« August 2007 | Main | October 2007 »
I am having an incredibly busy day, but some of it in a good way. Anyway, I'm dropping in just to let you know that Carrie Stephens is having a huge sale!!!! So if you haven't explored any of her stuff yet, now would certainly be the time. I'd go shopping, but I own it all already!!!!
Wow. It's been some day here at work. Non-stop craziness, but none of it really bad, which is always a plus around here! Tonight I'm going out to celebrate with my friend Paulette who just got an amazing new listing in Westfield. I"m so excited for her. The house is gorgeous and it is a great opportunity for her in that market. We're hoping to get a seat at The Cheesecake Factory....yummmmy.
Kit of the Day
The Halloween goodness continues with the latest kit from Studio Sausan. Ooogelie Googelie has a really funky feel to it. Very dark yet not depressing or scary, just cool. The little green dude is just hysterical. He's a little creepy but in a cute way, LOL. I can see myself using the spooky tree limbs to fill out dark corners or even to hang smaller photos from on little hooks. The backgrounds are going to be a great backdrop for all of your Halloween photos!
Really Cool Blog Post of the Day
I now have 125 feeds in my Bloglines. I'm sure others have more, but it is quite a bit for me to keep up with some days. I find that I scan quickly for relevance to my life or for images that catch my eye and determine from there if I'm going to read on. Of course there are some bloggers who's posts I read each and every day. One of them is my dear friend Krista's Skye Scrapz . Although, it's not just because she's my friend that I read her work religiously. Before she was a designer, and even before she was a music publicist, she was a writer. In my eyes that is who she is at her very core. So when she writes, I read. I read because I know it will be at least entertaining, often moving and at times very thought provoking. Yesterday she posted her thoughts on Barbie and Scrapbooking and really my wheels turning.
I can remember when she and I first entered the digi world in late 2004, we declared that we would only use freebies. We would never pay for kits. We thought it was silly. That lasted about a month, and then we started exploring the world of "payies" as we started calling them, LOL. When I look back at the pages that I did in those early freebie days I am impressed by my inventiveness. I didn't have kits, so I had to really work at coordinating items from various sources. If I didn't have it I had to make it. Krista reminded me last night of how long and hard we used to work at our paper tears. I must have spent days perfecting my tear for a page about my grandmother! Now I simply run an action and move on. I don't exercise my color coordination muscle, I just buy kits. Gosh , I don't even have to hunt through folders anymore, I just catalog into ACDSee! Perhaps it is time for that process to go on hiatus for a bit while I rebuild my creativity.
Clearly Krista's post gave me pause to think and I believe I found a challenge in there for myself, both in the digi and paper worlds. Perhaps you will find one too. At the very least it will bring back some fond memories and make you look at your Barbies' sleeping arrangements in a whole new light. Enjoy!
My healthy eating lifestyle must be doing something strange to my body, other than making it smaller and stronger ;-) I have been really hungry today because I didn't really plan my snacks very well and didn't eat enough for dinner last night. So I have been planning all day what little treat I was going to have for my 3pm snack. I thought maybe a Skinny Cow, but they got all mushed in our freezer at work. So then I decided I would go for some Peanut M&M's rationalizing that the nuts would be good for me. I just ate 6 of them and they tasted like crap! Really! They grossed me out totally!! So I threw out the bag ;-) How 'bout that?
Kit of the Day
I love it when I find a new designer who has stuff that I really like. It's like finding a new author or a new band. Today I stumbled upon the Summer is Over paper pack and Element Pack by Theres K and I am really loving her use of these colors. The patterns are beautifully understated and really harmonize with the colors and textures I am seeing outside my window today. Really digging the frame with the ribbon element too.
I got some more scrapping done this weekend check it out! Also I started a new group over at Cafe Mom called Paparazzi Mommies. If you want to talk about your shameless obsession with photographing your kids, please stop by and say Hi!.
Element Pick of the Day
I love labels. They really help me to say what I'm trying to say sometimes. I love them in real life too. I just adore my P-Touch!!! So you can imagine my joy at finding Ronnie McCray's Sports Nutrition Labels . Tell me these aren't freaking adorable!!! I don't need them just yet, but somehow I know they'll end up finding their way onto my hard drive, LOL.
