August STS blog train: Summer Camp

Happy Friday night to you! I'm back with my portion of the Stuff to Scrap August blog train.

It's (almost) the start of another month and therefore time for another STS blog train. I loved the colors in the palette for this kit. But I gotta tell ya, I had the hardest time working with the dark green and bright yellow together. See, I'm a Vikings fan and the Green Bay Packers are our biggest rival. Their colors are dark green and gold. You'll notice that the dark green and gold colors never appear next to one another in my papers. (I can be such a dork sometimes!)

I also should tell you that I only went to camp once as a kid and I hated every single minute of it--except for the car ride home from camp. It was really, really hot (like 100+ hot) and dry that summer so the bugs and ticks were out in full force. Hence the reason my kit has creepy crawlies in it; they remind me of my awful summer camp experience. :)

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UPDATED: The font used in creating the alpha is called Woodenhead and is available on daFont.com.

And here is the rest of the train. If a designer doesn't have her portion posted yet, please check back. Everyone's mini-kits will remain free for two weeks; after that, designers can move their portion to their store(s). And don't forget to leave the designers some love.

Nibbles Skribbles
Always Be Neighbors Designs
Elegantly Funky Designs
Scrappin' Serenity
Scraps by Andrea
Ginger's House
Seal Scraps
Saphira's World Scrapdesign
Scrap Attack
Let Me Scrapbook!
Shel Belle Scraps <--you are here
Scrapping Rainbow
Noelle's Little Corner in Scrap Land
Strawbeary Designs
Nita's Things
Mommy Me Time Scrapper
JW Digi-Scraps
3s_enough
Flower Scraps
The Scrappy Kat
Tonisha's Playground
Digital Scrap Fun
Digi-designs by Nicole
Rants N Random Ramblings
Designs By Mel
Samantha Scraps
A valóság tükre
Serenity Scrapping
Scrap in a Can
Stuff to Scrap
My Digaddiction
Mad Genius Designs
A Whittle Whimsy

Have a great day and happy scrapping!

Checking in (and a sneak peek)

It's been another crazy week around here. Sorry I haven't yet solicited your feedback about future kits, changes, etc. I hope to do that sometime this weekend.

I have some exciting news to share with you: I'm teaming up with Nicole of Digi-Designs by Nicole for a fantastic collab that will be coming out in mid-August. I'm super excited to be working with her. I love her stuff (have all of her kits) and she is so nice and fun to work with. Look for our collab, Family Ties, to start on Sunday, August 16th.

I just logged in to 4shared today and as of this morning, 1000 of you have downloaded the Tranquility papers. WOW! With the exception of my first date stamp set, I don't think I've ever had so many people download one of my products. I'm super-excited to have reached that milestone!

Finally, I've got a mini-kit coming out tomorrow night that's part of the Stuff to Scrap August blog train, Summer Camp. I've seen the previews of what you can collect and let me tell you--you are in for a real treat. The stuff that people created is awesome. Here's a sneak peek of my portion:

In the meantime, have a great day and happy scrapping! I'll see you tomorrow night with my newest mini-kit. :)

Tranquility add-on

Hello again! I hope you all had a good day yesterday. I sure am glad I didn't waste any time watching the Twins game yesterday afternoon. They lost 16-1. Ouch!

Thank you all for your sweet comments about this kit. I'm so glad you're liking it and, from what I've read, you have lots of uses for it. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to see your layouts. You can send them to me via e-mail, send me a link to the gallery or webpage where they are posted, or post them to my slide show found on the bottom of the page. I always love seeing the artwork of others!

I have to apologize to CT member Beth. She sent me four QPs and I told her I'd post one each day for the first four days of the kit. I was trying to do too many things at once yesterday morning and completely forgot to post her fourth QP. She's got it, and the others, on her blog. Sorry I forgot Beth! (You can click on the picture to be taken to her blog where you can download the QP.)

Today you're getting a special little add-on to the kit. I usually know when to stop, but not always. :) Since the color palette included blue and pink, I thought I'd design an add-on that featured those colors. My thought was that you could use it to scrap pictures of kids of any age. I also included one funky element, the glittery starburst, as well.

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See you tomorrow with Sandy's BB & QPs for you. Have a great day and happy scrapping!

Tranquility alpha

Hello again! I'm back again with another part of the Tranquility kit.

Before I give you the alpha, I've got a great layout from Mary. She's been down and out--literally--with a pinched nerve in her back. I told her not to worry about getting me a layout but she's a trouper and got me one anyway. Isn't it gorgeous? (The background paper will be available in tomorrow's add-on.)

And now to today's portion of this kit, the alpha. The alpha is almost always the last piece I design for a kit because I want to see how the rest of the kit looks before designing the alpha for it. For this kit I wanted a weathered look and went with a burnished silver style. (The astute among you will notice that I love silver.) The font is called Rogers and is available on SearchFreeFonts.

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I'll see you tomorrow with an add-on to this kit. Have a great day and happy scrapping!

Tranquility elements Part II

I got some exciting news last night: I'm going to be a cousin again! My older cousin (who was sort of like a big sister to me growing up) and her husband are expecting their third child--slated to make his or her arrival on Christmas Eve. What a great present that will be!

I am so glad you are loving this kit! I'm loving it too. I've been working on digi-scrapping some old family photos and have found that this kit works really well for those pictures.

