For my sweet baby to be...

In no way related to scrapbooking, but I just want to show off the baby quilt I just finished. I started with adorable Debbie Mumm and other quilting fabrics, and a rough plan. I purposely didn't wash any of them (or the cotton batting) because I wanted it to shrink after it was quilted, giving it sort of an old-fashioned handmade look that I love. I'll show you what I mean in a minute. The piecing and quilting was all done on my machine, but the binding... miles and miles of binding...


was handmade out of the same flannel that I used for the back, and then handsewn to the quilt. And I have the holes in my fingers to prove it.

Here's the quilt finished, but not washed...


And after it's washed.


I don't know if you can really see the difference, though it's very obvious when you hold it. Here's a closeup...


I don't know, maybe it's knowing this will be my last baby that's doing it, but I'm just having such a great time creating things for this little guy. I have one sweater almost finished... just need to sew the arms on, and another one about 1/2 knit. Good thing I still have another month and a half. All this other stuff is definitely cutting into my designing. Oh well, the cycles we go through, I guess. Now if only we could agree on his name!

Playful Bits and freebie

I love magnetic poetry pieces. I've had them on my fridge off and on for more than a decade, and even have a journal with a metal cover and little magnetic pieces for when inspiration strikes. So I decided to make my own digital, slightly grungy version. But the truth is, they've been in various stages of completion for months, or maybe a year. There are so many, that I just didn't want to cut them all apart, LOL. I finally bit the bullet and did it, and here you have Poetry Bits. Over 380 of them, to be exact. There are oodles and oodles of the most common words we use, and lots of prefixes and suffixes to create even more words. You can pick them up at DigitalFreebies or FaithSisters, and they're on sale at DF for just $2.80 this week, instead of the normal (and still super reasonable price of $4).


Oh, and I have a little freebie out this week at Digital Freebies. Click the preview to go grab it...


And I had a ball playing with one of my older kits: Inquisitive, a great template from Sine, and the Poetry Bits (click for all the credits)...

trying again

This is post #2 about these kits, because I'm trying a new way of publishing to my blog. The last try obviously didn't work. This one looks like it's going to be successful, YAY!

Feeling warm and springy? Or just wishing to? As part of the Digital
Freebies club kit for march, here's my New Bloom kit. Partnered with
Simple Girl Designs, you can get both kits to scrap those beautiful
spring or girly photos, for just $5. I've also created an add-on kit,
that I think I might love more than the original, if that's possible.
And a coordinating QP album, made from both of my new kits!

Click on the preview to go to the club and see/buy both mine and
Simple Girl's kits together...

For a burst of spring, even when winter's hanging on...

We had more snow this weekend. It's been the craziest winter here!
Normally we get just a dusting at best, but we were swamped with it in
December and have gotten it so many more times than normal. But today
is sunny and makes me feel vibrant and full of life. How about you?
Feeling warm and springy? Or just wishing to? As part of the Digital
Freebies club kit for march, here's my New Bloom kit. Partnered with
Simple Girl Designs, you can get both kits to scrap those beautiful
spring or girly photos, for just $5. I've also created an add-on kit,
that I think I might love more than the original, if that's possible.
And a coordinating QP album, made from both of my new kits! (click on
the image to go to them in the store)
[url=http://digitalfreebies.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=5333][IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i163/Dielledl/Scrapbooking/Dielle_NewBloom_AO_Prev.jpg[/IMG][/url]
Click on the preview to go to the club and see/buy both mine and
Simple Girl's kits together...
[url=http://digitalfreebies.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=5332][IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i163/Dielledl/Scrapbooking/Dielle_NewBloom_Prev.jpg[/IMG][/url]
[url=http://digitalfreebies.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=5340][IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i163/Dielledl/Scrapbooking/Dielle_NewBloom_QP_Prev.jpg[/IMG][/url]

And a couple of beautiful pages using the kits (click to see all the credits)...
by Cherry...
[url=http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=576532][img]http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/data/500/japanteagarden.jpg[/img][/url]
by Jenn...
[url=http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=575050][img]http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/data/500/smallfourkids.jpg[/img][/url]
by Melissa...
[url=http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=583127][img]http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/data/500/newdo12.jpg[/img][/url]
and one by me...
[url=http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=580453][img]http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/data/500/My-Cuties-web.jpg[/img][/url]

Now I'm scrapping it!

