Freebie Friday #3

It's Freebie Friday! This means the second part of my freebie digital kit giveaway. This week it is a glittered chipboard alpha, 3 full uppercase alphas in different colours.

I hope you like them and if you do and/or you create something with them please leave a comment. I'd love to hear what you think and see what you have done.

Hopefully I'll get my latest JYC page uploaded later today.

*** If you tried to download this earlier today and only got the preview, first of all I apologise and secondly this has now been fixed so please feel free to download it again with the correct file ***

Freebie Friday #2

Yay! At last. Apologies for the delay but I do have an excuse. In fact 78 of them. That's how many cupcakes I have made today. To say I'm physically exhausted is an understatement. Anyway, more on that another day.

This has obviously meant though that it's taken me longer than I thought to get this weeks freebie online and posted. But the wait is over. Welcome to Part I of my Kit's Kitschen digital kit.

Hope you like them. Just click on the 'Download Now' button and Bob's your uncle. Which for most people would be very odd but for me it isn't because I DO have an uncle called Bob!

Please let me know what you think of them again if you create something with them please post a link and let me see. Thank you.

Freebie Friday #1

So here we are, at the first of my Freebie Fridays and here is the first freebie:

As I said in this post I started to design this Holly Berry kit with the intention of creating my first full kit but it never materialised. I'm not sure why. I think partly because I wasn't confident of my skills as a designer, partly because I thought what will I do with it once it's done and partly because work just took off and I didn't find time to go back to it. If you like it please just click on the 'Download Now' link above and it should take you straight to the download page. This is the first time I've tried anything like this so if you have any problems please say as I have plans for more stuff like this so want to get it right.

If you do download it please let me know what you think of it and if you actually create something with it I would love to see it so please post a link in the comments. Thank you and hope you like it.

The 'C' Word

By which I mean christmas!

Yes, I know, it feels too early to mention this upcoming holiday but it is looming really fast. I always feel like christmas is like the dinosaur in the side mirror of the Jurassic Park movie and should come with the warning 'objects in the mirror are closer than they appear'. Christmas still seems to be ages away but it is in fact only 5 weeks and 4 days away!

So why am I talking about christmas? Because, for those of you so inclined, there are a couple of really great classes out there to help you record your christmas memories, traditions etc. And for the discerning shopper amongst you they are great value for money.

First up there is a free, yes totally free, class being offered by Jessica Sprague, Holidays In Hand. This class will help you to focus on what matters most to YOU during the holiday season, no matter how you celebrate. Instructions on how to sign up for this class can be found when you click on the Holidays In Hand link above. Jessica's classes are really great, especially for digital scrapbookers and you can access the class content FOREVER. I love her classes, in fact Jessica Sprague was instrumental in my quest for digital scrapbooking know-how and got me started in the first place.

The other class I would highly recommend is Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class which works for both digital and traditional scrapbookers. Yes, there is a small charge ($32 US dollars or £20 UK pounds) but you get to automatically do the class every year for free for however long you want to join in. I first signed up for this class in 2007, then tagged along again in 2008 and will now be doing it again this year. You have to agree that that is great value for money!

My plan is to try and incorporate ideas from both classes in to one journal or album. So far I've not completed a full christmas journal but am hopeful, as always, that this year will be THE year.

Watch this space...

A Whale Of A Time

Yes, quite literally, I've been having a whale of a time. A 7ft 6in, according to Richard, who is a man and obviously needs to know these things precisely, whale of a time.


Why (and yes, I've asked myself this many times over the last 2 weeks)? The crêche at church are currently telling the story of Jonah and they asked, as they have this idea from somewhere that I'm 'crafty', if I had any ideas? Well, I always have ideas I'm just not sure if I should in future tell people what they are because before you know it you've volunteered to make a HUGE papier maché whale! And I've never done any papier maché before!

So where to start? Obviously first step was to search the web for 'papier maché whale'. Results? None, unless you wanted to make a little 12" 2D whale to put on the wall. The other end of the search fell in to the 'I want to make a whale as big as a house for my museum' category. Not helpful. So it was back to having to use my creativity and come up with a way to do this. The main problem was creating the framework for the papier maché to be laid onto. I briefly went down the route of 'can I find balloons big enough to support my whale sized proportions' but quickly discarded this as no, I probably couldn't. Chicken wire saved the day - and I have the scars to prove it!

After that the rest was easy, if not time consuming. The most frustrating part was waiting for it to dry between applying layers and the fact that it was a 3D object which meant covering all sides of it.

So my life this last week or so has consisted of: papier maché, dry, turn, papier maché, dry, turn, papier maché, dry ... I'm sure you get the picture.

He went down a treat though. And yes, I do mean he. It's definitely not a she - just ask Noah. He complained when I once referred to it as a she, "but mum, I'm surrounded by girls, there are already 4 in this house and only 2 boys, can it be please be a boy whale?".

Who's the 4th girl? Well that's a post for another time but I will tell you it's a hamster named Ruby.

A Layout

Credits:

Papers: Softly Dotted - Amy Wolff, Once Upon A Whimsical Morning - Lilypad Designers, Deacons Closet Reloaded - Studio Flergs, Sweater Weather - Kate Hadfield
Scalloped Strip Masks - Katie Pertiet
Happy Overlay - Mary Ann Wise
Flowers: Fresh Air - MSA Collab, Time After Time - Ferguson & Rockwell, Katie Pertiet
Paint Splotches - Studio Flergs
Label/Pin - Katie Pertiet
Glitter Action & Journaling Label - My Own