I missed January completely, sorry for my top Droppers because I am not even aware who made the list. I do appreciate those who take the time to visit my little corner of the world and am upset that I did not spread some love. March is here, just two more days and I will celebrate another birthday. Spring is coming up and I can not wait, I am done with winter for sure.

 February’s Top Droppers

Robins Nest: Scrap Out Loud

Camping And Outdoors Blog

Memories Made Easy

Scraps of Mind

Cens Loft

And Life Goes on for A Filipino Mom

Knit Knack

MARKFE

3 Scrapbooking Ladies

So I am sure everyone can count and that we realize there are only 9 blogs listed. Well I followed the link to my tenth blog just to find it had been deleted. That was kinda shocking to come across, why would someone spend the time dropping if they weren’t going to keep the blog?

I guess there are other reason it could be gone, maybe a hacker took it out, or less sinuous things coulda happened. Kind of like life if you think about it, here today but you could be gone tomorrow. Hmm, think I will get off here and go kiss my babies.

I am working on a new freebie kit for everyone (about time!), I missed New year’s and Valentines Day so I thought it was time to forgo a bit of sleep to create something to share. I have a few pieces done already so I thought I would whip up a layout page and give you a sneak peek at my next freebie.

                  Spring Creations Layout

I still haven’t worked out the kinks in my software or figured out why I can’t access my storage space, but I always have my free space providers. I will work on getting it upload over the next couple of nights so everyone can download by Monday. By then I should have the entire kit done so I hope everyone comes back Monday for their freebie.

Work is work, not gonna complain tonight made myself promise I would not before I gave in and signed on to the internet. My family is doing well these days and I am, not much to fuss over since I tore the muscle in my left shoulder. Oh yeah, I never told anyone about that, I was up late one night staggering into the babies bedroom and fell when I picked him up. I wrenched myself around to keep the baby from hitting the floor and landed on my son’s toddler bed, hurt like you would not believe.

By mid-afternoon the next day I was doing tax returns with tears running down my cheeks. Called in my Mom (she works for the same company) and off to the ER I went. Not broke just tore the muscle and bruised it, they gave me muscle relaxers (nothing stronger because I am still breast-feeding my little Charlie boy) and a sling (not much help actually). They tell me a torn muscle takes longer to heal and hurts more than breaking a bone, couldn’t say about broken bones because I have not broken anything other than my baby toe and my nose. I can tell you my shoulder throbs on a regular basis and I still can’t raise it past elbow height without wincing.

Well thats the last of my rambling updates, I hope you all come back Monday for that kit and remember to kiss those babies.

So I was told I have a stupid, pointless hobby today. Do you know how incredibly miffed that made me? I got red in the face and completely ticked, pointless my foot! Scrapbooking, wether traditional or digital, is a time honored memory preservation technique.

Digital scrapbooking has brought the traditions to everyone and gave it new life. I have not seen such a diverse set of people scrapbook as I do in digital scrapbooking communities, all age groups and both sexes alike. You would never have been able to convince me a year ago that men were just as avid a scrapper as women.

From children to great-grandparents, I have seen stunning works of art created with treasured family heirlooms from all who dabble in this so-called pointless hobby. How can art of any variety be called stupid and pointless?

Pictures will be my families legacy hundreds of years from now, with time passing and faces fading away, pictures will be our memories. With scrapbooking you not only capture the look, you can capture the esense of the moment by adding your thoughts and actions of that moment for all who come after your gone.

To me scrapbooking is not a hobby, it is history in the making. On that note I will say goodnight to you all, I have another long week ahead of me. Well, kiss those babies everyone.

I miss my family so very much. If there was a time machine where I could go back and choose to work like this again, I would choose to stay with my babies instead. By the time I get home every night not one single child is awake and my husband is usually fast asleep within the hour. I rush in the mornings trying to get ready and out the door on time kissing babies and hugging my boys on the fly.

I came home from work a few days ago and found out that my eight year old son took my wedding rings from off my desk. My fingers swell at night so I take my rings off and put them on my desk, well that morning in question my fingers were still too swolen to put on my rings. He apparently took them to school and at some point he tried to pry them apart thinking that it was more than one ring.

My husband picked him up from school at which time he proudly showed him what he had “found in the prize box” at school. I am just so completely at a loss for words, I am too upset to really do more than explain why they are important to me. He does not understand, he does but he doesn’t. He knows only that it made Mommy cry when she explain why they were important to her.

 Well I could whine some more but I won’t, I hope each of you have a better week than I have had. Kiss those babies everyone.

