Speed Scrap Tonight! And A Fantastic Charity Kit!

Hey all! I'm just dropping by for a couple of announcements!!

First of all, don't forget about the Speed Scrap tonight at SWAM!



It will start at 10PM EST/9PM CST. You will be able to find us at http://www.scrapswithamouse.com in the chat room, and instructions will also be posted in the forums so if you want to participate but not chat, you will still have the instructions. Don't miss out, it will be awesome, and there is a participation coupon for everyone in it as well!

Next, I want to let you know about an awesome new charity kit. This is for a wonderful cause and all the proceeds from the sales of the kit goes to the organization Walk Now For Autism.



It is a huge kit, tons of designers have participated for this great cause, and remember that every penny of the proceeds goes to Walk Now For Autism. You can check out the blog for more details, go here to see all the previews, or go to the donation page to make a donation.

I'll be back later tonight to post a reminder about the speed scrap!

SWAM - Blog Train, Grand Opening, and more! *CORRECTION*

Hello all! Good news, I'm feeling much better today - well right now anyway. This morning at work I got sick twice - too much nasty mucus - but I was feeling a little better by lunchtime. Wish I'd eaten something though - I'm starving, don't feel like getting up to cook, and Heath won't be home to bring me a sandwich for another two hours. :( Oh well...I'll have to get up and cook something for Isaac after I post this anyway. :)

Today I bring you a little information about all the good things going on over at Scraps With A Mouse this week. Lots of fun things!

If you haven't been following yet, you should hop on over to the SWAM Blog and check out the blog train going on right now! Today was my day to post, and I posted some beautiful (free!) glitter styles to match the colors of the scheme. And the best part is they are both PU and CU ok! For FREE! You can also pick up all the other designer's portions of the blog train - and be sure to stop back by tomorrow as it's the last day and tomorrow's freebie will be great to kick off the beginning of the Grand Opening!

Speaking of, the GO starts tomorrow! Since I've been sick, I've been pretty out of the loop, so I don't have a lot of info for you. But I do know that you will probably be able to go to the forum tomorrow and find out information. There also may be some things posted on the home page as well. Be sure to check out the store too. I may have a sale in store for you ;)

Oh and definitely be sure to check out the store and look for our first collab kit!

And pst...remember I mentioned something about a speed scrap? ;)

I'm hosting my first ever speed scrap at SWAM on Friday, Sept. 25th at 9PM CST. I got a little confused looking for equivalent times, but I think that would make it 8PM EST. I'm not sure about the others - like I said, I got really confused when searching for times lol.

*CORRECTION* Sorry all, I was informed that 9PM CST is actually 10PM EST! So sorry about that!

Sorry the information is so sporadic - since I've been sick I haven't gotten to check in much, or ask Selena about any info. I'll try to come back tomorrow with more info! :)

SWAM Grand Opening and Freebie Coming Soon!

Hey all!

I don't have much time, I just figured I should really stop by and let you all know that I haven't abandoned my blog lol!

Okay so the short story is this - I've been very sick this weekend. I originally started out thinking I might have the swine flu. I'd talked to a couple of friends of mine and it seemed like they'd had it, and read up on the symptoms on the Internet. So yesterday I went ahead and went to the doctor - I already had antibiotics that I was taking, but Thursday night my TMJ really hit me hard - probably because I had so much pressure in my head going on and I was stressed out thinking I had the swine flu. Anyway so I had to go to get something that would work on my TMJ, and found out at the doctor that I had a sinus infection - thank goodness! So I was given a different antibiotic to take care of that, plus heavy pain meds for the TMJ. I mean heavy. SO...I'm pretty out of it this weekend. Last night I was so dizzy that - well you know that feeling after you ride a ride at the carnival that goes around really fast? That you're still going around and around and it's making you sick? That's how I felt. Only my ride was going REALLY fast lol. I'm better today, I cut the dosage and it's still working for the pain but not with as bad of effects. I should be much better tomorrow, I have to work so I won't be drugged up on pain medications. I'm really going to try to get some stuff done tonight.

Therefore...tomorrow I will be making the big blog post. I will have information on Scraps With A Mouse's big grand opening (yay!), I will have a link to a freebie for all of you, and I will also be putting up information on the speed scrap I'll be hosting later next week! (Mark your calendar - it will be my first speed scrap so it will be great!) Also I will reveal a little information on the next two blog trains I will be participating in - both coming in October! So be sure to check back tomorrow!!!

