Melon Madness!

The final week of the Design Factor challenge is here.  I spent this week knee deep in melons.  I even found myself dreaming of ways to use melons in the kit! Those melon scalloped mats...one of my midnight ideas.  I've really got to switch my creative clock around! I'll sleep a whole lot better if my ideas come in the morning than while I'm trying to fall asleep!

To download Melon Madness, <Links have expired>

I'm kind of sad to see the end of the Design Factor...but excited to share that I will be taking part in ANOTHER challenge series, Designer Apprentice, at digiscrapaddicts.com.  So there will be 5 more weeks of free kits to share with you!  I find I am learning so much through each of these challenges, and stretching my creativity at the same time.

Flowers, Ribbons, and Strings Oh My!!

Welcome to the First Digi Scrap Connect Blog Train.  This blog train is comprised of 24 fabulous designers who have been participating in the Design Factor Challenge the last 5 weeks.  For our 5th challenge, we were required to make an element pack using CU items.  Since 1/2 of the items for all the kits would be coming from the Scrap Matters great challenge freebies, we were worried that we were going to have flowers, ribbons and strings coming out our ears with this challenge :).  We decided to have fun with it and turn it into a great Blog Train by adding some fabulous papers as well.  Flowers, Ribbons, and Strings Oh My!!  the blog train was born.  We hope you have fun collecting the great mini kits.  If you get lost along  the blog train, just return to Digi Scrap Connect to find the list of all participants.

Here is a list of all the participants:

DigiScrap Connect {Home Station}
Piccolina Designs
JDK Skrapz
Dancing Princess Designs
Inspired By Dominic Designs
Dana's Footprints Designs
Milly Dee Designs
Amanda and Millie Designs
Rose Thorn Designs
NanaScraps
Kim Hackworth Creations
Scraps by Mara
Digital Gator Designs
Snackpackgu's Designs
Rumki Designs
Designs by Angel
Scrapdragon Designs
ScrapN2Nspire
Rebecca Meyers Designs
Ramona Memories
Binty Designs
Lizard Dau Designs
Digital Harmony{Previous stop}
Foosa Moon Creations {You are here}
PamlaKlenczar {Next stop}

And now for my contribution!  The colors made me think of the beach and the items that my daughter comes home with in her pockets when we have visited in the past. Because we had to use CU items, I couldn't scan in her actual treasures, but she has many shells and bits of beach glass tucked away on her desk in a jar her grandma gave her for that purpose.  

I have uploaded the papers and elements separately so that if you have already downloaded the elements, you don't have to take the time to download them again.  

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Thanks for stopping by! As always, I'd love to see what you do with my designs.

Balloon Bash - DF Challenge 4

I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post.  It has definitely been busy though.  We had a trip to Seattle to watch my brother get married, and I still am not sure I've fully recovered from the craziness!  It's a good thing school starts a week from tomorrow. Maybe things will start to slow down again!

While I was gone I put together this mini kit for the Week 4 challenge.  The challenge was to use a shape on all the elements and patterned papers.  I was in a celebratory mood, so I used balloons! I think this turned out pretty fun, and have a few new favorite pieces in this kit.

See that little brad in the middle of the flower?  I learned how to make glitter, and used it there.  My other favorite piece of this kit is the alpha. I love the little bitty balloons that follow the shape of each letter.

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Thanks so much for stopping by!  I'll be taking part in a blog train on Thursday with my kit from week 5.  I have all the elements done (that was the week 5 challenge) and just have to put together a few papers today to round it out.  See you then!

Final Lap - DF Challenge 3

Wow! I'm not sure where the time went this week! Maybe it was the holiday weekend that threw me off. I had fully intended to post an add-on to Cream & Sugar, but time just got away from me. I will hang on to the add-on for a time when I don't have a new mini-kit to share with you!

