That's why the lady is a ....Bug!

Or a bird, depending in which country you are reading.
But also you need to know your Frank (Sinatra) or Aretha (Franklin) to know what I'm talking about.
Thing is, I just want to show you these I made with the new Digital Scrapbooking Artist by Serif, an upgrade to the program that promises to be just what one needs..it works wonderful so far, but, as with any new versions of these kind of programs, it crashes a bit, so I took a rest and wanted to share these with the world.

I told you before about the opening of JustSoScrappyToo the store two of my favorite designer ladies teamed up to make a success..well, you can get this kit over there for the amazing price of U$1.50 (like every other kit in the store, there is nothing priced over U$1.50) and lots, lots and lots more freebies.
In UK terms this means a mere £1.
If you consider that these days a minimum bus ticket in the capital is over that amount....so worth it, isn't it?

This photos are from the week just gone,Sarita & Melissa git together for a sleepover as they had a special dressing up day in school, and I took Sarita for her so much awaited hair cut. I wanted to finish this book with a page showing you my daughter's love for the hairs straighteners,but the DSA2 froze before I could finish it.
I may still post it later as this program is really good at recovering unsaved work,but couldn't wait to show you these.




I have also been writing a bit more (slowly and taking care of not feeling under pressure) and I have written a review of Smilebox & Scrapblog for those who are on the search of the perfect scrapping tool, and will be writing about ScrapbookMax & Digital Scrapbooking Artist 1 & 2 versions soon.
The first two reviews were done for Rosemarie of PixelScrapbooking , if you don't yet know the site, she has the cutest freebies and posts very often, as well as amazing tutorials. I will be writing about Pixel Scrapbooking soon, but meanwhile you can read the reviews here
and here

If you subscribe to her newsletter, you wont even need to o anything but click on the links in her emailed newsletter to get the freebies, otherwise you will be loosing on some, as some of the downloads are for friends who subscribe and are passworded.
Subscribe and you'll get the password every time.

And to finish talking about freebies, you may have noticed I included another link today. This site is by Liliana, aka Malacima, called Just For Fun. well, not only she has fun in style, but also shares ALL her amazing creativity with us, her kits are amazing.
I made a page with her My Birthday Gift kit, she invited me to make a page with her latest freebie, A Secret Garden.
You can find both my page and the freebie kit here and bookmark her or come back here and click in her link at the right hand side in my blog.

So, with the JustSoScrappyToo , PixelScrapbooking and JustForFun we have stuff to scrap to our hearts content.
Have a great weekend!

Lets talk about nice people (and Scrapbooking software!)

Good morning/afternoon/evening....

My sleep patterns are getting better, despite my body not wanting to answer to my brain commands, but I have been in a good mood overall, so many nice people making their way into my life.
There are so many givers in the net world, even if we only talk about the scrapbooking "scene" (I could be hours writing about the amount of gifted people who share their music with the world for free, and many other forms of art...)

Starting by the one who brings us the givers as a package, Maria from Digifree, which recently has changed names to CraftCrave.
I have to admit I don't much like the new name, even my daughter made a comment as to the old name making more sense, but the essence remains the same:through this site one can have a blast reading the many blogs found by the searching engine, and get freebies to scrapbook for a year without having to spend a penny....thing is, if you are anything like me, you will feel a bit *guilty* of only downloading freebies, start picking your favorite designers and, when they become affordable, buy some kits.

When buying, I end up most of the time at Digital Crea France . They have very often (once a month at least) sales with full kits for as little as 1 Euro or 1.50, and they are my preferred style, but lest go back to the point (yeah, I know, blame the prescription meds!)

Amongst the many people who create and always give freebies, is the most wonderful Rosemarie (or RosemariePixel, as you may know her) who runs Pixel Scrapbooking
I think I came across her through Digifree, as one does, and the freebies were so cute and so many, I ended up signing up for the newsletters, which allows you into more freebies than if only searching through Digifree (or any of the other search engines, I know there is Lori and some others, but up to date, my chosen one is ...ok, ok, I have to correct myself: CraftCrave (it's gonna take time to get used to this, though!)
But she offers not only freebies but so much more, the first time I went to the site I spent quiet a long time reading, she also has such a beautiful family you can get lost into her creations, a great source of inspiration too.
The tutorials are amazing, and I have clicked in many of the adverts, there is interesting stuff I didn't even know existed.

I have been saying for a while that I wanted to post something about these people, these women who so kindly put their talent out there for everyone to enjoy, and particularly wanted to do this for Rosemarie, so I thought: what better than share my latest experiences with software?
As my concentration levels still are clouded by medication or pain levels (or severe discomfort, as the British NHS would prefer it to be described!) I wasn't sure I would complete the task properly, so it took a while, but I got started... :)

So here is where you can find my thoughts and experiences with the few programs I use & bought, starting by the not so creativity inclined Smilebox and followed by the (at least for me) winner of all prizes, Scrapblog
Just click on the highlighted names to go to the reviews, leave a comment there, come to talk to me here...but above all, sign up for Rosemarie's freebies, everything is amazingly beautiful or teaches you a lot...even if you were just born in a non computerized era (like me!), girls like RosemariePixel (who apparently was *download* instead of just purely born LOL) will help you master the digital arts in a very, very easy to understand way.

