Freebie Friday: Healthy Blance (Part 1 of 2)

Happy Freebie Friday everyone! :)

For today’s freebie I have part 1 of 2 of a new series I call “Healthy Balance.” Recently I was turned on to MyFitnessPal and I *love* the site. I was looking for a free food diary to use so I could keep track of my meals for digestive reasons and I’ve been wanting to get in better shape so I joined up and can’t get over what a difference it has made in only 5 days! It’s a really powerful thing to track your food intake and see how many calories or fat or sodium you’re consuming. It’s definitely helped me to make some healthier choices this week and stick to my goals. And wow is it motivating to keep on going and stay on track! The community is so helpful, inspiring and supportive — it’s like a little family :) Anyway, the theme for this week is tribute to a “Healthy Balance!”

This little mini kit contains 8 gemmed fruits and veggies: an asparagus, blueberry, some cherries, an apple, corn, grapes, an orange and carrot. It also contains one paper and one measurement tape ribbon/bow (a cu item courtesy of Kirsty Smith that was recoloured to be similar to the measurement tape I have :D … thanks, Kirsty!) This is part 1 of 2 like I already mentioned… next Friday I have an addition to part 1 that will include some other healthy goodies in the theme and some more paper :) It’s the perfect little mini kit to enhance digital scrapbook pages displaying your own healthy choices and improvements because those successes should be scrapped about!

Download “Healthy Balance” part 1 (embellishments, x1 paper and bow) HERE

Be sure to check back next Friday for part 2 to complete the set! And if you have suggestions for other parts/pieces to include in this set let me know and there may be more after part 2. And if you decide to try out MyFitnessPal, let me know, too :) It’s a great resource and a great community. Have a happy and healthy weekend and thanks for stopping by! :)

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Sunday Share

Hi :)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We’ve spent the day cleaning the house — it was really overdue! I got a wonderful email from MAKNJ, who shared how she used my “A Day at the Beach” digital scrapping overlay — aren’t the special touches that she added fab? I think the photo of her son is just wonderful, it turned out perfectly! Be sure to check out the rest of MAKNJ’s photos on Flickr HERE! Thanks so much for sharing, MAKNJ! :D

If you missed my “A Day at the Beach” overlay freebie, you can snag it here on 4shared.

And speaking of sharing… I finished up a crochet project this weekend that I thought I’d share, too! It’s a “Bitty Baby” from the pattern here (and on Ravelry here) by Hannah Kaminsky. It turned out… ok. It doesn’t look too bad, but I know where each and every imperfection is and it makes the finished project not feel quite as nice as I was hoping it’d turn out. The pattern itself was fairly easy for a newbie crocheter like myself (just taught myself last week or so) and the hardest part (in my opinion) was stitching it all together at the end — the head was such a pain to stitch to the body, and I wasn’t sure I was really stitching the arms and legs on properly. I’m not very confident that my stitching-things-together skill (yes, that’s a real skill) is very good. BUT, here it is anyway. I’ll chalk this one up to practice and perhaps try making a few more for some of our friends that have recently had a baby in the past few months or are due in a few months. I think everyone we know has had a baby in the past year or will be having one soon. No, we’re not ready yet ;)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week <3 scrapbook crochet

Freebie Friday: Buttons in Bloom!

Summer is nearing its close, kids are getting geared up to go back to school soon (if they haven’t already), and that means we’ll be seeing less and less flowers as the weather gets prepared for the upcoming fall months. I was thinking about how great it would be if I had a green thumb and could keep pretty plants all year long successfully, and then this idea hit me. What better way to keep the spirit of summer flowers alive all year than to have some ribbon and button flowers? Ribbons and buttons never wilt or die and their colours stay fresh and vibrant forever. Plus you don’t have to remember to keep them watered. You, too can enjoy flowers as long as possible with my “Buttons in Bloom” mini element pack for this week’s Freebie Friday!

The kit comes complete with 9 different flowers — flowers in 8 different colours and 1 multi-coloured one. Plus there’s three different kinds of stems that come separately in the kit so you can build your flowers with the blooms the way you want to — with tall or short stems, etc. And if you want to add leaves, I’ve even included some felt leaves for you as an added touch.

