Slumber Party page 2

I'm on a roll and made progress by completing the 2nd page to Syd's birthday party. Yeah me!

Papers from Royanna Fritschmann's Pajama Party kits.

Sassy Lil Sketches Dec 28th Reveal

Cherie just posted this sketch today (!) on Sassy Lil Sketches and I just loved it. I had to go play and see what I could come up with. This is the sketch ~

And this is what I came up with. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!! Isn't it adorable!!?

All papers and embellishments from Royanna Fritschmann's Pajama Party Kit.

Multi-Purpose Room-Computer, Guest & Scrap Room

We have a 4th bedroom that we put some thought into before setting up. We knew we wanted a guest room, a space for the family computer, a place for me to scrap, a place for me to be able to work at home, and a place for the kids to hang out if the tv was in use downstairs.

WOW ~ that's one busy room!

The picture below is from the doorway looking into the room. You see the trundle bed in front of you, tv to the right and desk/scrap area to the left.

The picture below is from the corner (in the above picture) looking back at the door.

The picture below is from the other end of the bed facing the desk/scrap area. The counter

space to the left is for the home computer and the cabinets above are for our home

office type of stuff. The corner area and to the right is for my work/scrap area.

These are my scrapping cabinets :)

Picture below is the inside of the 2 cabinets above the counter.

This is the top cabinet (part of the tall cabinet) all the way on the right.

This is the bottom cabinet on the right.

This is the top part of the tall cabinet on the left.

This is the bottom part of the tall cabinet on the left.

This is the space between the cabinets. Unfortunately I share the space with some of my work items.

This is a view from the back corner of the room.

Another view of my corner. Don't mind the messy cords...

Thanks for stopping by to look!

A Homemade Christmas Gift - My take on Subway Art

My sister Katie and I decided that this year we would make each other Christmas gifts. I am only slightly crafty, but I can do digital projects! So, going with what I know, I decided to make her my take on Subway Art for her favorite things and then each holiday/season of the year.
They are all 8X10s which I put together in Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (PSE7), and I had them printed as regular jpeg pictures. The colors came out great and they look really cool, if I do say so myself :)

Merry Christmas Katie! :)

The Christmas tree and snowflake are from

Royanna Fritschmann's Christmas Cheer kit.

Paper, Valentine word and You from

Royanna Fritschmann's Love Me Tender kit.

Candy hearts are from Obsidein Dawn.

Paper, flower and tree from Heavenlyscraps' Hippity Hop Page kit.

Paper, stars and fireworks from Amanda Lee's Funky 4th kit.

Paper, beach word, surfn' sand word, sun and flip flops from

Royanna Fritschmann's Summer Sass kit.

Paper, back 2 school word, whatever word, clock and study hall from

So Studious Scrap Kit by Aimee Harrison, Dora Phillips and Chelsea Doudy.

Paper, witch, Halloween letters, cat and spider web from

Royanna Fritschmann's Witches Brew kit.

Paper, happy harvest word, leaf, and fall word from Miss Ms. Designs' Autumn Harvest kit.

The majority of my fonts are from fontfreak.

Inspiration

So, with Sassy Lil Sketches new forum and gallery open, despite all the things I need to get done for Christmas, I was inspired to complete a LO! This is the sassy sketch:

and this is what I came up with using my new pictures taken by my sister Katie:

Papers and embellishments by Amy Bleser, Little Man Kit.

New Family Pics & Sassy Lil Sketches News

I'm so excited I finally updated my blog with Christmas paper and my great new family pictures (on my header)!! My sister Katie took them for me over the weekend. Didn't they come out great?! Thanks Kate!!

I also want to mention that Sassy Lil Sketches now has a site with a gallery and forum! So.Very.Cool! Check them out!!

It's been a while...

I keep seeing all these great sketches on Sassy lil sketches that I want to do, but I've been too crazy to sit still long enough to do some pages. I'm happy to say I did one last night. It was from this sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

Papers and embellishments from Down by the Bay kit from Laura Ping. I bought it at Polka Dot Potatoe, but they no longer sell kits there (bummer, cause they had some really cute stuff!).

Online Sites for Printing 12X12 Digi Pages

I've been doing digi scrapping since Jan of this year. I knew I would want to keep up with my kids paper scrapbooks, but I want to create a printed book for each year. So, this requires that I get some of the 12X12s I've been working on printed. I'm just giving info on the 2 places I've tried so far.

ScrapbooksPlease (SC) - I ordered 14, 12X12 prints, Standard Matte. I paid $.99 a print (sale) and $7.55 shipping = $13.86. Took 3 days to receive by usps.

