Heavenly Crafts

Quick update

2012-02-02T10:32:00.002Z

Just a quick update to let you know I will be posting in the next week as I am still in the middle of tax return filing here. January is always chaotic for me as I struggle to get all my clients' tax returns in by the filing deadline and let me tell you, when HMRC extended the deadline to 2 February, I knew it was the answer to prayer!

Anyhow, I only have one more return to do which, surprise, surprise, is mine! I'll be tied up all day doing that and will spend Friday sleeping as I am so tired after all the 3/4/5 am finishes I have had this month. Friday evening sees me off to a conference with friends so I won't be back until late Saturday and then I have plans early next week to post here as I have managed to squeeze in making some gift boxes and cards between all those tax returns. I just haven't had time to post them. I also want to add to the "My Life" kit as well as catch up on all my blog reading! but then I may also have to fit in a bit of work too....

So, watch this space as I will be giving away some freebies too but in the meantime....

......Happy Scrapping!

Destination Design: freebie

2011-12-31T17:05:00.002Z

This month is my absolute busiest month of the year as far as work is concerned. I end up spending all hours at my computer preparing accounts and tax returns, and the only free time I have is spent sleeping! So if comes as somewhat of a shock to find that I have gone and signed myself up for the design contest at Hummie's world! Sleep is definitely overrated and I am sure I can squeeze some designing time in, despite having 30 tax returns to do...plus the associated accounts......

Fortunately, the challenges look as if they are fairly straightforward (just time consuming.....) so I will have to see how I get on as unfortunately, work takes priority.

Anyhow, this is the preview of the two papers and three elements I created for this week;s challenge:

Click on the preview or HERE to get the download.

I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out, and just hope I have enough time this month to complete the kit. If you do scrap anything with this, I'd love to see what you do :).

Oh well, I've now spent far too long today on this and my plumber's accounts are calling my name! Back to work for me!

Happy scrapping!

2012 A4 calendar

2011-12-20T12:57:00.004Z

I like to make my own Calendars each year to give as gifts and usually, I buy the latest celebrate from Shabby Princess as the templates are really easy to use. Basically each calendar is pre-formatted, like quick pages, and all you have to do is get each month;s page, add the dates and photographs and you are done. I say that like it is easy (which is it) and doesn't take long. However, I found that it can take me two or three days (not all day everyday!) to put the calendar together. I was looking forward to seeing what Shabby Princess came up with this year, as I love her designs, but to my disappointment she just produced calendar dates!

That left me with a real quandary, whether to use an old SO calendar template, and just change the dates, or to create my own calendar form scratch. Well, since I have been giving the calendars to the same people each year, I didn't want to risk them checking back on earlier year's calendars to find out I re-used it, so decided to create my own calendars from scratch. Naive as I am, I never realised just how much time it would take to do this!

Anyhow, since I am on the hybrid CT at The Studio, I was able to use loads of their kits and I started with the 2012 calendar dates from Nibbles Skribbles (I had already used these to make my desktop calendar), coupled with the 2011 8x8 calendar and templates form Julie C Designs:

Now I know these were 2011 templates from Julie, but I loved the idea of being able to put notes on the calendar, plus it came with 8x8 templates for the layout as well. How good was that?!!! I had to squash each page template as my calendar was A4 size and took some poetic licence with each month's layout.

I used a different kit for each month and this is my final calendar. Please excuse the quality here as I was printing on plain cardstock (I had run out of the heavy weight photo paper) so the colours aren't quite right. I was really only printing to see how they looked and have actually tweaked several of them since then.

After spending what feels like months making the calendar, I really didn't have the energy to photograph all 12 pages, so this is the digital copy of each month:

I am really pleased with how it has turned out but the only problem now is finding the time to print another 15 of them out and then bind them! I always have trouble with the binding as this time of year is one of the few occasions when I get my Zutter binding machine out. Every year without fail I have to check the instruction manual to make sure I am binding everything the right way!

The kits I used were as follows:

January	Winter's Delight kit	Lara's Digi World
February	Shabby spring	Jen C Designs
March	Modern Baby	May 2011 Mega
April	Early Morning light	Piggy Scraps Design
May	Sunset	Piggy Scraps Design
June	Over the rainbow	Snips and Snails Designs
July	Optimistic	Paper Capers Designs
August	Live, laugh, love	Studio collab
September	Orchard days	Snips and Snails Designs
October	Rough n tumble	Digilicious Designs
November	Give thanks	November 2011 collab
December	Decadent Season	Julie C Designs and Paper Caper Designs
Cover	Lavender Love Wedding	Ambowife Designs

All of these can be found at The Studio.

Let me know what you think of the calendar and if you make your own, I'd love to see your calendars.

Happy scrapping!

Christmas cards and Santa's sleigh

2011-12-18T09:06:00.001Z

Life has been hectic here recently, even more so than usual! Our daughter came back from University last night, and it was so nice to see her again, not having seen her for three whole months. The longest she had ever been away form home before was for weekends away, so I really missed her. We do everything together, shopping, walking, going to the pictures, the theatre, you name it, we go together, so she left a bog whole in my life. It meant I had to drag hubbie along to the pictures to see the Three Musketeers and he was not impressed!

However, because I have been so busy with work (the 31 January tax filing deadline really does have a habit of interfering with Christmas ;), this meant I hadn't got around to finishing my daughter's advent calendar - and don't even mention the calendars for my elder two boys and my eldest's girlfriend. they are still waiting to be cut out and stuck together...... So yesterday was spent in a combination of making the sleigh (which you will see below), preparing the church notices for today and finishing off our daughter's advent calendar. I ended up putting the last chocolate into the calendar as hubbie and daughter got back form the station! Talk about timing!!!!

I have also been playing around with various kits from The Studio recently in an attempt to make more Christmas cards. After all, there are so many gorgeous Christmas kits around, why not use some of them to make unique personal cards this year?

So, I used the following kits:

Christmas cards - set 1 by Darlene H

Decadent Season kit by Julie C Designs and Paper Capers ~Designs (I fell in love with this kit when I first saw it, it is absolutely gorgeous!)

and one I have previously used, Winter's Delight kit by Lara's Digi World. This is another gorgeous kit:

I only used a few element from each kit and this is what I came up with:

I just printed the Christmas tree on cardstock, and then added the glitter glue ( I did use several different colours though!). Apologies for the photograph as I know the lighting was awful. It was difficult to get a good shot in artificial light. The card is actually white linen (very white indeed) although it looks cream in the photographs.

The second card was from the Winter;s delight kit and again, all I did was print out and add glitter glue:

Both cards turned out really well and I am so pleased with them :).

Well you may have seen from my earlier post that Card Carousels have been offering a free Santa's sleigh template. I haven't yet received mine but I thought it was such a neat idea that I'd create my own (patience has never been my strong point and I just couldn't wait for the Card Carousel template to arrive in my inbox ;) ). I managed to find a free template on the internet:

which looked straightforward to use. One thing you do have to watch out for (and which I didn't realise until after I had printed, cut out and covered in glitter glue) is that the sleigh pieces face different ways. this means that when you print them out and try to put them together, on side is facing forward, and the other side is facing backwards - not a good look on a sleigh, to be honest!

So, this time I played with the new monthly mega kit from The Studio, Reindeer Games, which is full of really cute elements and lovely papers:

Anyhow, this is what I ended up with:

I was so pleased with how it turned out! As I've already said, I added glitter glue (let's face it, it's Christmas, how can you not add glitter glue to absolutely everything? :) ). The only other thing I added was the "Merry Christmas" gold embellishment as I have a whole bag of those to get through in the next week!

Well, that's it for now. I am i the process of completing an ornament card/gift box, so I will be back soon with that.

Happy scrapping!

Santa's sleigh

2011-12-17T10:55:00.003Z

Well, I get millions of emails in my inbox each day, or at least that is how it often seems, but I had one yesterday offering a free Santa's sleigh template:

You can get this free "Santa's Magical Sleigh" card making template from Card Carousel. Just visit www.cardcarousel.co.uk/free/sleigh.html. How awesome is that? And just in time for Christmas, too!!!!

I don't know about you, but I definitely want to have a go at making one of these :).

Christmas cards

2011-11-27T13:34:00.001Z

I though I'd better make a start with my Christmas cards so I used the Winter's Delight bundle by Lara's Digi World:

I just love the clusters in this kit and. since I saw elsewhere on the internet some very minimalistic cards, I thought I'd be able to copy the idea to make something similar.

The kit is gorgeousand these cards were so easy to make. All I did was copy and paste clusters onto a sheet of A4 cardstock andthen print, cut and trim them. I had torecolour some of them to red and green as my printer needs new ink and theoriginal colour just would not print properly.

I added glitter glue and gems, distressed the edges of some of the clusters and then adhered them to the base card using 3D foam stickers.

The snowflake card was made using snowflake elements from the kit which I resized as necessary and just printed direct into the card. I added glitter glue to the snowflakes and text to finish it off.

And here are the close-ups:

This kit was adelight to use and in less than an hour I had a dozen Christmas cards made! Now I need to use the other clusters and I should have the rest of my Christmas cards made in no time at all!

Christmas gifts

2011-11-17T09:05:00.001Z

I have been busy making Christmas goodies these past couple of weeks using the Snow in Love collection by Snickerdoodle Designs:

The collection (which can also be bought separately) can be found here:

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13_372&products_id=9047

The first thing I made was a gift bag:

The kit comes with the gift tags and money gift cards all ready for printing, so all I had to do was print the bag (I just used a sheet of A4 white card and printed the paper onto it). I just scored the sheet of A4 at 2", 5", 7" and 10" on the long side, and then at 2" and 7" on the short side, trimmed some of the end bits off and stuck the bag together. It's based on a Split Coast Stampers tutorial which can be found:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/2_5_7_10_box/

The tutorial is very easy to follow and comes with photos and a video too.

I embellished the bag with glitter glue for the snowflakes, used scalloped edge scissors to trim the top of the bag and added a wire ribbon and tag (also from the Snow in Love collection). I just need the gift to go in it now!

The gift tags I have printed ready for Christmas, and I plan on using the gift card holders either for (surprise, surprise!) gift cards or maybe some folded up money as I know our older children want money this year instead of presents. As already mentioned, since the gift cards and tags come ready made in the kit, all you have to do is print them out. I just placed the tags/cards on a sheet of A4 so I could print out more than one at a time.

These were really quick and easy to make and look really effective.

I also thought I would make a start of my advent calendars. It is a tradition now in our house that I make each of my children an advent calendar. Last year, I didn't make one for our second son as he was at University and he was so upset at being missed out, we had to go and buy him one from the shops! Well, I daren't make that mistake again, so am having to make five calendars (one for each child plus a spare one for myself, as there is no way I am missing out on the chocolates!).

I used the Snow in Love kit again for this, printing off one of the papers on A4 cardstock and then made 25 separate tags like this:

I always have trouble with the tags, as it is difficult to judge the size of the part used to stick the tag onto the card. In previous years, I stuck them onto the face of the card (and ended up having them fall off during December with the weight of the chocolate inside), but this year, I cut lines in the card to insert the tag bit through and after some trial and error, ended up using strong red double sided tape to adhere them to the back of the tag. I found Selotape wasn't strong enough to hold the little tag bits in place, Pritt was next to useless and I know from last year that the standard double sided tape just isn't strong enough. It remains to be seen whether the strong double sided tape will work as I haven't put the chocolates in yet.

This is what the final calendar looked like (minus chocolates):

I'm quite pleased with it but, like I say, the proof of the pudding (or the strength of the double sided tape) lies in what happens once I put the chocolates in. Actually, finding the chocolates will be another story in itself as I always have problems with that. I like to use Cadbury miniatures as they are just the right size to fit the tags but I always seem to have trouble finding any in the shops. You can buy the chunky Cadbury ones, but the small ones? Well, you have to hunt high and low, or at least in Shropshire you do! Generally, the only places I tend to find these are either at the local town market or at B & M if I am lucky, otherwise, I have to find some other chocolate (and really, it does need to be Cadbury's as nothing else tastes quite the same!). So, I shall have to see what I can get this year, once I have printed off the other 4 calendars. I suppose I could always resort to a tin of Cadbury Heroes or Roses, which would then leave me with the problem of what to do with the left over chocolates.......hmmm, tricky!!!

