ADSD Blog Train Freebie - Sugar Shoppe!

It's the first of the month and that means it's time for the BLOG TRAIN! I've been sending people to this blog train the last two months to pick up the killer freebie collabs (Zoo Spirit and Cornucopia of Colors), but this time I decided to participate myself!

This month's color pallette and sweet shop/candy theme brought to mind a poem from my childhood, "The Sugarplum Tree" by Eugene Field. The poem was on the last page of a poetry collection I hardly remember otherwise, with a huge, vivid, full-color drawing. I used to imagine the Sugarplum Tree and all its goodies when I had difficulty going to sleep at night. And I see a certain similarity to that tree and this blog train full of delicious goodies. So to start things off, I decided to share the poem with you:

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
'T is a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
(As those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat
Of that fruit to be happy next day.

When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;
The tree is so tall that no person could climb
To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
And a gingerbread dog prowls below--
And this is the way you contrive to get at
Those sugar-plums tempting you so:

You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
And he barks with such terrible zest
That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
As her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
From this leafy limb unto that,
And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground--
Hurrah for that chocolate cat!

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
With stripings of scarlet or gold,
And you carry away of the treasure that rains
As much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
And I 'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

Here are the previews and links for my papers and elements:







Elements
Papers_1
Papers_2
Papers_3

Hope you enjoy... and have fun checking out the other 54 (!) designers who all have coordinating freebies for you to enjoy. If you have any questions with my part or issues with downloading, please leave a comment, or send me a message through 4Shared. This kit is commercial use OK! I'd appreciate a note in your acknowledgements, and I'd love to see what you do with it. Here are the other designers participating in this blog train:

A Zone for Digiscraps
Adventures in Scrapland
Andrea Whitt
Angel
Ann (mumsy)
Arvita Elam
BeaconScraps
Blind Sight Designs
Brooke & Joni of Ahhh Scrap!
Burkhart Scrapzone (Michaele)
Buzybee (Penny)
by God's design
Carolyn Ritter
Charlie
City Scribe Scraps
Creative Digital Scraps by Chiara
Deanna at Flower Scraps
Deb aka The Scrappin Cop
Debbie
Doodle's Designs
Erika {aka PinkuPixie}
jeanniebs designs
Jody of Munchkyn Scraps
Judith of Just Another Scrap
Kalo Designs
Kathy Goldstein Designs The Scrap Loft
Krystal of Scraps Sealed with a Kiss
Late Night Scraps
Lei
Linda's Dream Designs
Lynn of Heavenly Crafts
Mags at MagsGraphics
Manda at Disaster In Designs
Mandy at Scraps With Spunkitude
Mardesia at Crafter's Boutique
Marie
Melanie aka Sweetasmel
designsbymel
Merrilee
MJ at My Sweet Tater
Monica at Random Inspirations
Nadine at Scrappinmamma's Digitals
Nora
pandabeardesigns
Rachness
Scrappy Cats at Moving ON
Shabby Tagger Shannon of ScrappyShannon
Shel at Shel Belle Scraps
Silver Fae (aka Karen J)
Stacey Crossley
Stephanie
Teri at TerisThingOMyJigs
Xandra

Some new layouts and a cu image freebie

Well, with the DSO Color Challenge kit posted (Fall Fantasia), and my ADSD kit for the October Blog Train ready to go, I finally have a minute to catch up on some scrapping! Here are two I did this week.



Little Eagle is my daughter participating in the kids games at the lake front this summer. Little Eagles was the name of her age group -- the youngest kids able to participate in beach activities. The papers and elements on this kit are all from Scrappassie's All Those Greens kit.



I almost never use arrows in my layouts, or use a retro style either, for that matter, but this kit was just perfect for my pictures of Meg's drawing of the world this weekend, which I had to scrap right away. These are the kind of memories that get away from us. Twenty years from now I want us all to look at this page and remember how much fun everyone had in the mountains and how just stinkin' cute Meg is at this age. All the papers and elements in this LO are also by Scrappassie, from her Retrocolors kit. I stayed up way too late last night finishing this one, but I was having such a great time playing with this layout. Rarely do things just fly together like this one did!

Since Scrappassie is the featured designer at TTS this month, all her kits are on sale for 30% off until the 30th, so if you can't live without either of these kits, now's the time to grab it.