I liked - the weight of the paper. It feels like a nice card stock. The colors of the papers and elements are great. I learned that a lot of my fonts, embellishments and extras are a little bigger than I like, so it was good to see the scale when printing.

Didn't like - all my pictures are grainy - doesn't matter the size. Also, when it was shipped, it was in a cardboard priority mail envelope. I don't know about your usps delivery person, but if I wasn't here, I have no doubt she would have bent the package to get it in the mailbox. I did sent an email about how grainy my pics were, because after you spend all this time on the pages, you certainly want your pics to look great. Here is their response:

We found most photos on the pages are underexposure. This is why "paper" and "embellishments" look good, but photos not. Please understand that the quality of the image directly impact the quality of its prints. You may adjust the photos to get better print effect when printing the photo alone. However, there is no way to adjust the photo on the scrapbook page image, as it will mess up other elements on the page. The best way is to adjust the photo before putting it on the page and you will have much better effect. Also, choosing premium paper, which is professional photo paper, will significantly improve the print quality. Besides, we also noticed that some photos on the pages are "over-enlarged". This is another reason for the grainy and blurry.

I can't say that I agree with this response, because some of my pics were not cropped at all, and not enlarged at all and they were still grainy. So, I wanted to see if was my pics or the prints so I went to the link from daily digi to see where I could try again. This time I chose Persnickety Prints.

Persnicketyprints (PP)-I ordered 8, 12X12 prints, 2 Pro Glossy, 6 Pro Matte Prints. $1.99 each, $5 shipping = $20.92. Arrived in 3 days by usps.

I liked - the way it was packaged. It was a square card board box - no way to get in the mailbox to be possibly bent. The colors are great!! Really, these prints look phenominal!! The pictures look amazing and there is not 1 that is grainy!! I love both the glossy and the matte! The ones I happened to do glossy were of my dd and they are sooo awesome!

Didn't like - Not so much a didn't like, just wished the paper was a little heavier at first touch.

So, I did happen to get 1 print at both places in matte. While I first thought persnickety prints felt lighter, I think they are the same. The colors in the PP prints are actually better and it took some close looking to see the difference. When you just look at both pages, they look the same. Upon a closer look at the details, the papers from PP stand out way more. For example, I used a off white background paper which has a white pattern in it. It is cleary defined in PP but not so much in SP.

So overall, I'd definitely use Perskicketyprints again. I would not use SP again. I may try others, but since I'm pleased with PP, I'll stick with them a while. And since I'm on their email list, I am notified of sales.

Hope this helps someone out there. Happy Printing!

Page just for Syd ~ and I'm a Winner in Sassy Lil' Sketches Blog Hop!!

Okay, 2 posts in one tonight. First and so fun and exciting ~ I was selected as a Grand Prize Winner in Sassy Lil' Sketches Blog Hop from last week!!! If you happen upon my blog, please go check them out! Thanks Sassy ladies Katie & Cherie!

Second, Sydney had really liked the page I did for Mitchell yesterday, she asked me to do one "just like it" for her. As with most scrappers, I don't normally do one page just like another, but I did this just for Syd! I just changed up the papers and embellishments, but the format was the same. She even gave it her stamp of approval.

This is from the same kit I used yesterday from the August DAD designed by Girlboheme Studios by Aimee Harrison, Dora's Lemon Love Creations and Caged Bird Designs.

I LOVE this page!

I am soooo in love with this page!! The papers and embellishments are from the August Download a Dad (DAD) kit from Divine Digital. I was loving it as I was downloading and I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but it turned out so much better than I thought!! Sydney liked it so much she asked me to do a page like it for her :)

Kit for the DAD designed by Girlboheme Studios by Aimee Harrison, Dora's Lemon Love Creations and Caged Bird Designs. Thanks ladies, love it!

I love sketches and templates!

Apparently I'm inspired by sketches and templates! It really helps me head in the right direction. And since I buy my digital stuff in kits, I don't find myself searching for the right papers, then matching papers, then the embellishments. Have I said how much I like digi scrapping??! I love it!

So, I have a new page today, inspired by the September template challenge by Aimee Harrison at Divine Digital.

As I learn more, I can do neat things like make Mitchell's cake look like an embellishment button! The papers and embellishements are from Royanna Frischmann's, 4 the Boys Sebs Dream Kit.

On a roll

I'm still creating digi pages this week!!! It's been nice to get some pages done over the summer. I used another sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches ~ just love 'em! There was a new sketch posted on Aug 28. This is it ~

and this is what I came up with ~

All papers and embellishments are from the Hello Blue Skies kit from Laura Ping. I picked up the kit at Polka Dot Potato (thanks Kate for sending me the links to this!), which is wonderful, but won't be selling digital kits after 8/30. They are having a huge sale, so go get what you want before they're gone.

