New CT gig! Pamela Donnis!

I was accepted onto Pamela Donnis' Creative Team! What a great Christmas surprise! If you haven't seen her fun doodle-y designs, you really must visit her shop at the DigiChick. She makes the BEST felties!

Here's my first project! I used Doodled Calendar 2010 by Pamela Donnis and Homemade Happiness kit by Pamela Donnis and Danielle Engebretson. I'm hoping that having a cute calendar will help me to write things down and not be quite so forgetful...

Have a Rockin' Christmas!

Hope your Christmas was a good one! I have a new little kit over at Bouquet of Pixels. It's on sale Dec 26 for only $1!!! There is a big after Christmas sale going on at the store. Head on over before it's done!!! :) Click the photo:

This one is also on sale! Great for Year in Review or Project 365 layouts!

New Baby

Yes, there is a new baby in the family, a new little nephew for me! Congrats to my sister and her husband! :)

Sweet Autumn by Michelle Underwood, sequin from Watch Me Now by Michelle Underwood, Word Art from Elegant Word Art by Bethany, Font: My Own Topher

When I was deciding what I could use to scrap the first photos of little Caleb, I found just the kit. Michelle Underwood's Sweet Autumn page kit. I just LOVE using kits for purposes other than the obvious theme. The pastel colors worked just great for a baby layout!

New from Michelle Underwood - Baby It's Cold Outside

New kit out today from Michelle Underwood at 2Peas! I love the colors in this one, it totally matches my aqua/brown/off white living room, lol!

The tattered, worn realistic papers are fantastic. There are two versions of many of the papers, a png "torn" one and another full 12x12 jpg. I love having options!

Credits: Baby It's Cold Outside by Michelle Underwood Fonts: Traveling Typewriter, Pea Stacy Tunibug, 28 Days Later, Guess What.

Credits:Baby It's Cold Outside by Michelle Underwood, Font: You are Loved, Template by Michelle Stone

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Printing this next one as a canvas wrap for my husband for Christmas! Our three boys' feet. “Wherever your feet lead you, may they always help you find the way home.”

Credits: Baby It's Cold Outside, Vintage Holiday Memories by Michelle Underwood (slightly recolored), Bad sewing machine stitches by Traci Reed, Fonts: Trajan Pro, Missed Your Exit

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This is another layout I created using an older kit. I don't have girls to scrap for, so I had to scrap myself. It's an interesting challenge to scrap a photo of yourself. If you haven't ever done it, you should try!

Credits: Too Trendy, All I Want by Michelle Underwood, Template freebie from Lauren Grier's CT, Fonts: Traveling Typewriter, Greer, Missed Your Exit

Another CT gig!

I'm feeling pretty lucky, because my two favorite designers have opted to allow me to create for them! :) I was a guest CT member for Amy Sumrall last month and she is letting me stay on! When I say these are two of my favorites, I'm not exaggerating at all.

I've loved Michelle Underwood since I started scrapping. The first two kits I purchased were by her, and still two that I adore! :) She has an easy grungy feel to her work and it fits with my scrapping style very well. Her kits are incredibly versatile and the colors she choses are fantastic.

I discovered Amy Sumrall when she participated in DigiScrap Addicts' "So You Think You Can Design" competition this past summer. (By the way, GREAT place to hang out!) I developed a quick obsession for her doodley bright fun kits. I began collecting every kit I could get my hands on!

So the point of the story is that I'm really excited and feeling quite privileged to be on two CTs that I am so proud to be a part of! It will challenge me to keep scrapping my photos! I love that.

In other news, the new November BYOC (buy your own collab) at the-LilyPad was released today! Here is Amy Sumrall's contribution (images are clickable):

Here's a layout I created. Perhaps the use of the Halloween clay baubles is a bit silly, but it works for me:

Credits: Falling and November Watercolors from November BYOC and Clay Baubles and Goblins from October BYOC all by Amy Sumrall. Aged paper effect created from All Worn Out template by Pamela Donnis Designs. Fonts: jailbIrD JenNA, bulky Refuse Type

New CT gig!

I have been a fan of Michelle Underwood's designs since I first discovered the digi-scrap world a year and a half ago. Imagine my excitement when she had a CT call. :) I applied and was lucky enough to get accepted!!!

