I've finally finished the kit I was working on. I am quite happy with how it came out. With the timing of me finishing the kit so close to NSD I decided to give away at the NSD chat with ACDSee on Friday night at Hummie's World. Please come join us if you can.

Visit this thread to learn about the chat and see a preview of my new kit.

My new toy :)

My recent dabbles in the world of designing scrap kits left me wanting a graphics tablet in the worst way. I had always wanted one but now I needed one (work with me here, I know I didn't NEED it ... but I needed it KWIM?) So yesterday I started a cute little kit and I kept thinking how much easier it would be if I had the tablet. Yup, you guessed it ... I ended up driving 45 minutes to Circuit City and getting myself the Bamboo Fun Small tablet.
I haven't had much time to play around. I got home around 10 and my son just refused to fall asleep. So I only had an hour or so to play last night. At first, I was confused but you catch on pretty quick to how it works. One of the other cool things is that it came with PSE5. So now I can do all those awesome PSE tutorials and learn how to use PSE as well as PSP. So much to learn, so much fun to have :) In fact, I'm going to stop rambling now and go play.

But first...a sneak peak at the new kit I am working on...Can you tell what it is? I'm only giving you a little hint.

I couldn't wait until tomorrow to post this

Even though I already posted today I just had to add this! I was reading my usual blogs this morning and when I came to Kim B's I found an offer I just couldn't resist! To celebrate her first anniversary at DSO she is having a huge 60% off sale. Now, you may know already that I pretty much only scrap with freebies due to serious budget restraints but I have wanted Kims Unda Da Sea kit since she revealed it! So I checked and it was only $2.80!! Oh, yeah...I scooped it up. By the time I was done I had bought 6 items and only spent $16. Not bad at all seeing as there were 5 commercial items and a full kit! Anyway, I wanted to post today because the sale is today only. And I have already had fun with the kit I wanted. Seriously, how cute are her little sea creatures??
Here is the linked preview for Kim's adorable kit...

Oh yeah...have I got plans for that lobster *LOL*

It was a fun weekend but I'm glad it's over.

This weekend I learned what it would be like if I had 3 kids and a dog instead of just my two kids. And do you know what conclusion I came to? I'm quite happy with just my two kids *L* Don't get me wrong, for the most part we had a blast...but it's exhausting. I ended up puppy-sitting for my sister. Her dog, Einstein, is a rambunctious puppy. It was actually fun at first, he rode around in the car with us, he came to the ice cream place with us, he resisted the strong urge to jump all over the kids and lick the skin off their face. He even slept by my feet...until a noise in the house scared him and he crawled up to lay upside down ON my pillow and snore in my ear. But it was so cute that I just laid there and giggled for the last hour before the kids woke up. You can not imagine how loud this little dog can snore! Well, apparently he decided he liked my house and was comfortable there...because he decided to "mark" my daughters bed!! And as I was cleaning up that mess ... he went in the livingroom and marked MY COUCH!! Are you serious? Didn't I just get rid of this problem? So he got put in the kennel for just over an hour, and then I felt bad and let him out. STUPID! He jumped up on the couch and did it again! Now 4 of my 6 cushions have been "Einsteined"! Ugh! What a mess. I couldn't wait for him to go home. But after another 2 hour timeout in the kennel he came up and behaved himself. Of course, I wouldn't even let him out of my sight for a millisecond! (by the way, in case you are wondering...the thing on his eye is called cherry eye (I think) and it gets taken care of next month) As I mentioned, I also had a third child this weekend. One of my daughters BFF's spent the night Saturday. The girls are so darn cute during sleepovers. Even if they were up until midnight and seriously irritable the next day. Notice that my son found a way to worm himself in there too.
I took my new little gang outside to play in the beautiful weather we finally got and I decided to take my camera and practice some action shots before Tee-ball starts. I got some really fun shots and got much better at taking action shots by the end.

I'll stop now, I just wanted to share them with you because I think they are so fun. I love the way the last one came out, I just wish I could see their faces :( These are all unedited, they will be so much better when I do a little cropping. I didn't want to leave them outside long enough to go get the long range lens *L*

One last thing..I'm still trying to get my daughters first year scrapped and I managed to find time last night to do another layout. I am so happy with this one so I wanted to share it.

