Hi everyone. We are in Egypt and heading back to Libya tomorrow. I haven't much designing lately partly due to the lack o internet access. Hopefully we will be up and running soon :)

November's Club-Deco Kit is out :)

The top layout is my contribution to the November 2008 Club-Deco Kit, Heritage Blessings. The next two layouts are done with my quick pages that come with my kit. Below is the November Club Kit collage. It has a sampling from most of the contributions.

Moving Soon... and other stuff

I looks like we are heading out on the 8th of November. After that our internet access will be sketchy for awhile :(

However, I have managed to get up all but one of my Deco-Pages Posting Rewards. I'm quite happy about that and, as PatinParis is the only one qualified to receive the last two at this time (one other person is getting close), she will understand if I don't get it it up yesterday. Besides, this will give her a chance to download the 12500 kit ;)

The new welcome kit is up at Deco-Pages.com. You can probably recognize my contribution down there on the bottom right. It is the first part in my Gallant Chivalry Posting Rewards Kits series. You can get my reward kits just by posting at Deco-Pages:).

The November Newsletter is out. PatinParis did the freebie for this month. I did the one coming up in December:)

I used my Gallant Chivalry 100 Posts Kit Quick Page for this layout. You will get the Gallant Chivalry 100 Posts Kit and this quick page when you reach 100 posts at Deco-Pages. You won't be able to see the posting levels until you get to them, so the kit contents will remain a surprise to some degree. You get to see samples from the kits in the QPs and will get the kits when you reach the posting levels:) Click on the images to be taken to the layouts posted on Deco-Pages to see the credits and fonts used.

For this layout I used my Gallant Chivalry 500 Posts Reward Kit QP. The turtles looked very content basking in the sun. I believe Myra  took these photographs. She is getting quite good.

Here are some more photographs from the Honolulu Zoo, this time I used my Gallant Chivalry 5000 Post Reward Kit Quick Page.

We had a wonderful time at the zoo last Tuesday. It was overcast and not too hot. It was quite nice that it didn't rain on us, nor was the zoo flooded this time:) We often seem to pick the most inopportune times to go to the zoo.

I took this picture of the turtles sharing a meal at the Honolulu Zoo. I like the bright colors of the fruits and vegetables against the greens of the grass and turtles. I used my Gallant Chivalry Kit 7500 Posts Reward Quick Page for this layout. Remember, if you haven't made it to 7500 posts at Deco-Pages.com, you won't be able to see or get this great free kit. My posting reward gifts start at 25 posts and they are free when you reach the posting level. So come participate at Deco-Pages and receive my free kits! All you have to do is make posts. At Deco-Pages you get something for just participating, kinda cool isn't it?!?! Also, if you have been participating at Deco-Pages and haven't stopped by to see what posting gift you qualify for, do so before the First of November, because my old Reward kits are coming down and plopping  into the store :)

Today we went to the Honolulu Zoo and saw these amazing guys. They came right up to us and said hello. This is the quick Page that comes with my Gallant Chivalry 1000 posting prize kit coming November 1.

One day in October Mr. Rhino came with me to tutor. He did all right for awhile, but then he became jealous of my tutees. He had to be packed away until we got home and he could lord it over us from the bookshelf again. I used the quick page from my Gallant Chivalry 12500 Posts Reward Kit for this layout.

I gave the boys haircuts yesterday and then took them outside to take their pictures. They wanted to bring Mr. Rhino and have their picture taken with him. They enjoyed, loved, and read to him. Then all of a sudden, "Look! Mr. Rhino Comes apart!" Poor, poor Mr. Rhino. He seems to have gotten his comeuppance after being such a stinker the other day ;) I used my quick page from my Gallant Chivalry Kit 2500 Post Reward Kit. For those of you who have reached 2500 or even 12500 posts at Deco-Pages.com, you can pick up the QP, the kit that goes with it, and the lower level posting kits on November 1 :)

These two layouts use two of the QP's I made for my Gallant Chivalry Collection for my posting rewards. November 1 I am switching out my old posting rewards and putting in the new ones. The kits get larger at each posting level and each kit comes with a QP. The Hula layout is the QP for the 10,000 posts prize and the Everyday Sights layout is made with the 25 post reward. I hope you are able to stop by Deco-Pages and join in a game or two, post a layout or leave a comment, or join in a discussion, thereby earning my Gallant Chivalry Kit :)

 

There are a few more days left in October to join my Font Challenge at Deco-Pages.  For posting an eligible layout, you will receive the Elegant Recollections Font Challenge Kit free. The kit is an add-on to my Elegant Recollections Kits and does not contain repeated pieces. 