In Search of the Perfect Laptop Bag?
Found this really cool lens on Squidoo. Kate has spent a considerable amount of time in search of the perfect laptop bag and she shares her finds at Funky, Chick and Cool Laptop Bags . WARNING: you will want to spend money after you see the bags she reviews ;-)
Wow. I'm having a really crazy day. I just needed a moment of sanity and Digi Pick helps me to feel sane. Sorry if I'm not very wordy today ;-)
Kit of the Day
Okay, it's really an album by one of my faves, Doris Castle. Her Color Storm quick pages are just amazing! These are perfect for autumn, Halloween and they are great for more mature pages as well. If you want something saturated in great color with a very eclectic look, these pages would be great. I'd love to do an album about my husband with these!!! Gorgeous!
Cool New Brush Directory
Look what I found when I should have been working, but was too ticked off at my lame IT department and sucky new accounting system to focus? It's a cool new brush directory. I love brushes and I'm always on the lookout for new ones. Go have a gander at Chez Plumeau's Brushes n' Brushes .
Kit of the Day
Yes, I admit it, I have a Halloween fixation. I just can't help myself. I promise I won't put every single Halloween kit up here on digi pick, but I can also promise that there will be many in the month to come. Before I make my picks today I did want to point out that the level of creativity and expertise in this industry is growing at an exponential rate. It is easiest for me to see this in holiday kits since they are centered on a theme and usually get released every 12 months or so. The Halloween kits this year are blowing me away. Not that last year's weren't good, but I can just see the growth in skill level and inventiveness and it totally excites me! Now onto today's Halloween Kit Pick which is Michelle Coleman's Haunted Fall . The glittery touch to this kit is very cool and the sparkling tree is my favorite element. There is a fabulous quick page that features that tree and I know I'll be using that! The papers are not all holiday specific so they can do double duty as autumn papers. One other thing I like about this kit is the addition of the slate blue to the traditional palette. It's a nice change!
Layout of the Day
Ready to have your creativity super-sparked? Check out itsallaboutHim's Love Me When I'm Gone. There is just so much to say about this layout, from the ghosted photo, to the notepaper with the journaling in the background, to the unexpected yet awesome grungy title work in the right lower corner. The little bit of sparkle gives this a fairy tale quality and I'm sure it is like a fairy tale to have your loved one come home safely from deployment. I would love to peek inside Laurie's mind to see how she came up with the idea for putting all of this together! It's simply amazing and a treasure!
Kit of the Day
Hope everyone had a great weekend. We had Gracie's Birthday Party, which I have already scrapped. I went shopping Friday night and got another totally adorable Halloween kit. I especially love the name. Can I Be Frank? is Mary Fran's take on the holiday in her signature quilted style. I am just in love with this kit. I appreciate that all of the characters are smiling and not scary looking. I'm particularly in love with Frank himself! Isn't he sweet? The kit is huge but if you just need to have more there is also an add on, which Mary calls L'il Bits and the alpha called Frankly Speaking . I picked all of that up, but I may go back for...yeah, there's more....Can I Be Frank Too? more patterned papers and Solids . Mary probably always did the extra credit questions on tests, LOL!!!
Layout of the Day
Beautiful Fairy by MariRomualdo just jumped out at me today as I was cruising the galleries. The angle of the photo just takes us into a completely different dimension. The dreamy feeling she has created with the multiple layers of overlays and blending is wonderful. There is another companion piece called I Believe in Fairy that I would love to frame and hang somewhere in my house!!!
I'm pretty sure this work week was about 12 days long!!! I cannot believe it is not over yet. Now the accounting system is down and since a big part of what I do is accounting I am sitting her stewing over the fact that there will just be more for me to do on Monday! Anyway, enough about my boring job. How about some picks?
Kit of the Day
Pop quiz! What's Melissa's favorite holiday? If you said Halloween you'd be sooo right. So this is my first official Halloween pick of the year and it is adorable with a capital A! Kathryn Estry's Pumpkin Kisses put the biggest smile on my face when I saw it. The Witchy Poo frame alone is a total hoot. The ghosts are so sweet. Love the eye lashes. If you are doing any kid parties or treat bags this would be a great kit to play with.