This is a kit that has been floating around in my head since I started toying with the idea of designing for myself. My husband competes in endurance mountain bike races. Like 12 and 24 hours of relay racing. Even with a 4 person team, that's a lot of riding. When I went looking for kits to use for the photos he took, all I found were kits aimed at kids learning to ride. I finally found a color scheme I liked, and it fit perfectly with this week's neutral monochromatic color challenge (with a pop of color!).

I had a lot of fun putting this kit together, with a combination of extraction and shapes used to created the various elements.

You can download Final Lap <Link has expired>. There are 6 papers (4 patterned, 2 solid) and 13 individual elements in the mini. Hope you enjoy!

Cream & Sugar

Sitting here this morning with my cup of coffee and waiting for the kids to wake up, this is the perfect kit for me! Combining my morning coffee habit with my love of a nice cuppa tea in the evening, this kit has everything needed to remember those relaxing moments.

This kit was also created for the Design Factor Challenge #2. The challenge was to use patterns completely drawn by me. Looking through the gallery at DSC, I see that there is a lot of interpretation as to what "drawn" means. I took it to mean actual drawings, so that is what my patterns are -- drawings by me. Not my strong suit, in my mind, but it worked!

To download directly from this post, <Link has expired>. The whole kit is in one link, so depending on your download speed, it may take a bit.

As always, if you use my creations, please link me up so I can see what you're doing! I love to see my work in action.

I'll be back in a couple days with an add-on to this kit.  I had so many element ideas, I had to keep some back!

Design Factor Challenge #2...

The second challenge for the Design Factor was posted a little while ago, and boy is it a doozy! I'm brainstorming one possible theme, since it is wide open theme wise, but what has me worried is that all the patterned papers must be created by hand...so no easy-peasy stripes or polkadots. But that's why they call it a challenge, right?  I've actually got 5 patterns sketched on paper if I go with the theme that is spinning right now, but not sure what that 6th pattern might entail.  And not sure I can carry the theme to get the required elements.  Hmmm...guess I'll be stewing all night at this rate!

For now, I'll just have to let it all stew and mix, and maybe someone will post a question that will make something gel.  I'm not even sure what questions to ask to help work through this pattern challenge! Off to bed, as it's almost midnight here, and my husband will be up in just 3 short hours to watch the Pikes Peak Hill Climb race.  I think they're nuts, but that's why I'm sleeping in and not joining in on the "fun."

Lemonade Stand

Yesterday I posted the preview of my mini-kit, Lemonade Stand. I spent a little time during nap time later in the day to put together a page with the kit.

Working with the kit was a lot of fun. I pulled some of my favorite pieces to work with, and was able to tell about Maggie's summer plans (ALL of them) in one simple page.

Lemonade Stand is available as a freebie, either by visiting the gallery at Digi Scrap Connect, where the Design Factor challenge is being hosted, but I am also going to be putting the links here today too! So you don't have to go anywhere extra if you don't want.

Lemonade Stand Papers
Lemonade Stand Elements

Thanks for visiting, and I'd love to see what you do with Lemonade Stand. If you use the mini, please leave a comment (with a link if possible).

Design Factor Challenge 1

I decided to participate in the Design Factor Challenges at Digi Scrap Connect. It is a non-competative 6 week challenge, which should be perfect for helping me practice designing while also adding the pressure of a deadline. I'm one of those people who needs a deadline looming before I can really be creative -- part of why I started working on Creative Teams a year ago.

Anyway, the first week's challenge was to create a summer themed mini-kit.  My mini quickly turned into a regular sized kit while working this week, but I pared it down closer to mini-sized for the final submission.

This kit was inspired by my daughter, who was super excited for summer to start so she could set up a lemonade stand with her friends. They held meetings to plan and draw posters, and on the day of the stand they were up early to set up along side a neighbor's garage sale. I used some of my new (and very weak) Illustrator skills to draw some of the elements, and others are scanned and extracted by me.  Part of this challenge was that there could be no "CU" items used, so everything had to be from scratch.  It was a great challenge, and I had a lot of fun putting this together.

To download the papers and elements from this kit, please visit this page. <Link has expired>