Happy New Year! (...almost)

A New Year, a new beginning (even for blogs). So here we are, spiffed up and tidy for the party. May you and yours be blessed in the coming year!

I think this is the first year that we don't even have plans not to have plans. The girls are off doing their thing and we will be the old married couple sitting around twiddling our thumbs til it's midnight and we can go to bed, LOL. (Actually, we will be the old married couple who's delighted that the kids are gone because it means we get the remote and the Wii all to ourselves... watch out, Mario!)

It's a Sale!

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day, everyone!

Everything in my store is on sale, including the latest addition, "Sunset in the Valley:"
And here's a little contribution to your stash:

Download HERE.

Trick or Treat!

We've had snow three times in October. Once is pretty common; I think three is pushing the bounds of decency :) This last one was a doozy, in fact it actually pushed this family to acquire a snowblower (of course my husband was out of town - it's a skill of his ). It did remind me of the many occasions in my children's lives where Halloween was a winter event, rather than fall. We had to contend with winter coats and mittens and boots many times. One year, when we lived in Minnesota, it snowed 36 inches on Halloween and my husband took the girls trick-or-treating on their sled. I don't have pix from that year, either, coincidentally, LOL. However, I figured all of those events should be memorialized somehow, so I put together a winter halloween kit, Frosty Pumpkin. And since it IS Trick or Treat tonight, I figured I'd share.

You can download Frosty Pumpkin HERE. Happy Halloween!

You know what they say...

Always leave 'em wanting more! This seems to be my blogging motto lately, and because I'm dedicated to my mottoes I tend to go overboard. Therefore, I have given 'em precisely NOTHING, LOL. Oh well. Sometimes you can only keep so many balls in the air at the same time without your whole world crashing down around your ears, so perhaps I've just chosen a different set of airborne missiles for now ;) No doubt that as the air turns crisp and my children gradually settle themselves (my nest is suddenly full again, and we're all pretty much in shock), the urge to whine publicly will raise its ugly head once again.

I have been plugging away with scrapbook designs (my younger daughter's guinea pig now lives in my office - she's very encouraging. Just last night I told her about something I designed and it was received with, literally, squeals of delight. Well, ok, I fed her carrots while I told her about it, and that may have had something to do with the squealing). We are heading into my absolute FAVORITE time of year, and I love taking pictures of fall colors, I love scrapping with fall colors, and I love designing with fall colors, so it should be a productive time :)

Plain Digital Wrapper is well into one of my favorite promotions of the year... Talk Like a Pirate Days. The real world only gets one Talk Like A Pirate Day, but we're special, so we get a whole week! My store is on sale and because I'm quite pleased having learned how to make everything the same price with the touch of one button, it seemed logical to celebrate that skill and just make everything a buck fifty. As in, $1.50. So if you've had your eye on a little something but didn't want to quite let go, now's your opportunity! Tomorrow's celebration will be the release of several "Booty Bags" for those who like a little mystery to their plundering. And because I'm one of those cautious types who HATES buying something without knowing what it is (ask my DH, he knows how much I hate surprises, which honestly mystifies him, but he goes along with it, bless his heart) I'll give you some hints. Um, pretty broad hints. As in, pictures, LOL.

Well, Delilah the guinea pig tells me it's time to shut out her light, so lest I provoke more squealing I'm going to comply :) Come visit us and check out our treasure hunt... lots of freebies and goodies and fun!

Make a wish!

We thought it might be fun at Plain Digital Wrapper to indulge in a little late summer celebration we like to call "I Wish." It's going to be fun for everyone (hello, SHOPPING!) and wish fulfillment will be happening all over the place!

Here's the scoop from Fairy Godmother Annette:

Wow! There's some gorgeous stuff in the PDW shop I wish I knew a magic genie who could grant my wish for a PDW kit!

Just my luck....no magic genies. In that case I'm going to play Fairy Godmother watch this thread for details! Bippity Boppity Boo......

((Hint: you will want to make sure you're here all week. The fun starts Monday.))


Here are the rules:
1. Check out the forum each day to find out who the sponsoring designers are.
2. Run over to the shoppe and check out all their goodies.
3. Head back to the forum and show me what you just can't live without.
4. Keep your fingers crossed and hope that this fairy godmother grants your wish.

