What Season Anyway?

From Because of You by Digitalegacies Designs

It's the third day of spring and it hasn't been a morning above freezing yet. One year ago today, we tied the record high set the day before at 85 degrees. Some people might call that Mother Nature and Murphy having an affair. Just sayin'.

This week’s statements:
1. My ___ is my least favorite feature
2. I was very ____ as a child
3. The first room I clean in my house is___ because___
4. If I had the guts to ____then I could ____

My Answers: 

1. My feet are my least favorite feature. I used to do my toe nails and go barefoot or flip-flops in the summer. The Raynaud’s makes them pretty ugly now. :P

2. I was very much a tomboy and a girly-girl as a child my father’s chagrin. Pop was as unhappy that his princess carried a hockey bag into ballet class as my ballet instructor was!

3. The first room I clean in my house is the bathroom because I can sit and still reach everything that needs cleaned and the water is right there.

4. If I had the guts to face my fears then I could sit in the dining room without pulling my neck doing a celling check for spiders every couple hours.

**  Big time thank to April at Straight From The Heart for two things. First she inspired me to sign up too be a BzzAgent. (Pronounced Buzz Agent) You’ve probably noticed fewer sponsored posts here; my source for coffee funding is drying up! BzzAgents don’t earn sponsor funds, but they get to try products.

The second thank you is related, and one of the oh-so-impressive BzzCampaigns. April got a Café Escapes BzzKit. As part of that kit she had coupons to give away and I was one of the recipients. I’d seen the Café Caramel at Christmas but resisted buying it in favor of more ecumenical choices for entertaining. I used my coupon to try it. OH MY is it good!

I’ll add to April’s testimonial about how good Café Escapes are. In 2011 Café Escapes sent me a sampler with their original four flavors through Twitter. I wasn’t as impressed with the Chai Latte, but I’m not a chai fan. I did like the dark and milk hot chocolates and I was super impressed with the Mocha! I have a box of Mocha that is nearing its end now; I use it with the leftover candy canes to make peppermint Mocha for very few Weight Watchers points and under 100 calories if you use the mini candy canes. The Café Carmel is 60 calories, regular sugar sweetener and the tastes carmelly divine! I want to keep them hidden from my caramel-loving husband, but David is the one who took my coupon to the store to buy it. It’s gonna be hard to keep a secret!


**  An era in my digital scrapbooking history will end this month. At the end of the month Darlene Haughin will retire from scrapbook design. Darlene was the very first designer I for whom I was part of the creative team back in early 2008 and she is the only designer I’ve created for all five years.
Her designs fit my scrapping style so well and she has been a great “boss” to create for. I’m going to miss her work, but I totally understand burn-out and wanting to leave the designing behind and scrap for you again. I didn’t last nearly as long as a designer when I sold my kits.

So through the years many scrapbook layouts done with Darlene’s kits have appeared at The Chronicles of Nani. If you digi-scrap you can still get Darlene’s kits at her My Memories store. Here is a recent layout I did with Darlene’s Carmela kit:

Credit: Carmela by Darlene Haughin

**  I just wanted to mention that the current book I’m reading is Rare Traits by David George Clarke. I’m about half way through and so far the book is phenomenal! It totally captivates my love for mysteries and the Renaissance Italian Masters. I can’t get enough of it. The book is 474 pages, longish I suppose longer than the books I’ve been reading by about 100 pages, but I could probably be happy if it was 1000 pages; I could read it longer! I got the book at Smash Words  for 99 cents and so far I’d say it is definitely my bargain of the year. Even if I’m disappointed by the end the sheer reading pleasure of the past week makes the price a bargain.

And I’ll stop talking about it until I finish reading it now, but boy for a lover of mysteries and an Italian Renaissance art geek it kinda feels like the book was written just for me!

**  Time for a Morgan update. I wish I could say things are going well and everyone is adjusting nicely. Unfortunately, I can’t. Morgan is such a sweet girl to David and me, but the three cats are just mean to each other. Kaline and Carla are usually united, but there is still growling, hissing and screeching every day. It’s been almost 6 weeks now.

We’re going to try Feliway.  David calls it aromatherapy for cats. I refer to them meditating together or forming a kitty prayer circle. At any rate it’s called pheromonatherapy, using a synthetic copy of cat facial pheromones to calm them and help them get better adjusted. I hope it works. Morgan is so sweet to us, but she charges the other two, usually provoked by their growls, but she also launches preemptive strikes. The attacks on Kaline and Carla have to stop.

