Happy Thanksgiving and a Huge Freebie

I am getting ready to head out of town but I wanted to wish those in the states Happy Thanksgiving first. My son was sitting next to me on the couch today watching Noggin where they have been talking about things they are thankful for all month. As part of the between show dialog they come on and ask the kids what they are thankful for every once in a while. So that comes on and he whispers in my ear "I am thankful for you!" Isn't that enough to make a Momma's day????? Too bad it was followed by a two hour battle to get him to pick up the many, many pennies he had left sitting out so his little sister accidentially knocked them over and they spilled all over the floor. LOL.

So how about a freebie or a whole bunch of them? I was going to give this away in parts but then I realized you might need it all now since it is dated material in case you decide to get it printed for holiday gifts.

At My Scrap Shop this month, we have been challenged to think outside the box, so I decided to do my very first calendar. I did a themed calendar using Pillowgirl's Be Kit (which I got free for doing a few challenges last month). Each month has a "Be" theme and then a coordinating quote to go along with the theme. The theme's I picked are Be Adventurous, Be Loving, Be Fun, Be Forgiving, Be Honest, Be You, Be Brave, Be Helpful, Be Wise, Be Creative, Be Grateful, and Be Happy. Then I found pictures of the kids that somehow related to the theme and put those on that month. I used Digital Gators 2009 Calendar Brushes for the calendar pages and found a quote that went along with the theme for that month to tie it all together. So after it was all done, I decided it wasn't too bad and asked Pillowgirl if she would mind if I shared it as a quick calendar. And being the super-generous person that she is, of course she said yes. (Speaking of that, if you aren't signed up to receive the newsletter at MSS, subscribed to her blog and hanging out in the forums - you really should. I am always amazed at how giving she and the other designers at MSS are.)

I designed my calendar to be printed at Memory Mixer because I had a coupon for them so it is an 8x16 center-fold calendar (or 25 8x8 individual pages). I am not sure what sizes other printing services offer. I did try to leave some extra cropping space along the edges though in case you wanted to adjust the size some. The download includes both 8x8 and 12x12 files just in case that would be helpful to someone.

So if you think you might have use for it or are in need of a quick gift idea, here are the links for the download. Just add your own photos.

Here is a link for a download to a site other than 4Shared.

Note that I have not added any holidays to the calendar so you can add the ones you want. The font I used was Credit Valley by Ray Larabie.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Scrapping!

MSS Quickcard Exchange

Yeah! My computer is finally back. Now to get all my files back on it and get back to scrapping and creating quickpages for you.

My Scrap Shop has been having a birthday celebration since last weekend. As part of the party fun, they are having a Quickcard/Brag Book Exchange. They are giving away a fab Christmas kit with over 200 MB of goodies and allowing anyone to create and share brag book pages or quickcards from the kit in the MSS Gallery.

Here is what I came up with to share.

You can get it here. Be sure to check out the rest of the Exchange Gallery to get the other coordinating pages.

Thank you, Julie!

Because of my computer problems, I have only the pictures I have taken in the last couple of weeks and the kits I have downloaded in the last two weeks. Boy, that kind of limits your scrapping ability! But never fear, I still got a page and a thank you card done this weekend.

Card Front:

Inside of Card:

I don't do too many cards and didn't know if you would want it as a quickcard or not so here is what I want you to do, head on over to Julie's blog and tell her how much you love the mini kit I used for this kit. She made it for me as the posting bonus for those who participate in my Themed Quote Challenge on thankfulness at Hummie's World this month. If 5 people leave her a comment, I will turn this into a quickcard for you. Don't forget to check out the quote challenge too so you can have this gorgeous mini kit yourself.

I also got this layout done today using Julie's Colorado Gold. My son and I had a little lunch date yesterday and there was a Tall Ship from Norway at the Inner Harbor giving away free tours.

You can pick Colorado Gold up at Plain Digital Wrapper if it strikes your fancy.

Speaking of Plain Digital Wrapper, CONGRATS to Miss Chris on making their site CT. I am so excited for you! I hope they know what a talented lady they have CTing for them!

