Little Miss Princess (revisited)

I had hoped to have another tutorial for you today, but I had another of those "scary" incidents after lunch where I just couldn't stay awake. I'd been having light lunches, and that had seemed to help, but yesterday I just collapsed again.

I good to see the doctor next week, so I'm going to have him run a couple of tests. So today you get more Little Miss Princesses, as I haven't yet posted all the tags I did last weekend on this theme. Remember, tomorrow will be the last day you can get these kits as freebies, so get over to Exquisite Scraps today!



These first three tags all use the Creative Intentionz' Little Miss Princess taggers kit. One again I used the Sweet as Sugar poser from Bits'N'Bobs. Julie released a white version of this poser yesterday as a "Summer Bride" making it more and more likely that I will do a June Bride taggers kit sometime in the foreseeable future.

The alpha is again the Scripted Jewels alpha by Bizee 1 Digi-Arts.



I'm very pleased with the way this tag turned out. The word art is from Ginger's House, a bit she'd released around Christmas, but it worked here as well. The gold key is from a Voodoo Scraps elements pack. There is a smaller kit, on top of the box, but I wanted something a bit more visible.

Yes, Princesses need their jewels, don't they?



This tag uses one of the "dolls" that came with the kit. The background mask is by Wee Scots Lass.



Until recently - like yesterday when Jill released a full sized version of her Little Miss Princess kit - Oopsie Daisy had the only full sized kit available. I have re-sized the kit for tagging use, but even after running the script, some of these elements are huge!

I LOVE her frames, she did a fabulous job on all of them. This is a very whimsical kit, perfect for scrapping your own little princess. I was really pleased with the tagging results as well.

I realize that Oopsie Daisy is primarily a scrapper's designer, but it would nice if she made taggers sized versions of her kits as well, as she does some great work.



The star trails in this are from the Sparkles and Trails Set 2 by Chili Designz. I really wanted like a fairy dust trail for the wand, but couldn't find one I liked and settled for the effect instead.

This tag also finished off the last of the Sweet as Sugar posers, leaving me to find something else to use for the remainder of the kits.



This is one of the dolls that came in the kit, for use as an embellishment. I'm not sure what's with the short little arms. It also appears that her castle is more in need of a gardener than a prince....perhaps a prince who likes to garden?

The Red Glitter Alpha is by Bits'N'Bobs and was originally done for Christmas as well, but is versatile enough to use most of the year through.

Tina's Magical Scrap put out a Full Sized Paper Pack using the Little Miss Princess color scheme. The papers are for personal use/S4H only, but are great for little girl layouts or to supplement any of these kits. Since I doubt I'm going to use any of them in tags just now, I wanted to mention that it was available and that it is free (for a limited time only).

Kitchen Cuisine

I cooked this weekend, with substantially better results than Ginger, LOL. I made spaghetti, which I'd not made in while. It's delic!

Joan asked if my oven had gotten repaired yet and I replied that it had not, which is why I made spaghetti instead of say - Oh, calzones. She agreed it was a wise decision.

My sister shares Ginger's talent in the kitchen however. The standing joke is that her first marriage ended in a divorce after she tried to poison her first husband, once too many times, with dinner.

Her current partner however, loves to cook, even after a hard days work. He says it relaxes him, so at least she's not responsible for putting food on the table this time around.

When she was 12 or there about, she decided to cook herself a hamburger for lunch. This is one of the stories of our child hood, but one of the reasons I did all the cooking as a kid, and she didn't.

She managed to set a grease fire off in the frying pan. So she grabbed a cup of water from the sink and threw it in the pan, which only served to spread the fire. (Always throw flour on a grease fire.) By this time the flames were licking at the curtains on the window which were next to the stove, so she grabbed frying pan and tried to carry it to the sink.

But the flames started flying back at her (from the forward motion of the pan) at which point she freaked out and threw the frying pan - grease fire and all. Happily, it landed upside down and burned only a hole in the rug before it smothered out. Otherwise...well...I could just imagine the whole apartment building going up!

(See if you can top that one, Ging!)

I had not planned on making a Mother's Day kit, but Rowena kind of wanted one and well...I had some Mama Bear clip art. As cooking seemed to be a theme this weekend, I went ahead and made it a cooking kit.



I did these tags this morning before I'd gotten any caffeine in my system and, as I'm not done with the kit, are only a small preview of what I'm working on.