Honestly Feliway is Morgan’s stay of return sentence. If we see results, if the three cats can begin to be civil to each other and not make us fear for their collective safety, Morgan stays in her new home. If they can’t learn to peacefully coexist and end our worries that one of them could get hurt, Morgan will have to go back to the shelter. That makes me sad, because she is such an attentive cuddle bug with the humans and I take the promise to try to provide a good forever home seriously, but there was that same promise made to Carla and Kaline too. I hope it doesn’t turn out that Morgan is just a one-cat-home cat.

Fill-In, Dream, Fix, Frag, Cook, Smash, Scrap

Happy Friday! Tomorrow is December already. Wow. November was actually a pretty quick month. I think that’s because the political ads made things seem r….e….l….l…y…s…l…o…w And the holidays make time seem to just zip by! But don’t worry; things will slow back down in January, not politician slow, but nothing to do slow. I always find that I can make January go faster if I stress about Valentine’s Day. Whether it was “Oh please, not another February 14 without a date,” or “What can I give him that he won’t take the wrong way?” or “I’m married now; what can I give him he will take the wrong way?” stress with a deadline makes things go much faster!

Yeah, that wasn’t as happy an opening as it could have been, huh? Sunday evening is the big grocery trip to buy the necessary things for Davinities season and the start of things going on every weekend that I’ll be baking for. Okay and you all know I love it! In the midst of baking and gatherings, there is also a train card to put together so we can get everything printed and mailed, a few gifts to mail, including my Secret Santee’s box. My Santee’s gift(s) will be wrapped today and mailed tomorrow or Monday, depends which works for my sleigh driver.

Fun Fill-ins from Hilary at Feeling Beachie today and some big frags on my blog to clear that I’ll share with Mrs. 4444 for Friday Fragments at Half Past Kissing Time, so let’s get to it!

This week’s statements:
1. I have always dreamed of ____
2. My ___ is my ____
3. I love to ____ when I ____
4. I will never forget ____ with ____

My Answers:

1. I have always dreamed of visiting San Antonio, TX. There was a place I’d never been and never seen pictures of that I kept returning to in dreams. The dreams were never the same or the same people, so not recurring dreams, just a recurring place. When I saw pictures of San Antonio, maybe 10 years ago, I was shocked; it was the place in my dreams! Now I want to go see it for real!

2. My husband is my blog editor. He took the place of my Mom’s proofreading the poor typist who is equally poor at proofreading…but I do okay with the ideas and words part of writing. Every text I get telling me of a typo on my blog leaves me convinced that sound I hear is Mom laughing at me. She would have loved David.

3. I love to sing when I bake.

4. I will never forget going fishing with Kelly that first year we knew each other.

** 

 

Doesn’t that look good? We had Cocoa Pork Chops for dinner this week; SO GOOD! I agree with a comment about a similar recipe I read, “Cocoa and chili powder together?" But they are fabulous!

Since there’s just the two of us for dinner, a recipe for a family is usually way too much, but for this one, I made the full recipe for the rub and keep it in a zip-loc with the other seasoning mixes. Good thing too! When we had a leftovers night and there was a serving of pork chops and a serving of meatloaf, David picked the Cocoa Pork; score!

The recipe for the rub is simple. 2 TBS brown sugar, 1 TBS cocoa powder, 1-1/2 tsp. garlic powder, ½ tsp. salt, ½ tsp. pepper, 1 tsp. cumin. Put the spices in a zip-loc bag and shake them to mix. Rub onto pork and prepare in your favorite way. The first time I made them, I rubbed oil on the chops and then rubbed the spices and baked them for about 20 minutes at 375. Last time, I rubbed the spices on the chops without oil and grilled them. David and I both preferred the grilled method, but both were good!


**  Ronalyn, of The Adventures of Esa and Zed, asked in comments to see some of my current Smash book pages. You might remember seeing some of my Smash Archive pages here, and I like them. They are personal and fun to look at, fun for me to look at anyway, and I think that’s the point. They aren’t works of art, except that those of us that paper craft add our art without even trying.