Michelle's new kit Vintage Holiday Memories came out yesterday and it is quite honestly one of my favorites. That is saying a lot considering I own over 30 of her other kits! Take a look and see for yourself:

The beauty of the kit is that it is incredibly versatile. It's not just a Christmas kit. It have colors that can be used for fall/Thanksgiving/Halloween layouts too. And I used it to scrap my boys!

Vintage Christmas Memories kit, Solids, and Alpha by Michelle Underwood Font: Eccentric Std

I also used this kit on a special project that I did this week. The layout below was created both as a thank you and also to introduce our family to a man that we recently met who was a paramedic that saved my husband's life over 30 years ago. To see the amazing story, visit my family's blog at http://solanolife.blogspot.com/

Credits: "Vintage Holiday Memories" by Michelle Underwood, White paper, flower, staple and word art from "Life is Good" kit by Gina Huff. Font: Bulky Refuse

Oct/Nov/Dec papers

You've been waiting patiently, and here they are. The last papers in the series. I decided to give 'em all to you at once! Grab 'em while you can. I will be taking down links in a week. Thank you!

Click here to download the October, November, and December papers.

Sorry, the link has expired. You can still purchase them from my store!

Scrapping with Templates

Templates! How I love them...

I found an excellent one a few days ago, on Lauren Grier's blog made by one of her CT members. It's nice and simple and very versatile!!!

I decided that I would give this one a try using Amy Sumrall's "Rawr." I'm really happy with how it turned out! I did it so fast too. I think I was done in about a half hour.

Credits: Rawr by Amy Sumrall, Template 1 by Tali

Fonts: Myriad Pro, You All Everybody

I was so pumped that I was able to scrap so quickly that I decided to keep going and completed two more layouts in one night!

Credits: No Girls Allowed by Creations by Rachael B, Template 1 by Tali
Fonts: Moksha, You are Loved

Credits: Doodle flowers, A Better Me by Gina Marie Huff, word art from Revive by Taylor Made, Template 1 by Tali
Fonts: You are Loved

If you have never used a template, you can find a good tutorial here on Misty Cato's blog.

I apologize for getting October's paper out late. My laptop bit the dust last month and I switched to a Mac. I'm in the process of figuring out how to install my styles and actions in PSE on a Mac. If anybody has a tutorial, hook me up! :)

More from Amy Sumrall!

I guess Amy must not have minded my stalking too much. She let me guest CT for her this month! Yippee!

So here's the first kit I've gotten to work with, "Boys R Cool".

There's also a partner girl kit "Girls Rule", but since I have 3 boys, this was the one I jumped on! If you scrap for boys and girls, you can get the two together for a reduced price. PLUS ,did I mention that right now, the kits are on sale???

Here's my layout:

Credits: "Boys R Cool" by Amy Sumrall

Fonts: Submerged and Prissy Frat Boy

September freebie!

Today I have two things on the agenda:

1) to show off some layouts created from kits by Amy Sumrall, who I have recently begun stalking... at least on her blog and new store at the-LilyPad!

2) to present my September paper freebie!

So first off, Amy Sumrall! I love her designs!!! Her work screams of doodley fun-ness! I hadn't heard of CU free designers before Amy. CU free means that she does all her own work. You are not getting another designer's work recycled and revamped. It's awesome and a challenge for me as a designer to do the same! I've done several different layouts with various kits this week, and have another still in progress...

Credits: Nutty by Amy Sumrall

Credits: Wubulous by Amy Sumrall

Credits: Everyday by Amy Sumrall

In other news, my computer, my good ol' CPU, decided to crash. Like it made sounds like it was going to start up, but it just wouldn't run. No picture on the screen, nothing. Good thing I save everything on my EHD! :) So I got adventuresome and bought an iMac. I'm still learning all the quirks, but so far, it's not too shabby!!! I am working with PSE4 for Mac, which is not the best, but it works... I really want to drastically upgrade to CS4. Sigh... I can dream!

Click here for your freebie! Sorry, the link has expired. You can still purchase them from my store! And please note that after next month (October), I will begin to remove links to freebies, since I will be selling these papers! Have a great day!

