Thursday

Thursday was a quiet day, where I chilled out and did some scrapbooking and precious little else. That is a truly shocking admission, but very true! On top of that I served the boys vegetarian spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, so they are barely speaking to me. I actually really enjoyed it, but there you go, maybe i am more open minded! Greg informs me that he needs meat.. really needs it. Caitlin ate at work, perhaps that was deliberate!
Nothing new to show you today, no excitement to report. Just a cold day with an exceptionally heavy frost this morning. Great chilling out weather. However I stopped by my blog to offer you the link to my kit. Yesterday it was the pinks... today its the blues.
Now i discovered today that i have been saving my papers too large which is why yesterdays download was very large. Todays is much smaller. So Here for you are the baby blues.

Another freebie

I can't believe how productive I have been lately. Lots of layouts, my outback kit almost finished and ready to roll and then today i sat down and started playing with some new papers, before I knew it i was making the elements to go with them! The elements aren't complete yet, but the papers are, so I thought I could start putting up the papers for you to download while I finished them off.
Now this kit is inspired by old fashioned baby stuff, as in dating back to when i was a baby. A mix of soft colours with lots of ginghams. I adore gingham and if i knew how to make a seersucker texture I would do that. I had lots of cute little dresses that looked like this and in fact so did my daughters! So here it is.. Classic Baby 25 papers. (with elements to come!)

I had so much fun making these! And i am having a great time with the elements! So today I can offer you the first installment. I will pop the rest of them up over the next few days. (please be patient i am not too good at blogging daily though). I would love some feedback. This is my first ever design that i have shared. So tell me what you think!!! Here is the link I have just realised that I forgot to include TOU with the file. But you know the deal right? Don't sell it, dont share it, and don't do anything bad with it. The TOUs will be in with the next installment.
And of course with National Scrapbooking Day coming up next month we are all probably getting our visa cards polished and our paypal accounts preloaded for the sales!!! There is always so much going on, with bargains galore and competitions and chats and challenges! This will be the first NSD for Scrapthatidea, but they are right into it too so here is the coupon for the NSD specials.
I know.. you kind of want to get over there now and start putting stuff in your cart ready for the sale.... in fact... why don't you? With 50% off you can't lose.
So what is happening in my life other than spending large amounts glued to my computer being creative?.. actually speaking of which I must show you this layout I made. The theme was The Artist in Me and I was asked to do it for my new Creative Team which I have just joined over at Digital Paper Hearts. Another cute little store with lots in it, if you are anything like me you will have a wonderful time shopping there. (Am i a bad influence?)

This layout was made with one of Flergs newest kits Blaze. I had to buy it coz it had so much gorgeous Red and I Love Red!!! Besides which her kits are always so cool and i love her styles and glitters and... did you get the grab bag? It was truly excellent! Moving on...
This is my first CT layout for DPH using a kit by Heather Hill called for the love of ladybugs.

What do you think? I thought it was pretty cute. That little girl is 26 now!
I have been trying to fit some reading in too, in case you hadn't noticed I do like to read. I have been having a bit of a run of JD Robb lately which is actually Norah Roberts writing under a different name. The JD Robb books are all murder mysteries and are a great read. She creates great characters who are interesting and quirky. I have to admit that the yesterday I did in fact read a Johanna Lindsay book. Have you read any of her's? I guess they are called Romance. Most of them are historical but the one i read yesterday called Warrior's Woman was sci fi romance if you can get your head round that one. They are great no brainers and sometimes I really enjoy a relaxing story that has no complexities whatsoever!
I am having a pretty lazy week with not much on the work front, it is not really like me at all. However I guess at some point my agency will ring and I will be putting on my uniform and heading out to work.
So hopefully I will be back in the next day or so with installment number two of Classic Baby! enjoy.

