Wednesday, December 21, 2011

More Ideas For Using Your Stash

Felice and I are busy preparing for the holidays while fighing seasonal flare-ups of our fibromyalgia, but we haven't forgotten our promise to bring you more ideas for using your stash and more free examples.

This post will feature two new kits by Felice, Noel and Gothy Christmas and my Christmas for Kiddies (2010) and Happy Holly Days (older) kits. Here we will show you 2 cute hybrid ideas that are really useful at Christmas: candy bar wraps and gift card holders.

But first, a couple quick pages made with Noel & please note the link below my examples if you'd like the empty QPs:





And, if you have a Goth in your life, display a photo of him or her in a Gothy Christmas quickpage.



Your Goth might also enjoy this little tag made with the same kit:




Candy bar wraps and gift card holders make for attractive presentation of small gifts and are perfect for stocking stuffers. The candy bar wraps shown here are sized for a standard 1.55 oz. Hershey bar but you could adjust them to fit other candy bars. All you have to do to use these is print out the wrappers from the link and wrap around your candy bar, securing with glue or tape. Note: do NOT unwrap the candy bar and remember that the top, slightly wider, section should be over the bottom section. The previews of these wrappers show that only one fits on a standard piece of cardstock or glossy photo paper with a little room to spare. I went ahead and filled that space by making a few gift tags and bookmarks.

Here are candy bar wrappers and gift tags made with Felice Originals' Gothy Christmas and Noel, respectively:






And here are candy bar wrappers and bookmarks made with D'Ambrosio Arts' Christmas For Kiddies and Happy Holly Days, respectively:







Next, here are some ready to print gift card holders made with Felice's Noel and Gothy Christmas:

http://www.4shared.com/zip/mNlRz9fh/FO_Noel_gift_card_holders.html?




and from D'Ambrosio Arts Happy Holly Days:



And here is a page of gift tags made from DAA's Christmas For Kiddies and Happy Holly Days:



We hope you will find these useful both as ready to print hybrid freebies and as ideas for new ways to use your stash.

Have the Merriest Christmas!


Blogger isn't accepting my links! Please go to Felice's blog to snag freebies until I get this fixed:
http://feliceoriginal.blogspot.com/

Friday, December 9, 2011

Making The Most Of Your Kits

This is part two of an article about all the things you can do with Tagger and Full Size Digital Scrapbook kits. (See Part 1: Tagger Kits - Not Just For Tags here or at http://feliceoriginal.blogspot.com/

Previously, I gave examples of artist trading cards and brag book quickpages that could be created using tagger (and full size, of course) kits. Today, getting into the spirit of the holidays, I'm using Felice Originals Sweet Christmas and Christmas Past kits plus my own Berkeley's Christmas kit to show you some other ways to use your stash.

Since we're all busy thinking about gift giving, I thought I'd make some baggie toppers to decorate ziplock baggies filled with cookies. I'm using Ziplock brand sandwich baggies for this and found that they measure a tiny bit over 6.5 inches across the top. I suggest you measure the baggie you plan to use and adjust the individual baggie topper pattern to fit. In case you are using the same baggies I am,

I'm also including a layout with the baggie topper and a bookmark already laid out for printing on cardstock or glossy photo paper. You will want to use the print-to-border option on your printer set-up.

This is what the baggie toppers and bookmarks I made using Felice's Sweet Christmas and Christmas Past look like before folding:





And here is how they look attached to baggies filled with cookies. Nice touch, isn't it? the bookmarks will be tucked inside books I'm giving as gifts. Give a child in your family plenty of books and make time to read with them when they are small. The gift of reading is a wonderful gift that will open all sorts of doors and keeps giving for a lifetime.
[Oops! had trouble with the photo will add later]

I also made a baggie topper and bookmark using my (D'Ambrosio Arts) kit, Berkeley's Christmas, which was named in honor of my son's girlfriend who adores pink and green. You can find the kit at Southern Comfort Scraps: http://southerncomfortscraps.com/

And now, what you were waiting for - links to these freebies!
Sweet Christmas Baggie Topper and Bookmark
http://www.4shared.com/file/zfGG25No/SweetXmas_topperbkmrk.html?
Christmas Past Baggie Topper and Bookmark
http://www.4shared.com/file/mm3rKpeQ/SherryD_XmasPast_TopperBkmrk.html?
Berkeley's Christmas Baggie Topper and Bookmark
http://www.4shared.com/file/q9484_oV/DAA_BerkeleysChristmas_freebie.html?

