Finally Friday

So maybe it's a lame starting title LOL But hey, I'm happy for the weekend. Not that we have a lot planned, but it's usually a time where I can get caught up on things. (Like the spare room, which I have NOTHING to report on again, sorry)

As the month comes to an end so do the Intermediate PS CS2 classes I've been taking for the last 2 months. On the up side, however, I'll be taking the advance class that promises to teach more about making elements, meaning more free goodies for you!! Andrea Gold is an amazing teacher. She's been so patient and so helpful, I would totally recommend taking her classes. I've learned PS CS2 from the ground up thanks to her. Seriously, I had never used the program before I took her class, now I'm making LO's, papers and simple elements. All in a 2 month period (and no, I'm not on any CT of hers LOL)

Oh... I have a quick correction to make. Yesterday morning when mom and I were taking Hip Hop to the vet to be neutered it was brought to my attention that he is only 9 months old and that happened on the 28th, not the 29th. So... to summarize, mom's spoiled rotten little Yorkie turned 9 months old on the 28th of November LOL. And yes, I know, I promised a picture. Here's mom and Hip Hop in his little tee shirt that says "Local Celebrity" Ain't he a cutie?
By the way, the surgery went fine and he was home by 4pm and in mom's arms in the rocking chair.

There ya have it folks Friday's episode of My Life And Scrap, completing yet another week of life in the fast lane. Have a great weekend and see ya on Monday.

Fly By Posting

I hate that, seriously!! When I write a post I like to take the time to really sit down and write a nice post, but today has to be a quicky : (

In a matter of minutes I'm leaving to pick up mom and take her and the pup to the vet, pup is getting neutered today. Incidentally, today is his 10 month birthday. What a crummy gift huh? But I did pick up a little toy for him, I thought he might like to snuggle with it after the surgery. And no, this dog isn't even a little spoiled LOL.

While cruising through my blog feeds lastnight I came across this Sweater Wreath!! I know, what the heck is a sweater wreath, right? That was what I thought LOL. So here it is...

Now how cool is that? I could totally make one of these (and for a lot less than the $65 it's being sold for) Naturally, now I'm thinking I've got to hit the 2nd hand stores and stock up on some used sweaters... bring them home, wash them, cut them up and string them up into a wreath. How hard can it be? And wouldn't these make great gifts? Hmmm... I have the rest of the day, I just might see what I can come up with LOL.

Other than all this excitement I'm trying to figure out how FeedBurner works >sigh< If anyone has a clue and can offer up some help I'd love to hear what you have to say. I really want to make my blog readily available and I'd like to use some of their neat-o tools. I guess the best thing to do is really sit down when I have some time and dig into it. Soon... yet another project.

Oh and I wanted to mention that the stack of clothes in the spare room persists. Though I have good intent to get it taken care I have yet to obtain a round too-it. Does anyone have one that I can borrow? I'm thinking that if I have a daily spare room progress report that's going to force me to make some progress so that every day I don't have to keep reporting that I've done NOTHING!!! LOL. I do have a good idea though... I want to get some magazine holders, a bunch of them. I have loads of photography magazines given to me by a dear co-worker who is an avid photographer (and used to teach photography) Currently the magazines are all sitting on a shelf of an end table in the living room... not getting read, you know, out of sight out of mind- unfortunately. The magazine holders could stack nicely on a shelf in the spare room.

Well, the time has come. I must go. I'll make sure to give you an update on Hip Hop's surgery tomorrow and maybe I'll even post a recent picture of him too.

Happy Thursday!!

First Photo Walk Wednesday

I've been thinking of doing something like this for a while now and finally decided I should just do it. I wanted to do it sooner but the camera battery died or something came up and I didn't get a chance to go walking or my simple excuse is that it's just too darn cold outside LOL. The time has finally come to get to it. Here are some photos I've taken recently that I enjoyed taking and thought turned out well.







There ya have it, a few of my favorite photos from the last month or so. I do plan to start doing a regular photo walk so I should have some more photos to post next week (and hopefully they'll all be taken between now and then LOL)

Link Love

Inspired by Monique... I thought I'd start my own. What a fun idea, thanks Monique : )

First up...
The Animal Rescue Site
This is a daily thing for me, they email me a reminder and everyday I click on the banner to give aid to an animal shelter. It's quick, it's free, it's easy. Why wouldn't you do it?

Moving on to...
HelpOthers.Org
From what I've read about this site it's a collection of heart warming stories about ways people have Paid It Forward. It gives you ideas of things you can do for others and there are the super cute "Smile Cards"

Need to take a breather and just have some good mindless fun?
Check out Zoe

While tooling about the 'net looking for some fun Buy Nothing Friday stuff I found this informative site: The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back. There's some pretty good stuff there so I added the site to my Google Reader.

Our troops give us their very lives to protect our country and freedom, let's take a moment to give them a word of thanks or encouragement at LetsSayThanks

And last but not least... Still have left over turkey? HERE are some great ideas.

This has been a fun post and I'll probably try to do it at least once a week. Thanks for reading.

Oh wait... did I promise a freebie yesterday?? Hmm... heehee : ) I think I did. I made a little AddOn to my Frozen Passion Paper Pack. Two more yummy papers coming atcha. Hope ya like them. I'm really loving this color scheme. What do you guys think? Do you love it or hate it? If ya don't like it I'll move on to another swatch LOL just lemme know. Here's the preview (which turned out kinda crummy and I'm not sure why):



Okay, now I'm off. Catch ya on the flip side : )

A Scrap Of My Life

I finally did a new LO!! I know, hard to believe LOL. It's been ages since I've scrapped anything, I've been so busy trying to learn PhotoShop and learning how to design stuff. This was a super fun LO because I used Dea's quick and easy FilmStripMania template. Click on the items below to go directly to Dea's store for purchase : ) The kits shown below are what I used for this LO.

I spent the biggest part of my weekend working on my PhotoShop classes. I've really been having a blast doing these, even though I'm always behind LOL. Be sure to check back tomorrow, there may be a goodie here from something I learned over the weekend.

Other than scrapping... I got a lot of little things done around the house. Little things that have been bugging me. Still got lots to do, but hey at least I got started. Darling Hubby and I have a plan for the spare bedroom now. We spent some time last week writing it all down, now we just have to implement it. Wait, let me re-phrase that I have to implement it (considering most of the problem spots are mine) So... step one is get that huge stack of clothes out of the corner and dropped off at a donation site. Naturally the one that was right down the street from me is no longer there. That's the way it goes.

Hubby's been really sick the last couple days : ( Both Saturday and Sunday he spent most of the days in bed. Sure hope I don't get what he's got. I can't even get him to eat anything. If you could send some positive energy his way it would be ever so appreciated.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and hope ya didn't overspend on BlackFriday. If you did, HERE is an opportunity to earn some extra money in your spare time.

Until tomorrow...

Finishing up Fridays

I've decided that Friday is a good day to finish up with my blog feeds that I read. I LOVE my Google Reader and don't know what I'd do without it, but with 109 feeds (and counting) going into it (all very active bloggers) it means I sometimes have to pick and choose which ones get read on a given day. I don't delete the unread feeds at the end of the day because some days I have more time than others and I can go back read things I didn't get to before.

Last Friday, purely by accident, I hit "mark all as read" and lost over 290 feeds that I intended to come back to. My first reaction was "NOOOOO!!!" but my second reaction was that a weight had been lifted, I didn't feel the pressure to clear out my Google Reader. Reading blogs is something that is supposed to be fun and when you feel obligated to read a post just because it was sent to you that starts taking the fun out. If I wanted to do something that wasn't fun I'd go start that "To Do List" that hubby and I have been working on for getting the apartment organized.

So business is good. While we were enjoying Thanksgiving dinner and family time our team signed up 28 people. That's 28 people that we will be able to help make money. How exciting is that? It truly is great to have such a wonderful team of people to work with.

And finally I have a GREAT deal to tell you about. Dea Spina (rockin' designer over at Digitals) is having a Black Friday sale storewide. She even has 2 new grab bags up. Now I've gotta tell you, these bags are full of goodies, you can be sure of that (and I'm not just saying that because I'm on her CT)

Okay, I'm off for the day. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and since I know you're all out spending money right now getting those great deals, I hope you're remembering the reason for the season. See you all on Monday (and maybe even a new freebie)

Buy Nothing Friday

Here is MY personal answer to Black Friday...


I'm not one for hype and for quite a few years now I've privately sort of protested Christmas. Please understand that it's not for the reasons you may think but because of what it has turned into. Please take a moment to remember the true meaning of Christmas and don't get caught up in the retail hype.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Just wanted to pop on here real quick and wish everyone a very safe and happy Thanksgiving. If you're traveling please be safe. Can't wait to read about everyones day of fun, food, family and festivities.

Something Cute

Last Friday night while working on some stuff on the computer Hubby Darling said "Look where Little Miss Princess made her bed." My life pretty much revolves around my two mutant Yorkies because I don't have kids to spoil. I peeked around the room and spotted Princess Kaycee curled up on the floor, okay let me rephrase that, curled up on a blanket and jacket on the floor.
So now I'm on a roll, taking photos and I've GOT to take one of Morpheus because he's a poser and LOVES to have his picture taken. There have been times where he's jumped into a picture just as the picture is about to be taken. I'm pretty sure he was a super model in a past life...
I pointed the camera in his direction and said "Do something cute" Here's what I got
Now you simply cannot tell me that face isn't cute!!

Since we're on the subject of cute, I thought I'd post this here. This is from Cute Overload, check it out.



Keep an eye out, I'm thinking those photos call for a new LO : ))

Sorry, not much scrapping news today. I'm ready to start learning to make elements, so there may be some freebie elements in the near future.

