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! :)
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!) :)
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.
BIG Knit & Stitch Freebie, Yay!
I am SO excited to present my newest digital scrapbooking freebie kit: “Knit & Stitch!”
So what kinds of things are in the Knit & Stitch kit? Let’s start with the 11 papers — 6 soft knitted and 5 crisp linen style. There’s also a delicate sheer cream paper mat with a felt flower trim that looks great layered over the background papers. Speaking of felt flowers, you’ll also find similar felted flower ribbons, a plain fabric ribbon, and two rope cord elements. And that’s just the beginning of the embellishments! There’s 10 different kinds of fabric flowers, some with button centres and some with tall (and short) rope stems. I’ve included two frames with satin ribbon frame huggers, and two kinds of knitting needles: bamboo and metal. There’s two pressed metal labels and two sets of word art using knitting words. I always include a few buttons and brads, and so there’s a set of small butons with laced string in this one along with three square glass knitted brads. Since this is knit and stitch, you’ll find three sets of straight stitching in the set colours and three sets of blanket stitches, too. And there’s 8 different kinds of beaded knitting stitch markers that I had lots of fun creating. For tags, you’ll find three traditional tags with satin bows and then my favourite: three felted tags in circular, rectangular, and word bubble shape, outlined in stitching. These are so cute that I think I’ll make a mini addon pack later down the road just of tags and include a few more felted and stitched shapes. Whew! I think that includes it all! I really, really enjoyed making this set. If you’ve spent any time at my blog before you might’ve noticed that I do a lot of knitting and sewing, too. Combining my knitting and sewing love with my digital scrapbooking love just makes this the ultimate set for me! I may try to do some quick pages with the set to give away later on, just because I can’t wait to scrap a page about my latest knitting project. If you make anything with my Knit & Stitch set, I’d LOVE to see (and feature you on my blog!) so be sure to send me some mail with your creations or drop me a comment with a link to where you have your layout posted.
Due to the size of this kit, I had to break it into three pieces:
Download Knit & Stitch papers #1 HERE
Download Knit & Stitch papers #2 HERE
Download Knit & Stitch elements HERE
Don’t forget to leave me some blog comment love if you like the kit! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :) And you didn’t hear it from me (ok, yes you did) but there just may be a sweet embroidery alpha ready for you tomorrow to go with this kit! I’m not good at keeping surprises so I’ll just confirm that there IS a Knit & Stitch embroidery alpha sitting here waiting for you tomorrow, so be sure to stop by to grab it!
Psssst…. you know what would go great with this freebie set? My fabric brads mini pack freebie! Includes 20 round glass fabric patterned brads that will perfectly complement just about any scrapbooking project.
Asparagus Elements are Ready!
To keep with my “Asparagus” theme (check my two previous blog posts for the paper pack #1 and paper pack #2 freebies released already!) I made some embellishments to go with the asparagus papers! These turned out pretty well I think — I really love working with Photoshop! Take a look at the “Asparagus” Element Pack and see what you think! And if you need the paper, you can download paper pack #1 here (linen based papers) and paper pack #2 here (random designs in the asparagus colours.) Whether you pair these embellishments with the paper sets or not, they’ll complement your scrapping well in any green, brown or beige theme you’ve got going! The element pack comes with 17 fantastic embellishments for you to enjoy. And as always, in high quality 300 dpi resolution.
I hope everyone has had a great long weekend! Grab the “Asparagus” Element Pack HERE and be sure to drop me a note with what you think :) Enjoy the rest of your day!
Asparagus Paper Pack #2
As promised, here’s the second pack of “Asparagus” colour themed paper. If you missed the first pack, check out my previous blog post and grab pack #1 here. Both paper sets are 3600 x 3600 pixels in 300 dpi! And to stick with the theme and release all of the pieces fairly close together, I’ll try to get the asparagus embellishments and mats ready for tomorrow’s post, too. I’ve got posts lined up with freebies to take us well into the middle of next week, I’m so excited! Hopefully you have been (or will) see an improvement on my creation quality — I feel like Photoshop has opened several more possibility doors and that I’m getting better all the time. Enjoy today’s little freebie, and I hope to see you drop by tomorrow to pick up the asparagus embellishments :)
Download “Asparagus” paper pack #2 HERE and have a great Sunday!
Mmm… Asparagus?
I don’t really have a special love for asparagus or anything, (though we do have an inside joke about it) but the name seemed fitting to describe the colours of the paper pack freebie I have for you tonight! You know how I mentioned yesterday that I had a bunch of freebie ideas rolling around in my head? Well this wasn’t one of them, but I got suckered into trying out blends in Photoshop (yes, I said Photoshop… I have been using Paint Shop Pro faithfully all this time and kept resisting the move into Photoshop, but… alas it has suckered me in.) and somehow these papers came to be. This is paper pack #1 of the “Asparagus” colour scheme (in high quality 3600 x 3600 pixels and 300 dpi) and tomorrow I’ll throw up paper pack #2 for you :) The first pack here is all a linen texture and in the second pack I tried messing around with blends and different overlays. Not too bad for my first items in Photoshop! I’ve made a couple elements that go with all of these papers but I’m not done with them yet. Look for them sometime next week!