Here are some of the pages I’ve done in my new Smash book:

First pages; Nani past and now likes

 

Cool stuff

MS Awareness pages with information from magazines

(Still filling that one)

I want to get some bags of crafting letters. The MS has really taken its toll on my penmanship so I’m cutting letters out of magazines and writing some words ransom-note style, which I think looks pretty cool! A nice assortment of styles and colors of letters would also make way for some cool Word art too. Of course there are the gazillion pother fun things that will complement my stickers; clips, pockets, paper tapes… that I have on my wish list that I’ll add after Christmas since I don’t spend on me in December, but I really am enjoying smashing and I love the quality and size of the K & Company books.


**  If you’ll all indulge me in a little scrapbooking brag time, I’d like to share some of the fun things I’ve been working on.

Credits: Christmas In July contributions from Amy Peck,

 Blue Heart Scraps, Connie Prince, Pixels by Jen, Rosey Toes Designs, 

Twin Mom Scraps, Z Pink Boudoir, Find Your Bliss Designs

I did this for the scraplift challenge for November at Ginger Scraps. I like how it turned out. I do a page documenting each year’s Davinities with my Christmas pages for that year. Last year was a banner year for Davinities, the cookies and baked goods were all so good! I was proud of how simply huge by golden-brown thumb was! I’m almost intimidated going into this year’s baking!

The next layout goes with the sentimentality of the Christmas season.

Credits: Ladies’ Boutique by Darlene Haughin

That’s Kelly and me! The photo on the right was taken way back in the 80s; Kelly and her maid of honor, me! The photo on the left is from this January, when Kel and her dad visited 24 years is a lot of history!

Besties was made with Darlene Haughin’s Ladies’ Boutique kit. It was the current kit and this layout was done before the end of October and before the computer that died necessitating the new computer that was replaced with the one I’m typing on now. Ladies’ Boutique is still on introductory sale, but today is the last day!



**  Darlene has a new kit in her 3Scrapateers and My Memories  stores:

A Very Merry Christmas is available and ON SALE for 30% off until January 4. So you have some time to make some of those Christmas memories that will be perfectly scrapped with this kit! If you’re like me, you still have a folder or Christmas 2011 photos on your hard drive begging for this kit while it’s on sale to get caught up!


**  Let’s finish off this week’s fragments with a freebie! Darlene okayed me to share the quick-page version of my layout with Ladies’ Night with you at The Chronicles of Nani! There are two quick pages in the download; one with and one without the Besties word art:

Click mage to download at 4-Shared.

And my blog is all clean and defragged and ready for the weekend!

Scrappy Weekend

Well, I did promise yesterday that I’d show off some of the fruits of my weekend!

The first project of the weekend was Thanksgiving 2008. That’s slightly out of order currently. My scrapping goal this year was to catch up 2007 and keep up 2010, I want to have 2010 done by the end of January, 2011. Well, I needed appropriate photos and those were in 2008.

Darlene Haughin has a new mini kit, Bountiful Harvest. Right now that kit is a limited time freebie available at Scrap Bird. It just screamed Thanksgiving to me. So, my first layouts of the weekend were Thanksgiving layouts.

Credits: Bountiful; Harvest by Darlene Haughin,

Word art by Caribbean Mom,

turkey shape from the Thanksgiving shapes -

\freebie from the Adobe Photoshop Exchange

Credits: Bountiful Harvest by Darlene Haughin

You can get this kit for free for a limited time at Scrap Bird. That would be a great next stop after The Chronicles of Nani!

Moving up to the current year again, continuing my work towards that finished by the end of January goal, I opened up the next file in my 2010 “to be scrapped” folder. I just finished up 14 pages from our Florida trip and the next April folder was “cat mom-cad dad!”

I bought a bundle of mini kits by Ellie Lash when she was interviewed on Veelana’s blog and offered a coupon. I love mini kits because they let you focus on the photos and the page instead of going through 40-50 elements and papers or more before you even get started! I do like larger kits for larger sets of photos, because that variety is essential to do many pages with the continuity of one kit, but for solo pages, the right mini kit is the perfect answer to getting a great page without an hour of choosing the papers and elements. One of the kits in that bundle was Cats Meow, purrfect cat pages!

Credits: Cats Meow by Ellie Lash

I thought putting the cat cutouts in the foreground was a nice “walk all over us” effect too!

Now one more really cool kit and layout I did today. I swear this kit was made for me, it just feels like it! I don’t even have ell of it yet, but I LOVE it!!

All Aboard is a freebie collab by Edna B and Suruah-Freespirit . Trains!!

