Down due to snow... :(

Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I don't have the word art freebie to release. The snow caused me to be on Mommy duty (and substitute Mommy duty) rather than finish what I had to. I will try to finish it tonight and release tomorrow.

Gracias for your patience!

Finally, finally

After MONTHS of suffering with double posts on every page of this blog. It was so annoying to scroll through my images then to see, well, "ooh, there... its all loading AGAIN".

 I was finally able to find a thread that told me how to get rid of it. Whoo hoo! Gotta love Google!

:)

A big Thank You

This is a huge Thank You for all of you who have subscribed to my blog. My goal is to start making more regular posts and to give it a little value back to you guys and those that find it along the way in their online travels.

Keep an eye out for Wednesday night (EST) when I will be releasing a FREE word art/template.
I'm still not sure what to call it, but I have a fellow scrapper making a layout using it and I'll tap into her to see if she has an idea of what to call it.

Be sure to come back on Wed, Jan 26 and grab your freebie.

Profoundly Sad Day

Today has been such a sad day. I got a call that my boss, friend, confidante, and so much more - passed away last night.

'Sad' does not even begin to describe what I am feeling. The sense of loss, the sense of disbelief, the sense of dread, the immense sense of missing her so much. She is everywhere I look, I see memories connected to her all over my house, in the grocery store, everywhere.

Its not that she hasn't been sick for the past 6 months. She had terminal lung cancer. But she had such a positive, upbeat attitude that she made us believe that she could fight it. And suddenly, she's gone.

Since I've known her the longest, and through several bosses and a smattering of co-workers, I have had the sad, sad responsibility of calling many people who only know her and me these days. Each call makes me relive my sadness and escalates it a notch. Tomorrow is another round of calls.

It'll be fine. It is what it is. Deep breaths. I can do it. All the same, it will be a difficult week ahead as everyone starts to find out, discuss it, deal with it and need comforting because of it.

RIP my dear, special friend. You live on in the things you taught me, in the laughs you gave me, in the love you shared with me.

Thank you for indulging my somberness. This is so overwhelming that I can think of little else.

Mscraps January collab...

I created a few projects with the January collab from Mscraps, Live Love Learn Grow

but I haven't posted them because I'm still not done. So, WTHeck.... I thought I'd post them here to remind me to

a) finish them

b) do something with them. lol

Here is the first of them... I wanted to create a fully integrated Blog site with backgrounds and separaters, blinkies - the whole nine yards. I even took a Jessica Sprague class. But I still can't figure out what the heck I am doing. So... here is the blog template design I made. who knows if I will ever do anything with it. lol

There was a LO I created but I couldn't find a pic I wanted to use with it. But I still need to convert it to a jpg so that will have to be edited in tomorrow.

New Kit: Simply Kelly Designs

I had to bow out of her CT due to some work committments but I still like to see what she has going on. Her Talk to Me kit looks adorable for scrapping those pages between friends, the precocious things your kids say, and just everyday life. This kit is available at Owl Tree Studios (a monthly membership site).

I also saw a note that she released a project 365 Template, too. Find out more of what's going on with her on her blog: Simply Kelly designs.

Where the heart is by Sherry Ferguson

After a pretty crazy month for Sherry Ferguson, 2011 brings the relaunch of Gotta Pixel's site and a new kit from Sherry: Where the Heart is. It coordinates with the site's new colors as do many of the new kits from the designers in the shop. This is a great opportunity to grab a variety of styles in all the same colors and create an album with a lot of possibilities.

Here is a preview of the kit:

and here is my LO using this kit + a mask from Lauraskathi's Watercolors

Free Photoshop Print Safety Action

Tis the season to print your photobooks, isn't it?

I recently received a free 8 x 8 book from Shutterfly and that prompted me to create an action to convert all of my layouts over to be printed.

What is an Action?
It is a photohop add-on that allows you to automatically perform tasks that you do over and over again. The files have the .atn suffix and can be 'loaded' into your photoshop actions palette.

Why do I need to do that?
For some reason, even though we create our LOs in the proper proportion, there is about a 10% drop off on the outer edges of the page. Weird, huh? What you want to do is collect all the layers of your project except for the backgrounds and scoot them down (ctrl/cmd T) so that they fall within this 'safe' area (ergo the 'safety').

To save you the time and guesswork of determining where to move your LO elements, I've created an action that automatically drops in a guide 10% into your canvas.

Click here to download. And enjoy!

The Final Blizzard

Happy New Year, everyone!

Wow, 2010 went out with a bang here in the Northeast. We were snowed in the day after Christmas and were forced to spend all this together time. I LOVED it. :) Tyler got lots on Nana and Pop-Pop time. He loves being with them.

(On a side note, I did manage to get in an hours worth of post Christmas shopping before the snow fell too hard and got some GORgeous ribbons. Love me some ribbons, folks.)