Finally, a freebie. This image is for my friends from the Pixel Dust digital scrapping critique group on Scrapbook.com (and anyone else who might be interested). It's a photo I took of some rhododendrons on the two mile walking path around the lake near where we vacationed this weekend. As soon as I saw them, the phrase Fairy Playland popped into my head. I knew some of your fairies and pixies would love to visit. It works great as a texture too... I used it as the background for some of my papers in Fall Fantasia. You're welcome to use it for personal, S4H or commercial use... please just mention my name in your acknowledgements sections. As always, please don't share it as-is with others -- send 'em to my blog to pick it up for themselves! A link back to my blog would be awesome, but is not required. I'd love to see what you do with it though!



And here is the link: Fairy Playground

Enjoy!

CU Freebie Kit -- Fall Fantasia

Wow... I finally finished it -- my kit for the DSO September Color Challenge! It's a freebie, and it's commercial use OK. Enjoy! Send me an email or a link back if you use it -- I'd love to see what you did with it!



Here are the links!

Elements
Papers 1
Papers 2
Papers 3

Thanks for looking!

-- Florrie

What I Learned Today

1. How to use a fill layer to repeat a pattern across a page in PSE.

(Now if I could only learn how to do a pattern that lines up seamlessly, or how to come up with a pattern that's worth repeating).

2. How to use the Texturizer Filter to convert any photo into a PSE texture.

(Now, if I could only figure out how to get it to consistently size the textures the way I want them too).

3. No matter how much it seems like a good time and how much you want to get the kids tired out, don't take them to the nearby bottanical gardens with just their feet and the leashes... TAKE THE STROLLER. DOH!

Ten thousand apologies to anyone who wanted a peaceful walk this afternoon and got team screamers instead.

Here's the pattern/texture thing I made while I was messing around, FWIW.



I can't imagine anyone having a use for it, so I'm not bothering to put it up on 4shared. But anyway, sometimes it's interesting watching a work in progress, I think. Or maybe I'm just super-narcissistic. Whatever. I'm tired -- listening to them scream (not to mention carrying their twitching, throbbing, irritable bodies back to the car) really takes it out of a mom. Jenny, we'll be discussing this incident on your performance review. I have to go clean the kitchen now. It looks like a pizza night. How 'bout you?

I finally found the perfect stuff to scrap my favorite Halloween picture of Meg!

It's only taken me three years, but I finally found the right stuff to scrap my favorite picture of Meg from Halloween 2005. I love, love, love the Aspiring Digi Scrap Designers Zoo Spirit blog train freebie mega kit. It was their July project, but most of the pieces are still available on the web (I dl'ed them on 9/3 and 9/4). These are the pieces I used: Papers by Jersey Girl and Angel Flying Solo; Frames and tiger element by Scrappy Shannon; brad by Kalo Designs; paw print border by Kim Scrappin; word art from Creations by Rachel. I also used some Atomic Cupcake inking actions on the papers.

Oh, and yes, I made the costume myself. It was pretty easy... just crocheted a tail out of fun fiber, and sewed it on, and the fiber, onto an orange Old Navy sweatsuit. The ears came from Michael's. Curiously enough, the costume has trick-or-treated every year since then, thanks to our local Mom's club costume exchange.

I can't believe I was stupid enough not to get pics of last year's halloween costume. Will's Frog hat fell off and got lost, and when we found it the next morning, condensation had de-adhered the google eyes. But it was a 10 minute fix. I guess I didn't do it because Jenny's ice-cream cone costume looked dumb, and I wasn't thinking at the time of doing individual layouts. Oh well. Maybe someone else will wear that costume this year (the frog, not the dopey ice cream everyone thought was an acorn) and I can photoshop it back onto him, LOL.

It sounds like this year I'm going to get off easy... Meg wants to be Dora, so I'm thinking about Will and Jenny being Diego and Boots. If I can find the right stuff, it shouldn't be too difficult. Or I suppose I could sell out and buy professional costumes... but it just wouldn't be nearly as much fun (well, for me anyway).

Is anyone else thinking about Halloween already, or am I nuts?

Hmmm what happened to my post?

Wow, I am bumbling around Google Blogger big time! I thought I had posted the links to my two kits but apparantly I haven't. Here is the most recent, Lily Pad, which I did for DSO's August Color Challenge:

And here are the links:

Elements

Papers1

Papers2

And the first one, which was for the May 08 Scrapkit Challenge

And here are the links to this one. I think it's commercial use OK as well but check the TOU. Thanks!

Elements 1

Elements 2

Papers

So enjoy! If you use any of my stuff, please email me with a link -- I'd love to see.

At the moment I'm working on a kit for DSO's September color challenge. So look for another post in a week or two.

Thanks for checking me out!

-- Florrie