Birthday Week3: a bit more scrapping

Ok, so, here are the last LOs for Sarita's birthday week, which was a great one...
14 (fourteen!) years old....wow is all I can say.
I have been trying to get some inspiration with templates, this first LO I made with PNGs of a freebie template from Sweet Digiscraps by Liz , whom, I have just realized in googling her (I found her through DigiFree) she is a designer at GottaPixel...
I did not follow her template though, this is me moving pieces around...(mainly because I only downloaded the PNGs...I'm not very good at understanding how to make the psd work in my program, and I'm hopeless at scrapping in PSE :(
I love this though...and the photos are great, even if I go into a bit of an ego trip here...



the 4 following ones are with Moi's kit Happy Birthday, she is one of my very favorite designers @ Digital Crea France, from whom I keep coming back again and again to buy kits.
Good thing is that DC has often their 1 Euro sales...
The photo cuts were done with shapes by Michelle McCoy or Wolvsie35 for those know know her from ScrapbookMax, I stuck them through my stencils in DSA and got the masks...
Michelle has always the most beautiful freebies and a wonderful forum with lots of challenges for the ones who like to enter, CraftyScraps, Michelle site & forums is scrapping heaven, be sure you pop in, she is an amazing lady too...









Next comes Chriscrap, another of my very favorite designers, same thing: have bought probably all her kits up till now!
this one was done with Dreams or Reality kit of hers



Big Big Love by Chriscrap



Crazy Day, Chriscrap. I couldn't find the link to this one, shame...love it



A Day, a Story kit by Choubinette (on sale now for 1 Euro @ Digital Crea Fr)
Glow by Chouk77 from the freebie kit Enchanted World which is available now , same store.



Birthday Bliss by JulieMarieDesigns,
Alpha by Pouyou, Bohemian Girl kit.
Stiches I made with one of the embroidery DSA brushes.



and this is it for today...
We went out yesterday afternoon to the Wellcome Collection to see the Identity exhibition, so I will post on that when I have recovered my energies.
Have a great weekend!

Birthday Week 2: some scrapping

I'm having a weird week. apart from some health issues,I haven't been very inspired,but I'm determined to finish scrapping Sarita's birthday week's photos,so I thought I post some so it doesn't come all in one go...there are a lot in this post as it goes..I'm almost finished with it though, using the latest MOI's & Chriscrap kits, beautiful :)
This one is MartaDesign's kit Happy New Year plus bits of Chriscrap & Dilo, all @ Digital Crea France

I love this one...I used Marta Designs part of the freebie Enchanted World @Digital Crea. The photo I took with flash whilst Sarita was asleep, then worked it in DSA's photolab

this photo came out too blurred, so I put a filter to rescue...it would have been a great pic.
The fame is from Cardamome, the flowers & foliage & paper from various kits from DigitalCrea, and the side doodles are from marvelous Rosemarie @ Pixel Scrapbooking, I'm quiet sure the download would still be active, her freebies are amazing.

for this one I used another kit I bought on the dollar sale @ GottaPixel, this time from Captivated Visions called Happy Being Me. Love this kit, but unfortunately I only bought the elements pack, would love to get my hands in the papers, but gonna have to be on a sale. The alpha is from a kit from JulieMarieDesigns called A Mother's Love.


these two were made with stuff from Gotta Pixel too.
The first one is from Simply Scraps, called Sweetly Sinful I love that cluster frame, but I used it in a different way and added more stuff to the cluster...amazing kit, this one, there is not even a quarter of all in this page, and I payed a dollar!
The next one is from JulieMarieDesigns @ GottaPixel,but I couldn't find the link. I buy only at the dollar sales, so it is possible that the kit isn't for sale, though both DC &GP will take them out for a while and then put them back full price,but I'm always watching for sales...



I recently joined a group called Digital Scrapbooking Freebies,is a Yahoo group that Melinda, Lovemyzombie @ Serif/DaisyTrail/YouTube recommended. For those who use DSA, Melinda has tutorials in YT that are wonderful, easy to follow and will get you creating in no time...
This group though, the first 3/4 days I thought I was wasting my time. The way it works one gets the emails with the links to freebies and a preview, in theory easier than Digifree, but I really didn't like anything at first. I have so much stuff alreeady that downloading things that are not my style is a waste of time...but then I found Scraps by Jessica
The link provided in the group was for something I didn't fancy, but I caught a glimpse of a cute felt monkey, and then downloaded all her felts, including this kit which is called Spring into Happiness...beautiful.