This uses some of the Mama Bear clip art, was well as one of the decorated frames. I'm including four decorated frames, plus an assortment of frames you and decorate for yourself, with the ribbons, wraps and flowers and to do so.



It also works pretty well as a general cooking kit. I have two of the "Lil Chef" posers from Outlaw by Design, that I'm going to include in the kit. The alphas in both tags are from Bits'N'Bobs. They are blog freebies and are NOT included in the kit and are only used for display purposes.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I need help coming up with the name for the kit! The current candidates are:

Mom's Magic (or Mama's Magic)
Granny's Goodies
Yummy Mummy
Mmmm Mmmm Mom (kind of a take off on the old Campbell's Soup commercials)

Of course, if you have a suggestion of your own, please feel free offer it. Otherwise, leave a comment and let me know what your vote would be!

You can look for my cooking kit to be released next week - just in time for Mother's Day!

Remember that this Friday, the freebie is part of the May Goodie Train, and I'm sure ya'll will love it!

Chocolicious Freebie!

Do you love Chocolate? Gotta have it? Can't live without it?

Are you a - gasp! - Choco-holic?

Well join the club!

Mz. Ginger over at Ginger's House inspired this little bit of Chocolate Heaven with some of her word art, so the kit is dedicated to her, but I'm sure that any chocolate lover out there is sure to appreciate it.

While it features the clip art of Whimsy Primsy, it's a lot more than just another clip art kit.

Inside you will find Chocolate Bars, Chocolate Shakes, Chocolate Lollies, Chocolate Sundaes, Chocolate Ice Cream...even the holy grail for Chocolate Lovers...the Chocolate Martini.

Here are a look at the papers - there are 25:



You can click the images to bigify them, BTW.



Element wise there are 125 elements including 12 frames, two of which are cluster frames. I used one to do this tag for Ginger:



There are of course the standard ribbons, flowers, balloons and butterflies, plus some surprisingly edible elements. So take a Chocolate Break, sit back and enjoy creating with the one thing that makes life bearable....

CHOCOLATE!

Click the kit preview to download via Mediafire (15.8 MB):


Click HERE to enlarge the Element Preview

This kit is my own creation made with the help of templates and overlays from a number of talented designers. Any resemblance to any other kit, living, dead or undead is purely coincidental.

As always this kit is for personal use and by downloading it you agree to my TOU which state in part that you may not redistribute, rebroadcast, resale, or claim my graphics as your own whether you have altered them or not. If you want to share this kit with someone, please point them to my blog where they can download their own copy.

Also if you download, please leave some love - or at least a thank you!

And may the Chocolate be with you - Always!

Krissy's Little Miss Princess

Krissy put her Little Miss Princess kit out a little later - Sunday - than everyone else, so I actually did these tags last night/this morning. It only made sense to use her Chibis on her tags.

It's an adorable kit and it comes with two of Krissy's dolls, specially themed to match the kit.



This is one of her Lil Blond posers. The sticker alpha was a blog freebie from Bit'N'Bobs.



Was it Thumbilina who had a coach pulled by birds? Or am I thinking of a different fairy tail? This is one of Krissy's Lil Auburn posers. I worked on the dolls into this piece as well. Since I was using the posers, I didn't really have much use for them. I might do a couple of tags using just the dolls though.



Castles in the clouds? Perhaps the telling of fairy tales is a great way to spend a rainy afternoon? This is one of the Krissy's Lil Brunette posers.



Krissy had done kits to go with her Pink and Blue Bubbalicious posers, and I never had the chance to work with them. I should probably rememdy that soon. I need to get the names of Dolores Grandkids and do some tags for them. She'll get a kick out of it.

The birds are a bit of on ongoing theme, as she worked them into the buttons.

I thought that might be the carriage template from Oopsie Daisy but on second thought...

I really need to get one of the carriage templates though, if not Kristy's then Oopsie Daisy's. Then I can combine it with the wild animal templates and do a princess themed kit where the carriage is drawn by lions or zebras. That would be cool! LOL!

On a side note, QueenBrat had been with Exquisite and then left prior to the release of the Groovylicious scrap. She put out a Groovylicious kit on her own, But when I was looking through her catalog this weekend, I noticed she'd put out a Lil Miss Princess kit using pretty much the same color scheme as Exquisite kits. Now I'm wondering how far in advance they plan these kits, since she's been gone from the store for a while.

Come Out and Play (Tutorial)

This tutorial was written by Dianna Richards of Digicats (and Dogs). Any resemblance to any other tutorial, published or unpublished, living, dead or undead, is purely coincidental.

Please do not rebroadcast, redistribute or otherwise claim this tutorial or any part there of as your own work.

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Items you will need to complete this project:

Little Miss Princess taggers kit by Chili Designz. You can find this kit at Exquisite Scraps Shop.

Tube of your choice. I am using Joseph Corsentino's Play with Me tube, PSP11078, which is a free to use tube available at MyPSPTubes.com. Note that you MUST have a license to use this tube, which can be obtained at MyPSPTubes.com.

Optional Alpha of your choice. I am using the Guinevere Alpha by Sarah Grimwood.

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Note that H# and V# refer to Horizontal and vertical coordinates on your canvas grid. Make sure you have View, Rulers checked in order to see the ruler grid.

When I say "Add to your canvas" I expect that you will copy and paste it as a new layer, unless otherwise state in the tutorial.

This tutorial assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP. It was written using PSP X1, but should work in most other versions of PSP.

To begin, open a new canvas, 800 x 800 pxls, floodfill white.

Open Chili Designz, Little Miss Princess Paper 9 and add to canvas.

Open Frame element and add to canvas, centered at H400, V350.

Open the ivy element. Resize 89%, Copy and paste as a new layer, centered at H400, V560.

Activating the frame layer on you layer pallet, open the plant element and then copy and paste as a new layer to your canvas, centered at H660, V350. This will effective place it behind the ivy element.

Resize canvas 80%.

Open Joe Corsentino's Play with Me tube (psp11078). This is a free to use tube, but you must have a license to use it.

Select the Tube Transparent layer and copy and paste as a new layer to your canvas, centered at H320, V290.

Returning to the Chili Designz kit, open the flower element, resize 80% and add to your canvas, centered at H170, V300. Rotate slightly so that the stems of the flower line up with side of the frame.

On your layer pallet, activate the top layer (it should be Raster 3, the layer with the Ivy on it). Open the butterfly element and mirror. Copy and paste to your canvas as a new layer, centered at H120, V470.

If desired, open the tag element, Rotate Right, and using a font of your choice, enter your tagged by information. Select Layers, Merge, Merge visible.

Add to your canvas, centered at H400, V470. Now, drag the layer below the Ivy layer. The tag info should show up just to the right of the butterfly and the string should blend in with the Ivy leaves.

Open the Sparkles element and add to your canvas. Don't resize. Center at H320, V320. This should put one of the lights right at the tip of the Fae's fingers. If it doesn't adjust until it does.

Using a font of your choice and add the licensing information to the tag, directly under the Ivy line:

(c) Joseph Corsentino www.timeofthefairies.com
License #

My info is centered at H370, V560. Make sure you add your MPT license number!

You can now save the artist's copy as a .pspimage file, but you're not done yet.

With the butterfly layer (raster 7) selected, using a font of your choice or an alpha of your choice, add your name to the tag. I am using the Guinevere Alpha by Sarah Grimwood which is a full sized alpha at I resized by 35% and assembled as a name plate in an outside canvas. I then merged it down to one file and added the name, whole to my tag. I also usually save the finished name plate to the directory with the alpha in it, so that I will have it to use again.

Once you've added the name, you will want to select Layers, Merge, Merge Visible.

Select Effect, Illumination effects, Sunburst. Use the drop down box on settings and to select Rays Upper Left.

The rest of the factory defaults should work. see the screen shot below for details.



You're now finished! Yeah! Save the completed file as a .jpg. You might wish to resize it by 85% for use on forums and the like.

Gothic Twilight (Tutorial)

This tutorial was written by Dianna Richards of Digicats (and Dogs). Any resemblance to any other tutorial, published or unpublished, living, dead or undead, is purely coincidental.

Please do not rebroadcast, redistribute or otherwise claim this tutorial or any part there of as your own work.

---

Items you will need to complete this project:

Heartbeatz Creationz Hide & Seek Twilight kit, which is available at the Heartbeatz Creationz Store, as well as other fine online boutiques.

Gothic tube of your choice. I am using Brandy Everette's Victorian Gothic. You need a license to use this tube, which may be purchased at MyPSP.com.

Wee Scot's Lass Mask # 222 which is available for download Here.

Moon #2 and the Fog Overlay from Dynamis Immortal's "Something Wicked" Taggers kit, which is available for download HERE.

The fonts referenced in this tutorial are available for download HERE.

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This tutorial assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP. It was written using PSP x1, but should work in most versions of PSP.

To begin, open a canvas, 800 x 800 pxls, floodfill white.

Open Hide & Seek Twilight Paper #20 and add to canvas.

Select layers, load/save mask, load mask from disk and select Wee Scot's Lass mask #222 and load.

Select Layers, Merge, Merge Group.

Resize your canvas by 80% (640 pxls x 640 pxls).

Open PSP12058 Victorian Gothic and select the tube layer, copy and paste as a new image. Mirror the image, then copy and paste it to your canvas to the left the torn heart.

You can then dismiss the new image. You can also close PSP12058.

Open a new canvas, 600 x 600 pxl, flood fill black.

This time around, open Twilight Paper #13 and add to the canvas. Don't worry that it overruns the edges, it won't matter.

Select Moon02 from the Image Reflections kit and add to the new canvas.

Open the fog overlay from the Image Reflections kit, resize by 50% and add to the new canvas, directly over the moon.

Select, Layers, Merge, Merge visible.

Take your selection tool, preset, rectangle, replace, feather 2 and make sure the Anti-alias box is checked. Select the 300 x square fogged area.

Edit, Copy. You can then dismiss the window we were working in (you do not have to save the changes) and return to the main canvas.

Using the pick tool, click inside the heart cut out, which will, in effect, active the white under layer. Edit and Paste as a new layer the image of the fogged moon from your clipboard onto your canvas, then relocate it so that it shows through the heart cut out.

There will be a wee bit of overhang off to the right of the image. Take your little eraser tool and erase it.

On your layer palate, activate the top layer of the canvas again (the layer with the tube on it).

Returning to the twilight kit, select element #4 and copy & paste to your canvas, centered at 200 Horizontal, 430 Vertical on the canvas grid.

Open element #30, rotate right, and resize, 50%. Copy and paste to your canvas as new layer. Rotate the rose until it is more or less horizontal, then center at H200, V560 on the canvas grid.

Activate the tube layer, and using your eraser tool, erase the part of the tube that hangs below the rose's stem, which is a small part of the girl's thigh.

on the layer palate, activate the top layer again (the rose layer). Open element #19. Copy and paste to your canvas, centered at H500, V320, on the canvas grid.

Using your pick tool, rotate the image until the rose curls around the outside the torn heart area. You will probably need to scoot it over to the right about 20 pxls to get the correct effect.

Take your eraser tool and erase the rose stem below the rusty lock in the element. (I love that rusty lock, by the way Jay, that's just Brill!)

Open element #18, resize by 80% and add to your canvas, centered at H100 & V300.

Open element #9, resize by 50% and add to the canvas, centered at H80, V550.

Open element #8. Using a suitable Gothic type font, add your copyright into to the tag.
I am using Corps-Script, 12 points. Since I think Brandy's work is the bomb, use a nice legible shade of gray for the typing. I'm suing RBG 128 for the stroke and RBG 192 for the fill.

Once you've got everything written and all lined up and looking spiffy, merge visible, then resize by 50%.

Activating the masked layer on your layer pallet, add element #8 with the copyright info, centered at H 410, v 110. Rotate about 20% so that the copyright info is clear of any of the other elements surrounding it and is legible.

Select your tube layer and add a drop shadow to taste. I am using Offset V5, H6, Opacity 44, Blur 10, Color Black.

Save your artist's copy as a .psp file.

Using a suitable Gothy type font (I am using Cup and Talon) add the desired name to the tag. You may choose whatever locate you wish. I am centering at H450, V550. Colors are up to you, I amusing a dark red glitter for the stroke and black glitter for the fill. (Note that the font size will likely depend on the size of the name you need to add, so I'll leave that decision to you.)

On the Layers pallet, select the white under layer and delete.

Select Layers, Merge, Merge Visible, and the save the file as a .png file.

Since you previously saved the artist's copy, you can then reopen that copy and change the name, repeating the last three steps, to suite your fancy as many times as you want or for as many time as the siggy piggies bug you for.

You may wish to resize the finished tag by 85% for use on message forums and the like.

More Little Miss Princesses

The first three tags in this series use the scraps of Chili Designz, which are usually a nice mix of whimsical and real. Such is the case here.

I used the "Koshini Fae" poser from Calypso Designs. I bought her at Heavenly Taggerz, which is closing down, so you'll need to check Calypso's website for other stores she's selling at. I know that - so far - this poser is not in her personal store so...



I do like the Fae, she adds an element of magic to these tags. The sparkly overlay comes with the kit, there are two included. Chili as includes a Sadie morph poser in the kit, but we've done Sadie to death!



I really liked the way this one turned out. I was fairly simple to do, but it has a certain elegance about it. :)



Again, the bird and the cage are very whimsical, while the rest of the elements are very realistic looking.

I love Chili's designer stashes too. Some great elements in them if you're looking to add a touch of reality to your kits.

Moving on...the next three tags use the scraps of Just A Girl's Designs. I waited to do "my" tag until I got to this kit because I wanted a unicorn. And I got to put my favorite toad in the tag too!



Again the poser is "Sweet as Sugar" and she's from Bits'N'Bobs. I'd played with the idea of using Chibi posers for these tags, but I think this worked out a tad bit better for me. I'm not really in a Chibi mood.

As per the previous post, the Scripted Jeweled Alpha is from Bizee 1 Digi-Arts. The carriage template is from Kristy's scraps I guess - or so Julie says - I have a bunch of Kristy's "princess" templates, but I somehow missed that one. I'll have to go pick it up.



Crafty-Cupboard.com, a message forum, is hosting a contest for Little Miss Princess tags or pages using the kits from Exquisite Scraps. Right now there are five taggers kits and one full sized mini-kit to choose from and remember, they are all free through the end of the week.

I dislike entering these contests because I don't use animation, and it always seems like one of the animated tags wins, so...I feel like I can't really compete.

Check Julie's blog for details on the contest. If you decided to join the forum, please mention that "Digicats" referred you. Thanks!



This uses one of three princesses that are included in the kit. The sticker alpha is from Bits'N'Bobs and was a blog freebie.

Evidently Danielle came home from school and told Rowena she wanted "colors" on her nails. One of the girls at school has her nails painted. Rowena nearly had a cat because she feels four is too young to be wearing nail polish.

I told her - rather than throwing a hissy fit, which she's prone to do - to tell Danielle that she'll be happy to paint her nails, but, she has to sit perfectly still while it's being done and the has to sit and do nothing for FIFTEEN MINUTES afterwards while the paint dries. And it will be like a FIFTEEN MINUTE time out because she won't be able to do anything until the paint dries.

That should stop her dead in her tracks. I don't know any four year old that can hold still for that long.

Never mind about fast drying nail polish. She's four - she won't know her cosmetics yet. :)

I'm evil, I know.

Anyway, I've procrastinated enough. I have to go grocery shopping and I need to give my back a break from sitting at the computer. I'll be back a little later with more tags in this week's synchro scrap.

Little Miss Princess

Julie, of Bits'N'Bobs, had mentioned she was interested in what I'd make of this week's theme from Exquisite Scraps. I already knew ahead of time it was "Little Miss Princess", and perhaps that is not surprising, as the previous theme was more boy targeted.

Time to do the girls.

Miss Danielle got me up to speed on my Princess tagging back in December, and I've not done a rash of princess tags since, so I guess it was about time. (Other themes for this weekend's tagging session are "Glam Rock" and "Twilight", BTW.)

For Julie's tags, I chose to use her "Sweet as Sugar" poser which I'd sort of forgotten about until I saw her in the Mixed Poser pack BNB released earlier this week. The "Little Miss Princess" kit is free for this week only, so click on over to Exquisite Scraps and grab it while the grabbing is good.



I was trying for a traditional sort of symbolic look for this tag, and I think it worked out pretty well. The Scripted Jewels alpha that I used for the name plate is by Bizee 1 Digi-Arts, and is one of my favorite. I have that crown template and had meant to use it for my "Toad U So" taggers kit which will be released as part of the May Goodie Train next Friday, but somehow, it never made it into the kit.

I love the carriages. There are three included in the kit.



The Diva word art was part of a Girlz Word Art freebie by Kiden Studios. I sort of like the grungy paper, much better than the flowered paper in the first tag. But then, I'm sort of a grungy person.



One must have the proper attitude to be a princess, as exemplified in this tag. The word art is from my buddy Ginger over at Ginger's House.