September K-Joi Blog Hop - Pets

Hi guys! So are you loving my new release? I just absolutely *love* it, so I hope you are loving it too! I have a very LONG but dear to my heart blog post for you today.

Today I have a very special request for you. All my life I have been an animal lover. I'm a lover of almost all animals. Snakes, bugs, and things that bite (hard! lol) are the exception, but I still try to treat them with love and respect. Every time that I see an ASPCA commercial, I cry. My friends at K-Joi feel exactly the same way. That is why I'm bringing you this very special request today.

A special message from the blog hop coordinator, Liz of Lizard Dau Designs:

We at K-Joi Studios love our pets as much as our children and sometimes they are our children. We would love to promote pet rescue by giving you a glimpse into the world wide net of animal adoption. Please visit this site at the bottom of this post and do a bit of browsing - it is extremely interesting and if you are a pet lover then you might find some useful information too. We have made some wonderful freebie kits for your digital scrapping pleasure and as a huge thank you for looking at these very deserving animal rescue sites. And don't forget that we all live on different time zones so please be patient with us!!

Now, unfortunately with the new release and everything going on I do not have a freebie for you today. But I do have a link to the K-Joi Studios Blog, which is the designated train station for the blog hop. And I have a link to a few animal rescue sites you can visit to see how you can help!

A few statistics for you:

In media-reported animal cruelty cases, dogs are the most common victims of animal cruelty. Pit bulls, in particular, constitute an increasing percentage of victimized animals.

Of 1,880 cruelty cases* reported in the media in 2007:

• 64.5 percent (1,212) involved dogs
• 18 percent (337) involved cats
• 25 percent (470) involved other animals
  
  *some cases involved multiple species
  

Pit bulls represent an increasing percentage of total canine animal cruelty cases.

• In 2000 and 2001, pit bulls were the victims in 13 percent of reported dog abuse cases.
• In 2007, pit bulls were the victims in 25 percent of reported dog abuse cases.

An examination of government data measuring intimate partner violence and scholarly studies of the prevalence of animal cruelty in such cases reveals a staggering number of animals are victimized by abusive partners each year.

• The HSUS estimates that nearly 1 million animals a year are abused or killed in connection with domestic violence:
• 
  
• Methodology:
• • About 2,168,000 women and men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States (U.S. Department of Justice, 2000).
  • Sixty-three percent of U.S. households own a pet (APPMA, 2006).
  • Seventy-one percent of domestic violence victims report that their abuser also targeted their animal (Ascione, 1997).
    
  
  
• In 2007, 7 percent of media-reported animal cruelty cases either occured in the context of a domestic dispute or involved a person with a history of domestic violence.

Legislative Trends

• Forty-five states currently have felony provisions for animal cruelty. (Those without are Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota.)

• Before 1986, only four states had felony animal cruelty laws.

• Forty-one of the 45 state felony animal cruelty laws were enacted in the last two decades: 13 were enacted between 1986 and 1996, and 26 more were enacted between 1997 and 2007.

Information copied from Human Society US: http://hsus.org

I love my pets to death. I have 3 animals currently. I have a part-Golden Retriever puppy (and full ornery!) named Shiloh who will be 1 year old at the beginning of 2010. Our cats, 1 adult female, Calico, who is probably around 3 or 4 years old, and our 3-month-old female kitten who is 1 of 3 kittens born to Calico, who is currently unnamed (we're leaning towards Sassy or Lily, because her pattern reminds me of a tiger but black and I think of Tiger Lilies!). Just yesterday, the other two kittens were given away to a very good family friend who lives on a farm, because we just can not handle them (they are a MESS!) and he will take SUCH good care of them. While they were all here, I got so frustrated with them (they literally TORE my house up) but I loved them so much. I miss those two kittens dearly.

On another note, my grandma and mother are literally the cat ladies. Recently a bunch of stray cats started hanging around my grandmother's house and my mother and grandmother care for them like they are their own. They spend massive amounts of money on them per month just feeding them. Although they can't take them into their homes (there are literally about 30 of them, I'm not kidding), they care for them like children. They often have lots of litters of kittens and we spend hours cuddling on those precious little things. Recently, one of my favorite babies of any of the cats died from an unknown cause and my heart has just been broken. Here is a precious little photo of him and one of his brothers/sisters goofing around, a few days before he got ill and passed away. (He's the black and white one.)