I have been trying to figure out a way to combine traditional scrapping with digital in a way that will allow me to have some fun with my old scrapping buddies. Most of them have smirked at the idea of switching over to digital and I can not convince them to even try.

My idea is to hold a scrapping party and have all my home computers set up in the dining room hooked up to the internet. I want to walk them through every step I took in finding my little niche here in the digital world.

They will have an advantage over me, they will have someone sitting right next to them when they get stumped on their next move. I hope that by showing them all the fun I have had online will push them into gaining more enthusiasm when I ask them over to scrap with me.

Well, I have a few things to work out before I can make that happen. I do have plenty of time to do it considering I won’t have the time until after April 15th. Kiss those babies.

Well after having to perform a complete PC recovery earlier this week I am almost back up and running. I have an endless (or so it seems) list of program updates to finish installing, almost two full years worth for over 50 different programs. It is painstaking and time consuming but if I don’t finish them I will be behind the times in the digital world.

As soon as they are all up to date I will begin installing my newest software and will be bringing you more tutorials and freebies. Please stick around a little longer and I promise to make it worth the wait. I have quite a few topics in mind and have the research and outline ready to go just need my graphic program reinstalled.

I do have a template finished that I somehow manged to recovery from my missing files and will share it as soon as I get my FTP program installed again. One project at a time though, I still am not sure what caused my computer to crash in the first place so I am saving new recovery points each time I install something new. No way am I going to get stuck with my pants around my ankles again. Till the next time, kiss your babies.

Well I started my new job today and I want to appologize now because I am going to be seriously tied up for the next couple of weeks. I found out that I will be the only one working in my store and I am scheduled 77 hours a week. Yep, you saw that right 77 hours a week!

I will try not to neglect this Blog but I am not going to make any promises. I have a few things worked out but only time will tell if they follow the path I have laid out. In the meantme I will try to provide you links to some of my favorite digital scrapbook designers who I know have many wonderful freebie’s to share.

I do a have a few featured designers in mind and I will be releasing one in the next week that I am positive will be worth the wait. She is a wonderful woman and her digital scrap kits are unique and vibrant. I hope you all have a great week and I will see you soon, until then, remember to kiss those babies (I so miss my little ones, by the time I get home they are all sleeping).

So who wishes there were online classes that walked you through the basics and not so basics of digital scrapbooking? I know I did when I first started out, I usually ended up Googling until my fingers hurt and never found what I was looking for. So much I have learned by accident and determination to get it done but along the way I have found some great places and reservoirs of valuable information.

I am working on my own set of online classes, not so much tutorials as actual lessons. This will not be something that I can just throw out in a few days because I want the lessons to be user friendly concise information. On that note I am also looking for Instructors who have graphics program knowledge and can walk anyone through a process easily.

What I need are Intermediate and Advanced Photoshop, PSP and Gimp lessons; either program general or digital scrapbook specific. If you have experience with other graphic art programs and would like to share them I am not limiting my lessons to the programs I stated earlier, these are just the programs I am personally familiar with. As to what will you get out of it, yes I am offering compensation. How much will be based on the level of the lesson and whether or not you include details beyond written format (i.e. videos, images, slides or presentations).

I know I should have posted this before I went to work this morning but you know how things just get away sometimes. I am impressed with the dedication some droppers have shown since I started with Entrecard.

Grandmother’s Patternbookwon 100 credits coming in at 25 drops, closely nipping the heels in second was Robin’s Nest: Scrap out loud with 24. Just a stones throw away Camping and Outdoors Blog  was able to hike in with 20. Second and third place won 50 credits a piece, for a total of 200 credits given this month.

Remember, this months Entrecard contest has started and the winner will receive 1000 credits. I decided to make it interesting however, it will involve more than just dropping to win. Your challenged to a seek and find and you can find the complete rules and points system in order to win HERE.
 

time2cre8 19
Man In The Moon 18
Isker’s Blog 18
Beyond Feron 18
Memories Made Easy 17
Melissas Jewelry and Gem Blog 17
Paperkraft.net 17

Here is an example of a simple Photoshop alteration, now I did this long before I thought of writing everything down to share with you. I will have to try and duplicate in the next few weeks so I can walk you through the steps to achieve it yourself.

I really like the overall effect, it almost feels spooky and ghostish. Like Hendrix will walk out of the wall at any moment and pick one of the guitars up, gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I know for a fact that I mainly used the filters that came standard in my CS3 trial version, so most will have the same filters.

This is the original photograph, this is every guitar we had in our home this past summer (my Bass is the purple one, ha-ha). Since then we have added a few to the family but have no photos of them yet.

Kiss those babies.