I'm also in the process of making an A4 calendar. This year, I am trying to persuade my husband to let me get them printed professionally. In previous years, I have printed about 15 calendars myself and bound them with my Bind it All, but to be honest, I end up using at least one set of cartridges, if not two. Since I can get 50 calendars printed for just over £100, the cost of 2 complete sets of cartridges, it makes sense to get someone else to do the printing and binding! I could then maybe sell the spare calendars and maybe make enough to cover the costs!

I have also got plans for a recipe book and need to get that sorted soon too. I'm going to use the Black Label Classics Country Cookbook but so far, just have the idea in my head!

I guess I am going to be busy, what with the calendar, the recipe book, more gift tags and trying to fit in some work as well. Why, oh why does the tax return filing deadline have to fall at the end of January? It always means I have to work like crazy all the way through November, December and January......

Recipe cards

2011-10-27T16:07:00.003+01:00

hings have been really quiet here as I have been busy with work. Why do people always leave it until the last minute before giving you the paperwork for company accounts that need to be in by the end of October???? I get the details last Thursday, and then the client is going on holiday the following Wednesday (i.e. yesterday!) which meant that Monday night, I didn't get to bed until nearly 4 am. I still have to finalise the accounts (just check formatting and so on) so it shouldn't take that long to finish them off but the good news is that he did pay me immediately :).

So, once I had got the accounts out of the way, that meant I could play, and this is what I got up to:

It's a set of recipe cards and a box I made to go with them.

This is made using the printable kit from Susan Godfrey Designs & Aimee Harrison Design Studios which can be found to The Studio here:

This is actually on sale at the moment so you can pick it up for just $2.09, a bargain!

It was so easy to use, all you have to do is type the recipes (or cut and paste them as I did!) onto each recipe card and print. I then distressed each card to hide the white edges of the cut card.

The box was made from a 12x12 sheet of Tim Holtz Ideology Kraft Resist cardstock (love, love, love Tim Holtz stuff!). I scored and folded it up, distressed all the edges then decorated it using papers from Afternoon Delight by JW Digiscraps which you can find here:

I also distressed the edges of the papers and then made the apples on the box from a small punch I had forgotten I had, adding gingham ribbon to finish it off.

The dividers for the box were made using a paper from Orchard Days by Snips and Snails:

I made a 6"x4" rectangle in Photoshop, added a 1" circle at the top for the tag, merged the circle and rectangle and then clipped the paper to the divider. The dividers were printed out on white cardstock, cut out and the edges distressed (I do love my distressing inks ).

All in all, a very easy project to make and I am thinking of giving one to my daughter for Christmas. Now that she is at University, I am always getting phone calls from her asking for my cheese sauce recipe, how to make pastry and so on. I still want to get the phone calls from her, but it would save time if she had her own recipes!

Well, I have spent so long now making the previews of the recipes cards, I really need to get some work done. The trouble is, I spent the morning tidying my office (a job I hate) and managed to get rid of loads of old papers and stuff, and our youngest has a sleepover tonight at a friend's house which means that the first time in I don't know how long, hubbie and I will be completely ALONE tonight!!!! It's been so long since this has happened! So we are making the most of this and are off to the carvery after we drop our son at his friend's and then we are going to see The Three Musketeers in 3D. I am so looking forward to this and really can't be bothered working now ;). Still, I had better show willing and do some work.......

Have fun whatever you are doing tonight!

Another gift bag!

2011-10-16T21:05:00.002+01:00

This week has been so busy with my mum being in hospital and work, but the good news is that she apparently has no infection. But then again, she might....After being told she could lose her leg, she was informed the next day that there was no infection. However, they are still, some 5 days later, giving her antibiotics on an IV drip and she will stay in hospital until at least Tuesday. Well, whatever it is that is wrong, the redness and swelling on her leg has gone down somewhat, so if it is an infection, it looks like they have caught it in time.

Whilst I have been busy with work, I have managed to find time to make another gift bag, this time using a template from Boop Designs, It actually made up into quite a large gift bag, which was lovely. normally, most templates tend to give you a bag that is only 3 or 4 inches high, but this one is much bigger and wider, mainly because you have to use two sheets of A4 to print it. I can see it being much more useful than the smaller gift bags, as I often struggle to find anything other than mini bags of chocolates (Cadbury's, of course ;) ), small soaps and the like to fill them! Mind you, that probably says more about my lack of imagination and forethought when giving gifts than anything else....

Anyhow, this is what I ended up with:

The farmer is actually the back view, and the gift tag and flowers are the front view. The flowers were printed on card and the petals partly cut out so I could curl them slightly. I ended up using two layers for each flower, mainly because I forgot to put card into the printer and ended up printing one set of flowers on paper instead! the paper flower is at the bottom and the cardboard one on top.

Do you ever make gift bags and if so, do you use a template or just "do it yourself"? I'm always on the lookout for new gift ideas so would love to hear any ideas you might have.

We've just been given some new kits to work with at The Studio, so I'm off now to see what I can play with - if only I didn't have to work as well, I would have so much fun!!!!

Happy scrapping :)

ATC Maker 1.0

2011-10-12T09:26:00.003+01:00

Things are all topsy turvy here as my mum has been kept in hospital after a visit to her consultant. She fell and broke her leg in July and had to have a complete knee replacement (to replace the knee replacement she already had!) which had metal rods extending from the knee joint up into her femur and, I think, down into the other bones too. She now has an infection and two weeks of antibiotics have done nothing, so the consultant has kept her in and she is having injections of antibiotics. She'll be in at least seven days and we are all praying this works, because if the infection is in the joint and they cannot get rid of it, then she will have to have her leg amputated. I'll be seeing her tonight so will find out more then.

In the meantime, I have been at the paper and glue again, this time using Angel Hartline Designs ATC maker 1.0:

I fell in love with these when I saw them. Aren't they gorgeous?!!!! Anyhow, never having made an ATC card before, this is what I came up with:

I used:

Distress inks
Stampin' Up stamp "best friends listen to what you don;t say"
Leaf - to stamp on the base card
Leaf stamp (free with Craft Stamper magazine in September!)
Dovecraft fibres
Clear embossing powder (for the leaf stamp on the small tag)
Sizzix tag die
Perfect Pearls Mist

I have already printed out a load of ATC's from the kit (well, all I did was put them onto a sheet of A4 and print) so will be making more when I have the time :).

I then took one of the ATC papers and transformed it to fit an A6 card as seen below:

I added extra glitter glue around the edges, and punched out the flower and butterfly from two Woodware punches. Both the butterfly and the flower were inked with distress inks then I added glitter glue to the butterfly and sprayed the flower with Perfect Pearls Mist. I added a brad to the flower but don't ask me where I got it from as the label from the bag has long since disappeared!

The flower was actually made from paper from "Afternoon Delight" by JW-DigiScraps which you can find here. Of course, since I used distress inks and then Perfect Pearls Mist, you can't really tell what the paper was originally like. Take it from me, it was a large spotted paper in pale yellows and looked lovely!

The "Happy Birthday" was printed on photo paper, and then adhered onto plain card which had been distressed. I used a corner punch on two of the corners. The ribbon is from fantasticribbons.co.uk. all in all, it was a really easy card to make and I can see me making several more of these to keep as standby's for unexpected/forgotten birthdays ;).

I reckon this just shows the adaptability of the ATC maker and the quality of the kit. Not only can you make ATC's with it (which is, naturally, what it is designed for), the files are 300 dpi so it means you can enlarge them and still keep all the detail. As an added bonus, you can use the glitter styles that come with the ATC Maker on other digital items too, brilliant!

I actually have other plans for these ATC cards as well, so watch this space!! I don't know when I will get chance to finish what I have started with them, with hospital visiting, work, doing quality check reports plus I also have another hybrid kit for The Studio to work with too, but hey, who needs sleep?!!!!

If you make ATC cards, I would love to see what you do. I really don't have much of a clue when it comes to ATC cards (I mean, what are they for? What do you put on them? Are they just mini layouts or what?) so seeing what other people have made would be so useful :).

Happy scrapping!

It's windy!

2011-10-10T10:35:00.002+01:00

This is my son's school this morning:

Thieves tried to remove metal from the roof over the weekend and then the high winds did the rest of the damage. I don't think anyone was hurt but it could have been so much more serious. The school is closed today and will, apparently, be open tomorrow. So I have one happy son, who now has an unexpected day off school. He is, of course, putting this day to good use and is on his computer. not, needless to say, studying, but playing Counter Strike or Dawn of War or some such bloodthirsty and brutal game..........

As for me, well I have to spend the day working although I did get chance for some crafting last week and over the weekend. This is what I made:

This is another calendar I made using Nibbles Skribbles 2012 Calendar Templates and Early Morning Light by Piggy Scraps (which I absolutely love!).

The calendar templates and kit can be found in the shop here:

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio...oducts_id=8564

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio...oducts_id=5662

Fonts used: Traveling Typewriter and LD Remington Portable

This time, I put all the months on one A4 file, added the "month" headings and the year. The "2012" was created using the LD Remington Portable font and then one of the kit papers was clipped to this and embossed slightly. The background scene was created using the kit and then printed it off. The only trouble I had was in trying to get the printer to print the right colours as it kept making everything yellow!

I reckon this just shows how adaptable the calendar templates are, as you can use them to make a variety of calendars, and they are a definite must have item as far as I am concerned!

Anyhow, why not give it a go yourself? These are so easy to make, although it does take time getting the dates and everything aligned correctly and making the background layout. I always have a one page calender stuck on the side of my desk for easy reference, and I also give them as Christmas gifts. Much better than the ones you buy in the shops!

Well, I'm off to tweak a set of accounts and do a tax return, so have fun whatever you are doing!

Happy scrapping!

2012 Calendar

2011-10-07T09:08:00.001+01:00

I have completed my first project for The Studio Hybrid CT and here it is:

I used Nibbles Skribbles 2012 Calendar Templates which are so easy to use!

All I did was create a 6x4 portrait file and put a guideline half way down the page. I then used the calendar templates in the bottom half (resizing them slightly) , and inserted my photos in the top half. I didn't use any of the backgrounds, or anything else from the templates, just the dates and days. I had to add the months myself, and the description for the photos.

The back cover was made from two pieces of card (A6 size) trimmed to 4 inches wide. I then scored each piece of card at 6 inches for the base.

I used my Bind it All machine to bind it together, and stick the the bottom of the back cover together using foam pads.

Font used: Traveling Typewriter
Supplies used: 6x4 photo paper, card, binder wires

I plan on printing out several more of these for Christmas gifts as they are so easy to make - it just takes time to sort out the photos really. So why not give it a go yourself? You don't have to do anything fancy, just copy and paste with maybe some resizing!

I'm also planning on making a more detailed/fancier calendar using scrap kits. Have you seen the calendars by Shabby Princess and The Shabby Girl? Well i want to make some like that. I reckon I may have just about enough time between now and Christmas to get them all done as it effectively means 13 different layouts (one for each month plus the cover page).

Let me know if you make one yourself - I'd love to see what you do ;).

Happy Scrapping!

Woohoo!

2011-10-05T07:24:00.002+01:00

Well, whilst I didn't make it through the Design contest, have no expectations of being a winner in the Layout Artist Contest (although I did actually make it through to the finals!!!!), I did become one of the winners in the Hybrid CT contest and am now officially one of the first three member of the Hybrid CT team!!!! Woohoo! I found out on Sunday and have had a big grin on my face every time I thought of it :).

The first challenge was to create a layout using a digital kit but to add other elements to it:

For the second challenge, we were given a gift bag template (basically to use as is, with no changes, although we could have changed the design on it if we wished). Of course, we all added little extras!

Then we had to create gifts or goodies (party favours and so on):

And finally, an item of home decor or a decoration of some sort:

We're just finding out what being on the team involves but I have to say that everyone at The Studio are just so lovely. It is such a friendly place and I am really looking forward to getting to know everyone there and to get down to work. I love getting messy with glue, papers, scissors and so on. I actually think, though, that the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die is becoming my best friend - I seem to use it on just about everything at the moment as you can see form all of the above!

Overall, I reckon being on the Hybrid CT will make me more creative (no bad thing!) and inspire me to do more as the kits that will be available are so adaptable. I have started work on my first one, so just watch this space. I am hoping to get it finished in the next day or so and will post photos here as well as at The Studio.

Happy Scrapping!

A wet weekend, Design Contest and Layout Artist 2011

2011-09-27T11:17:00.001+01:00

Well, we went away to the Lake District last weekend. As might have been expected, we didn't get there until late on Friday evening and then it rained most of Saturday, which meant that the walk in Grizedale forest never actually took place! Of course, we might well have braved the rain if hubbie had brought a coat along, but he actually listened to the weather forecast (you know, that forecast which he is always telling me they never get right!) which said it was going to be lovely and sunny. Well is was lovely and sunny - but back home, not the Lake District!!!!