And today I'm one of the Sponsoring Designers, so here are some of my latest items you can choose:

Make Lemonade. After all, you have plenty of ice!

Well, if you read any of my rantings and whinings whatsoever, you know we've had a lot of storms this summer. It doesn't take anything too out of the ordinary to inspire me sometimes, and when you throw in a lot of photos to scrap, well, I'm gonna need a kit to do it :) And the colors that go with storms are really quite spectacular anyway, so I had quite a lot of fun working with them :)








Stormy Weather will be on sale in my PDW store through Wednesday. And for a limited time, you can download this coordinating alpha!(Sorry, this download has expired - item is available in my PDW Store!)

In the Mood.

Heh. Finally, some mojo this week (sorry to disappoint if you thought this was headed another direction...tsk tsk). I've been wanting to make this kit since we were in New Orleans last October, but somehow could never wrap my head around it. Then something just clicked, and hey! presto, here it is! It will be in my shop in the morning (Wednesday):


There's also a nice "extra" kit (which google tells me is acceptable to entitle "en plus," so I did - if it's incorrect, I am perfectly willing to assign blame to the google gnomes) which will be free for a few days before it goes in my shop. Enjoy!
(sorry, this download has expired, but you can still get the kit in my store)

Summer Doldrums

I've been curiously uninspired as of late. Between the staining and powerwashing and replacement door and window purchasing and painting that has been going on (none of which exactly define me as a fan) I find myself yearning to just sit on the couch with the laptop and play Facebook games. And I've actually worked a fair amount of that into the schedule (forgoing more useful tasks such as scrapbooking and designing and showering). And despite the sluggishness that seems to have invaded my psyche, I have a few observations for you. If you've found yourself in a similar malaise, you may recognize a few of these...

1) Farkle is evil. It lures you in with it's cute little innocent-looking dice and fun trophies at the end. It posts your friends' scores with leering yet alluring abandon, and when you fall for the trick and decide to figure out how to play, it tries to fool you into thinking it's Yahtzee on a stick. Well, it's not. It's Yahtzee WITH a stick, and it's gonna beat you senseless with it just as soon as you're hooked.

2) Farkle giveth, and Farkle taketh away. See Number 1. The part that says "beat you senseless with a stick." Ironically, Farkle takes away all your good scores and leaves you with a string of Farkles broken only by the glaring -500 that punctuates every third Farkle in the list.

3) Farkle doesn't care if you are the laughing stock of your friends. It posts the stupid score it gives you anyway. Which totally figures, cos it loves them wayyyyyyyy more than it loves you, obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't be stuck with a one as your first number while everyone else has eights and nines.

4) Farkle is pretty smart. It knows just at what point in the game you decide, "Oh yeah, now we're getting somewhere! This game is pretty fun after all!" That's the point that it goes into spontaneous Farklemania and every Java-toss of the dice brings heartache and loss. Conversely, it also knows when you are THISCLOSE to never playing again, and you get fabulous hand after fabulous hand. Until the last turn, of course, when you accidentally let loose and think to yourself, "Oh yeah, now we're getting somewhere! This game is pretty fun after all!..."

Snipe Hunt!

Yay! New kit in my store at Plain Digital Wrapper today! I guess I've been in the mood for bright and fun lately, and this one fits the bill:


Lots of great inspiration and scrapping ideas courtesy of my creative layout artists!

(Layout by Interstitchal)

(Layout by Dracowin)
(Layout by Shanners)And a couple from me (finally scrapping some of my daughter's fantastic travel pix!)

And what's a brand new kit without a little freebie to go along with it? Today's sample is a quick page and word art (the word art is included separately, in case you'd like to use it on a different layout).

You can download the quickpage and the wordart HERE.

Warning: Whining

Yeah, like that's a big surprise. However, if you find yourself to be tired/annoyed/disgusted/bored by my recent riffs on Mother Nature and her peccadilloes, you might just want to go ahead and click "Next Blog" in your reader right now and just get it over with. Consider yourself duly warned...

