Paying it Forward

I have to thank Gaye for this wonderful award. It's the Totally Awesome Blog Award for being Loyal and Harworking. Now I have to:


1 - Pass it on to 10 other deserving bloggers.
2 - Link back to the blogger who gave you the award.
3 - Link to the bloggers you passed it on to, and leave them a message on their blog.


I didn't have to think very hard for this one, because there's none so deserving as the stores that have forums and blogs. The store owners work incredibly hard to keep their shoppers informed of new goodies in the store, blogging, keeping a forum going and the upkeep of a gallery. So I'd like to pay this forward to these stores/blogs/forums/galleries.


Digi Scrap Obsession
Digi Shop Talk
Digital Scrap Garden
Scrap Gratuit
Enchanted Studio Scraps
Rachael's Scrap Store

And some blogs I love visiting:


Bunny Cates
Creekside Cottage Designs
Carena's Designs
Ladybug Graphix


Whew, now I need to go and leave them a note that they've received these awards and then tomorrow I must do it all over again LOL.

So now I'm just going straight over to the second installment of my Birdsong freebie.




You can grab it here http://www.4shared.com/file/96005871/2ceeabbf/Birdsong_Papers_2.html. And remember to pop by for the first installment of the elements tomorrow. Have a great day.

Hugs

Renée

There's a busy week ahead

First off I got 2 awards, but I'll pay them forward tomorrow and Wednesday. Today I have too much to say.

We've had a great sporting weekend and my head suffered for it. LOL. On Friday night we played cricket against Australia in the Pro 20 series and we WON!!!!! Whoooohooo, go PROTEAS!!! Sorry to my Australian readers.

Then on Saturday my favourite rugby team the Sharks played against the Brumbies and we also won. I'd like to wish Shawn Mackay from the Brumbies a speedy recovery. Shawn was injured on Sunday morning when he crossed the road and was struck by an armed response vehicle.

We had a crazy weekend. On friday night I was going to watch the cricket at home, but friends phoned and nagged for us to come and watch it at our local. We were drinking John Deere's because they're green and our national colours are green and gold. For those of you that don't know, a John Deere is Cain and Creme Soda. From then on it was downhill. LOL. We only got home at 2 a.m. in the morning and then we had to rehash the whole evening, I think I only got to bed at 4 a.m.

Then on Saturday morning it was out the house very early. Twice a year I support a local charity for quadruplegics called Ry-Ma-In (loosely translated in means Just Ride In). It's always a very emotional experience for me. It's when you see people that have no use of their limbs that you become humble and appreciate the fact that although you sometimes have aches and pains, you're still able bodied and not dependant on helpers for the most mundane tasks.

Saturday afternoon I helped my friend Sonja prepare for her daughter Sabrina's Sweet 16 party and we watched the rugby there and partied until very late at night. We decided it was a good idea to drink our way through every conceivable shooter we could find. And the end result, yesterday I woke up with half the day gone (and I had to be at the track at 7 a.m.), my mouth tasting foul and feeling as if I was hit by a cruise liner, a train, a bus and run over buy a stampede of cattle.

On top of all this I wanted to finish my new kit, but it just had to go on the backburner so that I could recover. And I just know that all my good intentions will just fly out of the window this weekend.

And I'm so excited about this kit!!!!! I'm very jealous that the northern hemisphere is going into Spring and Summer and we have Autumn (Fall) and Winter to look forward to. I had this idea to do a very fresh looking kit and I've done the entire kit in various shades of green. I'm very happy with how it turned out and I got the opportunity to use some goodies from Kim's Mishmash Bag that is on special for a limited time. This is one of those kits that I just couldn't finish because I kept on adding new elements. It's so big that I've had to break it up in several downloads that I'll put up every day this week. Here is a preview of the 9 papers and 25 elements. Drop shadows are for preview purposes only.



Here is the link to the first portion of the papers http://www.4shared.com/file/95819525/f4210648/Birdsong_Papers_1.html. Thank you for stopping by.

Hugs
Renée

Inspired

Well I still can't get over my pretty blog Kim created for me. LOL, I can blog 3 times a day. I feel like creating and designing and doing LO's again.

Yesterday I went to the public library for some inspiration and got some strange looks as I spent most of my time in the children's section. I just love looking at some of the illustrations in children's books, especially the books from before the 80's. Unfortunately our library doesn't have many of those as they replenish their books and of course many people don't return books to the library.

My quest was inspired by a book of Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies I got as a gift. I treasure that book. She was such an amazing artist and her paintings are special because they're so timeless. I can well believe that children in 50 year's time will still love looking at ther art.

And that is where I got my inspiration for today's freebie. All the paintings in the book is a full page illistration with it's poem on the opposite page. I just loved how they were presented. The illustrations all have a border around them and the background paper has a texture to it. I tried to emulate this look and feel and Kim's got the perfect CU overlays for this. I used Watercolors 1 for the "drawing" and Paper Textures 2 for the textured border.

Here's a preview

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/94285063/3fcf5189/Inspiration.html. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Hugs

Renée

Link for Freebie

I worked in Mozilla last night and seem to have a problem with posting links

You can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/93822942/c67405e2/New_Blog.html

Sorry for the inconvenience

Revamped

VAVAVAVOOM!!!!

Don't you just love my new blog look???? I think I now have the most beautiful blog on the net. And it's all thanks to the very talented Kim. THANK YOU KIMMY, I JUST LOVE THIS!!!!.

Last week I mailed Kristine and asked her if she could give me some links to tutorials on how to create blog backgrounds. My blog was really depressing me with all that black and I really didn't feel like blogging. Kristine got back to me in a flash with a link. The next day we had a quiet day at work and of course I didn't have the link, so I mailed Kim. She also let me have some links quick as a flash. Well I followed the tutorials and played around and eventually came up with something that "looked" as if I knew what I was doing. Let's face it, I'm under no illusions that I actually know what I'm doing, I just bluff my way through these things. Well I mailed Kim my little tryout and SHE ASKED ME if she could design something for me. Who in their right mind will say no if Kim offers???? And this is what she came up with and very tentatively asks me if I like it. KIM!!!! I like Cape Cookies - this I frigging LOVE!!!!

Kim has managed to capture me 100% with this LO because that's what I see, a beautiful whimsical LO. But apart from the fairytale feel to this she captured some of my personality traits. The vines that are slightly chaotic which defines my attention deficit, slightly disordered life. The boots the fairy is wearing - I love boots and I'm currently the owner of 23 pairs and now that winter is approaching I'm sure I'll find about 50 pairs that I just have to have LOL. The striped socks the fairy is wearing, I do so love to make fashion statements and the dark wings, which matches my impossible nature. And of course the flowers and butterflies which represents my love of nature. So with one blog design, you got to know me quite intimately.

And now I'm motormouth LOL. Some news from the past month and a bit. Rainer has healed quite nicely and is back to being full of bluster and blarney. His bike was written off by the insurance and he has decided to buy a new car. Mom is suitably jealous because he is buying what I'd love to drive. A black VW Polo TDI.

We've been crazy hectic at work with financial year end, but thank goodness that is over and the auditors packed up their laptops and files today and we can take a breather for the next year.

Jazzy has some new word art in store that's on sale for a very limited time only. So swing on by her blog and go and read all about her exciting news and see what new word art she has. I just love what she comes up with. It's always the perfect finishing touch to a LO.

Oh and I'm sure you've all been saying "STOP WAFFLING" and get to the freebie. Well I made a little something to match my new look.


You can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/93822942/c67405e2/New_Blog.html

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Hugs
Renée