More Mother's of Multiples - July

So this is what I've been busy with for the last two weeks. My next issue of the newsletter is just a few minutes away from being ready to publish and I've gotten my LOs complete. I thank God that I found Yin from Yin Design/Simply Yin, her templates have been a huge time saver for me - the hardest part is figuring out which one to slightly modify to make it work for the number of photos I have - but I would be sunk trying to fit all these photos in the newsletter without her marvelous talent.

I really appreciate all the wonderful comments people left for me on "No Boys, Just Girls". It was definitely the most positive response I've received so far. It has gotten me inspired to create "Ok, Just Some Boys" add-on which I'll start working on when the girls & I get back from a mini-trip back to my parents this week. I have a few ideas, but I'm always open to more suggestions. I've gotten 40 comments so far, and 1750 hits and 1000 people downloaded the elements, and about 50 fewer for the paper packs. That's always interesting to see, I guess I'm a numbers person as an engineer, but I'm always curious why people downloaded elements and not papers, I'm much more a paper person myself. Now I'm anxious to see some layouts people have created. There's a little Thank You below all these LOs.

Template 25 by Yin Designs Paper from Strawberry Delight by Flergs (recolored) Alpha from Patriotic by ScarlettSinger Designs Fonts - Arial, Cooper
Template 9 by Yin Designs Paper from Frozen Passion by Pay it Forward Scraps Fonts - Social Animal, CK Journaling	Template 36 (used 1/2) by Yin Designs Paper from Mango Tango by mglscraps Fonts - Placard Condensed, CK Journaling
Template 47 (modified) by Yin Designs Paper from White is White by Dnad Papers from Silly Season by Zoe Pearn Journal Tag from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman Quote from Quote Challenge by Mindy Terasawa Font - CK Journaling	Template 12 by Yin Designs Paper from Shimmer Secondaries by Tracy Lee Designs Date Label from Calendar Labels by Mira Designs Notebook from Nothing Girly by Christine Smith Tabs by Scraps from Sarah Belle Fonts - Chocolate Box Decorated, CK Journaling, Soopafresh
Template 34 (modified) by Yin Designs Papers from Beach Glass by Ginger Scraps Fonts - Death, Century Gothic, CAC Leslie, Blue Cabin
Template 22 (from 2 pages to 1) by Yin Designs Papers from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman Fonts - Elephant, 2 Peas Chatter, LB Punchy, DymoFontInvers	Template 40 (modified) by Yin Designs Papers from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman Fonts - Elephant, Arial

I got my husband one of those coffee mugs you can change the insert on and I love it, so much that I just bought one for myself this weekend and I don't drink coffee. I'll probably make a scrap page just like this mug insert (why didn't I save the psd file????), as I think it turned out pretty cute. All the items are from my two latest kits which you can find on the left sidebar under My Scraps. The kits are "No Boys, Just Girls" and "Spring Swing".

Pick up the mug inserts HERE.

Grandpa's Girls

I finally got time to finish my latest free kit that's been in the works since the girls' birthday in May! All the right things aligned to make it work out - my hubby took care of the kids for LOTS of hours yesterday, I found a template this week for which I had the perfect photo, and I was determined to create a perfect LO using my own kit. I threw away a lot of stuff on this one, and I'm sure I could have created more elements if I'd given myself more time, but my house turned into the wake of a tornado while I've holed myself up in my office.



Template - Cookie #42 by Cindy Schneider at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Kit - No Boys, Just Girls by Scraps from Sarah Belle

The name of the kit is No Boys, Just Girls. The day of their birthday, the girls said "No boys, just girls can eat cake" and it was so cute it stuck. The color scheme is from their napkins. Bright & cheerful - while it says its Just Girls I tried to make some papers that would work for both sexes, although its going to be a bit skimpy on the element side. If I get enough comments, maybe I'll make a little boy add-on. It's got 24 papers and all the elements aren't shown. Enjoy! I really appreciate your comments and seeing LOs using my kits.