We've had quite a lot of weather all week, and it has been annoying. Monday night I had the bright idea that some of my husband's compatriots, being assembled in town for a training meeting, should come experience the Southern household around the dinner hour. Good sound reasoning - these are folks he doesn't get to be around very often, and it's just smart to get to know each other in a relaxed and personable atmosphere so the next time somebody fires off an email, if it isn't one hundred percent clear (or tactful) you have enough understanding of the person's... well, persona, in order to realize that hiring an assassin probably is not only not necessary, but, well, reaching into overreaction territory. Unfortunately, being the introverted and indolent person that I am, providing the "relaxed and personable atmosphere" can fall a little on the "not-so-much-fun" side of things (although I worked diligently on my outlook to try to circumvent the whining, and was largely successful in the greater scheme of things, despite the moment an hour before arrival time when I discovered I had planned for a total of four guys and that number had been quietly extended to seven... ). Some extra beer, and a few additional steaks, and we were good to go again. After all, they could do their thing on the deck and it wouldn't matter that I only have 4 chairs around my table inside, LOL.

Except for the whole "weather" thing. Of course it rained. And was chilly. And while in the larger picture this didn't matter a whole lot, and that bonding occurred in spite of (and perhaps because of) shivering and standing and borrowing jackets. It was all good.

On Wednesdays, in the summer, when my husband is in town and free, he goes across the city to the drag strip and participates in "Test and Tune," an opportunity to practice his starts and timing and all that other stuff I don't really fully understand about drag racing (I get the first part, the "drag" part). I get an email message entitled "Drag Raining." Yeah. More clouds, more rain, more interruptions.... it's just par for the week's course. Annoying, but meh.

Yesterday, shortly after the dog and I scrounged through the fridge for some of Monday's leftovers for lunch (ok, I scrounged, but the dog was very definitely interested), I became aware of the fact that not only was it cloudy, but, it was CLOUDY. As in, somebody shut off some of the lights cloudy. Yikes. About the same time I noticed, it began to precipitate with a vengeance, and the next thing I knew, Angus was pretty much wrapped around my feet in panic, because, well, hail the size of a quarter beating down upon one's house is REALLY REALLY LOUD. At that time I remembered that supposedly there had been a tornado sighting earlier in the week (I maybe should start paying attention to the weather reports?) and we hoofed it to the basement to hang out til the noise stopped, and/or we ended up in OZ.

Once the deafening roar stopped, we came upstairs to a) check windows, and b) take pictures. Because it's kinda cool when there's a drift up against your back sliding glass window in June. I opened the front door to get a picture of the street being all white, and the smell was amazing... bruised trees smell wonderful, poor things. And after a nice round of photos, I went back to work at my computer, because one just doesn't waste mojo, particularly when it has been scarce and capricious, and I really didn't give much more thought to the event of the afternoon.

So when my husband came in the front door after his meeting, went straight to his office (no kiss, no greeting, no passing Go and collecting $200) and called the insurance company, it was a shove into a teensy bit of reality that I had overlooked. Oh yeah. Just because you don't end up in Oz (or even Kansas) doesn't mean that the roof is happy, or the hot tub cover, or the vinyl cladding on your sliding glass door...

I'm not even going to revisit my previous bloggery about blizzards in June... no more bright ideas for Mrs. Nature, Ma'am. Just respect.

All kinds of conflicted...

I've been on the Interwebs for a long time. Long enough to have seen a lot of things, experienced quite a few, interacted with many different types of folks, and to have signed up for at least a dozen "reward" programs. As the years have progressed, my willingness to participate in semi-mindless clicking activities for a small check, or a small gift certificate has faded. As a result, there aren't many left, and I don't always cooperate with the ones that remain, LOL. But today I got a notice for one of the more interesting ones, and I clicked.

This is the first time I've done so since I turned a rather round-numbered age with a substantially higher first number than I really care to focus upon. So it was with something of a start that I realized that I click a new radio button when it comes to the age demographic. The discomfort I felt upon doing so was intensified by the fact that it was also the LAST category (and while I can tell myself that this particular company skews towards a younger demographic, aforementioned discomfort remains pretty much intact). And while I will tell you that I was actually a little relieved when I got the "thank you, that's all the questions we have for you!" screen, if you look in my eyes you will see that I feel a hint of ageism leering down at me from the lofty heights of Comfortably Young.

