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!

LOve is All We Need!!!

I have always said that.
Over & over again, love will heal, bring back a smile to your face, make days more beautiful and, at times, bearable.
And I'm talking here about all kind of love, not just the Valentine one which is now in the air...
We even contemplated the possibility of becoming a foster family at some point last year, it did not happen because of burocracy & ridiculous laws, which end up depriving children of it (love)...but that will be the subject of a much longer post.

Love is All We Need is the new Valentine kit by SnickerdoodleDesignsByKaren , on sale now at the ScrapProfessor store, with discount.
Though I haven't had a good experience with the site (I had huge problems to post LOs, contacted the owner 3 or 4 days agio and I am STILL waiting for a reply) the kit is well worth it. Yes, I know, the store does not price kits the way we like it....they are no Digital Crea and certainly have not the heart of PixelScrapbooking or Cajoline (who give us everything for free), but is discounted at U$4, and if you look at the contents, it's worth the money.
Karen has includeed 3 (three!!!) Alphas, all with upper, lower cases & numbers & simbols....apart from the most delightful elements & papers...so much that I have not included in these LO's not even a quarter of what the kit brings....

So, here is what I have done with it as soon as I could (meaning when Sarita gave up to tiredness and called me to put her to bed....at 20:00hs!!! wow, that's a record!):



There will be more coming, there is also another LO I ve made earlier today with the Word Art & kit from the previous post, will come back with time to show you that because is HR image and now I need to finish some chores...yes, I stil have a life, and quiet a full one, outside this computer...can you believe that?
LOL
Ihave edited this because I got to make two more LOs.
One is because there are a lot of people who (like me) don't have and are not even thinking on the Valentine coupley love, but have another subject of their attention to love...so, why not show it? and pet's scraps are always the same so...I thought this would make a different thing...after all, Love Is Really All We Need!, no matter where or whom it comes from if it is in harmony with our hearts.
The second one is to show you that, even if you are a fan of quick pages, this kit has everything: the other LO is purely a background and a cluster frame from the kit, only thing I did was stick my photos & write a bit of text...gotta love that frame!!!
OK, now I'm really, REALLY of! LOL

More Valentines & a freebie

So, here are my other Valentines,one of them with some dear friends of mine, to find a bit more inspiration.
These LOs were made with ScrapbookMax V 2.0, which I like a lot but I'm afraid it looses points when compared to what the DSA can do, especially if you are on Parallels (on iMac) like me. Still like working with it, the screen is bigger, no need to scroll up n down as much as I do with DSA...their prices are way too high when it comes to kits though..so I stick my loyalties to these other ladies...you will see JustSoScrappy has everything at U$1.50, which come sto a mere £1 to us...go check them out after looking at these :)
The kit & WordArt, by Katie Castillo & Karen Schulz respectively, you can find by clicking in the links in the right hand side or just by cliking here and here
Remember that, if you sign up for Karen's newsletter, you will get a freebie Cookie Alpha, just scroll to the bottom of the post to go get it!
Leave us a comment and tell us what you think, what you would like to see.





and here is the Cookie Apha preview, you will get this if you sign up to Karen's newsletter...

Click HERE to get it!

Fly Me to the Moon....

..is the new kit by SnickerdoodleDesignsByKaren. the WordArt is to die for, will post links to the other stores in a bit, for now here are my LO's
got a couple more which I ll be posting later...

The enjoyment of being Grateful....

...can be something to be grateful too.
I have learned in these past few years how many little things one seldom looks into are things to be grateful for, and though I know I am a bit lazy for writing lately, I am more than urged to Thank some (quiet a few actually) people for making my days (our days) brighter, happier, more enjoyable.

First of all, I should get on discovering when people post comments in this blog, as sometimes I only see them if I am looking for them...I promise I will also find out how to receive notifications on when my friends update their blogs....I want to be in yours as much as you are in mine (life , that is!)

Then I feel I should be naming some of the people who make the scrapbooking easier, being the ones who give their amazing talent away in form of freebies, the ones who share their pages with us (not necessarily designers I'm talking about here, but scrappers, ladies and gents who are so inspiring to me) or the ones (stores) who have regular sales @ Euros1, Euros1.50, U$1 or U$2... these are stores I keep coming back and making some important purchases. It make me feel better about taking their freebies, and it makes my scrapping so much beautiful....
I know that, if one has the time and patience, it is possible to scrap your life away without paying a penny, so I have to stop for a minute to Thank profusely Maria, the lady who runs Digifree.
Though my goal isn't taking everything for free (I have bought two programs also in the past couple of months!) it is great to have pages and pages of freebies to choose from, so Thanks Maria for the unique and amazing Digifree, and the designers who give so much amazing stuff away.

