Thanks for stopping by and I’m glad you’re enjoying the ESS blog train.

New link.

Of course as luck would have it, I’m running late for work and forgot to set up this post before I went to bed, so I’m going to keep things short and sweet.

The designers at E-Scape and Scrap got together to create a wonderful kit called Lucky 7 and it’s priced at just $1 and $2 per piece in the boutique. Plus we’re doing a blog train.

So go check out Lucky 7 in the store and then follow the train. I’m the caboose, so if you’re just getting started, you can find the full list here.

Here’s a preview of my piece:

You can download the file by clicking on the image or here.

Here’s the rest of the train:

1. Julie Mead E-scape & Scrap Blog
http://www.e-scapeandscrap.net/blog/

2. Teri Hanson DigiZines by Teri
http://digizinesdzines.com/DigiZinesByTeri/

3. Karen Schulz (YOU ARE NOW HERE)
http://snickerdoodledesignsbykaren.com/category/categories

4. Elaine Dennison
http://crainbos.blogspot.com/

5. Susanne Holm
http://susdesigns.blogspot.com/

6. Roxanne (Coppercurls)
http://web.me.com/rhardegree/Coppercurls_Digi-Life/Blog/Blog.html

7. Kay Eflin
http://kollagebyawritingwoman.blogspot.com/

8. Sara Westhead
http://bermudascrapper.blogspot.com/

9. Carol Opalinski
http://carolscreativecorner.blogspot.com/

10. Barb Brookbank
http://keepingupwiththetimes.blogspot.com/

11. Cheryl McCain
http://scrapyourlife.net

12. Malicima
http://www.malacima.blogspot.com/

13 Lori Campanaro
http://thescrappytimes.wordpress.com/

Reason #1.  It’s cheap. OMG!  $15 for the entire thing, commercial and personal use. 

Reason #2:  It’s an incredible bargain.  My cart totaled over $1,000 until I entered my coupon code, then it was $0.

Reason #3:  That $1,000 cart didn’t even contain everything!  I didn’t bother adding Royanna’s parts of daily downloads I already have, which brings me to

Reason #4:  The designers at Divine Digital are incredibly generous, giving free, quality products month after month, two kits a month, so that those who can’t afford to pay for scrapping supplies can still do it. The downloads are direct from the Divine server, no waiting for 4Shared or dodging pop-ups from Media Fire.  That costs Royanna money.  So if the first three reasons weren’t enough, it’s a nice way to tell her “thank you”.

Reason #5:  The coupon you receive is good for two uses through June 15!  Have you ever even heard of that?!  You can use it now and save the second use for right before it expires to get anything new that has come out or that you missed the first time.

Still not convinced? How about some eye candy?

Reason #6:

 
 

Click on the ad to go grab all this scrapping goodness for yourself. Oh, and you might notice, the ad says the sale will expire on the 8th, two days ago, so don’t wait too long or you’ll miss out.

P.S., while I’m currently on 7 creative teams, I am not on either Royanna’s team or the Divine Digital CT team. I did not receive this product or a discount on this product in exchange for giving a plug. I sincerely believe this is a good deal, and I paid my hard earned money for it. Which also says a lot, because I’m on 7 CTs. Who could possible need to buy more products when they’re on 7 teams?!

And here are two layouts I just completed using the kit:

Have you ever made a layout and thought, “Wow! That came out way better than I thought it would?” Well that’s what happened when I made this layout using Pom Poms and Ponytails. It’s a huge collab available at The Studio by Digilicious Scraps, Scrappy Cocoa, Black Rose Digitals, Julie C Designs, and Lightening Bug Creations. It’s available as a kit, add-on cardstock, glitters, brag book and templates, or you can get it as a bundle and save. It’s currently on sale 25% off too.

Since I loved this layout so much, I decided to make it into a template for you.  Before I get to the template though, please indulge me in showing off the other two layouts I made with this kit.

Here’s the template:

PLEASE NOTE: Thank you to the person who let me know the link wasn’t working. I checked 4Shared and the file was missing completely. I’ve reuploaded it and, as of this posting, everything seems to be working fine.

HERE’S THE NEW LINK

On Friday my mom had surgery on a kidney stone and I took her to the hospital. We were at the hospital all day. I finally headed for home around 6:30. I’d no sooner gotten off the highway, 45 minutes later, when I got a call from my mom to tell me that she’d forgotten her license, credit card and insurance card in my purse. Ugh! I picked up dinner from the kids, asked my boyfriend to accompany me on the trip back down, picked him up and started to retrace my drive back down. The car in front of my started to weave and fishtail. I thought what anyone would think on a Friday night on the highway, “drunk driver”. I started to slow down to get more distance between us, keeping my eye on the other car and didn’t notice the huge truck tire in the middle of the road until it was too late to avoid it. I got the quote from my service department today. That tire is going to cost me $458 to repair the damage. Just what I needed.

My other news is more exciting. I’ve joined another Creative Team. This is my last new team for a now as I’ve reached what I feel is a comfortable number of teams for me. Have you ever seen Snips and Snails Designs? They’re so fun and I just know I’m going to love working on Stephanne’s team. She’s got a great new kit coming out. I just downloaded it tonight and I’ll be sharing it with you soon enough.

In the meantime, I scrapped my ADSR6 Challenge 5 layout tonight using Deli Scraps by Min’s Pansy kit.