I like the ribbon and key element, but was having hard time working it into the designs I was doing. Perhaps another time. ::sigh::

There are 5 taggers sized kits and one full sized mini-kit was part of the Freebies at Exquisite as of this writing. Norma, from Swheat Creations, also released a very similar "Fairy Tales" taggers kit which is not part of the give away, but which I will try to cover as part of our weekend tagging session as well.

Anyway, it's 4 AM so I'm off to bed now. Tag at you later!

Cinco de Mayo Freebie!

On May 5, 1862, 4,000 Mexican troops using machetes, cattle and one really good Calvary unit held off a combined French-Mex force of 8,000 just outside of Mexico City. The smashing of the French troops stopped them from supplying the American Rebel forces and led to the end of the American Civil war 18 months later at Gettysburg.

It's a historical event, not just for Mexicans, but for Americans as well. And - you know me - any excuse for party is a good one!

With that in mind I've put together a festive, fun, little taggers size kit for you all to play with. It's filled with Southwestern, and Mexican elements and is a great way to have a little fun while tipping our hats to this bit of history.

Yes, I slept through American History in the 9th grade. But no, all history doesn't have to be that boring.

Included in the kit are 24 papers and 101 elements. You are getting 12 frames, 8 bows, 8 flowers, 6 stickers, 4 charms, 4 doodles, 4 dragonflies, 4 flairs, 4 knotted ribbons, 4 ribbons, 4 ribbon wraps, 4 roses, 4 strings, 4 string wraps, 4 tags, 3 cute flowers, 3 fireworks, 2 birdilicious, 2 chili peppers, 2 guitars, 2 maracas, 2 sombrero, 1 cactus, 1 cerveza, 1 chihuahua, 1 Cinco de May mari, 1 margarita, 1 salsa lady, and 1 sun.

300 DPI. Personal use only.

Please remember that by downloading this kit you agree to my terms of use which state, in part that that that you cannot redistribute, rebroadcast, resale, or claim my graphics as your own. That means placing this kit on 4Shared, RapidShare or any other file sharing site for any reason is a strict NO-NO! That constitutes redistribution.

If you know someone who is interested in this kit , please direct them to my blog where they can download their own copy. Free to use is NOT the same thing as free to share. My graphics are copyright protected.

Plus I already pay for premium download service so you don't have to wait for your freebies, and the links stay here FOREVER, so you don't have to put this kit anywhere else to share it, just link to this post.

To download from MediaFire, click HERE.
The password is "Gracias" - no quotes.

Remember that you can keep up with all the latest Digicats news and freebies just by liking us on Facebook, or following us on Twitter!

Sicko

I'm recovering and seems like everyone else is getting sick. I initially thought I'd have no use for either Southern Scrapz "Got the Sniffles" taggers kit or Lacy Clagg's Dr. Jaimi posers, but I was wrong on both accounts.

Joan brought the case of the sniffles which I likely got into the office. She's always in my office bugging me, so it should be no surprise that I caught it.



I'd done this tag and sent it too her with a note that if she didn't get well soon, Dr. Jaimi was going to stick that needle into her scrawny old behind. She's still coughing and didn't listen.



These next two I did while I was off last weekend in between sleep periods. My waking periods lasted from 20 minutes to an hour so in both cases, the tags were spread out over several sleeps as it takes my computer a phenomenally long time to save things sometimes.

Nasty as Nyquil is, I'd prefer it and a bowl of chicken soup over Dr. Jaimi's alternative.



And my teddy bear. Actually, I don't have a teddy bear, I have a stuffed tiger, named Teary, after another Terry I know, who's a paramedic. He always makes me feel better (the tiger, that is).

Julie tagged me for the 8 things me-me so here we go:

8 things I am looking forward to

1. Going back to sleep.
2. Getting my new car so I can
3. Go and watch baseball!
4. Vacation!
5. Seeing Tyler & Alex again (and yes Joe, you too.)
6. Going to the beach.
7. The start of GCL season.
8. Did I mention going back to sleep?


