For the Boys alpha

I must have been having a total blonde moment yesterday when I wrote the post about the second part of elements for this kit because at the end of it I said that you would be getting the BB pages and wordart add-on today. I totally forgot about the alpha! You will get BB pages and the wordart add-on, just not today. Check back tomorrow for those--I promise, they will be posted tomorrow.

Today's part is the alpha. I used the font KaBlam! which is available in many places, including at dafont.com. I wanted something that would stand out on the page--especially if you used the blue corduroy background. There are only capital letters included since the upper and lower case letters don't differ for this font. I used the embroidery action from Atomic Cupcake on the letters.

Speaking of Atomic Cupcake, she's having a great sale that runs through the 31st of January. For $30 you get any 20 items and have up to six months to choose them. It's a great deal since most of her stuff is usually $3+.

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: The BB pages and a wordart add-on.

For the Boys elements, part 2

Hope you're having a good day. I'm trying not to read too much news--too depressing--especially when you're looking for a job!

Quick post today so I can get back to job-hunting. I finally finished my For the Boys layout. My good friend Kiera (who is a fantastic person and an amazing mother) allowed me to use a picture of her little guy, Reichen, for my layout. He's one of my heroes--he's dealt very successfully with a whole lot of challenges in his short lifetime. Isn't he adorable?

I used Andrea Gold's template #504 in making the page.

If you do any laouts, I'd love to see them. You can post them to the slide show at the bottom of the page, send me a link to the gallery or blog where they are posted (my e-mail is on the left-hand side of the page), or e-mail them to me. I am so inspired by how the layouts I've seen you do with my stuff.

Today you get the other half of the elements for this kit. I can't wait to see what you do with them!

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: BB pages and a wordart add-on. Have a good afternoon!

For the Boys elements, part 1

You'll have to forgive me for not having my For the Boys layout completed. I've spent the day running errands and fighting off the beginnings of a cold. The one hour nap I got this afternoon seems to have helped a bit. I will have it for you tomorrow though! In the meantime, I've got a couple more layouts from my CT to tide you over until tomorrow.

Mary

Ginger

And now, today's download: the first part of the elements. The elements shown below are in today's download.

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: More elements and my For the Boys layout. Have a good evening!

For the Boys papers

Sorry for the late post tonight. My brother and his family spent most of the day with us. It's always fun to have them here. My sister-in-law, older niece and I spent a good portion of the afternoon scrapbooking while watching my younger niece run around like a wild child. (She's 2 and sooooooo full of energy!)

I've received some awards from people in the past few days. When I get a chance, I'll share more info about that. In the meantime, let me say how grateful and flattered I am by them. It really means a lot to me!

On to this week's kit. It's called "For the Boys". From the comments I've seen in a variety of places, it seems that a lot of digi-scrappers are always on the lookout for boy kits because there aren't many of them available. So I'm helping to fill that void. (Don't worry, I'll do a girl kit at some point, too.)

I absolutely love what my CT came up with this week for their layouts. They did a great job showing just how versatile this kit can be--like for outdoor pictures. I'll have my layout for you tomorrow. In the meantime, check out their layouts. (Mary and Ginger did multiple layouts. I'll share their other layouts with you tomorrow.)

Juli

Michele

Mary

Ginger
Ginger
Sandy (a.k.a. Louisiana Lady)

Here's a preview of the entire kit. You'll want to come back throughout the week to collect every part. Sandy created BB pages for this and those will be available on Thursday.

And here is today's portion: the papers. I had to break the papers up into two downloads, so be sure you get both parts!!!

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: The first part of the elements. Have a good start to your week!

Hope alpha

Wow! That was some celebration yesterday, wasn't it? I was able to watch Obama take the oath of office and heard most of his speech. I really need to read through it in its entirety and/or watch it on the internet to really absorb it.

I'm headed out the door soon but I wanted to get this posted so you could download it--the Hope alpha. It's a white rubnon alpha done using Bodini MT font. It includes both upper and lower case letters, punctuation, and numbers. It coordinates well with this kit but when I designed it, I kept in mind that I wanted it to be versatile enough to use with any other kits you might have.

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: BB pages. Have a good Wednesday!

Hope elements, part 2

I have a busy today (and tomorrow), so I'm going to post things early the next couple of days.

Inauguration Day is finally here! I will definitely be watching. (I managed to figure out how to work that in to my schedule. When you really want to do something, you figure out how to make it happen.)

Did anyone watch CBS' Monday night line-up last night? The promos for Two and Half Men featured a "picture" of the three main characters in the same style as the famous Obama poster that inspired this week's kit! I got a good kick out of that.

Without any further ado, here is the second set of elements for this week's kit, Hope. Enjoy!

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: the alpha.

Hope elements, part 1

You know those days where you should have stayed in bed, pulled the covers up over your head and told the world to go pick on someone else? Yeah. Today's one of those days.

I finished up next week's kit, For the Boys, and went to do the previews. Apparently, PSE (Photoshop Elements) is corrupted because all I can do is click on the "OK" button for the "cannot load the styles" error message that keeps coming up. I had some trouble with PSE last week, so I did a repair and that seemed to have taken care of the problem. I think I'll uninstall and reinstall PSE tonight and see if I can get it working again. On the positive side, at least my CT has the kit so they can get to work creating some cool layouts for you. :)

In the meantime, here is today's installment of Hope: the first set of elements.

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: the second set of elements. (Oh, and a little thing we call the inauguration!) Have good evening!

Hope candy wrapper

D'oh. I told Ginger I'd share this with you yesterday and totally forgot. Sorry, all!

Ginger created this candy wrapper out of stuff from the new Hope kit that's being introduced this week. I thought it was too cool not to share.

BTW: Ginger creates great wordart for digital scrappers. Be sure to take a look around her site--you'll no doubt find something you like!

Click on the picture to be taken to Ginger's blog where you can download the wrapper.

I'll be back later with the first set of elements for Hope.

Hope papers

Did you have a good weekend? I did. First of all, the temperature got above zero. The local news people said we spent nearly 88 hours below zero. Brrrrr! Plus, a friend of mine was in town visiting from California and a group of us got together for pizza last night. It was really good to catch up with everyone. I hadn't seen some people in nearly 16 years!

This week's kit is called Hope. There are two inspirations for the name. First, 2008 wasn't the greatest year for my family and I think my brother summed it up best when he said, "I hope 2009 is better." The other inspiration is the Obama poster by Shepard Fairey from the 2008 presidential campaign. The combination of colors really inspired me and I decided to run with it. And, since the inauguration is being held on Tuesday, it seemed like a good time to release another patriotic kit. (I've done one other one, Veteran's Day 2008, and it can be found here.)

My CT created some beautiful layouts this week--and showed how you can use the kit for things other than patriotic holidays.

Michele

Mary

Juli

Ginger

Sandy (a.k.a. Louisiana Lady)

I'll have my layout for you later this week. I can't seem to find my pictures of Pearl Harbor that I want to use with this kit.

Here's a preview of the full kit. You'll want to check back each day to pick the entire kit--including BB pages made by Sandy (a.k.a. Louisiana Lady).

And here's a preview of today's portion. There are nine papers in all.

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: The first set of elements. Have a good evening!

Can you help?

One of my CT members, Ginger, is a teacher. She has a favor to ask. Here's what she's posted on her blog a couple of weeks ago:

It's hard to believe but my Christmas vacation is almost over. There are only 100 more days of school until summer vacation. Every year I hit up my friends and family for postcards of their hometowns and/or vacation spots. We use them in class to learn about other areas and compare them to where we live. Our goal is to try and collect 100 postcards by the 100th day of school. Well, our 100th day is fast approaching and we still don't have 100 postcards.

I don't teach at an inner city school, but it is a city school and the kids in my kindergarten class don't get to travel much. These glimpses into other places have opened up a whole new world for them and they are planning the spots they would like to visit someday. So, if you would be willing to send us a postcard from your town or state or vacation spot I would greatly appreciate it. Our 100th day is on January 31st. It won't be a problem if your postcard arrives after that because we'll still be collecting postcards for the rest of the year.

