Etcetera

Credits: Warm Latte by Rose Made Designs

The big and best news today is the Keurig maker is back where it belongs; anyplace I can make coffee with it! Oh, one more coffee cluster today, but maybe tomorrow I’ll do a chocolate cluster. Then if I get chocolate, I’ll start doing money clusters!


Today I wanted to share a fun scrapbook layout I did with my Iowa water towers from my first visit to Iowa in 2008.

Iowa Waterbed Quilt

Credits: Sleepy Time Collab by Booland Designs, Darlene Designs, 

Deli Scraps by Min, Digilicious Designs, equAveziur, and Moon Designs, 

Quilt pattern is Tick Rack Toe by The Quilter's Cache/Marcia Hohn.

I know The Chronicles of Nani is frequented by a lot of scrapbookers and a lot of quilters too. I love quilt-inspired scrapbook pages. They are so much fun to do and can be done with digital or paper scrapping. I think the stitching is easier to do digitally, I can’t imagine drawing in the stitching by hand, but the pattern can still be done in paper without the stitching. I get my patterns for my quilt blocks at Quilter’s Cache on the web. The quilt templates are free to use for personal use projects and there are just TONS of patterns! Some of Marcia Hohn’s quilt patterns are better than others for scrapbooking, better space for photos or journaling, but they are all fabulous for quilting! Quilter’s Cache was definitely a bookmark on Grandma’s computer. It’s a great place for templates and inspiration!

Easter Barnnies

We shot some trains and even a few barns on our sunny drive Easter afternoon!

There is a larger barn and this little side building on US224, east of the Hancock Bicentennial barn, both with Mail Pouch chewing tobacco ads on them. The larger barn faces east and it was too late to get any lighting for a photo on the same day I shot this one, but I will go back to have the pair. Not a fan of the product, but I love the classic barn advertising!

This one is also on US224. I just like the barn! It’s weathered, but the colors are still rich. I like the stone base and the windows that give it almost a churchy-look.

And now a couple more Ohio Bicentennial Barns

The Hancock County Bicentennial Barn is on US224, just outside of Findlay, Ohio. It was the 15th of the 88 barns pained.

The Wyandot County barn’s Bicentennial logo has definitely seen better days! It’s on US23, south of Carey. I’m kinda sad to see the logo so weathered away. If I had been honored with a bicentennial logo on my barn, I want to touch up the paint every year…of course I’m not paying that bill! It was the 5th barn painted for the Bicentennial project.

See more great barns at Tricia’s Barn Charm at Bluff Area Daily

Links:

Quilter’s Cache

Ohio Barns

Digitalegacies Designs Sale Paper

I hope everyone has been visiting Scrap Bird on Thursdays for the great half-off kits available with all of the fantastic personal and commercial use goodies in all of the stores. We’re growing again, even more designers! I’ll have all the blog links up soon. I’m still catching up from being gone a week!


This week, the Digitalegacies Designs offerings in the Crazy Thursdays sale are Eight Days A Week and One Step at a Time. Both are only $2.50 today only!!


But wait, there’s MORE!


Okay, that’s corny, but we’re talking a dollar sale! There are just a few days left to get any Digitalegacies Designs template set for just one dollar! That’s right, half off the Project 365 sets with four templates each and a third off the quilt-inspired Premier Templates.

Coming soon!

A new quick page set will be in the store soon! The Look of Love is four quick pages, one made with each of Laura, My Blue Heaven, Because of You and Your Own Special Way, the Digitalegacies love-kits!


Just put your photos behind the png files, flatten and print! Look for the set of four pages in the store soon!


As June starts, a new DST blog train kicks off the month on the first, plus a new I Wanna Talk About Me challenge and bonus too!

It's A Half-Birthday Party!

Happy Half-Birthday to me!
I’m half way to 43!

Not so many people acknowledge their half birthday after about age 12. I remember telling Rina and Tori, who were being bullied by a kid in kindergarten because he was “5 and a half and they were only 5,” when their half-birthday was and they realized that they were 5 and a half too! The bullying stopped when they told him because suddenly, they were peers.

Of course, at 5 1/2, you say you’re 5 and a half. Other kids would call you on it if you said you were 6. I round up after January 29 when someone asks how old I am. I discovered that, just like when I was 5 and a half, when I was 39 and a half, my friends called me on it again! I was just too excited about turning 40 for everyone’s liking and they refused to let me say I was 40 before July 29! Well, from here to July, I’ll probably say “43” when someone asks how old I am, but you all know that I’m 42 1/2. Shhh!



Okay, enough already with the snow! YEESH!