Here is my first LO of 2011. "The First Taste of the Final Blizzard"

I created it because I loved the kit I'd just bought and for an Mscraps Ad challenge. I liked the kit so much, I made a companion page. So much went on this stay-cation that I'm sure I'll be making lots of pages from the photos.

"The last Blast of Winter"

I used Heather T's Boy Oh Boy kit from MScraps. Gosh, I love this kit. Of course, I do have a boy. ;) I'm not on her CT or anything, but I love it so much that I just have to show you the kit cuz you're gonna love it, too. Actually, I've recently discovered Heather T and she does some fantastic stuff, be sure to check out her Blog, too.

Holiday Gifts for the Photographer in Your Life

Some of these items are WAY too cute. I am definitely buying some of these for some of my pals. Very cool stuff

http://photojojo.com/store/

Portable North Pole

What is better than a personalized message from Santa for your child? At the PNP (portable north pole), Santa gives your kid a real personal touch, from their name to the gift they want, to other small details that lets your child know Santa's watching!

I love, love, love this site. We did it last year and Tyler was amazed. I can't wait to see his face when he see's his photos and Santa's message to be a good boy.

Click here to go to the Portable North Pole

I'm a Cheer Chick!

Yes, I'm way too old to be a cheerleader, but I'm now officially a 46 year old Cheer Chick for MScraps. I (along with a group of really fun. funny, cool women) scour the galleries and forums of MScraps for interesting threads and layouts and just comment. Yes, I have been 'tapped to talk'. Hard to believe, huh? lol

The great part about that is that its something that I do all the time anyway, just not as vigorously. Now I do it, am part of a great community of women with similar interests, and I get a little something for my efforts.

The other cool thing is that MScraps has just started this group so I'm part of the pioneer launch of cheering. Perfect timing, too since its the Cheer time of the year - holiday season!

Free Silhouette Template

Hi everyone,

Back to my ole' skool roots of traditional designing, I played around with Illustrator today and made up a freebie for those of you who pop on to my blog every now and then -- a Star cupcake liner.

I created it for my new Silhouette SD digital cutting machine but I didn't make/have any cupcakes around to put them on so the photos of that will come later.

Star Cupcake Liner

What can you do with it?

Print or buy your own papers and use that as the base to cut from. Here is an example using HayNay designs. My files are all over the place so I don't recall which kit. But see how cute it can look?

I have no official 'terms of use' since I'm not selling in stores. But please do not resell this. It is a FREE product for share only. And if you post, please give credit to me: Scrapporreia and link to my blog if you can. One of the files is a .svg for the Cricut, but I don't have one so I don't know if or how it works, but if you do and it works for you, please come back and let me know.

Also, if you comment with links to your project, I'll post them in a future blog.

DOWNLOAD the Silo file, ready for cutting by clicking on this link:

Star Cupcake Liner template for Silhouette SD

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

:) Linda

Silhouette SD

My new toy arrived on my birthday. I got a Silhouette SD. I don't even know if I can type enough words to say how much I love it.

I typed in Tyler's name and cut it out of copier paper. That was fun - and I hadn't even done anything with it, yet! Then I wanted to see how it cuts a custom design, so I pulled a jpg I had on my harddrive and voila! so easy and so cool!

Here is my 'test run':


No credits, I downloaded this card online, the papers are construction and copier paper... but that's part of what's so cool - nothing special needed!

I chose the Silhouette  because I wanted a die cutting machine that would do what I wanted, not what some cartridge supplied. And I didn't want to have to buy catridges. I went to art school - I can design my own stuff and I have the internet to download what I'm too lazy to design. I wanted the flexibility to do what I want to do.

Wait -- did I say.. I LOVE IT? lol

I'm working out how to do all the things I think its capable of. I'll be back on with more goodies as soon as I get some done.

I Love Rides!

Well, I don't but my kid sure does. lol


Here is a layout I did using Simply Kelly Design's latest template (15 photo layered template) and just about every kit in my stash. I've gotten a lot of ribbing on the length of my credits. lol
It is also my last layout for my November guest CT spot for Chelle's Creations. And not to be overlooked, I also used some of the awesome stuff from my other CT designer, Sherry Ferguson Designs.

and :::rolling up my sleeves::: here are my credits:

Template:15 photo layered template by Simply Kelly Designs

Papers:Ticket To Ride by Chelle’s Creations
Cool Dude by Sherry Ferguson Designs
Bikini Season by Lynne Marie
Future Star by Spinky Dink Scraps
Playdate by RL
Hunk O’Tin by Spinky Dink Scraps

Elements:Ticket To Ride by Chelle’s Creations
Doodle Frames by Chelle’s Creations
Stitch Me Up by Chelle’s Creations
Little Engineer by Spinky Dink Scraps
Hunk O’Tin by Spinky Dink Scraps
Aydens Adventure by Colie’s Corner
Toolshed by Colie’s Corner
Play Stamp by Katie Pertiet

Fonts
A Little Pot
Centaur


Here is Kelly's Template. ON SALE TODAY!