Here we are at the end of July.  As you can see by my new header that this past month was the time of the county fair.  Gotta love this time of year when the newness of summer has worn off and thoughts turn to what needs to be accomplished in the summer before the school year begins.  Finishing up the scrapkit I had started prior to relocating was one of my priorities and now it is finally complete.  I decided to make a scrap kit that was baby friendly but not completely in the traditional colors.  I was also inspired by the more “natural” color of wild bunnies than fluffy white bunnies so often associated with traditional baby kits.  So I present to you “Sweet Baby Bunny Love” free for the downloading . . . links are at the bottom of the post.

As usual, drop shadows not included, and not all elements shown in preview.

The layouts I created to go with this show 4 generations in my family.

My mother in the hospital at my birth.

Me in the hospital at my oldest son's birth. He's now in college!

One of my grandsons from my oldest child.

     I hope you enjoy the kit and I would love for you to leave some feedback so I know if this is enjoyed by anyone other than myself!

Sweet Baby Bunny Love Elements

Sweet Baby Bunny Love Papers

     I  hope it was worth the wait!  Have a great rest of the summer!

     I have a new digital scrapkit in the works but it’s going to have to take a backseat for now.  This summer has brought many changes, including a relocation to a different state, so I am in transition for a while and in the process of finding full-time employment.   The positive aspect of this move has been getting to spend time with my grandsons.  I had a chance to accompany them to a blueberry patch for picking some of the biggest, ripest, juiciest blueberries I’ve ever seen.

We picked at The Berry Patch, a tradition for my family that I had not been able to enjoy for the past eight years while living too far away.  The picture above is the berry we decided in the end won the competition amongst us all as the biggest berry we picked!

My DS #2 & grandsons enjoyed a friendly competition of seeing who could pick the biggest blueberry.

We all had a wonderful time being together, being outdoors, and picking such wonderful fruit!

     Hope everyone is getting an extended weekend to celebrate Memorial Day.  This coming Monday will be a time for special memories and reflections.  

     Remembering special moments celebrated in life is also what digital scrapbooking is all about.  This past week I’ve been playing around with PSE 5 again as well as an old version of Paint Shop Pro that I remembered was laying around.   I hadn’t  loaded it since having to restore my computer after it’s crash in January.  Also, I hadn’t played with it much prior to that time but I read a tutorial on the web about how fun it was to use for creating text along a curved path.  So I’ve included some of my try outs in my new kit.

     My new kit is called “Rock, Paper, Scissors” as I used photos of rocks around the house; crumpled, mutilated, torn, inked papers scanned into the computer; and scissors to cut edges, holes, etc, all to use for textures on my papers and elements.  I did try my first element in PSE 5, which is the journaling paper, so it could retain it’s shape.   Oh!  And I also hope you like my triangle and diamond date stamps!  They were so much fun to create!

     I’ve done a few layouts just to give you some ideas of what can be done with this kit.  The links for this freebie are at the end of the post.  And as always, it is so encouraging if you would leave me a little comment.  Thanks!

Rock, Paper, Scissors Elements

Rock, Paper, Scissors Papers

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Next month one of the sweetest couples I know are celebrating eight years of marriage!  Their marriage took place in the country in front of family and friends.  Congratulations on your upcoming anniversary Tessa & Jason!

Links for the “Country Spring” digital scrap kit can be found in the previous post.  Thanks for stopping by!

Hello & welcome to my blog!  I’ve been trying to learn how to use Photoshop Elements (PSE) that came with my Wacom Fun Tablet so I’ve been practicing making papers for digital scrapbooking.  I’m still using my old software (circa 2000) to do the elements as I haven’t learned Photoshop well enough.  So I thought I’d go ahead and share this with anyone who wants it.  I would love constructive criticism if anyone would take the time for feedback as this is my first attempt on PSE.

Here is the preview of my first kit “Country Spring” :

Here is the link for downloading:

Country Spring Papers

Country Spring Elements

Please do not hot-link to this website.  Also, do not share these files on any user groups.  Send your friends here, and please, take a moment to let me know what you think of the kit! 

Also, I only have a free account at 4shared so if it exceeds my limit for any reason, I’ll try to find another site to post the links on for you.  Just let me know.  I’ll check when I get off work Friday.

Just an update. Sorry this hasn’t been updated in quite a while. I’m just stopping by to say “Happy Mother’s Day this Sunday Mom!”, if you happen to see this! Love you lots!

     January already.  The holidays have passed by for yet another year.  This past season I didn’t get any of the baking done I had intended and I totally forgot about making my favorite Christmas treat for Christmas Day!  I have had the same favorite treat since childhood and I don’t know why it didn’t even come to mind this past year!   Too much to process, I guess.

  I decided I was going to take some time during the post-holiday lull in activities to do some of what I didn’t get around to doing last month!  The first thing on my list was Christmas sugar cookies . . . although adapted as “Winter” cookies!

    What tops an afternoon rolling and cutting out cookie dough?

Frosting them, admiring them, and of course . . . EATING them!  I just love to see cookies in a glass cookie jar with a metal lid . . . just like mom used to use (and still does!)   My mom’s are the real vintage jars, which makes them all the more special to hold cookies!   (And she makes the best cookies, too!)  These snowflake cookies were so fun to make and perhaps the only sight of “snow” I’ll have all year in San Antonio! 

     Did any of you have any holiday traditions that seemed to slip by this past year without getting done?  I would love it if you took a moment to share it with me!

     Hush is often a word used by a parent directed toward a fidgiting child.  But hush can mean so much more.  In a day, hush can be the dusk before night.  In a year, it can be November’s Fall before December’s Winter. 

Late fall storm passing to the north.

Harvested field awaiting Winter

Congo coffee beans

     Over the past couple of weeks I went on a search to find a burlap coffee sack I could purchase locally for a project I wanted to make.   A most unexpected result was my stumbling upon Wildfire Coffee Roasters, located at 15502 Huebner, Ste. 101, here in San Antonio, TX.  I must have been sleeping under a rock because many other people have heard about this great business it as it won the 2008 San Antonio-Express News’ Critics Choice award.  After tasting my first cup of freshly brewed coffee from there, I’d say the award was right on the mark!

Wildfire Coffee Roasters front counter . . . yum!

Congo coffee & a cup of freshly brewed ready to go!

      The next morning, DH ground and brewed some of the Congo beans at home to drink before going to work.  He drank what he had time for and left for work.  Upon returning home that night he reported that he had stopped to purchase a quick cup of coffee at a convenience store on his drive to work that morning as he was still wanting something to drink.  He doesn’t consider himself a coffee connoisseur (although he does drink a lot of coffee) but he insists that he could tell a real difference.  He said that he couldn’t even continue drinking the cup of convenience store coffee he had purchased because the taste of the Congo coffee had been so superior.  Now that’s remarkable coffee for my DH to comment on it after a long, hard day of work!

    Thank you to all of you who commented here or on a forum to let me know which buttons you preferred.  The cream-n-blue buttons seemed to be the favorites so they were sewn on this morning.  Here is my youngest daughter, who’s nickname at school is Kat, in the hat, modeling it in the early morning hours.  The buttons are reflecting the light well, but the over-all lighting in the photo seems to be a bit orange-ish.  My apologies.  While they don’t look like they go together as well in the picture, they do in regular daylight.