Stone Accents

SAS Mega Kit Freebie

2008-11-19T15:44:00.003-06:00

It is mega kit time again and the palette is just perfect for those winter wonderland layouts. The kit has 73 gorgeous papers and 105 fun embellishments to decorate your pages. I have a sampler of the kit below and you will find it on sale only at SAS

The latest SAS newsletter came out today, it is full of specials, new products and freebies. If you are not registered at SAS you can get your copy here.

SAS November Mega Kit

Embellishment Close-up

Some of the 73 Papers

SAS Mega Kit Freebie

Download Mega Kit Freebie Here

October Mega Kit Freebie

2008-10-15T14:44:00.001-06:00

It has been a long time since I was able to blog. Our Birthday Bash kept me hopping all month to say the least. It was a lot of work for all of us to put together and run but I am very pleased with how it went, as a matter of fact we are planning on making this an annual event. For those of you who were not following along, we had to move the forum and gallery in the middle of the Birthday Bash because the site was so busy that it slowed things down. That part was kind of a nightmare for me for a few days but now that it is done I am glad that we did it. One thing that came out of the forum move is that I learned a LOT of things about running a website and it made me want to learn more. I came to the conclusion that you can run a site without knowing everything there is to know about it but now I understand that the more I know about the technical aspect of it the better. For one thing, hiring professional help is VERY expensive and I would much rather be able to do the work myself than to pay someone else to do it. The guy I hired Luke, with Pure Development is a very honest and capable young man so I would recommend him to anyone that needs help, he was a little in awe of the amount of downloads that we have in a typical month since he has never worked with a digital scrapbook site before…LOL.

Now that the Birthday Bash is over and I have had time to recover a bit I am going to be working on ways to make the site better and easier to use for all of our members to use. I am also hoping that I can find some time to design again, the first designing that I have done in the last two months was the October mega kit, if felt good to get back to it so I need to make time for designing again. Speaking of the mega kit, we just released the October Mega kit and as you might have guessed, it has a fall theme, these colors are some of my favorite to work with and I think that you will find it a versatile kit to use. The mega kit is on sale for the month and you can get a nice sampler of it below

This week’s newsletter came out today and we have 8 newsletter only freebies and links to 27 other freebies for you so be sure to get your copy here.

Mega Kit Preview

Close-up of Elements

Sample of some of the 67 papers

SAS October Mega Kit Sampler

Download October Mega Kit Part 1 Here

Download October Mega Kit Part 2 Here

SAS Halloween Mega Kit Freebie

2008-09-17T13:42:00.003-06:00

It has been a few weeks since I have had time to design or blog. The SAS Birthday Bash (BB) has been a big hit and I am thrilled beyond words. The first thing I want to do today is to thank everyone for the help and support that they have given to the BB. When we started planning the BB I was little worried because we had so many activity and freebie ideas that it seemed like it might be too much to pull off. Besides the initial slow down and a few glitches with the Designer contest things have gone so well (knock on wood) that I can hardly believe it. None of this could have happened without the great team that we have at SAS. I am so proud of everyone, the designers the support staff, the CT, members, everyone! Something this big takes a lot of coordination and effort, everyone that was asked to take something on jumped right in and worked hard to make it happen. You can be sure that this will be a yearly event.

The main glitch that we had, the slowdown was a real pain for a while but SAS members were so supportive that it took the edge off of my panic (yes, I was frantic for awhile) enough that I was able to focus and get it taken care of. I hired a Webmaster and he made suggestions and I implemented the ones that I was capable of doing and that has helped a lot. I am looking to the future of SAS and I want to make sure that we have room to grow so we will probably add an “addition” to our home by moving the forum and gallery sometime soon.

We are on day 17 of the Download a Day, to help speed up the site we moved those downloads off the server and you can get the direct links to the DAD in the store under SAS Gifts. If you are just now starting the DAD you will still be getting a huge kit so go check it out.

We are in the second round of our Next SAS-y Lady contest. The first round theme was “Our Heroes,” the kits that the contestants made contained elements that could be used to honor heroes, from military to firefighters. These kits are available for download in the Next Designer Contest Week 1 gallery. The week 2 challenge was making a kit around a color palette and the contestants did an awesome job, you can download the kits from the week 2 gallery. After downloading them please take the time to vote on your favorites, since it can be tough to choose just one from so many great kits you can choose up to three, the poll is here. The round 3 theme will be posted on Thursday.

We are also hosting a Member Mega Kit. So far we have some beautiful additions, I hope that this will become the largest digital kit ever made but that will be up to SAS members. If you would like to try your hand at designing you can find the palette here and you can download the kits here. Our Post the Most contest is heating up, the winner of this contest gets over $200 worth of SAS products of their choice.

If you have not been to the site since the first of the month you will be surprised, we redecorated. Sherah of Skrapper Digitals designed the most beautiful header I have ever seen. We are still trying to decide what the final colors will be for the site and you can vote on that here. As soon as we pick the colors we will start a Blinkie contest, you can find information about that and all of the other activities in the SAS-y Birthday Bash forum or in the newsletter link below.

We released the September SAS Mega kit today and if you are looking for things that go bump in the night this kit is for you. This Halloween themed kit has 95 elements and 65 papers, the regular price is $8.95 but it is on sale for $5.95 until the next mega kit comes out. I have a sampler of the kit below. BTW many of the mega kit are on sale during our BB this month. The SAS newsletter came out today and you can download it as a PDF or read it on-line. There are lots and lots of specials along with some newsletter only freebies. Lori has previews of the Designer contest kits along with layouts from the first week’s round and the DAD. Well, if you have not checked out our Birthday Bash I hope that you will come by for the last 2 weeks of the party and help us ROCK the digital world. Thanks and Enjoy!

SAS Download a Day

SAS Halloween Mega Kit

SAS Mega kit Free Sampler

Download Halloween Mega Kit Freebie Link 1 Here

Download Halloween Mega Kit Freebie Link 2 Here

Butterfly Garden Freebie

2008-08-27T13:52:00.000-06:00

I have finally got Butterfly Garden in the store. In the last year I have had a lot of requests for this kit, it was only the second kit that I had designed so I knew that it would need some work to get it ready. I found stray pixels (my pet peeve) and some really ragged edges on the flowers but all and all I am pleased with how good it looks. I added a frame and a few journaling pieces along with a lower case alpha but it didn’t need much more than that. I have a sampler of it below so you can get a good up close look at it. The kit is on sale for $3 this week.

I can share more of the details of our big September Birthday Bash. Last week I mentioned the Post the Most contest with a Grand Prize worth over $200, the Member Mega kit, Candee’s SAS-y Layout Design Challenge (a great learning opportunity,) and our Designer contest. The big news this week is that SAS is going to have a Download a Day, this gorgeous kit has 183 elements and 137 papers, the first downloads will be available on September 1st. We will have a month long Scavenger Hunt, all of the SAS-y Ladies have contributed Brag Book pages, they will be hidden in the store and a list of clues will be given out. We will be giving out random RAKs all month long, just for posting in the SAS forum you can win coupons for designer products and SAS mega kits. We are still working on a few more things but those will have to be a surprise for now. So if you like a big party plan on spending time at SAS in September, it will be the place to be!!

With all of these special things going on I need another assistant. If you would like to join a great team now is your chance, I am looking for someone that can spend 3 to 4 hours a week posting our Birthday Bash activities, specials and new products in various places. I would like someone that knows their way around the digital world and could commit to this position for at least 6 months, this is a “for scraps” position. If you would be interested email me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com.

Here is the link to the newsletter, there are some newsletter only freebies and lots of specials and new products. Some of the sales do not start until the 30th or the 1st so pay special attention to the start dates.

SAS Download a Day

Close-up of SAS DAD

Butterfly Garden

Butterfly Garden Freebie

Download Butterfly Garden Freebie Here

SAS Mega Kit Freebie

2008-08-20T16:08:00.000-06:00

We are getting SO excited about our upcoming birthday celebration in September. We have a full month of special activities and freebies planned for every one. I can tell you about a few more of them today.

Candee is hosting SAS-y Layout Design Challenge, this is an intensive 4 week training course on layout design. Along with learning a lot of things everyone who participates will get prizes and 3 weekly winners will get even more prizes. For more information go to the forum.

A huge freebie that we have planned will actually come from SAS members, it is a Member Mega kit. I will post a color palette then everyone that wants to participate can design a kit or papers, embellishments, brag book pages or whatever they would like to make in that palette. Then you preview them in the SAS gallery for members to download. This one will be fun because a lot of people would like to try their hand at designing and this will be a good incentive, I think we will see a lot of creative ideas from this.

The last thing I can tell you about this week is a contest that has a GRAND Grand Prize. It is a Post the Most contest. We don’t have all of the details ironed out yet but basically whoever has the most posts in the SAS forum and gallery during the month of September will win the Grand Prize and that prize is over $200 of free products from SAS, yes I said OVER $200!!!!

As you might know we are also hosting a Designer Contest starting September the 4th. We are looking for a few more designers to add to the team so if you are interested the details are in the forum.

I have a sampler from our latest mega kit Summer Daze, this kit is so bright and cheerful, just perfect for scrapping those fun filled summer pictures that you took. There are 80 papers and 123 elements in this humongous kit. My contribution includes 24 papers that have a watercolor/Batik look. As usual we have the mega kit on sale for $5.95 for the first month so now is the time to get it.

You will not want to miss this week’s newsletter, there are lots of great new products and specials along with 6 newsletter only freebies, download it here.

I will be back next week with more exciting details about the SAS-y birthday party.

SAS August Mega Kit

Close-up

Some Papers

Mega Kit Sampler

Download Mega Kit Sampler 1 Here

Download Mega Kit Sampler 2 Here

Memory Lane, All Links

2008-08-10T21:29:00.000-06:00

I still don’t know why Memory Lane part 5 didn’t work for so many people, the first time I had a comma in the name but after I fixed it the link should have worked for everybody. I re-zipped and uploaded it 5 times and I even re-saved the elements in case one of them was corrupt but nothing worked. I finally decided that it was cursed and that was that. I had Lori download it and she re-zipped and uploaded it so the 6th time should be the charm. I have put all of the links at the bottom of this post so you don’t have to hunt for them. I changed the names of the first two links so that it is not so confusing, the first two links contain the first 4 parts of the kit. The other links are parts 5, 6, and 7. Since this has been so messed up I will leave all of the links up until Friday the 25.

Even though I have 18 kits in various stages I don’t think I will have time to finish up one for August. The reason I won’t have time is because SAS is having a birthday soon. Yes, SAS turns 1 on September 12th and I will tell you what, we plan to celebrate big time. We have SO many things planned, special contests, activities and FREEBIES, lots and lots of freebies, so many freebies that they will be coming out of our ears (excuse me I got carried away…LOL.) I have to keep most of the festivities secret for a little while longer but one thing I can tell you about is that we are having a designer contest. We are looking for a few designers to join the SAS team. If you would like to give it a try or if you want lots and lots of free kits from the contest be sure to check in to the forum on the 1st of September. We will have more information posted there soon. Well, that is all I can tell you for now but stay tuned for more exciting details.

Memory Lane 1 to 4

Memory Lane 5

Memory Lane 6

Memory Lane 7

Parts 1 to 4 are combined into 2 links
Download Memory Lane 1st part of 1 to 4 Here

Download Memory Lane 2nd part of 1 to 4 Here

Download Memory Lane 5 Here

Download Memory Lane 6 Here

Download Memory Lane 7 Here

Memory Lane Part 7

2008-08-01T07:00:00.001-06:00

The post below was scheduled to show up on Saturday but obviously it didn’t. I don’t know why the scheduling option is not working for me but hopefully I can get it figured out. I was going to disable the links to Memory Lane on Friday the 8th but because of this glitch I will leave them active until Friday the 15th. In the mean time I wanted to post the link to this week’s SAS newsletter. and to tell you that today I added Leaf and Stem Packs to all of my Commercial Use Designer’s Garden kits. To celebrate all of the kits are on sale for 30% off. If you previously purchased any of the kits you will be receiving the link to the appropriate Leaf & Stem pack soon. So far there are 8 different kits available with more to come soon. You can get the links to Memory Lane below. Enjoy!

A Designers' Garden 6

A Designers' Garden 2

(Scheduled for Saturday 2nd)
I don’t have time to blog too much tonight, I just wanted to get part 7 of Memory Lane set up. I am trying the scheduling option again, I hope it works this time. I have a doctors appointment this morning but I will check when I get back to make sure it is showing up.
I am still getting emails from some people saying that they are having trouble with part 5. I think it must be cursed. I have rezipped and uploaded it 5 times, the last time to 4-shared. I even resaved the elements from the original Photoshop docs hoping that would help. I am going to ask Janalyn if she can upload her copy somewhere that I can link to. I will leave all parts of the kit active until the 8th of August. If you are new to my blog be sure to go back to the old post to get the freebies from the SAS Mega kit, they are all still active. Well, I’ve gotta run so I can get up early for my doctor’s appointment.

Memory Lane Part 7

Download Memory Lane Part 7 Here

Memory Lane Part 6

2008-07-25T08:00:00.001-06:00

Things didn't go as planned with this post. I had scheduled it so that the post below would come on line on Friday while I was on vacation. It looked easy enough, click on Post Options, choose the date and time that you want the post to show up, enter those totally unreadable verification letters and you are good to go………LOL. Surprise, Surprise, while I was away visiting my daughter secure in the knowledge that this post and Memory Lane part 6 would be here waiting for you, the post did not show up. I am going to try to make the scheduling thing work on Friday, today I will set it up so that part 7 shows up Friday morning but I will check it when I get up to make sure that it works.
I am still receiving a few comments that people are having trouble with part 5 of Memory Lane. I have re-zipped and uploaded it 4 times, I tested it every time and it worked for me. This time I have re-zipped it and uploaded it to 4-shared instead of my web site, the new link is two posts below at the bottom of the July 16th post. Read on for the post that you should have gotten on Friday and come back this Friday for the final piece of Memory Lane, Enjoy!

Well, if everything works like is should you are reading this post and I am visiting my daughter. I was so excited when I found out that you can schedule your posts in Blogger. Sometimes when I want to post something I don’t really have the time that I need to do it well. With the ability to schedule posts I can work on them a little bit at a time so that I don’t’ have to rush and get it done all at once.

I have part 6 of Memory lane for you today. This part has one of my favorite papers of the kit, paper 2 is blue with tan scrolls, I just love this particular color combination, I think that it will go with a lot of things. I like it so much that I have a close-up of it below. I will have part 7 for you next week. I will keep all of the links active until the 1st of August then it will disappear for awhile before I put it in the store.