8 things I did yesterday

1. Made Italian Vegetable Soup. (Now you know what's for dinner for the rest of the week.)
2. Worked on the Chocolicious Kit.
3. Sent the preview for Toad U So off to the Goodie Blog Train. (Yup, it's back from the dead. Go vote on the new color scheme. Please pick "Sailboats" because I'm pinked out already.)
4. Found the Miss Diamond's feather wand that's been missing for 3 years.
5. Dreamed of Eli. Wished he'd come back from Wisconsin.
6. Read (Scottish Brides Anthology)
7. Finished George and Amy's tax return. Got them a nice fat refund.
8. Washed dishes (goes with thing #1)

8 things I wish I could do

1. Hire a maid.
2. Find a cure for arthritis.
3. Get good enough at designing to sell my kits in a store.
4. Go back to sleep.
5. Go on Safari.
6. Go back up to Canada again. I haven't been to Toronto in a while.
7. Go visit Eli in Wisconsin.
8. Did I mention go back to sleep?

8 shows I watch
I don't watch TV except for the odd sporting event here and there.
I'm a reader.

8 people I'm tagging

Ginger (Hey, that was a stretch, right?)
Jessica
Gail (She can tell us about her holiday)
Toni
Jay
Evie
Patty
Snowy

Dawn of the Dead

I am back among the land of the living! Well...almost, pretty much. I slept from 6:45 last night until 6 am this morning except for an hour around 1 am when I got up to take my meds. I'm still congested and I'm still coughing, but no where feeling near as bad as I did.

I had done these tags back in the beginning of March. Gail had put out a Wanda Witch poser pack, which kind of confused me, seeing as it wasn't Halloween. However, they don't celibate all hallows eve in Aus the way we do in America, so I guess it's permissible for them to have witches when ever they want. (A notion I approve of, BTW.) Wanda witch is available at the Aussie Scrap Store.

The Scraps for all three tags came from the World Kidney Day Charity Collab kit, which is available at Heartbeatz Creationz.



The lamp post in this tag is from Soxsational Scraps. The glitter overlays on all three tags are from Chili Designs.

The Spider in the background is from a mask by Wee Scots Lass.



This time the lightpost, the black roses and the cloth doll are all from Soxsational Scraps. And of course, more magical lights on the overlay from Chili Design.



All the scraps are from the World Kidney Day Charity Collab except for Tristan and the overlay. Rowena wants to know why Tristan always looks like he's smiling in his pictures, to which I replied that he's a happy fellow.

Anyway, just a little something. I haven't tagged much while I've been sick, so this gives me the opportunity to catch up on some of the older stuff I didn't get around to posting.

I did finish off both the "Cindo de Mayo" kit and the "Toad U So" kit, have them all packed and ready to launch. Cinco de Mayo will be available on Friday, April 24th, and Toad U so on Friday, May 1. I've now started work on a Chocoholic kit for Miss Ginger. LOL!

Opposites Attract

For those of you who don't know, both Diane at Candy's Treats and Cora at Pimp Your Tags suffered computer crashes and lost most of their stuff.

Cora runs the Goodie Train and I'm sure that's the least of her problems right now. I'm going ahead with my freebie and will post it on the May 1st unless I hear something to the contrary.

Diane's last kit prior to her crash was Opposites Attract, a very colorful little affair that worked quite well with the Neonie poser from Perfect Posers. I like Diane's kits anyway, they're kind of like comfort food to me.



I don't think this is quite purple and blue - she calls the blue "Green" but it looks more bluey to me than greenie.

I like both the dragonfly charm and the stick pin ribbon. Great stuff on both counts.



I like the swirls too. This is the second kit she's used them in, I'd love to know how she makes them. Can't be that hard, can it?



We have nice polished stones in this tag instead of flowers. All these tags turned out nice, I'm pleased with the lot of them.



Good stuff.

Stargazer Scraps is putting together a collab kit to help raise money for the pair. Cory seems more on her way to bouncing back than Diane does.

As for me, I'm still trying to bounce back from my cold. There's just not enough hours in the day for me to sleep 24/7 and still go to work too! :(

Lots of snuffling yet, but hopefully, I'll pull through.

Veinte de Abril

I have done very little besides sleep for the last four days and if you ask me, I should be back in bed still. But I figured I'd go in and see how it went for half a day. If I can't make it, I'll go home at lunch time and put myself back in bed.

I did get the Cinco de Mayo kit finished - there's 24 papers and up around 100 elements. I just need to do the previews, and pack it up. Look for it to be released this Friday.

Here are a few tags I made with it...



The Avacado poser is not part of the kit. I toyed with the idea of including her, but Charly's TOUs are a bit ambiguous and given all the up cry over TOU violations of late, I decided not to chance it. The fire works were a bit of an after thought, but I think they fit in well, so...



Mardi Maracas and Salsa Lady do come with the kit however. The alpha does not, but you can download it from Free Digital Scrapbooking if you want it.