This weekend should be fun though. I am off to Carnarfon for a line dancing weekend. I've never been on one of these weekends, although I am, sad to say, a keen line dancer, so I am really looking forward to it. Of course, I will have to take my camera with me, for all those photos of the castle, the sea, and maybe the line dancing, plus my laptop for all the photoshopping I could be doing in the free afternoons!

You may recall that I mentioned a while ago The Studio were having a design contest. Well, I never got through many rounds, but the final round has just been completed. If you fancy picking up some free kits, why not go and take a look:

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/gallery/g1322-ndc-2011-3a-round-4.html

The kits in the final round are really something and well worth downloading :).

As for there Layout Artist contest I entered, I actually made it by the skin of my teeth into the fourth round! Wonders will never cease! We were given a really spooky kit to work with, Midnight from Deli Scraps by Min which can be found HERE. This is what the kit looks like:

and this is what I came up with:

Whilst the kit has some lovely papers and amazing elements, it was totally not my style at all as I never, ever do anything spooky, or Halloween, no ghosts, goblins, witches and stuff So the dry bones in Ezekiel came to mind and so that's what I went with. Please take a look at the layout gallery and see what everyone else came up with and it would be really good if you would vote for me ;).

The gallery can be found here and the voting poll is here. You do have to register in the forum to vote and voting is only until midnight EST tonight.

I;m in the process of designing a kit for The Studio Megakit challenge and so far, I have six papers finished. I still need to get some elements done and also come up with a name for the kit (which I find the hardest thing to do!) but watch this space as it will be offered as a freebie in the next week or so.

In the meantime, happy scrapping!

Freebie kit!

2011-09-13T14:47:00.000+01:00

Well, here I am , back again with another post, wonders will never cease!

Unfortunately, I didn't get through to the next round of the Designer contest, but I did get through to the next round of the Layout Contest and here is my layout for this week's entry:

I was actually really pleased with this but as to whether it gets through to the next round? Who knows! The voting poll is now up so if you are able, it would be really good if you would click on a couple of buttons and go vote for me! The link is here so why not go along and have a look? Even if you don't vote for me, there are some stunning layouts over there. If you haven't already registered at The Studio, you will have to register in the forum to vote though.

Anyhow, I then decided to enter the hybrid contest, which is something new for me, never having done a hybrid layout before. Mind you, I suppose making cards is, to a certain extent, somewhat similar, although I tend to do more stamping/punching/die cutting and embossing than using digital items. I ended up using the kit we were given for the layout challenge, Early Morning Light by Piggy Scraps Designs, and this is what I came up with:

Everything except the brad was from the kit. The layered flower was made using my Tim Holtz tattered florals die (which I love). The photographs were taken at Wightwick Manor, about 25 miles from us, although I have just realised I have mispelt Wightwick in the layout.....Well, as long as no one knows where it is, nobody will spot this, right ;) ?!!! The funny thing is, it looked like the wrong spelling when I made the layout, I checked up and it said it was ok.......I guess my brain must have been asleep at the time!

Finally, I have also continued with designing in the Second Chance contest, which is for those who didn't make it through the previous round, and this is my kit below. I had yet another mental block when posting it to the gallery, so never mentioned exactly what was in the kit. You know, if I had a brain, I'd be dangerous! Anyhow, here is the kit:

It contains:

6 papers
4 flowers
Plastic flower
Tattered flower
Stone ornament
Flower overlay
Flower scatter
Tag and staples
2 Staples
2 ricrac
4 brads
Vellum
Cluster
Circle Frame
Rectangle frame
Grass
2 leaves
Ladybird (twocolours)
Cloud
Sun

You can find it in the gallery here and the download links are:

Paper

Elements

If you do download it and make anything with it, I'd love to see it :).

Happy scrapping!

Layout Artist 2011 and Next Designer contest 2011 - free mini kit

2011-09-05T15:28:00.001+01:00

Well, I did mention these in my last post so I suppose I had better tell you all about them!

Firstly, the layout contest. Well, we were given a kit to work with, and it was gorgeous! It was Early Morning Light by Piggy Scraps Designs:

You really need to go check it out as it is beautiful and is currently on sale at $2.50 as well! I've linked the preview to the shop so you can have a look ;).

Anyhow, all we had to do was create a layout, so this is my effort:

The posting deadline was midnight last night (EST) but because we went to St Andrews, I managed to get mine in on Friday. Voting is now taking place, so if you would like (and you know you want to!!!), please go to the gallery and vote. If you vote for me that would be even better, as currently I only have one vote and that was mine! The gallery is here, and the voting poll is here. I probably won't even get to Round 2, but I know I always learn so much by entering these contests, and it is fun, albeit stressful when I can';t decide what to do or keep changing my mind!

I have also entered the Designer contest and for this,we were give a swatch to work with:

I love the colours but found the fact that there was no green a real hardship - I ended up with blue leaves instead as you can see!!!

My kit is previewed at The Studio here where you can also find the download links, but you can download it direct by either clicking on the preview above or here. Go check out the gallery as there were lots of entries to the contest which means lots of freebies!

I'm not expecting to get any further in the contest (although it would be really good if I did) but I always learn so much when I enter design contests. This time, for instance, it was a case of playing around with brushes to create the patterned papers and to make some of the elements. I also played with the filters in PS CS5, which is why one of the flowers is slightly different from the others as I applied a filter to it.

Happy scrapping!

Update

2011-09-05T13:05:00.002+01:00

Well, I know I am always saying this, but time flies, doesn't it? You try and get yourself organised, you blink and before you know it, over half a year has gone by and it's nearly Christmas again.....

What has been happening since my last post? Well I've done hardly any designing (apart form a mini kit - see below for more details!), although I have been making lost of bible verse tags and really started making cards in earnest. Here's a quick peek at some of them:

That was a new home card for my son and his girlfriend as they moved to a new flat a few weeks ago. I'm developing a passion of Tim Holtz embossing folders and dies, as you can see!

Then lots of families form church have been having babies, so of course, that means a baby card (or two)!

And then a few other cards:

Sorry for the poor quality and the unusual background. I put the cards on a wicker chair in my office meaning to get around to extracting the card from the photo but just haven't had time.

I've made lots of other cards too, but haven't photographed them yet.

Anyhow, we have been having a busy time of it recently. Our daughter is off to Plymouth University so we had to dash to Plymouth the weekend before last, having only received final confirmation of her place on the Thursday evening, in order to go flat hunting, We booked an appointment to see one from the motorway services and four hours later, she had signed the lease!

Then last weekend it was back to St Andrews to take up clothes, computer, books and so on for my son who is returning for his third year. He's actually not going back for another 2 weeks, but he got the keys to his flat at the end of last week and wanted to get all his stuff in so al he has to do is go back by train in 2 weeks time. We then had a very eventful journey back with a tyre blow out on the M6, a very friendly AA man and an emergency dash to a tyre place to get three new tyres! Definitely one of my most expensive weekends away!

Then when we got back, I had to finish my kit for the "Next Designer Challenge 2011" at The Studio. I;ve also entered the Layout contest as well, but more on both of these in my next post!

Freebie calendar

2011-01-02T19:13:00.000Z

Well, a new year and maybe a new year resolution to blog more frequently? Who knows?!!! I just don't want to make any promises I can't keep ;). Anyhow, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that the New Year will hold all that you hope it does.

At the moment, I am right in the thick of accounts and tax returns as tax returns have to be filed by 31 January here in the UK. As usual, this has meant I haven't been able to take much time off over Christmas but I really want to have time to spend in photoshop and get some designing done! I actually did manage to open photoshop yesterday to finish making calendars for my mum and eldest son's girlfriend. I used the Shabby Princess' one page calendar:

She makes some amazing calendar kits and they are so easy to use. The problem I find is actually choosing which photos to use!

I then used another template, this time from Shutter Sisters:

If you click here or on the calendar photo above, it should take you straight to the Shutter sisters' blog where you can find links to the calendar download.

I ended up changing the template to a 6 x 4 calendar, and this is what I came up with:

The cover photograph is of Ironbridge, Shropshire and the other photos have the place names on them.. All the photos were taken by me and are all either here in Shropshire, or elsewhere in the UK. If you would like a copy of this, then feel free to download it here. Please bear in mind it is only 6" x 4" and I don't know how well it would stand up to being resized to a larger size.

Now, due to work commitments, I don't know when I will next be able to blog (probably not until February unfortunately), so in the meantime, Happy New Year and happy scrapping!

Update and freebie

2010-10-12T14:52:00.000+01:00

Well, September has been a busy month! I'm managed to scrape through to the finals of the Digiscrapaddicts designer contest (by the skin of my teeth) and the experience has been amazing. I always find when I enter things like this that it stretches me and I learn new techniques which is no bad thing. I mean, I learnt how to make vellum paper for this contest as well as how to make staples, although to be honest, my attempts are not exactly the best. I do have a little freebie for you but more on that in a bit ;).

The big news is that my son has almost got my website up and running! He needs to finish the shop part of it, and I have to give him info for the home page and so on, but it is looking like it could be active next month! It seems to have taken eons to get this far, so I am really excited and will definitely let you know when everything is live. Of course, you will undoubtedly find out as the blog will be transferring over too ;).

So, what has been happening here since I last posted? Well, our middle son has now gone back to University in St Andrews, and of course, I took my camera along for the trip (have you ever known me not to do this?!!!) and just look at what we saw.

This is walking up from the harbour towards South Street:

A view of South Street:

The harbour, taken from the pier:

And another shot of the harbour!

The pier:

By tradition, the students walk down the pier every Sunday after chapel. There are various explanations for this tradition, but my favourite is that the students used to accompany the visiting preacher back to the harbour where he would get in his boat at the end of the pier. The students, in the main, wear their red gowns (or at least we used to when I was at St Andrews ;) ), walk down the pier on the right hand side, climb up the ladders at the end of the pier and walk back along the top of the pier. I'd never do that now as it seems an awfully narrow path and such a long way down to the rocks and the sea beneath!

Then there is, of course, the castle, where if you wear your red gown (students in St Andrews wear red undergraduate gowns) you can get in free!

And finally, my son's room!

He reckons it'll be a good room to have a party in!

So, I believe I mentioned a freebie, and here it is. It's a very rough and ready grab bag containing:

Vellum notepaper;
Rose overlay;
Rose paper (pink);
Chick;
Ribbon wrapper; and
Rust effect paper

Like I said, it is very rough and ready and is just odds and ends I have lying around on my hard drive! There are no TOU's in there or anything other than the six items. There isn't even a preview! So feel free to grab it by licking HERE. Hopefully you will find it useful.

I do intend to start blogging more frequently from now on, but don't hold your breath!

Happy scrapping!

Catch up

2010-09-06T07:15:00.000+01:00

I have been so remiss in neglecting this blog but oh, boy, does real life have a habit of messing up the best laid plans!

So what has been happening recently then? Well, we have been away to the Wales on holiday, then spend a long weekend in the Lake District. A group of us went to London to hear an African minister preach (he'd come over for a special event). Work has been busy, to say the least, but clients are being slow in paying me, which is always a real trial, and I am now in the throes of the start of the annual tax season, with the January filing deadline looming ever closer. Plus, my son has (drum roll here please!) almost completed my Heavenly Crafts website!!!!

He has put in so many hours of work, and it is really taking shape now and looking good. Soon, hopefully sometime this month, it will be up and running and my blog will be transferred over to the website, so watch this space ;)!!! The shop part of the website may take a little more time as I actually need to get some serious designing done so I will have some items to sell. This designing is kind of complicated by my day job (after all, I do have to earn some money to pay the bills, put food on the table and so on!) and by the fact that I have actually entered two designer contests!

The first one of these is at The Studio, and the first challenge was due in on Saturday. This year, the contest is being run on an anonymous basis (in theory) and we all have alias ID's so when people vote for our designs, they won't know who we are and will be voting on the design rather than for the person. The first challenge kits have all been posted now and here is a slideshow of all the entries:

Why not go to The Studio and take a look yourself? there are some really lovely kits there and they are all available as free downloads, although you may have to register in the forum first. Then while you're there, you can vote for your favourite three designers!