What an awesome kit for all my train layouts. They offered the first parts last Monday, the day I don’t get too much time for blog-reading, so I was delayed in getting back to the Monday blogs! Parts 3 and 4 will be available tomorrow and if I don’t get time for reading tomorrow, I’ll be sure to check back when I read blogs on Tuesday. Tuesday and Thursday are big reading days because I need rest time for a while after aquatic therapy.

My layout was inspired by a photo. I’m not going to say I took the photo, because we got in trouble because I aimed my camera at the subject. It seems the security guards at refineries think a woman with a party camera and a cane is suspicious. I get that there is a heightened sense of fear in today’s world and I don’t think safety is a bad thing at all, but come on, seriously, I look dangerous?

Anyway, the photo, that I DID NOT TAKE, was one of the refinery, the storage tanks to be precise. There were several sizes of storage tanks and they were on a hill, so there was some amazing texture to the lay of the land. I envisioned varying sizes of paper blocks in front of and behind the main photo. Of course, scrapping early May in November, I couldn’t possibly remember the inspiration for the layout, because I didn’t have the photo. I didn’t take the photo. Just like I told the nice security guard.

I don’t defiantly break the law, but I’m not such a stickler for the company policy of a company for whom I don’t work. I don’t observe the technicalities often, because I seldom have to, but when I’m standing on public property, taking a photo is not breaking a law. I’m really not exposing anyone’s secrets in a scrapbook page. I didn’t even post or scrap the photo. I mean, I can’t because the photo, of course, does not exist!

Anyway, void of that wonderful inspiration, here is the layout I did with the parts of All Aboard I have so far:

Credits: All Aboard by Edna B and Suruah-Freespirit

I still maintain that one of the wonderful things about digital, photography is that you can shoot like there’s no film in the camera, because there’s not! That also includes getting shots of buildings and industry that inspire layouts!

Okay, now off to finish dinner and do another layout before bed!

Links:

Darlene Haughin

Scrap Bird

Bountiful Harvest

Ellie Lash

Miss Edna’s Place

Suruah-Freespirit

Designs In Digital

Santa’s Digi Express

Birthday Bash Contests & A Free Template!

I’ve been very consumed with school and house cleaning as well as all the other things going on in my world. I’m finding that being a wife is somehow more demanding than being a girlfriend was. Actually, I think that’s a combination of the boxes of stuff from Grandma’s house I’m trying to sort and the stress I’m putting on myself to get all this done before the holidays.

I’ve been doing a little scrapping this month. I’ve done more than I thought I had time for, but not as much as I wanted. I have to thank and say “Happy Birthday,” to the Studio for that!

I was knocked out of the layout contest. This was my last layout:

Credits: In The Between by Designs by Moo

I know why I’ll never win a competition like that and it’s okay. I had to think about it. I was really uneasy about the vote last time because , to be honest, there were many layouts I looked at and thought, “Oh God, train wreck.” Those were layouts that scored much higher than me and advanced. It’s not just a style difference. I have liked many layouts that weren’t my style. I really think the same dyslexia that make s me read slow also makes my brain confused when I look at a scrapbook page with huge clusters of elements. When I read, I see the background first and have to focus on the words in front. It’s actually a pretty common form of dyslexia. When I look at busy layouts, my brain is looking for the background paper first and then to focus on the foreground. When there are a lot of things bunched together in the foreground, my brain gets muddled and the reaction is negative. That’s the style people like to look at. But I’ll never be able to appreciate it and will never be able to scrap that way. That’s okay, but if there is a contest with a lot of layouts with the billowing elements like that, I need to accept that I’m not qualified to vote. It wouldn’t be fair if I did!

Here is the kit the layout artists who’ve moved on are working with this week:

Tears on my Pillow by JulieC Designs

You definitely want to check out this fun kit and the magic contestants weave with it!

Now that I’m not involved in any voting, I’ll talk more about the designer contest. The first rounds were anonymous. Now, with designer names on the kits, the popularity contest part of the voting comes. This week, the designers in the contest were instructed to make a quick page and include all of the paper and elements they used in the accompanying mini kit. The theme was apples! I LOVE the mini kits and pages in the gallery this week! Since the names arte out now and everyone has a chance to call upon all their pals, I want to share with you and endorse the four I voted for. They are all great kits and great pages.

Here are the four that got my votes. The Chronicles of Nani encourages you to vote and consider these four designers when you do!

