Hello Everyone,

Well I’m counting down the days until Spring Break … which is next week.  I’m an assistant librarian at a very large middle school and starting next Monday, I’ll be off for an entire week.  Yahooo!  And as an added bonus, my two younest (who are in college this year) will also be off.  And to make it even sweeter and more rare, my husband is also off.  He’s a professor and his university usually takes their break at a different time than the public school system, but not this year.  So we’re all going to be together.  Not sure what we’re going to do as it’s too cold to go anywhere and we can’t take an extended trip without our dog and our 5th wheel, but we’ll think of something, I’m sure.

Last year I was having a pity party because my friends from work were all flying somewhere warm - Mexico, the Bahamas, etc.  As it turned out, I was incredibly thankful that we didn’t go anywhere.  Not that we could have anyway, hubby was working.  But the week I was off, it started to rain and rain and rain and rain!  The ground was still frozen and the rain started a small lake around my house.  As bad luck would have it, the rain started seeping in the basement windows and within a few hours, we were flooded.  Carpets were ruined and tempers were hot.  It wasn’t pretty.  Since I always try to look on the bright side, as hard as that is sometimes, I viewed the mess as a chance to clean out the bottom floor.  So not only were carpets purged, but so was all of the ‘junk’ that I thought I needed to save because I just knew that someday I might want it.  Gone!  It’s been a year and I haven’t missed any of it yet, lol.

Spring break brings always brings to mind the actual season of spring, be that far away in this northern state.  I found a wonderful layout by my good friend Bernie over at Rakscraps..  It’s simple and sweet and shows that we don’t always need to scrap photos of people.  Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make an impact on us.  She scrapped her favorite tree.  It’s touching and I’ve chosen it as the Layout Of The Day.

Until next week,

Hugs,

Snackpackgu

The warmth is peaking in here in Raleigh, NC.  And I’m beyond overly anxious!  Axious enough that I flipped through last years Digital Scrapbook collection of flowers, grass, and sunshine inspired pages!  I just can’t get enough of the vibrant happy colors or the constant reminder of growth and new beginnings it unfurles!  Would you like to join me in this lovely little garden of happiness?  Check out the layout of the day for some spring inspiring goodness!

Spring by DirtyFeetDesigns

The simplicity is just stunning, and the picture drool worthy!  Fabulous job capturing the beginnings of such a wondrous time of year DirtyFeetDesigns!  Be sure to head over and leave this stunning layout some love!

I’m currently taking classes to reinvent myself, so I’m on a creative kick…not just in the arts department, but in the mundane life as a worker bee department as well.  So when I ran across this kit the name captured my interest, but the colors and quality sold me!  Needless to say it piqued my interest enough to be marked product of the day by little ol’ me!  Check out Free Spirit by Amanda Resende & Kristen Rice:

Free Spirit by Amanda Resende & Kristen Rice

That is all the fabulous digital scrabook goodies I have in store for you all today!  Enjoy your Monday!  See you soon!

Whether working on pages for photo greeting cards, custom photo books, or to create a photo album, I like when the photo (or photos) are the feature and there is journaling to explain or tell a story.  Many scrapbook ideas come from templates and product reviews.  Spend time browsing through online galleries and scrapbooking magazines to find styles that you like.

I find this layout delightful, from the special photo, balance, journaling, white space, and appeal.  It can be found here, share the love.  The kit is called “Light” and is found at Oscraps.  Tell your story in a memory album or in a special page made for framing — I hope you find layout inspiration here, and in the many galleries found online.

Happy Scrapbooking!

As Ever,
Pam

I’ve got a confession. I’m looking forward to spring. Yup. About this time every year the itch starts. The please, let all this snow melt and the days get warmer. The attempts to reason with the kids that, yes you do need to still wear hats and/or gloves is growing old.  The other day, my 7 year old asked me when he can wear shorts to school! As I bit back laughter, I replied not until it’s at least 70 degrees!

So, in my quest for spring I found this semi-fantasy kit from Studio Alana entitled Golden Moments.  This scrapbooking kit can be found at Scrapbookgraphics. 

I’m usually not drawn to fantasy kits, but this one caught my eye. I loved the colors, the sparkle and the angel wings.  I can imagine this kit being used from cards, to calendars and of course, scrapbook layouts!  It even seems to me that it is something that can be used year round.

The layout I’ve chosen is entitled Dear Baby.

This layout is done by Alana from Studio Alana and can be found in her gallery at StudioGraphics. The letter is incredibly touching - it is to her unborn child 5 days before he was born.

So, Happy Friday and What Stories will You Tell this week?

Mary

Ok, so I’m sicker than a dog :(  Needless to say this post is gonna be short but you know what, being sick is yet another memory to scrap about right?  Honestly what memory book would be complete with out a few down sided pages!  Life is after all a roller coaster!  So the product of the day and layout of the day, well they will get you to scraping after that bout of sickness!  Without further ado, enjoy the eye candy!

Layout of the day Sickie You by Nietis

Sickie You by Nietis

And the product of the day is:

Ouchies and Ickies by Jady Day Sudio and Suzy Q Scraps

I’m off to drink a hot cup of tea and scrap

Last week I mentioned that I picked up the pack of 10 best selling fonts by Darcy Baldwin, which are available here at MyPicTales this month! Since then, I’ve decided that DJB Another Mandy is my favorite of the bunch. Don’t get me wrong, they are all great! But this one is just my style. Sometimes a great font is the icing on a great digital scrapbooking layout.

