Happy Dance Today!

Yessiree! I'm doing the happy dance!
The Design Star 2011 competition at ScrapMatters is well under way. The first round is over, it was a stressful week - designing, uploading and then waiting. Watching and reading the comments, waiting for the judges to make their decisions and to find out who was moving on to round 2.
I think there were over 90 who signed up, 71 who submitted an entry, and only 17 who made the cut.
My happy dance? Oh, yeah...that's because I made the cut! Yeppers, I did and I am totally thrilled!

Here is the preview of my round one mini:



And a couple layouts I did with my own mini and a couple extras - couldn't use just mine, it would have given me away... round one was a "blind" competition... identities were replaced with numbers.





You can grab the mini here at 4shared or here at box.net - enjoy, and please let me know if you create something with it - I'd love to see it! Also...leave me a comment below and tell me what you think...

Blessings, *Ü* Karen

Journal Jumpstart

Hello Friends! Today on Chelle's Creations blog, I shared an idea for journaling! I thought it would be nice to share it here too!

When I have everyday photos that are just too cute NOT to scrap, I struggle with what to write in the journaling... "I really love your smile today", "you were happy to be outside", "wearing your favorite sweater" etc., can sound, well, rather boring.

Here's another option... why not interview your kids and put those questions and answers on a page? Or have them create a list of something, such as - that day's favorite food, color, toy, etc.

I had two really sweet photos of my kiddos doing nothing more than smiling at the camera, and decided to ask them (privately) what they loved about each other! I asked for a list of five things and scrapped three of them! There answers were so cute, and I know these are pages I will treasure... glimpses into 6 and 7 year old hearts! To make it a bit more authentic, I journaled using a font that looks as if the respective child wrote it themselves.





I used Chelle's Tell Me More kit and her Doodles: Border It element pack, both available in her ScrapMatters Shop!

I hope you try my idea, and if you do, please feel free to comment here and let us know, we'd love to see it and leave you some love!

Chelle's Have a Guest CT Call!

It doesn't happen very often, so if you're interested in being on a great team, you'll want to get an application right in!



Just in case for some reason you can't read the ad it says...

March to August spots available!

The Requirements are:
3 Layouts for the month you guest and one "extra" (a quickpage, cluster, etc.)
You'll need to post to four galleries, 3 of which must allow linking.
You must participate in the CT forum and contribute to the blog.

In exchange, you will have full access to Chelle's store during your term! How cool is that?!

To apply, send an email to chelles.creativeteamcall gmail com and include your user name, a link to your most complete gallery, a short bio, which month you'd like to guest and why you think you'd be a good fit for Chelle's team...that's it!

The call starts tomorrow Feb. 21 and runs through Feb. 28. The new guests will be announced on March 5 - Good Luck, everybody!

Blessings, *Ü* Karen

New Stuff from Plum Dumpling!

Hi Friends!
I've been having so much fun playing with Mary's designs, and I've got a couple to show you!

She released Heartbreaker earlier in the month,

and this is what I did with it:

I had alot of fun making this "biker" kit into a thing of beauty! I love how my layout turned out! The template is for a ScrapMatters Tuesday Template challenge... you really should check those out!

Just today, Mary released some fantastic double page templates...right up my alley! The really great thing about these, is that they will showcase 30 (yes thirty!) photos!! Thirty Days Has September Templates are available in her ScrapMatters store - and now through Sunday, Feb. 20, they're 20% off!

I scrapped my family reunion. I'm still working on photos from 2005, so these templates helped me to get a BIG event done! Just look how fun this turned out:

(left side:)


(right side:)


To complete these layouts, I used several of Mary's kits... A Photo A Day; Family Fun; and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. I'd love to see what you can do with one or all of these!

Blessings, *Ü* Karen

Desktop Freebie for February!

Can you believe January is gone already? Wasn't it just Christmas!? Where did the month go?

This one comes in three sizes: 1280x1024, 1280x800 and 1024x768, and I had such fun making it!
I used one of my very favorite all time kits called Love of a Lifetime (perfect for Valentines Day or any day!)



The kit is available in all of Tracy's stores...there are links at the end of this post to help you grab it!

And finally, what you've been waiting for... well, a preview of it anyway!



And here is the desktop as I have used it with two of my darling granddaughters - gotta love them!



Thanks for reading all my rambling... You can grab the desktop on the Trixie Scraps blog! Happy February everyone!

All Trixie Scraps Designs products can be found in the following online stores:
Trixie Scraps Shop * Scrap Matters * Gotta Pixel * Scrapbook Bytes * Funky Playground

Blessings, *Ü* Karen