New Year's Eve - 7th day of Christmas

Yes, I'm running very late again. So sorry but spending some time with family. Here's the preview to day 7.

You may download here: http://www.4shared.com/file/33533842/6f342e16/day7.html?dirPwdVerified=4c81dd0f

On the 6th day of Christmas, AAOV gave to me

some pretty clips for my layouts. You do know all these 12 Days gifts are for personal use only, don't you? I don't think I remembered to include my TOU but you know how it goes.

Download here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/33445312/420165db/day6.html?dirPwdVerified=7bf9fb

Hugs!

Reflections On Christmas Just Past

All in all, Christmas 2007 was very pleasant. Christmas Day was spent largely with my husband and son. We slept in a little, had homemade sausage, egg, and cheese muffins for breakfast, then took our time opening gifts.

I'd already received my largest gift from DH/Santa - 9"x12" Wacom Intouos [sp] 2 that arrived not long after Thanksgiving. We had to test it to make sure it was alright. Now I'm having to unload my overburdened hard drives to make room for the software. Really looking forward to playing with it and hope it will help me in creating new kits. Goodies all around to be pleased with. Then time to chill out until dinner.

We enjoyed a simple Chirstmas dinner: glazed spiral cut ham, candied yams, green beans, and yeast rolls. Dessert was also simple: pumpkin pie baked by our friend, Brenda, who joined us this year for dinner, and chocolate cake decorated with Christmas sprinkles. Brenda, who lost her husband Thanksgiving week, managed very well. Jeremy, my son, had to pack up and go back to Richmond after dinner because he was supposed to leave early the next morning for Charlottesville to see his father. My father and his companion had Christmas dinner with her son and family then came by for dessert in time to see Jeremy for a short time.

After everyone packed up and left, DH and I settled in to relax and store up energy to spend with our grandson who came on Friday morning and went home today. At nine, he's still a bundle of energy and very curious about the world. We'd been told he needed clothes more than toys this year and were surprised at how delighted he was with even things like socks! Dh took him bowling and all of us went to a movie - National Treasure.

Today the weather has been gloomy and the house so quiet. We napped to make up for lost sleep. DH watched football and I worked on a new kit.

Hard to believe we're at the end of another year. 2007 brought some changes: health concerns for DH; additional immune system trouble for me; a long lasting (6 mo.) eye injury for my father; surgery for my brother (we hope he'll go home from the hospital in the next couple days); the deaths of 4 people we knew (1 good friend, 3 co-workers); new "job" for me (digital design); new hobby for DH (using CAD program to create digital train layouts).

What will 2008 bring? I'm supposed to start a new program for people with PTSS (post traumatic stress syndrome); my husband celebrates a year of smoking cessation in February and his life insurance premium should decrease; my ex will complete his Masters in Education Administration in the spring; my son should graduate from radiography school in August.

I plan to spend some time this week thinking about goals for 2008 - something sensible and actually achievable. I wonder what sort of plans my friends have for the coming year?

On the 5th day of Christmas, AAOV gave to me

5 golden adornments:

Sorry to be so late but I have company this weekend. Hope you like these. You can download here: http://www.4shared.com/file/33366363/f370fbc/day5.html?dirPwdVerified=7bf9fb

12 Days of Christmas at Scrapbookersplayground

Sure hope you know about the 12 Days of Christmas give-away going on at Scrapbookersplayground. If you are just learning about it, you can still download the gifts from days 1 & 2. Go to http://www.scrapbookersplayground.com/promotionals/12days/Index.htm

to read all about it and download your gifts. Each day is posted around 2-3pm eastern time.

I donated the freebie for today - Day 3 and just went in to check it and discovered that the wrong link is coming up. When you click on Day 03 you'll get a zip for Day 01. However, I've reported the error to administration and it will soon be corrected. Here's a preview:

You'll also find a coupon for 50% off my Christmas kit, Happy Holly Days from now until January 6, Ephiphany. Here's a preview of that kit:

Please note: the bows shown above are not in the kit because they came out too blurry. Instead you will receive bows like this:

Sorry about that. Didn't remember to change the preview. You'll notice that the quickpages on day 2 here were made with the above kit.

If you do purchase my kit, I'd love to see what you do with it. And if you send me a photo of your work with the kit along with your e-mail address, I just might send you a little surprise.

Now I'm going to go spend some time with my grandson before fixing dinner. Enjoy your holiday with family and friends.

On the 4th day of Christmas, AAOV gave to me . . .

4 ornaments to adorn your pages. (Special thanks to Cari Lopez and Renderosity artists for designer resources - wreath base, ornament base, and wreath bow).



Download here: http://www.4shared.com/file/33262910/90d609e5/day4.html
Enjoy and let me know if you like these. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season.

On the 3rd day of Christmas AAOV gave to me . . .

3 ribbons to decorate my pages.
Download here & please leave a comment: http://www.4shared.com/file/33134368/b7c430c4/day3.html

On the 2nd day of Christmas, AAOV gave to me . . .

Sorry to be so late but it's been a rough day. My brother is in ICU, and for several hours we were worried about my son, who had not shown up at his father's this morning as planned. He left around 9pm last night to return to Richmond, planned to get some sleep, then head to Charlottesville this morning. Around 3:30 pm his father called, thining he might have stayed over here in Norfolk. Both of us tried reaching him on his cell phone but couldn't get a response. Finally, his father called an old friend in Richmond and sent him to Jeremy's apartment. No answer to the knock on the door and the guy didn't see Jeremy's car. We were frantic to say the least. My fibro was acting up so getting upset was a bad idea. overtired and anxious, I went to bed to rest. About half an hour later, my son called in response to the message on his phone.

