Bad Blogger!

That's me scolding myself for being such a horrible blogger. It's been over a week since my last post, so I guess it's time to get to posting something. I've got a lot of things on the agenda for September, so this may be a long post. You've been warned!

So all weekend, I've been a busy little bee. I've been working on a new kit which is almost done, I've got a couple of elements left, and I plan on doing an alpha, but I have to get a couple of things scanned in first. I've been holding off on finishing it, because last week my wonderful daddy ordered me a new scanner off Ebay for an early birthday present (my birthday is in January) and I've been waiting for it to come in. Well it came in today! I was so excited. I haven't gotten it hooked up yet, because I have family in town from Colorado all weekend - my uncle Gary came into town, they've been re-siding my grandmother's house all weekend long, so I've had my laptop down there finishing up the new kit. I think you all are going to like this one, it's done in a style unlike any of my other kits and I finally found a style that I really love. I love lots of grunge and rustic style anyway, so I really hope you guys like this one. I'll also hopefully have a freebie, my first CU freebie, to give away along with it. But it won't be coming for a few days, maybe closer to a week, so keep checking back.

Since family's been in town, I've been away nearly all weekend. Internet connection isn't the greatest down at my grandmother's, my dad has Internet right next door, but it doesn't reach very far so I'm constantly on "Very Low" connection. It's okay though, because it's given me more time to get my kit worked on (since I'm not chatting or procrastinating by perusing the wonders of the 'Net lol)...I've still had to run around chasing Isaac though, even more so actually, so I haven't accomplished much.

I've had one person email me about joining the CT, and I've also contacted two people I know from some forums to join my CT, so I will be announcing them soon. I need to get some pictures from them and then I will put them in my sidebar. I've also contacted a couple people who were willing to guest for a while and maybe become permanent, so we will see how that goes. I'm still looking for a couple of members though, so if you're interested, please email me at pixiemamadesigns@hotmail.com. I have very low requirements - one kit a month minimum, and one layout per kit minimum, so if you're looking for a CT but don't have time for a lot of commitment, please contact me! I'm also looking for some people to do some freebie quickpages or frame clusters for the blog, since I just don't have much time anymore, and also I'm hoping to add some challenges and contests to my blog very soon, so I need some members to help out with that! If you're interested, you can always reach me at the email address above, and I respond fairly quickly (except this weekend where I may not be able to lol). I respond to most emails within 24 hours!

I also have an announcement, and I think you guys will really love this one! To really test my skills and to get some more exposure, I've entered the designer contest at Stone Accents Studio. (It's not like my fellow designers at K-Joi Studios roped me into it either ;) lol) The contest runs all month and new kits will be released on random days during each week, so I'll have tons of new freebies coming in September! (Hopefully, this makes up for the lack of freebies I've had lately!) The contest starts on September 1st and the first entry is due by the 6th, so check back sometime during the week or on Saturday for the first freebie kit, it will be a mini of course but if I know myself, I'll get totally carried away and add too much stuff to it lol. But the blog will be the second place I post it, other than SAS! Also you can go and sign up at SAS so you can be in the know during the contest. The ladies are just great there.

I guess I'd better get my butt up and hook up my scanner so that I can get this kit finished. I definitely won't finish it tonight but I can at least get my stuff scanned so I can do some extractions tomorrow at my grandmother's - maybe, if Isaac will hogtie himself long enough for me to focus on even that. I'll be back soon with the freebie from the contest, maybe a sneak peek at the new kit, and hopefully by the time the freebie from the contest comes out I'll have a new kit! Have a good night everyone!

Taking a break...

Hey everyone.

I know you haven't heard from me in a few days. I've been thinking a lot.

I've decided to take a break from designing. Not permanently. I think I've really been pushing myself to do way too much. I've taken on a lot of responsibilities this month, so after those get out of the way and things die down a bit, I'll come back. I'm also going to take this time to do a bit more learning, so that when I do come back, I'll hopefully be able to give you more of what I know I'm capable of. :)

I should mention, what brought all this on. I've rediscovered an old hobby of mine, from way back in high school. I'm doing a little bit of writing. It won't be published here, or at all in fact. It's not publish material. It's just a fun sort of thing. Just another hobby of mine, that my husband has encouraged me to start up again.

I will continue designing during that time, though. I have signed up for a couple of blog trains, one of which will come out in the next few days so watch for that. Another will be coming in September. Scraps With A Mouse will be having their grand opening coming in late August so I will be participating in that, and we are ironing out the details for that currently. We are ironing out the details of a speed scrap that I will be hosting during that time, so I will make sure to post when more details come out about that. Also, if you're a fan of my designs, you will want to check back on August 1st, because I will have a surprise.