How Many Apples by Knittin Jen

Apple Cider by Tinks Trinkets

Apple of My Eye by Kimeric Kreations

Picking Apples by 2 Girls Designs

Speaking of minis, Darlene Haughin has a new mini out at both The Studio and Scrap Bird!

Me Time is a sweet kit that is just enough for a few pages that highlight the calmer times in your world. Just looking at the preview relaxes me!

I did this page with the kit:

Credits: Me Time by Darlene Haughin,

Round and Round Template by Digitalegacies Designs

Since my templates this month have been part of the template swap at The Studio, I made this one into a blog freebie!

Click preview to go to download.

Password is eightiesmetal

If you like templates, there is still time to design one of your own and get a slew of them in the swap and the birthday bash is still on until the end of the month to collect those pieces of Blueberry Picnic and all the fabulous kits in the designer competition!

Noisy Friday!

This has been quite a week! Lots of challenges, most the "worth it" kind that will have bright results!

I am watching workers dragging a large bundle of PVC pipes into our basement. We’re getting a full water-proofing and foundation strengthening done on our sweet 1950s house. Wednesday was a day of loud power hammering in the basement in preparation for installing the piping and repairing cracks. I’m not going to pretend that I really know exactly what they’re doing. When David and I met with the rep for the inital consultation, we really did notice what was wrong beyond what we’d already known! The rep was great at answering every question we had and explaining all the details, twice if we asked.

So, today is another day of loud power hammering and drilling. There is a crew of about a half dozen bare-chested and sweaty 20-something men around the outside of the house and in the basement. There are also three cats bunkered in our bedroom! Carla seems okay on the bed as usual. I think she had some experience with loud noises and strangers before she joined the family. Baggle is spending most of his time under the bed and Kaline is mostly snuggled between the luggage in the closet. Their Daddy brought up a little box that’s in the office and water in the bedroom for them. When I went up to check on them and give them treats, they all came out for me. Up two floors from the drilling, it’s cushioned from the noise a little. They came down at lunch when the crew was on break, but scooted quickly back upstairs when the noise started back up.

Today is a scrapping day for me. There is too much noise to concentrate for studying and I can’t exactly leave for the library or anything with a houseful of workers! I’ve had a nasty cold all week and I really don’t want to go out anyway.

That was my AG souvenir! Yanno, I’ve been sick only twice since I moved to Ohio in 2007 and both times it was a bug I caught in a Michigan Hotel. I haven’t been gone from the Motherland so long that the governor isn’t one I voted for. Maybe I should write Gov. Granholm and ask her to look into it! But “germs in the hotels” is probably a distant low priority in a state that’s in economic crisis. I’m in the little stuffy and coughing phase now anyway. I’ll be like new by Monday. All this dust is cleaning out my nasal passages one sneeze at a time to help my recovery along!

I’ve been building my Progressive Scrap page at The Studio this week. Jeanette, Designs by mITSYBELLE, is hosting and created an add-on for her kit, Another Year, for the scrap. All, her kits are on half-off sale this week and I picked up the full kit. It’s a great kit for birthdays and trains so far for me!

Speaking of great stuff at The Studio, DARLENE HAUGHIN IS BACK!!!! After a break to catch up on some offline things, both of her online stores, Digital Scrapbooking Studio and Scrap Bird, are open again! She has a new kit out to celebrate the reopenings called Memory Lane.

This is a perfect kit for vintage layouts, with soft, dusty colors to really make black and white photos pop! My first layouts are pages of memories from one of our cleaning weeks at Grandma’s house. We did some reminiscing and I photographed a lot of things to do pages with some journaling for scrapping.

Credit: Memory Lane by Darlene Haughin

Memory Lane is introductory priced at 35% off at both of Darlene’s stores at Digital Scrapbooking Studio and Scrap Bird!


Now I’m going to pop another Benadryl and some Advil and make lunch. If the pills don’t make me too sleepy, I’ll hit this month’s challenges at The Studio and Designs In Digital with some more of my catching up in 2007! I don’t think even a Benadryl side effect will put me to sleep with all this noise. I just hope it doesn’t make my scrap pages look like unintentional Picassos!

Lots Happening This Week

Big week this week!

