This month:

I deactivated my Facebook account. So far I have made a huge dent in my laundry and have cooked every day since. We are trying to get the Zoe girl healthy. It has involved many many dr visits. My allergy related asthma has come back with a vengeance so I have not been able to work out without dying in the process. We are broke. Dead broke. But it is all good! And that is where we are at right now. This is life.

this week:)

devyn REALLY wanted to take red velvet cupcakes to school. they were a big hit!

and the next day i made her a birthday flan, she was so happy:) and even shared with her dad.

the man of the house is busy with his hotel league.

chloe is gets more and more beautiful everyday.

poochy snores in the dirty clothes basket:) like his daddy!

testing new med. regimens for zoe and me. it is going well so far.

movie nite with my baby girl, miss zoe

family time is getting shorter and shorter.

making every moment count:)

it will all be over in a blink of an eye.

re*use a kit:)

my goal for this year s to make sure that i use free kits at least twice.

after that they get deleted off of the hard drive, no matter how cute it is.

i have learned that after 2-3 uses the kits just stay on my drive, taking up space.

the same thing with freebie templates:)

this page will be next to the last one i posted in my shutterfly book.

using insd kits:)

 i used this freebie kit:

and made this really cute page for some very somber pictures:)

making a page a day this spring/

summer:)

Puppy!

                                     freebie stacked page and clustered element via crossbonecuts

ohhhhh the insd freebies:)

right now money is waaaaaaaaaay tight.

it goes in cycles because of the dh's job.

as i was lamenting not being able to buy any new stuff (mind you i have a zillion kits i have not even used yet), insd rolled around.

i forget it every single year.

this time, because i was sick, i was able to just sit and download freebies all day long.

all paper and elements from the mscraps hello sunshine blog hop.

i didn't save the template link...SORRY:) it is a really good one with the chevrons too.

freebie add-on kit for little boys:)

oh, how i miss this little man's antics:)

it is so hard to find really good little boy friends out there. this is a good one!!!

get this super cute little boy freebie it here:

scroll all the way to the end of the post:)

learning:)

i am REALLY trying to learn my manual setting on my camera.

can u tell i have ADD.

this is taken with my canon rebel DSLR and 50 mm 1.8 and a very uncooperative puppy boy.

it is not as sharp as i would have liked, but hey...i am only just learning, right?

i also photoshopped it a little with yellowsky actions.

he is a cutie pie, isn't it?

why i edit.

i take a lot of crappy pictures.

and i wish they weren't so crappy.

i wish i took AMAZEBALL pictures 24 seven. but, sadly, i don't.

so i photoshop the bejesus out of them, hoping that they will somehow convey the feeling i was looking for.

the left image is straight out of camera, a cold day right before the holidays. i like the taken from behind type pictures.

the picture is sooooooooo not good.

i ran the following actions on PSE:

all by yellowskyactions.com

1. mr fix it.

2. snap crackle pop brushed @100% opacity on the whole image.

3. majestical @ 100%.

the image is far from perfect...but it takes me back to the day i took the picture and the memory is clearer than ever.

it's all good.

shopping the stash: it can be done!!

after many, many years of making product driven pages and projects, i had to break a very hard habit of backwards scrapping.

for a while i was able to find pictures first, arrange them and then figure out paper and embellishments.

it felt like work.

so much like work that i didn't work that way for long.

and then i found digital scrapping.

so much better.

now i find templates i like, fit my pictures with the layers, add or delete elements and then i'll let it simmer for a while in a folder on my desktop.

sometimes i will just plow thru a page in 20 minutes if i know exactly what i want.

as a result of whittling down the designers i REALLY like and keeping my stash under control, i am able to make pages i truly love.

plus no excess of pictures:)))) 

this is one of those pages that make me go AWWWWWWWW:) the pictures are not the best quality, but the memory is. it was a magical evening.

freebie template here:

freebie shabbyshoppe template

and this amaze*balls kit was via thedailydigi.com

if you are thinking going digital you NEED to get the dailydigi.

just saying:)

Simple Comforts: freebie scrapping

freebie template from scrapping with liz

like scrapping with liz facebook page to access template

love, LOVE Allison Kimball's free kits. i REALLY think they are top notch quality and would buy them in a heartbeat:)

Allison Kimball's freebie three things digital kit

budget digital scrapping: a plan for the rest of 2012.

ok....it is that time again.

the dh has placed me on a scrapbooking budget.

dang.

what does that budget include?

i made a breakdown last nite that was ok for us both...and realistic.