There are 4 files - Solid Papers, Patterned Papers, Elements & Alpha.
Pick up No Boys, Just Girls HERE.

added August 5Everything seems to be working just fine, so if it doesn't work the first time, please try again. And it seems as if someone used my account to "save" something in this folder that required a password. It has been deleted, and I apologize to anyone who got the 5th file because it was huge and it wasn't from me.

added July 31 - I received a few comments that the patterned paper pack link wasn't working. I'm traveling right now and don't have many options to check, but was able to save it on a borrowed computer. My only advice is to try again. I will be back on August 6th and will look again to see if anything seems out of order.

Cake Anyone?

I knew I had to scrap this picture when I took it, and I came to my computer with ideas of clusters & swirls and just more stuff on the page. I browsed through some galleries for inspiration and nothing. So I just laid some stuff out on the page and simple just seemed right. I modified the alpha a bit by changing the color the stroke inside the letter from it's original white to a color from the patterned paper.



Kraft Paper from Freestyle Paper by Kimberly Giarrusso
Block Paper from Trendy Pop Add-on by Cori Gammon
Alpha from Promise Collection by Shabby Princess
Clip from Miss the Bus by Britt-ish Designs
Fonts: CK Ali's Writing, CK Journaling, 28 Days Later

First Birthday Cake

Ok, I'm on a roll for simple completed pages this weekend. Nothing complicated here except trying to get all the photos to have the same contrast - had to play a bit with levels & brightness. I had the thought to scrap this event when I picked up this template in March - I should just go with impluses.

These photos are from their party back in Missouri - I think I got one photo on their actual first birthday that is scrapable. That one I'll probably embellish more.



Template #3 by Aly Dosdall
Kit - Haute Spring by Zoe Pearn
Fonts - Everytime I Miss You, Century Gothic

Easter Cutie

Ok, once again I don't feel like this is my best work, but these pictures have been out there for a while waiting to be scrapped and it feels good just to have the LO completed. Only this Easter to go (I think I only got one or two good photos this year too) and then on to Birthdays.

I had to spend some time with this LO recoloring everything. I really liked the designs in this kit, but the colors didn't coordinate with the photos. It took the longest to get the background paper changed from teal dots to green dots - it isn't really difficult, you just use the magic wand selector and select the color. Since it has a slight grunge effect the tone isn't 100% all over so I just had to select a bunch of times to get most of it, and then I enlarged the dots just a smidge and recolored.

If you'd really like some inspiration for this template check out these two LOs. This one by Tracyfish is a Spin A Lift - you'd hardly recognize the template. I think Dani Mogstad is a fabulous scrapper (and designer) and this LO is no exception.








Template #31 for Cookie Decorating 101 at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Kit - Trendy Pop Addon by Cori Gammom (all recolored)
Flowers from Promise by Shabby Princess (recolored)
Actions - Painted Metal, Colored Glass by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Mandingo, CK Journaling

Endless Summer - Kits for Charity

Every kit that they work on at Songbird Avenue is special, and this kit is no exception. This month they are happy to present "Endless Summer". Created with love by Dani Mogstad, Meredith Fenwick, Jan Crowley and Janet Phillips. Funds raised (minus PayPal fees) from this kit will be donated to S.A.F.E. House.

From the S.A.F.E. House website:
“S.A.F.E. House, with a capacity of 85 people, is the largest shelter for adult and child survivors of intimate partner violence in New Mexico and one of the five largest in the United States.

Our mission is: To shelter and empower survivors of intimate partner domestic violence and to improve the way New Mexico responds to this violence.
Our vision is: To live in a community that is free from all forms of oppression and violence.

Each year we will shelter, clothe and provide services to 1,000 survivors of violence. The majority of our residents are children under the age of twelve. It is a sad, but not unusual, experience for our shelter to be the first home for newborn babies.