Our trip was fabulous! I literally took more than a thousand photos and now I'm scrapping them. We went to Disneyland and California Adventure, to the beach, to Medieval Times, to visit family and friends and put a few thousand miles on our van. The kids were great and we had a wonderful 2 weeks!!! Oh, I also got the amazing chance to meet the wonderful Marieta, from my CT. We had lunch, sitting and talking in a small cafe and it felt like we'd known each other forever. How cool is that?!?

I've decided to scrap the photos and put them in a bound book. I've only ever printed LOs and put them in an album. I thought it would be great to do a few of the books and give one to my FIL, who went with us, one to my husband's aunt and uncle who provided the timeshare for us to stay in, and of course one for our family. Here are the first of my LOs, done in no particular order, other than Disneyland seemed like a fun place to start... (as always, click them to read journaling and see credits)

The girlies were such troopers about it all!Pluto, what a cutie he was!Sage and Adam in bumper cars...
Kiddos riding the spinning ladybug ride (like teacups) without Mom!!!

ADSR, Music Recital & Disney

Man, I've been a blog slacker! I've actually been scrapping (thanks mostly to the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race), and my mojo came back to finish up my Music Recital kit. Now I'm trying to wrap things up for our family trip to California. Can you say 75 degrees?!?!? Woohoo!!!

I've really enjoyed the ADSR this time. It's always fun, but these challenges have been perfect for me, so far. Here are some of my recent LOs. I won't post them all, because I've done 8 so far but have obviously not posted any of them. (Clicking on any of them will take you to a larger image and credits.)

This is my most recent and one of my favorites. We had to lift another scrapper whose gallery we love. Amanda1201 has just amazing LOs, quite a few of which are in my faves. So I lifted one of hers.

This was a kind of hard one, we had to lift a LO of our ADSR partner, flip it, & rotate 45 degrees as our sketch. So most of the LOs were at funky angles. But I think it works ok for the energy of this LO!
This challenge required that we download a minikit and use every single piece of it. NOT my style of kit, or colors, but I'm actually quite pleased with how this turned out. I recolored some of the papers and elements, used some as repeating elements instead of their intended purpose, and cut others up into something different.
And my homage to Disney, LOL! Can you tell what's on my mind? The challenge was basically to have a layout with no photos, and it had to include 3 separate frames. It hasn't happened yet, but it won't be too much longer!!!
OK, and last but not least, my new kit. I really love how it turned out, especially after weeks and weeks of not really creating anything new. It will be so perfect for all my children's recitals, and exactly right to showcase my daughter recently winning an award in an arts competition this week for an original piano piece she wrote.

Full kit (clicking will take you to the item at Digital Freebies):
Paper Pack:
Just the elements:
It's also available at Faithsisters.com

Well, I'm not completely packed, so better run! Wish me luck spending 3 days on my feet at Disney, when I'm 6 months pregnant! (DH says he'll rent me a wheelchair if I need, LOL)

Holy Wordle, Batman!

Ok, totally addicting!!! I've spent over an hour typing in words, playing with the fonts, colorschemes, etc. I've even figured out how I might use them in some of my designs (which their TOU says is ok). This one is from plugging in the url from my blog here.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the more times a word is used (or more that you type it in, if you're just entering a bunch of words), the larger that one is, in comparison to other words used less often. I guess I use the word "just" a little too often, LOL. If you start and can't stop, I guess you'll just have to blame me. Sorry! Here's the website, enter at your own risk... http://www.wordle.net/