I bought this kit, Wise Owl, by RedJu @ Digital Crea, because it has the plastic clouds...then I found myself lacking inspiration...
the letters I made with DSA, I can see myself never buying or downloading an alpha again, but then again, there are designers who make amazing stuff, which I have no idea how to...here is a link to the kits preview, but I couldn't find it in DC, I bought it for a Euro, so probably it was taken out of sale...
http://redjuscrap.blogspot.com/2009/09/digital-crea-birthday-sale-1-euro-kit.html


this one was a frustrated attempt to use more brushes...but the program was misbehaving so I gave up...the stiches came up nicely though LOL

with these I'm gonna try print at home, but will come back, probably later, with the last, which, of course, are always the best! :)

Birthday Week: 1.Re-learning my French.

My daughter, Sarita, was 14 last friday.
Amazing, don't really know where time went,but wherever it went, it turned my baby into a fine young lady.
I can complain much about her being untidy, or throwing her shoes, bag, coat and general accessories like a trail in her walking into the house, but she really makes me proud in what matters.
It was the half term holiday, so we have celebrations every day, starting by her best friend Lauren's visit from last weekend.
She was our next door neighbor, but had to move away outside London after her mum died in 2007,so this was an amazing surprise to Sarita.
As a birthday present I gave her an Ice Skating course for the 5 days of the holiday. She used to do classes at the Sobell Centre, but we had to stop as they change payment method, and it was impossible for me to get the money of the whole term together up front, and I didn't like the woman who owns the group much.
Sarita had mentioned to me that she would like to go back to study* before her skates did not fit her anymore* , so I found out about this other place.
She was happy and I was too as I did not have to drive her this time, so the week started pretty eventful.
I tried to keep as shutter happy as I could all week.
As I'm spending a lot of time in bed, in an effort to save health an energy for the things that matter: think cooking and keeping our lives moderately organized, this is not always an easy task, but I've got some good shots,which will speak loudly than I can about the fun we had.

In the mean time, I was confronted with the need to re learn my French via Yahoo's Babel Fish (as my French teacher from my secondary school maybe a bit difficult to contact!)....why?
Ok, let me explain:
If I had to choose one store, and one store only to carry on scrapping the rest of my life, I wouldn't doubt a minute, my answer would be Digital Crea France.
Not only do they create in my most loved styles, but also they make it possible for people like me (read skint-peniless-broke) to be able to shop often with very regular sales of full kits for 1 Euro, and their permanent collection of products categorized Retiring Soon, all kits are 1.50 Euros. They also have the best freebies,constantly.

But lately I have been experiencing problems in the downloads, and I know I am not alone on this as a few other women I know had the same, which told me it wasn't my Mac.
I wont explain the whole thing, suffice to say that in some kits, as many as 5 or 6 elements did not come through.
As I said, long story, but I at certain point started making note of the exact name of the files which did not come through and mail Digital Crea's Service to Client.
I got very promptly an email from Amelie, DC's creator, with a gift of 1 Euro to spend in the store. Nice of her, but at the time I wanted was the files which did not come through. Still, I didn't say anything else, after all, the store is amazing, right?

But after another couple of times and an experience in which wonderful Karen from SnickerdoodleDEsignsByKaren ended up sending me two files from her St Paddy's kit which had the same problem, by email, I thought I could ask Digital Crea to do the same...

What followed was also a long story, one in which I had to refresh my French but, re-reading what I had written...ermmm, I cringed, decided then to ask another of my favorite people in the scrap world for help.
Rosemarie Pixel, as she is known in CyberSpace, is in French Canada, none better than her to use the correct language and reflect the intention my message had.
(Thanks so much Rosemarie! you are the best!)
My message then went out in beautiful, proper French.
But I was then faced with a reply email...and what would you know..there is an online translator for which one doesn't even need to download software (the Google Translator is free, but needs the download), Gotta love these Yahoo guys...

Anyway, to make the story short: some of my favorite designers just went up a notch in my charts, plus they have gained a loyal client for life.
All of them were great, sent me the missing elements and one of them even had pity on me and answered me in English! LOL
So, here is my account of monday, first day of Sarita's birthday week, scrapped with the latest kits I bought from these marvelous girls, Moi, Chriscraps & Dilo.
They all have kits in the retiring soon for 1.50 Euros per full kit, Digital Crea just had a 1 Euro sale this week gone, but if you keep an eye you ll get marvelous freebies(they have a wonderful one at the moment!) every 3 days average, plus the sales are very frequent.