Doesn't it just melt your heart?

That's why I ask that you please visit these sites and consider making a donation. These stray kittens happen all over the place and often there is no one there like my mother and grandmother who have the heart to take them in and care for them. (My own Calico was a stray that I rescued!) They often get run over, or taken in and mistreated, or cruel people come along and torture them. I won't even tell you what happened to my cousin's cat by some very cruel neighbors. Please consider making a donation to save these precious animals' lives!

Here are some websites you can go to to make some donations:

http://hsus.org
http://www.animaladoption.com.au/
http://www.aspca.org/
http://www.pet-abuse.com/

And here, finally, is the link to the K-Joi Blog where you can go download your goodies:

http://www.kjoistudios.net/blog

I leave you with a quote from pet-abuse.com - "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."

Thank you for your time and have a fabulous day!

SAS News, New Release, Sales, and a Freebie!

Hello everyone! I have tons of stuff to post about today so grab a cup of coffee and get your clicking finger ready!

First, I want to apologize. I had to force myself to drop out of the SAS Contest for lack of time. I just don't have the time or energy to pour my all into the contest and I would rather step aside and give somebody else the chance to make it. I will still hang around SAS though, and maybe try it again next year. This will also give me a chance to do some more work on some new products and maybe revamping some old. Stay tuned!

Also, today is the day my new kit releases! Hope you guys enjoyed your little sneaky peek the other day, but now you get to see the whole thing!

Yeehaw! Lil' Cowboy, a brand new kit by Pixiemama Designs, is chock full of items that will make you want to throw on cowboy boots and do a dosie-do. You'll ride into the sunset on horseback with 12 highly-textured papers, 22 country-western themed elements, and a full rusted metal alpha, including uppercase, lowercase, numbers and tons of symbols.

Here are some layouts that I have done with Lil' Cowboy:

If you really love this kit, head on over to DST's Happy Place to see how you can get a chance to win this kit free!

http://digishoptalk.com - You must be a registered member to post in the forum!

I have put my entire shop at K-Joi Studios on sale for 50% off, including my new kit Lil' Cowboy. Head on over to check out the fantastic deals! Image is linked to my shop at K-Joi!

Scraps With A Mouse is having another Freaky Friday sale! You can get ALL my products, INCLUDING Lil' Cowboy for only $2!!! What a Fantabulous Deal! Head on over and check it out! Image is linked to my shop at Scraps With A Mouse.

I also have a wonderful freebie for you today! I have a CU template based off my "Lil' Cowboy" layout above! This template may be used commercially to make quickpages from your latest kits to give away as freebies or sell in your store. This template may NOT be sold or given away as a product in it's original format. By downloading this freebie you are agreeing to my TOU included in the download. Preview image is linked to MediaFire where you can grab the template.

Hope you guys enjoy the new release and take advantage of all the wonderful sales this weekend! Comment and let me know how you like it! Tomorrow I will have a very special, dear to my heart Blog Hop announcement, so please come back tomorrow for that!

Sneak Peek!

Hi everyone, I just popped in to give you a sneak peek of what's releasing on Friday, September 4th! It's my new kit I've been working SO hard on all weekend.

I'm so proud of this kit. It's definitely my first venture into finding my "style" and I think it turned out SO well. And it's pretty loaded, too. I haven't done a count on the elements in it, but I know it has over 10 papers and a full alpha, and at least 20 elements (more I'm sure). I think you guys will really like it.

This kit was mainly designed for my own personal use - I have some pictures from a town function that is held here every year, and I couldn't find any "country-western" themed kits that I really liked, that had all the elements I wanted in it. (There's hint #1!) So I decided to create one myself. I also have some pictures of my son in a cowboy hat (hint #2!) that still need to be scrapped, so those will definitely be scrapped with this kit! It has lots of grungy things, metal, gingham ribbons, and even some horses!

I have a dilemma, however...I haven't come up with a name. It releases on Friday and I have no idea what I'm going to name the darn thing because I've been so busy working on the actual kit that I haven't even thought of a name LOL. But I will eventually come up with something.

And don't forget, the Next SAS-Y Lady Contest starts tomorrow! I'm so excited to be able to bring you guys some wonderful mini kits. This will probably also spawn some exciting new products in the future, so keep checking back all month for my contest entries to be able to download them!

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!