Saffron Daze

I keep telling myself I'm not buying ANY MORE posers from Perfect Posers, but then I find a reason to purchase more. ::sigh::

All these tags involve her Saffron fairy, who is definatly not dressed for winter weather!

Green & Gold




I decided to take advantage of the sale that Scrappy Redhead is having and pick up SOME of the kits she's released of late that I wanted. "Forces of Nature" was one of them. All the lush greens!

The Fireflies are from her limited edition "Dancing in the Dark" freebie. I needed something in the the middle of the piece and didn't really have anything else that fit.

Saffron Nights




I love Redhead's "Autumn Nights" kit so I couldn't resist using it, despite it not being one of my "new" ones. I also added leaves from Queen Brat's "Autumn Leaves Pack I".

One of the reason's I keep saying I'm not buying anything else from Perfect is that found out where Redhead an the rest of these designers are getting the posers they include in their kits. Like this black cat which isn't as weird looking as the one's Charly did.

They are from a Commercial Use freebie cache by from Outlaw by Design. Click on the free PSP Tubes banner to go to the cache. I need to spend some time downloading...these tubes are just beautiful in many cases.

This is, for example, the source of the beautiful Ice Princess in Baby Cakes Scraps' Ice Princess kit.

Saffron Summer




Monday's are dollar days at Taggers Scraps but when I checked the story, while they had the kits from Candy's Treats that I wanted listed under the dollar days sales catagory, they still have them at full price.

However, Designs by Helly was joined Taggers Scraps and quite a few of her kits were marked down to a buck, including the relatively recently released "Down Came the Rains". This is from her Summer Daze taggers kit, which has a very beachy feel to it.

I figured I can use this for quite a few tags, but then, I like Helly's designs and tend to use them quite a bit.

Forest Friend




Heavenly Taggerz is also having a sale, when when I went back to get the template for the Santa Hat to do Tristan's Trismas card with, I picked up three of Scrappy Lover's other kits for a buck or under. This is from the "In the Forest" kit which I think will be useful for kitty cat tags. I used Tristan to try it out!

Aside from the cute little froggie, it also comes with an adorable little kitty cat.

Heavenly is quickly replacing Taggers are a prefered scrap boutique. I just wish they had a blinkie!

Rock of Ages

Lisa, from Sophisticated Scraps has a new blog called Sophisticated Imaging, where you can find some of her tubes to download for free. Included, among other things, is a hard rock pack.

I matched one up against Designs by Helly's Hard Rock Mama collection and off we go.

Enchanting

Since I had made Daisy a Princess, I felt that I needed to make her new brother, Harley, a Prince. Fair is fair, right?

Or at least make him a prince in training.



Both this tag, and the one below uses the Enchanted kit from Designs by Helly. The Alpha on Harley's tag is from Carjaziscraps Designs.

After taking an afternoon nap - it seemed the right thing to do, everyone else was doing it - I woke up with the idea for a Fairy Godmother.

And I knew just the cat for the job!



Of course, I don't know...she may need a little guidance there. Do they make GPS systems for Fairy Godmothers?

Odds and Ends

I did not realize the Daisy wanted to be a princess. If I had, I'd have made her a princess much sooner.



Diamond says being a Princess is not all it's cracked up to be. Yes, you get a unicorn, but then you have to muck out the stall and take care of it.

I used the Princess Bling kit from Robin's Chic Scraps and the Pretty Princess kit from Kristen's Wicked Scrapz to put this together. The pink star in the crown is from the Wicked Cool kit from Designs by Helly. The Diamond Alpha was created by JoBeth Scraps.

You do have to admit she looks very imperious in this shot.

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Another conglomeration piece is Fright Night which is another graphic I did for the House Panthers' group.



The background was a freebie from Deviant Designer, and the frame was a freebie from Angel Designs. The felt pieces came from Monika Digital Designs and they were a free download from AhhhScrap, I think. The felt Alpha was a Digi-free find from Clever Crow Design Studio.

I used an orange glow/drop shadow on the frame and the cat to make them stand out better.

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I knew I had done another tag, and I couldn't find it. In the end, I'd forgotten to upload it.

October is my birthday month and Fall is my favorite time of year. I do not have yellow hair however, although it does go well with the colors.



The Fairy is the October Fairy-of-the-month from Ratmomma (© 2008 Carolyn McComas). I used a freebie kit from Scrappy Redhead (apply titled Fall Mini Freebie) which I downloaded from Scrap Happiness.

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I'm a little unhappy because the only pics I have a Tristan I've taken with the digital, and they're not really clear. In any case he's got some plans for this weekend as you can see from tag that I call "Steppin' Out":



However, he does look rather elegant, don't you think?

I used the Black & White Playboy kit from Kristen's Wicked Scrapz, although the "VIP Pass" is assembled off a tag from her Red and Black kit. The alpha was from the Dinner Party freebie from Shabby Princess.