It seems he knew of someone who was by herself this holiday and stopped by her apartment to check on her before going home. She insisted he eat with her (he's already had dinner here) so he did. Had something with creamed spinach that didn't agree with him and was up sick all night. When he finally was able to get to sleep, he slept through ringing phone, knocks on the door and all! But thank heaven, he's okay now.

Still haven't gotten word from Florida on my brother, Thom's condition so am just praying there were no complications from the surgery to replace his medication pump in his back.

Now to what you're looking for:
On the 2nd day of Christmas, AAOV gives to you 2 quickpages created with my Christmas kit, Happy Holly Days, (available at Scrapbookersplayground).

Download the zip here: http://www.4shared.com/file/33100220/1473fa42/day2.html?dirPwdVerified=4c81dd0f

Hope you like them!

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been a bad blogger recently but I've had computer problems and health issues. Overstressed and lacking time to blog. Anyway, it's Christmas and my son, Jeremy, is home for the holiday and my husband is napping on the sofa so all is right with my world. Below is a layout I did for Blushbutter and Dusty Bear's December Challenge which required using the quotation "Friends and family are the true gifts of Christmas." Jeremy is the best Christmas gift I ever received. The layout shows us on his first Christmas.

So many people think of the 12 Days of Christmas as ending on the 25th but they are actually the days beginning with Christmas day up until Ephiphany (January 6). I'm going to be posting a little seasonal giftie for you each of the 12 days of Christmas, so please check back and download any you like.

The first gift is a quickpage:

Download here: http://www.4shared.com/file/32955955/92178170/qp1.html?dirPwdVerified=7bf9fb

Many thanks to Emphemeral Victorian for the designer resources used to make the quickpage above. Note: tree is from Dover.

Enjoy!

Layouts Made With 50's Diners by Sandi Scraps

I'm old enough to remember some of the diners that were so popular years ago, many will lots of shiny chrome and flashy neon signs. Here in my hometown, there's a little place downtown that was a hangout for my parents when they were young, a cool place to grab lunch when I was downtown, and still operates today selling excellent barbeque sandwiches, delicious limeades, thick chocolate milkshakes, and icecream on old-fashioned sugar cones made on the premises.

When I saw Sandi's kit, I knew it was perfect for a tribute to a Norfolk tradition - Doumar's.

No background is included in the kit so I roughed out a night sky and parking lot and created a sign to go over the word "Diner."

Dourmar's has been in downtown Norfolk since the 1930's. Within the windows of the "diner" are photos left to right of: their famous barbeque sandwiches, Al Doumar working the ice cream cone machine. (An earlier Doumar invented the sugar waffle cone.), famous Doumar's limeade, behind the doors are waitresses Hilda and June in the 1940's (June is a family friend and my father's companion), waitress at counter with other Doumar brothers.


Above you see the inside of a typical diner of the period from Sandi's kit. I extracted the figures of my parents from some black & white photos from the 50's and colorized them to place them in the diner.

If you've got some 50's photos you need a home for and enjoy the look of 50's Diners you can find it here:

http://www.scrapbookersplayground.com/Cart/index.php?main_page=product_scrapbook_info&products_id=6861

Recent Layouts Using Birth Announcement by Robin Ackler

All of the following layouts were made with Birth Announcement by RObin Ackler of Scrapbookersplayground. You can find this cute kit here:

http://www.scrapbookersplayground.com/Cart/index.php?main_page=product_scrapbook_info&manufacturers_id=59&products_id=6919

Here's the outside of a baby shower invitation I made using the Log Cabin template (resized) from Jimstown and Robin's kit.
And here is the inside of the half-fold card. You can see this kit would be great for birth announcements, shower invitations, first birthdays and much more.

Robin thoughtfully included announcement cards for both boys and girls to hold all the pertinent information as you can see in this layout. (Large flower and frame center were cut from some of the papers.)

And if you don't want to use the anouncement card, the bib element can be enlarged to make a great journaling block as seen here.

And yes, if you're thinking you've seen this baby boy before, you are right. I haven't been able to get hold of Ty;er's hospital photo yet so put in his Uncle Jeremy's baby photo to see how it will look when finished.

A Sample From CTYD

If you missed Scrapbookersplayground's Crop 'Til You Drop last night, you missed a lot of fun. There were loads of mini kits - one planned for each hour starting at 7pm and only $2.00 each. During the crop, we tried to guess the kit name from the base kit we bought and additional elements that were given out free during the hour.

I checked in around 10pm and things were going strong. Left around 2am today and still a good number of hearty scrappers on hand. Lots of discount coupons and special offers were given during the crop too.

Here are a few quickpages I scrapped with the hourly kits as we chatted about anything and everything. And if you missed this crop, mark your calendar for January 19th when we're going to do it again!

I believe this one was the 10pm kit and the name is Walk On The Wild Side. (I think these kits will be offered in the store now, so check in if you see something you like. They would be under DDDesigns because Diosa created them.)

Oops, I've got the 12am kit here before the 11pm but that's okay, isn't it? This one is called Upsy Daisey and I guessed the title and won $5.00 in playground credits!

Here we go. This is the 11pm kit below, called Nutty Fudge.

The two above are from the 1am kit and I've forgotten the name. I was getting tired by then.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a sample of what our Crop "til You Drop kits are like. Please join us on January 19th and bring a friend.

Crop 'Til You Drop

Grr! Wanted to tell you about this sooner but have been ill. If you catch this, be sure you check out Scrapbookersplayground's Crop 'Til You Drop tonight at 7:00pm Eastern. Lots of goodies and lots of fun. We'll have designers dropping in throughout the evening and they'll be bringing goodies. Will try to stop by myself if I get to feeling better. Have fun!