Do you tweet???

Follow me on Twitter!!! http://twitter.com/joysolano

I'll be posting a freebie for you later this week! :)

August Paper Freebie

Wow, the summer has been flying by! I've been so busy that I nearly forgot to post the August Paper freebie! Thanks for the reminder, Jody! :)

Click the photo for your download! Sorry, the link has expired. You can still purchase them from my store!

Free QPs and continued one kit call!

I put together a few QPs from my kit "Shiny Happy People" to share with you all!

But before I give you todays freebie, take a closer look at my newest kit.This kit stretched me as a designer. I've never really tried a doodle-type kit, but I am fascinated by them! It was really fun do and brought out my creativity.

My one-kit call is still open, if you are interested in doing a layout (or two), please click here for more info!

Click here for the QPs!

One kit CT call!

I have a kit that I am looking for a few scrappers to use. This is a one kit Creative Team call. Here are the requirements: 1 layout (more, if desired), post to 3 galleries (Digishop Talk, Digiscrap Addicts, and Bouquet of Pixels), and promote the kit on your blog when released in the store. Pretty simple, right? :) And you get the kit for free.

See preview below. If interested, please contact me: joysolano (at) yahoo (dot) com! :)

July Month Paper Freebie!

Here is another paper in my monthly series. Celebrate, all you Life 365 scrappers! I hope this gives you inspiration to keep going with your project! Click here or on the photo above to download Sorry, the link has expired. You can still purchase them from my store!

Father's Day Brag Book

My father's day gift to my husband was a smashing success. It was a simple brag book, but I spent time on it and he was so happy with it! I used two kits to create the pages: "Life is Good" by Gina Marie Huff and "Juicy Pop" by Creations by Rachael B.

Here are a few of the pages I created!

CT contest at Scrap Orchard - vote for me please? :)

Hello! I've been busy scrapping a bunch of brag book pages for my husband's father's day gift. Plus, I'm working on a new kit to put into my new store! :) Nope, I couldn't stay away from designing for long! lol...

I entered a CT contest at Scrap Orchard. It would mean a lot to me if you'd go here and vote for me "sharejoy" if you like my layout! :D I know there are a lot to look through... but I sure appreciate it! You can vote more than once. ;) You don't have to register in order to vote, although if you are interested, I'd recommend it. It's a great community of scrappers! Click on the photo below to view my layout in the gallery. Thanks SO MUCH for your help! :)

Credits: Beach Bum kit by Amanda Heimann, Lyndsay Riches, Wild Dandelions & Ziggle Designs

Fonts: Iskoola Pota, Susie’s Hand

Want some awesome totally free scrapkits?!?

I've been spending a lot of time over at DigiscrapAddicts. There is a contest going on called "So You Think You Can Design?". It's now week three and there are TONS of free kits! Really really nice kits. Like, I can't believe they are giving them away for free!!! Amazing!!! I haven't even had time to scrap, I just keep downloading new kits like a maniac. I'm addicted to DigiscrapAddicts! lol...

Some of the Designers participating: Flergs, BZB Designs, Faith True, Redju, Jadyday Studios, Amy Sumrall (who is my new FAVORITE designer). You've got to check out Amy's blog and see her super cute colorful doodley kits. SO CREATIVE!

You will need to register at the DigiscrapAddicts forum to get into the free products, but it's just like registering for any normal forum. Nothing scary, no catches, just lots of COOL scrap stuff.

Make sure you clear out some space on your EHD! lol. And try not to hyperventilate.

My poor neglected blog...

This is just a quick blurb to say that, yes, I am still alive! The kids are thriving (with the exception of a broken collarbone which is healing nicely). My job is going well. I graduated with my masters in counseling psych. And yes, I'm still scrappin'! :)

A few new layouts:

Credits: In the Neighborhood by Casey Krause, Life is Good by Gina Marie Huff, wordart by Lazy Daisy Designs by Randi

Credits: Life is Good kit by Gina Marie Huff, Word Art by Elegant Wordarts by Bethany

Credits: Perfectly Sweet by Michelle Underwood

If you have been downloading the monthly free papers, here is the continuation of the series. Click here to download! Sorry, the link has expired. You can still purchase them from my store!