Inspired by Sassy Lil' Sketches

Two days in a row! Another page done using a sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches. Their blog hop goes until August 30th. Check 'em out ~ they have lots of great sketches and lot of great scrappers too! This is the sketch ~

and this is my page!

Papers and embellishments from a kit by Graziela Mendes Designs.

New Digi Page & Sassy Lil' Sketches Blog Hop

Sassy Lil' Sketches is having a Sassy Lil’ Sketches “Hidden” Treasures Blog Hop until Aug 30th. I used the sketch below.

And this is what I came up with~

I'm loving the Team Divine, Let's Go Fly a Kite Mega Kit!! I've used it for a few LOs cause I just love the colors, papers and embellishments! It can be found at Divine Digital.

Birthday Invitation in Photoshop

I am getting more comfortable using Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (PSE 7), so I thought I would try making an invitation for Mitchell's birthday. I did a 4X6 template thinking I would get it printed as a picture. They are easy enough to upload and inexpensive if it didn't work out. It took a few hours, but here is what I came up with ~

I was so excited about how great it came it!! The print looked even better than I could have hoped for and the colors were so crisp! For a few hours and 19 cents a print, I couldn't beat the price and how professional they looked!

New Digital Pages

So happy to get some pages done in the summer time!

Papers are from Divine Digital, Divine Team, Let's Go Fly a Kite kit.

Fonts are from fontfreak.com.

Lily Birthday Gift!!

Lily's birthday gift is 4 months late. Oy vey! When I was visiting, she showed her mom and I a picture of a terra cotta pot with candy in it, like they are flowers. (I'd give credit here, but I don't know where she got it.) So, I was feeling a bit crafty and thought I'd give it a try it.

I was lucky to find such a cute pot! I put floral foam in the pot. I used small wood BBQ skewers to hold the candy. I used a hot glue gun and put it on the skewer and then put the skewer on the candy seam (so you don't see the skewers in the back either). I cut some down with scissors to make them different sizes.

I think it came out cute, if I do say so my self!!

My new favorite things - Ana and Knock-off Wood!

My sister Kate told me about knock-off wood (KOW) in passing and I must say I am glad she did!! It is my new favorite site to visit and I love checking out what everyone has to say on FB. I'm totally addicted. So much so, that I got Steve to show me how to use the circular saw and the miter saw. (See fence post - Steve showed me how to use the circular saw on that!) KOW is a site where Ana White provides FREE plans on all types of furniture. I liked so many things, I just felt compelled to try to make something.

The projects I decided to do first were the tryed tables for my back yard and a bench that I've been wanting for our pool deck. I've been asking Steve to make a bench for forever, and he was more than pleased I was attempting it myself.

The top of the table is not attached because I wanted to stain it first. Since I bought pressure treated wood, the people at orange told me to wait a month to stain... I'm getting impatient to make them look done :)

Below is the bench. I definitely see my mistakes in this, but I'm still pleased with it. Steve asked me to make another bench so it goes to the end of the deck! I thought that was the best compliment :) This will be stained white like the deck.

New Fence!

I've been buggin Steve, an buggin Steve, an buggin Steve (over a year now) to put up a fence on the side of the house. The area is pretty big, but it is my favorite spot in the yard because 1) it is shady and 2) that is where my hammock is. But, that is the same spot where you can see everything on the street. I just wanted a little privacy, but I still wanted to see out and around so I could still see the kids (and all the action that just doesn't happen on our street :).

So we agreed to turn my rock wall, move some trees that Steve really liked that have been next to the screen porch and we agreed what direction we wanted the fence to go in. Whew, a few things we agreed on.

But... we couldn't agree on how we were going to do it. Really, a few weeks more of discussion. My mom was over one day and gave us the best suggestion - to put the fence between our trees! Yeah mom!

Then there was the fence. Vinyl, wood, composite? 4 feet, 6 feet? solid or slats? We finally found one we really liked at a local place! Yeah! But I couldn't live with $165 for one link of fence, then another $125 for one post. UGH!!! So, Steve agreed to make one for me. Great man!! He wanted a stockade look and I wanted the slats. I think at this point he agreed just cause :)

In the pic below, the fence on the left just has standing pieces that aren't attached. There is a gate there too, just for me cause I HAD to have it :).

This is a front (side) view of the fence!
And wouldn't you know it ~ right after I worked on this post, I went out to mulch my front garden bed. Steve worked on his veggie garden and then went out to finish my fence! YEAH! I'll have to take pics of it when it is light out :)