By the Sea layout

I fell in love this weekend. Yes I did madly and passionately in love..L.O.V.E. love!! I bet your wondering what this is all about. Yes, I am married and no I did not fall in love with a person. I fell madly in love with a digital scrapbooking kit. Now don't tell me that you have never fallen immediately in love with a specific kit. If you haven't you have not been looking hard enough. LOL Or you have not visited the store of Etc. by Danyale recently. I am telling you her new bundle called Sugar Sand Boardwalk is spectacular!!! I am not on her team I have no benefit for telling you this other then the fact that I love love love her designs. I have recently run across her and purchased some of her kits. Matter of fact she was one of the designers who hosted the Digi Dare so I got a $10.00 GC to her store. Until then I had never heard of her. Now she has got to be my favorite!!! Her style is so me and she is grungy without being over the top grungy if ya know what I mean. You can find her store HERE if you want to check out her designs. Or if you want to see some of them in action stay tuned because I have started to play with the items I got recently. I just finished this layout using her kit I told you about above. Did I tell you how much I love this kit?? OMG I adore it. I only wish I had the money to grab the whole bundle.

Here is what the kit looks like that I got.

Here are some of the other kits I got with my $10.00 GC.

and here is the photo of the entire bundle of the Sugar Sand Board Walk Kit that I want so badly.

Do you see what I mean about her being grungy without being too grungy? So I am working on some layouts now and I just finished this one. My DH and I stayed at the famous Del Coronado Hotel on Coronado Island a few years back and I absolutely fell madly in love with this hotel. It was so beautiful!! If you have not ever stayed here and you get the chance please I promise you will not be sorry.

So now that I have shared with you my new favorite kit of the week how about you share with me the great deals you found this Black Friday for digital kits. Show me your favorite finds. 

I guess I got lost somewhere...

Very odd I could have sworn I posted last week but now that I am here to post this week I find that I did not. It seems I thought I had but failed to do so. I guess I will chalk it up to a "Moment" and let it go and instead show you 2 new layouts I created one from last week and one from this week.

Last weeks layout was a lot of fun and I am not normally very good with "Holiday" layouts. Its not that I don't like the holidays I just am not good at creating layouts that showcase them it seems. So when last weeks new kit was a Christmas Kit I was a little worried about what I would create. So I sat down and found some photo's of Wyatt making Christmas Cookies and decided to use them in this layout.

I really like the photo of my son taking a big bite out of that yummy delicious cookie. I tried something a little different to challenge myself and used some of the papers in the kit to make those banners. I really loved that Santa Claus and absolutely had to include him somehow. LOL You can grab Sas Designs kit Christmas Time in her store at Bits2Kits.

This weeks layout was so my style with all the fall foliage and gorgeous colors that I had no problem jumping right into the design of my next layout. I love when you see a kit and immediately "see" what you will do with it. That is exactly how it was with this kit by Sas Designs called "Grateful For".

I used all the fall foliage and wonderful autumn colors to showcase these photos I changed to B&W of my son and his friends Cole and Ty riding in the wagon of their tractor up in Pine Flat. These pictures where actually taken during 4th of July but changing them to Black and White made them work well with the kit. I did use a few additional elements in the creation of my layout that are not included in the kit. In specific the brushes over the paper and around the back of the design and the green crochet ribbon sticking out at the bottom. I am a brush freak it seems. LOL

Now I also created QP's of both pages just for your personal use. Consider it a Sorry I had a brain fart moment gift! LOL

You can grab the Christmas Cookie QP HERE.

 and The Harvest Fall QP HERE.

I hope you enjoy them both!

Toot Tootin my whistle!!

I am so excited because I entered a layout at Digidares as you all already know from my last post and I went back today to check it and I won!! Whew Hooo!! I am so excited!
Take a look for yourself! You can click on the image to be directed to the webpage.

I really enjoyed this challenge and will have to check out the next one now too. I was especially excited because it was the first time I have submitted there. I have always been a fan and always read the blog but never found the enticement to give it a whirl. This dare though involved an autumn layout and I could not pass that up. Thanks so much for looking!

DigiDare? Have you played?

So I have known about this Digi Dare website for quite a while but never really ever attempted to play or participate. I really do not know why I simply do not have a good explanation because the page is one of my saved pages for my Networked blogs and I look at it almost everyday or every other day just to see what people have created.
This week though I was intrigued because the Digi Dare was about Fall! Yeah!! I Love Fall/Autumn. I love the color's of Autumn not the cold of Autumn. I deal with the cold to get wonderful colorful and fun pictures I can use in bright and color filled Autumn layouts like the one I decided to create for the DigiDare. I love the orange's, brown's, yellow's, gold's, and green's of Autumn! You know I could not resist this dare!!!!!!!

