Doesn’t It just Figger?

One thing that is all good and sun this morning is Carla! It’s Carla’s third birthday today! I feel a little guilty because I didn’t blog on Kaline’s birthday, but I did do a tweet with a photo for her. I don’t have kitten photos of Carla because she was adopted as an adult Cat. Truth is you wouldn’t know she is an adult when she plays, and she plays A LOT!

So, tonight will be “birthday cake” with Carla’s share in the birthday bowl. It will be a great evening in kittydom!


Let’s talk about the weather for a minute!

Rain. That’s SO the story today! Lee is coming in on the heels of the mess that Irene left in the east. There are places I was just last week that are under water now! We opted to not go to Hershey’s Chocolate World on the way home and they are closed today as there is flooding all over Central Pennsylvania, including “The Sweetest Place on Earth.” We’ve had Lee-enhanced rain here too. It’s been raining since yesterday but nothing like they’re experiencing in Pennsylvania, New York and all over New England and the East Coast.

So many places we just were are flooded or with rivers about to go over their flood walls! The Weather Channel is showing evacuation in Binghamton where the river is at the top of the flood wall. David said this morning that if it goes over, “they’ll be screwed!” He is so right, when it goes over, and they are predicting it will go over in about 2 hours, the water will just rush into downtown. Right now it’s expected to crest over a half foot above that wall.

Send a good thought or prayer for the people and home/business owners in those areas. They are going to have a lot of rebuilding to try to do before it gets really cold! If you are in that area, heed the evacuation orders or recommendations to stay home. If you aren’t in that area, STAY AWAY! Better to let the professionals reporting about these things show the flooding on TV rather than become a statistic for them to report!


I hate Murphy and his laws!

I entered the layout contest at The Studio for the Birthday Bash this year again. The first week was while I was on vacation and I did get a layout done. The first kit was an all-pale colors kit. Not really my scrapping style and not a kit I would have bought, but a pretty kit and I think the layout turned out pretty nice.

Credits: Early Morning Light by Piggy Scraps

Unfortunately, there was only one other person who agreed that it was a nice layout and I didn’t make it to round two. Here’s where the hating Murphy come in. The kit for round two is fabulous and I’d love to work with it! I have a ton of photos to choose from that it would match!



Well, best of luck to everyone who did make it to round 2 and enjoy that wonderful kit!!

Everyone be safe and happy today!

Wedding Planning

No, it’s not what you think! I’m not planning anything. My single friends are still single, many blissfully single, and the Niecii are unquestionably too young. In fact Tori is wrapped up in prom planning, which in her world is involved enough that she may be a few extra years away from wanting to plan a wedding! No, the wedding planning right now is at The Studio!

Digital Scrapbooking Studio is in the midst of its Spring Fling, which includes a designer contest. It’s not a involved contest that ends in a store for the winners, like the annual anniversary contest. It’s a for fun designer contest at a slower pace with store certificates available for weekly winners. The theme for the designer contest is Weddings. Each contestant selects a color palette for their wedding kit that they work with throughout the month and you can join the contest at any time. The first week was paper packs, the second elements and this week is The Alpha! I joined this week using the palette I used for the kit I did after my own wedding day, er, elopement day, My Blue Heaven.


And here is the complementing alpha:


Click the alpha preview to go to its page at The Studio and get the link for downloading. I know that sounds like a surfing expedition , but it’s to get a freebie, ya know?

The alpha has a decorated and undecorated upper case and numbers set, plus the lower case and 10 punctuation marks. To sweeten the deal a bit, make sure you read the TOU! The gallery page at The Studio suggests you read it too, but it doesn’t tell you why. I’m telling the readers at The Chronicles of Nani why! In the TOU, it tells you what you need to do to get the complementing kit for free too! Since My Blue Heaven is a kit I’ve sold, I won’t just put the links on my blog for it. That would be unfair to people who bough it. But 2-1/2 years after the store closed, I consider it my “close out” to offer it for free with very small efforts, like the one described in the TOU.

I don’t know what the next challenge will be,. Maybe quick pages or clusters or something like that. There is a complementing journal element from Journal Camp Week 3 last year. Right now, since I’ve been a little slower with blogging and freebies with school and everything else going on, freebies from all of last year are still available. I don’t need to free up space at 4-Shared, so there isn’t any rush to delete any older freebies. I’m planning on leaving all the Journal Camp freebies up anyway, since I still believe, and probably always will, that journaling is an important and essential part of scrapbooking and if the tutorial and freebies will help anyone else with adding it to their scrapbooking, it will always make me feel good that I helped!

So that’s it for this blog entry. I’m going to try to get a break in my school work today to do a mug shot, but it may be “decaf,” after 6, which is when I go decaf! Get to the Studio and get the free alpha of My Blue Heaven, and any of the other wedding-inspired freebies there and if you want My Blue Heaven for free, by all means read the TOU with the alpha!

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!

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