Chriscrap - kit So Funky


Chriscrap- kit Respire


again, Chriscrap, I used stuff from Croque Ta Vie and Crazy Day


here the designer is MOI, the kit GoGoGo this is a kit I never get tired of using!


again, designer MOI, kit GoGoGo


another amazing kit by MOI: My Black & White Paradise


in this one for the background & papers I used a kit I got free through Digifree almost 2 years ago from Peppermint Creative, a store I don't like buying because they are expensive even at Scrapblog.com, but the marvelous WordArt is by Karen


for this LO I used Dilo's Love Me, which I couldn't wait to buy, love her, love and love her a bit more!


again, same kit, Dilo's Love Me

Well, hope all this info is helpful, I ll be coming back with more photos (LOs', of course!) from last week.
Have a great week!

Copyright or Copy, All Right?...

I know I haven't been around much, not even doing a lot of scrapping, so I apologyse, but my health has not been the best this past week and I have been wrestling with new kind of pain (or extreme discomfort, as the UK's welfare reviewists like to call it), which makes it impossible to do any kind of anything.

This post today was inspired by a wonderful lady I came across whilst browsing someone else's Scrapblogs and the decided to follow her WordPress blog.
Her name is Leslie Sigal Javorek, but some of you may have come across her as IconDoIt, as she gives out freebies which make beautiful embellishments for scrapping.
This morning one of the first things I got in my inbox was her post about the Copyright thing and this is an issue which has been in my mind a lot lately.
I suggest you read her post, to understand better what I'm talking about (she is a delight to read too).
In there she talks about how Copyrights can be restricting creativity, how many wonderful pieces have spanned of other authors,and particularly of Don Quixote de la Mancha, Miguel d Cervantes' great work.
This touched me especially because my father would quote Cervantes a lot in educating us. She also posted this video by Nina Paley, one of the artist at the Question Copyright.org , the site yo go to get more knowledgeable about the subject.


I have mixed feelings on this copyright thing, having been victim of stolen ID which I may have never know if it wasn't for a few friends of mine up north (in the UK) who talked to someone online who was using my photos as herself....poor girl did not know how much I traveled around...but there is also the thing I'm most passionate about, regarding music.
I was a performer for 33 years and have seen so much of it, is scary.
Not even going into the depths of piracy or plagiarism, I m constantly having to show my daughter original versions of songs by Stevie Wonder, Chaka Kan or other less acknowledge (and sometimes less talented) are putting out there without not even a simple mention of the artist...
In the Uk we had a few years ago a bunch of kids going around with Eternal Flame *by Atomic Kitten* did these kids ever knew about Siouxie and the Bangles? me thinks not,unfortunately.
I went to my daughter;s school to teach the kids how "As" was written by Stevie Wonder and NOT by Mary J.Blige, and so on.

And then we come to the part that maybe more familiar to the scrapping community, and this is why this subject is such a difficult one for me
I love digital scrapbooking.it has become a pain relief therapy and a creative outlet .
I don't get much around the net, but enough to be able to say that very, very few people read the TOU, and of those who do, very few really acknowledge the artist... even the designers themselves: I am amazed as how many times I got the same cluster frame in different designers kits, which I thought was the marvelous creation of one person but it isn't. And try figure out who first created it?
Well, their designers themselves only acknowledge the name of the people they bought things from in a very, very small print, and don't really say who made what.....
I know some people may think scrapbooking a minor art....if an art at all, but this is what I know about these days,and what makes me reluctant to have an opinion in which I can passionate about in the Copyright thing...

I'm going to leave this in here, as my mind doesn't go very far in the mornings, but there is something I have been thinking a lot about and is related to this issue too, which is the attitude of the designers and how much can this influence the way you (one) respects their work, and I really, really want to elaborate about it.

And as I cannot finish this post without a LO, here is something I made with one of my most loved freebie girl: Rosemarie Pixel, of Pixel Scrapbooking. This template plus kit was given as a freebie by Rosemarie a couple of weeks ago, as she is following the 365 Project. I only changed color I think, in a couple of elements and added something *derivating* of her elements :)
This was our last outing, to a dear Brazilian friend of mine's house. She is married to a marvelous Finnish International (like he likes to describe himself) and that day made a Feijoada, our typical Brazilian dish of rice and stewed black beans.
Have a great day!