Also don't forget I have a 30% off coupon good through the 15th of November. It's a sale because we are moving far away in physical life not in virtual, so you deserve a treat :)

Side note: I create all my kits at 300 dpi. The jpg papers are saved at 8 for excellent print quality. Most of my papers are 12x12. The elements are png files and for the most part the shadows below an object are for preview purposes only.

Don't forget! There are just a few more days left for you to get my posting rewards before I change them out :) So hurry over to Deco-Pages and post away so you can reach the next level before the end of October! You receive a posting gift from when you reach 25, 100, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000 posts and on November 1 I will be changing out and extending my gifts to include 7500, 10000, 12500, and 15000 posts :) Of course if you only see the posting levels you have reached, so you don't know what you are missing :P Have an ultra marvelous day!

I added some new things to my section of the Deco-Pages Store today. Treat yourself to a rainbow full of elegance with my new kit, "Elegant Recollections Kits 1 and 2'. An array of rich colors, silver elements, flowing designs and an old fashioned flair encompasses these extra large kits full of everything you need to create your own Elegant Recollection pages for your memory albums. The kits can be purchased separately or together. Purchased together they are a great deal especially if you take advantage of my 30% off coupon good through the 15th of November.

This album is created from my Dragon's Warmth Collection and fits the Cosmo Cricket Kate Album. The quick pages are approximately 6" by 6", 300 dpi pngs. I included the holes and created both left and right pages that are similar, but not exactly the same. There are 16 quick pages, 8 background pages, and one edge overlay.

This layout I created with Retro Designs Pocket of Posies freebie QP and elements. Click on the layout to see the full credits in the gallery at Deco-Pages. The QP is up to Retro Designs usual quality and is very easy to work with.

Aloha, we will be moving soon and I am having a moving sale in my store at Deco-Pages.com! Using the coupon code -    ThetaMove:)    - at checkout will get you 30% off of your order from my store of $3.00 or more. So go check out my kits that are on sale :)

Hello, Retro Designs just put up this cool new kit at Deco-Pages.com and I wanted to share it with you.

Here is the link to request her freebie QP: Retro Designs A Pocket Full of Posies QP Request

This is what she did with her QP. Neat! Click on it to see it and the credits in the Deco-Pages gallery.

Okay, it's mid October. We have been busy packing and now we have guests :) Life is good, but busy. We are having some sales at Deco-Pages right now and I'm working on a discount for my kits too. Also, on November 1, I will be switching out my posting rewards at Deco-Pages. So if you haven't been over there posting or if you have been posting, make sure you grab the highest posting level you can while they are still free!

I have been enjoying participating in Deb's Photo Challenge this month and have done 5 of the 8 layouts required. Many of them I did with my kit Elegant Recollections that is coming out soon.

I also did a layout for Marcee's Scrap By Numbers Challenge. She has beautiful reward kits this month for all of her challenges and if you're a Club-Deco Member you get the starter kit free! Otherwise it is $3.00 in the Deco-Pages store.

This is my layout I created with Marcee's starter kit for her Scrap By Numbers Challenge 

I hope you all are having a great October!

It has been pouring, here are two examples of the volume of water. Kinda cool, just enough and not too much:) The plants are totally loving it! The boys love it when it rains, because they are banned from turning on the hose and this way they get lots of water Mom can't turn off! They hoard it, they save it, they carry it around and make more mud... 

God is so good! He provided us with a gorgeous rainbow today. I love rainbows, they remind of God's promises ad that He always keeps them. This rainbow was a double and sometimes a triple. It was incredibly bright. 

