I love a little Monkey

So I quit my job, and NOW I finally have time to scrap! I got so excited to scrap that I stayed up til midnight last night working with some of the kits available at My Scrap Shop.

This kit immediately caught my eye. My little girl is such a little "monkey" so this was such the perfect kit to work with.

It's "Funky Monkey" by Sir Scrapalot. I love how he does those graphic fun patterned papers. I don't see it around much, except on sites that show trends in patterns these days. He really is right on the spot with these.

Here's a layout of Maia with her best friend. I left a spot to hand journal. They were at Jungle Jims and man, they had a great time! Don't they look like happy little monkey girls?
And here is a layout using a photo of Maia monkeying around in the fountain at Lagoon (our local amusement park.)
Both layouts use exclusively the products from Funky Monkey by Sir Scrapalot. He has two little girls of his own, so a lot of times I find his kits to really work for my little girl photos.

He's a great friend, and a fantastic designer. I have known him for what feels like forever. Before he did much designing, right when he started blogging even. I am blessed!

Anyhow, thanks for letting me use your kit, Aaron. Everyone else, if you love it, you can get it here in his store.

Wow, another Heirloom Layout

When I see old photos I just want to drool. Women were so beautiful back in the old days, I swear. I love the vintage photos I am seeing in use on my heirloom lace papers. Here's another one from a CT Member at SAS named patchas. Man, I am awestruck with the layouts I am seeing these days, this is another goody!

Beautiful Heirloom Layouts

Crabbi made some beautiful layouts using my Heirloom Lace Papers and Heirlooms from Mother products, available at my store at Stone Accents Studio. I thought I would show them to you all here because I was just AMAZED at how they turned out. She really had some amazing photos and was creative with these. I love them.

Post your Layouts here!

My QP Team and I would LOVE to see how you have used these quickpages and the kits I am putting up lately. If you have used a QP or my designs lately, please take a moment to post a link to where you show it in a gallery here in a comment. We love to share and would love to see what you create!

I was nominated!

My layout has been nominated for People's Choice at Go Digital!

Check out the forum post here:

http://www.godigitalscrapbooking.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2859

Art Layout

Credits here

I think I like this layout the best so far. I had a lot of fun making it, and with such great papers and elements to work with, who wouldn't? It helps that my model is so damn adorable :) Oops, I just said a naughty.

Precious Layout

I love fabric scrapbooking kits. You know, the ones that look like ya raided mom's sewing cabinet and stole a bunch of stuff. This kit has such a lush texture and the elements are really cool... so I used it for a layout I have been putting off doing. I am not a fan of pictures of myself, so I rarely scrap any of me and Maia together. But I liked this kit so much that I finally found just the right layout and elements to finally share the pic.

Credits here, come visit and leave a comment in my gallery.

This is a very precious moment in me and Maia's life. When she was new, she only liked to sleep if she could fall asleep against my chest, listening to the sound of my heart. She wouldn't go to sleep at all in any other position for the longest time. But her warm breath against my chest and the smell of her "newborn-ness" was just a wonderful nap inducer for me too :) This, folks, is bliss.

We're BAAAAACK

I had a wonderful overnight getaway with my darling husband. We went west, across the desert, to Wendover (Nevada) and stayed overnight at the Rainbow Casino. We got a luxurious little mini-suite, you know, the room with the mirrored walls and the jacuzzi next to the bed. I won't share our "activities" with you other than to say we had a wonderful time, only spent $160 on 2 meals, gas, snacks, and gambling... and I used the jacuzzi a total of 3 times and the steam/sauna shower 3 times. I love those little ammenities.

The best part? We had time alone to just relax and snuggle and have non-parental small talk. That was so refreshing. Then this morning, we woke up early, went down and had some breakfast, and sped home because while getting away is nice... coming home is always nicer :)

I finished a layout when we got here, using some scraphead products and a freebie from Lawgal. I used a kit from Scraphead called American Dreams. It is FABOO, and with the 4th of July coming up I thought I would share my layout with you. If you click on the "Credits here" link, it will take you to my gallery at scraphead where you can leave me comments. Any constructive criticism is especially appreciated as I am trying to improve my technique on my layouts.

Credits here

Spring Layout

I took a break from designing to do a layout of a photo I took in my neighborhood. It is for a challenge at the DSA Guild forum... a site I just got a membership to because those gals can REALLY scrap I tell ya. I wanna learn to do layouts as crafty as some of those scrapfolks do.

Credits: Diane Miller's corners (the white doodles)
The rest I made myself with the photo.

What's to Come... and an Update of sorts

I sat down tonight and was looking at clothes online. You see, when I am running low on ideas, I go shopping for them. I don't spend any money, mind you, but I look at fabrics, colors, online magazines, whatever catches my eye... and I get my inspiration.

Here is the end result of a little shopping in the plus size shirt section at walmart.com...

An upcoming paper pack... it was inspired by a wild floral print on a shirt I would never wear, but it looked like fun to try to recreate on paper... I don't wear florals, I am not a girly girl.

This is just a sneak peek. I have ideas for a few more papers to go with it, and will even be putting out the PNG files so you can make your own matching brushes for the flowers... I want to try some new things :) I hope you like the colors above, but if you would like it in other colors please put a comment below.

And now for a weight loss update. I am down to... 254. Remember, a couple months ago I was up near 280. I started the low carb diet at 269 so I am making progress! Even with this weekend's binge. It is getting easier now, it is feeling more like a way of life rather than a diet. I sat through a company party today with pizza from my favorite pizza place and breadsticks... and I ate my lunch I had brought from home. YAY ME!

Thank you all for taking the time to comment on my blog. Your comments are how I wind down from a long day at the office. They are what make me feel good about the time I spend on this old computer plugging away.