The link to the SAS July Mega Kit sampler is still active also. This kit has some great elements. There are 61 papers and 100 embellishments and it is on sale for $5.95. I am real happy with how the pier border came out, I think it will set of a layout well. I did the copper shells with one of Al Wards of Action FX styles. If you have not signed up for Al’s subscription plan now is the time to do it because the rates are going up on the 1st of August. He has at least 100,000 things to download, all for one very low price so get it while the getting is good. BTW, Al also has a very good book on Photoshop called PS for right brainers, it is worth adding this one to your PS library (yes, I have a large PS library…LOL)

Some of the SAS July Mega Kit Elements

I better wrap this one up so that I can finish packing for my trip. I hope that I get lots of good pictures so that if I ever have time to scrap I will have some pictures to scrap with. Enjoy!

Memory Lane Part 6, Paper 2

Memory Lane Part 6

Download Memory Lane Part 6 Here

SAS July Mega Kit Sampler

2008-07-23T15:30:00.001-06:00

While I was putting parts 6 & 7 of Memory Lane together I realized that the part 5 zip had a space and a comma in the name and when I came and read the comments I see that some of you had trouble downloading it. I always test my links, it downloaded and unzipped fine for me so I didn’t notice the problem. I have fixed the link so that everyone should be able to download it now. Sorry it took so long for me to realize it. I will have part 6 on Friday and the grand finale next week. I am going to Nebraska to visit my daughter Beth at the Air Force base where she is posted so I am going to schedule the Friday post. I am looking forward to seeing Beth since it has been a few months since she came home. Her husband has been deployed so this seemed like a good time to make the trip. I have heard that Omaha has a really nice zoo so this will give me the chance take some pictures with my new camera, something besides the silk and real flowers that I have been photographing. I have been having a lot of fun making the Designers’ Garden CU flower kits and I should have a few more ready next week.

Designer’s Garden 3

Our July Mega kit has been released today. If you feel like I do about the ocean then you are going to LOVE this kit. I was raised in Massachusetts and as a kid I spent a lot of time on Cape Cod fishing and having picnics, the water was a little too cold to swim in but I have so many great memories of walking along the beach and climbing on the break waters. We also use to go to the piers where the boats came in with their catches of lobster and fish, those are some of my most vivid memories. I spent the summers with my dear grandma Elizabeth, one of the gentlest souls I have ever known. She lived on Anna Maria Island in the Gulf. In those days no one seemed to worry about sun burns so I always spent the first few days as red as a Cap Cod lobster, my grandma would spray me with vinegar to cool me down. I got to spend 3 months every year playing in the sand and sea, looking for shells and making sand castles for the sand fleas. I have been back to the Gulf a few times in recent years and as far as I am concerned it is the fountain of youth, it takes years off of how I feel physically and emotionally. Well, enough of that rambling…LOL. As I was saying about the July Mega kit, if you have any pictures of you family frolicking in the waves you have got to have this kit. The designers came up with some awesome papers and embellishments, there are piers, boats, anchors and shells to decorate our layouts with. The SAS CT team has been busy making some beautiful layouts so stop by and take a look at their handiwork.

Click here for the link to the newsletter. We have newsletter only freebies and great specials every week. If you do some shopping be sure to take advantage of our Free with Purchase kits, we always have at least two kits or combination of kits that you can get free with a $10 or $15 purchase, just a little way to help your $$$$ go farther.

Sampling of Elements from SAS July Mega Kit

Close up of SAS July Mega Kit

SAS July Mega Kit Paper Samples

SAS July Mega Kit Freebie

Link to SAS July Mega Kit Freebie

Memory Lane Part 5

2008-07-16T14:35:00.004-06:00

It has been a busy few weeks for me. As I mentioned in my last post I have been camera shopping, I had some previous photography experience and own a nice Pentex SLR so I considered getting a Pentex digital SLR because my old lenses would fit a new digital Pentex. The main problem I ran into with a digital SLR was the price, to get everything I wanted in a camera would have ended up costing around $1400. The next best (and cheaper) option was the Canon G9, it does almost everything a digital SLR does but at about a third of the price. One really nice thing about it is that even with all of the bells and whistles that it has it will still fit in a shirt pocket. So I ended up with the G9 and so far it seems like a good decision. I have been playing with it a lot and I am amazed at the detail I can get with it. Using foam core and every small lamp in the house I have a set up a little table top studio in my kitchen. I have been taking pictures of lots and lots of flowers to use in my kits and for Commercial Use products. My DH has never been too big on buying me flowers but now I have been buying them for myself and photographing them, it is a business expensive so it makes it more practical and I get to enjoy them after I am done.

I managed to put together 8 CU flower packs so far, they are called A Designers’ Garden. I hope that you will be seeing them in some other designer’s kits soon. The details are incredible and I just about went blind extracting them…LOL. They are all full color instead of grayscale. With full color when you re-color them you still have all of the tints and hues like in the original color, that is something that you cannot get with grayscale. Many of them are layered so that the leaves and centers can be colored separately. That part took forever since every little piece of the leaves or centers had to be extracted or they would have shown up on the flowers and that would not look too good.

With being wrapped up in that I never got around to posting the rest of Memory Lane so today I have part 5 and next week I will have parts 6 and 7 (I promise.) Parts 5, 6 and 7 have an additional 24 papers and 22 elements so all together there are 40 papers and 34 elements.

Here is the link to this week’s newsletter, there are always some newsletter only freebies in it and all of our sales are listed.

Some of A Designer's Garden line

Memory Lane Part 5

Download Memory Lane Part 5 (Link fixed)

I have had some emails saying that people are still having trouble with part 5. I have tested the link a number of times and it is OK for me. One thing you could do is clear your browser cache. I am putting the new link here also. If anyone is still having trouble with it I will repackage it and post it next week with part 7, part 6 will be posted on Friday

New link to part 5

Latest link (July 30th) to Memory Lane Part 5

Watercolor Dreams Freebie

2008-06-25T15:11:00.002-06:00

I did a boo boo, the two links to Memory Lane were the same, I fixed them so that the second link is REALLY the link to parts 3 and 4, sorry about that.

Today I am introducing a kit that I have been working on for a few months, Watercolor Dreams. I originally made some patterned papers to go with the watercolor papers but I was not real happy with them, I reworked them a few times but never got them where I thought that they fit with the watercolor papers. Last night I finally decided to get rid of the patterned papers and put the kit together with just watercolor papers. I have been trying to develop a convincing watercolor technique for a long time. Before I shattered my elbow I use to hand dye fabric to quilt with and roving to spin into yarn to knit with so I have always loved the hand dyed/watercolor look. It did not seem like a big deal to be able to do it in Photoshop but it turned into a real challenge for me. I think that with these papers I am on the right track so you can expect to see a lot more of them from me. Because I was working on this kit for so long I ended up coming up with a lot of elements to go with it, my favorite on is the heart/flower/yarn cluster, it was a lot of fun to make. I have a freebie from Watercolor Dreams for you, the pieces are taken from the kit and the add-on paper pack. The kit and paper pack are on sale the week. Here is the newsletter, be sure to check it our for all of the great sales and freebies.

If you are new to my blog be sure to check out my previous posts, there are a lot of freebie links still active.

Watercolor Dreams

Close-up

Watercolor Dreams Papers

Watercolor Dreams Freebie

Download Watercolor Dreams Freebie Here

Memory Lane Free Kit

2008-06-24T10:37:00.001-06:00

Well, It is a little late but here is part of my free June kit. It took a long time because I am meticulous when I extract things. The dried seed pod flowers, leaves and eucalyptus are from some pictures that I took a few weeks ago, Even with the great selection tools that Photoshop has the eucalyptus took FOREVER to extract, the seed pod flowers took a long time too but that was mainly because I extracted 12 of them so I could use them at different angles. The pictures were taken with a borrowed camera, it spoiled me a little bit. My digital camera is 7 years old, at the time 3 mega pixels were HUGH but now it is a dinosaur. I have been camera shopping and I think I have found the one that I want, a Canon G9, one thing I want in a camera is the ability to shoot in RAW, it is an extremely adaptable format. I am notorious for forgetting to change the white balance when I shoot, I end up with really bad color casts, like when I have the camera set on inside light but it is a bright sunny day. My daughters wedding pictures have a blue cast because I did that for her beach wedding. Bad colorcasts are difficult to fix perfectly but with the RAW format it is no big deal. I would love to get a SLR but to get everything I want in one of those it would be over a thousand dollars so I think for now I will go with the G9 so you can expect to see a lot more flowers and extracted elements in my kits. I should have more of the kit up later in the week and then next week there will be two more parts of the kit. There are 16 papers in today’s download and I have at least that many more to go.

Memory Lane Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4

Papers

Download Parts 1 and 2 Here
Download Parts 3 and 4 Here

SAS June Mega Kit Freebie

2008-06-18T17:26:00.000-06:00

It has been a busy week and I am running a little behind today but I wanted to at least get the sampler from our new mega kit posted here. As usual it is a huge kit with almost 200 elements. I wanted a themed wedding kit since June is such a big month for weddings. Choosing the palette for this one was kind of tough because weddings come in so many colors. The pieces I made were on the softer side but some of the girls went with the brighter colors so I think that will help the kit to be useful for a lot of different things. I had a good time working with some of the silk flower pictures I took a few weeks ago, I made a bouquet and a floral spray, it was very challenging to get them to look natural but I think I gave them some pretty good depth.The June Mega Kit is on sale for $5.95

I was hoping to have my free kit of the month posted by now but it looks like it will be later this week since I still have a few things to do to get it ready. If you are not registered at SAS you don’t get our newsletter, if you would like to take a look and snag the newsletter freebies you can download it here. if you are new to my blog you might want to check my previous posts since there are a lof of active freebie links. Until next time, Enjoy!

June Mega Kit

Close-up

June Mega Kit Sampler

Download June Mega Kit Sampler Part 1 Here
Download June Mega Kit Sampler Part 2 Here

Vintage Dreams Sampler

2008-06-11T17:05:00.002-06:00

I managed to squeak out some design time this week so I was able to finish a kit I have been working on for awhile. The name for it came to me this time, I thought that Vintage Dreams fit it pretty well. The kit has something that I have been trying to get right for a few weeks, digital lace. Good lace is hard to come by so I have been experimenting on making it for a few weeks but it was never quite the way I wanted it but I think that I finally got it this time. There are 17 papers in the kit and an additional 14 are available in the add-on paper pack. The kit will be on sale for the next two weeks. I put together a nice sampler for you, these pieces are all in the kit so if you buy the kit you do not need to download the sampler.

Here is the link to the SAS newsletter, we have lots of great new products and sales along with five freebies that are exclusive to the newsletter.

I read through the wonderful comments that were left on my last post and it is nice to see that some people actually read my remarks about backing up their files. With all of the crazy things going on with the weather a flood, tornado or fire can happen at any time and having a back-up copy of your files can save you a lot of heartache. As I said in the last post, I keep my external hard drives in the basement in case of a tornado but during tornado season I keep all of my paper scrapbook albums and my old photos in the basement also. That way if there ever were a tornado all I would have to grab on my way to the basement would my cat and my little dog Zoe. Well, until next time I hope that you enjoy the sampler.

Vintage Dreams

Close-up

Vintage Dream Papers

Vintage Dreams Sampler

Download Vintage Dreams Here

Dear Mom Part 4

2008-06-04T17:34:00.001-06:00

Here is the last part of Dear Mom, these new papers are a brighter then the other papers so I made some frames and brads that are a little bolder to go with them. I have a good start on the kit I will be giving away this month but it will be next week before I have the first part ready. In the mean time if you are looking for more freebies, Terrell has a beautiful freebie from her My Little Garden kit, Jeanette has the cutest desktop calendar made from Under the Boardwalk and Brenda has a quick page made from her East Meets West kit, I just love the Asian look of this kit.

Something I wanted to mention to all of you today is the importance of backing up your files. What brought this to mind is that there have been a lot of tornadoes lately and one of our members recently had a hard drive crash, she lost a many of the digital supplies that she had purchased. I am somewhat obsessive about backing up my files. My Mac has an automatic backup system, I use an external hard drive to back up to. With the constant threat of storms we have had lately I have gotten into the habit of taking that hard drive down to the basement every night. After my loved ones and my pets (I actually consider them loved ones…LOL) my digital files are some of the most important things I have, insurance would replace most things if they were lost but there is no way to replace lost baby photos or pictures of all of the little things that have happened in my life. Between the site and all of my files I have about a terabyte and a half of stuff, many of these files are irreplaceable. The way I figure it is that if we were to have a tornado I would rather not have to worry about grabbing my back ups on my way to the basement. Even if you are not worried about tornados anything can happen at any time, hard drives fail eventually or fires happen, it is better to be safe than to be sorry. My advice is that before you even consider spending another penny on digital supplies that you spend the money on some kind of back up system for your files. DVDs are under a dollar and you can buy a 300 gig external hard drive for around $100 on sale. This way you can be sure that those precious photos and the layouts that you worked so hard on will be safe.

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Dear Mom 3 and Stone Washed Bluez QP

2008-05-30T02:24:00.002-06:00

It has been one of those crazy busy days so I will have to be quick, Here are the promised part of Dear Mom the special goodie from Stone Washed Bluez that I mentioned. I wanted to share this quick page with you as my way of saying “Thank You” to all of you that took part in the Name Me contest, the name suggestions were great and your comments are always so nice, I really appreciate it. I was going to put some of the bolder pieces of Dear Mom up today but there are a few more things I want to make in the darker colors so I am saving them for Tuesday.

The quick page from SWB was made by Janalyn. You should stop by and take a look at the layout that she made this QP from, It is of a trip to Guatemala, and everything about the kit just fit the picture so perfectly it is like the kit was made for this picture.

The May Mega Kit Sampler is still active below. In the description I gave last week I said there were 130 elements and 79 papers but some how I missed Cathy C’s part of the kit so there are really 152, papers and 87 papers.

I just stopped by a few of the girls’ blogs and they have been busy, Brenda,
Beckie, Sherah, and Barbara all have freebies today so go by and check them out. If you have a few minutes go by Candee’s blog and give her a big HUG and “Welcome Back” She had to take some time off and we sure missed her, I am so happy to have my Candee back at SAS.

It is 3:30 so I better get to bed, have a nice weekend.

Download Stone Washed Bluez Quick Page Here

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SAS Mega Kit Sampler

2008-05-21T13:37:00.001-06:00

Wow! What a response to the “Name Me” contest, I had over 200 entries. Obviously the word “Blue” was pretty common and quite a few names contained either “Tranquil or Turbulent.” It was starting to look like it was going to be a tough choice since there were so many that fit when near the bottom of the list I found the perfect name, “Stone Washed Blues,” or almost perfect I should say, Arlene sent me twelve names but her nickname or her last name is “Bluez” and that seemed like a neat way to spell it. Stone Washed Bluez really fits, the “Stone” from Stone Accents Studio and the jean papers look like they are stone washed because of the color variations in them and I guess I don’t need to explain the “Blue” part…. LOL. Joanne Kraft and Arlene Bluez (?) will both get the mega kit and a $10 store coupon to spend on whatever they want.

If you have ever bought one of my kits you know that I go a little over board with papers, I just love to make them. When I have a good palette it is such a joy to see what I can come up with by changing blending modes or using different color overlays, it is not uncommon to come up with 80 or so papers. Obviously some of them are kind of similar but most of them are unique in some way. With this kit I ended up with almost 70 good papers. There are 20 in the kit and an additional 26 in the paper pack. It is in the store as a kit with a regular price of $5.99 but the introductory price is $4.20, there is a paper pack with 24 papers, regularly $3.25 but on sale for $2, the mega kit combines both for a total of 44 papers, the regular price is $7.50 but it is on sale for $5.75. The awesome SAS CT has already made some beautiful layouts, it is like this kit was just made for Janalyn’s Guatemala picture and it is an honor to have Marilyng’s incredible nature photos showcased with the kit, stop by and take a look.

Stone Washed Bluez

The SAS May Mega Kit was released today, there are 130 elements and 79 papers done in this delightfully playful color palette. These colors remind me of the days when I bought my kids clothes, some of their favorite outfits had these colors. I had a lot of fun making papers with this palette, the colors blend so well that I ended making 22 in just a few hours. If you buy the kit you do not need the sampler because the pieces are from the kit. I have asked the CT to make some QPs with is and I am hoping to give a couple of them out next week.

We are having a big spring cleaning sale this week, many of the designers have their older products on sale for up to 50% off so now it the time to save on some of those kits you have had your eye on. Here is a link to the newsletter, be sure to check it our so you can get the newsletter only freebies.
http://www.stoneaccentsstudio.com/newsletter/2008-05-21/index.htm

The Dear Mom, Stone Washed bluez and last month’s mega kit links are still active, I will have more of Dear Mom later in the week, in mean time enjoy the Mega Kit Sampler.

05-08 SAS Mega KIt

Close-up

A few of the 79 Papers

05-08 Mega Kit Sampler

Download 05-08 SAS Mega Kit Sampler

Part 1
Part 2

Name Me Contest

2008-05-16T02:12:00.001-06:00

Before I shattered my elbow two of my favorite crafts were hand dying wool for spinning and fabric for quilting. My goal with the fabric was to be able to dye some really nice batik fabric. It is quite a process involving wax to act as a resist and lots and lots of washing and ironing to get the wax off of the fabric. I got pretty good at it but it was too much work to be fun (ironing never was my thing, just ask my DH…LOL) I recently decided to give it a try in Photoshop, it is not as much work but it is about as hard to get a good watercolor look. This kit is the result of some of my efforts, it doesn’t have the batik look but I think I did a good job getting the watercolor look. I was all ready to put it in the store when I realized that I didn’t have a name for it. Since the contests for Citrus Sunrise and Tuscan Sunset went so well I thought that would be the way to go with this kit. Download the freebie to see if it sparks anything in you. If you come up with something send it to me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com by Monday at 7 p.m. central. Please put "Kit name" in the subject line. The winner will receive the mega kit, which will be the kit and a paper pack, which has an additional 26 papers, plus they will receive a $10 coupon to spend at SAS on whatever they want. Thanks in advance for your help.

Name Me Kit

Close-up

Sampling of papers

Name Me Freebie

Download Name Me Freebie Here

Dear Mom Part Two

2008-05-15T12:50:00.003-06:00

I have some more goodies from Dear Mom for you today. One of my favorite pieces is the cameo, I have always wanted to make one and the flowers in the kits seemed perfect for the project. This download has some of the softer lighter elements but the next few downloads will have a bolder brighter look. I noticed a little problem with the heart from part one, if you already downloaded part one you can download a new heart below.

I have a new kit almost ready to put in the store but I cannot do that until I have a name for it. Naming
kits and coming up with descriptions for them is a weak point for me, it is so bad that when Jan use to put my kits in the store I would send her a description that consisted of a few keywords that I thought were appropriate followed by “blah, blah, blah” LOL, fortunately she never just put the description in like that, instead she always came up with something that sounded much better…LOL. Lori suggested that I have a naming contest again so that is what I am going to do. I will have a freebie from the kit for you on Friday so that you can get a good look at it. If you come up with a good name send it to me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com by Monday at 7 p.m. central. Whoever sends in the winning name (meaning the name I choose) will win the kit and a $10 store coupon.

I want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments about my last post. We make decisions in our life and have no idea of the impact they will have. I made a few very bad ones when I was 15 and 16 that caused me and my family a lot of pain for many years. I think back sometimes and wonder if I would do things differently and I am not sure that if I could if I would. I say that because I am who I am and where I am because of those decisions. You know what they say, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” Those words can help you through the toughest of times knowing that when you come out the other end you will be a stronger person because of it. Thanks again.

Dear Mom Part Two

Download Dear Mom Part Two Here

If you downloaded part 1 before today you should download this new heart. If you download part one today you do not need it because I put the new heart in the download.

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Dear Mom Freebie

2008-05-08T15:39:00.003-06:00

Here is the first part of my Free Kit of the Month. It is called Dear Mom and it is in honor of my mom. With Mother’s Day being this Sunday it seems like an appropriate time for this. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that when I was fifteen I made some stupid decisions that took my path in life many miles from my mother. I say “regret” but I can’t regret that those decisions lead me to where I am now, married to a great guy with four children that are so dear to me. I regret that I have not been able to share my life with my mom except for the occasional visits. She is a very special women, she left my father in a time that most women stayed in bad marriages but she knew that we would be better off without him. She worked very hard all of those years to support us without any help from my father, her family or the government. I was an only child until I was thirteen so we were very close. When I was fifteen (that time in life when I knew everything…LOL) I moved away from home not knowing that it would be forever. For a few years more than miles separated us, it took me becoming a mother for that gulf to close and for me to realize just how much my mother had sacrificed for me and how little I really did know. My mom taught me lots of things but mostly she taught me how to be a mother, much of the mother I am came from her. We have had lots of good visits over the years (but never enough) and one thing I learned about my mother is that she is one of the funniest people I know, I have always had my best laughs with my mom, real “hurt my belly” laughs. I guess that is how life goes, kids grow up and move on but I do wish I could have shared more of my life with my mom. One piece of advice to you moms with young children, enjoy it while you can, it was only yesterday that my little ones were asking me to give them a good night back rub or to read them a book. Now they are grown and living lives of their own, some of them too far from home, it goes WAY too fast.

BTW, for all of you moms that will be getting flowers this Mother’s Day, here is a little secret I learned that will keep those flowers looking perky for a long time. Mix up the little packet of crystals that comes with the flowers in the correct amount of water and then add ½ teaspoon of bleach to the mix. I had just read about this in the newspaper when my DH got me flowers for Valentines Day and our anniversary so I decided to try it. The roses were still looking good after two weeks and the mixed flowers kept for over a week and a half. I think the bleach also helped them to dry well, I hung them upside down for a few weeks and they are beautiful, as soon as I get time I am going to take some pictures and make some elements from them.

I will have more of Dear Mom next week, there will be about 24 papers and no telling how many elements. I was hoping to have more elements ready today but the flowers took a long time to get looking just the way I wanted them to. This kit will have a lot of looks because the papers went in a few directions but it should be a good mix and match kit. Happy Mother’s Day and Enjoy!

Flower Frame

Dear Mom Part One

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Vintage Rose and Family History Freebie

2008-04-30T14:40:00.000-06:00

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. We got a great response to the designer call and have added 5 new designers to the team. Barbara of digiMom Designs has a 50% off sale to celebrate the opening of her new store and CathyC, Jeanette Bollinger and RachelC have opened their stores. Brenda of Millstream Cottage will be opening soon. Barbara and RachelC have freebies and Jeanette has a CT call and a nice freebie,

I was trying to get my Free Kit of the Month started today but I spent most of the last two weeks typing and checking out the potential designers so that did not leave much time for designing or putting together previews, so I decided to dig out a couple of my old freebies. Vintage Rose is by far my favorite kit, so that is the first one and Family History is one of my favorites also so that is the second. I know a lot of you probably already have them but with so many newbies finding out about the joy and ease of digital scrapping every day I figured that a lot of you wouldn’t have them. If you like the freebies and want the kits you can find them here.

Now that the designer call is over I am going to try to get some new kits in the store. I have twelve kits in various stages of completion but my problem is that I always have a hard time deciding what papers to put in a kit. Typically when I get on a run with papers I will end up with 50 or 60 papers and being the pack rat that I am I can’t throw anything away…LOL. Most of those papers are different in some way, not just a different color but with blending modes changed on different layers and things that make each paper unique. I have been thinking of a way to offer them all to the people that purchase the kits but to make it easy for them to not download the extra papers if someone did not want all of them. Maybe something like a Bonus Paper Pack, I don’t know but I will have to figure something out.

Well, I better run for now, I still have to get the newsletter out. If you are not registered in the store or the forum but would like to see our sales or get the newsletter freebies here is the link to the newsletter. BTW, the April Showers Freebie below is still active. Enjoy!

Download Vintage Rose Freebie Here.

Download Family History Freebie Here

SAS April Showers Sampler

2008-04-23T15:55:00.000-06:00

I have so much to blog about but right now I am so busy with all of the designer applications that I don’t have much time today. I am so pleased at the quality of the designers who applied at SAS, it is going to be a tough choice, we are hoping to take on at least 4 new designers.

What I did want to do here today is to give you a sampler of the SAS April Showers Mega Kit. If you only buy one spring themed kit this should be it, there is such a variety of beautiful flowers and other elements that is the only one you will need. Wait until you see Boo’s awesome hand-drawn elements, they are SO adorable, AneczkaW made a cute little duck that really completes the “April Showers” theme. It is on sale for $6.95 There are 83 papers and 163, yes I said 163 embellishments. Below is a little sampler of the kit, these elements are in the kit so if you buy it you do not need to download this.

Here is the link to this week’s newsletter, there are some newsletter freebies and we started a contest (A quick and easy little contest) where the winner gets a $10 gift certificate so take a look.

I have to run so I can get back to work on the designer applications, hopefully that will be done by Friday and I can get some designing done this weekend. I have 12 kit in the works but I have not been able to finish anything up to my satisfaction. Finished or not I will start a free kit next week, there is nothing like a blog deadline to get me designing...LOL. In the mean time enjoy the sampler.

April Showers Sampler

Download April Showers Sampler Here

Mega Kit Sampler

2008-04-16T15:54:00.003-06:00

It has been awhile since I blogged and I have lots of things to blog about but today I just have time to get a sampler from the SAS April Mega Kit posted. I meant to get this up two weeks ago but I got tied up with doing taxes, this was my first business tax return and it took a lot of time to do, time that I could have been doing something more fun or productive or relaxing or just about anything that would have been better than doing taxes…LOL.

We are looking for a few new designers at SAS, if you would like to apply the details are in our newsletter.

This is a sampler from the kit, if you bought the kit already then you do not need this since all of these pieces are in the kit. BTW, all of our mega kits are on sale for 5.95 until next week so now is the time to get them. I have to run for now but I will be back Friday with another freebie and I will fill you in about the last 6 weeks. Hugs to everyone that emailed asking how I was and when I would be back, I am back now! Enjoy!

Download SAS Mega Kit Sampler Here

Citrus Sunrise Grand Finale

2008-02-29T12:50:00.001-06:00

I decided to combine parts 7 and 8 of Citrus Sunrise today. If you download all of the parts you will get 48 papers and 52 embellishments. This was a fun kit to design, I really liked working with this palette, the colors were so easy to blend. I will leave all of the links to Citrus Sunrise active until I start my March freebie that will be sometime next week so download these links while you can.

My birthday was Wednesday, I thought the best way to celebrate was with a sale, I won’t say how old I am, but if I had made the kits that percentage off I would have just about been giving them away…LOL.

Citrus Sunrise 7 + 8 Papers

Citrus Sunrise 7 + 8

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Citrus Sunrise Part 6

2008-02-21T22:57:00.001-06:00

Grrrrrrrrr, I am SO mad at my computer!! I got this new Mac Pro a few weeks ago and it has been trouble ever since. It has been very unstable, something I am not use to in a Mac and even though it should be about 4 times faster than my old G5 it is so much slower it is driving me NUTS!!!!!! Last night after I made a few new pieces for Citrus Sunrise and the previews it would not power off so I had to do a hard shutdown (NOT good for the computer,) well this morning it would not boot up, I got what is called “the blue screen of death.” I had been planning on reinstalling the old operating system to see if maybe it was the new OS that was making the computer so slow but I was hoping to do it when I had some free time (like that happens very often…LOL) With the crash today I had no choice but to reinstall everything, it actually took about 6 hours since I had to install 3 versions of Adobe Creative Suites and they take forever to install. Now I still have to mess around with getting my passwords, bookmark, preferences and all the other software back on, what a waste of time this has been. Once I got the computer up and running I found out that the previews and a few really nice piece I made for this kit were lost, I don’t know how it could have happened, I had opened and closed them a few times so they were saved to the hard drive but they are GONE… like I said Grrrrrrrrrr. I did manage to put the frame back together so I have that for you, but the other pieces will take more time than I have tonight so I will have to get that to you later this week, probably Sunday. I hope you like the frame, it was really a happy accident, you may not believe this but it started out as a piece of simple black and white clipart, Ohhh, the wonders of Photoshop…LOL, All of the downloads from this kit are still active, Enjoy!

New Frame

Citrus Sunrise Part 6

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Citrus Sunrise Part 5

2008-02-16T12:29:00.002-06:00

Sorry about the mix-up with the third download of part 4, it was just the preview and I did not zip it but in order for things to be downloadable from an FTP site they have to be zipped. All of the previous links to this kit are still active so if you do not have them yet be sure to get them before the end of the month. I will have part 6 sometime later this week. I love the name of this kit but I was surprised that none of the name suggested had the word “Creamsicle” in them, that is one of the first things that this color palette makes me think of. I still have about 50 papers left to this kit but I need to come up with a few more elements, I think I need to add some shabby pieces to extend the range of what it can be used for. Well, I hope you enjoy it!

Part 5

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SAS Mega Kit Freebie

2008-02-13T13:18:00.002-06:00

If you read my last post you will remember I talked about how hard it is to put together the SAS mega kit preview. It ended up taking me almost a day and a half. When I first put all of the pieces together I thought it was a little small with only 89 papers and 91 embellishments. I finally got it done and looking good. After I uploaded the originals I did something I don’t usually do, I deleted the layered Photoshop docs, I figured I wouldn’t be working with the previews again and they took up almost 700 megs. Today when I started putting the Mega Kit freebie together I realized that I left two of the designers products out of the previews...grrrrrrrrrr. Somehow I managed to overlook Toye and Terrll’s folders so none of their pieces were included in the previews, I briefly considered doing the preview over to include some of their lovely pieces but sanity got the best of me and I decided that it would be better to get the newsletter out sometime today instead of redoing the preview. That will teach me to throw things out…LOL Their missing elements brings the count up to a whopping 101 papers and 107 embellishments! At the sale price of $6.95 it comes out to 3.5 cents per element, even at the regular price of $9.95 the cost is only 5 cents each. Lori and I say the same thing every month, “I think this is our best mega kit yet.” The pieces in today’s freebie are duplicates of the ones in the kit so if you buy the kit you do not need to get the freebie.

Be sure to get by Darlene’s blog, she has part 6 of “So Sweet” this is a full kit that she is giving out this month and Candee has part 2 of “October Romance” for you today. One more thing you do not want to miss, Al at Action FX has a great deal on his site, for just $5 you have access to all of the items you can download in a day. Al has almost 100,000 items, everything from ribbons to Photoshop styles available for one low price, he has a few subscription plans available. Al has been involved in Photoshop about as long as there has been a Photoshop so he knows his stuff, he is good people too.

If you want to check out this week’s specials and pick up a few more freebies here is the link to the newsletter.

SAS Mother Earth Mega Kit

Closeups

Sampling of the Papers

SAS Mega Kit Freebie

Download SAS Mega kit freebie here
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3, fixed

February Freebie 4 & the Winner is……..

2008-02-11T21:12:00.001-06:00

Well, it is a little late in the day but I told you I would have part 4 up and announce the winner of the kit naming contest today so here it is.

I have my new Mac set up but I am wondering if there is something wrong with it, it should be about 3 times faster than my old Mac, it should REALLY be one of the fastest personal computers on the face of the Earth but for some reason it is SLOOOOOOOW. My old Mac was pretty fast, I could have been happy with it for a long time if it hadn’t died, but with the specs on this new Intel based Mac I expected it to just fly. When I am working on my papers the Photoshop docs are sometimes over half a gig and use a gig or more in memory, my old Mac could handle two or three large docs open at the same time but this one really seems to drag with just one large doc open. It could be the new operating system, Leopard, (all of the Mac OS are named big cats) is an awesome OS with lots of new applications built in but it is possible that is part of why it is so slow. When I get a free day I might go ahead and reinstall the old operating system and see if that helps.

I spent a lot of time today getting the previews together for the SAS February Mega Kit, it really takes a long time trying to put all of those papers and elements together in a way that really shows them off well. I was also finishing up my part of the mega kit, anyone that has ever downloaded one of my kits knows that when I get on a roll with papers I can easily come up with at least 40 or 50, with this mega kit I ended up with 46 papers, not just recolored papers but different variations of the color and pattern combinations, I LOVE making paper, the problem is that for the mega kit the designers only need to make 6-8 papers, so what to do with all of the extras? I think that I am going to pull one pattern set out and base a new kit on them and then I will make a bonus paper pack for the mega kit, a pack of papers that are similar but different from the ones in the kit.

Another thing that took a lot of thought today was the final decision for the name of this kit. I want to thank all of you that took the time to send me your suggestions and for your kind comments. I got so many great suggestions it was a difficult choice. There were quite a few that had “Feelin” in the name, that was tempting to keep with that line ( I have a few ideas for kits with “Feelin” names,) I also received two suggestions for “Feelin Peachy” LOL, I already have a kit by that name, so obviously I like that but can’t use it again. A lot of suggestions had “Sunrise” and “Sunset” in the name, those were very fitting, There were at least a dozen that had “Citrus” in that name, looking at the papers that seemed very appropriate. So what seemed to really fit and to also go along with my “Tuscan Sunset” kit name is “Citrus Sunrise,” the winner of the contest is Joanne Kraft, she will receive a $25 certificate to SAS to spend on whatever she wants. If you do not have parts 1 to 3 they are still active and located below. I don’t know what day it will be but I will have part 5 up sometime this week. Enjoy!

Citrus Sunrise Parts 1 to 3 Elements

Citrus Sunrise Parts 1 to 3 Papers

Citrus Sunrise Part 4

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February Freebie Part 3, Computer problems

2008-02-09T04:28:00.001-06:00

Well, I promised this to you on Friday but I have had major computer problems, my Mac pooped out on me Thursday, it was the motherboard and it would have been very expensive to replace it, since the computer was almost 5 years old I decided to get a new Mac. I have been hoping to get a new Intel based Mac since they cam out but I certainly do not want to get one this way. It has been a long day getting it set up and ready to go but I have been determined to get this part of the kit up before I went to bed so here it is, the preview is not too great since I just threw it together. The previews are a combination of parts 1-3. With this mess I have not had time to go through the names I got in Thursday and Friday so I have not picked a winner yet but from what I have seen of the names that have come in it will be a hard choice. I will have the next part up on Monday along with the announcement of the winning name. I hope you like the kit, I am going to bed now and get a much needed rest, Enjoy!

Elements

Papers

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Part 2 of February Free Kit

2008-02-06T13:14:00.001-06:00

Well, I have had a crummy few days, Last Thursday I had read in the paper that there was a flu epidemic in the St Louis area where I live so when I went out I seriously considered wearing a mask. I decided not to since it probably would have looked a little silly…LOL. I think I should have gone with silly thou, I was at the check out counter at Wal-Mart when the cashier started coughing all over me…grrrrrrrr. I could have smacked her, instead I went home and bombarded myself with Wellborn, vitamin C and Zicam, I think it did help, I felt pretty bad but not as bad as what I have heard a lot of people have been. This is not the first time this has happened to me at Wal-Mart, the last time I got really, really sick it was from a stocker who sneezed all over me without covering his mouth. On well, at least I got that out of the way with no more than a few boring miserable days, but next time I might just go with the mask…LOL.

One thing I did manage to get done in the last few days is to design more of my February free kit and I got a good start on a few other kits. There is a preview of one of the papers below, I have not quite decided on the exact color palette yet, I seem to be doing a lot of yellow, red, oranges but I just love those colors.

Kit in process

Here is the link to this week’s newsletter, there are lots of beautiful layouts and freebies in it so be sure to take a look.

Here is the preview of parts 1 and 2 of my February free kit. I have received some real good suggestions for the “Name this Kit contest,” the contest closes Friday the 8th at midnight, send your ideas to me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com, with the subject line of “Kit name.” The winning entry will get a $25 SAS store coupon, If you don’t have part 1 yet you will find it under last Friday 1st post. I will have part 3 up on Friday. Enjoy!

Part 1 and 2

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February Freebie Kit, Name the Kit Contest

2008-02-01T12:46:00.001-06:00

I finally had some time to design this week so I made the kit that I will be giving out in February. I went a little overboard on papers, I made over 100 of them…LOL, I will probably include around 40 in the kit. I will be giving it out through out the month, probably twice a week. I don’t have a name for it yet, so if the colors inspire a name, send it to me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com by Friday the 8th, whoever sends in the winning name will get a $25 SAS store coupon. Please be sure to put “KIT NAME” in the subject line of your e-mail.

We had a great response to posting the newsletter on our blogs so we are going to do it every week. Here is the link to this week’s newsletter, the freebies and sales are still active.

Be sure to go by Candee’s blog, she has the final part of “A Mermaid’s Heart” available for download, it is a great Valentines kit.

Candee’s “A Mermaid's Heart Freebie”

Candee’s newest kit “Dilly Dilly”

February Freebie Part 1

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Mega Kit Freebie

2008-01-23T14:05:00.000-06:00

Wow, what a busy month it has been. I want to start by apologizing for not blogging in such a long time. Between Christmas and having my whole family home I was pretty busy for awhile. It was a little bit of a vacation for me but after being an empty nester for awhile it was a lot of work having everyone home again, not that I am complaining…LOL.

During the holidays I took some time to learn CSS and HTML, I have wanted to learn it for awhile but never had the time. When I first started learning CSS I thought “this is not too hard at all” well, let me tell you, CSS is a lot easier in theory than it is in practice, one little comma out of place and WHAM, nothing works…LOL. After many attempts I did manage to spruce up our homepage, but I think I will leave the big things to a web master. BTW, I am still looking for a web master that can take care of the little things that come up now and then, so if you would be interested in doing a little work in exchange for lots and lot of gorgeous scraps please contact me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com.

Another reason I have not blogged in a while is that I have not had much time to design and I figure that who is going to come by to read my ramblings if I don’t have a freebie. I have a few kits in the works but I have really been focusing on what needs to be done for the site. One problem is that I have kind of a one track mind, so when I focus on something THAT is what I focus on. There are so many things I want to do for the store and site that it has taken a lot of my time and energy. It’s funny, when I decided to start the site I really had no idea of what was to come, but this place has really become my baby, I have meet some great people and made some wonderful friends, I want to do whatever I can to see that my baby keeps growing every day.

As many of you probably know Pillowgirl is leaving us at the end of the month, she has been a good friend and team member and I hate to loose her but she has too many things going on so something has to give. BTW, she has a sale going on that is advertised on her blog so go take a look. Another designer we are loosing for a while is Pamela of Digitreats, her little ones are going to school this fall so she is taking a hiatus to spend more time with them before the “fly the nest” we are hoping she will be back full time after September. Janalyn has our new designers from the design contest settled in and they have all added some beautiful products to the store. We had some tough choices to make for our CT call but we were able to trim the list down to tragedyanne, JanW, tripmom06, Kittenb, JCSimons, MarilynG, StudioCK, Sharpli and ~Heather~ as our newest CT members, between their cute children and stunning nature photos you can expect to see a lot of beautiful new layouts in the gallery.

Be sure to get by Candee’s blog, she has the first part of A Mermaid’s Heart freebie available. Candee is one of the most amazing people I know, if you read her blog you know that life has not been easy on her, yet she is so upbeat in dealing with things, I truly admire and respect her. Her latest kit Dusty Memories is absolutely beautiful.

Dusted Memories

We don’t usually post the link to our newsletters on our blogs but last week the design team posted it so those of you who are not signed up could see what you are missing. Since I didn’t blog last week I will post the link to this week’s newsletter. It really is beautifully put together and laid out, so if you don’t subscribe yet, take a look for yourself at what Lori has put together this week.

Here is a freebie from the January Mega Kit, SAS-y Cinnamon, it has 68 papers and over 100 embellishments and is on sale for 6.95. To see some of the beautiful layouts made for the kit check out the newsletter or go to the gallery. Well that is about it for now, Enjoy!

Download SAS-y Cinnamon Freebie Here

Feelin SAS-y

2007-12-13T14:23:00.000-06:00

Wow, what an exciting week we had with round 2 of the designer contest. There were so many comments about how people had such a hard time choosing their favorite to vote for. I am really excited that about the prospect of having some of these talented women join the SAS design team. Round 3 is a “Free for All” I thought it would be the best way to let them show the full range of their talents by letting them choose exactly what they wanted to in this round so it should be very interesting.

Apparently a lot of you were around the forum just as the voting closed because it over loaded our server and the site was down for about a half hour. I was just getting ready to take a screen shot of the results and I could not get back in, talk about panic. I got on the phone to Blue Host and had to wait in line for about 20 minutes, they actually said it was their fault, I don’t know if they had not allocated enough resources to the server or what but they did have it up and running within a few minutes of me getting in touch with them. As soon as the site gets a little bigger I am going to have it moved over to my own server so that nothing like that ever happens again.

You have to get by Candee’s store and take a look at her latest kit. It is her first altered art kit and I’ll tell you, she did an awesome job of it. Don’t be surprised to see a lot more altered art coming from her.

I did have time to repackage Feelin SAS-y and get it into the store this week. I know a lot of you already have it but for those of you who don’t I have a freebie of it for you today. It is available in a few configurations, a kit, mega kit and a paper pack. The kit and mega kit are on sale for the next few weeks.

I really hate to make alphas, between upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols there are 72 cut, paste and saves so it gets very repetitious. I wanted to get Feelin Frosty in the store so I didn’t make an alpha for it, then I just started feeling like it just wasn’t done without one so I also added an alpha to Feelin Frosty and I will be sending the link out to those of you that already bought it. The mega kit is on sale right now.

Feelin SAS-y

Close-up of a few of the embellishments

Feelin SAS-y Freebie

Download Feelin SAS-y Freebie Here

17 Christmas Kits Free

2007-12-07T13:39:00.000-06:00

We have some really awesome kits in this round. There is some real talent in this group and I am so excited that the next SAS-y Ladies will be coming out of this contest. I am glad that I exempted myself from voting because I don’t think I could make p my mind. What I would encourage you to do is to download the kits and take a close up look at them before you make up your mind. A good preview is very difficult to do, I spend hours and hours on mine and it is hard to really show off some of the details, especially if you have a lot of papers and embellishments. You will get a better idea of the quality once you see them at full size. Voting will be done in the forum with a poll (no repeat of last eek…LOL) so after you have a chance to download the kits please come back and vote so you can help decide who the next SAS-y Ladies will be.

Go get there kits in the gallery.

From Feelin Frosty mega kit on sale now

Feelin Frosty Freebie

2007-12-05T15:34:00.000-06:00

You probably heard about the vote problem we had by now, it was the craziest thing. Friday night I was telling Steve how well things had gone and I just felt like I had jinxed it. I am one of those “never say never” people, about 10 years ago I said “I have never had a speeding ticket” what do you think happened the next day…LOL. Last year Meg said “Mom, you should be proud of me, with all of the driving I have done I have never had a speeding ticket” I told her my little story and said “Never say never” The next day she was driving back to college when she called me and said “Mom, you were right (words that you rarely hear from a teenager….LOL) I just got my first speeding ticket” I am not normally a superstitious person (I love black cats and have walked under ladders with no ill effects) but in this case I will never say never again.

We have a new SAS-y Princess for December, Rose won with Leaf Pile using Autumn Wind by CanDesigns. Rose will receive a $20 storewide coupon to SAS. If you want to be the next SAS-y Princess post your layouts using SAS products in the gallery and post the link in the SAS-y Princess forum. At the end of the month the SAS-y Ladies vote for their favorite.

I have been working on a snowflake kit for the last month or so and I finally finished Feelin Frosty up today. I just love snowflakes and I spent a lot of time making the ones I used as embellishments and on the paper. I went a little overboard on paper again and ended up with over 80. I had a heck of a time deciding which ones to use so I came up with a kit and an add-on. One thing that took forever was the icicle topper, and ice frame, they came out pretty good. I used 4 or 5 Action FX styles in this kit, if you haven’t taken a look at what Al has to offer you will be amazed, over 100,000 styles, brushes and other things for one low price so check it out. Feelin Frosty will be in the store sometime today, the kit and add-on can be bought together as a Mega kit for a big savings, the mega kit is on sale for the next two weeks. Here is a sampling of the kit, Enjoy!

Feelin Frosty

Feelin Frosty Closeup

Feelin Frosty Freebie

Download Feelin Frosty Freebie Here

Seventeen Kits Free

2007-11-30T15:18:00.000-06:00

The Designer contest gallery is open and ready for voting and your downloading pleasure. There are so many wonderful entries I think you will have a great time scrapping with these kits. Don’t forget to vote for the next SAS-y Lady!

Feelin Peachy Part 3

2007-11-27T15:26:00.001-06:00

I have the last of Feelin Peachy today, all of the other links are still active. I fixed the link for the alphas so if you do not have them the right link is with part two.

The SAS designer contest started yesterday, everyone seems to be pretty excited about the palette. I love these colors and can’t wait to see what the contestants come up with. All of the entries will be available for download after 7p.m. Friday and all SAS members are eligible to vote so the more contestants the merrier. It is not too late to join the contest, just email me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com and I will send you all the information you need to get started. You can grab the palette here of go to the forum and download it from there. Entries are due by Friday at 10 am EST and should be posted in the gallery. There are already some gorgeous entries in the gallery so stop by and take a look.

SAS Designer Contest Palette

Feelin Peachy Full Kit

Feelin Peachy Part 3

Download disabled

The Winner is…

2007-11-26T01:58:00.000-06:00

Wow! What a tough choice that was, there were so many great names to choose from. I was surprised at how many of them really fit the feel of the kit and I was touched at how many of you were reminded of a special time or person on your life, thank you for sharing that with me. I went through the list with my nieces on Thanksgiving, they are 10 and 13, they got a kick out of the fact that Aunt Julie has a website and blog…LOL. We all pretty much agreed on the name we thought best fit the kit so the winning name is Tuscan Sunset, Cheng suggested it but she did not leave an address so, Cheng, get in touch with me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com and I will send you a coupon for the kit. If I am ever stuck for a name I will definitely do this again, what you came up with is so much better then what I could have. The kit should be in the store sometime today, the regular price is 5.95 but I will have it on sale for 4.25 for the first two weeks. The preview is a little messy but I always try to fit everything in so it gets kind of crammed with all of the elements.

The SAS designer contest starts today, I am pretty excited about it, I have looked at the blogs of some of the entries and there is some real talent out there. I am looking forward to adding 4 new designers to the team also, I think 15 will be a good number of designers. Right now the designers do two contests a month but I would like to be able to cut that down to one each, so with that number of designers we can still have a lot of fun things going on. It is not too late to enter so if you are interested e-mail me and I will send you all of the information you will need, you just have to have your entry in by the deadline Friday Nov 30th at 10 a.m. The palette for the first round is posted in the forum. The voting starts Friday Nov 30th at 7 p.m. and all of the kits will be available for download after that time so be sure to stop by the gallery.

Contest is closed, Thanks!

2007-11-23T11:14:00.000-06:00

WOW, you guy really went to town. I have my work cut out for me in choosing a name from all of those great suggestions. The contest is closed now and I will go through the suggestions and announce the winning name in a few hours. Thanks so much for participating in this, naming and describing kits is not my strong point, so this will help a lot.

Don’t forget to go by the store, we are having a 40% of sale for Black Friday, so if you are looking for a way to save money but can’t bear the thought of getting out on the cold and the crowd that is the place to do it. It is not to late to sign up for the designer contest that starts on Monday. I want to add 4 new designers to the team so if you have been considering becoming a professional designer e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com and I will send you the details.

BTW, There were a few problems with the Feelin Peachy alpha, so here is the right link to the alpha.

Name That Kit Freebie

2007-11-20T15:11:00.001-06:00

Well here it is, I have been working on this kit for over a month and it is almost ready. I thought it was done last night but when I started putting the previews together I decided it was too dark and golden for the look I was going for, I ended up doing a major overhaul to make it more rosy and lighter. I didn’t get the alpha done and there are a few more things I want to do with the flowers but the previews should give you enough to come up with a good name for it. If you look closely at the floral papers you will see that they are embossed. I just love this look and I am working on a few more kits using it. There is also a nice freebie so you can get a good look at it and there should be enough pieces to make a layout or two. Whoever comes up the winning name will receive the kit free, just post your suggestions in the comment section. I will announce the decision shortly after noon (e.s.t.) on Friday so be sure to get yours in by then.

For those of you who are sane enough to forgo the frantic after Thanksgiving sales SAS is having a big Black Friday sale, 40% off everything in the store (except commercial use) so you can stay home and do your shopping in your jimmies if you want and still save money, what a deal huh…LOL

I am so excited about Thanksgiving this year for two reasons, the first is that it is my SIL’s year to have it…LOL, when we have it here it takes a week to get the dining room ready since has always been my DH’s “drop it” point for all of his work stuff, give him a flat surface and he will pile something on it. The other reason I am excited is that this is the first Thanksgiving that Beth will be home since she joined the Air Force. She is stationed in Nebraska right now, it is about a 7-hour drive, which naturally makes me very nervous, but it will be great to have her home for a few days. So even though we are not having dinner here I will probably spend the next few days getting the house cleaned up a bit and cooking a few of her favorite meals. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving with your family, even the ones that drive you nuts, take lots of pictures. Enjoy!

Name that kit

Name that Kit Freebie

Download your Freebie here

Mega Kit Freebie

2007-11-19T14:11:00.001-06:00

I have a freebie from the SAS mega kit today, I get so tickled every time I look at this kit. There are 72 papers and over 80 embellishments. I love the way the designers used the gold. The SAS CT has done some great layouts using it, if you would like to take a look they are in the gallery. The kit is on sale for 6.95 through Dec 11th, that comes out to about 4 cents a piece for all of those elements.

Come back tomorrow for a freebie from my soon to be released kit, I have been working on it for a few weeks but I still don’t have a name for it when, I asked Janalyn if she had any ideas she suggested a “Name that kit” contest, I thought that was a great idea. I still have a few elements to finish up and then the preview to do, so I will have the preview and a freebie up tomorrow and hopefully it will spark a thought or two on the name. With Thanksgiving coming up I know everyone will be busy so I will run the contest until Friday and then the person who submitted the winning name will win the kit.

Don’t forget the SAS Designer Contest, it starts on Monday the 26th, I have taken a look at the blogs of some of the contestants and I am real excited about what I see. If you would like to enter e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com and I will send you the details, maybe you will be the next SAS-y Lady!

Some of the Mega Kit Elements

Mega Kit Freebie

Download SAS Mega Kit Freebie Here

There was a problem with the Feelin Peachy alpha, I think it was because I named the symbols what they were (*&$# etc...) and it caused trouble, I have fixed that and uploaded it again, the new link is below with the rest of the Feelin Peachy 2 download.

Feelin Peachy 2 and Mega Kit

2007-11-15T12:12:00.001-06:00

If you got our newsletter then you know the big news, Boo of Booland Designs has joined the SAS-y design team. Boo has been with SAS from the beginning, she’s been a great CT member and her designs are incredible. We have a few of her products in the store with LOTS more to come, stop by and take a look.

We released our November Mega kit yesterday, I have always been so happy with what the SAS-y Ladies come up with for the mega kit but I am thrilled with this one, the papers are so rich and detailed, everything is tied together by a touch of gold, there are 72 papers and over 80 elements so the possibilities are endless. Jan will be getting it out to the CT soon so we should have some layouts in the gallery in a few days. To see more previews or to buy it (now is a good time because it is on sale…LOL) go to the store to take a look.

Preview of some of the elements in the November Mega kit

Here is part 2 of Feelin Peachy, I got the alpha done, I should write a script to do alphas because they are a real pain, I like to separate each letter but with upper case, lowercase, numbers and characters there are 80 cut, paste and saves to an alpha, very repetitious. I still have a few more ideas for this kit now that I have decided what direction I want to go with it so I will be back with those soon. Enjoy!

Feelin Peach Part 2

Download disabled

Date Change for SAS Designer Contest

2007-11-11T14:31:00.000-06:00

There’s been a few things that have come up that have made me decide that I need to reschedule the designer contest The first problem is that two of our designers are moving next week and another one just had a baby. We are relying on the designers to check over all of the entries for quality so it might be too much for the rest of us to do in time for the voting to start. Then with Thanksgiving the next week it could difficult for the contestants to get their entries in with family obligations, so the contest will start on Monday the 26th and run for 3 weeks. Here is the new schedule for the contest,

Contest starts on Monday, November 26th at 10 a.m. EST, this is when the theme or palette will be released.
Entries are due Friday Nov 30th at 10 a.m.
Voting starts Friday Nov 30th at 7 p.m,
Voting closes Sunday Dec 2nd at 7 p.m.
Next round starts on Monday, Dec 3rd at 10 a.m.

We have some exciting contestants already so I know this is going to be a lot of fun. I will be back Tuesday with more of Feelin Peachy and I hope I can finish up a new kit I have been working on.

Feelin Peachy + Designer Contest

2007-11-09T02:18:00.001-06:00

I have the first part of Feelin Peachy for you today, I started this over a month ago but I have not had a lot of design time so I have been doing a piece or two now and then. That seems to be the only way I get to design lately, I actually have 6 kits in the works, I keep coming up with ideas and start a new one but then I get sidetracked by something. I am bound and determined to get a kit that I have been working on out next week, wait until you see it! I think it is the prettiest paper I have ever made so I have been really trying to come up with some awesome elements to go with it. Hopefully this weekend I can find some time. Now that we are all organized and have a system I have been trying to set the weekends aside to get away from the computer a little bit and when I am on it I do something fun, like designing or trying a new technique.

I have some very exciting news for you, SAS is going to have a designer contest. I would like to take on 4 more designers and this seemed like a good way to do it. Rather then me deciding if they are a good fit for the store I thought it would be a good idea to let all of you vote on who you would like. The designers and I are only going to check the products for quality and the registered members will do the voting, the best part is that the kits the contestants submit will be available for you to download FREE! So if you think your are ready to be an “official” designer go to the forum for more information.

I have been a little frustrated by some of the limitations of Zen Cart so I am going to change over to X-Cart in the next few weeks. It is going to be a lot of work and money to get it done but from what I have seen of the program it will make things a lot easier in the long run. I am going to need to hire a web master to help out with setting up X-Cart and a few other maintenance type things that need to be done on the site so if you would be interested in helping out (for a very reasonable rate…LOL) I would love to hear from you.

Here is the start of Feelin Peachy, I will be back with more next week and I will also have some more news to share, but I will keep that a secret for now (a little hint, we have a new designer joining the team, this person has been such a joy to have at SAS and we are all excited to have her join the team.)

Download disabled

SAS-y Princess Winner is.....

2007-11-02T19:24:00.000-06:00

I just have a quick post for you about out SAS-y Princess contest. This was such a tough choice, all of the designers had multiple layouts that they liked but since we had to make a choice to crown our first SAS-y Princess we picked Randje, for Wendy´s Wimpers. Using Phreephorm Designs - Rock My World Girl kit the simplicity of the layout really allowed the focus to be on the adorable baby, the photography really stood out also. One thing that really made it hard was there were so many beautiful babies, it was hard not to think of each of them as winners. The criteria for the judging were personal preference and that may have made it harder to choose but I think we are going to keep it that way. To see all of the beautiful layouts go to the gallery. Randje is the November SAS-y Princess and she will be awarded a $20 SAS storewide coupon. We are starting the contest for December so be sure to get your layouts entered in the November SAS-y Gallery.

Randje's Wendy´s Wimpers, Phreephorm Designs - Rock My World Girl kit

Halloween Tricks or Treats

2007-10-31T02:47:00.000-06:00

Link expired

A few people have reported being asked for a password to unzip this file. I do not have a password on it. I think the problem might be some people might have a firewall protection program that is doing it since it does not happen to everyone. I have an alternative link that might help. I do promise you that if you like my papers you will LOVE this.
Alternative download for Trick or Treat freebie

Well the trick was almost on me, last night my internet went down, after about 6 hours. I was starting to panic a little, I was afraid I was going to have to take my DH’s computer and go out in the middle of the night to find some place that had wi-fi so I could upload my treats for you. What a relief when it came back on.

Phreephorm is the one that put all of this together, it was all her idea and she has done such a great job, I absolutely LOVE her knockers. BTW, it is her birthday today so be sure to say “Happy Birthday” when you stop by her blog. To celebrate she has her whole store on sale.

Click on the door knocker to visit your next mysterious destination!

Welcome Darlene and Mega kit Freebie

2007-10-30T12:10:00.000-06:00

We have a lot of things going on this week. The first and most exciting is that Darlene is joining the SAS design team. I absolutely love her style and something that really impressed me is her organizational system. I really think a nicely organized kit makes it easier to find things. I am somewhat obsessive myself about how I organize the kits I buy, for a while there I was spending more time organizing than scrapping…LOL, but I do know where everything is. Janalyn and Trish F spent the weekend stocking her store so stop by and take a look.

Be sure to come back tomorrow for Trick or Treating, I don’t have any tricks for you but all of the SAS-y Ladies will have a treats. This will be a lot more fun than getting up every few minutes to answer the doorbell.

You have one more day to enter the SAS-y Princess contest, we have some lovely entries. The winner will be the SAS-y Princess next month and gets a $20 store coupon, for details and to get you layout entered go to the forum.

I have a sampling of the SAS October Mega kit to share with you today. I have told you before that I love fall colors and this palette has a nice variation of colors to complement your fall happenings. See you tomorrow, Enjoy!

Previews of a few of the elements and papers from the SAS October Mega kit.

Your Mega kit Freebie

Download the Mega Kit Freebie Kit Here

Just in case alternative freebie download link

Delicious Berry Blue 5

2007-10-25T14:45:00.000-06:00

BTW, in the newsletter I said Thanksgiving is next week, just so none of you panic and start baking, Thanksgiving is next MONTH, Halloween is next WEEK…LOL

Today brings us to the grand finale of Delicious Berry Blue, I redid the butterflies, they were a little too bright for the kit so I toned them down a bit and I have an array of flowers in this download. I will leave the links up until Nov 31 so be sure to get all of the pieces before then.

Our newsletter is out and we have our new SAS mega kit on sale, I have close-up previews of my portion and a few of the papers I made for it. To see the whole kit go to the store.

The SAS-y ladies are getting your tricks and treats ready so be sure to visit us on Halloween for your goodie bag.

I have had a great response from people wanting our Feelin Welcome kit and I am a little behind getting out the “I’m registered” requests but they will be in our mailbox soon.

Fall is in the air here and I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, my SIL and I take turns hosting the family and I am very thankful that it in not my turn…LOL Although I love to decorate for fall with everything I have going on with the site it would not be a good year, besides I have about 6 months of housecleaning to catch up on…ROFLOL. With BethO in the Air Force she has missed the last two Thanksgivings but she is coming home this year and that is something I am so thankful for. Enjoy!

Go to October Mega kit

Sampling of JulieO portion of Mega kit

Delicious Berry Blue Freebie

A few people had trouble with part 4 of Delicioujs Berry blue so I have two links, you only need to download one of them.

Sorry, Link Disabled

Delicious Berry Blue and Feelin Welcome

2007-10-18T12:33:00.001-06:00

Last week was a good week, it was one of those times when everything just seemed to come together, I got Vintage Rose done and I have the mega kit on sale. After having dozens of people ask me to get Feelin Wonderful in the store I finally got it repackaged. I will have to say, it was a real booger to figure out how to do it. First I was going to do it by color, but then it would have been uneven, so I decided to divide it by style. Many of the pieces are perfect for formal/dressy occasions and a lot of them are more fun and light hearted. So Feelin Wonderfully Elegant and Feelin Wonderfully Playful are now available in the SAS Boutique for the wonderfully elegant and playful price of $4.95 each!! There was also enough pieces to make Feelin Welcome, this is SAS’s welcome kit. It is available to all new forum registrants, within a few days of registering it will be sent to you. But I do not want anyone to be left out so if you registered in the forum after the links to Feelin Wonderful were removed send me e-mail at stoneaccents@hotmail.com and I will send you the link. It will make it a lot easier for me if you include “I’m registered” in your subject line.

I have part 4 of Delicious Berry Blue for you today. This color palette has been so much fun to work with and if I ever get time to scrap I have lots of pictures of my kids in these colors. Just for the heck of it I made a preview of all of the pieces I have given out so far, those links are still active.

Be sure to check out SAS’s newsletter, there are some great specials and fun treats for you that are only available through the newsletter. Pillow has an ongoing freebie that is connected to her newsletter freebie so be sure to get by her blog to snag those. This week’s newsletter is an expanded edition that Lori will be putting together monthly, she has done a spectacular job developing the style and this week’s issue is premier of our member spotlight column. Enjoy!

Feelin Welcome

Delicious Berry Blue 1-4

Sorry, Link Disabled

Vintage Rose is Here

2007-10-12T13:36:00.000-06:00

First I want to say Happy Birthday to my mom. She lives in Massachusetts so I do not get to see her very often. She was a school lunch room worker for a long time and she use to hate to fly but in the last 10 years or so she has become a world traveler, she has been to every continent except Antarctica, and is quite the cruise queen. My mom is one of the funniest people I know, she can tell a story in such a way that you will end up literally ROFLYBO. I had thyroid cancer about 15 years ago and her and my Aunt Cheryl came to take care of me and my family while I was recovering, I almost split my stitches laughing so much. I tried to call her today but her Call Wave would not let me through for some reason so, Mom, Happy Birthday!! I love you.

I am going to interrupt Delicious Berry Blue and introduce Vintage Rose, I had so much fun with this kit, it was great to get away from managing the store for a while. Jan is back from vacation so I hope to have more design time, there is so much to do when you have a store, it would be impossible for me without people like Janalyn and Lori helping out. This color palette was so easy to work with, the papers just kept rolling out and I ended up with over 50. If you look closely you can see the details and textures in the papers. Of course I had to have beads, they are one of my favorite things to make, check out the drop beads, they took forever to make but I have wanted to do something like this for awhile. It will be in the store as a kit, an add-on and as a mega kit, which is a combination of the kit and the add-on at a 25% savings. I have the mega kit on sale until Tuesday night for the same price as the kit so you might want to snap it up for that price. I have a freebie for you from Vintage Rose, it will give you a taste of the details and textures in the kits and should be enough to make a nice layout, Enjoy!

Vintage Rose Kit

Vintage Rose Papers

Vintage Rose Details

Your Vintage Rose Freebie

Download Vintage Rose Freebie Here

Download problems

2007-10-10T17:08:00.000-06:00

I have had a few reports of problems with the Giga Size link so I am adding a Send Space link and also the 4-shared link, but I have a warning in my post below about the 4-Shared link having an erotic ad on it, I have sent numerous e-mails and left some phone messages for 4-Shared about this disgusting ad so be forwarned.

Send Space link to Delicious Berry Blue Part 3

Read the post below before you use the 4-Shared link

4-Shared link to Delicious Berry Blue Part 3

Delicious Berry Blue Part 3

2007-10-10T13:54:00.000-06:00

OMGosh, I would have had this up sooner but when I checked the 4-Shared link I was SHOCKED to see an extremely disgusting advertisement for a hot and h*rn*y Britney Spears video in the link. There was also a video of someone throwing himself in front of a bus. I spent a lot of time trying to get through to 4-shared on the phone with no luck so I wrote an e-mail to every address that 4-shared had to hopefully get some attention for this. I know that as a free site we agree to have advertisements on the link but I thought they did not allow offensive ads. I sure hope this is a fluke and it gets cleared up soon. Then I tried to use Send Space but I kept getting error messages, so I ended up putting them on gigasize.

I am going to keep it short and sweet today, I have a lot of irons in the fire that are going to melt if I don’t get back to them…LOL

I am so happy with how this kit is coming along, next to autumn colors this is my favorite color combination. I have a lot of pictures of my kids in these colors and I bet you do too. I am using Painter to make some flowers for the kit, I hope to have them ready soon, but it is a challenging program to learn.

I just got the newsletter out so hopefully you will find it in your mailbox today. If you are not registered in the forum you are not in our mailing list so be sure to get signed up for next week. I didn’t have a chance to make a freebie for this week but next week I want to add to the freebie I had in the newsletter last week.

Well I need to run, Enjoy!

Sorry, Link Disabled

Delicious Berry Blue Part 2

2007-10-05T11:11:00.000-06:00

It has been another busy week for me, I spent some time trying to read the manual for Blue Host (the server the site is on.) OMGosh, who writes those things, I know they are in English but you could have fooled me...LOL. I think I need to take a trip to the bookstore today to find a book that will explain this web master stuff. I have also been getting organized, when things are unorganized it just drives me nuts, it must be my obsessive side, I am just glad that all of the paperwork is on my computer and not on my desk, because if it was on my desk it would have fallen over and buried me by now, geez, I hate paperwork… (ROFLOLHysterically.) Janalyn, one of my right-hand girls will be coming home from her vacation in Ireland soon and I think I will throw a party to welcome her home, her and Lori are two of the people that help make all of this possible.

When I need a break from paperwork I have been learning to paint in Painter, it is something I have wanted to do since I put my water and oil colors away years ago. Painter is an incredible program but the learning curve on it is steeper than Mt Everest, first it helps to have some artistic talent and them remembering all of the steps involved in making a brush do what you want it do takes some time, it could be awhile until I come up with something good enough to show you, a loooong while…LOL

The third edition of our newsletter went out on Wednesday, If you are registered in the forum but did not receive it let me know at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com Don’t forget about our SAS-y Princess contest the winner will win a $20 store coupon for doing what you love to do, scrapping, so go check it out. Be sure to get by all of the SAS designer’s blogs, they are all giving out some great freebies today and you don’t want to miss them.

Well, it is off the bookstore for me to see if I can find something written in English about managing websites, wish me luck…LOL Here is part 2 of Delicious Berry Blue, Enjoy!

Sorry, Link Disabled

Delicious Berry Blue Freebie

2007-10-02T12:34:00.000-06:00

Here is the first part of my October freebie, I was tempted to do fall colors because I love those colors but I ended up making a fall colored newsletter freebie for you instead.

We have so many exciting things going on at SAS this week. Yesterday was the start of our SAS-y Princess contest. Submit your links to layouts made from SAS products here and at the end of the month the designers will choose who will be the SAS Princess for the next month, the winner will also receive a $20 store coupon. We have also started an Honor our Heroes gallery, to honor the men and women that protect and serve, from firefighters to military personal.

All of the designers have been busy putting together some spectacular products so be sure to go by the store and check them out. PillowGirl and Sherah have put together the most awesome kit I have ever seen, this kit has 44 papers and almost 100 unique elements in a subtle fall color palette that will go with so much. You don’t want to miss out on this one.

Our newsletter goes out tomorrow and I have a sneak peek of my freebie that you can only get through the newsletter. If you have not registered in the forum yet then you probably are not on our mailing list. I will be sending the newsletter out in the early afternoon Wednesday so you still have time to register (until noon central, Wednesday, all you have to do is register as a forum user and leave the box checked to receive mail from the administrator.
I hope you enjoy this month’s kit, I had a hard time deciding what pieces to put in the first download because I have so many neat ones made so I gave you a little taste of the various elements, I will be posting a new part twice a week.
Enjoy!

Newsletter Freebie

Delicious Berry Blue Part 1

Sorry, Link Disabled

Feelin Thankful

Click Here to Purchase Feelin Thankful

Feelin SAS-y and an Update

2007-09-27T13:30:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, I know, it has been awhile since I have posted, my last was a few days after the store opened. It has been a busy two weeks. We got off to a great start with just a few glitches and your responses were wonderful. We had so many nice comments about our newsletter, Lori put it together in Word and it is so easy to read and well organized. We just got our second newsletter out yesterday with a new mail program so if you did not get it contact me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com. We have a drawing going on until the 2nd, everyone that spends $15 or more in one purchase will be in a drawing for one of ten $10 storewide coupons, so get shopping! Right after the store opened I took a little time off to spend with Beth before her leave was up. I had been too busy getting ready for the store that I was not able to do much with her and I didn’t fix as many of her favorite meals as I hoped. She did understand and was very happy for me and just glad to be home. We spent a lot of time chatting and getting to know each other in a new way. The last two years in the Air Force have done so much for her. She has matured and become a wonderful young woman. A few days after she left I got terribly sick. I think that the last 3 ½ months of long workdays and not taking care of myself caught up with me. I got bronchitis and ended up spending most of five days in bed. I was just glad that it happened after the store opened, I guess I was moving too fast for it to catch me before…LOL but the minute I relaxed …WHAM. It was frustrating but it kind of worked out because I was forced to relax. I had a lot of catching up to do when I felt better but I am getting there now.

I was unorganized for a while and I don’t function well when things are messy so I have spent a lot of time getting organized and making all kinds of lists.. I like lists…LOL. I really want to prioritize what needs to be done first, what I decided is that my first responsibilities are to get the store and forum all ship shape and I will be getting back to blogging regularally. So with this in mind it might be awhile until I can focus on my designs for the store. This is something I have to do since I feel a responsibility to all of the great people that have become involved with SAS, I want to do everything I can to help SAS to mature into a solid community and a successful store. To my posting contest winners, I do not want to keep you waiting for my designs so if you would like to trade in the coupon for my products for a store wide coupon let me know and I will get you a new one ASAP. I have an awesome kit that I will be giving out here in October starting next week so be sure to check back in then.

Here is the last part of Feelin SAS-y, the frame comes with and without broken glass and of course some great beads, I just can’t make a kit without beads. I want to acknowledge Al at Action FX, I used a few of his styles and the buttons are from his new scrapbook collection. His subscription plans includes access to over 100,000 items for an extremely reasonable price, so check it out.

I am removing the links to the downloads and the quick pages from my previous kits but I will leave the Feelin SAS-y QPs in the gallery active until Friday the 5th so be sure to get the ones you want. All of the links to Feeling SAS-y are still active (I just reactivated part 2) including the one in the members giveaway, the link to the forum is below. While you are there check out some of the beautiful layouts made from the September Mega kit. I hope to see more of your layouts in the Member’s Gallery. Enjoy!

Download Feelin SAS-y part 5 Here

Go to SAS Forum for Feelin SAS-y Bonus 3+ 4 from 8-29

We Made it and a freebie

2007-09-14T10:53:00.000-06:00

I want to give you a little update on our grand opening. We had a few little glitches but all in all things went well. I tried to send the newsletter out and it looked like it worked but I have heard from lots of you that you did not receive it. I did get it sent last night so it should be in your mailbox, I am sorry if you received it more than once but I am pretty sure that it did not go out to very many people. This was the only major problem we had and I am so grateful and relieved for this. You know how technology can be, it is your friend, until it turns around and bites your hand off…LOL.

We also had a few problems with three of the links, Brown Baggin #3 and Brown Baggin #2 from the Free with purchase set. I forgot to add the Brown Baggin #3 to the downloads so some of you got it with only 6 links and Brown Baggin #2 was corrupt. It was the last thing I added to the store and it was around 4 a.m. and I was barely functioning by then so it is not surprise that I hade a mistake. If you purchased this and had bad links e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com with "links" in the subject line and I will get you new links through 4-shared so it will be easy for you to get them.

There were a few people that made the qualifying purchase and did not add the kits to your cart, if this is the case e-mail me with your order # and with “Free with purchase” in the subject line and I will send you a coupon to get it. I have done this a few times myself and I know how aggravating it can be, I do not what you to miss out on this.

I want to give you a little warning about the quick pages from my past freebies, I will be removing them in the coming weeks starting next week so get the ones you want before they are gone. These are the quick pages from Feelin Wonderful, Butterfly Garden, Dusted Blossoms, Eastern-Spice and Infatuation.

It has been a long three-month, I have learned so much and I could probably write a book on how to open a store. It still amazes me how it all fell into place piece by piece. It hasn’t been easy but after almost 24 years of being a SAHM it is something that I needed to do. I have always been grateful to be able to stay at home with my children but lets face it, your ego can only get so much out of doing the laundry and cleaning house. After I shattered my elbow I could hardly even do a decent job of that. I am no “spring chicken” either, I never thought that at my age I would be able to work 14-18 hours a day and function on 4 hours of sleep. There were a few times when I was so tired and overwhelmed that I wished I could throw in the towel, but knowing that I had made a commitment to so many people that had joined me in this kept me putting one foot in front of the other. But now I know I can still accomplish what I set out to do. I was really surprised at how many of the women that contacted me for various positions who are disabled. It was so good to see that many of them have found a new life through the Internet and digital scrapping. It has given so many a new ways to express themselves and to interact with others, it really has opened up new and exciting possibilities. I am so grateful to be a part of this and I know I have found a place to call home at Stone Accents Studio.

We had a few unreleased pieces from the mega kit so I want to share them with you today. Of all the color palettes I have put together this is my favorite, if I could still paint walls and hang wallpaper I would redo a room in my house these colors. Scroll down to see a detail of some of the highly textured pieces. The freebie from my Family History kit is still active below. The frame in the FH kit it has “glass” in it, I debated about including the frame without glass but it would have added a lot to the size of the download. I would like to offer those of you that bought the kit the frame without the glass if you would like. Send me an e-mail with your order number and with “Frame” in the subject line and I will send you the link to it. Depending on the response I might just go ahead and include it in the kit.

We still have the brag book pages in the store for the scavanage hunt and lots of challenges going on. Some of the designers are giving ot freebies on their blogs also so check the out, the links are on the right at the top of this page. Thank you all for you response to the opening, everyone has been so kind in their comments, it is the kind of thing that just makes this all the better. Enjoy!
JulieO
stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com

To download the SAS Mega Kit Freebie click here
To purchase the SAS September kit for 40% off click here

Stone Accents Studio Opening Today!

2007-09-12T03:32:00.000-06:00

Today is the day! We are officially opening the store at noon central. When I first put out the call for quick pages over three months ago I never thought it would lead me to this point. It has taken a lot more time and energy then I could have ever thought but I think I have found what I want to do when I grow up…LOL be a digital scrapbook store owner. I am so proud of the team I have put together, they have been so dedicated and worked very hard to bring everything together. We have spent the last week tying up loose ends and making sure things work. We did a few test runs of the store and I think we have the bugs worked out but I am sure that a few things will pop up here and there. We will be monitoring the store and will respond promptly if there are any problems. It is 4 am now so I will probably sleep until around 10 central but I hope that I wake up to a busy store and very few problems. We did loose our web master this week so I am looking for a dedicated person with the skills to handle a site like this to join our team, if you are interested in this opportunity e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com.

I kept trying to get more of Feelin SAS-y on the blog for you but I have been so busy from the time I got up until I dragged myself to bed that I was just never able to. I know I promised you more of Feelin SAS-y and that will come soon, but today I have a freebie from my Family History kit. This is the only kit I had time to design with all of the other things I had going on. With the store open and most of the hard work behind me I hope to be able to get back to blogging and designing, some clean laundry and a good dinner or two would be nice also…LOL

I just finished sending out our first newsletter, Lori did a fabulous job putting it together and if is full of specials and freebies that are only available to those that have registered in our forum, if you are did not receive one you can view it here

I have included a close-up preview of our mega kit, I just had to show you the incredible detail of these embellishments. The subdued fall colors will go with so many things, the designers have come up with some beautiful embellishments and such rich looking papers. It is on special this month so be sure to snatch it up for this special price.

I also have a close-up and a full view of my heritage kit and your freebie is below those. Those of you who were lucky enough to have won a coupon in the SAS posting contest or who have had a birthday since the forum opened will be receiving a coupon for one of my kits free soon. I only have this one kit in there now but I have a few in the works so you will have some choices to make, I hope to get the coupons out by Sunday.
I want to thank all of you who have been so encouraging to me as I worked towards this day. It had been a rough year with shattering my elbow but the silver lining to the very dark cloud is what we are unveiling today. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you and Enjoy!

Over 70 embellishments and 54 papers for only $5.95 Click here to go to the kit

A close-up of Family History, click here to go to the kit

Download Family History freebie here

Feelin SAS-y Part 3+4

2007-08-29T21:14:00.000-06:00

I have been a really bad blogger but I am trying to be a really good store opener upper and a really good mommy with BethO home. I did manage to get some new pieces of Feelin SAS-y made for you but I have a few more in mind. The pieces to today’s download are more refined but I want to make some embellishments from rough wood and some other shabby pieces, they will probably be ready by this weekend. There is also a bonus in the Member Giveaway of the forum, it will be at the top so it won’t be too hard to find.

We were hoping to open the store next week but with all of the details to work out I decided it would be better to be safe than sorry. I have heard of opening days that go so badly that people do not get products or that servers get shut down for a few days. So we are going to open sometime between the 10th and the 13th. We are going to do a practice run on the store where the CT and the rest of the team go through and purchase free and discounted items to make sure that the cart system and all of the links are right. I would rather take the time to get it right and save our customers any hassle. At this point I could probably write a book on opening a store, but I will tell you I could not have done this without such a great support team. Everyone from the creative teams to my assistants are giving everything they have to make this successful. I don’t know how other people open stores, this has been one of the hardest but most gratifying things I have ever done. I am still amazed on a daily basis of the generosity and capabilities of women just like me all over the world who have pitched in, When I get tired and start to wonder if this is all worth it I think of all of the people that are involved and know that it is so very worth the effort.

As you have probably heard on the other designer’s blogs our newsletter is going to be jammed packed with freebies and specials, make sure you are registered in the forum and that you agree to receive mail from the administrators, because these offers will only be available through the newsletter and you do not want to miss it. Be sure to go by all of the other designer’s blogs for their freebies.

Good news for all of you that won coupons for free kits in the posting contest, I have 4 kits in the works and hope to have more by opening day so you will have so things to choose from. I need to get into Zen Cart and figure out how to get them to you sometime before opening day.

Be sure to get both parts.
Download Feelin SAS-y part 3+4a Here
Download Feelin SAS-y part 3+4b Here

I forgot to put the link in the forum yesterday, it is there now, sorry, I will make something extra to make up fro your trouble

Click here to go to the Member Giveaway area in the forum for the bonus. Be sure to check out all of the great contests we will be starting on the first, Enjoy!

Update and Exciting News

2007-08-22T01:27:00.000-06:00

Hi All, I wanted to let you know where I disappeared to. Besides the million little things I have been doing to get ready for our grand opening, I have been getting ready for my daughter to visit. Beth joined the Air Force 2 years ago and has only been home 3 times for 4-5 days since. The field she has been studying for takes over 2 years to complete and she has not been able to take leave except for Christmas, She has just completed a major portion of training (I don’t want to say too much about what she does because I did not clear it with her) so she can take 26 days of her leave. As you all know I have been working on getting things done for the store all day every day for the last 6 weeks, you can imagine what happens to your house when you pretty much ignore it for that long. I will give you a hint as to how bad it was, the other day when I mentioned to my DH that I needed to get some cleaning done he said “Yea, it looks like a Hell hole” any other time I would have smacked him but unfortunately he was not too far off in his assessment. I have never been a fanatic about a clean house, our house looked lived in, it was always a bit messy, partially because all 5 of us are pack rats, but it has never been dirty, well I am telling the world right now that my house has gotten very dirty. So I have been trying to get it cleaned up a bit so when Beth comes home it is not a complete wreck. With my elbow I can’t do a lot of heavy cleaning but at least now the kitchen does not crunch as we walk…LOL. I know I promised you another part of Feelin SAS-y on Monday and I have been working on it but I don’t even have the time right now to package it up. So it will be a few more days, but what I will do is put part 4 and 5 up at the same time.

I do have some big news to share with you today thou, we have two new designers joining the SAS-y Ladies team, Lisa West of Lisa West Designs and KoriB who you might recognize from the Go Digital Scraps contest are our newest designers. I asked them to hold off on their announcement so they might not have it on their blogs yet. They both have very exciting styles that I think will round out our offerings wonderfully.

We are working on the newsletter and all of us have great freebies and Grand Opening specials so be sure to go to the forum and register and leave the “Receive Email from Administrators” checked. I promise you that we will not send you e-mails more than once a week unless something really spectacular is happening. You should check out the other designer’s blogs, I know some of them have freebies they are offering. Well it seems that every day a few more things get done but everyday there is always something else to take care of. I will tell you that none of this could have happened without the help of a lot of good dedicated people. I will have information on the quick page round up soon, Olga does not think it is a good idea to have people upload the QPs themselves in case there is a virus, so we think it would be best to run them through some kind of virus detection program just to keep everyone safe. I will let you know as soon as we get that figured out.

BethO, yes we actually call her that the O in JulieO is kind of a family name...LOL

Feelin SAS-y Part 2 and Good News

2007-08-17T16:27:00.000-06:00

I am still very busy getting things done for the store but I have been able to slow down a bit. I even made a decent dinner last night, now if I could get to the laundry life would be good…LOL. It was nice to be able to do some designing today but I told Sherah that I have had so little time to design that I am always afraid that it won’t come back. But when I opened Feelin SAS-y I was so happy because as soon as I looked at it the colors of the kit they inspired me. I have so many ideas for this kit, I wish I could spend the next few days just creating with it, but alas, there are many more things to do. I really want to make Feelin SAS-y a versatile kit like Feelin Wondeful, most of what you have so far is more on the casual/playful side but I have some things in the works that will “dress it up” a bit. I have decided that I am going to set aside time every day to design, if I don’t I will be the only one in the store with empty shelves and that just wouldn’t do…LOL. BTW, if you missed my exciting news about the creative teams read yesterday’s entry

I have very good news about the odd files that some of you have had, Terrell was kind enough to send me a screen shot of her download of Feelin SAS-y part 1, I have included it below. She has all of the papers and embellishments that I put in the kit, but she also has those funky kitty files, those file have the same name as the real files except they have an _underscore in front of the name. Feelin SAS-y 1 is 39 mgs, when Terrell deleted the funky kitty files it reduced the file size by about a half mg. There is also has a Bridge file, Bridge is part of the Adobe CS3 Design Premium package, it is the file browsing program that I use. So you can throw out the duplicate files and the Bridge files, and most importantly they do not add anything in the way of size to the download. As soon as I get permission to use my daughter’s PC laptop I will start taking my files over to her computer and deleting they extra files before I upload it. I will probably not use the win rar program since that program can cause it’s own problems, so I will just continue to zip them. I can’t tell you what relief it is to find all of this out. I have tried everything I could think of but I kept getting reports of the strange files, now I know that you were getting ever part of the kit that you were suppose to. If any of you have a different problem I would like to hear of it so I can deal with it.

I hope to have more of Feelin SAS-y by Monday, I think we will be ready for QP’s from Feelin Wonderful by then, I had a few questions for Olga and as soon as I get the word you can start uploading and sharing them. We have close to 700 layouts on the member’s gallery already so stop by to get inspired. Enjoy!

The link is all fixed. Pat was right, I tested it the first time and it worked but when I pasted it in to the browser I left the http there. Right after I posted this I went to my little niece’s birthday party, I have gotten close to her lately and I started her scrapping her puppy album so there was no way I was going to miss her party. When I got home I was wiped out and for the first time in months I did not check my e-mail or comments right away. When I opened the comments I was mortified, thank goodness Pat had it figured out, thanks much Pat. Hopefully things will go smoothly from here. Have a nice weekend.
Download Feelin SAS-y Part 2 Here.
Reactivated 9-27

Funky files screen shot- Delete the duplicate files with an _underscore in front of the names and the Bridge files (explanation above)

Exciting Announcement and Good News

2007-08-16T15:19:00.001-06:00

I was trying to get the next part of Feelin SAS-y up for you today but that did not work out. I took me two days to recover after pulling the all nighter Sunday night getting ready for our big announcement. I spent Monday and Tuesday organizing all of the things that were basically thrown in a ‘pile” in my computer, then Tuesday night I was getting everything sorted on the right docs when my power went out. OMGosh, it was 104 degrees here, but I decided that before the house warmed up I would try to catch up on the housework that I have neglected for 6 weeks, so I got a lot of that done and ended up doing my dishes by candlelight (how romantic huh…LOL) By then the house was down right hot so I took a nice cool bath and decided that since there was nothing I could do in the dark I might as well go to bed, but since it would be too hot I was seriously considering sleeping in the tub and changing the water as it warmed up (it sounded like a good idea at the time.) Just about the time I had settled in the lights came back on. Unfortunately I did lose some of the docs that I had open but I was just glad to have power. Now that I have all of the big things done I think that I can slow down a bit, I really did not think I could have kept at the pace I was working at much longer, so I am relieved that I can relax a bit. Everyone that talked to me a few weeks ago and that has talked to me in the last few days says that I am talking a LOT slower than I was…LOL, were they trying to tell me something??... ROFLOL

I have a very exciting announcement for you, I have the creative teams together and I am thrilled at the talented and enthusiastic people that have joined the SAS team. It is a bit confusing because some of the people on my team are going to be helping out on the store team for a while because there is so much to do and also because I STILL have not had a chance to design much so I do not have anything for them to scrap. So here is the list of the SAS-y Girls, and the JulieO creative team (I need a better name for them) The SAS-y Girls are the store team and they will not only be scrapping layouts and stuff they will also be involved in they activities that are going on the forum and many of them have special talents and skills the I hope they can up to good use in the forum. So with this announcement the Stone Accents Studio Team is complete!!