We are  almost finished packing our books for our move. Boy has that been a job cataloguing all of them. It's nice not having books spread all over the floor. I am hoping that it will also help the younger two to concentrate on their schoolwork a bit more heavily before we go. Moving is always an upheaval and although we usually get some work done, it's sort of hit or miss while we explore our new surroundings. That's usually a big learning experience in itself, and this time should prove to be even more so as I am pretty strictly an english speaker. The kids are learning Arabic, so hopefully they will get around okay with me in tow:)

Hello, we have had rain here off and on for three days. We need rain so that is good, but the humidity is rather high and a bit stifling. Soon the black mold will begin. I have been working on a new kit Elegant Recollections that I hope to have in the store soon. I made two layouts with it from some old pictures my grandmother had. I need to get some more of her pictures scanned in to use in layouts so the kids have an idea who their ancestors were. 

I'm not sure of the date on the one photo the other is from 1939 and contains his son with white hair so it must be from the 1800's. Someone can probably date it from the clothes and props.

I finished my kit for next months font challenge. Here is a sneak preview of it and of the layout I did with the QP that comes with it. ( It goes with my new kit too:))

I also put my Summer's end kit in the store here is it's preview and what I did with the two quick pages that comes with it.

Hi everyone! I was reminded this morning how remiss I have been at keeping up my blog:( 

We have been very busy here - starting up homeschooling again, getting ready for a big move, and all the other life events that continue to go on everyday.

To answer a question posed to me, all my work is exclusively available at Deco-Pages.com in the store for purchase,  for club-members as part of the Club-Deco monthly kit, for joining in the Monthly Font Challenge (post a layout conforming to the rules and get a free mini kit), and for posting prizes. To receive the posting prizes, all you have to do is go to Deco-Pages.com and post comments on layouts in the gallery or in threads. For a little bit of work and a lot of fun you can get freebies - I like that! 

I have put up several new kits since June, (Escape and Dragon's Warmth are two of them) and the monthly Club-Deco kits each month (Farewell Summer). I have also started hosting a monthly Font Challenge at Deco-Pages.com (Summer's End Mini Kit, which co-ordinates with the September Club-Deco).

Dana put the Brag Books for June in the store today. The Garden Party kit for the June Club-Deco is lovely and so are the BB pages! As you have probably seen from all the posting prior in my blog... Today I finished up a brag book for my Wild Thing Club-Deco kit, I still need to get it into the store. AB is going to give it to Kina tomorrow for her birthday all filled with with cool pictures. Once Myra and I had made the BB pages, filling them  with photos and then journaling on them just took a few minutes. It took awhile to upload to COSTCO. They have 'upgraded' their photo site again and it wouldn't let me add photos to the I had already up loaded. It was weird and a pain in the neck, but we got uploaded and they printed out fine. The album looks really cute. Hopefully, Kina will like it. We also had Al's graduation announcements printed out. They look pretty good. I would have liked to do something fancier, but couldn't get up the energy. He is supposed to have them ready to mail before Monday, as he and Myra go to CEF then.

Alexander took the Financial Literacy Challenge Test given by the Federal Reserve and got in the top 1%. He received a certificate and a medal. The challenge was taken by more than 46,000 high school students. For this layout I used a quick page from my new kit Blooming Blossoms.

Deb's photography challenge for this month is textures. I love textures! I have lots and lots of texture pictures, so this is a very cool challenge for me. I already have 41 texture pictures this month and she only requires 10, hmm. 

Here is a composite of a few of my texture photos from last year. There has been some question as to what some of these textures are.

Clue: Food alternates with water and non-edible items. 

Answers:

Top row: Green macaroni and cheese (Michelle made this for our Oscar's Ocean simulation and put octopus hotdogs on top, creative!), Juniper type plant along the side of the house, Walnuts to be used on top of the cookies Myra was making (she makes great cookies!), Calm water in our pool

Second Row: One of the kids in our pool kicking, Yummy berry smoothy in our blender - such a pretty swirl, weathered lava rock under our lemon tree, One of our spiky pineapple plants

Third Row: Guacamole (my kids think this picture is disgusting, but I think it has a certain draw), Concrete block/rock from our wall - like the kind they are putting on the side of COSTCO and Wal-Mart, One of the kids kicking as hard as they can in the pool

Last Row: Rock from a wall - only I think this one was a real rock not one of those fake ones, Popcorn (popcorn has a neat texture), Interior textured wall painted white, Very yummy chocolate cookie dough, mmmm

I also finished getting all my goodies up for my Blooming blossoms Kit. I love the colors in this kit and so much fun designing it. I have also put the graphics, overlays, and borders I used in the kit and in the quick pages up for sale for those of you who like the extra flexibility and enjoy putting things together too.

Club-Deco Kits

Well, I managed to get two of my Club-Deco kits into the store this week, Totally Grungy and Art Nouveau Surprise. So that was very good.

Posting Prizes

Here are the posting level prizes. They will be up for at least 6 months to give people at Deco-Pages.com time to earn them.

This months Club-Deco offering is called Garden Party and here is my contribution:

Font Challenge

Next are the Font Challenge Kit and Quick page at Deco-Pages.com for the June Font Challenge. For the Madagascar Periwinkle I used the fonts we are using in the June challenge. If you join me in the challenge you will get the kit and the quick page. Last month everyone who joined us created wonderful layouts, followed the directions,  and earned the kit May Flowers Font Challenge mini kit. It was great! I hope lots of people join in the challenge this month too.

Been busy finishing up the June's Garden Party Kit for Club-Deco and making a bunch of kits out of the 'leftovers'. Blooming Blossoms. I have finished all of the posting prize kits, Font Challenge kits, News letter Kit, but not the one for the store. They all go together which is really neat. It's a beautiful set of kits. Thanks to Tom Dillon for the Club colors for June, they are excellent! I also made a QP for each kit and two for the club kit, whew! I'm hosting the font challenge this month with  the Lime Blossom Caps and Isla Bella fonts from DaFont.com. I'll start with the posting of the News Letter Freebie at Deco-Pages.com.

Well, I finally got my Lost Tooth Kit done! I have been working on it for months. I lost PS7 when we 'upgraded' to Leopard. One of the problems I encountered is that PSE4 doesn't open the grouped files in separate layers, so I had to put the kit on hold. I recently was able to procure a copy of CS3 and that enabled me to continue working on the kit. Yea! The main part of the kit is great for going to the dentist and losing teeth, the add-on is more flexible and can be used for many events such as cleaning, school, and even baking. Just remember to Brush you Teeth!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Whoa! I knew I'd been AWOL from here for a bit, but I sure didn't realize it had been two months! Sorry about that! I've been busy with the kids, birthdays, etc. and have designed a few kits. I got my bike fixed, so I am riding again, yea!

Michelle, these are the orchids you gave Annabelle. Three of the four have bloomed and they are all alike. Very pretty!

Kona has been growing quickly and now has his own castle.

The Wild Things Brag BooK Pages are now up in the store. They are so neat! Makes me want to go to the zoo all over again.

We have been so busy! The guys are both back from their trip back east, Myra's birthday party went well, my mom's 1st back surgery went great, and tons of other stuff is going on. We're going to miss Mackenzie having her birthday party on Cyril's birthday (they have the same birth date), so I am planning on having Cy's party on his birthday this year. It's on a Wednesday, which will work out great since the school kids get out early that day and some are on break.I'm planning on decorating the house like an ice cream parlor and the kids can make sundays or something. Should be fun. Hope you all are having a great March!

Pat has gotten the March Color Challenge Starter Kit up and it is gorgeous! I've also posted the colors and the two posting gifts she is giving away. If you post 1 layout you receive Posting Gift 1 and if you do three layouts you also receive Posting Gift 2. Even better, if you do 5 layouts Pat is going to give you one of her great kits free! Wow! Thanks Pat! Now all I have to is create some layouts. If you want to check out the layouts that have been made for the color challenge check out the gallery.

Voting is going on for the Print My Keepsakes - My Favorite Things Contest this week only, so stop by Deco-Pages and vote for your favorite! Club-Deco this month has gone wild. The March kits are being loaded up and if your a member, you can start downloading. As you can see from the collage, the designers went all out wild this month. I like my contribution this month with the enormous elephant and other animals and now I'm beginning to think a trip to the zoo is definitely in order. I forgot to put the frame I made in my preview, but I used it on the lower QP, so you can see it there.

