Woo hoo me - at Owl Tree Studio!

After picking myself up off the floor and working on the fabulous kits provided, I can now breathe deeply and sit and blog about a wonderful new site for digital scrappers and a wonderful new opportunity for me! Owl Tree Studio, is a new digital scrapbook kit club and I have been chosen to be on the Creative Team! I am so excited and huge thanks to Tiffany for choosing me.

For starters, there is a beautifully bright, breezy and refreshing FREEBIE KIT available at the Owl Tree Studio blog, all you have to do is sign up for the newsletter. And there is a wonderful alpha to match also available at Jen Balding's blog.

Here is my layout (including a couple of elements from the kits available to August subscribers).

The design team has put together an incredible August lineup (while you check it out on Facebook, go ahead and like OTS so you stay up to date on all things OTS and important) and the creative team has put together some incredible quick pages, blog posts, scrap challenges and page templates for you to enjoy.

As we get closer to opening day, the Owl Tree Studio crew wants to give you an opportunity to try them out for FREE.

That’s right...F-R-E-E!

On Sunday, August 1st, 2010 Owl Tree Studio plus each of the three resident designers will be giving away free memberships to Owl Tree Studio. You can enter to win as many times as you want between now and July 31st, 2010 at 10am (EST). Everyone’s contest rules are different, so you’ll have to visit each designers’ blog to find out exactly what you have to do to enter their portion of the giveaway.

Enter to win a free membership from the official Owl Tree Studio blog by:

Following OTS on Facebook - 1 Facebook follower will win a free 1 month membership

Follow OTS on Twitter and ReTweet:

"Follow @OwlTreeStudio & RT this for a chance to win a free month of great digital scrapbooking goodies http://bit.ly/aib6cA #digiscrap"

- 1 Twitter follower will win a free 1 month membership

Join the mailing list (and get a free beach themed digi kit) - 2 mailing list subscribers will each win a free 3 month membership

Sometimes, the studio owls get a little over excited and rumor has it one commenter on the Owl Tree Studio blog contest post might win a 1 month membership as well.

Follow OTS on Facebook; and Twitter AND join our mailing list for the biggest chance of winning, then visit the incredible designers’ blogs to pick up more chances to win through the designer contests!

[Fine print: Winners will be selected using Random.org. You can only win one time. If you win, you will have to sign up as a paying member to continue accessing the OTS members’ area AFTER your free membership period ends].

Creative Scrappers yummy sketch #114

You have got to give this one a go, it's one of my faves so far, the page came together so quickly! Remember to link your creations to the Creative Scrappers blog to be in with a chance of winning the monthly prize.

I added in an extra photo, but other than that, I've used the sketch as is. Why change something great?

Products:

All items American Crafts with the exception of:

Paper flower and paint - Making Memories

Quote sticker - 7Gypsies

Stick on pearls - Papermania

Up, Up and Away

Just down the road from us is a field where lots of hot air balloons take off over the Summer. It's a great sight (even though we're pretty blase about it after so many years). However, some times, when they don't quite catch the thermals, things can get pretty hairy with them barely skimming the trees in the garden or even the roof of our house.

There are all sorts of brightly coloured and patterned balloons so I thought I would create a fun page to match.

All credits Libby Weifenbach at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Paper Clips: Stitched Frame Templates

Desmond and Molly Jones kit

Flip Flop Tan mini kit

Pork Chops and Apple Sauce kit

Sweet and Sassy

That's Chiara! Growing up SO fast, she just had her two orientation days at high school last week and totally loved it! I'm really pleased. Mia is going to be such a lost little soul at primary school though.

Sketch #112 is now up over at Creative Scrappers. Loved it! Again my interpretation very literal. Very hard to see from the photo, but the background cardstock is a blinging Ivory and the SEI patterned papers are foiled/shimmery too. Very pretty and girly.

