Happy New Year! Freebie Card Just For You

Happy New Year! The new year is creeping up on us quickly. I did not have time this year to even create, print, and send Christmas cards. I did, however, create this FREE printable New Year card for you.

Please download the link to the free card here:
Click Here For The Free Card

The file is a flattened image, 300 pixels/inch. The image size is 5.5 inches by 4.25 inches.
Instructions to create your own cards:
1. Download card.
2. Print the image.
3. Cut a piece of white, heavy cardstock to 11 inches by 4.25 inches.
4. Score the cardstock strip in half so it measures 5.5 inches by 4.25 inches (the same size as the card).
5. Use two sided tape or Glue Dots to secure the card to the front of your cardstock.

Any adhesive will do, but I listed my favorites above. This card size is standard and easy to find envelopes for. I visit my nearest dollar store and buy a large pack of invitations or thank you cards. If you find some cards that are blank inside, and white on the outside, you can adhere this whole freebie card to the front of one, and skip the cutting cardstock steps above! Either way you create the card, my point is that you can purchase a set of envelopes to fit your Happy New Year card in a snap!

This card is for personal use only, and I have received permission from Jeanine DeOre to use her designs. The card was created with elements and papers from the Happy New Year kit by Jeanine DeOre at ScrapMatters.com.

Click here to view the entire kit in the Scrap Matters shop.

Love: My Wedding DayMemories

I love remembering my wedding day.

Tuesday Template Freebie WM2 12.21.10, CK Heritage Font, White paper Happy New Year Kit by Jeanine DeOre (*new release), Tan paper and alpha I'm Your kits by Brittish Designs and DeCrow Designs, flowers and leaves Ohana kit by Brittish Designs, Beach Girl tab by Vinnie Pierce, and overlay by Joanne Brisebois.

New Year's Eve- January 1, 2010

Another layout with New Year kit by Jeanine De Ore of ScrapMatters.com.

Click to see the kit in the shop and see the rest of Jeanine DeOre's collection.

The Happy New Year Collection by Jeanine DeOre at ScrapMatters.com

This new kit is now available at Scrap Matters.
Click here. Kit on sale for a limited time because it is a new release.

Please click here to visit my Gallery. You can leave me a comment about my layout. View all my recent layouts.

The photo in the layout above was taken by Amber K. at our New Year's Eve celebration at her home December 31, 2009-January 1, 2010. We had a great time. It was the first year the girls were all WIDE awake at midnight! That night, we created yet another wonderful family memory.

Peace On Earth-New Release 12/10/2010

Need some peace? Fortunately for me, today is my day off and I have time to create with this beautiful holiday kit Peace on Earth by Jeanine DeOre. A matching Word Art kit, Peace On Earth by Jeanine DeOre- The Words is available.

This is my new favorite Christmas kit because the colors reflect those that match my taste and holiday photos. The paper reminds me of Basic Grey but better. Jeanine has her own paper lines sold exclusively at various stores including Costco.

Read more about Jeanine DeOre on her blog: CLICK HERE

The deer embellishment will work well with my camping photos too. I will be posting my layouts throughout this weekend so keep checking back for inspiration! I just got the kits because they were just released. Reminder, the kits are on sale at the links below for a short time. Every Friday, Jeanine releases new creations and new releases are 20% off for the first few days only!

Peace On Earth by Jeanine De Ore- The Kit: Click Here

Matching alpha in The Kit, alpha does not come with the word art and is not currently sold separately.

Peace On Earth-The Words Word Art: Click Here!

Vintage cards for projects, decoupage art or homemade cards, new release today as well.

Click here for a closer look at the cards. This is set 2 Faith, there are two other sets. Check them out!

The paper reminds me of Basic Grey but better. Jeanine has her own paper lines sold exclusively at various stores including Costco. I am happy to announce I am a new Creative Team member for Jeanine De Ore sold at ScrapMatters.com. Here designs are amazing so continue to check back for new products and ideas. We have a few hybrid and traditional papers scrappers on the team as well. I will be sharing their creations here with you as well in the near future.

Read more about Jeanine DeOre CLICK HERE

May you find peace in your day! My kids are at school today and I have literal peace and quiet for a few hours, lucky me! I have these opportunities maybe once a month, GO ME!

Edit: Here is my layout below.

Comfort (Freebie Alert!)