So this Dare was to do all of the following things:
1. Use as many papers, patterns as you please….I just want to see at least one plaid OR hounds tooth paper in there.
2. Some paint.
3. Foliage… leaves, branches, berries, etc.
4. At least one ribbon.
and they wanted to know what I love about Fall. So I searched the web for a great free photo of some gorgeous foliage in some wonderful trees and I showcased it in my layout you can see below.

I wanted something somewhat simple that still included all the elements the Dare was requiring because I wanted my photo's to be the showcase. So I have leaves (Check), I have a crochet Ribbon (Check), I have sprayed and splattered paint (Check), and I have a hounds tooth print paper (Check). I have to admit to not being a huge fan of hounds tooth so I didn't want to buy a kit or paper pack just for something I would not use again so I made my own hounds tooth paper and then sliced it to use in the layout in a not overly noticeable way, but it does add a bit of texture.  LOL
I found a gorgeous photo of some wonderful orange, gold and green tree's as well and used a photo mask and then used my layer settings to blend it into the background paper. This allowed me to put my text over the top and still have it be visible. I know you cannot read it great here but believe me in the full size version you can. So for your reading pleasure the poem I chose to use is below created by Marilyn Lott.
The kit I used is by Etc by Danyale at Digichick, and I just love the kit and have used it a lot actually since I have gotten it.
Well, that's it. I would love to see your Autumn or Fall layouts as well. Off to submit my Dare into the DigiDare website. Wish me luck, I'll need it!!!

Oh in case you want to know the Digi Dare website is located HERE, just in case you want to submit your own Digi Dare.

Yikes! I almost forgot to post the poem for you.

Here it is:
Autumns Glow

There is something about autumn
That brings out such earthiness
Gold leaves adorn bushes and trees
Like an artist with a brilliant brush

Once the leaves dry on the trees
Then the wind begins to blow
It’s a special time of year for me
Because I love autumn so

The cold dry air it seems
Prepare the leaves to fall
Mother Nature’s special time
Yes, it’s the best of all

What a dazzling way to end
The year as winter nears
The way leaves let loose
And drop like nature’s tears

Oh yes, I love those golden days
Dreamy with autumn’s glow
It makes me smile because I do
Love the season of autumn so!

Marilyn Lott

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!!!

Wow can you believe it is DSD again already?!?!? I was shocked when I heard the news! But, I always love DSD because you get so many great deals on all the great Digi Designers products. It seems everyone is having a sale or giving away a freebie and I think everyone should take advantage of it!
I have so many layout's to show you today and I have 2 freebie's for you myself! Since i have so much to say and i have to be at the HRIF cinic in less then 45 minutes to see patients I suppose I should get right too it so here we go.

My first layout is created using Sas's newest kit and "FREEBIE", its called "You Make Me Smile" and it makes me think of this new photo booth craze that is going on. I could totally see everyone using it for there Instagram photos as well.

I took these photos at my company picnic of Wyatt sliding down a HUGE slide! He had so much fun. Now you can only get this Freebie by following Sarah's instructions HERE at her blog.

Next I have for you 2 layouts I created with Sas's new November PU Grab bag called "Down in the Garden". I love that these grab bags have so many things in them. I like having lots of choices and this kit definitely fits the bill.

I am not sure which layout I like the best because I love the bright colors of the first and I really like the simplicity of the second. You can grab the Nov Grab bag HERE.

Finally....Remember how I said I really was excited to show you a couple layouts that i was so excited about? Well the layouts were done using another Grab Bag created by Sas for her B2K store only. I really love the colors and the elements and I have to say Sas was working her buttons off for DSD.

So I truly love the way both these layouts came out. I wanted to try something different for me and that is how the 1st layout came about, but you all know how I love simplistic layouts that really focus on the photo's so I created the 2nd layout with the photo's popping right off the page. The papers in this kit are to die for and I was so excited and felt so privileged to get to use it!! This kit is ONLY available at Bits2Kits so you have to grab it HERE if you want to create some gorgeous layouts like I did with it. 

So that's all of my new layouts for you and I bet at this point you are pretty happy to know i am done. LOL Well, almost done that is because i have 2 freebie's for you that you can grab and create some spectacular layouts just like mine!!!

See below and click on the photo to grab one or both QP's: