"The Hoosier State" Freebie Part 1 of 3
Happy Wednesday :)
This week I have three days in a row of amazing freebies for you, being kicked off today! And what’s the topic? Well by the title you’ve probably guessed — “The Hoosier State.” Most of you that have followed my blog (or notice the blog design or header) know that I’m a Hoosier girl… originally from Indiana, but now living happily ever after in Canada for over two years. I decided to create a big freebie kit dedicated to where I grew up because I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Hoosier state, even if I don’t technically call it “home” anymore.
I finally finished the kit last night, and together there are 8 papers and 40 different elements in this one including wordart, frames, mats, ribbons, peonies, notepaper, corn (lots of corn!), clips, buttons, bows, and even a few acrylic elements and wooden pieces such as the state flag, the state itself, and some Indy 500 items. All in a colour scheme that reminds me of Indiana. The kit was too big for one zipped file so I decided to break it up into 3 pieces and release all of the parts over the next three days. Each day contains at least two papers and a random handful of the 40 elements. This Friday’s Freebie Friday will be the final piece, and once you download all three, you’ll have the entire kit.
Don’t forget that this freebie kit is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY, as specified in the TOU included with all of my freebie downloads. Please be sure to read the TOU before using any of the items in the kit, and contact me if you have any questions about it.
Download “The Hoosier State” Part 1 of 3 HERE!
I would really love to see what you do with the kit — please send any layouts you make to me and I’d be happy to feature you here and show off your creativity. If I get around to it this week, I may release a quickpage or two. But don’t hold me to it! Be sure to check back tomorrow (and Friday) for parts 2 and 3 to complete the set! I hope you like “The Hoosier State.” Thanks for stopping by :)
Latest Layouts
First of all, HAPPY LABOUR DAY! I finally got around to some digital scrapbooking of my own today and scrapped up some memorable new photos taken in the past couple weeks. I just wanted to pop in and share them with you!
The first involves my handsome husband and I, and uses papers and elements from Summer Splash by Christine Ousley, christinescraps for BTST.
The second is a compilation of some photos with my friend Michelle. Michelle was my maid of honour in my wedding and has been my best friend since moving to Canada. We met when we were both working in the Human Resources department of Safeway. We’ve both found new jobs but do just about everything together. This page is dedicated to her friendship and uses elements from the Citrus Berry kit by Vicki at AWP (A Work in Progress).
I love Vicki over at AWP so much that I used another one of her freebie kits, Fired Earth, for this layout of Lucas and I. Aren’t we cute?
This last one I did using the Express Yourself freebie kit by RPENN. Yay for girls just wanting to have fun! This is me with Kim and Michelle. We’re hawt mamas!
The hanging date tags you see in the last two are not part of the kits mentioned but instead are from scrapmatters.com by the Golden Girls digital designs. They’re super cute! Anyway, just wanted to share what creative things I’ve been up to this holiday weekend; hope you liked the layouts! Enjoy the rest of your long weekend.
Freebie Friday: Healthy Blance (Part 2 of 2)
Woohoo! It’s Friday! And not only that, it’s the Friday that kicks off a nice long weekend. Hooray! So let’s get down to business and share this week’s Freebie Friday goodie :)
As promised last week, I have for you part 2 of 2 of my “Healthy Balance” series. This time the freebie includes two more full-sized 1200 x 1200, 300 dpi papers, two torn papers in solid cardstock, another ribbon, a frame with a blue ribbon button and ribbon hugger, acrylic cherries, some torn notepaper (perhaps for journaling your goals on) and 5 gemmed fruit and veggie paperclips! They are soooo cute.
If you missed last week’s part 1 which included all of the full-sized gemmed fruit and veggie embellishments and the first paper and measurement tape bow by Kirsty Smith, you can grab it HERE.
Hopefully these two kits will add some healthy spunk to your layouts. I mean, who can resist cute little gemmed fruit paperclips? Not me! Download “Healthy Balance” Part 2 of 2 HERE!
Hope everyone has a safe and healthy Labour Day long weekend — take care and see you soon! I’ve got another freebie ready to go and freebie plans for next Friday already in the works :) Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you back soon!
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! :)
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
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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! :)
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!
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 w
as 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!
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! :)