Here's one of my old layouts that I just ran across that I love. Just to share... hope to inspire...

Credits: Letters Home, by D.B. Miller

Jewelry and Flowers, a Girl's Wishes hehe

OK so I wanted to do a layout of Maia, and I really wanted some little jewels of my own with flowery silverness to them. This is what I came up with and I just knew someone else would want them to. Is it you? I will have to work on a new layout using them so you can see how much fun they will be. I picture them all ined up as a daisy chain page border, or as corners on a photo.

Download them here... and if you DO, please leave a comment here on my blog. Read my previous posts if you must about the "Tip Your Waitress" theory and whatnot. It seems that as it gets easier for people to find our freebies, through wonderful sharing blogs, great forums, and so on... folks come and download them but forget all the hard work that designers put in to create them. Now I know I sound like I am whining, and heck, maybe I am. It's the girly bratty me coming out, but I truly just want you to know that it truly truly means a lot to me.

Now onto a layout or two.

Maia at my sister's barbecue
No kit used, just my photoshop

Lindsay Jane gave this fabulous paper today.
I had to use it for a challenge at GDS. If you download it, leave her some love.
Tell her I sent ya, heck, I hope she sees this layout!

The Kisses QP in Action

Wow, I saw some of your QP's in use today! Check out the layouts below and the links to the blogs you can find them on if they have one. ( I will add more as I get them, I know they are out there :)) Still waiting for permission from a few in my email too.

I will be doing the emailing of the QP to ya tomorrow after I get home from work, it's not too late to get in on it, I will extend it til I get home tomorrow at 2:30 PM Mountain Time k?

Xashee's Corner

Wow, NSD was a fun day!

I spent some time at different scrap chats, one at DST and another at Scrapbook Bytes. I ran into a few of ya, and met a few others. It was fun meeting everyone in a chat room. I am a big fan of online chatting since my home life doesn't lead to much outside social time... I keep much too busy!

I won some great prizes, coupons for stores at two different sites. I look forward to shopping when they arrive in my inbox. I love to shop.

I took a layout challenge at Scrapbook Bytes, here is the result...

"Kit Denim" par MissVivi (I LOVE THIS FREE KIT)
Label Atomic Cupcake
Word Art Sara Wise

Now I am working on a papercraft, a small book for my my mom to carry in her purse with photos and stuff about Maia. Gonna give it to her on Mother's Day. I used some DCWV papers, from the Once Upon a Time set (I think it is called)... I also uploaded some freebies I had downloaded from the internet to be printed at Wal-Mart with her photos... trying some "hybrid" stuff. Will show you how it turns out when it turns out :)

Some Layouts I Love

OK so I rarely post my layouts to my blog. I don't know why, I just am hesitant, but I have decided to post a few of my faves from my hard drive to share them.

The kit is a July Freebie by Anne Langpap (2 Peas), the photo is Maia playing on grandma's legs. She loves to use us as playground toys, in this case she was using grandma as a slide :)

For this layout I used my own Thankful kit, that is here on the blog for download. The photos are of me and Maia. We were at the belly dancing festival at a local park and my sister snuck a few photos of me. I am so rarely in front of a camera.

My Little Angel

If you came for the freebies, they are in the post below.

I am making a set of wings. Or a set of sets of wings. Here is a preview of one of the sets in use.
It's a photo of my daughter when she was a lot littler...I was inspired because I wanted to make some homemade cupids, and then I realized I only wanted to do cupids because I wanted to play with wings... so instead, I am making the wings. You can put them together with your own photo bodies and make some cute stuff! I will post them when they are done.

I got these new charms from Helron Designs and the silver chain from lalalime, and I know it is sometimes considered taboo, but I had to add them to a page I had already made. I loved this quickpage but I want to show you how you can add a little more schnazz to a quickpage by personalizing it a little more than just plopping in a pic and some text.

Broken link and Halloween

I have been told the elements link is not working for the Sherbet kit. My hosting friend is going to get it fixed (prolly not tonight but maybe) and I will let you know here when it is working again... sorry :( But enjoy the rest of the kit in the meantime!


I took Maia out trick or treating for the first time tonight. Here is a layout I made real quick to show off pics of her in her fairy princess costume. More to come.

• Paper- Coralee RazBCotton
• Princess Label-A Cox
• Candy Carnival Lollipops - Shelly Chua
• Green Element- Lara Payton
• Stitching- Karen Hunt

Word Art in Sherbet Colors

My 2 year old girl is the most imaginative and creative person I know. She can make ANYTHING fun. I was inspired by her to create some fun word art, that I will be using a lot with my new sherbet kit that I am creating.

credits: These are all my own creations! I am making a new kit, Sherbet. You will see new pieces of it here for download almost every day

Yes, I have switched colors from the blues and browns over to the pinks, yellows, oranges, and greens. I can't stray away from colors that remind me of Maia for too long or I go C-R-A-Z-Y you know.

Here is a set of word art that reminds me of my daughter. I used the colors for the Sherbet stuff as accents.

These would go great with the free quickpages I have already posted... or with the elements and papers I am almost done working with. Oh, and that alpha too! Get them all here on my blog. You won't be disappointed.

DOWNLOAD from Luckybug

Sherbet Quickpage Preview

Here is a new color scheme that caught my eye and is making me inspired. I call it Sherbet for now, but will think of a fun new name for it later. If you think of a good one, let me know :)

I made a little quickpage of some of the papers and frames I have already made for it. You can get it on my Luckybug page for free.

New Layered Template

I have finished a new Layered Template. I called it Radiant, you will of course make something with it and call it something else. That's good, I like helping people create new things :)

I have added this to Luckybug, so you can go download it now. Please comment if you download this. As always, I love your feedback. The file includes a Photoshop image and a JPEG. Thanks!