Each year we will prepare 35,000 meals. We offer an on-site no-cost laundry, provide transportation, assist with protection orders and court accompaniment, help women connect with housing, employment, educational and mental and physical health services.

We offer individual and group education and treatment services for our residents as well as parenting support groups, children's wellness groups and recreational activities both on site and, when safe to do so, in the community.

Our transitional housing program, Pathways, provides intensive case management and rent support for up to two years to 37 families each year to help them gain the skills to allow them to obtain permanent, violence free housing and become productive, contributing members of our community.”

Included in this kit are: 12 patterned papers, 8 coordinating solid papers, 4 bottle caps, 1 blank stamp, 4 chipboard circle accents, 1 chipboard frame, 2 chipboard word art "summer", "vacation", 1 destination stamp, 1 endless summer stamp, 1 pair felt flip flops, 1 felt grass accent, 1 felt wave accent, 1 felt sun accent with buttons, 1 orange flower, 1 yellow flower, 1 red flower, 1 clear tab alpha A-Z upper case, and 1 12x12 inch psd layout template by Janet Phillips. This kit is approximately 114 MB and is two individual downloads.



Buy the kit at Songbird Avenue

Silly Chickie

This was a quickie, I finally had a chance after the girls went to bed to look at the DigiChick challenges and found a LO in the scraplift challenge that would be great for the single Easter picture I got back in 2007 - the girls were not cooperative that year. I'm also using more of my goodies that I won with the April TDC challenge.

The only 'nifty' thing I did was weave the ribbon around the edge, and that is just creative erasing. And another proud moment - it's all from the same kit!



Page Idea from Dreams by Skye at The DigiChick
Kit - Hey Chickie by Karen Lewis
Font - Jungle Juice

RAK for Heidi

Last night I picked my DigiShopTalk member kit and it was from Shabby Princess. She just has these fabulous free kits on her site, and it me think of her last free release and the pages that my friend Heidi had done with them. Heidi is dear to me for many reasons, one of them is that we are both twins with twins and our twins were born on the same day and the same gestational age - so the twin factor is overwhelming between us. We've never seen each other in person, but her spirit is with me every day. She posted this beautiful picture of her twins from the July 4th holiday, and I had just gotten this wonderful kit & I felt tempted to enter a LO in the DST Featured Designer Contest where you are limited to only the items in the kit. That was a bit of a challenge for me as I'm usually grabbing stuff from everywhere. Heidi is a very talented scrap artist herself, and would probably do this photo more justice than I, but this one's for you Heidi.

I modified the photo a bit by adding an aged photo layer and then changing the opacity so that it had a bit of a sepia feel like the papers.





Kit - Summer Cottage by Shabby Princess available to Gold & Diamond DST Members
Page Idea from Beautiful Spirit by Vanessa at Your Favorite Pair
Actions - scalloped dot & inked edge by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts Amazone BT, Century Gothic, Times New Roman

Easy as 1-2-3

This one has been festering for a while. I really wanted to record how easy it was to train the girls - getting them to give up their little potties (which we finally did last week after 10 months) was WAY harder than having them be potty trained at 26 months. So while I'm moving this out of my "in progress" file, I don't know that it s done because I didn't journal very much. These pictures might find their way back again when I finally find the right inspiration for what should be two 4x6 horizontals & 1 4x6 vertical photo - and lots of journaling.

And even I had to look more than once to make sure I didn't scrap the same girl twice - they look SO much alike in these photos.



Page Idea from Potty Training by Sari at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Paper & Label by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Bird from Passarinhos by Dani Siqueira
Funky Flowers by Flergs
Date Stamp by Yin Designs
Stitching by Natali
Fonts: DJB Chris, Soopafresh

All American Girls

I got some great photos of the girls this morning all ready for the parade - our mother's of multiples club participated and a group of us walked the route together to promote our club. It was HOT, but the girls were troopers during our 3 hour ordeal.

