It's Sunday and . . .

my Red Hat Society chapter "dragged [ourselves] to brunch" at Crocs in Virginia Beach.

Crocs is a local restaurant that is a green (eco-friendly) bistro that features Mediterranean & Middle Eastern fare. On Sundays they have a "Drag yourself to brunch" with drag queen entertainers. I don't remember who recommended we try this but we made reservations well in advance, or so we thought. Today was one gloomy and cold day with mixed precipitation. We dressed in our Red Hat clothing and hats and arrived at the bistro in the rain. Our tables were in the corner, in the back, near the "stage" door. The place has a huge bar set in the middle of the restaurant and we were behind it. Turns out that the entertainers go in and out of the door by our table but do the performing mostly on the other side of the bar, which meant we didn't see much. We could, however, see the DJ from our position and he was hamming it up, dancing along with the performers from his platform. I expected what I consider typical brunch food that is, some breakfast type items with some lighter lunch items. Nope. There were salads, crab cake plates, a burger plate, and a couple appetizers. I got the hot crab dip from the appetizer menu, hoping it would be similar to what I make at home. Not! There was a huge dish of it with tacos chips (?) and while I ate a little of it, I found the taste too strong. My Bellini was strong too! A couple of our group managed some photos of the few entertainers who stopped by our table. As soon as they post to Facebook, I'll make a page to show you. Coming home we stepped into icy water as we went to the car. Rain changed to sleet mixed with a little snow. The change from the warmer weather we'd been having made my lungs unhappy and I coughed pretty much all the way home. Took a little nap and am now having a hot toddy as I write to you.

I'm sorry the link for the first Motocross zip didn't show up. I have edited the previous post and it is showing now. Heard from Kristy requesting I add another color to the swatch, a Kawasaki green

This is what I found on Google. That what you need? Have a second zip for you today:

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/MotocrossFun/ws_MotocrossFun_2.zip

And here is the first zip of A Purple Pause (couldn't think of a good name):

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/APurplePause/ws_APurplePausse_zip_1.zip

Hubby's Pittsburgh Steelers are on TV battling the Denver Broncos which is Tyler's girlfriend's team. John is busy yelling, "Throw the ball, Ben!" and talking to the TV. I don't enjoy football so I'm in the computer room with my hot drink. Will have some time to work on these new kits.

Wishing you all a good Sunday.

New Freebies in the works

I'm sorry I missed yesterday. Weather has been bouncing around here and I had a severe sinus headache with nausea. Earlier today it was much the same. Then it began raining and with the barometric pressure change, some Benedryl and Tylenol, I almost feel normal!

I got two requests in response to my question about what you would like to see. Kristy needs some papers and elements to scrap motocross photos of her husband and son. I don't know very much about motocross but have done a little research and found this color swatch on COLOURlovers that I think will do:

Since motocross is a dirty sport and primarily masculine (I think), I'm going to go with a grungy, masculine style. At least that is what I'm aiming for. Because I am running behind, I'm going to start giving you "Motocross Fun" a little at a time, starting tonight. Tonight you get one fullsize paper and 2 elements:

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/MotocrossFun/ws_MotocrossFun_1.zip
Deb would like to see something in purple. Purple reigns supreme in my husband's family with MIL, SIL, and one niece claiming it as their signature color. Of course, there are many shades and tones in the purple color family. I've pulled some color swatches thinking in terms of a largely monochromatic kit, but haven't decided on which way to go. Here are some of those swatches. Some of the swatches, as you can see, have accent colors.
Please indicate which row you like by number or submit a swatch you'd prefer.

CU freebie

It's been quite a while since I posted a CU freebie and since January is going to be a mix of freebies, thought this one ought to be CU. I collect vintage buttons and find I like to use digital buttons in my scrapbook layouts too. This batch is black (I especially love mother-of-pearl and jet buttons).

These buttons were left large - some as much as 3" - deliberately so they are easy to manipulate and re-size as needed. I have also included a button border which shows up in web size below.

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/ss4cu_BlackButtons.zip

Touch Of Color freebie

All best plans . . . the internet was down last night when I tried to post. Today I have A Touch of Color freebie for you. Okay, white isn't a color per se, but the combination of all colors, but we aren't going to get technical, are we? Here are the papers:

6 full size personal use. Of course, you can also re-color them to meet other needs.
Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/white/ws_TouchOfColor_White_papers.zip
And the elements:

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/white/ws_TouchOfColor_White_elements.zip
Enjoy!

2016 Reading Challenge Freebie

Yesterday, we had a visit from grandchildren, Tyler & Inara, their mother, Rachel, and Tyler's lovely girlfriend, Olivia. It was a late exchange of Christmas gifts and much catching up. Learned that not only is Rachel's father recovering from a stroke, but her mother has another fracture in her spine! Tyler's girlfriend loved the necklace we gave her but didn't know what the Claudaugh symbolizes. When I explained, we were wishing her love, friendship and loyalty, she seemed even more pleased. Tyler was well pleased with his skinny jeans and his Redskin gifts. He was wearing 3 layers of Redskin shirts in preparation for the afternoon's playoff game. (He was sorely disappointed when they lost the game.) Inara was pleased with her books and her Zoomer Zuppy, Pupstar. However, we learned that the interactive electronic puppy has some pretty complicated instructions. The rest of the day passed quickly with hubby watching football and me zoning out with a mild headache. Not surprising with weather going back and forth here.