All papers and elements from a beautiful kit by "designs by vicki" called Pompey. I did recolor the swirls.

The fonts are Windsong and Vademecum.

A few Soggy Spring layouts and then it's Alpha Time!

I finally got a chance to do a few layouts with all the great kits that came from Hummie's April Designer Color Palette Challenge. There is so much great stuff over there and it is such a wonderful and supportive environment. I strongly encourage you to check out Hummie's World if you haven't already. The April Challenge is LOADED with fantastic kits that are yours for the taking. They are all based on the same color palette and you might even think of it as one huge collaborative mega kit. You can now find links to all the kits on the first page of the thread, however for the previews you would need to go through the posts or the gallery. Yes, there are a lot of pages but you may just find yourself quite amused at our silly antics :)

This one uses a background and stickers from Julie's kit and her add on doodles.
I also used the grass element from Hummie's.


These two were both done with my own kit.
For the second layout I used a template from "Templates by Erica"
Do you like that Alpha on the second one? I hope so...
Because it's yours if you want it :)

Here you go...my next freebie ...

SORRY DOWNLOAD EXPIRED
And if you didn't get it before ... here is the link for my free Soggy Spring kit.

That was exciting!

Wow, do you know how scary it is to put out a first kit? I know that I like it, but is it good enough for everyone else? Had I just convinced myself that it was nice because it's was mine? *L* But as of now I've had 60+ downloads so somebody out there must have liked it. I would like to thank all of you! I hope you enjoy it, and make beautiful things.

I mentioned in my last post that Miss Chris has a kit with matching colors, but my friend Julie has now added her part to her blog. She just got a new tablet and made some adorable doodles. My personal favorite is the ladybug :)

It's finally done...please enjoy!

Remember when I mentioned that I hadn't been blogging for a good reason? Well, here it is. At Hummie's World there is a monthly Designer Color Palette Challenge. This month I decided to try my hand at designing a kit for the very first time. I loved the colors that Hummie chose and I had such a fun time. I actually think it came out very good, especially seeing as I had never even made a paper before *L* I worked hard on it and I am very proud of it. So I hope that you can take what I have made and use it for your own projects.

Without further ado .... (HeHe ... just had to, sorry!)

Here is my first ever freebie for you. Please Enjoy. There are two separate downloads for you. I would love to see what you make with it so please send links :) Happy Scrapping!

SORRY DOWNLOAD EXPIRED

I hope to make a few more traditional frames and an alpha as add-ons, so check back later to see if there is more for you :)

Oh, and by the way ...

You can also pick up my friend Miss Chris' similar kit on her blog. Feel free to stop by and give her some support too! It was her first time too : ) Thanks

And our wonderfully talented and always amusing Julie has also made a kit with the same color palette. Please check it out here.

Did ya miss me?

Sorry, I neglected my blog again. But I have good reasons this time! I have been a busy little bee. Since my last post I have done quite a bit actually. More than I can write in one post and not bore you all.

I guess I should update you on how the house is handling the absence of the cat. It was hard at first, and I still have some serious guilt issues, but the relief part is setting in too. It dawned on me as I was carefully stepping out of the shower the day after dropping her off that I could once again actually have a bath mat! For some reason every time I put one down she peed on it! And then I came out and saw my remaining cat trying to get comfortable in his ugly wicker bed and realized he could finally have a comfy cushion bed since the other cat would no longer jump in it and ruin it! so I headed out to the store the next day. Target loves his new bed. He is always laying in it. It must be so nice not to have broken wicker poking him in the butt while he naps *L* You can tell he is confused though. Every now and then he lays at the door near the top of the stairs just waiting to hear Dixie Meow to come up like she used to. And today I found him looking under my bed where she used to lay as if to say "where did she go?" My daughter handled it better than I expected. She cried, and she said she would miss her. But I think even at 6 she understands that this was not easy for me and that it was not healthy for us to have her in the house.

OK, on to more cheery things! My Mom will be 50 next month and we are throwing her a party. I was (of course) given the job of making invitations. I went a slightly different route this time and I hope I am happy with the outcome. I created postcards instead of traditional folded cards. I scrapped a 4.25X6 image and uploaded it to Walmart.com with all the party info all entered on the back already. I'll let you know how it goes. But here is the image that takes up the whole front of the postcard.