Rina is visiting for the week, so we’ll get to have some fun Aunt-Niece time, including inviting ourselves to Pop’s for dinner. Rina hasn’t seen her Papa in a while. Dave and the rest of the family will visit him on the 4th of July weekend, but we’ll meet them in Indiana on the 5th so she can join them on the way home. Rina just didn’t want to be this close and not see her grandfather. So, I figured if my dad was all welcome smiles when I invited myself for Fathers Day, surely, he’d be just as happy to have Rina do that. Well, I’m sure you all realize that the Indy granddaughter calling to invite herself because she misses him is an even bigger event than the daughter who is only an hour away!

We’ll be at the festivities of the annual Mensa Gathering this week and the holiday weekend. It’s in Detroit this year, which means we can save some money compared to last year in Pittsburgh. Travel, a week in a nice hotel, dinners out and needing to get a cat-sitter all add up to Pittsburgh being personally bigger and cost bigger too! The path between Michigan and us is pretty well worn anyway! Davis will be presenting an auto-industry specific train slide show at the gathering. I helped with the sound for the show, so I feel pretty included in it too!


I’m waiting for a new study-guide text for the CompTiA A+ exam. I’m going to need certification in A+ as well as Network+ to get ready for my first job in my new career! The material for A+ was generally covered in my first networking class, but this guide will be a little more exam-specific. That’s scheduled to arrive in mid-July.


In the Scrapbooking world, Darlene Haughin is back after her 6month hiatus!! I’ll be posting some stuff with her newest kit very son!! Her stores will reopen July 1!

In the mean time, you know I haven’t been without new stuff to play with! Nibbles Skribbles has a new kit that just came out yesterday that is perfect for the entire picnic, parade and fireworks pics you’ll take this coming holiday!

It’s called Purely Patriotic and if you’re celebrating the US Independence day, that’s just what it is!

I love, love, love that skyrocket! I didn’t have the right place to use it on the sample layouts, but we’ll se what I have from the coming weekend and I’m also trying to plan a fireworks game for David and me at the Mud Hens n a couple of weeks!

Here are my sample layouts to inspire you for this must-have kit!

As you can see, Purely Patriotic is perfect for patriotic celebrations and the celebration of things Americana too!

Purely Patriotic is on sale right now at Digital Scrapbooking Studio for only $2.99! There is also a complementing mini-album page set, with six brag book sized pages that will showcase a dozen of your holiday photos. Those are also 25% off at just $1.50!


Head on over to the Nibbles Skribbles store to snag this great Independence Day kit and see all of Manda’s products, available exclusively at The Studio!

Holiday Scrapping Cheer and a Freebie!

Merry Christmas in Italian
From It’s Christmas All Over The World by Digitalegacies Designs
Available at Discount Digi Designs

Now I’m getting to the point of balancing my ambitious plan to continue doing a layout a day during Christmas Crunch Time and taking the valuable tips from Capture the Season to heart! I have a ton of notes for this week’s layout for Capture the Season, which is focusing on the changes you make in your home to prepare for the holidays. We have our new tree, but we haven’t put it up yet, so I don’t have the photos I planned to take! Also, my journaling notes are NOT about the tree. They are about a different annual change in our home that hit me when I was making the Davinities. So, I believe there are two major things that change our home into a Christmas home and that will probably be a two-pager in the Christmas part of my scrapbook for 2009. I’m still going to work on that when I get a chance, but since the tree won’t be up until just after week three starts, I won’t have it done early! But stay tuned! I do still plan to get it done “in the now” and I’ll share it when it it’s complete!

When David got in last night I asked, “Poker?” That means I asked him if it was an online poker night for him, which Wednesdays often are. The great thing about that is that while he plays poker, I do the Speed Scrap at Designs in Digital. I was very busy with baking and gift stuff yesterday and hadn’t done my layout for the day yet. Speed Scraps are a great opportunity to fulfill that commitment! So last night I did a Christmas Day page from last year.

Credits: Under The Mistletoe by Gone Scrappin’ Designs,
Holiday Sugar Cookie Blog Train contributions from AliSarah Designs
and Litabells Designs and Gingerbread Christmas by Desertgirl Designs

Christmas is usually a combination of a trip east to celebrate with David’s family, a trip north to celebrate with my family and a quiet day for just us on Christmas Day. That was especially nice last year since we got married two days before Christmas. David worked the night shift on the day we got married and there were last minute stops and dinner with my family on Christmas Eve. It was especially nice to have some time for a nice dinner at home n the good plates and wine out of Mom’s crystal. It’s going to be two pages. The dinner page and another with the tree and gift time, but I need to wait until we u the tree up this year. We got a first married Christmas ornament when we were in Connecticut last year, before we were married, so it had to be kept a secret! It’s a frame ornament and I slipped one of the photos I picked up on Christmas Eve into it, the one the judge took of us at the courthouse. I could have sworn I took pictures of that ornament on the tree. I really thought I did, but, there are no pictures of the ornament in my Christmas file! Things were a little involved last year, but in a really good way!

