Going on Vacation....

I am a Gibson Gal

I have been accepted to a new Creative Team working for the lovely and talented Pamela Gibson Designs. Pamela has some REALLY cute stuff available over at the Polka Dot Potato.
She had a call for Quick Page Artist, and I feel I am better at those than actual layouts, and well, she accepted me. I am so excited..... I am a Gibson Gal (Cute name huh?)

The first thing I created for ther is a June Desktop using her darling "Sundress" kit....
Check it out and snatch it up on her CT Blog HERE and be sure to pick up her super cute kit too.

FREEBIE TIME

I have some Freebie QP's for you on the by God's Design CT Blog....
Go check it out HERE

FREEBIE Quick Page

I made you all a lovely quick page using my "Black Beauty" kit...
(CU Flower by LBCreations)

I hope someone can use it.

ENJOY!!!






Click HERE for QP (4shared is a PITA - link below)
http://www.4shared.com/file/48823094/b4d6c35b/blackbeautyQP_HSDesigns.html



Don't forget to check back on June 1st for the AMAZING Popsicle Paradise Freebie Colaboration Blog Train....WOO WOOOO - Chugga chugga...lol

Badge Album Challenge/Exchange ENDING SOON

Don't forget the badge album challenge/exchange is nearing it's end.
We have SO MANY beautiful submissions already - you really do not want to miss out on this.
Please get your templates or Quick pages to me asap.
Here is a peek at only SOME of what we have to offer....

I will be giving out the links to those who participate on or around June 1st if everyone gets them to me in time.

You can get all the details on this HERE in my original post.

7 Tips to Improve Your Baby Pictures

By Jessica Hartshorn

(courtesy of Parents.com)

Here are 7 simple ways you can take better photos of your baby. The memories will last a lifetime!

1. Get closer. It's the most common mistake -- we stand back, our eye trained on our adorable baby, and accidentally let the background take over the photo. The single biggest (and simplest!) way to improve your pictures is to stand closer. Fill the entire frame with baby!

2. Stoop to their level. Similarly, photos are much more charming if you bend down to baby. It allows for better eye contact.

3. Use sunlight. Turn off your camera's flash -- the sun will always be the most beautiful source of light, says Nick Kelsh, author of How to Photograph Your Life (Steward, Tabori & Chang, 2003). The flash flattens the details of the picture. If you're inside, it's better to move your child near a window.

4. Keep it simple. For a holiday-card-worthy, keepsake photo, find an uncluttered background, dress baby in something simple, and again, use sunlight.

5. Try black and white. With digital photography and online photo services, it's easy to print the same photo in both color and black and white. In addition, Kodak sells disposable cameras that shoot in black and white, as well as regular black-and-white film. While you don't want every picture to have this artsy look, it's well worth doing a few times. Diaper-only shots come out great.

6. Get details. Newborns are precious -- capture the wonder now because they grow fast. Zoom in on baby's tiny hands and feet, the way his fingers wrap around yours, or his expression as he sleeps.

7. Find a moment. Don't always put baby in a pose. Try a photo session where you play "parent paparazzi," following baby and snapping as he does his thing. "Luck is a huge part of photography," says Kelsh. "The more pictures you take, the more luck will be with you."

Originally published in American Baby magazine, September 2004.

**************************************************************

Here is a photo I took of my Son using the tips above.....
Got in close, photo taken in the sun, etc.

12 Step Program of Recovery for Freebie Hunting Addicts

This is TOO FUNNY!!!! (Hubby would say ALL of these apply to me)

Sindiego Scraps at http://sindiegosscraps.blogspot. com has got our numbers, ladies!

She reposted something she wrote about a year ago, and I was cracking up reading it!

12 Step Program of Recovery for Freebie Hunting Addicts

1. I will eat a proper breakfast, seated at the table, before I boot up my computer in the morning.

2. I will get dressed before noon.

3. I will make an attempt to clean the house, wash the clothes, and plan dinner before even thinking about downloading freebies.

4. I will remember that I have a husband and/or family, and that I used to enjoy spending time with them.

5. I will remember I have a dog/cat and remember to feed and care for it, as I should.

6. I will not eat my meals, in front of a computer, while blog hopping.

7. I will try to get out of the house, at least once a week, if it is necessary or not.

8. I will talk about subjects other than scrapbooking, when I am with friends and family.

9. I will remember that my life used to be filled with other interests that I have given up, now that I am so busy freebie hunting.

10. I will not download items that I will never use, just because I can.

11. I will try to make time to scrap some pictures with all the beautiful kits I've collected.

Last, but not least.