So I did the only thing that could possibly make me feel better. I went to an online commercial site, and spent the equivalent of several weeks worth of careful clicking on a whim. I may be old, but I have disposable income. Take That, Interwebs!

A little mental. Very little.

A watched blog never boils.

Yeah, I know, I'm mixing metaphors and twisting things with that statement, but it's true. Just visiting your blog does not make words appear. It doesn't even make inspiration strike :) I know this, because I've tried really hard for the last couple of days, to no avail.

I made a couple of valiant efforts. Most of them turned out to posess the same level of success that the bird who tried to fly through my picture window this morning experienced. With about the same level of grammatical correctness as the previous sentence. Which I am not sufficiently motivated to analyze, let alone correct. (Sorry Mrs. Myhre, you haunt me still, but I've grown more stubborn as the years progress...)

So I guess the real question is, can one be inspired by a lack of inspiration? If one is in a suitably silly mood, does it matter if there's a reason for the silly, or does the presence of silliness in and of itself preempt the need for motivation? And how long CAN one ramble on about absolutely nothing at all?

For at least a couple of paragraphs, evidently ;) Any more than that would require an extra cup of coffee, and I'm not sure my nervous system is up to the task.

In other news, a happy birthday to my younger daughter, Molly Joy, who has now aged to the point to make her mother extremely nervous about cumulative numbers altogether, particularly in reference to the ones that appear in my age column. I'm starting to experience a teensy bit of the angst that inspired my mother to just stick with 39 for several years (insert shout out here to Denial and Rivers in Egypt and all that sort of thing). I guess it's apt punishment for my lack of sympathy for her feelings when I was the child. You just don't know what's in store for you :)

We went to se UP last night with aforementioned birthday child. Sweet, funny, inspiring, and most importantly... 3D! I will confess that I would have actually paid real money for a picture of the audience staring raptly at the screen in their big black Drew Carey 3D glasses. Not a lot of real money, admittedly, but I'm faintly intrigued by the idea of the diversity of the group, yet the visible talisman of the shared experience...

Yeah, ok, I guess I'd better go get that extra cup of coffee...

Mad As a Hatter

I have a new kit in my Plain Digital Wrapper Store called "Mad As a Hatter." Not gonna lie, I had an awful lot of fun with this one. Crazy colors, and fake fur, and fun textures - how can you go wrong! I mean, FAKE FUR, people! LOL. I'm so easily amused...
I had a little fun scrapping with it, too - I have a backlog of zoo pix that somehow have never found a home.

And here's a bonus that you can download for a limited time!
(sorry, download no longer available)

And as a special incentive, the first 5 people to post a layout in the Plain Digital Wrapper Gallery using the bonus kit will receive the full kit for free. Just leave a comment for me with some contact info (or email me at julieitis at gmail dot com). Have fun!

More Rain.

Yeah, more rain, and my solar batteries were already run down. However, silver linings and all that, so I tried to stay positive and focus on good things. So it was with a great deal of amusement that I watched a young mom and her two small children walk from the parking lot to the hobby store - both tots carrying open umbrellas with glee.

I remember that gleeful feeling myself. The need for an umbrella was a rarity in my northern Montana childhood - not that rain was so rare, necessarily, but liquid precipitation that wasn't driven by gale force umbrella-inverting winds was kind of elusive. So my eight year old self getting to walk outside with my blue-grey paisley umbrella that matched my blue-grey raincoat was quite a thrill. And to be honest, it's a thrill that I still feel every time I'm under a canopy of silk with the patter of raindrops beating a gentle cadence over my head. ::sigh:: Oh the romance!

All of these thoughts flitted through my mind as I drove past; the little boy especially made me smile with his bright yellow SpongeBob parasol, perched at an inefficient but adorable angle allowing him to focus more on it than his trajectory. I was amused all the way to the edge of the parking lot, when it suddenly occurred to me that if I were to unfurl my own umbrella, it would probably entertain a lot more people than some middle aged woman in a green Honda Element.

Y'know, what with it being a giant LADYBUG, and all...

A Tale of Woe

Ma Nature and I are having a bit of a rumble. She's pulling one way, and I'm pulling the other, and my comforter is the helpless and unwilling rope between us.