For the next one I used a kit from one of my newest finds, Julie Marie Designs, a kit she started as a freebie, then made a full kit which I HAD to go back to buy,luckily it was on one of those sale days, plus a coupon she wonderfully sent me for 30% discount after I bought from her on a U$1 dollar sale at GottaPixel.

The very best Harlot's Sauce ever made....

...isn't actually any version of the Italian pasta sauce that became famous and is enjoyed these days all over the world.
That one, the "Salsa Putanesca", is a tomato sauce invented by harlots(prostitutes, in case you are,like me, a non native English speaker) in Naples, Italy, many years ago. The sauce had to be quick to fix – between clients (wink) – and economical. Nonetheless, those women made something delicious out of a limited choice of ingredients. That one, the pasta sauce, is delicious, but, I insist, isn't the best.

The best just happens to be a book, one written by an amazing woman, Patricia Volonakis Davis.

Now, let me explain in case you don't know me: I don't buy books. There are so many public libraries in London which will loan books for free, that in these days of financial struggling I find superfluous expenses have to be cut straight down.
But don't get me wrong,I do not find reading superfluous, God knows the battle I fight every day trying to get my teenage daughter to read, but unless the books are on sale or in charity shops, I can't afford them, so I make intense use of the libraries, suits me fine.
But when I started reading Patricia's blog in my days of blogging in Vox, I felt I HAD to buy this book when it was published.
Everything else she had written I had enjoyed so much, it had moved my emotions to such beautiful place, that it would be a shame to have to wait for ever until the book was available either on sale in shops or in Charity ones...mainly because she is in the US, but there was the urge to read this...so I bought it.
It was available in Amazon at a very affordable price too, it was so worth it that I have since bought many more copies, the last couple I gave away to dear friends in Christmas.

Harlot's Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece is a non fiction book, it tells us about her battle as a woman, wife and mother in such amazing way I think every woman in the planet should read it.
At first I thought I may not identify that much with the book, with her being in a different country, her story being so different to mine, but as soon as I started reading I not only couldn't put this book down, but also saw myself portrayed in so many situations, I realized she has written this book speaking to each and every woman in the planet, trying to send a message.
The best of it? she gets it across.
Not only that, but you will also travel to Greece in such style, savor the delights and experience something I cannot describe: for that you will have to read it.
And it isn't only interesting for women. Men will also love this book, even if, llike Carmen's husband they will discover how great they are...
If you are interested in reviews, there are lots of published ones if you just click HERE which will tell you better than I could.

I did write a review though, which was the reason that prompted this post today, but I couldn't find it.
I'm not sure why, but I have search the 38 Amazon reviews of the book and I'm quiet sure mine isn't there. Oh well, you wont loose much,as so many others have reviewed it so well, but let me get to the point of today's post...

When the book was first published (it has recently been published again with a new cover art, which I loved, pictured above)
Patricia held a Facebook competition at her Fan Page: writing a review of the book could win you dinner for two at an Italian or Greek restaurant
I had loved the book, so I did.
Funny thing was, I never in a million years thought I would win.
I'm not the kind of people who get lucky in competitions like this, but I did write the review because in my heart I thought every one should read this book....
And then one day I was looking for one of the PodCasts in Harlot's Sauce Radio and happened to find the video Patricia made to announce the competition winner...and would you believe it?
It was me.

Because we are some miles and waters away, we got a U$100 dollars Visa gift card, of course we would honor the spirit and go for dinner, it only took us a (errrmm little?) while to get it done, but finally we did.
I cook pasta quiet nicely,growing up in South America, Argentina & Brazil both with huge Italian colonies and traditions, I find it a bit of a waste to go out to eat something we enjoy so much cooking at home.
So Greek it would be.
There are many Greek restaurants in Camden, but this is our shopping neighborhood, we wanted to make it a different night out, so I looked into the Charlotte St restaurants, famous for the quality and not so dear in the price.
There is these days so much info about restaurants and so many reviews, that I got dizzy after reading 21 reviews of different restaurants in areas that would be suitable, but every time I typed Charlotte St the main link was Andreas.

