Hooray! I’m finally “with” the season! Yes, I did know that Christmas had past – but I hadn’t had the time or energy to redesign the ol’ blog until this weekend. Though the coding didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped, the end result makes me happy!    I used CU items from Kim Broedelet Designs, Brushes from Obsidian Dawn, and Flowers/Swirls from Jodiann’s March Color Challenge freebie – you can find the kit here (and if you download – be sure to leave her some love)!

I know I said there’d be a coupon – here’s the scoop – Entire Stock of Scrapbooking On Sale + Free Shipping, No Minimum Two Days Only at Joann.com but the sale ends on Tuesday, so if you’re interested, don’t wait too long!  Your coupon code for the FREE shipping is ACD89.

We have a busy day today – Mondays are our usual grocery shopping and errand days, but starting this week, we’re adding “advanced” toddler swimming to our schedule.  We’re still in gymnastics on Thursdays, but I figured since Nadya remembered swimming enough to ask me for lessons everyday for three weeks (I’m not kidding), then I’d look into the options.  Fortunately for her, the gym we use offers an “advanced” swimming class for little ones in which I am still in the water with her – which is REALLY important to me – but offers increased swimming skills since she had already mastered those taught in the beginner level and was getting a bit bored or adventurous, depending on how you look at it (attempting to run to the “big” pool instead of doing jumps into the small one where Mommy was – rather nerve-wracking for Mommy!

Before I head out, a couple of news worthy items:

Jodiann has new goods – check ‘em out!And Kristine is having a guest DT call:     

Alright – I’m outta here! Have a great start to your week!

My friend Kristine of Designs by Kristine has released a stunning new kit – Daybreak inspired by an awesome sunrise.  A truly stunning kit and it’s on-sale! Kris let me play with Daybreak and here’s what I came up up with: The layout is a new template set (gasp – yes I’m working on something new) that I’ve been working on – I’ll be sure to let you know when Double Dips Set 9 is in my store.  To create the soft glow on Nadya’s photo, I duplicated her photo, applied a soft posterize filter, then decreased the opacity to 30% – this allowed the soft glow around her face and the background without sacrificing the detail of the original photo.  I used SuperbladePro presets from Meadows Studio to create both frames.  The feathers are from Loucee’s Dilys kit (yes Kris, I loved your suggestion) that I layered with one of the flowers in Daybreak.  I “sprinkled” some digital glitter using a square brush and a glitter style I made in Photoshop and ArtRage.  The scallop strips started out as PS shapes from KCS Designs that I modified and then overlaid with one of the stunning papers in the kit. I didn’t include journaling as I love the surreal and angelic look of the photo and I didn’t want to draw attention away from the photo.  I did use Papyrus font to add her name and the date. Once again, I am quite pleased with the completed LO – I’d love to know what you think too.

Have a great weekend!

Yesterday was digi-day for Sweet n Sassy Stamps at SNR – which means a new challenge (SNSDD10 – Easter) and a new prize for playing along (using Sweet n Sassy images isn’t required).  I tried valiantly to finish my card last night for the early bird prize too – but between gymnastics, the park, and dinner it just didn’t happen!  Fortunately we have until next Wednesday to complete the challenge and still earn a free sentiment set. Thanks Korin! That being said, here’s my card – I think I’ll give it away as well; I already have someone special in mind.I LOVE that cross image – it’s a new release from Sweet n Sassy Stamps – you can find it here.  Though sentiments are included in the set, I opted to created my own in Photoshop – I wanted to tie the usual Happy Easter that’s often accompanied with a bunny or eggs with a deeper reason for celebrating.  I printed the stamp and sentiment on Neenah classic crest white cs – my first time using this paper.  I must say it allowed more bleeding than I expected, but I like the bright white finish. While giving the ink a few minutes to dry, I found an awesome sketch challenge at The Sweet Stop that I decided to follow. For my Designer Paper, I returned to Photoshop and printed one of the awesome papers in Designs By Kristine’s  newest kit – Cheerful (on-sale for a short time). I loved the texture and the color scheme reminded me of dawn about to break – so it tied in perfectly with my image.  My image is colored with copic markers and spica pens.  I used shimmer chalks to shade the background – using a light blue except near the center of the cross where I used yellow and a circle mask to give the subtle illusion of dawn breaking – again tying in with the image and the DP I had selected. Since I didn’t have any fixative spray and I didn’t want the chalk smearing or wiping off, I used some aerosol hairspray – the Aquanet inexpensive type works best, but since I don’t use that on my hair, I used my Pantene since that’s what I had on hand.  It worked well and my card is now lightly scented! I trimmed the image and matted it with Ballet Blue scrap cs.  I edged the DP and Barely Banana card base with a MS punch – our Wal-Mart clearanced several punch around the page sets before Christmas. I added a teeny bit more texture to the DP using my Big Shot and an SU texture plate.  The sentiment was cut out using my Circle Nestabilities and tucked in behind the edge of my image panel.  The ribbon is from my stash.  I added the tiny pearls (Michaels) to the ribbon as a finishing touch. To “round out” my card and anchor my image, I added white and purple flowers from Prima – I love these self-adhesive flowers and wish I could find more of them! There you have it – probably more detail than you wanted, but detail nonetheless.  I really enjoyed creating this card – the image just “spoke” to me and everything came together from there!  I’d love to know what you think too!

It’s time for me to close and begin the much less fun and creative but oh so necessary task of laundry and house tidying!  With a toddler around, it seems like a never-ending task – but she’s beyond worth it!  What? You’d like a little peak from our activities yesterday?  Alright – just a peak (then run to Jodiann’s blog this weekend – she used Kim’s newest kit Merry Around and a photo of my little one to create a STUNNING scrapbook layout):

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Have a fabulous Friday and weekend!