Patterned Paper - SEI, Making Memories, Prima
Cardstock - Gemstones
Chipboard - SEI
Alphabet - American Crafts
Stitching template - Bazzill

Sunshine Days

It must surely have been the hottest day of the year so far, though thankfully for the village carnival, the clouds helped make the afternoon out on the field more bearable for everyone. Well everyone that went (eg all the family except myself). I was on taxi duty taking my mum to Derby train station so she can go off on another little jaunt (this time to Leeds). Five minutes onto the bypass and we came to a standstill. For an hour. First train missed and only got there with minutes to spare for the one an hour later. Excrutiatingly hot in the car. Even so we were grateful to be in the traffic jam rather than be the cause of it.

Rabbits got out of the run again today (did I mention the fun we had the other night in the dark trying to find them after they got out?) This time Mia opened it up to stroke them and, quick as a flash, they hopped their way out again. Luckily Len managed to get them back pretty quickly.

I've played with the Libby Weifenbach digital goodies again today. Some photos of Mia enjoying the pool on one of the hot days we have endured enjoyed so far this year.

All credits Libby Weifenbach

Flip Flop Tan Mini

Love Shack Alpha

Paper Clips Cluster Templates

Paper Clips Stitched Frame Templates

Paper Clips Strip Templates

Digi Delights

Kristine Davidson over at Creative Scrappers gave a shout out to the team to find out who wanted to play with some digi yumminess by Libby Weifenbach. Now I have dabbled with digi in the past and have to say that I should do more of it - I love that I can be creative without either having to (a) tidy up my mess of a desk following a paper crafting session or (b) get my nice clean desk all messy again after I have spent ages tidying up after a paper crafting session! Yep, love paper crafting, tidying is another matter!

Anyhow, I digress ... Libby's stuff is found over at Sweet Shoppe Designs (already in my digi faves folder). I originally chose just a couple of kits to play with, but after contemplating, perusing and contemplating some more, I added some other goodies into the mix, including lots of different clipping templates. As a not too experienced digi scrapper these are hugely helpful in creating fun pages by giving a quick and easy way to add shapes and layers to your projects.

All credits Libby Weifenbach

Desmond and Molly Jones kit

Paper clips cluster templates

Paper clips circle templates 2.0

It's past bedtime now, but I can't wait to get back and play with some more of the goodies I got.

Basic Grey Bonanza

The DT gallery for July is now up over at A Trip Down Memory Lane. I played with products from both the Cappella and Max & Whiskers ranges this month. This is a couple of close ups ... to see all four layouts, one card and altered item I created, as well as all the other lovely DT creations, visit the gallery here (remember to click on both pages).

Summer Lovin'

Keeping in with the sunshiney weather we are lucky to be experiencing here in the UK (okay, fingers crossed I haven't just jinxed it), I am sharing a couple of pages I created for A Trip Down Memory Lane gallery in May, these two are using the beautiful Rusted Sun collection by Fancy Pants.

For this first one, I cut apart the glitter transparency title and used it across both sides of the main photo - this not only frames the focal photo but also adds movement across the page. I doodled scalloped edges on the background cardstock and cut around for an extra whimsical touch.

Patterned paper - Fancy Pants
Glittered transparency - Fancy Pants
Cardstock - Bazzill
Chipboard alphabet - American Crafts
Pen - American Crafts
Stamps - Art Warehouse (circle sentiment), journal block unknown
Stamping Ink - Stazon
Other - stick on pearls
Font - Fineliner script

I stamped a circle sentiment to frame the 'a' section of the title to add interest and cover up unwanted white space in the photo.

This next page is a simple design but with lots of added layered embellishments for interest. I stamped the bracket shaped journal blocks direct onto the background cardstock by masking the areas around them and also each other. The oversized photo corners are created by cutting up a VERY old leather frame.

Patterned paper - Fancy Pants
Label Stickers - October Afternoon
Word Tickets - Tim Holtz
Letter Stickers - Adornit
Phrase Sticker and rub-on - K&Co
Leather scalloped frame - Making Memories
Stamping Ink - Stazon
Stamp - unknown
Border punch - Fiskars
Others - buttons and brads

I added interest to the centre of the sun by embellishing with buttons and brads (the large green concho framing the largest button is another very old embellishment, by Scrapworks).

I'm off now to take advantage of said sunshine by getting as much laundry as possible outside drying! Hope you have a much more fun day planned :)