Choooo-choooooo Freebie on Board

Hey everyone! Welcome to the Scrap Orchard Honey Bee Blog Train! Have you come to get your Free’bee’???

First I have to tell you, the whole time I’ve been getting this blog ready my 15.5 year old Maine Coon Cat, Winston, has been lying behind me SNORING like crazy! Do you have a cat that snores? It is the funniest thing! It’s like a little mini rattle kinda snore, he’s so darn cute! With DH in the other room it’s like zzzzzzz stereo. Hmmmm I think I’d rather listen to Linkin Park! ROFL! So when you leave me a hello here, tell me about your cats!

OK, back to business! I had the opportunity to work with Designs by Sine this month! She has some great template kits in her shop and lots of super masks, borders and text paths. I love using them! This time I chose her SO Tiny template pack to work with:


and created this layout of my new Grand-Nephew, Garrett – isn’t he just darling???? Look at those precious feet with the rings on them! Click the image to go to the credits and find Irene Alexeeva’s kit here: Tom Thumb!
Speaking of designers - be sure you check out the Scrap Orchard Blog on Halloween!!!! There’s going to be a Designer Trick-or-Treat Blog Trains with lots of Halloween Free’bees’ that you just won’t want to miss!

So, if you are on the Honey Bee Blog Train, then you came here from Jaimie’s Blog. At my stop, you get another Spooktacular Brag Book Page. This Orchard Collab kit is available here In the Shop. And now click the image to go to 4shared to get your treat. Heh heh are you SHOCKED that my free'bee' has a cat in it??? ROFL!
After you download your free’bee’, come right back here and take a ride on the train to the next stop at Tami’s Blog. And if you just wandered in here and want to start at the beginning, or you get lost - take the alternate route back to the Scrap Orchard Blog. And while you’re there – check out the shop it is chock full of Scrap Orchard goodness!!!!!

"Fish are Friends" New Kit by Britt-ish Designs

Hey I'm back! I have four layouts today for kits that are being released! First up is for Britt-ish Designs at Scrap Matters

Britt's new kit is Fish are Friends, take a look at this beauty!

And here are my layouts! I'll be back later today to add the credits when I post them in a gallery. The first one is Crushes' Coaster At Disneyland Paris - look at that wait time! I love the way this looks like the turtles are on the EAC!!!
The second one is my DH, Me, SIL and BIL in Feb 2008 at Epcot
Next kit is Pocketful of Templates 3.

I found these pics of me as a baby and knew Britt's kit Tiny Cowgirl would be perfect. Then she announced she would release this perfect template! What more could a cowgirl want? Am I cute with my daddy or what?
OK Next this kit is being released by Irene Alexeeva at Scrap Orchard - Whispers

And my layout is the Lost Treasure. This was part of the Fairy Garden at Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival in April '09 and is Tinker Bell's Balloon - made of cotton and powered by pixie dust! LOL I think this came out awesome, I really love it. I took that photo and extracted the balloon and then cloned out all the people in the backgound (as well as an ugly pink backpack) and then blurred it. Came out lovely I think. Then I put that old frame over it. Hmmm Maybe I should have distressed the photo too. Maybe I'll go back.......

Hey I'll be back this weekend with more Scrap Orchard loveliness that I've posted recently and also another LO for Britt. Plus I may just have a freebie template to post!

I'm Yours Kit by Britt-ish Designs

Finally back with an update, I'm just so busy with CT commitments now, that I've been neglectful of getting posts about them onto my job. So my half year resolution (is there such a thing?) is to post more of my layouts here and talk about my CT kits.

Lots has changed in my CT world. My commitment to ESS was done at the end of June. And the Supreme Team gig was to be over at the end of July, but they asked me to stay on for two months, so I accepted. I have to say, I have been assigned some kits that I thought ???? what am I gonna do ???? Not the usual kits I would buy, but I've found it stretches my imagination and my skills to work with ones that are out of my comfort zone. So I"m very happy for that, I've got a lot of great LOs done being on the Supreme Team.

Mid-June I started the Honey Bee Creative Team contest at Scrap Orchard. Much to my shock after 3 weeks of making the cut, I made it once again on the 4th week and am now a Honey Bee. I am trying to work my commitments into my days but the work is worth is as after I have done my 3 layouts for the month, I can choose anything from the shop. Wow! Kid in a candy store!!!! My Wish List is HUGE! I'm only taking what I can use and make sure I create something with each item. But it's making me more productive for sure!

And then - most excitingly (new word, Google it....) I applied for Britt-ish Designs Britt Girls. I really would like to be on a designer team and she is my #1 choice! While I didn't make the team, she did offer me a guest spot for August, so I'm happily there, if not just for the time being. I can still hope for a permanent spot someday! My assignment there is one layout per week with her new product and then a layout with whatever I take from her shop. I have Totally Buggin in my Britt folder now, waiting to be scrapped!