Now, there are some sites (often the blog trains) who make it a bit more complicated for people like YoursTrully (over 50, not born with a keyboard in my lap!)to get the goods....some of these sites even annoy me at times...but I have found just a couple of days ago something amazing in one of those (most annoying) sites...
I found a sale of U$1 kits from BelaGipsyDesigns in GottaPixel, another kit by MissErin and another kit called Pinch of This Dash of that, bought them and...guess what? I got a thank you email from each of the designers!
Even if this was an automated response, is a nice touch, and in checking the blogs I discover even more freebies....
Two of the kits are baking/cooking related, so you will be getting some recipes from us.

I cannot start thinking on names to Thank, so I will later make a list and make an official Christmas Thank You card to all these people, but one designer I very recently came across I need to mention right now....
This is a lady called KimB
I did not know she was a designer. I just kept seeing these more than amazing, inspiring pages popping in from time to time in ScrapbookMax and left comments accordingly....only to my surprise find in my inbox there a more than beautiful thank you note, with words so beautiful that made me feel like there is a point on communicating your feelings after all (one gets a bit on a downer side living in the Great Britain Empire, where people communicate better with their animals than their peers)

Not only did she write this beautiful words, but also left me a freebie of hers, with which I made some beautiful Christmas Cards, I ll see to post here if I have time left, but you may have seen them in my FB or even at ScrapbookMax.
This lady has pretty much the style I would love to achieve (imprinting my own signature, of course) so, if you like what I make, have a look at her site by clicking here , you'll be in for a treat.

As I said (many many times by now LOL) I am not terribly inspired to write, but I am producing a lot of pages on scrapping.

I finish today (phewwww!!!!) my Trancoso/Brasil album. If you aren't in my FB and want to have a peak, is here , though in ScrapbookMax the resolution doesn't show all that, is possible to see what I am aiming for.

I have also made (LOoooootS!!!) Christmas cards in both programs and also in Scrapblog, which is where my next step will happen as I am determined to carry on with Sarita's year books, and she finished the play she was in on Thursday, so lots of photos from there need scrapping too..

I will, I promise, come back with a list of these great people who make our time scrapping a wonderful one. check blogs and try being a bit more consistent with everything...but only to think about it I remember I need to empty my shed, sarita 's bedroom and.....oh well, you don't really wanna know.
Like Peggy well said: Life isn't always fair, you can get a splinter even sliding down the rainbow....
but splinters are not about to stop this girl who has taken more than one strong blow from falling of said rainbows....so...see you soon!

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:

Glad to have found....

..so many creative, nice,helpful people around lately, but there is one lady I reckon deserves a special mention...

Not only does she answer every question I have and has opened my eyes and called my attention to, for example, the world of fonts amongst many others, but she also shares her creative talent with us all:

so, if you click  here you will be able to download her wonderful kits

Her name is Mary and she goes as mh51 in ScrapbookMax, she is also (rare to find, in this across the pond dominated world) in the UK, which makes me feel a special bond...

Her kits are absolutely wonderful, as are her layouts.

Go have a look and you will be as pleased as I am...I promise!

Here is a card I made with one of her wonderful kits:

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)

:)

Late again....

...and another sleepless night.

I reckon is not that bad as Sarita is on holidays,but nevertheless...

I need to update this, I guess...

My new toy: ScrapbookMax V2.0

I bought the program as I was getting fed up of having to pay U$25 every time I wanted stickers in Scrapblog. The program is great, I ll review a bit more when non sleepless, but I'm runing it on Parallels in my Mac, which causes the Mac to crash.

So I cleaned our old PC, run some scans, and apparently is working well.

The plus of ScrapbookMax is that one doesnt need to be online.

Problem is: the email with the program is not showing in my yahoo web based mail, so I haven't been able to download it yet, wrote to the SBM lady but she hasn't answered (over 24hs since I wrote)... I wonder...is it that they only communicate when you are about to buy?

anyway, I ll find my way.

These are my two first pages of the Brazil trip, done on SBM. I printed the first page in an All in One HP 2575 series, running out of ink, and still it came out beautiful....

So, the program prints quiet nicely too...I'm dying to use it again, but will wait till tomorrow.

Now, I ll try some sleep...

:)