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25 Days of Christmas

So as you’ve likely heard by now Leora Sanford is hosting an amazing 25 Days of Christmas event on her blog wherein she showcases an astounding array of talented artists from across the Interwebs ranging from digital scrapbooking to handcrafted art to photography.  Each day she features a fresh artist and showers you with free goodness.  It’s pretty much an event made of awesome.

I am so thrilled and SO honored to be sponsoring {Day 10} of the 25 Days of Christmas.

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I fell in love with Leora’s work as a scrapper (and if you aren’t yet familiar, I just know you’ll feel the same when you see her designs).  When she invited me to be a part of her Creative Team it was one of those “this feels like Christmas” moments.  She brings the magic in her creativity and my pages have always been the better for it…

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Today, I’m so happy to be a part of her extravaganza of giving in this holiday spirit.  You can pop over to her blog to leave a comment for your chance to win all of my new template releases in 2011. No kidding.  ♥

If you aren’t the winner take heart because I’ve shared a coupon code for an additional 25% off any purchase in my shoppe and there’s this cute freebie for you to snag too:

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So can enter for your chance to win until 9pm MST/11pm EST on her blog.  And you’ll want to keep checking back every day because the flood of free goodies and inspiring talent continues.  Her sponsors have been and continue to be really AMAZING.

Happy Holidays and best of luck!!

{fresh seeds} Mistletoe: 2011 CD Calendar Templates

So I have a confession.  I am a sometimes-horrible procrastinator…I always have good intentions, but sometimes in all the hustle and bustle and as a byproduct of my perfectionism, I end up sqeeeeezing things in just before the wire.  Seems to happen every year with my holiday gifts.  And this year was no exception.  I am just finishing up some homemade gifts for my loved ones. 

All this to say (get to the point, right?) I do love to make things when I can because there's just something so heartfelt and personal about gifts of creation.  And one of my favorite things to do each holiday season is to create and gift a cd calendar to loved ones. 

"Mistletoe" is inspired by my 2011 calendars and really is perfect for creating a heartfelt and homemade (and useful!) gift for your own friends and family.   It's as easy as pie when you choose any papers and elements and your favorite photos of the year to create a sweet keepsake calendar that fits perfectly into any cd case.  The perfect addition and decoration for any desk!

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Includes 12 layered 4.75" X 5.25" cd calendar templates in .psd and .tiff formats (fits most cd cases) and separate calendar elements in .png format that can be used for any calendar-y project. Completely customizable (you can choose the papers and elements, alphas and fonts) so you can get the most out of the template designs and they can reflect you and yours, wherever you may live. Drop shadows can be used as is or customized to your liking. Can be used in a fully digital manner or as a hybrid project!

So..if you're still on the hunt for some fun and easy last minute gifts that are heartfelt and homemade, I hope you'll enjoy Mistletoe.  It will be available for 20% off throughout the weekend.

Happy Scrapping! 

{fresh seeds} Clippables: Balsam and Cranberry {clipped}

Just a quick little note to let you know about a couple fun holiday-y goodies I have up in my shoppe for Tadpole Tuesday. Woot!

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Here's a peek at Cranberry {clipped} and Clippables: Balsam.  I love the idea of something with a little whimsy and simple classic sentiments for the holidays and these little goodies can add just that to your photos, pages, blog posts and even cards or notes.

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Both are available (with many other amazing goodies from the girls) for $1 today only!  Woot!

{grow with love: kids} day nine

Happy New Week!  And seriously I’m in bafflement (is that a word? no?) that we are already one week in to December.  This month seems to fly faster than any other and I know it has a lot ot do with the fact that there is so much to be treasured and so much to be done that we wish everything would just slowww a little.  Which is partly one of our goals of Grow With Love: Holiday if you’re following along with that.

ANYway..I’m digressing already.  Today I’m happy to bring us in to week five and Day 9 of our Grow With Love: Kids project.  We are keeping up with the prompts as scheduled, though as always you can follow along or join in at ANY time.  Crystal and I contemplated putting these on hold until after the holidays, but we really wanted to keep inspiring you with the everyday things and your kids amidst the holiday hub-bub.  This project will take us in to January and will remain available indefinitely so there will be plenty of time to hop in and get inspired.  You can click on the “storytelling” tab to catch up or look over any Grow With Love posts (from any edition) {HERE}.

So let’s take a look at today’s prompt:


This has room for A LOT of possibility.  And a lot of fun!  You can really go in any direction with this one as you capture what your child(ren) think right now, at this moment.  I am actually thinking of revisiting this prompt every year and creating an album (or including the pages in an album) for these interviews.  I had a lot of fun playing “reporter” with Bugga today and asking her some fun questions.  She really had a great time playing along too!