There will be one more Speed Scrap before Christmas. There won’t be one on the 23, because everyone figures to be busy with Christmas prep. David and I are making plans to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, so I don’t think I’d make that one anyway!

There is a great bloghop scheduled for this weekend with the SAS designers! Like last year, they are doing Christmas song inspired mini kits, which were awesome last year, so be on the lookout! If you haven’t stopped at Veelana’s blog lately, why not? She’s giving away gifts from her advent calendar that coordinate with her Jultid kit every day. Be sure to check that out!!


While I’m talking about my favorite designers, the ones I‘m so fortunate to create for, remember when I mentioned Darlene’s Dear Santa kit? Well, she sent me the kit to play with! Here is a two-pager I did for UNO and the Fabulous Dessert bar 2007.

Credits: Kit – Dear Santa by Darlene Haughin,
Blocks template by Digitalegacies Designs

We had a good turnout in 2007 because Christmas Eve was Monday, so we had an additional three nieces from out of town. There were lots of pictures, many that only differed slightly, but I wanted to make sure I got all of the people in the layout, so I created the blocked templates and with the help of some of the elements in Dear Santa placed over and under them, it gave a nice 3D look!

That brings us to the Freebie!! I said before that when I was selling, my templates were definitely my best sellers. I love working with templates too and often make a template as I’m designing my pages. This was one of those times. I made the template first and then tweaked it as I needed to fit my photos. I often customize templates a little to suit my photos and journaling, but boy, what time savers they are to get you started!

On the Blocks template set, I used one color for photos and one for papers. I didn’t even really stick to my own template! Also, on these ones, I left the grids on them; just turn them back on in the PSD file. With the grids, you can resize any of the bocks to fit your own photos and elements and stay within the placement and sizing of the blocking. Here’s a hint too – you can also copy the grid onto a new document and use it to create your own blocked layouts from scratch!



click preview to go to download page
password – drawfour

I’d love to hear any comments, preferably here since I don’t check the 4shared comments too often, but I do eventually read all the comments you leave! If you use the templates on a layout, I’d love to see them! Send me a link in comments or at thechroniclesofnani.gmail.com.

Now, it’s back to baking, cleaning, decorating and gift-finding!

The Bragging CT

This is from last year - need to get a new one with the shorter hair!

I create for and have created for in the past some wonderful designers. A bug part of my philosophy in life is that surrounding yourself with quality creates quality in you. I still remember the warm smiles last year when I gave the family history books to my brother and cousins. Everyone was sitting down with their books and sharing them with their spouses and kids. That’s where I believe that giving is not completely self-less. I couldn’t pay someone enough to buy the way I felt inside. They were great gifts and the quality from Darlene Haughin, RC Mama Designs, Beckie Wallace, Tirza’s Treasures, Veelana Designs and the host of other designers whose purchased and free kits with kits designed by me, Digitalegacies Designs, all made that great gift and wonderful feeling possible.

Yeah, I tend to get warm and fuzzy in general at this time of year. Well, okay, there are those who say I’m warm and fuzzy at ANY time of the year!

I wanted to do some CT cheerleading, something for which I am also known! First off, Scrap Bird is celebrating its first birthday this month! They have some great games and freebies and the whole store is 45% off! They have great designers; of course, Darlene and Veelana both sell there! But in addition to my bias, there are other talented ladies with whom I worked before I retired from professional designing. Believe me, a 45% off sale is an EXCELLENT opportunity to try out a new designer!


At Stone Accents Studio, also where both of “my” designers sell, there is much holiday bustle! Darlene is busy working on the upcoming bog train. The Christmas Carol Blog Hop starts December 11. I was so busy last year that I didn’t get to take advantage of too many of the sweet mini kits when they were free, but I’m going to try to have some time this year. We’ll see how bogged down I get with baking! While Darlene is busy with the blog hop details, be sure to check out the sales in her SAS store! Christmas favorites like Dear Santa and Frosty are on sale as well as some of her other kits!