I really am sorry for not having put anything new out lately. I just can't seem to get into anything. I do, however, have a mini kit almost completed, so when I come back hopefully I'll have that ready to come out. And as I said, I'll still be putting a couple of free things out during August. I should be ready to come back by, at the very least, September 1st, if not sooner. It all depends on how much my mojo starts liking me. So check back for all the new things coming this month, and when I come back in September I'll have some new things for you all as well. :)

Nothing new from me :(

I feel like, honestly, the worst designer ever. Not only have I neglected my blog, but I've also neglected my designs. The worst part of it is...I've been working non-stop! I really have. I guess the fact of it is, I got involved in way too much stuff, like blog trains and that kind of thing, that I haven't had the time to take care of what I needed to take care of. I was planning on releasing a new kit today, but it didn't work out like that and I'm not finished with it. I hope to have it released by Monday or Tuesday. Tuesday at the latest (I hope)...after that, I have to work on some more blog train stuff and a commitment for a collab, but I will try to take breaks in between to work on some new stuff. This stuff I got involved in is good for me though...it's good for my advertising and getting my name out there, so hopefully everyone will understand.

The good news is, I have some huge things planned. The changes will start to take effect come August 1st. Some will be here on my blog....some will be behind the scenes but still noticeable. Hopefully the changes will leave me a little more time to create new stuff. Now, some of the changes won't take effect August 1st. Maybe more like September. But hopefully they will up the ante and bring a little more traffic here and get my name out there.

So look for some exciting things to come August 1st! :)

My apologies...

If any of you stopped by today and saw that horrific background image, I sincerely apologize. When I changed the blog I discovered a website called ImageShack where you could host images, just like Photobucket, but it was more capable to handle larger images. So I hosted my blog background there, but that was all. But I did bookmark it for the future.

I logged onto DST just a few moments ago, after getting back from going to town with my mom and grabbing a bite to eat, and I read about some people having problems with anti-sec images showing up instead of the images they uploaded. Come check my blog, and guess what...I'm affected too. I'm steaming and intend to write a heavily-worded email to ImageShack, because this affects business - that is, when I can get their customer service pages to LOAD. *fuming*

Regardless, I hope none of you were offended by this at all. That was NEVER the image I uploaded, nor did I ever INTEND to upload anything like that, and thankfully it was only one image - unfortunately it was a very large and highly readable image, and probably lost me a few potential customers. Please accept my sincerest apologies for this.

Lesson learned here? NEVER use an image-hosting website that you don't trust. NEVER.

And remember, Tiffany will have new product out in IL stores tomorrow. Read post below for details. Didn't want that to get shadowed out of this.

I'm so very sorry, again. :(

New layout for blog

So does everyone like the new layout for the blog? I know it looks a little plain, I'm still working on it. But I got so incredibly worn out on designing and doing things for my blog (I haven't done anything but that for at least a week or more) that I decided I needed to do a little scrapping to take a break. So I'm gonna do a couple days of scrapping till I get my design mojo going again, lol! So when I get back to doing some stuff I'll work on it a little more.

I'm working on the challenges over at K-Joi and then when I get done with some of those I'm going to move over to some of the other sites. I still have to do my layout for the sketch challenge over at K-Joi, but I don't feel like doing it right now. I've been doing lots of 4th of July layouts lately, started with last year's and now I've moved on to this years. We got some GREAT pictures this weekend. Isaac was very good and cooperative at the BBQ (which was a lot of fun), and loved to ham it up for the camera. He just loved "popping" his "fireworks" (which were nothing but smoke bombs and those little things you throw on the ground, cause I wanted him to be able to get close without getting hurt)...but he didn't know any better, and he was scared of the bigger fireworks anyway so he had fun. He actually held a sparkler this year, and we got pictures of that, so you'll see some layouts with that soon. I'm loving working on these 4th layouts, it's just so much fun working with the colors!

My TMJ is acting up tonight so I'm cutting this short. I'll try to get back into the mojo soon. I'm about to release a new kit, it's a redesign of one of the first kits in the Next Best Thing contest (which I didn't make it, but I'll have a much better surprise coming soon anyway, so it's okay!), so I will probably try to make a quickpage or two out of it. I'll also probably have a sale on it for the first few days, so I hope you will want to snatch it up at the reduced price!

Alright everyone, good night! I'll let you know when the new kit is out!

Week 4 Kit Is Up!