The writing in the last post didn't come out the way I wanted it to. Oh well at least the picts are up and you all can hopefully enjoy them. :)

Well, we are finally through the sickness, almost, and everyone in the house is now able to carry on their normal life with minimal complaining. I finally finished Deb's 31 Days of photos. It took a while, but I did it. I also did some other layouts for the Color Challenge, Font Challenge (the font is My Turtle), J Burkhart's Template Challenge 16, and the ABC Challenge. B is for Beautiful Rainbow was for the ABC Challenge, Rainbow Days uses the My Turtle font for the title and was for the Font Challenge, and Rainbow was for the Template Challenge.  The layouts for the Color Challenge are the Old/New Refrigerator (it is sure nice to have a working refrigerator!), which I also posted for Day 23 of the 31 photos,  and  Look! I do clean the kitchen! Both use Rose Made Designs February Color Challenge Kit Part 1. Hope fully I can get a couple more layouts made using Parts 1 and 2, then I get the third set as a posting prize. Yay! The rest of the layouts were for Deb's 31 Days of Photos Challenge:

Blooming Flowers

Plastic Diorama

Metal Detector

Washing the Van

Myra Cookies

Dove Babies

Trip to Ross

Reading

Budding Artist

AWANA

Some New Layouts and I've been sick!

Well actually just about everybody in the house has been sick. DH had the influenza and so did my eldest DS. The girls have been fighting it off fairly effectively. The littlest two came down with fevers and malaise. Omega threw up with the version he had, yuck! Now that we are better I have finished some layouts.

The first layout is of Noe and Kai, the credits can be seen here. The big kids put Kai on Noe's back. She bounced all around, spinning and going up and down. It was quite an exciting adventure for Kai. 

The layout for January 16th is about God's promise of the rainbow. We see many beautiful rainbows here in Hawaii. Find the credits here.

A pair of Cardinals showed up to eat the apple Annabelle had put out to dry. It was fun to watch them eat, but hard to get a picture, they were very skittish. Find the credits for Cardinals here.

The pictures for Fun were taken at the Johnson Ohana on the Fullerton's last evening with us. The kids had a blast, still not realizing that their friends were moving. 

At the beginning of January Dad got new bike tires. They are some sort of composite material that is shaped into semi-solid tires. These pictures were taken after a week of his use. I found lots and lots of thorns, rocks, and glass stuck in his tires. No wonder he was getting flats nearly every day with regular tires!

The last layout is of Michelle and me right before she moved. I miss her a lot.

Omega and Dad - January Font Challenge

Omega and Dad I did for Lorene's January Font-a-Licious Challenge. We had to use the font Amapola, a nice loose loopy cursive font.

Cyril's Lost Teeth - Day 11 

 

On January 11 Cyril lost two of his bottom teeth at once. It was pretty exciting for all of us.

Boys in the Trees - Day 12  

On January 12th, Dad took the boys to the park and I trailed along later. When I saw them they were just leaving the boat park and wanted to climb the trees lining the park next to the playground. Dad put them up in the trees, they thought it was pretty neat.

Dad Fish - Day 13  

Dad took Alexander and Annabelle fishing with Capt'n Bobby. They caught quite a few fish and brought some steaks and a whole fish home.

Alexander at HCC - Day 14 

 

Alexander is an early admit student at HCC. Which means that when his class was cancelled Friday evening before classes started on Monday, he couldn't just sign up for another class. He did some research over the weekend and figured out what he would like to take and called his counsellor early Monday morning. His counsellor called him back and said he would be out in the am and would figure out what to do when he got back. Meanwhile one of the classes Alexander wanted take was in the am, so we hustled down to HCC and he sat in on the class. Afterward we headed to the counsellors office where Alexander convinced his counsellor of his choices and signed him up.

Hello! It's Monday morning here in beautiful rainy Oahu. The February Club-Deco kits are out for those of you who are members stop by Deco-Pages and download the kits. The My Favorite Things/ Print My Keepsake Contest has started, so check out the My Favorite Things kit and enter! Go to the Deco-Pages forum and see all the rules for the contest. Dab made an awesome layout using parts from all our kits to present the contest. You can see my flower charm and hanger up at the top.

The design team over at Deco-Pages is making up brag pages for the My favorite Things contest. These are my contribution. I think they are slated to be released early March. The designers have made some beautiful kits and pages. The kit collage is displayed  lower down in my blog.