The second contest I've entered is the Funky Playground Designs 2010 Designer contest, which is being hosted at DigiscrapAddicts.com. There are two categories, new designers and established designers. I have entered the new designers category and here is the preview of my entry:

There is no public voting in this contest, which I actually prefer, and there are no eliminations until challenge 2, so I already know I have made it through to the next round! You can find the news designers kits here and the established designers kits here. All the kits are available as free downloads, so why not go along and snag some gorgeous creations, lol?

It is actually really good experience entering these contests (although totally nerve wracking and stressful too ;) ), as you then see what everyone else has come up with, find out what styles are popular, etc and you always learn something new with every kit you make. I have no expectations of getting through to round three in this contest, although obviously I would love to get even further than that ;).

Anyhow, that's most of my news so far so 'll leave you now and go get ready for work!

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners: Quick pages

2010-08-01T22:23:00.001+01:00

Have you ever had one of those months when just about everything went wrong that could go wrong? Well, if so, you will know the sort of month I have just had :(. There seemed to be just one deadline after another, stress over clients not giving me their books and records until two weeks before accounts had to be filed at Companies House, other clients pressing for accounts by return of post (and then not paying me!), and I am still trying to get my craft website up and running.

Well, I am expecting great things from next week as I am taking a week off and we are all going to Wales for a much needed break. Naturally, I am taking my laptop - there is no way I could withstand the withdrawal symptoms for that length of time ;) and I also want to take my Wacom tablet to get some serious designing in! Plus, our eldest son will be joining us too, and will bring what he has done so far on the website. The idea is that we can move this blog over in a few days time, and then concentrate on getting the rest of the website up and running. So, I'm really looking forward to this as it is all really exciting. And yes, the family does think I need to get a life!

I'm also hoping the weather will be dry this week so that we can get some walking in. We'll be stopping in the middle of nowhere and have plans to walk up Snowdon, go to Lake Vyrnwy, visit Powys Castle and generally just relax and unwind. So watch this space for all those photos I intend taking!!!

Sorry, I'm a bit late posting these but here are my quickpages from the Freedom kit:

I hope you like them and can make use of them. You can download them here.

The other designers taking part in the quickpage blog train are:

Mags Graphics

Digi Cyber Scraps

Cindi

Heavenly Crafts (You are here!)

Mariscrap

Do go along and see what they have come up ;).

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Blog Train: Freedom

2010-07-01T10:46:00.000+01:00

Well, today sees the release of the July ADSDesigners blog train and here is my contribution:

It contains:

6 papers;
3 types of fireworks; and
2 wordart.

There will be more elements to follow in a few days time ;). In the meantime, here is the download link. I've already seen some of the other contributions and this promises to be a wonderful megakit, so go grab the other parts! The other designers can be found:

Heavenly Crafts (You are here!)

My Sweet Tater

Fairydustprincess

BitsnBobs

The links will be up all month, which gives you plenty of time to grab the freebies!

Happy Scrapping!

Card and freebie

2010-06-17T19:03:00.001+01:00

It seems an age since I was last here (nothing new in that, I hear you say....) but things have been, as usual, busy here. My youngest is recovering nicely from his op, and I can't get over how small his scar is. My appendix scar is a huge monstrous thing, but then after four children, most things in my abdominal region are pretty huge and monstrous ;). However, his scar s a really neat 1.5" and looks like a partially healed scratch! All I can say to that is his surgeon must be far neater at stitching than I am! I am dead impressed!

He's still not back at school, and is getting tired really easily, but hopefully, he will be able to go back sometime next week, just in time to get some revision in for the science exams they are making year 8 take. I can't tell you how much he is looking forward to those, not!

Anyhow, despite being really busy with work, I have still managed to find time to make some cards (I don't know how, other than the fact that work is probably suffering as a result), and this is what I have been up to:

It's only a very basic card, made with cardstock and ribbon from my stash but the toadstool house is actually made using a photoshop action from Dreamcatcher Designs. The action makes a fairy house, bow, flower and wings, and you can find it here. It's not free, I'm afraid, but then so few photoshop actions like this are :(.

I'm actually entering the card in the Craftalicious Challenges as I reckon since I'm now making all these cards, I might as well do something with them! One of the design team on the Craftalicious blog is Jan, who just happens to run the craft class I go to ;).

I've also been designing too, trying my hand at creating vellum. I do have some notepaper for you but haven't had chance to upload it yet. However, I have also been playing around with brushes, and came up with this:

It's a png file and you can download it here. If you do use it, I'd love to see what you do with it :).

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Quickpages freebie

2010-06-01T11:53:00.007+01:00

Well, it is that time of the month again when the ADSDesigners release the quickpages based on the last blog collab. Mine is slightly late, mainly because I was in Scotland from Thursday to Saturday last week collecting our middle son from University. Then when we did get back on Saturday evening, it was to find our youngest son had had severe stomach ache all day, so this necessitated a trip to Shropdoc at the nearest community hospital, then a quick trip to paediatrics at a different hospital where he was diagnosed with appendicitis. I finally left him at midnight Saturday night, but had to dash back early Sunday morning to sign the consent forms and spent most of the day there with him. He had his op about 11 am on Sunday, and has done so well, that they discharged him early yesterday (Monday) afternoon!

Anyhow, as a result of me spending most of the last week either in Scotland or at the hospital (and then when I was home, having to wash the large suitcase full of dirty clothes that my student son brought back from St Andrews!), this is first chance I have had to post (ie make!) the quickpages. Of course, if I were anywhere near as organised as I should be, I would have actually made these at the same time I did my share of the collab kit, but hey, what's life without rapidly looming deadlines and unforeseen circumstances thrown in, eh?!!

The preview is:

As you can see, I ended up with four quickpages, two of them are 12x12, and the other two are 11x8.5. You can find the downloads here and here.

The other designers taking part in this are:

so don't forget to check out their blogs and collect more quickpages!

I'm off to make lunch now for one poorly 13 year old, who is now feeling much better than he was on Saturday night!

Happy scrapping!

Butterfly overlay

2010-05-08T06:54:00.013+01:00

Well, I recall sometime ago promising to let you have a butterfly overlay and I have actually (surprise, surprise!) managed to get around to sorting this out. Here is the preview:

And the previews of the coloured butterflies are as follows:

But, before I give you the download link, you are going to have to suffer through my photographs of our trip to Liverpool last month! Cruel and heartless, aren't I?!!! Still, you could always scroll straight to the bottom so there are ways of avoiding the photos......

Firstly, here is the view from our hotel window overlooking Albert Dock. You'll have to excuse the smudges as I took the photo from behind the window.

Here is the view from outside the hotel:

And Liverpool's version of the London Eye, somewhat smaller, but still very impressive. We actually didn't go on it because, to be honest, it seemed an expensive way to spend five minutes but I bet the views were glorious.

This was taken down on the ground more or less below our hotel room!

And these are more shots of Albert Dock.

Then we came across Queen Victoria:

There are some really beatuiful buildings in Liverpool. I just love this architecture.

I thought these were bird dogs - they look like a dog at the front (Labrador) and a bird at the back, but I have since found out that these are lambananas, a cross between a lamb and a banana. Don't ask me why anyone would want to cross a lamb and a banana, I guess that is artistic licence! Anyway, they are definitely eye catching.

But of course, Liverpool wouldn't be complete without a shot of the Liver Building....

....and a somewhat blurred photo of one of the Liver birds!

I also ended up taking some shots on the way back to the hotel at night. No mean feat considering I had never done this before and did not have a tripod! Of course, that makes me sound as if I know what I am doing, when in reality, it was a case of holding the camera as still as possible and taking the shot. Loads of the pictures I took are blurred - it is impossible to hold a camera still for the length of time it takes for the photo to be taken, especially when you are a novice like me. Still, here are a couple of the better ones:.

I had to lean against walls, fences and trees to get those unblurred shots! And then one taken from our hotel room:

But the real reason we were in London was to go to the OneRepublic gig at the O2 academy. The support act was Alex Gardner, a Scottish singer who has the reputation of being a Robert Pattinson lookalike (for those of you who are Twilight fans ;) ). Here he is in action:

He was actually very good, so if you get the chance to go hear him, it would be well worth it. But of course, the main act were even better. It was actually very pleasing to find out I wasn't the oldest person in the audience. I think my daughter was worried that I would be - she certainly seemed relieved when we saw a rather more elderly (and definitely more smartly dressed!) couple waiting in the queue behind us!

It was quite funny when we got in, because, as you probably know, there is very little seating at the O2 Academy, and everyone has to stand. DD and I rushed to the front, and ended up on the second row, whereas the Radio 2 listeners (as my daughter called the older ones, and there were quite a number of them too) stayed at the side leaning up against the wall.

Anyway, this was the first time I had used my new camera at a gig, and since were were near the front, I managed to get some really good shots (or at least I think they are!). Here is Ryan Tedder, the lead singer:

As you can see, he ended up very close to where we were standing. He is probably wondering here who that old woman is with the camera! Not that I am, of course, old, because in reality, I am only about 21 (or at least, that is as old as I feel), I just look somewhat older;).

I love this shot. You can really tell that the lead guitarist, Zach Filkins (at least, I think this is him ;)), is enjoying himself. It makes all the difference when you go to a gig or concert and you can tell they are having fun on stage!

And back to Ryan, this time with (I think) Brent Kutzle and Drew Brown in the background.

All in all, we had a whale of a time in Liverpool and OneRepublic were brilliant!

But now, if you have managed to struggle through all those photos (or just scroll her to the bottom) back to the butterfly overlays which you can find here. The zipped file contains the original overlay plus two coloured versions. I'm off to do our church notices now, and then have to work, so have fun and happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Blog Train: Sunflower Patch now available!

2010-05-01T11:40:00.011+01:00

Well, as promised yesterday, the latest ADSDesigners kit, Sunflower Patch, has been released. There are some gorgeous papers and elements created by the designers and what better way to spend a Bank Holiday weekend than in downloading lots of freebies?!!!!

The weather forecast here is for thundery showers this afternoon. Well, that really has scuppered our plans to go to Church Stretton and go walking up the Long Mynd :(. Instead, we are going to go visit a National Trust property, Wightwick Manor, in salubrious Wolverhampton, and since none of us has been there before, it should be really interesting. Of course, I will be taking my camera with me, and after taking night shots in Ironbridge as part of the digital photography course I'm attending, I now know how to put my camera into manual mode, and use a tripod!!!! I also have an inkling, just an inkling, mind, of how to change the shutter speed and aperture too. I haven't got a clue what I should be changing them to, I just press or twiddle the buttons and see what happens when I take a photo.....you never know, one day, I may actually know what I am doing ;).

I will let you see the photos of Ironbridge later as we have to do a pdf slideshow ready for the next lesson anyway. I bet you can't wait, eh? But in the meantime, what you really want to see is the Sunflower Patch kit, right? So here is my part:

And here are some close ups so you can get an idea of what it is like:

You will find inside the zipped file:

5 papers
1 notepaper
2 butterflies
1 sunflower plant
1 sunflower
1 cream flower (not shown on preview)
1 tree
1 paperclip
1 straight stitching
1 stitched frame
1 flower frame

and you can download it here .

The other designers have come up with some lovely papers and elements, so go check them out:

The kit will be on offer for the month of May, so you have plenty have time to collect all the parts ;).

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Blog Train: Sunflower Patch

2010-04-30T12:58:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that the ADSDesigners blog train, Sunflower Patch, kicks off today. I'm in the process of sorting out my share of this kit but the internet problems earlier this week delayed things, plus I've had horrendous work deadlines resulting in me working until for instance, 2:30 am this morning.... ;(

I'll be back in a short while with all the links, etc. I need to check blog addresses and so on so I send you to the right place!

See you shortly :)

Aaargh!!!! Internet down!

2010-04-24T07:33:00.004+01:00

Just to let you know that we have been having major internet problems these past two weeks and have a very hit and miss connection, more miss than hit, to be honest. Despite having a brand new hub, I can currently only connect at an unearthly hour in the morning, and even that is intermittent. The BT engineer very kindly did not turn up yesterday, so I will have to ring them shortly to see what is happening and to get an engineer to actually make the effort to come and sort this out, although, of course, this being the weekend, they will probably not be around until Monday at the earliest. All this and I'm paying for business broadband too........

This is sooooo frustrating, especially as I need the internet for work and am currently unable to send in P35's and amended tax returns, as well as send payroll figures to clients by email. Oh, I lead such an exciting life - P35's, tax returns and payroll - I bet you're green with envy!