Rain in Melbourne

Well I mean serious pelting down, wake you up in the night rain. It is wonderful to be finally having some rain, when our dams are at such a low level. But from what I understand we would need weeks if not months of rain to actually break the drought, so I am not holding my breath on that. Still the garden (what survived the summer) will be happy and our water tank will be filled so it is all good. If we could finally get our grey water recycling system installed it would be perfect.
The great thing about rainy weather is it does decrease your desire to go out. So I have been very industrious at home doing some scrapbooking, some scrapbook shopping and trying to tidy up and back up my hard drive. I even did some housework.
So shall I start with the freebie? I decided this morning that it was about time I made something new. So I whipped up this template. I used a really early layout of mine which i still think is kind of cool. Perhaps I wouldnt go for quite such bright colours now.
Here is the link for it. Hope you like it. And as always would love to see what you make. I have a guestbook at the bottom of the page now so you can load your layouts up there. (mike was playing the other day and thought it would be a fun thing to have). As you can see there is still that coupon there for 20% off at scrapthat idea. So it would be worth your while to pop over there and see what you can pick up. Since all their products are dirt cheap it shouldnt be hard to find lots of stuff to buy!
Sara has a new kit in store too called Industrial. It is a great grungy kit with some really interesting elements and if you head over to Sara's blog you can pick up the freebie cluster frame. Not only that the kit is only $3 for the next 48 hrs!!!
Here is what I have made with it so far:So that pretty much covers what I have been up to.. lots of working and a little bit of scrapping. I have to go shopping this week to buy birthday presents for the teenage daughter. But at least she gave me a very clear list. Then later this week i have a run of the dreaded night shifts which always leave me grumpy and out of sorts. Now it is important to remember that the coupon code runs out at the end of April so you only have a few days to go and pick up your bargains!

new week!

The weeks seem to be flying by at the moment! May is just around the corner and with it my daugher's 19th birthday! I received the birthday list last week via email in power point format! You gotta love that! We have had a little discussion about the first item, as i felt that a 16g iphone was a little out of my reach! And the ongoing costs were out of her's! So we have found a better priced phone, and I have a list of Twilight stuff, books, merchandise and a bunch of other books. Such a typical Caitlin list. Mobile phone and books.. usually she asks for dvds too. But I guess as she had already preordered (and paid) for Twilight that she felt she had that covered.
The school holidays are over. My poor children must have had the worst care ever over these holidays. We went to NZ for a week leaving them with our son in law, then worked hard out for the second week. Being slightly vague about dates I was sure there was another week and had planned to do some fun stuff this week, but last night over dinner one of the children mentioned school tomorrow....oops. They did try to cover up their slip and pretend that they meant next week but it was too late and that's where they are now.
Now I really need to do some work on a new template for you, although I have been working hard, first on some pages for Sara's new kit and then on my own kit. I know i keep saying there is one but being my first ever effort I am not sure if I will know when it is finished. It is getting rather large now, I think i have 27 papers, but I have to admit that I am struggling a bit with elements. I think it is time to make an alpha or two and get it ready for release really, so maybe I will aim for the beginning of May. Have to finish some time. And I do want to make another template, the last two have been so popular.
Big news today is Sara's new kit. Dreamland.
Is it not totally gorgeous??? Now it is only $4.00 at scrapthatidea and don't forget to use my coupon code to get 20% off till the end of the month. Here is the code again STI-LINZ-5829. You can just copy and paste it and voila... a bargain. Now I have to show you what I made with it. I had a lot of fun because it just appealed to me on so many levels. First of all I liked that soft dreamy baby boy look...

I was really pleased with this layout, just loved the way the black and white photos worked so well. Then I thought, what else could I do with this layout. And being a huge fan of Joanne Bain and Natali designs I thought about their lovely overlays and decided to have a go at making something along those lines. Well, this was the result.
It's a bit different from my usual stuff but I liked my overlay effort. Then I thought, well what else could I do with this gorgeous kit? And this was the result
So that's why I think this is a top value kit! It is so versatile. You can do all sorts of stuff. Sara has some of the Ct layouts on her blog today, and I am sure she will be posting more tomorrow.
While you are over at scrapthatidea checking out Sara's new kit you should have a look around at some of the other stuff. Vicki, Mel and Stacey have an amazing selection there too, and there are some real bargains.
Ok.. enough blogging, time i looked at template production, got to keep the fans happy!!!!

Saturday

Well, if you came to see if I have a freebie then stop now. Nothing to give away today. I have been working hard doing some new pages for Sara who has new kits in the pipeline. Then i have been very busy downloading my long awaited Twilight kit from Flergs. It is so cool. It certainly goes so well with the books. It is certainly worth heading over to her store to check it out!
And today a big thing happened. I got fan mail!!!!!!!!! check out this layout made with my template. It is so exciting..
This layout is by Christine Wong using a kit called Stolen Moments. I am just stoked to think that someone loved my template!!
On the personal side......there is nothing to report. Work continues, night shifts day shifts. You know... work and more work.