With the cooler, fall weather upon us, I have collected hot chocolate, Throat Coat tea (to sooth sore throats), sweaters, blankets, and Duraflame logs! It is time for sweater weather! I used the new kit Comfort by Stacy's Backdoor Designs to create a page to document a sweet, simple day in the life of my family. The photos in my layout below were taken in October of 2009.

The layout above was created by Sarahm172 who is another design team member on Stacy's Back Door Designs team with me. 

Click HERE to visit Stacy's shop!

Good news! The Comfort kit is FREE for a limited time!!!

Click HERE to visit Stacy's blog to grab your own freebie to start off your new fall 2010 digital scrapbook kit collection!

What's New?: Britt-ish Designs Shop

I breathed a sigh of relief this evening to see that Brittish Designs has finally opened up a website! I thought I was going to have to wait until tomorrow, August 27, 2010 for the offical grand opening. The anticipation has been overwhelming which is truely a sign that I need some serious help with my digital scrapbooking addiction.

Ten years ago, my best friend Michelle told me over the phone that she was addicted to this new creative outlet call scrapbooking. I live on the East Coast and she lived on the West Coast so I was not really convinced by phone that this is something truely addicting until I tried it for myself a year later.

 I have found out that buying scrapbook kits with gorgeous papers and embellishments fulfills my needs for scrapbooking. Creating the layout is just half of the fun. The other half is the collecting of goodies, you know, building my stash of elements like squirrels gathering acorns. I began digital scrapbooking a yeaer ago and fell in love with it. No more glue, no mor carrying around heavy boxes of papers and tools, and no more waste! With digital, I can re-do and re-use all of my work!

 Once I discovered kits by Brittish Designs, I realized many of her creations are must haves for my collection. A year ago, I thought the paper and hybrid scrapbooking attraction made sense. We all had tangible items to buy and collect. I did not realize this could translate over to digital images as well!

Check out Britt's store, blog, shop, and gallery of her own. I find it much easier to browse the kits and the layout gallery here compared to the shop she formerly sold her products in.

Here is a page I made with a Britt-ish Designs and Sahlin Studio collab kit Land of Fantasy. The template is Juno Designs Xmas freebie. (click here for BrittishDesigns.com)

Are you an avid digital scrapbooker or did you just get lost and land here on my blog by chance?!

Vintage Disney: California Adventure

Layouts created with Vintage Carnival kit by shalin Sutdio and Jennifer Barrette (http://www.scrapmatters.com/) The Paradise Pier portion of Califronia Adventure is being redesigned to have the look and feel of a victorian era carnival. The pier is currently designed to resemble California's boardwalks and piers. There are games, shops, fun food like conr dogs and giant turkey legs, and of course, great thrill rides! My husband and I took the girls to Disnely and and California Adventure for their first time last July.

Fun: Circles of Summer

Hello, I added some accents to my Fourth of July page. This is an exclusive sneak peek from a kit being released soon. These rings of font came from the Circles of Summer kit by Stacy's Backdoor Designs. Check out my before (without the circles of font) and after layouts! I think the round elements and summer fun phrases add to the overall feel of the layout.

Try them for yourself!

I spent the night with great friends last night. We scrapbooked just like old times! Some of the girls scrapped "old school" paper or made cards.  I was one of the few digital scrapbooking. It was my first experience at a crop with a mixture of paper vs. digital scrappers. I enjoyed it but the paper scrappers who had no idea what was going on in Photoshop for the digi side did not get much out of it! Do you and your scrapping circle of friends all scrap using paper or digi or both?

Stay tuned for Stacy's Backdoor Designs new creative team announcement this week. A new team has been selected!

July Baby: Jasmine, Happy Birthday!

Our daughter is looking more and more like a young lady and less like a little girl everyday. This picture allows me to dream of the way she will look when she is older. Not that I am in a hurry for her to grow up though! Our luau themed party was a hit, including the two grandmother's and one young cousin doing the hula!

Celebrate: Fourth of July!

Stacy's Backdoor Designs just released a July 4th kit. Click here to take a closer look. On sale now! Get it while it's hot!

Creative: Join The Creative Team I Work With!

Celebrate: Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to an amazing Dad. Commited, dedicated, wise, caring, thoughtful, fun and just plain awesome!!! The photo above was taken Spring of 2007 the girls with their Daddy.