Anyhow, I will try and get back online later today, but it seems to be that as soon as the temperature warms up (and I use the phrase "warms up" very loosely here), the connection goes.

Oh well, at least I have a craft class to go to today which will take my mind of the internet problems!

Little Dreamer Designs Apprentice Program

2010-04-09T21:12:00.010+01:00

I was so excited on Thursday morning as when I switched on my computer and checked my emails, I discovered I had been selected for the Little Dreamer Designs Apprentice Program!!!!! If you had been anywhere near me at the time, you would have heard me squealing with excitement ;).

We each had to design a mini kit of three papers and five elements to reflect our personal style. This was my entry:

You can see all the contents in the preview:

3 papers
Flower frame
Umbrella
Bird
Rainbow
Rain cloud and rain

There were a total of 88 entries and there were 27 accepted so I am really pleased to get through to round 1. I'm realistically not expecting to get much further, but am so pleased to have got this far! All the mini kits made for the contest are in the Little Dreamer Designs gallery and can be found here along with the download links. There are some amazing kits there ;).

Anyhow, actually made far more than the 3 papers and five elements we were asked to do, so though you might like to see what else I came up with :

It seems a bit silly to call this an "add on" when in reality, this was one kit with 10 papers and 23 elements which had some papers and elements taken out for the designer program. This add on contains:

7 papers
Bracket mat
Notepaper
Sheep
Chick
1 broken egg shell
1 half egg shell
Sun
2 clouds
2 rain showers
Flower frame
Butterfly overlay (can you tell I like butterflies, ;)?)
4 flowers
1 Grass and flower border

You can find the downloads here:

Papers

Elements

The minikit is, as already mentioned, in the Little Dreamer Designs gallery and can be found here.

Happy scrapping!

More quickpages!

2010-04-04T07:55:00.004+01:00

Well, it's Easter Sunday morning and it is looking like a very mixed day weather wise here. the sun is shining over the front of our house, yet there are dark clouds looming ominously over the back garden....I reckon we are in for some heavy rain today. So what does Easter mean to you? Is is just a other day, part of a bank holiday that means you don't have to go in to work, a day when you can spend time with the family without worrying about everything you have to do, or is it something more than that?

For me, this is the day to remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to be thankful yet again for all that he has done for me, but for my children, it is a day for chocolate and Easter eggs.....and a trip to grandma's for tea! Looks like that trip will be made in the rain though. Mind you, today the children (and hubbie ;) ) will be disgusted with me as I want to get to mum's early enough to use some of those punches and stamps she bought at the NEC last week. She went home with some gorgeous Martha Stewart punches and a beautiful set of owl stamps and I am sure she is feeling the need to share today! So I have to pack a bag with ink pads and card, plus a couple of boxes or two so I can use the punches and get some stamped images to take back home with me! And with the wonders of modern technology, I will then be able to scan the images into my computer and print them off whenever I need them! Isn't technology great?!!!

But in the meantime, here is the second set of quickpages I promised you:

I hope you like them. You can download these quickpages here.

Whatever you are doing this Easter Sunday, I hope you have a truly blessed day. I'm off now to get ready for church and then need to rush back home to make Mum and Dad an Easter card. I know, I know, it's not as if I didn't know Easter was coming either!

Happy scrapping!

It's the ADSDesigners Quick Page Blog Train but first....

2010-04-01T00:09:00.007+01:00

...you get to look at my entry in the Fiskarettes Monday challenge, chocolate/brown. I wanted to have a go at distressing, so this is one of my first attempts and seemed to fit the chocolate/brown theme of last week’s challenge. The butterfly was made using the Fiskar’s Butterfly Template, the paper was torn using an edged ruler I have and I then used chalks on the torn edge.

All the papers, including the handmade one, are from my stash, so don’t ask me where they came from now as I can’t remember! Apologies for the quality of the photos - I work in our converted garage and there is no natural light at all unless I leave the door open but it is much too cold to do that this time of year!

I was really just playing to see how distressing worked, and whether chalks were effective, so I was pleased with the result, although obviously I still need loads of practice ;).

Mum and I went to the NEC on Saturday, to Hobbycraft at the NEC and had a whale of a time. We got there nice and early, and ended up spending a fortune! There were so many scrumptious craft goodies there, most of which I really, really, need! I had to settle for a Martha Stewart pansy edge punch, the Martha Stewart scoring board, several stamps, some really good quality card for stamping images on, several pairs of scissors with fancy edges, a few other punches (well, a girl can never have too many punches, or stamps ;) plus four sets of Promarkers! Mum bought even more than I did, and of course, I offered to carry the bags and I reckon I have only just stopped aching! Those Martha Stewart punches are gorgeous but they weigh an absolute ton!

I was also fortunate enough to attend a free Fiskars workshop where we made a lovely card and got to use some of the new Fiskars products. I also received a free goodie bag from Fiskars which was really the icing on the cake as far as I was concerned!

Mum and I came back absolutely exhausted and all shopped out and have decided that next time, we are going by car instead of taking the train. Carrying all those bags on the train was no joke and I am sure other passengers ended up with bruises where I accidentally caught them with a bag or two....

Anyway, I am still trying to find time to use all the goodies I bought, as so far, all I have done is take them out of the packaging. Hopefully I will have some free time over the Easter weekend to have a play! I did, however, manage to make some quickpages for the ADSDesigners Quickpage blog train. We were only supposed to make 2, but I ended up doing 4 but you will just have to wait for a couple of days for the other two. Here is the preview of the ones ready to download now:

I actually made a butterfly overlay using the butterfly from my Free Spirit kit and will let you have that later as well ;)

You can download my quickpages here and you can find the other quickpages at the following blogs:

I've just checked and none of the other QP's is up yet, but we are all different time zones anyway. Make sure you take a look at the others as I am sure they will be awesome!

Happy scrapping!

Edited to correct one of blog links.

Blog Candy on offer from Kath

2010-03-08T12:52:00.004Z

Just a quick post to let you all know about the blog candy on offer from Kath of http://kath-allthatglitter.blogspot.com to celebrate her 2nd blog anniversary! this is what she is offering up:

Isn't it gorgeous?!!!! Lots of scrumptious items there!

If you want to be in with a chance to win these goodies, you need to put a link to the candy on your blog (like I am doing right now ;) ) leave a comment on your blog and leave your name with Mr Linky here. You have until midnight (GMT) Tuesday 9th March to do it ......... so what are you waiting for?

Warwick Castle and Free Spirit add on

2010-03-07T17:31:00.010Z

Well, yesterday was a busy day. One of my friends from University was up visiting, so we decided to go to Warwick Castle for the day. It was almost 11 am when we got there and, of course, I took my camera! I had a minor panic on the path from the car park to the castle when I thought my camera battery had run out, as I was trying to take some photos of a peacock on the wall above us but the camera would just not work...... it turned out that I hadn't even put the battery in! Talk about forgetful! I guess that was another one of those senior moments that are becoming all too familiar ;).

Anyhow, there were 5 of us altogether, my daughter and two of my sons, my friend Catherine, plus myself. Apart from the moanings and groanings from the elder of my boys, we had a wonderful day. The only moanings and groanings we had been expecting were from the dungeons but you would not believe how much an 18 year old can complain when he feels hard done to because he is carrying the heavier of the two backpacks we had with us! Anyway, fortunately for us (since we had to listen to his complaints), the backpack gradually became lighter throughout the day....

This is the view of the castle on the approach from the car park:

Once you get inside the castle grounds, you can actually go inside most of the rooms, and here is the dining room leading off the Great Hall:

This is a portrayal of life in Tudor times:

The castle is one of the largest complete castles I have been in and is in remarkable condition. They do carry out substantial renovation work, and it certainly pays off. This is the view of the inner courtyard:

More inside shots:

Everyone was dressed up in medieval costume, and speaking the way people would have spoken back then. We actually got to see the Trubuchet in action. This is like a huge catapult which was used in sieges to attack the town, and it was quite something to see it in action. This photo is of the Trebuchet just as the shot was about to be released:

Of course, I was so busy taking photos, that I actually missed the shot landing on the other side the field as it moved too quick for me to follow with the camera!

We had lunch in the peacock garden, and here is one of the peacocks displaying his feathers:

There were several peacocks and a few peahens, and they came up really close, wihtout any apparent fear of us.

Later in the afternoon, the sun came out so it was lovely down by the river, although it was still cold. This the view from the Mill:

You wouldn't think we were only standing on a narrow platform above the mill wheel as the photograph is deceptive. There are actually fairly high walls up on the left and you can't really see the river that well unless you stand where we were. Looking the other way up the river, we could see the sun going down behind the castle walls.

Of course, my youngest couldn't resist the gift shop, and ended up buying this:

It's a ginormous plastic thing that you stick in a long narrow plastic bottle filled with soapy water, then you release it and it opens up into a triangular shape. If you are very careful, and with a bit of practice, the soap remains on the triangle and you (or at least my son) are able to make huge bubbles!

Well, as a treat for staying with me through all my boring photos (you'll be pleased to hear I did restrict my posting to just 10 although I took over 400 photos whilst we were in the Castle!), here is an add on to my share of the Free Spirit kit:

It is a set of three stems and fourteen blooms that you can mix and match to create your own flowers. I hope you like it and it can be downloaded here.

Happy scrapping!

Free Spirit: blog train

2010-03-01T13:27:00.008Z

Well, as mentioned in my earlier post, the ADSDesigners bi-monthly blog train is released today and here are the previews for my share of this kit:

I have only seen two sets of previews so far, but as usual, you can expect some gorgeous papers and elements. You can find my downloads here:

Papers

Elements

I split the file as it was slightly larger than the target of 40mb, but if you prefer just the one file to download, here it is.

And the others in the blog train are:

Happy scrapping!

Note: edited to correct the link to the combined download file. Thanks for letting me know, Mags!

Free Spirit

2010-03-01T07:05:00.003Z

Just a flying visit to let you know that the ADSDesigners latest kit, Free Spirit, is released today. I am in the process of putting together my previews and uploading my part of this kit, and will be back later today with the download links.

Photoshop for beginners: Using brushes to make overlays and papers

2010-02-22T11:31:00.015Z

When I first started using Photoshop, I really didn't have a clue about what I was doing. It took me ages to even work out how to open up a new file (Ctrl N or File>New if you are curious!). I gradually became used to layers, finding swatches, using the various tools in the tool palette but brushes always seemed to be to be somewhat of a waste of space as after all, you could just copy and paste a flower rather than use a brush, or use clipart, or whatever and achieve the same result. However, after looking around at various blogs and reading/viewing tutorials, it became clear to me that brushes were so much more versatile than I ever thought possible.

So, first things first, what exactly is a brush? Well, it does exactly what you would expect it to do and behaves in the same way as a paintbrush. However, a Photoshop brush does far more than that. Depending upon the shape of the brush, you can paint lines, circles, dots, ribbons, notepaper, tags, ornamental shapes, plants, flowers, animals, grungify a paper, and a million and one other things, most of which I have barely touched!

You will find the brushes in your tool palette, which is usually on the left hand side of your screen (see picture 1).

Picture 1

Photoshop comes with a number of brushes pre installed, but you can search on the internet for many others. Websites offering free brushes include:

http://www.brushking.eu/

http://www.brusheezy.com/brushes

http://www.damnedinblack.net/brushes.htm

http://www.deviantart.com/#catpath=resources/applications/psbrushes&order=24

http://myphotoshopbrushes.com/brushes

http://www.obsidiandawn.com/brushes-categories

Check the terms of use if you want to use them for commercial or scrap for hire purposes.

To use a brush, firstly open up a new document (Ctrl N or File>New). Then click on the brush tool in the tool palette. Now in order to choose a particular brush, look at the toolbar and you will see on the left, just to the right of “Brush” there is a number (the size of the current loaded brush) and a drop down button (see picture 2).

Picture 2

Click on the drop down button and you should then see thumbnails of the brushes that are currently loaded into Photoshop (Picture 3).

Picture 3

Then select the brush you want to use. If you have not used the brushes before, then the default brushes will be loaded automatically. However, if you know you have a particular brush that you want to use and it is not in the thumbnails, click on the drop down button to the right of the thumbnails. This then gives further menu options (see Picture 4). Note: If the thumbnail is too small to see clearly, just click on “Large Thumbnail" to make it larger.