I think this is the first time I have scrapped photos on the same day they were taken and it hasn't even been 12 hours since I took the photo. Using the template made it pretty easy, but can you believe I still spent about 3 hours on this? I think there were numerous interruptions, but still...



Circle & Stars Template by Kristin Aagard Designs
Blue paper from Primary Shimmers by Tracy Lee Designs
Bobby Pin by Mira Designs
Glitter Styles by Flergs
Shadow Styles by Flergs
Fireworks & Skip Star Sparkle Brushes from Adobe site
Font - CK Journaling
lyric from Carrie Underwood's All-American Girl

Welcome Wishes & Whimsy

Somehow the last half of July slipped right past me. I did say last month that I didn't think I had time to really give my all to the Benevolent Boutique charity kits, but I pulled something together at the beginning of the month for one of the kits - Wishes. Two kits were designed, both using the same color scheme, but one was floral grungy & the other whimiscal. You can buy them here.

This month Benevolent Boutique is donating all proceeds to Reece's Rainbow, an International Down Syndrome Orphan Ministry. Their mission is to:

1) To raise awareness of the plight of children with Down syndrome in foreign orphanages and their availability to be adopted.
2) To raise adoption grant donations for each of our waiting children
3) To locate new adoptive families for orphans with Down syndrome internationally.
4) To "de-mystify" the process and costs of international adoption...it IS affordable!
5) To encourage families to consider adopting a child with DS through education and financial help.
6) To offer financial assistance to adoptive families through our Sponsorship Program.
7) To participate in medical missions for urgently ill children with Down syndrome.
8) To participate in humanitarian aid opportunities to improve the quality of life of children in foreign orphanages.

I got my hubby one of the memory coffe mugs for Father's Day and I love it. Here is a mug insert with a few pieces from my portion of Wishes - one with a quote relative to the mission this month and one without.

The Perfect Pair

I've found the perfect song to scrapbook to - Bon Jovi's (You Want To) Make a Memory. My husband has this aptitude of turning to HDMusic and finding some Bon Jovi special and first it was Jon's duet with Sugarland and now his duet with Leanne Rhimes that he likes, but I like everything about Make a Memory. ok, enough with the side-bar.

A few weeks ago (or possibly a month) I mentioned Ann from The 3 Chickens found me and I'm so glad she did. Her blog is so fun to read and its such a time saver for finding the best freebies & sales. She posted this wonderful template and I just took these fab photos of the girls - so I had to make them work together.

I got to use some of the things I picked from from my April win over at the Digi-Chick. Can you believe I just finally finished my shopping spree? Now I need to go purge my freebies folder cause I'm just getting too much stuff to remember and I'll need the extra memory sooner than later it seems.

My computer is really dragging these days - don't know if I need to increase RAM or video memory or both - as long as I don't need a new computer - DH would probably flip at that thought. I wish one of us was more computer geekish - I don't know how much I trust those guys at Circuit City or Best Buy.

I'm hoping to work on my new kit soon, so no freebies for a little bit yet. If you haven't picked up a July desktop yet, the one from Shabby Princess is too adorable to pass up.



Template 03 by The 3 Chickens
Background Paper, frames & tags by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Graph Paper from Spring Denim by Scraps from Sarah Belle
Bird Element from Tweet Love by Fei-Fei's Stuff
White Lace from White Lace by Gunhild
Orange Lace from Crocheted Lace Collection Two by Shannon Lee Designs
Date Tag from Pinned & Dated by Fei-Fei's Stuff (modified)
Swirls from GXEmbellishments by Abneil Software Ltd (Andrew Buckle)
Glitter Swirls from Swirl Therapy by Jofia Designs
Flowers from Kayleigh's Kleidescope by Flergs (recolored)
Glitter Style from Glitter Freebie 1 by Flergs
Stitched sequins from Sequins by Sarah J Designs
Brush from Point to Grain by Sheishido
Actions - Distressed Edge by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Century Schoolbook, Century Gothic