Just wanted to let everyone know that my week 4, the final week of the Next Best Thing, entry is up for download. You can go here to snag my kit plus everyone else's. You will have to sign up in order to get the kits.

For this week's entry, I used a ton of items by Tiffany, including some new, not-yet-released products. The fruits (and the glass as well) will be a set of templates and doodles in a future grab bag, and I also used an overlay from her current July grab bag. I also used some overlays by Spinky Dink Scraps, which you can get at Scrapable.net.

We rearranged our living room this week...oh what a chore! We moved everything around including the TV stand, couch, chair, scrapbook desk, and computer desk. I'm so tired, and I still have more left to do. Fortunately, our house is very clean now, and all I have left to do is keep it clean, and get laundry done. (Our laundry was so piled up!) Now if I didn't have to follow Isaac around with a broom and dust pan in order to keep things tidy, life would be great. I plan on taking some pictures once everything's looking spiffy again, and maybe doing a layout. I have a great kit and a perfect title and stuff for it. That will have to come later though.

I might get some scrapping done tonight or tomorrow, since my last entry for NBT is done and the contest ends Saturday. What an experience! It was fun, but I'm so glad it's over. I can't even imagine how the participants of SYTYCD felt!

I also have to start working on some designs for t-shirts for a member over at K-Joi Studios, I'm making some designs she can print on t-shirts to let babysitters, etc. know that her son is allergic to peanuts. Probably start working on some of those tonight in between loads of laundry.

Remember, my sale is still going on over at K-Joi Studios, 25% off all my products (except the Summer Garden glitter styles) until July 5th. I might have a surprise in store for all of you later, so keep my sale in mind!

Day at the lake and huge thunderstorms

Today, Heath, Isaac and I went and spent a fabulous early-afternoon at the lake. Since Tuesday we have been trying to get out to the lake to do a little fishing, since today was Heath's 23rd birthday, and since Tuesday horrid thunderstorms have been getting in our way. Tuesday we went out to the lake outside town and literally five minutes after we sat down we heard thunder rolling. Isaac and I had to take shelter under a tree while Heath pulled the car around to the other side of the lake to come get us and the supplies. That night we had 70+ mph winds and quarter-sized hail, but we were lucky that we didn't hit any of that coming back into town, except the torrential rain. Wednesday we tried it again, but again, 5 minutes after sitting down the sky began to get dark and we could see lightning in the distance, so we high-tailed it out of there - but not before I got some shots of the looming storm in the sky. (Just so you know, the pictures don't do it justice - it was dangerous-looking, but so beautiful!) Thursday was the same way, except we didn't even have a chance to get out there since Heath and I both worked. But we did sit down to watch Twilight (I've never seen it!) after Heath got off at work, we started it around 2am, and by 3am (just when it was getting good) our power got knocked out. Shortly after there was more hail - oh, it was horrible. We couldn't even hear ourselves talking to each other because the hail and rain was so heavy. Lights didn't come back on until at least after 4am - Isaac was woken up by the lightning and we all three fell asleep on the couch. I do remember Heath waking me up around 5 or 6 to go lay in bed, and the power was back on by then. We slept in, of course, and decided around noon that it may be a good idea to head out to the lake before Heath had to go to work and before it decided to rain on us again - lol! Luckily the weather stayed nice and we had a beautiful couple hours out there before we had to come back so Heath could head off to work. I got some fantastic pictures for a birthday layout for Heath, and some great close-ups of Isaac as well. Now I only wish I could put them up for everyone to see! My card is not wanting to read in my reader and I haven't gotten up to find my cord for it yet. Hopefully Isaac will stay asleep just a little longer so I have a chance to do one layout. I would really love to scrap some of these photos.

That's really all I have for today. I've entered myself in The Next Best Thing contest at Digital Scrap Ink and will find out the results for that tomorrow, whether I'm moving on to the next round and what the next challenge will be. Tiffany has also entered, it would be fantastic if you could stop by and show us both a little love, and if you like, download our mini-kits (they're free!)...Next week will be a busy week, if I make it to the next round I will have another kit to do by Thursday, and our 3rd anniversary is this Wednesday so we have decided to take supplies for a picnic lunch to the lake on Wednesday and our fishing supplies, since we both have the day off. I may even buy a day license to do a little fishing myself, and hopefully we'll catch us some fish! And I will be sure to take pictures. I probably won't post again until after Wednesday, it will be a busy week like I said but I may pop in to update you on whether I make it to the next round. Have a great day everyone!