Picture 4

Click on “Load brushes” and then browse through to where your brushes are loaded. The default brushes are usually in the Photoshop preset files (you can usually find these under Presets in the Adobe folder in your Program Files) but it is a good idea to have a completely separate folder for your brushes (as well as actions, styles, patterns, etc). You will find that once you start collecting brushes, patterns, styles, etc, your Photoshop preset folders become very full and can slow the program up considerably. I actually have a separate hard drive for all my scrapbooking stuff, including all presets (as well as a further external hard drive for back up!).

Pick the brush you want to use. I am going to use some Obsidian Dawn brushes as shown here in Picture 5 to make a butterfly overlay:

Picture 5

If the brush is too big or too small for the size of your canvas, then you can change the size by either going to the brush menu and changing the brush diameter (the master diameter in picture 5) or by using the square brackets on your keyboard (“[“ to reduce the size or “]” to increase the size).

Open a new layer in your document (either use Shift+Ctrl+N, go to Layer>New>Layer or create a new layer in the layers palette by clicking the second button from the right at the bottom of the layers palette). It is better to get into the habit of using a new layer for each brush as otherwise, you can find yourself painting over your background paper and not being able to undo it, whereas if the brush strokes are on new layers, you can edit them far more easily. If the worst comes to the worst and you have made one brush stroke too many, you can always delete the brush layer. If you only have the one layer and have used all the brushes on that, then you may end up having to start all over again as you may not be able to undo or edit out all the brush strokes.

Check the colours in the colour palette are the ones you want to use and then just start using your brush.

I started with a transparent document (since I am making an overlay) and then used one of the butterfly brushes and a trail to produce a set of butterflies in flight (picture 6a).

Picture 6a

I then desaturised this (Image>Adjustments>Desaturate or Shift+Ctrl+U) to take out all the color and ended up with a grayscale set of butterflies as shown below.

Picture 6b

Once you get that far, it is then a case of just using the overlay either in a layout as a separate layer or design your own a paper by adding new layers above and below and playing with textures, patterns, blending modes and so on until you get the desired effect.

In my case, I carried out the following steps:

1. Added a new bottom layer and filled that with a colour;

2. Created a middle layer using a photo I had previously taken of some marble (see picture 7).

Picture 7

It is not a particular good shot as I could not keep the camera still, but that really doesn’t matter too much when using the photo as a texture or background pattern, which is just as well seeing as it is a really blurry photo!

3. Desaturised the marble photo and increased the size to fill the canvas completely (use the transform tool);

I then had three layers and so I played around with the blend mode (see picture 8) of the photo layer and the butterfly layer to get the effect I wanted.

Picture 8

I ended up with a selection of four papers as follows:

Picture 9

As you can see, the marble photo, even though it was blurry, has added a cloud effect to the paper, and the use of the blend mode has changed the way the colors and butterflies look.

Why not have a go yourself and see what you can come up with? There is no such thing as a wrong way to do this – and the undo button is a great help!

The butterfly overlay, marble photo and four papers are available as a free download here.

Note: this tutorial was first published in Bellascraps

Flowers and a card

2010-02-20T07:40:00.005Z

The next step from digital designing for me is to use digital images and so on to make my own cards, gift bags, etc. But I am still learning here, and one thing I discovered this week is how to make flowers to decorate cards and so on. Whilst most of you have probably been doing this since you were knee high to a cradle, it is all new to me and I thought I would share with you what I have made.

The first thing to do is to cut out circles for the petals of the flowers. I used my Woodware scalloped circle punch here, which makes a circle with a 2" (5 cm) diameter. You could use a plain circle punch, a circle cutter or just draw round an egg cup or similar to get the circle shape and then cut it out.

I've found that using cardstock for this is too heavy. You can't crumple the petals as well when the paper is heavy and it doesn't look anywhere near as effective. I ended up using tissue paper and punched through several layers at once - I used sheets of tissue paper, tore off a strip from the end of the sheet about 3" wide and then folded it in half. I folded it in half another two or three times making sure it would fit into the punch and I ended up with 8 or 10 scalloped circles depending on how many times I folded the tissue over).

As you can see, I ended up getting carried away with the punching! You need probably between 8 and 10 circles for each flower, although if the paper is heavier, you would need fewer layers. Clip the layers together. I used the ever ready household peg as you can see here, but you could use a paperclip, bulldog clip or whatever you have to hand to keep the petals together:

Then carefully use a pokey tool (or whatever they are called) to put a hole through the centre of the flower.

I apologise in advance for the next photo. I am still getting used to my new camera and holding the camera in one hand and the flower in the other meant I had problems keeping the camera still. As a result, my Fiskars finger tip craft knife (I don't have a pokey tool thingy so usually end up using a craft knife) is in focus but the flower is blurry! Still, at least you can see what I was doing.....

Insert a brad into the hole to keep all the petals together. You need to do this carefully to make sure you do not tear the tissue.

Then scrumple up each petal starting with the top one:

Carry on repeating this with each layer, working you way down to the bottom layer. Leave the bottom layer unscrumpled. You can see how this gradually builds up a realistic looking flower (well, about as realistic as tissue paper can get, anyway!):

And more scrumpling later:

As you can see from this side view, the scrumpling has given the flower some depth:

And in true Blue Peter fashion, here are some I made earlier:

You can then use these flowers for all sorts. One trick is to use left over scraps of paper to make stems, and then you can either use a leaf punch or skeleton leaves for the leaves. They can then be stuck onto patterned or plain paper on a card. You could also use those thin gardening sticks as stems and then stick the flowers on the top and place in a vase or other container.

One of my friends is going into hospital next week so I decided to use the flowers in a card for her. I used some Papermania paper (from the Earth Tones collection) mounted on contrasting paper and stuck the flowers onto some of the flowers on the paper:

I used a docraft stamp for the message, embossed this onto plain white cardstock and then coloured this with watercolour pencils, mounted it onto the plain paper and stuck it onto the card along with decorative ribbon.

Sorry about the colour in the photographs. My office is in the converted garage and there is no natural light in here at all, so taking photos is somewhat of a hit and miss affair colourwise.

Hopefully, she will like the card - provided I remember to post it of course!

I'm hoping to be back later today/tomorrow with some more overlays. I've been out and about using my camera again (well, only out and about into the back garden, but hey, that counts too, surely???!!!!).

In the meantime, happy scrapping!

Overlays freebie

2010-02-13T12:19:00.005Z

Well, I don't know where the time went yesterday as I seemed to be busy all day but achieved nothing! I ended up just pottering around on the computer all afternoon, then had to take DD to Crewe railway station as she is in Manchester this weekend visiting a friend. It;s only the second time I have been to Crewe and the station there is apparently the third worst station in the UK! We got there in plenty of time for the train but managed to spot the station car park on thw way, and then spend at least five minutes getting around the roundabout to go back to the car park!

Of course, we went in the short stay car park where it is free parking for 20 minutes and then £10 for very hour (or part thereof) after that. I thought I would have plenty of time to walk with dd to the station and get back in time but she wanted me to wait whilst she bought her ticket (and of course the queue was horrendous and so slow moving!) as well as escort her down to the platform. It was only when we got to the platform I took out my parking ticket and realised I had 2 minutes to get back to the car park before incurring a £10 charge....I must have looked like a crazy woman running back to the car park, especially considering the road was busy and I had to wait for the lights on the pedestrian crossing to change so I was in a real panic by the time I got back to the car. Then, of course, I couldn't get the car close enough to the ticket machine on the way out, so had to get out of the car to out the ticket in. I managed to get the ticket in at exactly 18:07, 20 minutes after I arrived there, and so escaped the £10 charge, what a relief that was!

Anyhow, I then got back home and finished off the card I started making in the afternoon and here it is

I used Papermania paper and a butterfly punch along with some ribbon and cardstock I already had in and am quite pleased with the results. I'm slowly getting better at making cards but there are so many different techniques and I have so much to learn ;).

This morning, I have been messing around in Photoshop and have finally managed to zip up the overlays I made last week. Here they are along with some freebie papers I made with them:

The above papers are just made using the overlays, changing the blend modes and adding a default Photoshop texture. I've included them in the zipped file along with the png overlay files.

You can download the file here. I'd love to see what you make with these so feel free to post your links below.

I'm off to make lunch for my youngest son now, so happy scrapping.

Overlays and extractions

2010-02-12T06:43:00.002Z

I've been sorting out the office. Well, not sorting as such, more of a tidying up as I had about three feet of tax returns, accounts and other correspondence that I had just filed (ie dumped on one side in a huge pile) and I have now got around to putting them all in files....12 of them! I now need to set up a database and list them all in there so I can find everything without having to plough through 12 lever arch files every time. Oh. the joys of running an office, I can't wait!

I have spent some time photoshopping though, and currently have a few overlays and some extractions to share, but need to zip them up and upload them to 4shared. I am hoping to get this done later today but I have a very important appointment at the hairdressers for my bi-annual perm this morning (!!!!), so may not get chance to post anything before I go.

See you later!

Quick update

2010-02-04T11:19:00.005Z

Where does the time go? It seems eons since I was last here and I am now absolutely exhausted after the January tax return filing deadline. After several nights of not getting to bed until 4 am, and one or two nights of not getting to bed at all, I managed to get all the tax returns in but now need to take this week off to recover!

We've been shopping at Ikea, bought a great new shelving unit for my office, spend quite a bit more than I intended on craft stuff (and oh, boy, I bought a heat tool and it is awesome...I have been wanting to learn how to emboss for some time and it is brilliant!) and our eldest son is coming round shortly to finally finish off my Heavenly Crafts website!!! That means, of course, that I hope to be selling stuff shortly so will be moving my designs to the website. If you want to grab anything now whilst it is free, please do so :).

I'm also considering becoming a demonstrator for a stamp company and selling their stamps on my website. what do you think? Is this something anyone would be interested in (buying stamps I mean!)? It would have to be for UK customers only at present due to delivery costs though, should I go ahead with this?

Anyhow, I'm off to do some major sorting out in the office now, plus do some photoshopping as I have really missed that these past few weeks. In the meantime, I am leaving you with a quick look at the card I made last night:

I used the Martha Stewart pop up butterfly punch for the edging. This was one of the things I treated myself to after all the hard work in January! The teddy bear was from a stamp (also a treat!) which I stamped onto white card and then embossed, and coloured in using watercolour pencils. The background paper is from my stash and I can't remember where I got it,but it might be Dovecraft if anyone is interested.One of my boys said it was the best card I had ever made, although considering some of my efforts, that is not necessarily saying an awful lot!

Happy scrapping!

January desktop

2010-01-02T08:08:00.006Z

Happy New Year!!!

Well, it seems an age since I was last here, so apologies for that. December and January are my busiest times of the year for work. We have a 31 January tax return filing deadline here in the UK, and as a self employed accountant, I have masses of returns to do. I end up working through Christmas, the New Year and keeping very late/early hours as I struggle to get everyone's accounts done.

Did you have a lovely Christmas and celebrate the New Year in style? We had a very quiet Christmas spent with the family, which was really lovely. At the moment, our eldest son and his girlfriend are here (but I think they go back today), middle son is home from Uni until next week sometime and daughter is away in Manchester visiting a friend. The boys are really disappointed not to have had more snow. We had about 2 mm last night and it has now frozen over so that walking from the house into my office (aka the garage!) is like walking on an ice rink, even though I only have to walk a few feet! And what's more, because we only had a little bit of snow, I haven't been able to take many photos as it disappeared so quickly, and I had a brand new camera for Christmas, something I have been wanting for absolutely ages!! David Bailey, watch out, because here I come!!!!

I've been practising with my camera (there are so many buttons and dials I only know what two of them are for!) and taken pictures of grass, snow, wood, plants, bricks as I am determined to get some decent textures to use in creating background papers. So watch out for those at some point in the future! But realistically, I won't get any designing time in this month as work is hectic. I have about 40 tax returns to do plus umpteen sets of accounts to go with them, so I have no free time at all.... :(.

I did squeeze in an hour yesterday though, and managed to create a desktop.

It's only 1280 by 1024 and personal use only I am afraid but I have included in the zipped file:

My own desktop with the photo of the swans on the frozen canal;
Two png files, one with the black mask and the other with the mask deleted;
The mask file; and
The psd file.

That way, you can either select the black mask or transparent mask area (you'll need to keep Ctrl pressed down to select it all). Then copy and paste your photo as a new layer above the mask area and clip it to the mask area (Layer>Create clipping mask). Alternatively, use the psd file. Feel free to download it here.

Happy scrapping! I'm off to do a VAT return now, exciting stuff, eh?!!!