The background papers are from Maman Scrap Passion's Bonne Annee kit.
I made the 50 by recoloring one of the papers and
adding some glitter by Flergs (Muted Glitters).
I used a scalloped template by Ana Mara as well.
The font is Harrington.

And things were going so well....

Today I woke up feeling good and things just seemed to go so well.  Even the silly things like the coffee coming out just perfect pleased me *L*  There was no fighting to get everyone out the door, they all cooperated and things were so smooth.  My results came in from my cholesterol tests and I am very happy.  My cholesterol went from 255 to 217 (still high, but I dropped almost 40 points in 2 months of dieting alone) and my triglycerides, which were a MAJOR concern had been astronomically high at 554 and are now down to ...are you ready?....164!!!  AWESOME!  That's barely considered high now and I was in the DANGEROUSLY high zone before.  I got on the scale and realized I am down another 2 lbs this week.  Which brings me down into the 170's from 195.5.  I have pretty far to go but I am happy to see results.  As the Mom of two young kids it isn't always easy to stick to a diet let me tell you.  For instance, my daughter came home with a note from school about McTeacher night being tonight.  Several of the teachers from her school were going to be working the counter at the local McDonalds and a large portion of the profits went back to the school.  Despite the fact that I wonder about the intelligence behind encouraging unhealthy eating I decided to take the kids.  We had a good time actually.   Things were going well, so I decided to try and attempt a late night trip to the mall.  I wanted to exchange a slew of old games that we never play and try to get the new Karaoke Revolution American Idol game my husband and I both wanted.  I got $70 worth of credit for games we haven't played in ages and managed to get AI and put a deposit down on Mario Kart Wii.  Hubby almost wet himself when he found out the new game would come with a steering wheel and everything.  When we were teens I had people over my house to play Mario Kart on the N64 all the time and we had a BLAST.  So we are looking forward to reliving our teen years with that one.  The kids behaved SO WELL in the store.  It takes a while to go through all those games and do the transfer.  Even the 1 year old sat in the stroller patiently.  It was so nice.  So they got a yummy ice cream treat for a reward!

Sounds like a great day right?  Well, it was.  Too bad I really mean WAS :(  My daughter mentioned being cold when we got home but I didn't think much of it (she only weighs 32 lbs at 6 years old, not much to keep her warm anyway) until my feet turned to icicles while playing my new game.  I get up and check....sure enough, no heat again!  Why couldn't this wonderful day have ended well?  I'm really going to try not to think about how pissed I am that this is the fourth time I have to call the furnace guy in since last Thursday.  The landlord is trying to wait for summer to replace the furnace but I think enough is enough.  I am going to try to think of how cute my kids looked tonight with ice cream all over their little faces after having such a fun time....for once, I want to look on the bright side.  But man...thinking of ice cream makes me think how cold it is in here!!!!   *LMAO*

I did what I had to do, but I'm not happy about it.

Well, I did it.  I didn't back out like I feared I would.  I packed up the cat and I took her back to the shelter where I got her.  I can't believe it.  It's something I never in a million years thought I would do.  I would love to adopt more animals not get rid of them.  But what could I do?  It turns out that it's been almost 5 years since I adopted her.  I dealt with the issues for almost five years and now I just gave up.  I feel horrible.  My brain knows that I dealt with the urinating longer than most people would and that I tried SO much.  But my heart says there had to be something I could have done.  I'm afraid that they will really give up on her and she will be euthenized.  I try not to think about it.  They said that there is hope still.  They are going to do what they can to find her a home where she won't do it.  Maybe in a home without kids.  They are taking her to a different vet to see what he says and if there is something my vet missed.  I thought I would feel some relief that's it's over but right now I feel too terrible to care about the 1,000 pee spots I've cleaned up over the years.  I hope that changes.  And I hope my 6 year old understands once I get the nerve to tell her. 

Poor thing knew something was up.

And so did my poor son.  He didn't like that she was in the bag.  He knew she didn't like it.  It broke my heart.  When they took her out of the room he said "Our MEOW!"  It nearly broke me!  I nearly took her and her pee and got back in the car.