We just had a foot a couple weeks ago, now the storm that was SUPPOSED TO miss us, dumped almost another nine inches between Tuesday night and yesterday at noon. It had JUST gotten to where there was enough ice and packed snow clear for me to walk in the driveway without fear. We have awesome neighbors who lent us their snow blower again. We are going to fill up the snow blower's gas tank and we’ve discussed adopting one to live in our garage.

The Weather Channel was reporting from ice-storm crippled Paducah , Kentucky yesterday morning. I was in Paducah in December, 1998. I had interviewed for a job in Hopkinsville at their FOX affiliate and drove out to Paducah to meet Kelly for dinner. I was not going to be that close to Missouri at Christmastime and not meet up with Kel for a long dinner! I spent about an hour at the National Quilting Museum while I was in town. They had some really nice quilts there! Grandma would love it! I told her that on Christmas morning when she opened the cloth quilt badge I got her when I was there. It was an awesome conversation piece brag badge to add to her name tag for the quilting guild at home!

I was pondering, if I’d taken the job in Hopkinsville, which would have required a second job to pay rent, but could have been a gateway job to Nashville or bigger, I would be icebound anyway. Ten years later, I’d have maybe been in Nashville where yesterday it was 30 degrees colder than it was in Knoxville, in the mountains! I already did a blog complaining about the broken promise of global warming, right?


On to happier things!

Stay tuned to this blog and/or Scrap Bird for news about my beginning of February sale! If you love love and you love scrapping about love, you’ll love the sale! And there’s your Thursday tease! hehehe


I have a couple more CT introductions!

First, Marzena, Mamrotka, signed on as a guest CT! Very cool! It’s not uncommon for new designers to be on established designer's CTs. You know, like that chick form Digitalegacies being on Darlene Haughin’s team? It’s especially cool when an established designer lends a promoting hand and does a guest spot for a (hopefully) up and coming designer!

She did a couple of layouts last week with “My Blue Heaven!”

Happy One-Month Anniversary by Mamrotka,
Credits - “My Blue Heaven” by Digitalegacies Designs

This one was personally such a sweet wish to see in the Scrap Bird gallery last Friday, but I love the way she cascaded the flowers on the cake. It kinda feels like our eloping selves had a cake after all!

Woman by Mamrotka
Credits - “My Blue Heaven” by Digitalegacies Designs

What can I say except “stunning.” I hadn’t really though about the possibilities of this kit beyond romance, but what a powerful layout this one is!

You can see both of these layouts at Scrap Bird and other galleries around town as well. Stop by and leave some love when you do!

Speaking of love, Rhonda shared her first layout with “Because Of You” with me. Oh My, FABULOUS!

Young Love by scrapin_rho
credits - kit “Because Of You” by Digitalegacies Designs

I love what she did with “Because Of You” It really does work well with teen layouts! “Because Of You” will be part of that love sale in a few days when it is officially for sale, February 1.

And now I get to boast about a new member of the Digitalegacies Designs team! Sheri, sherriberi39a, is a very proud and devoted grandma of four. If you visit her gallery at DSP, you’ll see the grandkids a lot in her layouts! She just sent me her first layout with “Your Own Special Way.” I had to chuckle, different kits and different ages, but same title!

Young Love by sheriberi39a
Credits: “Your Own Special Way” by Digitalegacies Designs

Such a great presentation and a completely adorable photo!

I gotta say, these are three ladies that have really made my January! Creative teams are about promoting scrapbook designers’ kits, but they are so much more. It’s people sharing their talents, learning and growing together. My designing gives me ideas to scrap better and vice versa, seeing the amazing work others do with my kits, helps me grow and broaden what I can do as a designer. I know as a CT member, I learn and get exposed to new scrapping ideas too. I still have a couple of guest spots, with the possibility of being a longer term, open for February. If you’re interested, shoot me an email at chroniclesofnani@gmail.com.


New in the store!


Since I’m officially releasing the Valentine kits Feb 1 and that’s a Sunday, they may not actually be in the store until Monday, the first business day in February. In the mean time, I have released a new set of Brag Book Pages, this set with “Eight Days A Week.” As it says in the description, the Beatles believed in one more day in a week, so does Digitalegacies Designs! This Brag Book set is 8 pages, priced as if there were seven. Thank the nice gentlemen from Liverpool!


Patch 365 - Week 5

credits: "My Blue Heaven" by Digitalegacies Designs

The features of married week 5 included our one-monthiversary, picking up David’s ring and “branding him,” and my toe-socks (that one was a slow day, but they’re cool socks!) Since we celebrated our 1-month during this week, I used the kit I created to celebrate our wedding, “My Blue Heaven,” for the layout.


Now that you’ve had some fun looking, how about some fun getting?