Here’s Crystal’s page with her eldest…it’s so fun to see his responses.  This is the kind of page that would be fun to revisit over time I think.

We can’t wait to see yours too too!

{grow with love: holiday} day two

So remember when, at the close of yesterday’s Grow With Love: Holiday post, I told you to hop over to Crystal’s blog today for Day Two?  Yeah well, the Technology Gremlins had other plans and our sweet Crystal’s internet has been very uncooperative today, to say the least.  So I’m here to happily share {Day Two} of the Holiday Edition with you!

Now that we’ve set the foundation for our attitudes and our perspective in our scrapping for the rest of the project, let’s let ourselves do a little dreaming with the prompt for today:

I have to confess the song that kept floating into my head when conceiving of this prompt was this one by Amy Grant, wherein she sings about her hopes, her BIG hopes her IDEAL hopes for Christmastime.  (incidentally, there have been other versions of this song, including a most fabulous one by Michael Buble but this is the one that I remember from my childhood and so its nostalgia really brought on the extra holiday-y inspiration for me).

Cheesy? Perhaps Completely.  But also warm and fuzzy and full of heart and hope, in an earnest kind of way.  Which is just the recipe for a touching and amazing scrapbook page.  So let your “heart dream” and scrap your Grown Up Christmas List.  It could be on a personal scale..the kind of rarely spoken whispers of your heart: wishes for you and your loved ones.  It could be about your hopes for the world in which we live.  It is where-ever your own heart leads you.  And I have a feeling, in the spirit of this beautiful season, it will lead you somewhere really special, really meaningful.

Here is where it lead Crystal’s:

We hope you feel inspired to share your heartfelt lists…can’t wait to see your beautiful pages!

And with that I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!  Don’t forget to swing by again on Monday for the next Grow With Love: Kids prompt…♥

 

{grow with love: holiday} day one

Happy Friday!  And welcome to the first post of our Grow With Love: Holiday Edition. Crystal and I are really happy to be walking along side you in storytelling as we navigate this very special time of year!  We hope that you are enjoying the moments of anticipation and preparation and advent and all things holiday-y so far and that you’re not feeling as though the month is getting away from you yet.  I always end up feeling that way at some point during this season (usually when I’m contemplating my to-do lists).  It is my hope that this project will help me to slow a bit, to pause a bit, to go with the flow a bit more, to smile a bit more and to just soak everything up.

We’ve mapped out the schedule for our blogging {here}…and let’s not get caught up in the word “schedule” or the whole idea of it really.  This project doesn’t need to be another item on your to-do list..in fact we hope, rather, that it will be something you can unwind with as you reflect and as you walk through these holly jolly days.  Remember, this is (as are all the Grow With Love projects) a self-paced workshop.  We will blog (and hopefully inspire) and you check in when at your own pace.  The prompts can be your jumping off point for documenting your holiday in and of itself or in conjunction with any other holiday project.  We can’t wait to see your pages and process as we go along!  So..let’s get started!

Here’s our prompt for {Day One}:

This is a lay-the-groundwork kind of prompt.  It may, at first glance, seem an almost obvious or “easy” something to scrap about…like “well of course THIS is why the holiday is important to me” because the meaning we each find in the holidays is something that is so within us and so a part of our history that we don’t often give it second thoughts.  It’s just a given.

But we really want you to give this a good think.  We really want to get you thinking about what you love about the holidays.  And more importantly, why.  Because it will be the why that will help you stay focused on what you love most and really enjoy everything all the more.  This kind of foundation building can really be a game-changer.  It can turn something “unpleasant” into something appreciated for its blessing.  It can change the way you consider others’ actions and intentions.  It can change the way you consider your own.  It can help give you a fresh perspective on the “old”. It can help you re-focus throughout the busy.  It can really transform and enrich your holidays.

So..whatever it is that you think of, whatever it is that you feel when you consider the holidays, scrap about it.  Get to the meat of it.  For a lot of us, it could be our faith that guides our attitudes and actions and traditions and everything about this time of year.  For others it could be family.  It could be a whole mosaic of things that really give the holidays meaning for you.  Whatever it is, map that out.

Here’s where this prompt lead me:

And Crystal:

We hope that you let yourself get a little lost in the reflecting and have fun scrapping your own “why” and then let it guide you through the holidays..and the next prompts.  The very next of which will be coming tomorrow.  Can’t wait to see your pages!

Hope you have a beautiful weekend!  Happy Scrapping!

 

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