Last thursday was Sarita's school progress review, parents evening after the previous week we had the GCSE's choices, so I thought we would have something to celebrate too.
I'm glad to say that we had a lot more to celebrate than I ever thought: 4 commendations, an A Star in Spanish, being that she is well ahead of the class, the teacher had explained me last year, whilst everyone does one type of work, Sarita is about 2 years ahead of everyone, and her teacher has so much confidence in her that she will get her to do the exam (GCSE) but not take the course....a hell of a compliment, especially if you know that we do not speak Spanish at home, but Portuguese.
Yes, I know,similar.
Similar, but not same.
The grammars are different, there are lots of words and phrase constructions which would not make sense in Spanish if translated from Portuguese...so, a huge compliment to my child's intelligence. (yup, I'm a very proud mum!)

Also many of the other teachers, like History and Geography, want her to go for her subjects in GCSEs.
Again, I'm told this is a great compliment to Sarita's intelligence and power of achievement.
Her grades were wonderful in general...if only I could get her to get A stars in household chores, listening to mum or just not leave her boots, jacket and clothes like a trail all over the house...
but hey, if my mother survived my teenage years, I will surely come out well from hers.

Getting back to the point: Andreas, in Charlotte St. Nice place (we got (again, thanks to Sarita's sharp eye and determination) a place to park at the door, rare thing in the West End, service was nice, everyone had a smile and the manager even had a laugh at my tries to make Sarita eat Octopus (she eats Sushi, crabs, mussels but has some problems with the 8 legged ones).
The food was Ok, not all that, I have to say,but maybe is that we did not know well what to order (the restaurant was full when we arrived) I thought I would know as the Greek eat very similar to my parents Syrian delicacies, even the names are the same in many dishes, but the Octopus was a bit over grilled, dry; Sarita's meat undercooked even though I had made a point about her being just 13 and wanting it well done...
But never mind.
We enjoyed the night out very much, we will probably wait to eat Greek food again until we get to the Us and can go directed by the wise hand of Patricia herself , I'm sure she will be able to recommend a good place.

If you are still unsure about reading the book, go have a look at Harlot's Sauce Radio, there is enough there to get you hooked :)

As for our weekend, we had another outing on friday evening to Sarita's ex violin teacher's graduation play at The Poor School.
The play was wonderful (songs of old musicals) the cast was amazing but it ended up wrecking my poor body to such point that I haven't moved from the bed since friday night, and I am still attached to the tens unit :(
I will be fine though.

Here are some LO's I made with the photos of Thursday evening (low lights, blurred pics)
The first two LO's of Patricia & the book are entirely with a kit called Black & White Paradise, by one my fav Digital Crea designers, Moi.
The kit is on sale now @ Digital Crea Fr

The other LOs have elements and backgrounds from Choukette's several kits, and some frames and word tags by Kaowette's Day After Day kit.

A magical, fairy like feeling...

...has never appealed to me when scrapbooking.
But after I saw this kit that Karen made, I just couldn't help myself....
This is what I made with it:


This came to confirm my deep believe that, no matter how angry you are, diving into some mindless(well not so much mindless as focusing your mind in color and composition...) scrapping will always make you feel better.
I wasn't feeling all that well the other night, I guess the so dreaded teenage time, the adolescence period I know I have to get my daughter through is staring at me with those ugly green eyes....and threatening to wreck my beautiful mum/daughter relationship I have been so proud to construct all these almost 14 years (12 days to go...)

It all dissipated yesterday when we went to Cristina, whom I have been friends with for almost 20 years here in London, and we all had a great laugh, lots of wonderful food (feijoada completa!!!) drinks (just one caipirinha for me as I was driving) and dessert (caramel pudding) in harmony.

more than likely I'll be making something with the photos, but later...

Don't forget that Karen made some gorgeous word art for Katie's St Patrick's Day kit, you can find my LOs in my previous post , and in her blog Karen has a quick page made with Katie's kit as a freebie, plus the alpha for garbs when you sign up to her newsletter.
To get all freebies you can go HERE get all download links and update what's new around there...
Both kits are well worth having, as they (I think) can make amazing LOs for St Patrick's day but have amazing elements and backgrounds which will go along many photos all year around.
I know Karen was having some problems with a couple of elements which did not download for me at the beginning, but that has been sorted.
I had this problem with some kits from DigitalCrea Fr, and thought it was my computer but it obviously isn't...as many others are having problems like this...will try get to the bottom of what s causing it, but if you had some elements not downloading from zip files, I would love to hear from you, see if we can sort out what's going on :)
Hope you are all having a weekend as beautiful as mine!
:)

This St Patrick thing.....