So being up to date now, here is the first kit assignment from Britt and my layout. This lovely collab with DeCrow Designs I'm Yours and the I'm Yours Word Art Pack.

And here is my layout with the kit. This my nephew Greg and his wife Jenny. They are expecting their first child on 9/9/09. For the photo, I used a gradient map to change to B&W, then I extracted them because the background was distracting. Then I used a gaussian blur on the background. The result was too sharp for the soft colors, so I made a distressed overlay so soften it up. I really liked the results.
Credits for Wedded Bliss


OK so now that I'm back, I hope I can do this - um - at least once a week? Ha - I don't want to go crazy and commit to twice a week! Hopefully I get on here soon and dress up my Blog with the blog stuff I bought months ago. Hmmmmm. Don't even know where to start!

Hugs, Nancy

Still here!

Well, OK, so i've been a bad blogger once again. I'll be back with a new post this week, but for now, I'm taking down the links for the freebies! They've been up a long time, so it's time to say good-bye!

I got LOTD!

Oh wow! My first (hopefully not my last....) LOTD. I made this as part of my CT commitment for ESS. I really obsessed over it because I couldn't get the elements "just so" LOL, took me a while to get it right..... It was also a scraplift challenge at Scrap Matters. I used to think scraplifting wasn't very creative and preferred to do my own, but then once I started doing it I realized how you make it your own and that just because you scraplift a great LO, it doesn't mean that it results in "as great" an LO. I was really please with the pink and peach colors here. This is my granddaughter when she was 8, and my DH in our yard.

So now it goes to a vote for LOTW. I think I'll vote for myself. That's not bad right, I mean, don't you think Obama voted for himself? LOL


Grampa's Flower Credits

scrapidea-timkova Greeting of Spring and Moss Path

Just a quick post today to tell you about these two awesome kits by scrapidea-timkova! I saw them and instantly fell in love!

First is the Greeting of Spring - look at those extracted flowers - yummy! And the cute little birdie in the nest and the darling trees. You can get the kit at Sunshine Studio Scraps: Greeting of Spring

The second kit I'm drooling over, I just love it so much! Wonderful fence, little rounded shrubs, great flowers! So much to love. Again at Sunshine Studio Scraps: Moss Path

I'll be back this weekend with more layouts and some previews of the kits that I've been working with. Also going to ask if I can give out a couple of quick pages - we'll see!

Oh and by the way - Enchanted Studio Scraps has big events in the planning for National Scrapbook Day on May 2nd - be sure to watch for news on the blog. Follow the link on the right side list to visit the site!

I'm back! Had a busy March, I guess! I've done a lot of pages and also tried out for not just one, but two CTs and was accepted for both. I hope I can keep up with both, we will see, I can always just fulfill the contract and then not try out again, or renew. But, I'm enjoying both so far!

First up is Enchanted Studio Scraps. This is a new store, just opened up in January. It's bringing in a lot of designers from two stores I frequented last year - Snap and Scrap and Digital Candy.

So I submitted my gallery pics and was accepted to be an Enchanted Pixie. And anyone who knows me knows that I'm already a Fairy Godmother, so becoming a Pixie is not a stretch! LOL For this CT, I'm assigned to a designer and I need to do 4 layouts per month, two per kit. Plus I can get the site collab and do two layouts from that. And I can volunteer for more after I've done my first 4. We'll see how many I can do!


My first LO was for the site collab - Overboard. Lots of cool stuff in this kit and perfect for these pics of the Volcano Pool at the Polynesian. We pool-hopped there in April 2007 while staying at the Wilderness Lodge Villas.



Overboard Credits


My second LO was for my assigned designer - Flutter Expressions. She has a Boy/Girl kit ensemble called Just the Thing - Diva Style and Dude Style. I had to do this pic of my grandson Chris in his orange shirt for the Dude kit. He has the "make your own cookie" dessert from Wolfgang Puck in Downtown Disney.



Gourmet Dude Credits

Next up is GoDigitalScrapbooking. For this site CT (called the Supreme Team) I had to complete for four weeks, one LO per week, with an assigned kit. So obviously, I made it to the end and was actually accepted to both CTs within a few days of each other. That scared me! Yikes I hope I didn't over extend! For the ST, I need to do 6 layouts per month. They assign you a kit as you complete your layouts. So I have my first one done there, with a the April Designer Collab called Spring Blossom. I thought it worked very well for Pocahontas - Disney fans will remember the Animal Kingdom's Pocahontas and her Forest Friends attraction, and I had that in mind while making this page.


Note that I extracted the kids and Pocahontas out of the photo. Takes a LONG time to do that, but I think the result was worth it. I also did a challenge at Scrap Matters for this page and made a brush out of a butterfly included in the kit and used it under the string. And I blended that top paper (it started out tan) into the layer below to get that brownish-blue effect. Plus I cut that tree (think Grandmother Willow) out of a paper as well.


Pocahontas Credits

That's it for now! I'll be back with more I'm sure!