Here is a LO I made last night with a mix of elements from different kits, but where the star is PixelScrapbooking moon, which you can get for free (together with some more of different colors) when signing up for the newsletter and having access to all previous freebies.
Stay tuned for the following reviews of ScrapbookMax V 2.0 & DigitalScrapbookingArtist by Serif (used to make this LO)

For the LOve of SCRAPBLOG

I'm not gonna stop long (got Sarita a bit poorly) but just wanted to share this with you guys...

I will as promised review all the other programs/designers, but we chose our winner, so here it is something we made together with Sarita:



Thanks for all the attention given everywhere!
Huggzzz

It is the dawning of .....

...the age of Aquarius?
nah, I was singing that when I was 14.
Now, something it's dowaning in my life.
Most great things, still with some fight (but of course!!!!!) but developments are in place.
I haven't been all that well to write, but will most definitely try to make an effort soon.

There are so many people I would love to write about but at this very moment I'm finishing a few projects.

I'm also making a resolution to keep up with a few people's blogs (yes, YOU! lol)
so, surely *see* you soon.

Now, last but not least, there is my review of the Serif Digital Scrapbooking Artist & DaisyTrail (their website) coming up, probably tomorrow because today...yes, you guessed right. I haven't slept.

What I can do right now is post some layouts so you can see what this *little* program can do...
(no child's play, I have to add...)

so here it goes:

Creating Paradise

So... after another sleepless night (if you know me you will know this is not as bad as it sounds) I decided to share my delight with my new toy.

Everyone knows how much I love Scrapblog.com, and how much happiness and benefits I got from the site, not only the program but also the community, one couldn't hope for a better site...but lately it has been changing towards the financial side and, after much thought and seeking advice, I decided to buy a program.

I had seen the advert for ScrapbookMax when first investigating DigiFree, the price converted in British Pounds was more than convenient but, why buy at that stage, when @ SCrapblog everything (or most) was free and I was enjoying it so much....

There was also the fact that ScrapbookMax was designed for Windows and we were already working towards our iMac, so I forgot all about it.

I then embarqued in the project of  scrapping Sarita's year books and (at her request) print them.

In this I found the first difficulty with Scrapblog, as they don't ship to the UK.

Not only that but there is no possibility of ordering more than one book and paying one delivery: I had to pay postage and package within the US per book (I printed 3) and then (this I will eternally grateful for) I payed Rebecca, who is part of the team and a marvelous person, the international postage.

Have to admit though: I took the opportunity that they had at the time 25% discount on printing keepsake books, so, all in all, it worked out approximately £50 each book, which, if you shop around, will realize it isn't expensive, especially taking into account that each book had 70 pages or over....

All brilliant up to here.

I was buying credits from time to time but, as it works out cheaper to buy the U$25 at the time, this was a bit of a risky situation...and as the time went, more and more stuff had prices,less and less was free.

Then one day I got an email (presumably I registered at the time of checking out the advert) from ScrapbookMax , announcing their latest version, the 2.0, and the discount, a modicum U$47 something....

I write back (not expecting a reply at all) suggesting they create a version for Macs...

Very soon after I got a reply, explaining how I could work the program on Parallels, the program form Apple designed to allow Windows in the Macs.

Lets cut the story short: I bought it.

There are some reviews of it here:

http://creativespirits.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=3k0gnjw4vlyho

but since writing them, I have come a long way.

It wasn't easy at first, I even went through the painful task of recovering my PC from Trojan Horses and Spyware attacks in order to work SBM in it, because the Parallels was crashing my Mac, but once I got the grip of the program (with a huge helpful hand from the SBM members and team) the making of my pages has turned into creative paradise.

There is one plus with ScrapbookMax that makes everything worth wile: the prints at home are excellent, as we retain our high resolution photos.

In a minor scale, the use of all the freebies and stuff bought in stores is usable with no fuss, no going through Photobucket and wasting time downloading. I say in a minor scale because (we need to be fair here) at the moment in Scrapblog the getting files from Photobucket is faster than it was...still: with SBM I get them drag and drop from my computer.

ScrapbookMax isn't Scrapblog.

I said and will keep my word: Scrapblog is the best program on the net.

Is fast, has a number of amazing features that make composing easy and creativity flows...but our wallets get drained as fast, and SBM does not have this problem.

The program is mine.

A few of my Scrapblog sisters have followed me to ScrapbookMax, that makes it even nicer, and plus the SBM ladies (and gents!) are a nice bunch too.

My thing with Scrapbooking is not a superficial pastime, it has a goal,is a task.

I create projects with the photos we take, I am still in the middle of producing Sarita's books and I will do the rest in Scrapblog.

But ScrapbookMax has allowed me to make my own cards, and now I'm making our Brazil album...and will be able to print and put together in those fabulous albums I got for free from Freecycle...huge leather bound albums which fit two A4s per page...

Can't wait to finish !

So, there you go, this is what I have been up to.

Wont post everything here as I have done lots, but if you are interested, there are two albums and a few loose pages here:

http://www.scrapbookmax.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/15060

Now I'm gonna go think out the next step: to sleep or not to sleep?

that is one hell of a question right now! (09.33 am)

:)