12. I will remember that I must go to bed. Those freebies will still be there tomorrow.

I have been QUADRUPLE TAGGED

I have been tagged by the lovely and talented Angie of Angie's Asylum. She is a TRUE sweetheart, and am so pleased to have met her through my FAVORITE GROUP ADSDesigners @ yahoogroups.com.

As I was composing this I was tagged THREE MORE TIMES....lol
Melanie of byGod'sDesign has tagged me (she is the CT I am on) and then the lovely Kim of Kim's Scrappin' got me - then last but not least.....The wonderful Carolina Scrapgirl tagged me as well...ALL ON THE SAME POST. (hopefully I can get this posted fast enough before I get another one)

I feel so LOVED....lol Thanks girls for all your kind and supportive words.
I am so HAPPY to have "met" you all.


Ok - Now on to my tag....Here is what you have to do once you're tagged..

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog .

Here are my 7 facts..

1. I was born in Germany, but am a US citizen and have lived here all my life. My Father was in the US army and stationed there in Germany.
I would LOVE to visit someday.

2. I am married to my High School Sweetheart, the very first man I ever fell in love with. We broke up after ign school and went our seperate ways, only to be reunited seven years later at a mutual friends wedding. We have not been apart since.

3. I work as a receptionist, which allows me PLENTY of time to sit in front of the computer and do this sort of stuff which I really SHOULDN'T be doing. I cannot stay away from the computer and my scrap friends.

4. I am addicted to Iced Coffee....I have always been a coffee drinker but am REALLY getting into iced coffee in the last few weeks.

5. My Mother is my Best Friend. There is no-one in the world who understands me more, or who I can tell absolutely anything. I love her so much! I wish we could spend more quality time together than we do now.

6. I secretly dream of being a professional photographer. People always tell me what great pictures I take. My Hubby bought me the Nikon D40 for my Birthday last year and I have YET to take it off of Auto Mode. I have NO IDEA how to venture into manual. I really need to take a class but do not have time.

7. I would like to have enough time in my life to actual scrap my Son's Baby Book. I feel like he is now THREE and I have lost so many memories. This is a HUGE regret that I have and really need to set a goal to get this done...or at least started.

Now that you know a little bit more about me, let's see who else we can TAG.

Now's the time to pick 7 blogs that I Love to visit. This is hard considering most of them have probably already been tagged....lol

1. http://justpassinthru.wordpress.com/
2. http://megadoodleinspired.blogspot.com/
3. http://rackettyscrappety.blogspot.com/
4. http://kreativejunkie.blogspot.com/
5. http://cattscrapps.blogspot.com/
6. http://burkhartscrapzone.blogspot.com/
7. http://mamadukez-creationz.blogspot.com/

Seamless Tiling for Dummies in PSP (Made by a Dummy)

lol...

I decided to show you all how I do seamless tiling in PSP.
This is my first time making a tutorial so I am sure it is horrid, and I may have left something out -
SO feel free to ask me any questions...lol

ENJOY! Hope it helps someone!

Click HERE to download Word Doc.

Color Quiz

It is a little scary how acurate some of my results were.........

Heather took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Her need to feel more causative and to have a wide..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Have you PIMPED your Toddler's Ride? lol

I stumbled across this blog today while searching for Craft blogs and just about DIED laughing.
I am seriously cracking up. Click HERE to go to the Craftster site and see this for yourself.
Here are a few pics from the site.....

This reminds me of the AMAZING Radio Flyer Wagon that my Brother and Mom PIMPED out for Dylan's second birthday.
I will update with a pic of that when I get home tonight.....

PLEASE send me photos if any of you have done this....Sounds like a SCRAP PAGE in the making for SURE! lol lol

The CROP-A-DILE

I am SO excited.

I had such a lovely Mother's Day this weekend and I hope you all did too.
My Brother's Girlfriend made a lovely brunch for all of, My Mom, Me, My MIL, and all the men...lo And her Family as well. It was so nice. Hubby gave me a g/c to the SPA....a 2 hour treatment. I am soooo looking forward to that. My Mom and My Son have been busy for a couple of weeks making me all kinds of special goodies; tissue flowers, frames, photos, a decoupage bracelet, too many goodies....and my Mom got me the CROP-A-DILE...
This thing is SO COOl lookin'. I haven't a CLUE how to use it, but had mentioned to her that I was trying out a new Hybrid project and was having trouble cutting out the holes around the grommets, she bought me THIS......


I got my love of crafting from my beautiful Mother, so of course she wanted to help me in my endeavors....lol
and best of all...we have set aside one day a week to spend together doing craft projects.
We plan to get together every Tuesday after work. This will be so much fun, and I get to hang with my favorite lady.