Buttons in Bloom is chock full of flowery goodness with no green thumb requirement. Help preserve summer and download them today!

Download “Buttons in Bloom” HERE :) Enjoy them and have a great weekend <3 scrapbook

"Back to the Drawing Board" Freebie

Just a quick freebie for you today inspired by the mad rush to get ready for a brand new school year. (And a new teaching school year for me!) Today is the first day of school back in my hometown of Greenwood, Indiana so I decided that this little mini pack would be perfect for the occasion. (Even though the first day of school is a couple weeks away yet for me here where I live in Canada now.) After all of the school supply shopping is done and the new clothes are bought, you’re going to want to settle down to scrap your child’s first day at school. I thought maybe a little chalk alpha would inspire you. And for added good measure and high marks, I’ve included two bonus elements! Not only does today’s freebie contain my “Back to the Drawing Board” chalk alpha, but you’ll also find a cute little knotted apple button ribbon AND chalkboard paper, all designed by yours truly and free for personal, non-commercial use. The alpha consists of lower AND uppercase letters, numbers, and some punctuation. I’ve also included a few specials such as the “#” sign, the words “grade” and “year” and then the little “st”, “nd”, and “rd” abbreviations so that you can easily use the alpha to put titles like “1st Grade” on your scrapped pages, for example. I hope you like it!

Download “Back to the Drawing Board” HERE

Good luck in the new school year! :)

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Lots of You Love the Chicago Bears…

Happy Monday! I know, I know… usually those two words don’t go anywhere near each other, let alone in the same sentence or expression! But I received some inbox goodness and it brightened my day so I just had to share it with the rest of you.

GailG used the “I Love the Chicago Bears” freebie kit I gave away yesterday and made some fab layouts! Check these out (click to make full-sized)

 

Aren’t they great? And what a beautiful family! (Posted with permission.) You know you want to snag your own copy of my “I Love the Chicago Bears” freebie now… so go grab the papers HERE and the elements HERE! I have a couple ideas for possible addons in the future, but I’ve been a little busy lately — I plan to get around to it sometime soon, maybe in time for the start of the regular season. Hope everyone had a nice Monday — thank you SO MUCH for all of the awesome comments on the freebie yesterday, and special thanks to GailG for sharing her talent!

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I Love the Chicago Bears Freebie

GO BEARS GO!

I love the Chicago Bears. In case you do, too, I’ve created a new freebie kit to kick off the start of the football pre-season that I cleverly call “I Love the Chicago Bears.” ;) It comes complete with 6 papers and 31 elements! Being born and raised in Indiana originally (within sight of the buildings of downtown Indianapolis), you can imagine how my love for the Bears clashes with my family’s love for the Colts.

Due to the size of this freebie kit, I had to break it into two pieces:

Download “I Love the Chicago Bears” papers HERE
Download “I Love the Chicago Bears” elements HERE

Two Christmases ago, my dad surprised me with a handmade fleece Chicago Bears blanket — you know, the kind that has the fleece tied fringes around the outside edge? It was surprising because my dad’s not much of a crafter AND because he put effort into making such a nice gift that was Chicago Bears (we do a lot of Bears vs. Colts trash talking during football season — thank goodness for my awesome rate calling card.) And then I realized he had written on a few of the fringes… to the tune of “Bears suck!” and such. I sure love that blanket and love it even more when I find one of his funny fringes. You can see the blanket on my lap in the photos of the layout I’m sharing here, using my Chicago Bears freebie kit, of me with Oliver all dressed for a big Bears game on TV the season before last. Oliver is an Urlacher fan, as you can tell by his jersey. Looks like we’re going to have to get Winston his own jersey this year!