So I went searching for a layout to feature today that showcased my new favorite font. Here is a page I found in the gallery at Sweet Shoppe Designs. It’s by lmccandless and called You lucky Dog. I’m a dog person, so I’m always drawn to pages that show amazing pictures of beautiful canines! The handwriting font DJB Another Mandy just gives the page a handmade feel. It’s perfect! If you’d like more information about what was used to create this page, just click it to visit the gallery for all the details.

Don’t miss out on the great deals here at MyPicTales while Darcy Baldwin is the featured designer this month. Just a few more days to get these great fonts!

Hi Everyone,

Well yesterday was my youngest daughter’s birthday, she turned 18.  I honestly can’t believe how fast these past 18 years have gone!  It seemed like yesterday when she was born and now she’s an adult and finishing her first year of college. (She skipped a grade and yes, she’s incredibly brilliant :)   In some ways I feel a bit old, even though I’m actually not that ancient, lol.  Oh well…..

As I was looking for the layout of the day, I came across this wonderful page about age and survival and loved it.  Hope you do to.  It was made by Myra at Rakscraps.  She’s just a doll, always thoughtful and surprising layouts.

Easter isn’t too far off and it’s not early to be thinking about what scrapbooking elements you might want to add to your photo albums.  Here’s a cute set of bunnies to help you out.  You can find these at Digitalscrapn.

Hugs,

Snackpackgu

 I have a question for you that I am going to turn into a prompt for a scrapbook page.  What do you see from your window? (You are probably thinking, how the heck did she come up with that question?)  I was watching the news last week during one of our blizzards (I live on the East Coast) and the reporter had invited people to email her pictures about what they saw from their window during the storm.  She then went to a person’s house and did a report from there.  This gave me a great idea for a scrapbook page.  We have french doors that overlook a deck and give a great view of the backyard and a fairly busy street.  I’ve taken pictures over time and made a point to take pictures during our most recent snowstorm. I’ll share a layout with you next week about what I saw from my window and I challenge you to pick a window and do a layout from any pictures that you take.

 My featured designer for this week is Sir Scrapalot.  Yes, Sir Scrapalot is a guy digital designer and his designs are pretty awesome.  I loved this kit “One Minute to Midnight”.  The element that caught my eye was the realistic “ball” that drops in Times Square.  His designs can be found at www.polkadotplum.com

The scrapbook layout that I’ve chosen is by nunsixteynine and can be found in Sir Scrapalot’s gallery at polkadotplum.  I loved the selective coloring in the layout and the colors.  She used Sir Scrapalot’s kit, Lucky as part of this layout.

I’ll challenge you until next week to create a layout about what you can see from your window and upload it to MyPIcTales to have it printed. I’m going to do the same. I’d love to see what you create.

So, I’ll leave you as I always do until next Friday - What Stories Are You Going to Tell?

Mary

Have you looked at the MyPicTales Premium Design Center lately? There are some new names popping up, and I’m excited to see what goodies they will be offering! There are plenty of quickpages available for making beautiful custom photo books. Here are a couple of things that caught my eye. They are all linked to the store:

And don’t forget about this months guest designer Darcy Baldwin. I picked up this pack of her 10 best selling fonts!! They are awesome, so don’t hesitate to grab them for yourself!! If you are new to Darcy’s fonts this is a great way to get off to a great start:

And here is today’s Layout of the Day. This is Happy Feet by Keely~B at DigiShopTalk. A very cute page & I love the fun colors!! Image is linked to the gallery:

I just love watching old movies.  One of my favorite channels is TCM - that and PBS on Sunday nights, can’t get enough of Masterpiece Theater.  Those old movies were really quite unique, there was actually some substance to them, well perhaps not the musicals, but over all I do think they were much better than what I’ve seen lately.  Oh you can’t compare the special effects of movies nowadays, that’s true.  But the plot lines were deeper back then.  You didn’t need to shower the viewer with 30 second switch overs - action to action - or risk losing the audience.  No, back then it was certain that the viewers would stay with you while the director let the plot unfurl and slowly sucked you in until you became almost one with the big screen.

There wasn’t any shortage of incredible actors and actresses either.  Some of my personal favorites were Humphry Bogart, Betty Davis, Noma Shearer, Ingrid Berman, Gregory Peck, and Katherine Hepburn.  So imagine my surprise when I was visiting my favorite gallery at Rakscraps and saw this layout!  Wow.  Sparkly Duck always makes such thought provoking and beautiful LOs, this one is right in keeping with her great vision and quirky sense of humor.  Love it!

And speaking of Rakscraps, the mega-kit came out on the 15th.  Remember that’s it free to members, just sign up in the RAKcenter.  With this mega-kit or any digital scrapbooking kit,  it’s  easy to create cards, photo gifts, photo greeting cards, custom photo books,  or even a digital photo album and upload what you’ve created to the printing center at MyPicTales.

So become a member at RAKscraps, download the free kit and while you’re there, why not take part in some of the great challenges in their forum?