December desktop

2009-12-01T17:08:00.004Z

Well, as promised, I am (finally) back with the December desktop which, to be honest, was only finished this morning. It was made using a background paper from my contribution to the Bellisima collab kit, a restyled frame from the same kit, my robin from last Christmas, and a tree made over the weekend.

If you like this, then you can download it here. Personal use only I am afraid but I have included the png file so you can insert your own photos as well as the jpeg using the photos I took last of the swans stuck in ice (don't worry, the ice had melted sufficiently two hours later to enable them to get out!) . Oh, and the size is 1280 x 1024 - sorry, but work is just too busy at the moment to make other sizes.

Happy scrapping!

Thank you card

2009-11-29T16:00:00.006Z

Well, as I may have mentioned before I have started making all my own cards now and this is a thank you card I made last night:

The photos aren't particularly brilliant as the lighting here in the office leads much to be desired but at least they give you an idea of what is was like. I used some flowery paper I had in (probably either Laura Ashley, Papermania or Dovecraft), a butterfly that I had on my hard drive but I don't know who created it originally (all I did was print it on glossy photo paper and cut it out!), some skeleton leaves and flowers made using a punch. The "Just to say" is a small stamp from a set of gardening stamps my mum gave me!

I was really pleased with the overall effect ;). I'm gradually finding out the type of things I prefer doing and developing a style for cards (and digital kits) but I never seem to have enough time to do anything much really! So it was lovely yesterday to have some time to squeeze a bit of card making in!

Of course, having tidied up my craft desk last week, it now needs tidying up all over again! I find it impossible to make anything without leaving loads of bits of paper, ink smudges and all sorts everywhere. I am still finding glitter on my desk from two weeks ago and I know I cleared all that away!

I'm in the process of making a December desktop (I'm actually early for once!) so hope to be back later today or tomorrow with it. Trouble is, I have to finish a set of accounts first! O, the joys of being self employed!

Delirious - final tour

2009-11-28T10:26:00.005Z

Well, I had a wonderful time yesterday! As some of you may already know, Delirious, the band, is splitting up and are currently on their final tour. I went with a friend last night to see them play at the O2 Academy in Birmingham and had an amazing time!

We managed to get to Birmingham in plenty of time, but then had trouble actually finding the O2 Academy as it had moved across town to new premises. It is now in the old Dome nightclub, and since the only time I have ever been there was when my husband and I were courting (over 25 years ago!), I couldn't remember exactly where it was! Well, we found it in the end and stood at the back of a very long queue but soon found ourselves in the building.

The Cutting Edge Band came on first, dressed in wigs, baseball caps and old zipped jackets, and there were lots of comments about being on tour with those great guys, Delirious. then later, when Delirious came on, there were similar comments about how good it was to be with the Cutting Edge Band again! All very ironic considering the Cutting Edge Band is the former name of Delirious, hence the wigs and so on!

The music was wonderful, and the crowd fantastic. I have been to see Queen, Coldplay and the Fray, but this was even better because not only did you have a brilliant band, you had the presence of God there too! Awesome!

Apologies for the quality of the video. We were actually not too far from the stage, but my camera did a reverse zoom lens thingie on me and made everything look smaller than it really was.......

If you haven't been to see Delirious, then you should really try and get tickets, although most of them seem to have sold out. Delirious is one of the biggest Christian bands and definitely worth seeing as you may never have another chance to see them live.

OK, I am off to prepare our church notices and hopefully, I will be able to get some photoshopping in today as I have plans to make a 2010 planner and three advent calendars, as well as a thank you card for a beautiful scarf I was given earlier this week. the very same scarf that is around my neck as it is absolutely freezing here in my office being 55 F or 13C...I think I need to get my fingerless gloves on whilst I'm waiting for the office to heat up!

Oh, and if you fancy making a 2010 planner, take a look at:

The Amy Hutchinson planner can be found here (on sale at the moment with 20% off (so grab it quick!) although the price reduction doesn't show up until you put it into your shopping cart) and the free planner and pages from Brenda Arnall is here. I spent ages trying to find planners to download on the internet and these were the best of the ones I found. DIYplanner.com also has free downloadable pages too.

Ok, I am definitely going now and if I have time after everything else has been done, I will try to get back with a freebie sometime over the weekend.

Happy scrapping!

Scenic overlays freebie

2009-11-14T08:19:00.006Z

Well, yet again it seems to have been an age since I blogged but I have been busy (honest!). We had our church conference last weekend and it was amazing! Plus our middle son was back from St Andrews for a few days and it was lovely to have him home, even though he reverted into his typical teenage ways as soon as he walked through the door! Oh, the joys of having a teenage boy in the house..... ;)

Apart form that, I have really been doing nothing but working and this week has involved several late nights trying to get accounts finished, or at least finished in enough of a state to be able to go and discuss them with clients. I did, however, manage to squeeze in some time to do some photoshopping, although I must admit, this time was straddled over a two week period. And this is what I came up with:

These are overlays you can use to make your own papers (CU ok!) and were created using photos taken:

in the Peak district (the two left hand overlays);
the canal where I park my car before church on Sundays (top right hand overlay); and
a view of Ironbridge Gorge (bottom right overlay).

You can download them here.Feel free to use them as you will, just don't claim them as your own. I'd love to see what you come up with using these as well!

Happy scrapping :).

O land, O land, O land, hear the word of the Lord

2009-11-14T08:18:00.000Z

O land, O land, O land, hear the word of the Lord (taken from Jeremiah 22:29)

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land (NIV).

A member of our church was out shopping earlier this week and kept having the phrase "the devil is in the detail" running through her head whilst she was at the checkout at the supermarket. She felt very strongly that she should go sit and read a newspaper, so went and had a cup of coffee and took the only newspaper that was in the rack, The Independent.

It was as if God was directing her thoughts and her eyes as after reading one or two articles, she was told to "keep going, keep going". She carried on reading and then on page 9 of the newspaper came across an article on the Copenhagen global climate summit which will take place 7-18 December 2009. The article was headed "Bureaucrats clash on shape of climate deal" but what really caught her eye was the by line:

"The devil is in the detail ahead of next month's summit, as representatives of 192 countries struggle to reconcile their often conflicting priorities. Michael McCarthy reports"

**********************

Genesis 2:15 (NIV) The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it

From the time the earth was created, it has been man's responsibility to work the earth and take care of it. There has been a great deal of concern in recent years about carbon emissions and the effect these are having on the atmosphere. The fourth report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published in early 2007 and this said that there is no longer any doubt that the earth is warming, and that there is a 90% chance this is caused by man. If this continues, then according to the report, the global average temperature could rise by as much as 4C (or even in the extreme case, 6C) by 2100, which would, in effect, make human life on Earth impossible.

In 1997, an internationally binding treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, was signed by 184 countries and subsequently ratified by them all. This treaty commits the rich industrialised nations to quantified cuts in their carbon emissions by a given date, and it is legally binding in international terms. The USA also signed the Protocol but has not ratified it, since President George W Bush withdrew the USA from Kyoto in 2001 as his administration considered it gave an unfair advantage to China.

Kyoto did not go far enough, however, as the cuts are insufficient to reduce the anticipated global warming and unless the agreement is renewed, it will run out by 31 December 2012. At a subsequent UN climate conference held in Bali in December 2007, it was agreed to negotiate a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol to give a "second commitment period" for member states to undertake emissions cuts, from 2013. It also agreed to work towards a wholly new climate treaty, which would:

○ involve the US;

○ oblige China, India and the other developing countries to cut their own emissions;

○ compensate the developing countries for doing this; and

○ set a very ambitious level of new medium-term targets for the rich countries, in an attempt to hold the warming to below the danger threshold of C above the pre-industrial level.

The EU, including Britain, want to have a new treaty based on the Bali action plan which would be legally binding and with a compliance mechanism and international rules for carbon accounting. The USA, however, wants nothing to do with Kyoto or its architecture. It has put forward a wholly new model for a climate deal in which countries would set out what they are going to do without being bound by international compliance regimes, or international carbon accounting. The developing countries, collectively known as the G77+China, are insistent that the Kyoto Protocol be renewed, and its rich country member states sign up for new emissions cuts from 2013 onwards . Three potentially opposing viewpoints. Any deal on carbon emissions and funding for developing countries to enable them to cope with the changing climate needs to be both strong and fair. Bureaucratic detail should be the last thing that prevents an agreement to save the planet from climate change.

For more details, see:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/bureaucrats-clash-on-shape-of-climate-deal-1817259.html

And

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/britain-rules-out-climate-treaty-at-summit-1815728.html

**********************

God made the world for us, chose us before He even created the world and all that is in it so that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:

Ephesians 1:4

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight (NIV).

Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love (The Message).

His deep desire for a people to love came first. Then a world for them to live in was created. And with the world He gave us all that we needed: the night to rest, the day to wander, water to drink, seed bearing plants, fruit bearing trees, the sun, the moon and the stars, fish, birds, and animals. What an awesome testimony of His love for us.

We are called as Christians to care for others, to care for the world that God created, and yet here we are on the path to heating up the world so it is inhabitable for mankind. This is something that we as a church, as a body of believers, should pray about. We desperately need to turn to God, to seek His will, and ask for Him to move in this situation. We are destroying the very land that He gave us through our behaviour, our lack of regard for the environment, our disregard for others and our continued determination to make sure our own countries are not penalised in some way. We have raped and pillaged God's planet for long enough. This should not about the bottom line. We are all at fault here. We cannot point the finger at our governments, at the industrialised nations, at world powers, at our neighbours. We are all to blame.

There is very little time between now and the start of the summit on 7 December, so please, please pray about the summit, however you may be led. The devil is in the detail here, and he is at work creating havoc, causing the nations to disagree, creating disharmony and strife. There is a spirit of mischief at work, designed to sidetrack the summit and take the earth off course.

We need to pray that God will be at work in the leaders, politicians and civil servants taking part in the summit, that there will be a real spirit of harmony, a genuine desire to reach a compromise and reconciliation and not a spirit of territorialism, of protectionism as countries seek to do as little as possible so as to protect their foreign trade and their own industries and economies. We have a corporate need to humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways. Then He will hear from heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land.

But one church cannot do this on its own, it needs all churches, not just the church here in the UK, but the worldwide church. We have a God given mandate to look after the earth and all that is in it, so please, forward this email to your friends, family, brothers and sisters in Christ to mobilise the global church to prayer. We need to seek God’s will here and ask for his Spirit to be at work before, during and after the summit. This prayer request needs to hit as many inboxes as possible in as many countries as possible in the next 24 days (at the time of writing) so that the church is actively seeking God’s will on this matter and praying for all involved. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16). Like the widow in Luke 18 who kept going to the judge for justice, we need to seek God’s face. Now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. Luke 18:7-8 (NASB)

Bellascraps: Bellasima

2009-11-09T05:57:00.006Z

I am really excited as I have recently taken part in a charity collaboration kit and it has now been released! It's in aid of Chris Turnbull and full details can be found here.

Please do go along to Bellascraps and have a look at the kit. There are, 15 designers, 43 papers,. 75 elements and 1 alpha all for an amazing price of $4.99! there are actually no detailed previews, but my part of the kit is as follows:

Please excuse my spelling on the preview - I had the wrong name for the kit and didn't realise until after it was released!

Finally, I haven't yet had chance to write that tutorial on masks, but it is on my to do list (along with six million other things!) and I will get around to it, I promise :).

Happy scrapping.

Update and freebie masks

2009-10-28T19:55:00.006Z

Well, yet again time seems to have flown by and I don't know where it has gone too! I reckon if I were more organised, life wouldn't pass me by in such a blur because I honestly do not know where each day goes!

I have been busy with work, mainly because it is almost the end of the month and I was desperate to get work done so I could bill clients and get the money in to pay bills! I have found that a lack of money is a great incentive in making me get some work done! That is the problem with being self employed though - you are responsible for getting the clients in the first place, doing the work, sending the bills out, chasing up payment.... if you take a day off, you have to make up the time by working extra hours, and as for having a week off, well that is why I always take my laptop with me! Not that, unfortunately, I end up getting much work done!

I am currently waiting for clients to pay some not insubstantial bills and unfortunately, I cannot force them to pay me by the end of the week, much as I would like to. Some take as much time as possible to pay, coming up with numerous excuses.....mind you, I suppose that is somewhat like me coming up with excuses as to why I haven't done their accounts or tax return... ;(.