I'll have my layout to share with you tomorrow. In the meantime, here are a couple more from my CT:

Dawn

Beth

And here is today's download, the second half of the elements. (All elements are shown in the preview.)

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See you tomorrow with the alpha for this kit. Have a great day and happy scrapping!

Tranquility elements part I

WOW! You all really seem to like this new kit! I'm so pleased. It's kind of a departure from what I normally do that I wasn't sure how it would be received.

Yesterday was such a good day--exactly what I needed. I spent close to six hours scrapping pictures for a book I'm making for my grandparents and my friend worked on her son's scrapbook. When we finished scrapping, we headed to Target (my favorite store) to pick up a few things. And then we went on what we call the "river run"--a drive on the rural country roads along one of the nearby rivers. A perfect day altogether.

Before I give you the first half of the elements, I've got a few more CT layouts to share with you today. I'm always so amazed and inspired by what they do.

Angela

Michele (just back from vacation!)

Beth

And a preview of the elements you're getting today--including a bead spill (one of my favorite elements in this kit).

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See you all tomorrow with the second half of the elements. Have a good day and happy scrapping!

New kit: Tranquility

Have you had a good weekend? Mine's been nice so far--and I'm even getting this posted early! When I said it would be available Sunday afternoon, I totally spaced that I have a friend coming over today to do some card-making (birth announcements--for her, not me!). So I want to get this posted before I completely forget.

Before I show you my CT layouts, a bit about the inspiration for this kit. Life has been really, really hectic--and somewhat stressful--the past few months. And the past few weeks I've been stuck in a big ol' design rut. Hoping to get inspired, I was recently on a webpage about how to calm your soul and saw a beautiful picture of flowers on it. The flowers were pale blue, pale pink, and cream. I had an "aha!" moment and decided those colors would make a great palette for a new kit. Since I think I'm mostly known for my fun & funky designs featuring bright colors, it was an interesting change. I added a khaki and soft green color to round out the palette and give it some neutrality.

A couple of my CT members are on vacation, under the weather, or moving right now, so I don't have layouts from them. (Hope you're having fun, get well soon, and good luck with the move ladies!) But the other gals have put together some fantastic layouts. They never cease to amaze me. Check out their work:

Juli

Ginger

Beth--available as a QP, head over to her blog to download it

Angela

Here's a preview of the entire kit. Be sure to stop by every day to collect it all!

And here is today's portion of the kit, the papers.

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See you tomorrow with the first half of the elements. Have a great day and happy scrapping!

Another sneak peek at Tranquility

Happy Friday!

I had to check my calendar today to see that it is really July. The expected high temperature here is expected to be in the low to mid-60s. In fact, we're slated to set a new record low high! It's usually about 85 degrees here around this time of year--perfect weather in my opinion. Hopefully, it's supposed to warm up over the weekend.

If you downloaded the QP yesterday, you saw a preview of the entire kit. Sneaky... :) Today, I'm giving you a preview of the add-on to the kit which be released after the alpha next week.

So, in the meantime, enjoy your sneak peek, have a good weekend, and happy scrapping!

Tranquility 5x7 QP

Happy Thursday to you!

So, a couple of days ago I promised you a QP of my soon-to-be released kit, Tranquility. The QP I'm sharing with you today is based on one I created for my good friend Kiera's sister, Briana. Briana was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Kiera and Briana's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and is now in remission. Just as they began breathing a sigh of relief about their mother came word of Briana's diagnosis. The good news is that Briana's prognosis is very, very good and they look forward to having her around for a very long time. But, if you wouldn't mind, I know Kiera & Briana's families would appreciate you keeping them in their thoughts and prayers.

I wanted to do a random act of kindness (RAK) for Briana and came up with the idea of doing a small QP for her. I decided to do a 5x7 page since it could easily be printed out and put in a frame. Kiera sent me this great photo of her sister and Reichen (Kiera's son, who makes frequent appearances on this blog). I touched it up a bit and used it to create my very first QP.

And here is your QP. Oh--and a peek at the entire kit, since I included that in the preview! :)

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See you tomorrow with another peek at an add-on to the kit. Have a great day and happy scrapping!

A new look

So, did you notice anything different about my blog? Yep, it got a facelift! There wasn't anything wrong with the old look but I felt that after a dozen or so new kits, it was time to change things up a bit.

For the avid Shel Belle Scraps fans out there, you may be thinking to yourself, "I haven't seen those designs before. Did I miss a kit?" You're right--you haven't those designs before but don't worry--you haven't missed anything. :) I decided to shake things up a bit. So, before I actually release my next kit, Tranquility, I'm doing two wacky things:

1. I'm giving you a taste of what's to come in the kit by featuring it in my new blog header image.
2. I'm going to give you a 5x7 QP (the first I've ever created) on Thursday afternoon.

Some of you may think I've lost my mind giving you a QP before I give you the kit, but like I said, I wanted to shake things up a bit. And, as usual, I'll have a sneak peek of the entire kit for you on Friday morning.

Until Thursday afternoon, have a good day (or two) and happy scrapping!

Happy Canada Day!

Hi all!

I'm back with another quick freebie for you. In honor of Canada Day, I created a couple pieces of wordart for you. Click on each piece to be taken to the download for them.

Please note: These are for personal use only.