CTAW

Remember how I told you all about CT Appreciation Week? Well, I'm having a blast! There's a speed scrap every day (of which tonight was my first, because of work and all that) and really fun challenges. You'll see all my new layouts if you click on the images underneath "layouts" in the sidebar. Some are made with the CTAW Kit, My CT Rocks! And this kit ROCKS! It is huge and it is very expensive, but we got it for free for all the hard work we do. I don't consider it hard work - it's a blast!

Also, I wanted to tell everyone that my cat, Calico, just had her first litter of kittens! (And probably her last!) They are so adorable! Will post pictures when I get my printer to accept my SD card!

That's all for tonight, off to try to do some paper scrapping. I will try to have a freebie for you all tomorrow night. Good night!

Long time no blog - and a GIFT!

Before I get to the gift...long time no blog from me. I just noticed the last time I blogged was the 11th...last week! I've been busy with working, and I've also been working on something special. More on that at the end of the post.

To update you a little on my Mother's Day I talked about in my last post - it was interesting to say the least! After I posted we opened the oven expecting our pizza to be done, and it was nowhere near! We've been having problems with our oven that we haven't gotten fixed yet, so we had to take it over to our neighbors, who just happens to be my best friend and boss. Luckily she was understanding and threw it in for us, otherwise we'd have had nothing for dinner that night! But boy, it was a catastrophe when it came out. A combination of a little too much oil on the dough and lots of pepperoni, and it was an over-greasy mess! I barely ate one piece, and I was sick the entire morning after! The popcorn and movie were both good though lol.

Okay, I'll get to the gift now...

Monday I was looking through my files of designs, and I noticed I still had some pieces to the Mother's Day kit that I liked. So I thought, "Why not give it another go?" It's so much better creating without a deadline! So I gave it another go and here's what I came up with...so much better. The first part today will be the paper word art I created. These are little paper strips with sayings and words on them. There's a total of 31, 30 with phrases and words, making sure to include grandma in there, and including "3 Generations" all the way up to "6 Generations"! There is also a blank one so you can customize it any way you like. Like I said, there are phrases to include mothers and grandmothers, so you can scrap those photos of Mother's Day celebrations. The papers and elements are quite vintage looking, so these photos would be perfect for all those old heritage photos. I am going to try to come back tomorrow with a layout to show you all.

Here's the first download - it's very small in size.

Hope you enjoy them! The papers will be tomorrow - as for the elements, I can't promise they will come the day after. As they stand right now, I'm not fond of some of them. But I had to take a break and do something for just me, so I will figure it out and I will have them!

I'm digi-scrapping tonight and I'd like to share a layout I just made.

You can't really see it too well. But it's made from Tiffany's SYTYCD Week 2 kit, "Dated: May". Unfortunately, she didn't make it to round 3. But she says she will be coming out with new stuff soon. Her son's birthday is next weekend, and she has to get stuff ready for that, and her in-laws are visiting as well. I look forward to her new stuff :) Go check out her blog!

I think that's all for me today. I will be back tomorrow night with the papers to the Mother's Day kit and hopefully a layout made with them. I really like these papers! I will also try to figure out what to do with my elements :) Good night!

I've come to a decision...

Boy, that title makes it sound so bad, or at the very least, important huh? lol It's not really. I've decided that I'm not going to do a Mother's Day kit this year. At least not yet. I've tried to work on it and I hate everything I come up with. I'm going to focus on a Father's Day kit for right now. I probably won't be putting out anything until at least the middle of June, I need to find out what works for me, hone my skills, and figure out what I like doing. Plus, my husband's birthday, our anniverysary, and Father's Day are all within a week and a half time frame, so it would be kind of a shame not to put something out then.

So how was everyone's Mother's Day? Mine was nothing special. I had to work and so did hubby so we didn't get a chance to do anything. Today we made up for it. After I got off work we went to get groceries, then came home and changed clothes and went to the mall. We got ice cream, did a little window shopping, Isaac rode the 50 cent rides, and we got our picture sketched at one of those little booth things. I just love those things - it makes for a good cheap family picture for the scrapbook lol. Then we went and we intended to rent a movie and a video game, but we ended up accidentally buying the movie and renting the video game! Don't ask how it happened because we don't even know. We got "What Happens In Vegas" so we'll see how it turns out. Not really a fan of Cameron Diaz or Ashton Kutcher, but I can't say that I hate them either. We'll see. Oh and we're making pizza and popcorn too. It's been a really long time since we've done anything like this so it should be interesting.

Pizza's almost done and I haven't even opened my PSP to scrapbook like hubby wanted me to, so I'm going to cut this off. Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!