Challenge 5 was a recipe challenge that required you to scrap about how you spend your “me time”.   I made wo layouts, one as required, and since that seemed a little skimpy to me, one I dressed up until I was happy with it.  Here’s my dressed up layout:

Now, did you notice that word art in the bottom left corner?  Word Art was an element of the recipe challenge.  I could have searched my stash for something I wanted to use, but instead I opted to make my own. And since I went to all the trouble (okay it really didn’t take that long), I thought I’d share it with anyone else who wants it.

You can click on the preview or go here to download it.

 I want to get better at this though. As I’m driving to work in my car, articles will pop into my head.  Tips for new scrappers, tips for new designers, best practices, ideas all swim around in my brain dying to get out. I even have a few kits designed by me and my sister for Enaideel Scraps that never saw the light of day. I should do something with them, don’t you think? Like share them with any readers I may still have left?

 My goal is to try to get better.

 With that in mind, let’s see if I can quickly update you on the latest going on in my corner of the digi world.

 1)      I’m participating in the Amazing Digi Scrap Race again. I almost missed this year’s sign up process entirely.  I happened to read about it somewhere else on another site the last day to submit registration.  Fortunately, I was able to find a great partner at the last minute, and our team, The Fleur de Lis Fillies made it into the race.

 2)      The list of creative teams I’m on has changed.  Some designers retired (Sara Ellis, AnDi Designs, and Melissa Daniel) and I added a few others (Kim Cameron & Digilicious).

 3)      I might get to meet Min, of Deli Scraps by Min, later this month!  If you’re at all familiar with her work, or receive The Studio newsletters, you may know Min lives in Germany, so this is huge. She’s going to be on vacation for two weeks, and I’ve booked a weekend getaway to Orlando to go meet her while she’s here.  I’m so excited. This is the first time I’ll be meeting one of “my” designers and she lives the farthest away from me.  I just hope everything goes as planned. My life has a way of going off track.

 4)      And speaking of going off track, my daughter managed to cut her foot in the first few days of Spring Break, needing 20 stitches.  It got infected and the doctor ordered a Home Health Care nurse to change her dressings.  She managed to single-handedly meet my deductible and wipe out my flexible spending account.  That’s not really digi related, but I’m sure you’ll be seeing a layout from me about it soon enough.

Min has a chance to win her new Easter kit.  Two winners who leave a comment on her blog will get it free.  Click on the sneak peak to go to her blog and leave a comment.

Mandy King has a freebie on her blog that coordinates with her new release Spunky Sweet at Scrappity Doo Dah.  Click on the preview to go to her blog to grab it.

I haven’t worked with Spunky Sweet yet, but I did create this LO with another one of Mandy’s new releases.  That’s my grandpa in his WWII uniform. Wasn’t he handsome?  The kit is Mandy’s Pocket Full of Pixels – Early Morning and is available exclusively at Scrapbook Elements.

And if you’ll indulge me for just one more layout, here’s my favorite layout done so far for the Amazing Digi Scrap race. It’s one of 7 (yes 7!) I created for challenge 3 and uses Digilicious’s Lime Sublime, which was available free at Digital Scrapbooking Studio the second half of last month.

That’s enough from me for now.  Look for some freebies from me coming soon.  I really want to package up the kit we made for our friend Sarah’s baby shower to give away to you.

So until next time…

 I’m going to work on my journaling. I’m going to try to write more about the events in our lives.  I’m going to try to keep those future generations in mind.  And I’ve decided that at the beginning of each photo book, I’m going to include a family tree with pictures that reflects who we were in that year.  That will serve as visual who’s who and it will remove the need to include names on every single layout.

 In an attempt to do more journaling, I added some to this layout I made of Dylan using the beautiful Vintage Baby collab by Designs by Moo and Kimberkatt.  11 years later, thinking of how we almost lost Dylan in the NICU brings me to tears.  He was 8 pounds at birth, so they weren’t treating him like a preemie.  It wasn’t until he was getting 100% oxygen that they started to give him drugs to help his lungs develop faster.

Then I made this one of him when he first got home:

Here’s where you can get the kit.

New Beginnings Collab between Mandy King and Pebbles Designs

Wow, it’s been ages since I posted on my blog. I’m terrible.  So much has happened since I participated in The Studio Blog Train to welcome AnDi Designs.  For one thing, I’ve joined a few more CTs.  Well, to be completely accurate, I’m now on 7.  BUT, I did confess to be a horrible blogger in my CT applications, so at least the designers aren’t expecting a blogging bonanza from me.  I’m now creating layouts for AnDi, Sara Ellis, Mandy King, Melissa Daniel, Deli Scraps by Min, Cindy Ritter, and I’m an e-Scape Artist over at e-Scape and Scrap.  I am hereby forbidden from even looking at another CT call.

The template I have for you today is actually the result of a silly mistake on my part.  I made this template for the Template Exchange Challenge over at the Studio based on my Whispering Canyon LO made using the New Beginnings Collab between Mandy King and Pebbles Designs.  And then I forgot to post it and send Kim the links.  Oops.  So guess who gets to benefit from my silliness?  You, of course.

So if you’ll please indulge me, since I haven’t posted in forever, I’d like to show off a favorite LO from each team I’m on.  I already showed you one using Mandy’s designs. Here are the other designers I support:

A Sister's Heart by Cindy Ritter

Black Tie Affair by AnDi Designs

What John Saw by Melissa Daniel

Ouchies XX & Ouchies XY by Sara Ellis

Delightful by Lady Bug Designs (E-Scape & Scrap)

Nuts! by Deli Scraps by Min

And now to reward you for your patience, here’s the template:

Click on the image or here to download.