1. i will keep my subscription to the dailydigi.com that is $7.50 a month.

2. i will be able to print a max of two photo books for the year, each for 6 months for the bulk of my pages.

3. what does not belong in the photo books will be printed @ costco, as long as we have excess $.

4. NO digital kits, new albums or paper supplies unless positively absolutely needed.

5. PL will be continued:) with ONLY the supplies i have @ home. good thing i stocked up on page protectors:)

i will be on the hunt of freebies and will be sure to post the origins here @ the blog.

there will be some paper scrapping soon too!

here is the start of the budgeting:)

find the template here:

theshabbyshoppe freebie template

and the freebie kit here:

cherish the thought by sugarplum paperie via sweetshoppedesigns

shifting priorities.

i knew the day would come, but dang...it caught me by surprise!

the girls joined forces and explained (in no uncertain terms) that i was NOT to post any pictures of them on facebook.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

my dh was no help, obviously he thinks the same was they do.

alrightythen.

i'll just post them on my blog. and it will be ok:)

the dog is another story!!!

he waits all day:)

for his family to come home.

just me is not enough.

he looks out the window starting at 2:30. he knows when the alarm goes off, the kids and the daddy  are close

and he is not completely himself until all six of us are together again.

he is our little boy. we adore him to pieces:)

editing photos.

straight out of the camera:

cropped and edited with original film(yellowskyactions)

mr. fix it (yellowskyactions)

title brush (karla dudley) 

a lot of THIS.

the last week has been very hard both physically and emotionally.

it seems we have been on a roller coaster ride for months now.

my kiddos are almost 3 months to the end of school and summer vacation, but the days have been so nice that is difficult for them to stay focused. add to that the start of allergy season and it is just NOT FUN.

to counteract the craziness i have taken to doing this project.

organizing, cutting down pictures to fit PL page protectors and saving the very best photos to paperscrap later on.

it helps.

weekend scrapping part two:)

weekend scrapping

the daily digi and project life.

a page

and a 4x6 for project life:)

scrapping family:)

a long time ago, before digital, i would take pictures of family and friends and leave them in photo boxes. i was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of pictures and even though i was a fast paper scrapper, those were the pictures that hardly ever got done.

fast forward to the here and now.

not only am i able to get my own pictures digiscrapped faster, but i am able to keep up with friends and family:)

i might not be physically there to take the pictures, but i am able to download from flickr or facebook and make beautiful pages of my loved ones:)

and it is ALL good!

K.I.S.S. scrapping:)

easy.simple.ME!

template by simplyyin, kit via the dailydigi

two page template by mandagirl, kit by karla dudley

*Love*Love*Love*

ok. i will admit that when i saw this kit in the new thedailydigi, i was like hmmmmmmm?

it was so pastel-ey and colorful and just little kiddie for me....

man, was i wrong!

i have a folder on my desktop that i use for powerscrapping.

as soon as i find a template that works for a series of pictures, i process them with PSE and then plug them into the layered fie and save as a psd.

so much easier to scrap that way when i know that the "hard" stuff is out of the way and that i can just play around with the digital kits i collect thru the weeks. 

so that is exactly what i did with this particular page.

all the photos were processed with yellowskyactions for PSE.

i usually delete some embellishment layers and play around with the placement...but i REALLY like how this one turned out.

if you like the kit it is available this month @www.thedailydigi.com 

a day with the kids:)

freebies are awesome. yes they are:)

one of the best things about being digital is not having to wait until new supplies are shipped to stores after cha to be able to try them out.

something else that might entice you to try digital are the freebies that are available on the internet:)

one of my favorite designers is allison kimball

http://allisonkimball.typepad.com/

even if her designs were not free, i would be buying them up like a crazy person!!!

the elements on this page are mostly from her newest free kit, plus a few doo*dads from miss karla dudley.

from psd to jpeg:)

the layered psd file by kim lund via thedailydigi

it is a cool, simple layout with lots of space for photos and journaling.

i made a few adjustments to fit my pictures.

also i like shadows so i use them all the time:)

not much journaling because this is something we do all the time.

except that this time we took our very super cool niece miss vivi:))) i love this kid!

and after plugging on a few choice pieces of karla dudley's new kits t is all done:)

took about 30 minutes from start to finish.