These are some of my layouts for Deb's 31 Days of Photos Challenge. You can see the other ones I have finished and the credits in my gallery at Deco-Pages.com. I am quite behind, but Deb says we have to have them finished by mid February, so I should be okay. Myra did a great job making pretzels! They were very tasty. 

Kai has a new favorite spot when he is in the girls room. It is way up in the corner by their light, he can see everything going on from up there and seems to feel safe.

Annabelle had Kai on the piano light while she was practicing and he snuck away. It took awhile for us to find him. We should have looked up to begin with. 

In the next layout, Annabelle let Kai climb the Royal Palm on our deck. He thought he was the greatest, so I crowned him king. 

Kai was climbing around on our counter and found a new favorite place - on my WACOM pen! That was a bit inconvient, especially since for some reason he didn't want to get off.

Brr, Swimming in January is another layout of Annabelle and the boys enjoying their swim in early January.

In Park Play, DH, the Boys and I went to the park. The boys enjoyed playing dinosaur and elephant as well as the general running around chasing one another. 

At the beginning of January we had some beautiful orchid blooms.

In the last layout, Omega found my bike multi-tool on the counter and was playing with it as though it was a vehicle. Hope you enjoyed these layouts and learned a little about what goes on in our life. Have a great day!

This layout of the kids jumping into the pool, I did for Marcee's Material Girl Challenge for January. For the challenge we had to use the slides she provided. The slides are really great and a lot of fun to use. Annabelle and the little boys had a great time playing in the pool once they got started. The pool was a bit cold to them at first and it took a little while for them to get used to the chilly water. Click here for the credits for Let's Jump.
The next two layouts I did for the January Color Challenge at Deco-Pages. Diane Isbell made the beautiful kit for this month. Check out Ahh, the Joys of Sleep here and Sunbathing here.

My Favorite Things Contest at Deco-Pages.com

We are looking forward to the My Favorite Things Contest at Deco-Pages.com. Be sure to check out the kit in the store and rules (go to the February Deco-Pages Newsletter which comes out on Feb. 1), then submit one or more pages. 

Wow, I can't believe it's been 10 days since I last posted. The time has flown by! Here is the preview I said I would have up by last Tuesday. I got it in the store at Deco-Pages during the weekend. Unfortunately I didn't get it posted here. I'm sorry!

Hi all, we've been extremely busy with watching Hawaiian Princess and Racing Princess this week. They are moving Tuesday and we are all very sad in this house about their move. I got designer sidetracked and am almost finished with a kit in red, orange, pink, blue, and green, I'm calling Junior Romance. It's a sweet kit. Hope to have a preview up later today, but definitely by Tuesday. I have to work on the kit for next month's Club-Deco. It's due soon. I am now ten layouts behind on Deb's 31 days of photo's, but I now have photo's coming out my ears it seems. Hope you have a great long weekend and a lovely day today!

Yippee! I have finally finished my Sea Fishing Kit! It is now in the store at Deco-Pages. It feels so good to finally have it done! Now I can move on to other things... I have a lot of sketches and the Animal in Me kit to finish up, hopefully soon. I also have Deb's 31 days of photos to catch up on. It's a great challenge. The latest drama at the house is our refrigerator went out. Since it's not in our budget to get a new one right now, we've been scrambling to find a used one that will fit in the space we have. Makes for an interesting life - maybe I should scrap this new adventure.

This months Club Deco Kit is beautiful! The designers (that includes me) got together to bring you 4x6 Brag Book Pages made from the kit. You can get a closer look at them here in the store. My contributions are the two facing pages in the bottom row.

Today is another school day for the kids and I will be tutoring some kids in the afternoon/evening. Hopefully I will also be able to get some more work done on my Sea Fishing kit - it is taking a lot longer than expected. We upgraded, due to necessity, to Leopard and now my PS7 won't open. At least I have PSE4, but it won't open the grouped folders, so many of the elements have to be extracted and/or redone. I also have a mini kit for a Deco-Pages contest coming up and the Feb Kit to work on, so it'll be a busy day/week/month. Have a great day and check out the Brag Pages, they really are nice!