Back to Cool Quickpage

So, did you know that Adobe has 30 day free trials of most of their software? I was going through scrapping withdrawal so I downloaded the 30 day free trial of Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 while my computer is being repaired. That has allowed me to make a new quickpage for you. This one is for Pretty Scrappy so remember it will ONLY be available for seven (yep, 7, one week only) days and then it will go in the designer's store or for whatever purpose she deems it worthy. I used Back to Cool by SandraK Designs.

Link Expired.

Below is my layout I made the page from. This is Shane's first school photo. The studio his school used offered the ability to purchase the full copyright to his photos and provide them on a CD so I was able to digitally scrap it. I actually had to buy a package to get it though so it wasn't cheap but if you bought the most expensive package it was actually included in the price so I guess it wasn't too bad of a deal. (And it was a lot cheaper than than the $99 the national studio I usually take them to for photos charges for just the CD.)

If you like what you see, be sure to check out the rest of this fun kit.

New Challenges at My Scrap Shop

They are mixing things up a little this month in the challenges over at My Scrap Shop.

The designers have each chosen different Christmas Carols and created several kits for you to choose from for participating in the challenges. The kits all fall into the same color scheme, so they mix and match. You complete a challenge, post your layout, then put a post in the forum for that challenge with the link to your layout in the gallery AND state which of the following prizes you want for completing that challenge. Below are the prizes to choose from. You can see the individual and bigger previews here. This list might even have some additions as the month goes on, so please check back as you are completing the challenges.


Design a Kit, Shapes 'n More, Template, Desktop Calendar, Quote, More than a Layout, Impromptu . . . so many challenges to chose from too plus you get to pick your prize too. How much easier could it be to get free stuff?

Computer Woes, Announcements, a Challenge and a Prize

MIA
Sorry I have been MIA - I have been having computer woes for the past couple of weeks. Just when I thought I had it fixed it turned out the problem was more than the bad drive the bios hard disk test was reporting so I am having to send my computer back to the manufacturer this week.

Speaking of MIA, did you see Anita of Anita Designs (aka Nana's Attic) is back ???? I am SO excited. I love her stuff and have been a little worried about her since we hadn't heard from her for a while.

I Won at Digiscrap 101

So unfortunately, I haven't really been able to scrap since both of my scrapping programs (Memory Mixer and PSE) are on the dysfunctional computer. But I may have a remedy for only having my scrapbooking software on one machine soon. I won a copy of Memory Mixer on Digital Scrapbooking Day over at Digiscrap101. Have you checked that site out yet? Think Facebook for scrapbookers. It is a growing site but has so much potential for learning and connecting with other scrappers. If you haven't been by there you really should take a look.

Anyhow, back to my free software, I was wanting to get another copy for one of my other machines anyway because I had been thinking about letting my son have a go at digi scrapbooking. (He isn't allowed to touch Mommy's computer.) But I also have been thinking about getting a copy for my friend for her 60th birthday in a couple of weeks. She has said a couple of times she would like to have it. So what should I do, what should I do. . . I won the lite version but she really doesn't have a lot of time for freebie hunting so maybe I will keep the lite version for myself and buy her the full version since it has all those great scrapping supplies with it. Decisions, Decisions . . .

I was selected for a Quickpage Team
A couple of weeks ago there was an add at DigishopTalk looking for some quickpage designers for a collab kit over at Pretty Scrappy. The kit, Sunset, was so gorgeous I couldn't pass it up. After I submitted my pages for their collection, they invited me to join their new Quickpage Team. In addition to designing quickpages for their monthly collabs, I get to pick kits from the store, make a quickpage from it and then I can give the quickpage away on my blog for one week before it goes in the store. So that means more freebies for you!

Want this gorgeous mini?
As I mentioned, I haven't been able to design any quickpages for you, but the wonderful Julie of Julie. It is. was kind enough to design a gorgeous mini kit for my Themed Quote Challenge over at Hummie's World this month.



And all you have to do get this beautiful mini kit is to create a layout using a quote with the theme of thanks/thankful/grateful. Find out more about the challenge and some other quote suggestions here.

Hope you had a great DSD and are having a scrap-filled week with all your new stuff you got on DSD.