Not going to be doing anything big in way of kit this month as the month is speeding by. Had hoped to give you a Color touch kit yesterday. Might get that posted later today. The rest of the month will be smaller stuff but I do hope to have something up every day from here on out.

Meanwhile, I zipped my reading challenge (changed those *s to numbers) and the blank report I made for keeping track. Here is an example of the reading report showing where I am so far:

Now you can see why I changed the *s to numbers - much easier to note the category or categories that a book fulfills. And here is the link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/SherryD_2016ReadingChallenge.zip

Remember too that 2015 freebies will be removed from 4shared & dropbox by 1/15 to make room for 2016 zips. Haven't gotten any suggestions about what you might like to see so just playing it by ear. If you do have suggestions for themes, colors, types of scrap stuff you'd like to see, please comment here rather than on 4shared or dropbox as I don't often look for comments there.

And now I've off to do something useful: laundry, dishes, cook beef stew.
Hugs!

Doing a little catching up & a freebie

Here we are in 2016 and I don't know about you, but these first nine days (nearly 1/3 through the month!) have been busy and productive here. Some people asked me if I was doing New Year's Resolutions this year & I thought about this cutie I snagged back when:

If anyone knows who created this, please let me know so I can give credit.
No resolutions for me this year. I think monthly goals- 3-5 at most - are more reasonable. I gave you the first of monthly blank goal sheets. Have you filled out your January goals yet? I'll show you mine. Correction, I will when I can figure out which folder I stashed it in! It's not where it ought to be but I found my work-in-progress goal report. Anyway, I started creating a blank goal report for myself using the NY kit. Make a journal block out of the rectangular frame too. So here is the preview of the January art journal set:

and the link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/goal%20sheets/ws_Jangoals.zip
Each month I will have a new goal page set for those who want to use them.

Came across the above photo one late night when I had a few minutes to web surf. Gee, if I'd seen it sooner, I could easily have done that for Christmas. Didn't get my tree up because I didn't have time or energy but the book tree - super easy.

I knew I'd be signing up for the GoodReads reading challenge this year. Signed up to read 50 books last year and was short by about 3. Saw lots of reading challenges and decided I'd make my own. For one thing, some had silly items like, Read a book with a yellow cover. Really? So I downloaded a bunch of good challenges, read and compared and added my own ideas. I will read 50 books or more for the GoodReads Reading 2016 Challenge. Additionally, I'll share my list of items to be included. Some of the topics can apply to either fiction or non-fiction and some books will cover more than one category. Overlap is fine. Here's my reading challenge for 2016:
* A book that has been on my TBR for more than a year. [TBR means To Be Read]
* A book published in 2016.
* A book which has won an award (National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize etc.).
* A book in the fantasy/sci fi genre.
* A murder mystery.
* A dystopian novel.
* An autobiography, biography, or memoir.
* A book by a favorite author.
* A book by an author I've never read before.
* The first book in a new series.
* A book I own but have yet to read.
* A book that was banned at some point.
* A book published before I were born.
* A book translated into English.
* A book at least 100 years older than me.
* A book about a culture other than my own.
* A book about science/medicine
* A book about a historical period.
* A book with non-human characters.
* A book of short stories.
* A book based on a true story.
* A book about some place I would love to visit.
* A book about a favorite past-time.
* A self-help book.
* A book about religion or spirituality.

If anyone is interested, I'll pack up my reading challenge along with the form on which you can track what books you have read. And I came across this listing about classics and checked off those I have read in green. Had to make a box for one that was covered by a book cover. You might want to check off what you've read in another color.

And on a final note tonight, I thought this was good:

Happy New Year!

First day of a New Year. Here's hoping that 2016 will be kinder to all, healthier, more peaceful, more enjoyable. I've tried multiple times to add a graphic but it's not working! This year I've decided to forget about resolutions and instead set 1 - 3 sensible goals for each month. Each month, I'll be sharing 8.5" journal pages on which to record that month's goals. And I think it would be good to follow up at month's end with a journal page about how and whether those goals were reached. Imagine, you set one reasonable goal a month every month of 2016, you accomplish each goal and have made a page about doing so. Then at the end of 2016 you will be able to look back at your pages and see what you did in 2016. Well, it's an idea anyway. Here is the January goal setting page I made (no I haven't filled mine in yet - will do so today):
(Won't take preview!)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57614067/2016%20freebies/goal%20sheets/ws_January_goal_%20page.jpg
My paternal grandmother, who was born 1/1/1900, used to say that what you do on New Year's Day, you do all year long. So be sweet, be kind, be understanding and so on.