Here's the address if you can help:

Ms. Brown's Class
Greynolds Park Elementary
1536 N.E. 179th Street
North Miami Beach, FL 33162

I told her I'd post it here on my blog to help her out. If you can, please take the time to help her out with this project. I know she and her students will appreciate your effots.

Tropical Punch alpha

Is it time for bed yet? I feel like I've been up forever! I was up at 5:15am so I could leave at 6:00 and get someone to the airport. I know, I know, poor me! Some of you are probably up that early every day! :)

Today's download is the alpha for Tropical Punch. A font I used is called Big Truck and is available here on SearchFreeFonts.com. The kit alpha contains letters, numbers, and punctuation. Unfortunately, the alpha does not contain an ampersand (&) because that is not in the font set. I still haven't figured out why designers include some punctuation marks but not others in their font sets. If you know the answer, please share it with me.

About fonts: I'm something of a font addict and SearchFreeFonts.com is one of my favorite places to search for new fonts. One of the really nice features is that they tell you if a font is free, OK to use commercially, the styles (opentype or truetype), if it's available for PCs and Macs, etc. When I get time, I'll draft a post or add a blog thingy (the right word escapes me) with links to some of my favorite font sites.

Be sure you check back here tomorrow when I'll have some Tropical Punch BB pages from Sandy to share with you!

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: BB pages. Have a good one!

Tropical Punch elements, part 2

Are you staying warm? I sure hope so. It's a little after 1:00 here and my computer's desktop thermometer shows -11F. Yuck!

I have lots going on (including finishing up next week's kit, Hope), so this will be a brief post.

Did you know you can follow this blog? On the left-hand side of the page, there is a "followers" link. Click on "follow this blog" and choose to follow publicly or privately. Either way--you won't miss a post!

Here's Ginger's third layout. I love how she pieced the papers together. The layout she did yesterday? She's offering it as a QP on her blog. Be sure to pick it up and leave her some love when you do!

Today, you get the other half of the elements for the Tropical Punch kit.

Download is expired.

Tomorrow: the Tropical Punch alpha

Tropical Punch elements, part 1

It seems funny to have this week's kit be about the tropics because it is anything but here in my part of the world (Minnesota, a.k.a Minne-snow-ta). More snow today followed by bitter cold temps later this week. Last night, my favorite weather guy reported that the high temperature on Thursday will be below zero. But don't worry, by next week we'll be back up into the teens and 20s! :)

One of my CT members, Ginger, did three layouts for this kit, so I thought I'd share another of her layouts with you today. The picture she used is so beautiful and peaceful.


And here's a preview of the elements you'll get today:

Download is expired.

Coming up tomorrow: More elements

Tropical Punch papers

I'm really excited about this kit--my first of 2009. (Frostee actually came out in the waning hours of 2008.). This week's kit is broken into four downloads: papers, elements (2 downloads), and an alpha. In addition, a member of my CT (Sandy, a.k.a. Louisiana Lady) has created five BB pages for you; those will be available for download sometime Thursday.

I'm even more excited by some of the layouts that members of my CT did.

Without any further ado, look at the great work they did! Be sure to click on their links (if available) to check out their blogs. Some of them have freebies for you!

Juli

Sandy (a.k.a. Louisiana Lady)

MicheleMelanie
she has this available as a QP--check out her blog to snag it!

Mary

Ginger

And here's my layout:

Here's a full preview of the kit--what you'll get over the next four days.

And here is today's download, the papers.

Download is expired.

Be back tomorrow with some of the elements.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

(NOTE: I wrote this and set it to auto-post since I wasn't planning on being on my computer much on Friday. Apparently, I set the auto-post date to 1/9/08. My fingers apparently haven't realized it's 2009. Oops.)

I've hinted for a while now that there were going to be some exciting changes coming to Shel Belle Scraps in 2009. One of the first changes, announced earlier in the week, was the addition of a CT. I'm super excited to work with these ladies.