Please keep checking back, because Felice and I will have some more ideas and more freebies too.

*My apologies - having problem getting Blogger to make links tonight & it's late. You will just have to copy and paste into your browser to reach them until I figure it out.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Having trouble with background

Checked blog few minutes ago and discovered my background had suddenly shrunk and was floating around when I moved cursor. Have no idea what happened so removed it for now. About time for a change anyway. Will update later and have a new article on using scrapping stash and some freebies to add too.

Monday, December 5, 2011

The 58th Keeper _ Interesting Twist On Old Fairytale


The 58th Keeper by R. G. Bullet

Admittedly, after reading several pages, my first thought was, "Ah, here's another Harry Potter want-to-be." After all, Archy Bass is a young, poor, British orphan with few friends. He's not in magic school but a special boy's school, which is still a separate sort of realm. I found the novel slow to start and could only visualize Archy vaguely: a boy with brown hair in a bowl cut. Archy's world seemed rather ho-hum with an atmosphere slightly reminicent of the school Jane Eyre attended.

Move forward, and Vincent, son of a billionaire and, oddly enough, one of Archy's few friends presents Archy with the opportunity for a vacation, a rare thing for a boy of his means. Although the vacation turns out to be -- a surprise to Vincent too -- a working vacation, the exotic locale and opportunity to escape his humdrum existence is very pleasing to Archy. Until, that is, he meets with a strange rug merchant on the beach. From there on, the novel picks up speed and makes the reader wonder, what's next?

For Archy, what's next is beyond his wildest imagination. His life is turned upside down by the mysterious rug he is talked into purchasing from the man he met on the beach in Turkey. This is where R. G. Bullet makes a creative leap, putting a new twist on the old fable about a flying rug. I won't spoil the surprise but will just say, this isn't Ali Baba's rug. Once Archy's life begins to change, the actions of the primary characters bring them more clearly into focus although I found myself visualizing their appearance along the lines of Rowlings' Hermione and a blond in stead of redhaired Ron. I still found it difficult to come up with a visual image of Archy, however. The character I could most easily visualize was Ward who reminded me of Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo cartoons.

I happen to be a highly visual person and enjoy novels I can easily "see" in my mind, like movies unfolding. I found this novel uneven in that regard. I remember little in the way of visual images from the first part of the novel. It is as if it were filmed in a dingy black and white while later sections such as the site of the act of restitution were colorful and detailed. Perhaps this was an intentionaldevice?

All in all, the novel is something I'd pass along to my grandson who is thirteen. Would love to see what he thinks. And I would pick up another novel by this author to see how his writing continues to develop.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Great new Dec collab at Southern Comfort


It's that time of the month again.
Time for the new Store collab kit.
This months collab is called Holiday Shimmer.
We have 8 talented designer contribute to the kit this month.
Colors of greens, reds and yellows.
There are 69 full size papers and 143 elements.
If you purchase just $5 of any products from the store you can get this free
by using this code. Dec_collab_free
Or just pay $8 for 17 zips.
This is personal use only.
While your at the store be sure to check out everyone's shops.
Folks have some awesome sales going on.
Lots of products for just $1, yes that's right just $1.
some folks every have a BUY MY STORE with hundreds of products.

http://southerncomfortscraps.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=90&products_id=1599

Here's a close-up of my portion:

And remember, my Boo-Boo sales runs thru 12/31