I have a little knitting and stitching themed kit that’s nearly done, too — done mostly in Paint Shop Pro with one or two items that used the help of some of the capabilities of Photoshop. I think I’ll be using a little of both from now on, at least until I get used to everything in PS. There are some things I can do in PSP that I haven’t quite figured out in PS so there will be a lot of switching between programs until I feel comfortable. I’m pretty excited about some things I learned today and I even started on a mini kit (resulting from some PS experiments with my favourite shades of pink!) that I’ll eventually finish for those of you out there that love pink as much as I do. So many kits on the go and so many more ideas bouncing around in my head that I want to make! There just aren’t enough hours in the day.
To snag Asparagus linen paper pack #1, click HERE. Hope you like it :) Don’t forget to read the TOU, blah blah you know the routine. Personal, non-commercial use only and all that. Enjoy! And be sure to leave me a note if you liked the paper :)
My Recent Layouts and Pages
I’ve spent so much time lately planning out my beachy layouts for our trip last weekend to Penticton that I just haven’t had time to sit down and put them together with the actual photos! I’ve also spent too much time making and not enough time using my creations or new freebies that I’ve downloaded from others, so I’ve got some fun layouts to share this post so that you can see what I’ve been doing besides taking photos and practicing my design skills.
se, the big family road trip last weekend to British Columbia had to be scrapped about! The highlight of the trip was that it was our first family road trip with our new puppy, Winston the mini schnauzer, who is 6 months old. Not only was it his first big road trip, it was also his first time at the beach and his first swim. Our 5 year old border collie, Oliver (Winston’s big brother) has been to Penticton several times and has swam in the lake on the beaches there before, but this was a first for Winston, so Oliver showed him the ropes and we took them to an off leash doggie designated section of Okanagan Lake to experience it all leash free. So in a way it was also Oliver’s first time getting to swim freely, too. I took more pictures that day than I did any of the other days combined! This first layout here (up, left) uses an overlay template for the photo with wording and elements that I created last week in honour of the upcoming trip in a mini kit that I named (surprise!) “A Day at the Beach.” You can snag that freebie mini kit HERE in case you missed it. The second (below, left) is a layout of my design using elements and papers from “On va àla plage” by Créé par Latham 
These are just a few of the pages I’ve put together recently — and of course one page isn’t nearly enough to cover all of the excitement of our trip… so for the full album of our trip check out my digital scrapbook! (The trip and most recent family stuff is in the Family Life album). I sometimes just do a page or two at a time and upload it to the appropriate album there, so it’s always changing. Like just recently our little Winston got his first ever haircut… another one of those “of course I had to scrap about it” situations. (You know what I’m talking about!) The traditional schnauzer cut on him is so adorable and I feel like he’s all grown up now with his pronounced old man beard. Be sure to check it out in the Oliver and Winston album!
Retro Teal Freebie
A new freebie, yay! While it’s obvious that pink is my favourite colour, I’m pretty passionate about certain shades of teal or sea green. It just seems like a summery colour (and even goes well with pink & brown!) — I may have to come up with a set that uses all three of these colours, but for today I have a little mini kit for you that I’ve dubbed “Retro Teal.” It comes with 6 papers and 15 elements in several various shades of yummy sea green. Just the refreshing kick you need to supplement or complement your digital scrapbooking this week.
A Day at the Beach Freebie
I am so excited — Lucas and I are packing up the boys (our dogs, Oliver & Winston) and taking a road trip to Penticton, British Columbia later this week to spend some time with friends and visit with Lucas’ family. We try to hit Penticton at least once or twice a year, and this weekend seems to be the last chance that we’ll have to make a summer trip with a new busy season starting at work soon for Lucas. Not to mention a new school year is quickly approaching and teachers go back August 28. So we’ll be spending Thursday – Monday soaking up the sun!
The last two times we’ve gone to Penticton were either in the fall or spring. It’s been 2 years since we were able to time our trip to enjoy the best part of being in Penticton: the beaches in the summer! When we went in the spring and fall of 2007 it was a bit too chilly for Lucas and I to do any real swimming, but Oliver sure enjoyed chasing the waves and experiencing the beach for the first time. He did some swimming, but we weren’t really prepared. We’ve been looking forward to going out when the weather was kind enough that the lake would be an enjoyable temperature for the whole family, and that’s our plan for this week. Even more exciting is that now it will be little Winston’s first trip to the beach. We’re hoping for some really memorable photo opportunities as he touches sand for the first time or comes in contact with his first wave. We’re sure Winston will be fearless once he sees his big brother swimming. Aren’t we a little sad? We’re getting all camera crazy and excited about our dog experiencing the beach for the first time. Can you imagine how we’ll be when we have actual kids?! Haha.
Anyway, in honour of our upcoming trip I’ve made a little mini kit freebie for you all called “A Day at the Beach” … because we’ll be spending several entire days at the beaches of Penticton this weekend! The kit includes a 3600 x 3600 pixel 300 dpi overlay “frame” for your photograph with “A Day at the Beach” written around it. Layer this onto a great beach photo and enjoy the effect of the letters cut out onto your picture! In the preview image above I used a photo of Oliver checking out the beach at Lake Skaha in Penticton in the spring of 2007, just to give you an idea of the effect you can get from the overlay when you use your own photos. Along with the giant overlay comes 4 elements: two sand-filled glass brads (square and circle), a sand button and a starfish object. I’ve included a little how to for using the overlay in case anyone has any questions. You can download the mini kit HERE, and be sure to leave me some blog comment love if you do :) Enjoy the freebie and enjoy your week! <3
scrapbook