Layout of the Day
This layout was actually posted back in August, but I saved it in my faves because I thought it was just so gorgeous. Elin B's Taste of Summer captures this little sweetheart's first summer so beautifully. It has a dreamlike quality that made me think about what our first summers looked like to all of us at that age. I can remember Gracie's fascination with grass and I see that same look on this little guy's face. I am so jealous of the blending she's done. I really need to work on that technique! I really like the way the one photo of him is angled along the line of the corner flower patch. Very nice touch!
Gracie's birthday was fun. Unfortunately I think she's coming down with a cold so she was a little cranky. The Rainforest Cafe overcooked the dino-nuggets and my gourmet daughter was not having any of that. So we exchanged for mac and cheese, which she ate half of. Then they brought the cake, but it didn't have the sparkler on it like last year and don't you know we heard all about that all the way home. Of course I made the mistake of asking if she enjoyed her birthday dinner to which she responded truthfully, because she's four, "no". Oh well, I can't win them all, right? Happy Rosh Hashanah to all celebrating around the world!!!
Kit of the Day
I have awakened to a radiant autumn day in New Jersey. The air is cool and crisp and the sky is the most clear blue! My regular readers will know that this is my absolute favorite season, so this morning is a blessing to me. I'm also excited because the autumn themed kits are starting to hit the stores. My first official autumn pick of the season goes to Laura Burger for her Typical Day . She has perfectly captured the autumn colors. My sky is exactly this shade of blue today!!! I love the combination of the rustic textures with the softness of the satin bows. I'm totally digging those slide mounts with the satin bow accents. Very cool!
Layout of the Day
Now that I have picked my jaw back up off the ground I can share what caused it to drop in the first place. Check out Sommerwiese Kinderglueck from Maidi. I just love the way the background photo blends so beautifully with the background paper. That is just soooo gorgeous. Can you imagine that printed onto canvas? I can! The accent photos with the writing on the frame fill in the "dead" spots in the background perfectly. Oh, just go look and drool for yourself!!!!
Guess who turns 4 today???? That's right, Gracie!!! She is so excited about her birthday. This is such a great age. Everything is starting to make sense to her and it's all so wonderful. We'll be going out with the grandparents to Rainforest Cafe tonight and then on Saturday we're having her party at home with her friends and some of her cousins on Bill's side. I'm sure I'll take tons of pictures.
Kit of the Day
So my kit pick today is obviously going to be about birthdays and celebrations. I'm picking an older kit that I have used sooooo many times by Shabby Princess called Occasions. This is not just a birthday kit, it is much, much more and it is huge so you can easily put together an entire album from it. Need to make some super quick adorable invitations? This is the kit. SP has given us word art galore to make them with for both boys and girls. There's these two really cute folded papers that show another pattern underneath. Very cute and again, a great time saver. My favorite part is the birthday cakes. They are so incredibly whimsical! They would be so perfect on a card. So, here's my dilema. I'm just about finished scrapping Gracie's 3rd birthday and I used this kit. Now what do I do? Should I use it again? Couldn't Kristie (SP) just make me a new adorable birthday kit? If you have any favorite adorable birthday kits, please comment below!!!
Layout of the Day
Have you heard of The Digi Dares? Well, you really need to check this out. I am a big fan, although I never have the time to actually do the dares. The Dares are like challenges but they really push the envelope and can really help people to get out of ruts or comfort zones. I like to go back and look at the past dares for inspiration when I actually have time to scrap, though. What does this have to do with the layout of the day and birthdays you ask? Well......today's layout pick is from Karah entitled It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to and it is her entry for the recent dare that asked folks to scrap in the style they WISH they could scrap in. I have to say she did an excellent job and she should do more in this style! I love the extraction and the choice of the dark paper to tell this story is perfect. Years from now he's going to be so embarrassed by this, LOL. Her layout was inspired by Lissy's Free , which is just too cool!
Digi Picks