Every spring as temperatures go up, and the hours of sunlight also increase, my bank of western-facing windows get all giddy with delight and have a bit of a tendency to think it's warmer than it really is. As in, it gets hot in my house, all out of proportion to what is really going on outside. And being it really isn't THAT hot out, common sense and careful living (and Mom's voice in the back of the head that orders me to shut the refrigerator door, am I trying to cool the whole world?) dictate that cool outside air must be brought in to displace said hot air (please, do not comment. I can hear what you're thinking, but please, just resist the temptation, I implore you), and that under NO circumstances would a reasonable and prudent and well-raised individual even THINK of ::gasp:: TURNING ON THE AIR CONDITIONING.

There are a few inherent difficulties, however, in accomplishing the seemingly simple task of trading cold for hot. The first is my location. I don't live by the ocean with gentle trade winds wafting freshness from the water, or on a mountain top with crisp breezes. I live in central Colorado, just past the foothills and onto the prairie where there are two speeds for the outdoor fan - off, and violent. So simply opening the windows to allow the hot air to leave and the cold air to enter can either mean blowing every picture and magnet off of my refrigerator in a flurry of gusty dusty air and flapping draperies, or... nothing at all. There are a few tweaks I try now and then - strategically opening doors and coaxing a hint of a cross-draft (and remembering NEVER to open the window by the fireplace whose communication with the house security system is nebulous at best, resulting in a panicked search for the source of the damning red light before retiring for the night when all orifices are obviously shut up tightly) and turning on the ceiling fans to at least give the illusion that air is being moved, though this option seems to have little effect on the silent and neutral arbiter of success - the thermostat. I've even gone so far as to turn on the furnace fan (sans heat, of course) to "redistribute" the air in the house, because let's face it, it's always borderline frigid in the basement so, maybe we should all share and share alike? The truth is, though, that while this sounds as though it would be a logical answer, it really doesn't accomplish anything other than sounding as though the air conditioning is on, simultaneously making one feel guilty and disappointed all at the same time.

But I digress.

We did have some unseasonably early warm temps late in April, and due to the aforementioned oft-unsuccessful battle to cool the house down in the evening preparatory to going to bed, sleeping with my lovely and scrumptiously fluffy comforter was less fun than it should be, due to the simple fact that I am at a rather uncomfortably warm phase of my life to begin with and therefore do not need the additional zealotry of my bedclothes to keep my temperature on the high end of the scale. So I did what anyone would do under the circumstances, I switched to my summer coverlet and put the comforter in the laundry to await a visit to the cleaners. Which was kind of sad, because I'm a fall kinda gal and heading into summer is always a bit mournful to me with its warm extremes. Nonetheless, I was doing my best to embrace the change gracefully (which included about ten minutes spent trying to remember which way the coverlet actually fit on the bed - king sized linens can be confusing because they are almost as wide as they are long or long as they are wide and I can never quite remember the first time which way stuff goes. I've even tried "faking" the bedding out and deliberately putting it on the way I think it really shouldn't be, but apparently I am less clever than high thread count linen and should just resign myself to doing the job twice.) and with a minimum of whining (and if you know me at all you really should appreciate the effort this was for me).

When one is a procrastinator (and I am) one learns early in life to pick up on little details that actually reinforce one's natural inclination to defer the timing on almost everything. So it will come as no surprise that the one time I am Julie on the Spot against my natural inclination, all of nature conspires to demonstrate that I have completely done the wrong thing. The first night with the lightweight coverlet Ma Nature lets loose with a relatively frosty blast, and the night is decidedly chilly sans fluffy cozy comforter, even with the midnight addition of coverlet number two (in a suitably contrasting color to coverlet number one, and yet not as warm as it is heavy on my overly sensitive toes). After briefly reviewing the situation in my mind, I decide to just admit defeat (a galling thing indeed so hard upon the heels of my non-procrastinatory self-congratulation) and put the comforter back on the bed.

Ma Nature is mollified. Life is good. For a week.

Again, the west windows do their work. It's hot in my house. I grimly glare at the thermostat. I hold firm. I do not sleep well. Rinse and repeat, for about 3 days.

Finally break down and remove comforter, restore coverlet. For those who wonder, it does indeed take two tries to get it on properly, despite having only removed it a scant ten days previously. A wiser woman would probably not admit that in a public forum, but whatever, I'm choosing to be amused by my incapability at this point (you have to admit, the whole story is approaching "ridiculous" anyway). A pleasant night is had by all, sleep achieved.