CHARITY KIT to benefit Shriner's Children's Hospital in Chicago

I am reposting this for my friend Anne who is doing a WONDERFUL thing. So far me and 15 others have pledges our work to make a collaboration kit to raise money for this wonderful organization. We need ALL the help we can get....Please read on to read about Anne and her Courageous and thoughtful daughter.

This kit has a Tropical Fish theme and still need a name...
Please comment on Anne's Blog if you have an idea for the name of the kit.

Read the full story HERE on Anne's blog.....
I sure hope you will join us!

*******************************************************************

From Anne's Blog (Creative Dreams)

Ok, so here's the deal...

My daughter is having her final surgery (in a long string of surgeries) to correct her scoliosis this summer. She was born with scoliosis and a couple of years ago it started to progress rapidly, so they inserted rods into her back that straightened her spine but still allowed her to grow. Now that her lungs are done growing she can have her permanent rods put in, and her spine fused into the corrected position.

Since nearly the begriming of her ordeal she's been a patient at Shriners Hospital in Chicago. I can't begin to tell you how thankful we are for the Shriners because we would never have been able to afford her treatment otherwise.
If you're not familiar with Shriners hospitals, let me tell you a bit about them. Children are accepted into their care based entirely on medical need and if they can be successfully treated. Income, race, and nationality have no part of the decision making process. Once a child is accepted into their program, EVERYTHING is taken care of. All medical bills and even transportation is covered by the Shriners; they even provide tutors if children will be out of school for more than four weeks. They take care of everything you can possibly think of and more, so that children and their families don't have any additional stress during an already stressful time. They manage all of this with donations from area Shrines and other sources.

Shriners is such a great place, not only do they treat all of the kids free of charge, but they make their stay as pleasant as they possibly can. Tiana actually loves it there, not so much the doctoring part of it, but everything else. They have a recreational therapy department that plans activities for the kids twice a day, a craft in the morning and then something else in the evening, and the doctors won't schedule any treatments during that time so all of the kids can play.

Since Tiana's been a patient there I've always tried to give back a little of what they've given us by organizing donation drives for the recreational therapy department. Usually I ask for craft supplies to be donated, but Tiana had a different idea for me this year...

I showed her the start of a tropical fish digi kit I was making for her yesterday. She has a thing for Finding Nemo because she has a small left arm and hand and she associates with Nemo's little fin. She was really excited about the kit so I asked her what we should do with it when it was finished. I told her I could put it in my store and that I'd give her the money from the sales so she could get new books for when she was recovering, or we could share the love and give it away as a freebie, or that she could keep it all to herself as an exclusive thing if she wanted. I told her it was her kit though, and that the decision was totally up to her.

My sweetheart thought it over and said that she wanted the kit to go in the store, but that she didn't want the money. She wants all of the money to go to the recreational therapy department at Shriners Chicago so that all of the patients there can have some new things to play with. I thought that was a great idea, and I'm so proud of my girl for thinking of it!

After she went to bed last night I got to thinking, why not open it up to other designers and make a mega kit? The additional pieces would raise the value as well as giving it more publicity, and I know a lot of people really enjoy designing for a cause.

So... If you'd like to contribute to this charity kit, here's the palette we're using:


All kits should have a tropical fish theme, this is especially fun because Shriners Chicago is decorated with fish and they have a few big saltwater tanks with fish in them for the kids to enjoy! You're welcome to add more colors to the palette to color your elements but they should be accent colors only. Feel free to make whatever you enjoy making. Alphas, elements, papers or full kits, it's totally up to you!

Just complete your portion by July 1st and then send me an email (anne @ creative-dreams.net - no spaces) with a link to download your contribution. All files included in your zips should be prefaced by your name or initials, including your TOU, credits and preview so that they're not overwritten if extracted into a shared folder. Please do not put spaces in your file names, but use underscores instead. Additionally, all files must be saved at 300ppi, in jpg or png format. My assistant will compile all of the portions into one big kit, and put it up for sale in my store on July 15th.

Every participating designer will get the entire kit for free!

If you own a store and would be interested in stocking the kit for charity, please contact me for more information.

If you have any questions, problems or concerns, just let me know.

Thanks so much, I know this is going to be a wonderful opportunity to give back to an organization that has given so much to so many!

P.S. This kit doesn't have a name yet, and I'm open to suggestions. If you have any ideas let me know, I'll run them past Tiana who will have the final choice.

Badge Album Challenge/Exchange with FREEBIE Badge Album Sleeves....

Is anyone interested in a little challenge?
Ever wanted to try a Hybrid project?