I have a special blog freebie in honor of my half-birthday. I wasn’t sure if you’d enjoy the template or the quick page more for the freebie, so I bundled them both in one download! You can use the quick page for a Valentine or anniversary week Project 365 page, or any collection of love pics. Then, you can turn or flip the template and create something totally different! Have fun with them!

Sorry, this link is expired.

Friday By Request

One of Grandma’s quilts. I think she’s waiting
for me to learn how to put the backing on!

Today's request came from Dinphy. She sent the request last Friday. Now the FBR rules state that if don’t have a request, I’ll do leftover requests from the previous week. Since I don’t get requests every week, if I get a second request, it’s a pretty sure thing that request will be the next week’s Friday blog. But it also says that if I don’t do your request, feel free to resubmit! Right now, I seldom have to worry about an overabundance of requests, so I just keep track. If it becomes incredibly popular, then I’ll have to stick to the rules and request resubmitting the request. Can you imagine, to someday have multiple requests every week? Wow.

Anyway, Dinphy’s request ended up bumping my cousin, who had the number two request last week! Now, his request will be for NEXT Friday, but Rina has been encouraging her sister to give me a request too! FBR has a little surge of popularity going right now and I just LOVE IT!

So Dinphy’s request is a scrapbook request. She isn’t challenging me to do a layout, she is asking me to tell about a layout with more than journaling to it! Her request was “...I’d like a happy/humorous or fun post. A layout and the story behind the LO or how that LO got together, the photos or why you made it.” She stipulated that it was not to be a story journaled on the layout already.

Well, there is one layout that has a humorous story behind it that is NOT journaled on the layout. I don’t know that’s it’s “bust-a-gut” funny, but it is giggle-worthy!

Quilt For A Waterbed
For Dinphy

Credits - Inspired by Iken’s “Quilt” at Digital Freebies,
Quilt Pattern - John’s Pinwheel from the Quilter's Cache/Marcia Hohn,
Sea Swept Papers by Rachel Dickson

This was my first quilt! True, it was my first layout using a quilt pattern. I like to use quilt patterns as templates for scrapbooking. It adds a classic touch, especially great for heritage or country-style layouts. But there is a story behind this layout and WHY it was the spring board for me using quilt patters!

When my hands aren’t on the keyboard to do crafts, I paper scrap, I crochet, I do counted cross-stitch. I don’t quilt! Every woman in my family had a handcraft that was hers. I have a gorgeous hand-done quilt on my cedar chest that my Great-Great Grandmother made. I have throw pillows that my Great Grandmother made with smocking. Grandma did beautiful appliqué work when she wAs younger and my Mom did rug hooking. I guess I‘d have to say the cross stitch is all mine, because none of the other family women were known for it and because it’s the craft I’ve done the longest. I taught myself cross-stitch in my late teens with a mini-kit from Big Lots! That framed bling ship ornament hangs in our downstairs bathroom.

Grandma started quilting about ten years ago and she went full speed into her new hobby. It took her no time to amass a collection of fabrics, threads, templates and other notions. She has a number of quilt projects in different stages of completion. She’s been trying to recruit me for the last few years. She says “Somebody has to know how to finish all of my quilts when I’m gone.” My answer has always been, “Then I guess you’d better stick around and finish them! I don’t want to quilt.” It’s an expensive and time consuming hobby!

Not that my other hobbies don’t get expensive and time consuming too, I just don’t have a keen interest in quilting. I don’t have the bug! But I have watched Grandma quilt and do get the concept enough to make sure that I have all the stitching and the border on my layout!

This one is called “Quilt for a Water Bed,” since it’s showing off a few of my water towers. I told her I‘d made a quilt square for a water bed and she was skeptical. Then I showed her this, for a chuckle. Of course she smiled and said, “You’ve got the right idea! So, are you ready to learn quilting NOW?”

Just last weekend, Grandma was delighted when I told her that I thought I wanted to learn quilting. My Honey has a ton of t-shirts that are in different stages of worn out, but he won’t part with them! some are from places he’s been, some from events back in hs college days (he earned hs degree in 1988!) but they have sentimental value! I asked him if I made a quilt out of the most worn ones, would he part with them, making more room in his T-shirt drawer. He said he thought that would be an acceptable alternative to throwing them out. I think it’s an acceptable alternative to him wearing them, especially the ones that are more holes than t-shirt! Grandma as a friend who made a T-shirt quilt, and she says she’s gong to get me the instructions from her. So for Grandma, persistence DID pay off!

I taught her how to use the computer and she taught me to crochet. I thought it was even! Ah, but Grandma has always been the generous sort and as long as I can remember she ‘s had that gift Mom had. Give it time. In the end, she’ll have been right all along!