And then, of course, cloudy cool days ensue. As I have determined at this point that there's no point in having the heat on at all, the house is cool. The coverlet is insufficient once again, but unfortunately my patience level is equally inadequate. I unfurl the secondary coverlet (of complimentary color) and simply make the bed with both. The fluffy cozy comforter is strewn willy nilly on the guestroom floor in a state of embarrassed disarray until such point that I can overcome my chagrin and package it up for the cleaners. My winter nightie comes out of its drawer, I even wear socks to bed one night in my stubbornness (I should reassure my readers that by this time my husband is off on a series of business trips, and therefore I am only harming myself with my ...er, determination.)

And that's the current state of the standoff. One night will be a little too cool, the next will be a llittle too warm, and it's probably the way things will remain until my procrastinating self decides to just give in and TURN ON THE AIRCONDITIONING.

Be sure to watch your newspapers - you'll be able to tell the exact moment that I do break down and summon the Freon Fairies to my aid. Check on the weather page. Under Denver. You know, where the headline declares:

Freak Summer Blizzard Sweeps Parker Colorado!

Gardens and Spring and Stuff :)

It has been an odd couple of weeks - we were out of town for a bit, and came home to well over a foot of snow in our driveway (this is a guesstimate on my part, as I was very careful not to put myself in a position where I needed to experience the depth on a one to one up-close basis. DH, on the other hand, felt the need to shovel enough to get the cars out and subsequently visited his chiropractor on Monday morning. To which I say, it's cheaper to be lazy :)) This was sort of bizarre for mid-April, but certainly not unprecedented. Two days later the temps were in the high 60's and lower 70's and the mountains of shoveled white stuff have become a mere memory, unless you factor in the suddenly-vibrant green grass left behind and the still-glorious peaks of the mountains (I am a BIG fan of snow... I just like it on the mountain tops, LOL)

A blizzard (of sorts) does leave one longing for soft, pretty garden-y things, though. I had so much fun playing with flowers and greenery even if it was virtual:


And I'm so pleased with the beautiful layouts I've been seeing - as you can see, it's a very versatile kit!:

(Layout by Dracowin)

(Layout by Alexis Designs)

(Layout by MamaB)


(Layout by Coldfire)(Layout by Chris (cla)

My munchkins when they were little ;)
And one that isn't so little anymore, LOL!


Garden Girl is on sale at Plain Digital Wrapper through the weekend (20% off). And for a limited time, you can download the matching alpha HERE. Happy scrapping!

Beautiful Colorado

Some of my favorite pictures to scrap are landscape and nature photos. Having grown up in Montana, I'm no stranger to natural beauty, but I have to say that Colorado is even better, due to the extreme range of colors and textures and the variety of landscapes. These photos were taken at Roxborough State Park, just a few miles away from us. Amazing rock formations and colors, and the added drama of the mercurial spring clouds make artistic and vivid layouts, and an opportunity for wonderful memories of a family day out .

I used my Canyon Page Kit to scrap these, as well as a lovely template from Annette Wood for the top layout, and one from Lindsay Jane Designs for the second page.

Rock That Robin!

We had a blizzard a couple of weeks ago (ok, we had one a week ago, too - welcome SPRING, LOL) and there was the cutest flock of robins hanging out in the crabapple tree that's about 15 feet from our back door (and as I have NO IDEA about actual distances, you may freely interpret the above statement as meaning somewhere between the back door and the back fence). I, having a smashing new birthday camera, and no desire to go outside in said blizzard, contented myself with taking about half a million pictures from inside. And some of them were really cute, so I wanted to scrap. Which meant creating a kit worthy for the cute little fluffed up guys in the tree. So what should have been the work of an hour or two stretched out to a week and a half. But a fun one!

So here's my fat little friend in all of his glory, and the kit he inspired, and some lovely layouts from my creative team.


And CT lovelies:
(Layout by Pookie)
(Layout by ISASCRAPSFOREVER)(Layout by Dracowin)

(Layout by JamiesCreations)

(Layout by Annette)

And a last one from me :)

Finally, here's a little taste for your stash:
Sorry, download has expired