loft

Krystal of Scraps Sealed with a Kiss

Late Night Scraps

Lei

Linda's Dream Designs

Lynn of Heavenly Crafts

Mags at MagsGraphics

Manda at Disaster In Designs

Mandy at Scraps With Spunkitude

Mardesia at Crafter's Boutique

Marie

Melanie aka Sweetasmel

http://designsbymel.blogspot.com/

Merrilee

MJ at My Sweet Tater

Monica at Random Inspirations

Nadine at Scrappinmamma's Digitals

Nora

pandabeardesigns

Rachness

Scrappy Cats at Moving ON

Shabby Tagger

Shannon of ScrappyShannon

Shel at Shel Belle Scraps

Silver Fae (aka Karen J)

Stacey Crossley

Stephanie

Teri at TerisThingOMyJigs

Three Bright Lights Design

Xandra

This is an awesome collection of kits, so go take a look and see what you think. The links will remain up for all of October, which should give you plenty of time to get to see each one. Happy downloading!