Hooray – it’s Friday!  What better way to kick-off the weekend with a project, a freebie, and some candy? Are you intrigues yet?  Well before we can get to that I have a little blatant advertising to do. Today is the LAST day for Jodiann’s Grand Opening Sale – 50% – and FABULOUS styles!!!!   Tomorrow, May 1, is inter-National Scrapbooking Day! Hooray!!! Here are some places you will want to visit (includes my store and templates too): Americo has joined DSV and he’s got some fabulous new goods releasing on May 1 for iNSD – calling all Digi-Stampers – you will love these… The fabulous girls at Kristine’s Store are having a blog hop May 1 – start at Kristine’s blog and hop from there – an uber cute mega kit awaits you!

Now for my projects – I showed you a card and card folio yesterday, but focused on the card – today it’s all about the folio or the folios!  I created 3 of them as Mother’s Day gifts by altering a fabulous template from Mirkwood Designs to make it digital paper/printable friendly and Randi Oh’s  Marche Aux Fleurs digital kit – the rest was Photoshop baby! The recipients of these folios are all very special ladies and I am truly blessed to have each of them in my life. Let’s take a closer look:  I printed all of the folios out on white CS using my inkjet printer.  To add dimension on this one, I printed the pots and butterfly a second time, trimmed them and used pop-dots to adhere them.  Before adding the butterfly, I used PVA glue and Flowersoft to add the flowers – once dry the butterfly was added too.  I inked the edges of the folio with Always Artichoke ink and Nadya added her special touch by “finger painting” with the glue – I tried to wipe it off, but since I printed the folio on an inkjet printer, some of the ink smeared – but it  actually created a cool worn look, so I didn’t stress it too much – and let it dry.  Nadya says this one is for Baba and that she was helping! I can’t complain there, so I just made sure I put the glue far out of reach the next time! For this folio and the one just like it, I printed the butterflies a second time and added Flowersoft flowers to the empty pots before attaching the butterflies. These two folios will be gifts from my Mom and my Nana. Now, you might be asking why folios – what is special about them? Well , each folio holds 4 A2 sized cards and envelopes!  So, of course, I had to make coordinating cards: And here are the close-ups: I didn’t add extra dimension since I’ll be mailing these tucked neatly inside their folios and I didn’t want them to stick together or get smashed. It would be easy to add dimension though – use a gelly roll clear pen over the stitching to raise it up, add some additional butterflies, use glossy glaze to add shine to the pots, stickles, spica pens – you get the idea – the sky is the limit!

Now for the fun part – Randi Oh and RuthAnn (Mirkwood Designs) have both agreed to let me share the folio with you – you can download it here (I’ve included a tutorial with photos as well).  But wait – it gets better – 4 lucky people, who leave comments on this post by midnight Sunday will get the printable cards too!  The card kit includes the card fronts as well as the inside/journaling/sentiment space. All you have to do is print them out and attach them to standard A2 sized cards.  How great is that?!?  If you’d like a 2nd entry, spread the word via your blogs, twitter, or facebook, and then come back and leave me a comment and tell me what you did.  I’ll use random numbers to pick the winners.

Have a great weekend!

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!