Thanks for reading and Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Freebie Correction

I believe I may have posted the wrong link today. I am SOooooOOOoo Sorry, it was totally a mistake. I think I posted the link to Winter Passion, which was my last freebie, rather than Frozen Passion which is the freebie pictured in the post below. HERE is the link to Frozen Passion (the red paper pack)


Forgive me?

Pay It Forward Scraps

Good morning Blogville!! It's a great day today! "Why," you may ask. I'll tell you. We're both awake, we're both breathing and we're both fortunate enough to be able to visit Blogville. I know that there is so much more to be thankful for, but that is a good starting point. I think that so often we forget to be thankful for these things that we come to expect. I try to say my words of thanks daily, remembering these seemingly "little things". I once heard some one tell of a great example for saying thanks. She said that on her way to work she would say a little prayer of thanks for each little bump on the back of her steering wheel (you know, those little gripper groove things). What a perfect way to count our blessings.

• In scrapping news

The last few days I've been trying to come up with a catchy name to put my designs under and nothing was really grabbing me. Darling Hubby and I were talking about how we're affected by negative energy and how we've allowed that to creep into our daily lives. We have no reoom in our lives for negativity and we talked about some of the ways we could get rid of it. Then later that day it came to me.

My designs will be called "Pay It Forward Scraps". It fits so perfectly. It fits with my Spiritual beliefs, my business beliefs and my moral beliefs. This is the way I was raised and some how I've come away from this. But today I get to return to what has always been a part of me. Once I start selling my designs, Pay It Forward Scraps will donate a portion of all proceeds to a charity of the quarter. I will pick a charity (or maybe put up a poll and let you vote on one of your choice) and for 3 months a portion of the proceeds from my scrapping will go to that charity. I am so excited about this concept I can hardly contain myself. Giving feels so good!

With all that said... here's the link to my new freebie paper pack "Frozen Passion" I hope you enjoy it as much as you did the "Winter Passion" paper pack.

Exciting

Last Saturday I could barely drag myself away from my computer. I was so excited!! Friday evening I put up the link to my first ever freebie, half expecting to only get a handful of hits on it but it was actually quite the opposite. I couldn't stop checking my stats on 4shared! Every time I looked a few more people had downloaded my freebie. It's so nice to know that people like my stuff.

For several years now I've wanted to be a designer but never had the time to get into it. I was told that I should learn PhotoShop first because it's a much more powerful tool for designing. I was on way too many CT's and creating LO's with PSP and working 40+ hours. Where was I going to find the time to learn PS, and THEN learn to design also? Well, to make a long story short I ended up leaving those CT's that have been so dear to me and started learning PS. If you're looking to learn PS or PSP HERE is a great place to do it. It's totally worth the $30! New classes starting in December : )) Now I have time to take the classes and learn to do the things I've always wanted.

Since I was already at my computer all day Saturday I decided to work on a new PaperPack. This one is primarily reds but it's still got the snowflakes going on. What can I say? I'm looking forward to the snow
Before I go I thought I would mention our business again. It's growing by leaps and bounds. It's so good to see how many people we're able to help make money from home. In the near future I think I'll do a post with more information about our business, what we do and why it plays such a big role in my life.

Until tomorrow, happy blooging, happy scrapping and happy living.

It's Here...

My Winter Passion Paper Pack has arrived!! I'm SOOO excited to offer this up for grabs, my very first freebie YAY!! I really hope that you all will give me some good honest feedback, that is what I need right now in the beginning stages of my designing.

Before I give you the link I MUST tell you about the exciting news I got this morning. If you ever read my previous blog you know that hubby and I have our own home based business. He's the one who does all the work on it, truth be told. Anyway, he's been looking for 3 people to bring into the business with him, people who want to get out of the rat race and make a good living without having to give up all of their free time to "The Man". The good news is that he's finally found the first person. It's been an interesting search, finding the right first person, but he finally did. This morning he woke me for work and said that when I was awake and the cob webs were cleared from my head he had some news to share with me!! I was so excited! w00t!!

So back to the world of scrapping... I found THIS awesome blog today. If you love freebies, you'll love this one for sure. I gotta tell ya, this thing is jammed packed....

And finally, HERE it is. The link to my Winter Passion Paper Pack. Thank you for reading my blog, hope you have a good weekend and enjoy the goodie.

Back Again

I deleted my blog! The one I'd been working on for over a year. It was kind of an impulsive thing, but I don't regret it, after all, it wasn't really going anywhere. This one will be different. I'm ready to commit to blogging. In fact, I just told my darling hubby that I'm going to spend 15 minutes a night on my blog. It will be a Monday-Friday thing for me (after all, I've got to spend some time away from the computer LOL)

This will be a place I can come to talk about my life, my scrap, my business... whatever comes up. I've been learning to do Scrapping Designs and I'm pretty excited. I'm only working on papers right now. They're pretty easy so I figure that's a good place to start. Here's what I'm working on right now...


What do you think? I'm hoping to get it all zipped up and uploaded tomorrow. If you like it or think that something different would look better let me know.

Hope you have a good night and see you tomorrow.