Another change was that I re-designed the blog to include three columns. I wanted to have more stuff available to you on the page without overloading you--and without you have to scroll down FOREVER, so I re-organized, re-designed, and re-did portions of it. It's still very much a work in progress, so expect things to be added, deleted, and moved around a bit.

The most significant change is that I am going to do more frequent, but smaller kits. As much as I loved Crayon Box and Swanky (and you did too, from everything I read), they took up a lot of time and I really started to grow tired of the colors. I will still do a larger kit now and then, but probably only two or three times a year. Instead, I will be designing kits that contain 8-10 papers, 15-20 elements, and an alpha. You'll have to come back throughout the week to get the whole kit, but they will remain free for some time. My goal is to do one each week, with the occasional week off here and there.

The final change is that I will occasionally offer all-purpose freebies (like the date stamp from the other day) for you. I've got "calendar stamp" and "date strips" on my to-design list. If you've got suggestions about what you'd like to see or what you need, please let me know. My e-mail address is on the right, or you can leave a comment on any post or in my shout box on the right.

Come back on Sunday for the beginning of my newest kit, Tropical Punch. The kit will be great for all those vacation photos. Here's the color scheme:


Have a great weekend and I'll see you Sunday!

Swanky add-ons

Wow! You really liked those date stamps! Thank you all so much for leaving comments for me. The past couple of days have been really difficult around here. You have no idea how much your comments have meant to me and how much they have lifted my spirits. And another big thank you to Juli for suggesting them!

I have a fun add-on to share with you for Swanky. Jennifer U. created 21(!) different blog layouts for you to use on your blog. I've included a preview of one layout below.

Click on the photo above to be taken to her Photobucket site and don't forget to leave her a comment on that site to thank her for all her hard work.

I'll be back tomorrow with some exciting news about what you have to look forward to next week!

Create-a-Date Stamp Set 01

One of my CT members, Juli, asked about using date stamps or calendar strips in my kits. Believe it or not, those items weren't something I had ever even thought about creating. I'm so glad she made the suggestion--they're really versatile and are a nice twist on using an alpha or journaling to indicate the date. Thank you Juli for suggesting these!

So, I give to you the first set of Create-a-Date Stamp Sets. Some quick things to note: I used the font Courier New for these stamps, in case you want to use the same one in your journaling. There are two sets of stamps for each month (as shown below). The years 2000-2010 are included and the stamps are quite large (6"x6"), so you'll probably want to re-size them.

Download is expired.

Check back later this week as there is more Swanky stuff (blog layouts, QPs, and BB pages) headed your way!

Introducing my CT

I'm really excited to introduce you to my CT. I had quite a few applicants and it was difficult to narrow it down to just six. Without any further ado, meet the members of the Shel Belle Scraps CT.

Ginger is a kindergarten teacher and always has pictures to scrap. She says that her friends know that if she takes their picture, it will probably end up on the web somewhere. She starter her own blog in September 2008 and gives away wordart there.

Juli is a 7th grade science teacher at her old junior high. She and her husband are almost to their 2nd anniversary and are eager to start their family. She started digi-scrapping in October and is totally addicted. When she's not scrapping, she's playing pinochle, Rock Band, or is just hanging out with friends.

Mary is a full-time 31-year old mom of two fabulous kids. She's been happily married to her husband, Homer, for four years and they've been together for 11. She also has an amazing stepson.

Melanie lives in Arkansas and has been married for 11 years. She has three beautiful kids: an 11-year old son and 3-year old twins (one boy, one girl). She's been scrapbooking for a number of years and digi-scrapping for about two. She does some design work and loves to draw her own elements and use them in her designs.

Michele is a SAHM with one young son. She enjoys doing things with her family, traveling, visiting local sites, and--of course--digi-scrapping!

Sandy is a mother of three, grandmother of five, and great-grandmother of two who lives in Louisiana. She loves crayfish (says they're yummy for her tummy), cross-stitch, scrapping, watching the squirrles and birds play and sing in her backyard, spoiling her grandchildren, and traveling.

I'm really excited to work with each of them. They've already been hard at work with next week's kit; I think you'll love what they've done with it. I'll have more about my new kit in my next post.

Stay tuned...