The layout Untamed Anole I did for the Deco-Pages ABC Challenge run by Marcee Fairchild this month. This anole has been seen frequently on our deck in the past few days. It is possible that the anole is hanging out because it knows Kai has disappeared. The flowers seemed to have appeared overnight on the other side of the wall by the drainage canal. They are very pretty and bright in the chilly weather we are having at night.

The next layout, Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Chip Cookies, I did for the Deco-Pages Holiday Challenge run by Marcee Fairchild. This one was a bit hard for me as I have never done a recipe challenge before. But it seems to have worked okay. I could do a lot better in the presentation of the treat on a plate with some extras. We did have some issues making the cookies, in that we didn't have brown sugar. It worked out fine with the noted substitutions. The cookies tasted great. They might be a bit better with out the extra flour Myra added. She likes the cookies as round lumps, I like them a bit flatter and chewier. 

The layout, Lovely, I did using JBurkhardt's Template 15. She makes great templates and this one is no exception! You can get it here at Deco-Pages. These orchids bloomed just in time for DH's birthday. It was quite nice to have them as a lovely centerpiece for his birthday dinner. DH got a beautiful white orchid with smaller flowers for his birthday. He really likes orchid's!

These two layouts I did for the January Color Challenge at Deco-Pages. Diane has created a lovely kit for the challenge, the colors are beautiful. 

The first layout is of Dad taking some kids around the point at Ali'i Beach to see the puffer fish caught in a tide pool. The kids thought that was really neat. See Dad's are Special and the credit's here. 

The second layout is of  Ali'i Beach looking out over the ocean to Ka'ena Point. I just love the way the sun is streaming through the clouds. See Ali'i Beach and the credits here.

I have started a photo challenge, Photo-a-Day for January. 

On the first day of the year Kai almost literally dropped at Annabelle's feet. So I had to do a layout about him. Now maybe now people on Deco-Pages will understand why I have Kai as my avatar. We are very happy to have him back! Find Found: the full layout and credits are here. 

I did Day 2 on DH's birthday. He had a great birthday. The cake turned out delicious! That was a blessing and we'll have to remember what we did. Everyone but us gave him shirts and that was funny. We gave him a new white orchid, one he didn't have. Find Birthday Highlights credits and layout here.

Here is the collage for Club-Deco this month so you can see all of the cool kits if you're a member. 

Whew that was a lot of updating! I hope you all are having a great new year! Yesterday Annabelle found Kai so that was a great beginning to the new year! I hope to get the preview of this months Club-Deco kits up soon and the preview for the 4x6 brag book pages made from the kit. They are awesome!

The Troll layout I used Michaele's Template 14, see the rest of the credits here. Myra has been collecting all the Trolls that her grandparents have sent for years.






This layout I did for the Font-a-Licious Challenge hosted by Lorene at Deco-Pages. She picks a font and we have to use it somewhere on a layout. This time the font was Vintage, see credits here. Myra played the piano while we sang on Christmas eve.

This layout I did for the Holiday Challenge hosted by Marcee Fairchild of Rose Made Designs at Deco-Pages. The boys absolutely love their fish! See the credits here.





This layout I did for Marcee's Material Girl Challenge at Deco-Pages. She gives us the pieces and we have to use on a layout and this is what I came up with. Cyril was so excited Christmas morning to get his stocking! See the credits here.

I got my Deco-Pages Club-Deco contribution up today. I really enjoyed creating this kit. The two layouts are using my QP's that come with the kit. Some time I really need to get my kit contributions into the store at Deco-Pages. I suppose that could be a New Years resolution.

































These layout were done for The Color Challenge over at Deco-Pages. If you are a member of Club-Deco you get the Color Challenge Starter kit free, if not it's $1.99 for the month of the color challenge. Here's the new one for January - the colors are just lovely! Diane Isbell did a great job on the reward kits.

Happy New year all! We had a great Christmas, lots of fun. We spent the afternoon with our cousins, lots of excitement! We start up school again after the New Year and DH's birthday. Hope the kids work as diligently this coming semester as they did the last. Then we will get a summer break to go play at the beach or hang around here (and maybe do some scrapping!). Myra made some great Christmas glasses. I drew the designs and she etched the drinking glasses with the acid cream. They came out beautifully and I forgot to take pictures of them! Oh, well, we need to make a couple more, so hopefully I can remember to get my camera out and get photos of them then.