The hat was producted the way some designers produce their kits: I found a picture of a hat that I liked and I giffed it.

I couldn't figure out how to give him a walking cane however, but as he says he's taking a limo to "his" club, I guess he doesn't need one.

Designs by Helly - and a witchy pooh

Helly's like one of my favorite scrap designers. Her papers are just incredible. In any case I had wanted both the Moulin Rouge and the Enchanted kit as soon as they came out, so I went ahead and got the taggers versions.

The first two tags use her Enchanted kit, the Fae tubes (© 2008 Carolyn McComas) were from Ratmomma's "Fae of the month" collection. I really like the October Fairy with the Halloween dress on!



I was also trying something a litttle different in this one. The bracket frame in this piece and in the Paris piece (below) are from a freebie she'd had on her blog.



I called this second piece October Rain. We get a lot of rain in Florida in October, as it's the end of Hurricane season.



The tube on his tag is © 2008 Brandi Amunrud from Brandi's Creations. The hair's a little funky, but the piece is pretty nice overall. I can't really complain about free tubes. I'd probably go broke very quickly if I was buying tubes, although I do want to break down and purchase several different ones eventually.



This last piece was done using Scrappy Lover's Witchy Pooh tag kit. It's just a cute little piece I wanted to put together. The kit comes with two witches, a skelleton and ghost, among other things (glitter splats, sequins, etc.).

Things on my wish list...

Helly's Fairy Magic taggers kits. She's got a couple of freebie samplers and a plopper on her blog, but you only really get enough with the samplers to do one or two layouts.

The Siobhan plopper I'd already posted. This one is from the Nyssa sampler:



It was done to a 5 x 7 format so I could print it.

This one uses the Rhiannon sampler:



Also done to 5 x 7 and I antiqued the photo of Miss Diamond. The unicorn is not part of the kit, I just felt like adding it. There's also the Aleia kit which we did not get a Sampler/Plopper for. (Not that I'm complaining, mind.)

And to go along with these, I'd like one of Selina Fenech's tube sets, which probably only comes in .psp format.

Somehow...I think I could go quickly broke if I get into this hobby graphics thing.

On a side note, Amazon has PSP X1, which is the last version of the program that will run on my system, new for around $40. So I'm thinking go ahead and buy that. It's gotta be better than what I'm trying to work with now, and there are at least some tutorials available for it on the internet.

Two ploppers

Scout Cat is contemplating camping out on the scanner this weekend. I have different plans for it. This plopper is from Rasberry Roads Design, using their Scouts Honor Set. There are five separate sections to that set, each a $1.00 each. I sort of doctored it up a bit with some additional elements from other parts of the set:



After all she is a cat - not a cub - scout.

From Helly comes this lovely desktop freebie:



It is part of her Faery Magick collection and I'm not really sure what to do with it, as it says it's active deskop element...but...it doesn't really do anything?

Oh well.

Frame up

I decided I needed tags to go with the Could be Happy kit. Helly's got some layered tags available, but after trying to play with them, I've decided I'm hopelessly inept at Photoshop. Or at least, I need a "how to" manual. The one that came with the program I've sort of lost over the course of the years. As I'm running a old(er) version of PS (5) I think I'll try hitting up One for the Books and see if they carry anything out-of-print like that.

However, be that as it may...I was scrolling through Helly's blog and found freebie cardboard tags she'd done much earlier in the year, and a little further back, bracket frames. Much as I liked the layouts to date, they kind of look a bit like magazine covers. For example:


This was a try out piece using Helly's Get Real Sampler.

The frames solved that problem:







I also downloaded a whole bunch of freebies kits she had available, some of which look like like they have potential, including the "Wannabe" kit that I used to make a "Movie Star" layout for my little Starlet.



I THINK this is a taggers kit and I did the piece to 12x12, which is standard scrapbook size, so I probably wouldn't want to try printing it. Then again, it doesn't look pixelated on the screen.

A side effect of all this downloading was that I had to come up with a different subfolder system, so now the kits are stored in subfolders by designer name and then by kit name, which make it a lot easier to find things, especially as I tend to use several designers more than the others (Helly, Yarrow, Tizzy's Angel, etc.)

I also decided I needed a certified Helly stalker blinkie, which I added to the side bar. :)

The Chrome Alpha on the Wannabe piece was a freebie from Scrapdolly (I finally found the credit for it), while the Duct Tape alpha is from Maria LaFrance. That Chrome Alpha is the same one I used on the Tosoni piece (below) and the Berg piece as well.

Could be Happy

I'm more or less broke at the moment, it was a short pay this week and after rent and bills and groceries and gas, I'm pretty much done in. So rather that work on something I feel the need to get printed over the next few days, I decided to scrap some of last year's crew, in part because some of these kids went on to win an Appy League Championship and I want the new designs for the sidebar on the GCLTwins site.