First, some bad news...

Okay well, I lost my creative spark for a bit. Therefore, I have pretty much nothing done on the Mother's Day kit. So it won't be coming out tonight or even tomorrow. Unless a miracle happens. However, I will be working on it sometime tomorrow and into the next week, so it shouldn't take any longer than that.

Some good news, at least for me...my house is clean! lol It was a disaster. I'm embarassed. Horribly. But it's clean now. I'll be working on laundry and the front porch tomorrow - it needs a good cleaning, since the dog gets out there and finds trash and tears it up, and since we use it mostly for storage right now - and probably work on the yard too. I'm going to see if my dad will come over and help me move some things, bring me a gas can with gasoline and help me get the yard mowed and get the "weed-whacker" (as my grandma calls it lol) and take care of the growth by our fence. Ugh! Talk about a full day.

And like I said, my house was horrible, so cleaning it was no easy task. But I did manage to get it all done in about 2.5 hours. Yes, 2.5 hours. Just call me WonderWoman :D . Anyway, to reward myself I'm going to do some paper scrapping like I've been wanting to do for days now. I just have to finish eating and then go outside and move the sprinkler so I don't soak my front yard lol. Which I'd better do now. If I can't paper scrap then I will be digi scrapping so look out for some layouts possibly. Have a good night everyone!

New kit and NSD activities

So how did everyone enjoy their NSD? I personally loved every minute of it (except for the parts where I had to go to work lol). Friday night I participated in 2 speed scraps, both back-to-back. That was interesting! I was still working on one when the other started so I didn't get to start on my second layout until I finished the first one! But I managed to finish them both in time. And Tiffany was a wonderful co-host. It was so much fun.

Speaking of Tiffany, did anybody pick up any of her CU items for sale this weekend? Aren't they fabulous?

Then Saturday me and my mother went to the scrapbook store an hour away for a day trip. That was so much fun. We picked up some great things. Target had way too much new stuff that I didn't have. I spent almost as much there as I did the scrapbook store lol! We ate lunch at Arby's and went shopping. It was just great to get away for a day, from work and being stuck in the house. Even though I did miss some great NSD activities at K-Joi and Inspiration Lane, but it's okay, it was worth it!

I've started working on a new kit, one for Mother's Day, with a much different color scheme. Did anyone notice that the NSD kit looked eerily similar to the Easter kit? I did. So I decided to change it up. I'm working on making this one a little more usable for scrapping all those photos of mother. It's going well, I just have to redo some of the elements I've done so far...they just need that something else.

Well I'm going to go work on that while the kidlet is asleep for the afternoon.

So tired.

I have nothing for anyone today. I've been all designed out lol. I haven't even touched my PSP in a couple days. I haven't done any digital layouts either. I've been working a lot, and among doing other things, I've been focusing on my family and my paper scrapping.

First of all, I have life lesson #1 for all of you. Never ever take a two-year-old boy with a flaring temper who hasn't napped all day - fishing. Never ever. Even without a hook. It's a disaster. Tempers fly from both child and parents, and people who are trying to relax and fish give you dirty looks. Just never do it. The upside? I got a few good pictures. Note the few.

Today was a beautiful day so Isaac spent a good portion of the day outside. In fact, we just got in a little over an hour ago. I spent about an hour cleaning up the yard. We moved here to this house about 8 months ago, and it was just starting to become fall then. We had a lot of things going on, with me just starting a new job and Christmas and Isaac's birthday coming up. Therefore, we got all the leaves raked up months ago, but we never got outside to get them into lawn bags and get rid of them. So it snowed, and then it rained. And then it snowed some more. And then it rained some more. And we still hadn't gotten them cleaned up. Plus we had trash that blew in, some from us from stray trash bags, some from the previous owners, etc. So I got that cleaned up, gathered all the tumbleweeds up ('cause you know, this is Kansas....), and gathered all the things that need to be dumped in one spot so we can start hauling it off soon. Now I just need to have somebody come burn the leaves and tumbleweeds, and have Heath put together the lawn mower and teach me (yes, I don't know how to mow) and our yard will be alright. Not beautiful, still, but alright. Now just to work on the rest of the house lol.

I'm putting new photos up on Webshots in just a moment. Here is the link to that.

My Webshots

The fishing pictures and outdoors pictures from today are included in there. One is under Spring 2009 and the others will be under something related to fishing.

I have to go now. I want to do some more paper scrapping and I'm starving. Heath is supposed to be bringing pizza home and I hope he makes it soon. I'm so hungry after all that work outside lol. Have a good night!