...is something that, until a couple of years,only meant to me something about people going to the pubs in London to drink themselves legless on Guinness. It was only mentioned very lightly that had something to do with the Irish by my ex husband, who would complain about foreigners to me, the foreignest of the foreigners..but lets leave it there, shall we?
There is a reason why ex husbands are exes, and, after all, I enjoyed 10 of our 12 years together very much.

When I came into the scrapping world, was never drawn to make a St Paddy's LO, if you look at my Scrapblogs you'll find none, but when Katie & Karen showed me what they have done for the holiday, Katie the kit, Karen with her marvelous word art...I couldn't resist, so here are a couple of pages I made with it.
Don't forget to scroll to the end of the page to get your Love You freebie, day7, whilst you are there, I show you some pages I made with that kit in the end of this post, but lets have a look at St Paddy's and what this means. First, my pages. The kit is called Lucky and I'm hoping some of the Irish luck will come our way!


Click HERE to buy the kit, remember EVERYTHING at Katie's store is U$1.50, and, though I like my LOs lately to be on the simple side, the kit has LOTS & lots of marvelous stuff.

there is also the Freebie Love You, day 7 for grabs there, here is something I made with her Love You kit and Karen's (SnickerdoodleDesingsByKaren word at:


Last but not least...I decided to go in search of knowledge to get the real meaning of St Patrick's, which I (more or less) found HERE
I'll surely be back with more, as there is Karen's kit coming up and I have seen the preview already and awwwwwwww, irresistible!
Stayed tune for that and an update on why I came to the conclusion that parents and their offspring should be separated during said offspring teenage years....
Have a great weekend!

Is not for nothing....

...that they call her Rosemarie Pixel.
She jokes as to have been downloaded instead of born...and I can vouch for that.
This girl is not only a great source of knowledge, but also one of these wonderful people within the scrapbooking world who give, teach, and even spare time to listen to us, furthermore, sort out our technological problems.

She was as good as to taking time of her busy schedule ( a mum of 3 boys!!! a wife, a designer, amongst other daily tasks) to make my blogs backgrounds possible, so, Thank you, Rosemarie. You are a star.
You can go have a look at her site, Pixel Scrapbooking, to collect some freebies that are available for all there, or even sign up for her newsletter and get access to even more freebies to which only friends have permissions.
Here is a page I made with one of the kits he gave us a while ago

and now I'm going to go sleep (at 21:40, that s a new one for me!) as my eyes are closing and tomorrow is GCSE's options day for my daughter,,,,

Frustration...

...seems to be following me once again.
Alright, alright, I know I'm tired, I have had no sleep at all in the past 30 something hours, but the events of today have more to do with technology (and my inability to deal with it at times) than sleep deprivation.

First, I wanted to shout to the world about this program I have been using, the DigitalScrapbookArtist by Serif but, just as I was getting the know how of it, they come up with an upgrade. I had this feeling like, I'm not ready for going further, but these very, very nice people at the Serif Forums convinced me, so I did.
What the program can do is awesome.
If only it didn't froze or crash every couple of hours with no pattern, sense or apparent reason.
I know, I know. New programs, need erasing and polishing a bit. OK, no probs, I have the old version (which to me is no oldie, really, just bought it what? a month ago?)

The root of all my distress is in trying to produce a background for this blog and, yes, I finally got it together: my Portuguese Blog. Though if I wasn't posting enough in this or my other English one, where on earth am I gonna find inspiration, time, and brain to do it, none knows.....
I was happy to produce a blog banner, then went to seek help with the One and Only, the so good at multitasking and wonderful friend that is Mommy Victory, though you may know her better as McMGrad89

Up to then everything was great,(I'm sure you noticed I changed the background to one of the cutest that the cutest has to offer) but I got tempted to attempt my own...sure thing sounded easy.

Photobucket does not like me.
Or is the the CutestBlog On The Block?
I don't think so. I reckon is just plain technology alert and sleep deprivation do not go well together.

I tried and tried.
Never mind, now my eyes are sleepy and my child need to get to bed (plus I should be translating this to Portuguese, but will have to wait...
Here is what I produced as background

the banner is up in the blog, you can get there by clicking HERE
I'm contemplating the possibility of spending a few days away from the computer and other electrical devices, if such is possible. Right now, I'm gonna go sleep!