I pulled some of the elements I'd done earlier and re-did them, the flowers being one of them.



I'm semi-pleased with the kit. It's probably better than I think it is, but then, I'm my worst critic. Plus I'm just not "up" for anything right now. Anyway, should be fun if you're up for a bit of a party, Mexican style.

Cinco de Mayo, BTW, is not "Mexican Independence Day" as some people seem to think it is. Cindo de Mayo commemorates the battle of the morning of May 5th, 1862, when 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City.

The battle was important because the French were not afraid of anything at the time, most especially the United States, which was currently fighting its Cival War. Had the French advance not been stopped, they probably would have swept into America, claiming much of the Mexican Peninsula and the western United States as French Territory.

Additionally, Napoleon III had planed to use the egress into the states to supply the confederate rebels, but with the French line held, the Confederate army was smashed at Gettysberg, just 14 months after the battle of Puebla, ending the civil war.

Visit Viva Cinco de Mayo for the full version of the history of Cinco De Mayo. That should keep you busy until Friday when I get the kit released. LOL!

Julie at Bits'N'Bobs tagged me for the 8-things me-me. I promise to do it as soon as I have a bit more life in me. ::Yawn!::

Rude Attitude

I've been playing with a head cold...it started with a tickle in my throat on Monday and by Wednesday had developed into an upper respiratory infection. I took Thursday and Friday off - a luxury I can't enjoy until after April 15th, but had to work on Wednesday despite a massive head ache.

All I've wanted to do is sleep...so much for getting in extra PSP time. After finishing off the fishing kit I'm back to working on the Cinco De Mayo kit again. I need to get that done, then I'll see about some of these other ideas I have.

In the meantime, these tags were all done using the "Rude Attitude" taggers kit from Creationz by Jo.

"High Hat" is from Perfect Posers. She reminds me of the so called "Beautiful People" who decorate the clubs on Miami Beach - the ones that are out every night because they are there to be seen. They're part of the attraction.





The whole kit ends up being very "clubby" if you ask me. I was little unhappy though with some of the image sizes. Jo's stuff is usually big since she's scripting down from full size, but in same cases we got little tiny - 200 pxls or less - elements that I felt should be larger like...



The candles, and the iris flowers, and then we got big huge over 1000 pxl elements like the ribbons and the guitar. Very weird.



I do like the color scheme though. Purple and yellow certainly works with the "rude attitude" the kit gives off. I also like the flutters, although they are rather dark and a bit hard to see in the tags.



Jo does some interesting new things with Angie's old Poisoned Princess elements. It's nice to see that they're not all dead and gone.

Anyway, it was a nice way to amuse myself in between sleep sessions. Now I must really go up to the store, as I'm out of cold meds, juice and several other things and no one is going to cater to me, just because I have a little head cold. ::Sigh::

Something Fishy - Taggers sized Freebie!

By the tingling on my tongue, something fishy this way comes...

Tax season is over hooray! hooray!!! and now it's time to go Fishin'!

Next to baseball, fishing is the national past time - at least in Florida. Nearly everyone fishes, has fished, or will fish sometime in their life. If deep sea fishing is not for you, there are plenty of lakes, ponds and brackish water canals teeming with wildlife, including an occasional gator.

This was a actually a very quick kit for me to make, but it turned out rather well - at least I think so - and I really enjoyed putting it together. I hope that you will enjoy playing with it as well.

I used the colors of the Florida Marlins baseball team on it, so it will work for "Fish" pictures of another sort, if you're a Fish fan.

This is a taggers sized kit. The Papers are 800 x 800 pxls., the elements vary. Everything is save to 300 DPI making it suitable for small printing jobs up to 5 x 7 inch size.

Please remember that by downloading this kit you agree to my terms of use which state, in part that that that you cannot redistribute, rebroadcast, resale, or claim my graphics as your own. That means placing this kit on 4Shares, RapidShare or any other file sharing site for any reason is a strict NO-NO! That constitutes redistribution.

If you know someone who is interested in this kit, please direct them to my blog where they can download their own copy. Free to use is NOT the same thing as free to share. My graphics are copyright protected.

To download this kit from MediaFire, click on the link below:



The password is "TYVM" (no quotes).

Sorry, not posers this time around, but I do give you Mudholt the Magnificent to play with.

Enjoy!


Mermaid not included in kit