In this particular case, I was playing with the "Could Be Happy" kit by Helly. The papers are nice and I love the cute plump little blue bird of happiness.



Ben tore up the Midwest League this year, earning himself MVP despite finishing off the season on the DL with particles in his knee. Couldn't be happier with him!



Stuif on the other hand was on the DL all year long. He could have been in the Olympics. But for the moment, he probably could be happier.



Danny Rondon was on the title winning E-Twins team although his year probably didn't go as well as he would have liked it to go. I was however, no where near as bad as Mr. Berlind's.



Papi played only 10 games this season and was DLed most of the year. Not a good way to start your career as I believe he was DLed for most of last year's GCL season as well.



He was a reliever that was converted to a starter then sent to E-Town and and went back in the bullpen. But he did pitch in relief in the championship game and did a great job. Couldn't be happier.



Brito started the year in E-Town then got promoted to Beloit when the injury bug hit the Snappers. Did a fair job up there.

Not a part of this set, is this piece I did for T-Bone using Helly's Apologize freebie, although the little star doodle is from Could be Happy. I just loved these papers.



As Rene hit the game winning home run yesterday, he couldn't be happier and he certainly has nothing to apologize for.

I've said it before, but the Duct Tape alpha is by Maria LaFrance and is available at Digital Freebies. The Chrome Alpha on the Tosoni piece was an uncredited it I got off Digi-free.

(Speaking of which, I missed new release Tuesday yesterday. Whaaaa! must go see what is going on!!!!

Wicked Cool

Helly is having a sale on her kits at the Ahhh Scrap store, 50% off, over the Labor Day Weekend. This allowed me to pick up a few of her new offerings: Could be Happy, Crime of Fashion, Gypsy (which I bought before but which got lost in the great computer crash) and her new one, Wicked Cool.

Not on sale, but one that I had to get for my Little Diva is Lil Drama Mama, which might also prove useful if I should chose to do something with my mother & sister.

I immediately got to work with Wicked Cool:

















Juan hit a walk off grand slam home run to finish off Friday's game, so I had to add the arrow to indicate that is was "OUTTA HERE"! These were all quite fun. Then I took Wicked Cool and some element from Hard Rock Mama to come up with this layout for Matty:



The boys were asking me about paw prints - well it is that time of year - but I'd rather they focus on winning a pennant first.

This one of Jon is done using just Hard Rock Mama in one of my favorite layout formats:



My next assignment....get ready for fall instructional league!



Man I have missed troll boy!


The Duct Tape Alpha is from Maria LaFrance at Digital Freebies. The Metal Alpha is by NettzieB.

Hard Rock with Helly

This is from Helly's Hard Rock Mama kit which I got because (1) it was Rock and Roll themed and (2) because I really liked the stars in it. There's a bit of word art in it that says something like 30 years and still rockin' by which I take to understand that Helly is still a pup.

When I seem to be lacking in inspiration, I go back to rock and roll. This is not the use of the kit that Helly ever envisioned, I'm sure, however, I started out with Mike because, well...Mike is Mike.



So then I used it...conservatively for my new little buddy Javier:



Then yesterday, having more or less used all the standard stuff for Whit and Sing, I did these two...





And one for Foxy, just because I could, although I have a lot of catching up to do where Matty is concerned.



And finally, I was felling kind of artsy, and came up for this one for Sing which...I REALLY like...



Yes, I realize I probably really like it because it's mostly black and white. I wonder if I should have gray scaled the photo and if it's too late to go back and do that?

Midnight in the Garden

Designs by Helly had a freebie sampler up on Digi-free for her Hard Rock Mama kit. You know me, I'm into anything Rock and Roll, and this is actually a pretty cool little kit. But I was wondering what the full kit looked like so I followed the link over Scrapping Whispers where I also found a very nice little kit called Midnight in the Garden.

I particually liked the little fairies, but here's the rub. It's mostly black on black so you can't see a lot of things once you try to put them together.

Unhappy with my initial results, I started putting together a hybrid piece using the Gothic Envy kit and the Dark Elegance kit, which was a freebie.



Halfway through this piece is when it occurred to me to add a glow to the elements. Photo suite doesn't do glow every well, BTW, but...



So then I went back and reworked the Diamond in the Moonlight Garden piece, with much better resuls. I'll get the hang of this sooner or later.

Anyway, Helly's got some nice kits although I'm not sure what I'd do with some of them. Maybe something will occur to me eventually, but the Hard Rock Mama and the Midnight in the Garden kit I've found quite amusing.

I would love to play with this some more tonight, but we once again have a 10:00 AM game (bleck!) so I believe I'll head off to bed now.