Veelana has a wonderful new kit at SAS!


Jultid is classic Christmas shades with silver, which gives a very classy touch! She is doing an advent calendar freebie on her blog right now with a new freebie created with Jultid every day until Christmas! Definitely visit Vee’s blog if you haven’t yet. The brag book pages are just stunning!

While I was working on some pages with the new kit, I couldn’t help but play a little. I came up with a Jultid freebie to share too!

Click the preview to go to the download
Password is holiday-stories

You all now how much I like to talk, well, talk in the written sense, so my freebie is a few places to journal a little to go with the spectacular pages you’ll create with Jultid!

Jultid is on sale at SAS for 25% off its already low price!

Well, now I’m off to have breakfast and continue work on getting the house spruced up for decorating and entertaining and getting my shopping lists ready for Monday. I’ll still find scrap-time too. I’m sticking with my page-a-day commitment. This time next year, I hope to be scrapping 2010, not 2007!

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!

(*** please remember that scrapbook posts that contain links in the post are the exception to the rule that links in the post mean a compensated post. My only compensation in this post was the free CT kits from designers whose kits I’d buy anyway!)

I was thinking last night that it seems like there was a lot more hoopla in the last two years about this day than there is now. I’ve had things that kept me away from home, but I thought there had been forums games and challenges with cool posting bonuses. This year there are just sales, really good sales, but no community stuff.

I guess we blame the economy? Too bad, because in tough economical times that sense of community and enjoying our “cyber crops” is more important than ever! So, shop the sales today and then stop at the gallery in each store you buy a wonderfully discounted product and comment on three layouts, more if you wish. Let’s remember this as a day to celebrate our hobby and our fellow digiscrappers as well as the great sales!

There haven’t been as many comments in the galleries where I post. I blame that on points. So many forums have quit offering posing bonuses and challenges are all worth points to eventually get an, often nominal, coupon for the store. That’s great if you have the funds to complete the purchase at each store, but if not, it’s not really inspiring to go “out of the box” to create for a challenge when all you’re doing is advertising for the site for free when you upload. I miss the real posting bonuses for challenges. I find I personally do fewer challenges when it’s just a points system. Maybe that’s just me, but I’m a lot less enthusiastic about what the new challenges are.

Ah, but I’m fortunate! I CT for a couple of great designers whose work I’d use those coupons to help afford anyway! And there are great sales at the stores they sell at today! Both Veelana and Darlene sell at Scrap Bird and Stone Accents Studio. (How easy is that for me?)

At Scrap Bird, everything is 45% off for DSD! You’ll also find that Darlene has a number of mini kits, former posting bonuses, in the retiring section. Those ones are an additional 45% off of the already reduced clearance prices! There are mini kits of hers for less than a dollar! In addition to the products from the fabulous designers I’m privileged to create for, there are other great designers that are certainly worth checking out at Scrap Bird and this month, if you purchase $10 or more, you earn the collab mega kit, Cozy November, free with the purchase! That was the last kit I contributed to, but I don’t know if the Digitalegacies papers and elements are in it. If someone spends the $10 to earn it, you’ll have to let me know! With or without my contributions, the previews are so wonderful, it’s definitely worth a visit to Scrap Bird!

I did this layout for my 40th birthday with Darlene’s Shelle Belle kit and All The Way Across template from Listgirl’s Blog.



At Stone Accents Studio, the whole store is 50% off for DSD. They have old mega kits in their clearance bin for 60% off too! There is also an SAS blog train this weekend! Some of the SAS designers did mini kits in a series called Friendship Around The World! I’ll send you to start at Darlene’s blog! She chose Italy and used the swatch from her Ciao Italia kit to make her freebie a possible add-on to her great kit!

I’ll also mention that the super Halloween sale was extended at SAS! They were having some technical issues in the store and to make sure everyone had a fair chance to get in on the sale, they extended it until November 9! Everything Halloween is on sale right now for 60% off including Veelana Designs’ A Tale of Magic and Monsters!

Here are a couple of layouts I did for Halloween this year using that kit

Credits: A Tale of Magic and Monsters by Veelana's Designs

Before I get back to my homework for a few more hours, I want to share a quick page I made with Vee’s Halloween kit. While there are plenty of spiders in the kit, those would be the monsters, not the cute Frankenstein doodle, there’s plenty to make sweet non-arachnid pages like I did, or like today’s freebie!

Click preview to download. Password is: batty