Dad putting suntan lotion on Jasmine, swim lessons summer 2008 (above).

At the wedding last year.

We love you, Daddy!!!

Hope you have a great day,

Anika and Jasmine

Create: Learning Collaging for Canvas

The first 1.5 inches of each side would be wrapped on the side of a canvas. The line on the right hand side of the image will not show since it will be the crease of the canvas. Just posting this online so I can get a better view of it. I am not ready to print to canvas yet. They cost about $100 and I am not that happy with my brush work! Someday.

Here we go...take two:

Getting a little better.

Give Me Direction: Photo Mats (Photoshop Elements)

Hello. I love to mat photos that I place into frames. The color of the mat you select can truly make the photo pop. The same goes for paper or digitial scrapbooking.

Do not forget to mat your photos when you digitally scrap. Once or twice even. Play with different colors under your photo to see which really make it pop. My suggestion, with layouts which have more than one photo, is to select one photo to be the main focal point. Double mat this one (in two different colors). This will unconsciously bring more attention to it.

Here are instructions for matting photos in Photoshop and PSE. (There are a few ways to do it but this way is easiest for me.)

Place your photo wherever you want it, then on a new layer {under your photo}, use your square tool - or circle or whatever shape you like - create a shape. Then drag whatever paper you want your mat to be and put it on the layer above your shape, but below your photo, so your layers should look like this:

photo

paper

shape

With the paper layer selected, hit ctrl+g and it will clip it to the shape you created. Once it's placed how you like it, do ctrl+e to merge the paper and shape layers together.

 

You are finished!

“When one begins to purposefully perform acts of kindness, the spirit changes and soon doing good deeds becomes a focal point for our life; doing good begins to be the same as feeling good. The periods of emptiness when we search for the "meaning of it all" begin to fill with acts of kindness.”
- unknown

Creative: Mermaid Adventures

Finally found time to scrapbook! This photo was taken last week right in my own back yard! It is not always easy to create layouts that are not too feminine when it comes to pictures of my husband and the girls. I used Mermaid Lagoon kit by Britt-ish Designs and the font urania cz for journaling.
I plan to remove this photo, the journaling, the title and create a new layout with photos we may take at Ariel's Grotto this July at California Adventure. Our reservations for next month have been booked at the grotto. Summer has officially started for us so let the adventures begin!
(The kit can be found at Scrapmatters.com) Allow me to confess, I scrap lifted a layout from Britt herself. (Click here to see the layout I scrap lifted and additional layouts made with the kit in the scrapmatters shop.)

Freebie: Feeling Punchy?

Chellow, I found another cute kit by one of my favorite designers Vinnie Pearce called Punch Elements. I can imagine using this for school layouts, summer layouts or just journaling life in general!

Click here to download your free kit. There are a few inspirational layouts found on the download page too. Happy Summer!

Fantastic layout by parrfunkel!

Freebie: Ocean Breeze

Ciao! I found a nice freebie kit on the Two Peas In a Bucket website. The hibiscuis flower is pretty and I bet it can be colored too. Let me see a layout you create with it.

There are also about five layouts made with this kit on this same link as the download area to inspire you.

Click here for Ocean Breeze

(I do not promote or design for this designer or anyother Two Peas designers. I just share!)

Awesome: Sahlin Studios Creative Team Call

What would be greater that digital scrapbooking for fun? Doing it for one of my favorite designers Sahlin Studios! The admin part sounds fun for me...but I work a lot and have kids so someone with  more time on their hands should apply! Her designs are fabo!

Participate in the MouseScrappers.com template challenge Sahlin Studios is hosting here Check out the template....with the Mickey head! SO adorable!

Freebie: Tropical Paradise

This quick page is free from wm squared designs. The bright, summery fun colors are enough to encourage me to spend more time in the sun this weekend, take a few shots of my fam and pop them into this quickie page! Thanks for the great freebie, wm squared designs!

Grab it from her blog right here.
The kit which was used to make this freebie is great. The textured, matted alpha looks very useful. I like the fun factor these summer embellishments have. Stamped palm trees?! Popsicles?! I can NEVER own enough beach and summer themed kits. How about you?

Love this kit (I do not work for or promote for wm squared designs I just love this product.)

Freebie: Digital Scrapbooking

I have no idea who these people are, but I just found some great freebies!

Click here to visit their site

 

Convinced yet?