I had the idea to try to make one of those hybrid "Badge holder" albums, so I bought some of the holders. I thought it might be fun to hold a challenge where anyone who contributes at least five templates - I will mail them 5 of these badge sleeves....
Oh and ALL of the templates contributed as well.
That would house TEN mini pages (front and back) where you could have a little album to carry in your purse, give as a gift - ANYTHING.
Perfect for a Mother's Day gift.

Anyhoo - if anyone is interested, please email me back and let me know....
These badge sleeves would be a gift from me for participating and I would ship them to you FREE of charge....Does anyone want to give it a go?

The size of these templates would be 3.75" x 2.375" and can either be vertical or horizontal. 300 dpi and be sure to save layered templates in either a .psd or .psp format. Quick pages can be saved as a .png

Please email me if you have an interest... grmnvixen@yahoo.com
with Badge Template in the subject line.

Here is a peek at what the badge holders look like before altering....



And here is an example of what you can do with it...
I did not make this -
I got the inspiration from Daily Scrappin Inspiration Blog.
(Photo courtesy of Daily Scrappin Inspiration Blog) Isn't this CUTE????



The badge holders we will be using for this project are vertical like my sample above, but templates can go either way!



Once the templates start rolling in, I will post a slide show here with the previews of the templates we have so far.

As far as a deadline, I will send you your badge holders as soon as you email me five templates to grmnvixen@yahoo.com along with your name and postal address...I will continue to collect the templates, and will send them in to all participate by June 1st.

EDIT :
BTW - If you want to contribute a quick page type thing using only your products or commercial use tools, that would be ok too.

Here is a look at what we have so far...many more to come.

Craft Time

Craft Time, originally uploaded by Stokes Family Photography.

Dylan has been SO interested in crafts lately.

Here are the Fish Bowls that Dylan, Daddy and I made...lol
Project courtesy of sproutonline.com

We also made a lovely beaded necklace with large chunky beads - perfect for little fingers, and a lovely foam frog king.

New Layout

This QP is just TOO CUTE......I could not resist...

Out of This World
Layout by ME (HSDesigns)
May 4th, 2008

Credits :
Quick Page – cznydesigns - michelleh
Alpha – Dandelion Alpha – Designs by Vicki
Doodle Frame – No TOU

HAPPY NATIONAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY

Man - from the moment I opened my peepers this morning my fingers have been clicking away on the keyboard. There are so many AMAZING sales today that I am going WAYYYYY beyond my budget, but I am having a BLAST....I will update in a bit on what I bought so far. I have been to Weeds & Wildlfowers, and now am over at the Sweet Shoppe...Agghhhh tooo much good stuff and have you SEEN all the freebies. I am in heaven. My poor Son is definitely being neglected today (not really) but this is TOO MUCH FUN!!!

Don't forget to read my next post about my own little NSD badge album template challenge....

HAVE FUN but not too much fun...lol

UPDATE

4Shared is having fits and I cannot purchase at the Sweet Shoppe - everything is running so SLOW...WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhh

A Fun Little NSD Challenge & Exchange

Is anyone interested in a little challenge?
Ever wanted to try a Hybrid project?

I had the idea to try to make one of those hybrid "Badge holder" albums, so I bought some of the holders. I thought it might be fun to hold a challenge where anyone who contributes at least five templates - I will mail them 5 of these badge sleeves....
Oh and ALL of the templates contributed as well.
That would house TEN mini pages (front and back) where you could have a little album to carry in your purse, give as a gift - ANYTHING.
Perfect for a Mother's Day gift.

Anyhoo - if anyone is interested, please email me back and let me know....
These badge sleeves would be a gift from me for participating and I would ship them to you FREE of charge....Does anyone want to give it a go?

The size of these templates would be 3.75" x 2.375" and can either be vertical or horizontal. 300 dpi and be sure to save layered templates in either a .psd or .psp format. Quick pages can be saved as a .png

Please email me if you have an interest... grmnvixen@yahoo.com
with Badge Template in the subject line.

Here is a peek at what the badge holders look like before altering....



And here is an example of what you can do with it...
I did not make this -
I got the inspiration from Daily Scrappin Inspiration Blog.
(Photo courtesy of Daily Scrappin Inspiration Blog) Isn't this CUTE????



The badge holders we will be using for this project are vertical like my sample above, but templates can go either way!



Once the templates start rolling in, I will post a slide show here with the previews of the templates we have so far.

As far as a deadline, I will send you your badge holders as soon as you email me five templates to grmnvixen@yahoo.com along with your name and postal address...I will continue to collect the templates, and will send them in to all participate by June 1st.

EDIT :
BTW - If you want to contribute a quick page type thing using only your products or commercial use tools, that would be ok too.

Here is a look at what we have so far...many more to come.