My daughter and I went to see Ludovico Einaudi play at Symphony Hall in Birmingham last night. This is part of his "Nightbook" tour and he was amazing. I love his music, it is so relaxing and soothing, but last night it was unbelievable! Never having been to something like that before, neither of us knew what to expect, but it was wonderful! I would definitely recommend that you go see him play if you can, or failing that, listen to his music:

And you would not believe how long it took me to work out how to embed that video!

I've not had much time to do any photoshopping, unfortunately, but I did manage to have a go at making my own masks:

There seems to be a trend at the moment for using masks but when I looked around and saw what was on offer, I thought "I could do that" so I went and did it! I'm thinking of doing a tutorial on making masks, so if any of you would be interested in this, let me know. Otherwise, feel free to download the mask set HERE.

Happy scrapping!

Settling in and freebie

2009-10-13T05:11:00.000+01:00

Well, Sam seems to be settling in at St Andrews now and we don't seem to be using the family alert system any more i.e. when one of us is concerned, we contact one of Sam's siblings and get them to text/messenger/phone him so's not to appear too worried! Maybe Sam has seen through this ruse though, as I am on messenger to him, he says something to me and I get big brother to ring him!

As for the rest of the family, we are getting used to the peace! Now that there is no one playing Call of Duty, Storm Force, and the like, the house is so much quieter! What's more, Sam can't bring his computer home at Christmas so no shoot 'em up games then, either!

I've not had time to do much designing - things are starting to get busy work wise and I have had a lot to do the past few weeks. This weekend is likely to be busy too as I am off to help out at The Presence, the national day of prayer at the NEC. If you should be going, come along to the Release International stand and say hello! I can then tell you all about persecuted Christians ion Eritrea - I think it is amazing how people never get to here of the persecution going on in other countries. It is almost as if there is a conspiracy in the press not to report it, but there are some real horror stories out there and I am in awe of the faith of persecuted Christians, how they carry on witnessing despite incredible hardship and danger.

Anyway, turning back to designing, I have managed to put together all the spare stuff I made for my Arbour Winds kit that I ended up not using. It has actually made a mini kit and here are the previews:

And yes, I've just noticed that there are no titles on the close up preview and since I have closed down Photoshop and now have to go and do breakfasts for the guys followed by the school run, I stand no chance of updating this.... Oh well.

To download the mini kit, click HERE.

Happy Scrapping!

SAS Designer challenge

2009-09-23T06:11:00.000+01:00

Well, I must obviously be getting used to the weekly deadline, as I have now started the SAS Designer Challenge for those eliminated from the contest. I must be a glutton for punishment, especially since I drove 800 miles in 60 hours to take our middle son up University in Scotland over the weekend....

I thought when he went to University, it would be easier (on the heart) than when our eldest went. but if anything, it seems worse! Of course, time dims the memory and you tend to gloss over the bad things, so perhaps I'm forgetting the worry and concern we have when our eldest went to Uni, although I do recall several weekends where either we went up to see him, or he came down her.... But he was less than 2 hours away, whereas Sam is 8 hours away.... So maybe it's the distance, because we probably won't see him again until Christmas; maybe it is because I went to the same University and went through exactly what he is going through right now; maybe it's just because I love him and miss him and know he is having a hard time settling in. I reckon he will be a lot better when lectures start next week, as he will meet the others on his courses.

Until then, it is a case of getting to know people in his hall and trying to find a friendly face to talk to. Of course, having a roommate who is totally inconsiderate, always has people round and has already had people sleeping on the floor overnight (totally against regulations) when they spent a considerable time talking about Sam when they thought he was asleep is not helping either....

But St Andrews is a beautiful place and a wonderful University as you can see from the photos below.

This is one of his room, or at least his half of the room:

This is the view form the top of St Rule's tower. The grey semi circular building in the centre is the Hall of Residence where my son is staying.

The cathedral ruins:

The view from near the West Sands overlooking the town:

The castle:

Looking back up at the castle from the beach!

The Quad:

Sorry the photos are a bit dark. It was cloudy and overcast for most of the time and whilst I have tried to lighten the pictures, they actually look better on my screen than they do here on this blog!

So, whilst Sam is settling in, I've been busy designing my kit for the Designer Club challenge. We were given the colour swatch to start off with, the theme was boys and I had an awful time trying to decide what to do! The challenge was to create everything from scratch (no CU!) and since I take loads of photos (much to the dismay of my children as I keep making them wait while I take photos when we are out !) that wasn't a problem. My problem was what to actually put in the kit to make it useable... Anyhow, this is what I ended up with:

And here's the close up:

Let me know what you think. You can either download it following the links at the SAS gallery HERE or direct from 4shared HERE.

Happy scrapping!

2009-09-17T13:28:00.000+01:00

Butterfly overlay

OK, well voting ends today in the SAS Designer contest round 2 and I reckon I haven't got through :(. Oh well, the first three rounds were all about getting people to vote for you anyway, rather than how good a designer you are. I know I'm not one of the best designers in the world, but I know I can come up with good stuff and I am by no means the worst. Looks like the way to get my own designs selling is to open up my own website and since this is being done even as I write this, I will just have to twist my son's arm even further up his back to hurry him along!

If you do feel like voting for me (and all votes are gratefully appreciated :), just follow the links in the post below to take you to the SAS forum where you will need to register first (if you aren't already registered), then wait for the email from the administrator to activate your account, then wait for the moderator to approve your account and then, finally, after all that, you can vote! What a palaver, eh?!!!

In the meantime, here is the overlay I used to make the butterfly paper in my Best Friends kit (my entry for round 2):

This is how it looked when I used it to make a paper:

You can download the overlay HERE and the download links for the papers in my kit can be found HERE.

Happy scrapping!

SAS-y Designer Contest - Voting no

2009-09-15T22:34:00.000+01:00

Just to let you all know that voting has now begun in Round 2 of the SAS Designer contest. Obviously, I would much prefer you to vote for me ;), but the polls are here:

Register Here: http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.com/forum/
View and Download Here: http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=978
Go Here to Vote: http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5902

There are some gorgeous kits there and they are all downloadable. Just go along and have a look and then take a couple of minutes to vote for your three favourite kits (even if mine isn't one of them ;)).

SAS-y Lady Designer Contest Round 2

2009-09-15T18:29:00.000+01:00

Well, I meant to get back here well before now to let you all know that I managed to scrape it through to round 2 of the SAS-y Lady Designer contest! Woohoo!!!! This is the first time ever I have got through to Round 2 of a designer contest so thank you to all those who voted for me :).

Life has been busy since the results were announced as one of my boys is off to University on Friday and so there has been all the preparation involved in that, making sure he has everything he needs. He's off to Scotland, so will be about 350 miles away and we won't see him after Sunday until Christmas, sob! I am hoping and praying he gets on all right as the first few weeks are always hard when you try to settle in, meet new friends and start lectures. He's doing a joint degree, maths and computer science, so of course I am expecting him to be able to solve all of my computer problems in no time at all. But he keeps telling me it's not that sort of a course....well, I am sure he will pick up all sorts of useful computer problem solving information on the way so will be able to fix my 'puter no matter what! He just has to prepare himself now for all those long distance phone calls when I can't get the internet to work or my computer crashes!

Anyhow, back to the SAS designer contest and round 2 is due in at 3 pm EST. I have just finished uploading my kit and here are the previews:

You can download it here so please go along and take a look. There are also lots of other wonderful kits in the gallery, all of them available to download.

Voting starts soon so I will be back to let you have the links for this shortly. If you like my kit, please consider voting for me as it really would be quite something if I got through to the next round. I don't think I will, but hey, a girl can always hope!

Happy scrapping!

SAS Designer contest 2009

2009-09-08T11:35:00.000+01:00

Just a reminder to check out this Week's kits in the SAS Designer Competition.

Register Here: http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.com/forum/
View and Download Here: http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.c...ry.php?cat=964
Go Here to Vote: http://www.stoneaccentsstudioforum.c...ead.php?t=5782

There are some wonderful designs there and all the kits are free downloads. Voting finishes tomorrow (Wednesday 9 September) at midnight EST, so go over and vote for your favourite designer (even if it isn't me, ;)).

Cluster frame freebie

2009-09-08T06:51:00.000+01:00

Well, it's finally come around, the day my youngest son goes back to school! Woohoo! Does it make me an unnatural mother to be glad?!!! I'm torn really, since whilst it is good for him to be at school, the hassle of the school run can be a real pain as I have to travel six miles in one direction, then reverse the journey, go past our home and travel six miles the opposite way to take our daughter to work. It's like an expedition every morning trying to get everyone out of the house on time and today, being the first day back after the holidays, the traffic will be so much worse. Oh well at least it should be quiet in the house today!

Anyhow, before I start preparing breakfasts, making packed lunches and getting everyone (including myself) organised, here is the cluster frame I made when doing the QP's at the weekend:

Feel free to download it HERE and let me know what you think :).

Happy scrapping!

Quick Pages freebie

2009-09-07T06:59:00.001+01:00

I'm off to make breakfast for my children in a few minutes before going to see a prospective client and just have time to post this before I get everything ready.

I managed to get some scrapping time in yesterday and made these two pages with my kit from the SAS-y Designer Contest:

I've made them into quick pages and, as promised earlier, you can download them HERE.

Happy scrapping!

SAS-y designer contest - voting open

2009-09-07T05:49:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post to let you know that voting in the SAS-y Lady Designer Contest has now opened. You can look at the entries HERE and vote HERE.

I'll be back shortly with two quick pages created with my kit for the contest ;).

SAS-y Lady Contest

2009-09-06T08:25:00.000+01:00

Well, I actually managed to finish my entry to the SAS-y designer competition last night (well, strictly, it was early this morning as it was just gone midnight when I uploaded it!). That must be a first for me, to finish something well before the deadline (3pm EST today)! I normally lurch from one deadline to another and spend my life fighting fires, metaphorically speaking.

Anyhow, do you want to take a look at what I came up with? Well, here it is, Arbour Winds:

The colour swatch we were given is not necessarily one I would have chosen myself, but I ended up really enjoying working with it as it was a challenge to come up with something that didn't look like many other kits you see these days. I used some CU stuff, but the flowers you see in the close up here are mine, all mine (insert evil chuckle here, lol!) as I took the photos and extracted them, so can't blame anyone else for any loose pixels and whatnot in those!

I ended up making far too much to go into the kit, so there will definitely be freebies coming soon! I just need to find the time to sort them out and upload them! A surprising amount of time is always taken up when designing anything in just making a preview, uploading and posting so it's not just a quick two minute job.

So why don't you all nip on over to the Stone Accents Studio and take a look at what all the contestants have come up with? The gallery can be found by CLICKING HERE. All the kits are being offered as freebies and the download links are in the gallery. There's an amazing range of kits and styles considering we all started off with the same five colours so I am sure you will find plenty there to help build your stash!

Voting doesn't begin until later today, so I will let you have that link as soon as I get it - obviously I am hoping you will vote for me ;). Roughly half of us (probably this includes me, lol!) will be eliminated in this first round. You have to be registered in the SAS forum to vote, so please don't let that put you off and just get out there and vote (even if it's not for me ;))!

OK, I'm off to finish printing our church notices now as I only have an hour now before church. And yes, it probably is leaving it a bit late but I always end up printing them off at this time on a Sunday. I just don't know where the time goes!

Happy scrapping!

September desktop

2009-09-02T06:10:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was busy - the first "real" day back at work after a holiday is always hectic and yesterday was no exception. I seemed to have millions of phone calls when normally the phone hardly rings at all. I even had one very nice gentleman from Google ring me up asking me if I wanted to take out a month's trial on google search engine (only £3.30 a day plus VAT!!!) and when after several minutes of me saying I didn't want to take out any more advertising at this time, he slammed the phone down. I don't know who he was, but slamming the phone down on me is definitely not the way to get my business, especially as I was perfectly polite to him. He must have either been having a lot of refusals that day or was totally stressed out after the Bank Holiday weekend!

Anyhow, despite being busy, trying to get my own accounts finished for once (!!!!), I managed to make a September desktop using my part of the ADSDesigners School Daze blog train:

I am afraid it is only in one size (1280 x 1080) but hey, one size can be made to fit all, eh? Just like those trousers in the Colour Purple?!!! If you really need it in a different size, just let me know and I will see what I can do ;). Oh, and in case you are wondering, the birds will be offered as a freebie hopefully sometime later this week (depending on work commitments as I do have a large set of accounts to get done for Friday so time is at a premium at the moment) - I just didn't have room for them in the original zipped file of the kit.

To download the desktop, CLICK HERE.

Happy scrapping!