Hope you enjoy the freebie kit! For personal, non-commercial use only blah blah blah don’t forget to read the TOU, I’d love some blog comment love if you like the kit! Happy Sunday, and GO BEARS GO <3 scrapbook

Knit & Stitch CROCHET Add-On Freebie

I’m very happy to present a little addon pack (by request!) to my Knit & Stitch kit for the crocheters out there… I have for you the Knit & Stitch Crochet Add-on Pack! By request from jetfuelonly. (and butterflies by request of lwlittlebit!) I whipped up a few little extra pieces to add to Knit & Stitch for those who love to crochet. It’s timed beautifully with my own personal experience in crochet — I just taught myself this week actually, after a failed attempt to learn at Christmas. And by fail I mean that I just couldn’t figure it out on my own and gave up. I’ve been nagging at myself to try again, and I finally got the hang of it on Tuesday and have been happily practicing and learning more since. The Knit & Stitch Crochet Add-on comes with 5 metal crochet hooks in several kit coordinating colours, 3 felted butterfly ribbons, and 3 new butterfly gem stitch markers. I hope you like it!

So sticking with knit & stitch news, I completed a scarf for myself recently and have started a second one done in a similar fashion that I plan to give my mom for Christmas. While we were vacationing in the Okanagan a few weeks back I picked up some big size 15 needles and some soft Bernat yarn that was on clearance… one big skein in burgundy & rose and one big skein in purples. I didn’t use a pattern per se, but just cast on 20 stitches and knitted until the scarf was as long as I wanted it to be. I have a scarf that I was given a few years ago that is 100 inches long and it’s too long for me, so when knitting this one I wanted to stop at a length that was more comfortable. That length turned out to be around 65 inches. I used big loose stitches on those big needles and fondly refer to the finished product as my loopy scarf. I’ve decided to make a slight change in the “pattern” for my mom’s scarf: I think 20 stitches wide in this gauge is maybe a tiny bit too wide, so on my mom’s purple scarf I’ve only cast on 15 stitches. I think I like the width of hers better. She’s only a little shorter than I, so I’m thinking 60-65 inches long will be good for her also. I’m looking forward to finishing this one!

Hope everyone has a great weekend and hope to see you back tomorrow for my big Chicago Bears freebie kit! :)

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Happy First Freebie Friday!

Yay for my first “Freebie Friday!” I’ve decided to start a promotion on my blog called Freebie Friday. The idea behind this promotion is to help keep me on track to give away at least one freebie a week — on Fridays. Now I know what you’re thinking, “But Lesley, you’ve given away several freebies this week! What makes Fridays special?” Well, this week has been an exception to the norm because I’ve had lots of time to create a lot of freebies, but I’m trying to be realistic and think long term. Life tends to get busy and I know there will be weeks where I don’t have as much time and am not able to make as much. I’m also a little craft ADD and do a wide variety of crafts here on my blog besides just digital scrapbooking so one week might be just spent knitting. (especially with colder months just around the corner.) But by starting this promotion, it’ll help ensure I have at least one digital scrapbooking freebie a week to give away, even on the busy weeks. So while there might be multiple freebies in the same week, Fridays will be guaranteed. Or at least that’s my personal goal.

Some freebies will be big, some will be small, but there will always be something to give away here on Freebie Friday to keep you coming back for more :) And if I find time to squeeze in extra freebies in between, even better!

Hope you enjoy “Think Pink!” Don’t forget to come back tomorrow, because I have the Knit & Stitch Crochet Add-on pack ready to go, and then I’m really excited about what I’ve got for you on Sunday. See you soon! :)

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Colourful Crayons & Scribbles Mini Freebie

Today I’ve got just a tiny freebie for you — a set of eight classic colour crayon embellishments! Each crayon comes with its own coordinating crayon doodle mark, too. Just a little something small to wish you a happy Thursday (yay for tomorrow being Friday!) :)

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Knit & Stitch Embroidery Alpha Freebie

I am horrible at keeping quiet when I’ve got a surprise and/or a present to give, and after my hint (ok so I just flat out told you) in yesterday’s post when I gave away my big Knit & Stitch freebie, you are most likely not surprised to see this lovely Knit & Stitch embroidery alpha today that coordinates with the kit. And if you are surprised, well yay because that was the original intention:) The coordinating alpha comes with both upper and lowercase and a few punctuation marks. Hopefully it will add that finishing touch to your titles or other text by giving them a fantastic stitched look.

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