These are suppose to blink but I do not know how to make that happen here so you will have to go to their blog to see the cool blinkies that Lori made for me, that girl is too good to me...LOL

Introducing the SAS-y Girls
Boo
Nighty
Jasia
Jean.
Pat
Kyda
Lee B
Linda

JulieO’s Creative Team
Astrid
Michaela SAS-y Girl/JO
Nanc SAS-yGirl/JO
Nicole
Rebecca
Sasha

It was really cool when I went by their blogs and saw my name in lights so to speak…LOL. I linked to the ones that have blogs so you can stop by and say “Hi”

Feelin SAS-y

2007-08-13T08:29:00.000-06:00

I was Feelin Wonderful but now I’m Feelin SAS-y because today
Stone Accents Studio is Pleased to Announce
The SAS-y Ladies Stone Accents Studio’s Design Team

All of the SAS-y Ladies have special treats planned for you today and I know that Candee has been working like a woman on a mission to put together a special contest for you in the SAS forum.
Blogger is being a BAD BAD blog and will not let me put my list of links up so I will list them here
Candee @ Mermaid's Haven
Phreephorm @ Phreephormpsr BlogSpot
Digitreats @ Princess Pamela
Pillow Girl Pillowgirl's Scraps
Terrell @ Wait it Gets Better
Kara @ Kara PerrienDesigns
Sherah @ Skrapper Digitals
And Julie Cohen from Australia who does not have a blog yet

To celebrate today’s announcement I have Feelin SAS-y for you, this kit has been on my mind for a while, but working on the site and putting the teams together for what seem like 24 hours a day got in the way of my designing. The last big important item I took care of was putting the Creative Teams together. Lori my assistant (I still think it is a hoot that this little SAHM has an assistant…ROFLOL) did a great job gathering all of the links and the scrapper in her decided to present them in layout form…LOL, it took me most of the weekend to get letters out to all of the applicants but it is finished, if you applied and have not heard from me that probably means that in all of the craziness your application may have gotten lost, so contact me if that is the case.
I actually started this kit at about 6:00 Sunday night and it is now 9:00 Monday morning and I have not been to bed yet. I have lots more planned but I am going to take it a little easy for the next couple of days. I am probably not going to know what to do with myself now that I will not have to type all day. With the store opening soon (right after Labor Day) I will still have a lot to do, I think I will have to find my new “normal.” Well be sure check out all of the SAS-y Ladies blogs and freebies their links are on the right and then stop by the forum to see what we have planned for the contest and all of the other things going on there. I am fading fast and still have a few things to do before I can get to bed, I hope you are Feelin a bit SAS-y yourself today, Enjoy!

Download part 1 of Feelin SAS-y Here

Final Part of Feelin Wonderful

2007-08-10T15:37:00.000-06:00

I was trying to get this up yesterday but we had something happen in the forum that ate up a bunch of my time. As some of you may have noticed the post count went whacky. We have no idea of why it happened, no one pushed the wrong buttons or anything so at this point it is a mystery. I have a post about it in the forum so if you go by there please read it. I promised you some more beadwork and here it is,
I think this will round out this mega kit wonderfully. Most of you know how much I LOVE clusters, I was going to try to get a few of them together but I ran out of time, but I would love it if some of you post what you have made in the gallery.

Today is the first month anniversary for Stone Accents Studio’s (SAS)
I can’t believe all that has happened in the last month, the forum has so many great threads going and there is so much involvement there. We have a lot of member galleries with so many beautiful layouts from my kits as well as using other designers. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind for me with putting all of the teams together, I am so happy and grateful for all of the people that want to be involved in various ways. Lori has gathered all of the CT applicant’s links and we are going to spend the weekend putting the store and my CT together and we hope to be able to let everyone know by Sunday night.
Now for the really big news, I know there is a lot of talk out there about who is on the design team and I had hoped to be able to share this earlier but I wanted to make sure everything was in place before we told you. We will have everything in ready by Monday so one way or another will have the official unveiling of the Stone Accents Studio Design Team on Monday. We have some great activities planned next week in the forum so be sure to stop in and check them out
I think all of this caught up with me because I have a cold or something, I feel all achy and yucky so I am going to relax a bit this weekend and hopeful I will throw this off. There is no bonus today, but I think you have plenty of things to work with for the QP call, we will get that started next week, so get to work girls…LOL Enjoy and Hugs.

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I Am Feelin Wonderful Again

2007-08-08T15:09:00.000-06:00

I think I hit a wall last night and the last month or so of crazy activities caught up with me, so I got to bed before 3:00, slept late and woke refreshed,

Today’s download is a mix of colors, papers and embellies. With all of the papers I made I have had a heck of a time trying not to give you duplicates, so if I did I am sorry, but I spent a lot of time trying not to. I almost forgot to give you the scalloped envelopes tops for the “Mix’N’ Match” envelopes so they are in this download.

The mystery SAS design Team members have done some fine beadwork, I actually have some in the works so you have a lot of types of beads to work with. All of the embellishments in the separate preview today were done by another mystery design team member. I have been so pleased with the work they have done and I really look forward to all of us putting our creative skills to work on our first Mega Kit. There is a bonus in the forum again, the alpha was done by the same designer that made most of the embellies for yesterday’s download. With the DST boards down yesterday and I think today still, traffic has been a bit light here, so tell your friends to come on by and get all of theses freebies.

I wish I had the time to do a proper preview for today and someday I would love to have a preview of the whole kit, that would probably need a few pages since it is so huge, but maybe I will get a chance someday.

When you go by the forum and gallery you will see a lot of changes thanks to our Web-Master Olga9999, she has all the skills that I totally lack and she is whipping the place into shape. Lori my assistant is helping me round up the links for the Creative Teams and we should have that worked out soon. The choices will be difficult because of the high quality of work, but with 2 CTs we should find a place for everyone, we just need to figure out what they all want to do and get them plugged in to the right place.

Janalyn, who is Sheri and my girl Friday, is helping me with the posting contest. It turned out to be a big job to keep up so she is helping me to figure out who we hand all of those free coupons out to. BTW SAS’s one-month anniversary is Friday the 10th so we hope to have all of the coupon winner’s names available and we will have the coupons to you in time for our big Grand Opening.
There will be more wonderful embellishments form another design team member tomorrow. I still have to work on the newspaper and a dozen other things (my DH thinks dinner would be nice…ROFLOL) so it will probably be early evening by the time they are hear. Start making your quick pages, we should be ready for them next week. I can hardly wait to see all of the great combinations you come up with from this Mega Kit. Enjoy!

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Part 5 coming soon

2007-08-08T01:25:00.000-06:00

I was going to try to get part up 5 tonight but I think the last week just caught up with me. Besides dealing with all the things for the store I also have to do the layout for the newspaper and half dozen ads. Today just was not one of my best, but what can I say the past month has been one good day after another so I can’t complain. I am actually going to bed before 2:30 for a change. I will try to get part 5 up by early afternoon. I have some papers with a bit of a color shift and some more embellies from a soon to be reveled designer, so come back later. Hugs.
Julieo

Feelin Wonderful 4 and a little hint

2007-08-06T22:36:00.000-06:00

If you have been reading my blog you know how busy I have been. I have typed more in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life put together! So many plans to be made and e-mails flying back and forth through cyberspace. It seems like I have been typing 14-16 hours a day forever. But so many good things have happened it has all been worth it. I still can’t tell you who is on the design team yet, but over the next few days I will be giving you some hints in the way of embellishments. Because I have been so busy I have not been able to do what I LOVE, which is to design, and share the goodies with you guys. As I told you earlier I made over 50 papers for Feelin Wonderful, I started with a color palette to tie it together but I have tried to give you a variety of styles in the papers and embellishments so that this kit could be used for everything from weddings to parties, and from formal to playful. Even thou this is one kit, I think the color range and combinations make it so that you could mix and match to your hearts content and every page would look different. But because I have been so busy I have not had time to finish the embellishments. So I asked some of the Stone Accents Studio (SAS) design team to help me out. Most of the embellishments for the rest of the week will have been made by a soon to be named Stone Accents Studio (SAS) design team member.
It has only been sheer excitement that has keep me going some days, I don’t think I have ever worked this hard in my life, but it seems that every day one more piece falls into place. I got a great response to the call for assistants for myself and Sheri who is in charge of advertising. There was so much talent and enthusiasm I could not settle on just two so I ask three wonderful people to join the team, After today they will be taking much of the load off of me so I can focus on designing, Lori 1941 my right hand girl, e-mailed me today to “nag” me because I had not sent her anything to do yet…LOL. The reason I hadn’t done it was because I was so dang busy I didn’t have time…ROFLOL. So anyway, things will ease off and I am extremely grateful to everyone.
I want to let the creative team applicants know that starting tomorrow Lori and I will be downloading and checking out your layouts. So I hope that within a few days we can get the store creative team and my CT together and you guy can start scrapping away. It is not too late to apply. My creative team will mainly be scraping layouts from my new designs and the store team will be helping the design team and taking part in activities and contests in the forum, so if you are interested in either team let me know.
I could go on and on but I will be back tomorrow with more of Feeling Wonderful, there will also be more embellishments from SAS’s design team and a bit more of an update. Thanks so much for coming by and Enjoy! JulieO

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Some New Flowers and a Big Update

2007-08-01T18:06:00.000-06:00

Wow, What a week, there have been so many exciting things happening. I wish I could share them all with you now, but I have to keep some secrets for just a while longer (what a tease…huh.) I hope you are not getting sick of this kit yet because I have a lot more ideas and papers for it. I think the flowers I have today are my favorite ever. These new flowers should add a lot of versatility to the kit since they are a bit more formal than the more playful ones in the other parts. I just love the floral paper that I placed below the flower in the sneak peek I gave you last night. I am going to try to get that one to you in another color combination for this kit. Start getting those QPS ready because I will be doing a call for them next week, but do not send them yet as we have a lot of other things to do first.

I want to tell you all how much I enjoy being able to share this experience with you. I have been a SAHM for over 20 years. When I was home schooling the kids we got involved in a lot of the HS activities and I had some outlets for “adult conversation” (not THAT kind silly…LOL) After they went off to school I got involved with a few clubs and guilds for the crafts I did, knitting, spinning yarn, quilting and of course scrapping. After I shattered my elbow I dropped out of them, for one thing I was unable to drive for a long time and most importantly it was not much fun watching people do the things I couldn’t do anymore. Between that and all of my kids moving out to start their own lives it has been a bit lonely. But NOW I have you guys and this exciting venture I have started and that so many of you want to be a part of. I have to say I am so sorry that I have not been able to spend much time in the great forum and gallery that is growing by leaps and bounds. I will be forever grateful to all of you wonderful people that have been so busy and so helpful there. Once I get everything in place my goals are to spend my days designing and hanging out in the forum (and doing a load of laundry now and then…LOL.)

For any of you that have applied for a position, and has not heard for me either for the first time or as a follow-up, that is what I am going to focus on for the next few days. I do not want to bore the rest of these folks with all of that information so I put some things for you to read below today’s download. I have some information for anyone that has applied or that is considering it, so please read that for some news

I woke up to the news this morning that there is still a problem with the bonus download that I had up that I had up Wednesday and Thursday. I am temporarily suspending the download. I will make it available with the next part of Feelin Wonderful. Sorry for any trouble. Now I am going to go have some coffee and answer a ton of e-mails. JulieO

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I am in desperate need of a personal assistant to help with so many things that will need to be done in the next few weeks and after the store opens. I am looking for someone that can give this a lot of time and dedication, you will basically be working for “scraps” for now, but if things go the way I hope then that could change. The other things you will get out of it is a lot of experience and the opportunity to get in on the start of something special, not just the store but also the community that is already taking shape in the forum. And hopefully we would have some fun working together. Do not apply for this position if you cannot give it a lot of time and effort for the next few months at least. If you are interested please mark your e-mail with the subject “”Personal Assistant” and send it to stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com

For anyone that applied for the co-administration positions, I have filled the web master and advertising positions. The people that are taking on those jobs have a lot of experience and education in those fields. I am sorry if I did not e-mail you personally but I have so many things going on I am just trying to keep all of the “balls in the air.” but I will be writing you soon.

To those of you that applied for designer positions. I still have a few decisions to make and you will hear from me soon. Creative team applicants you are next. I need a personal creative team and one for the store so I will contact you very soon to see if you are still interested. I promise I will be getting with everyone in the next few days.

We are looking for someone to work with the advertising coordinator, this woman has a million and one ideas and there is not enough time in the day to take care of them. I can guarantee that if you work with her you will learn a lot and also get a lot of experience and have the chance to get involved in all of the activities we have planned for the forum. (and some free scraps.) If you would like to apply for this e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com with the subjest line Advertising.

I would like someone to help out the web master as she is on the other side of the world and we can’t always plan Internet disasters for when she is awake. This position would involve helping out with the forums and possibly the store. Again it is a for scraps position along with a lot of experience and the chance to help shape our forum and to be a part of what I am sure will be a great team. If you have some experience in web managent and would be interesed, e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com with the subject line Web manager.

Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart, I am so touched that so many have offered to help, big HUGS! Julie

A Sneak Peek

2007-08-01T01:36:00.000-06:00

Just in case you came by early I wanted to give you a sneak peek of what you will be getting a little later today. I was trying to get part 3 of Feelin Wonderful before I went to bed, but I am not going to make it. I have been working on getting ready for Stone Accents Studio Grand Opening about 14-16 hours a day for the last week. I will have some exciting news for you soon. I have to get to bed NOW so see you a bit later

Feelin Wonderful 2 and Call Update

2007-07-27T14:14:00.000-06:00

I hope you like envelopes, I went a little overboard on them but what you are getting is Mix ‘N’ Match envelopes, I still have more to add to the set, you might want not want to keep all of them when you get them but this way you can decide. Well everyone seems pretty happy with Feelin Wonderful. There are already some quick pages and layouts in the gallery which amazes me because I have only given out a few embellishments, I can’t wait to see what you can do when you get the whole kit.
I have been VERY busy here, I got some good responses to my call for designers, the creative team and co administrator, The CT call will close tonight at midnight central because I had SO many good applications for the team. There are some very good designers that are interested in having a shop at the store but the call is still open, if you have some good designs and have been considering having a store don’t be shy about checking out the possibility here. As for the co-administrator position I have decided to divide this into two positions one for helping manage the store and forums and the other for the advertising guru who will take care of designing and placing ads and making up the newsletter. The reason for this is I might find someone who is great with the managing forums part but does not feel comfortable with the advertising, and advertising gurus might not care for administration. It might be the best way to handle that position so that we could all have the best of both worlds. By the way, this is a paid position so the co-admin and ad person will not just be working for “scraps”…LOL.

To those of you that applied for the Creative Team, please give me a few days to get back to you, I really need to focus on the designers, co-administrator and the ad person so that they can start doing what needs to be done to get ready for our Grand Opening. I hope you understand and I promise I will get to you as soon as possible, in the meantime you should have plenty to play with now that you have another part of Feelin Wonderful.

I have not been able to do much on the forum the last few days but there are some great people who are pitching in and getting involved, BIG HUGS to you all. Which reminds me, besides the other positions I did the calls for I am also looking for people who would like to get involved in the forums and gallery doing such things as moderating and getting some fun things started. I already have a few people in mind but if you are interested in having a hand in shaping this site I would love to hear from you.
I am doing a bonus again, A few people did have trouble finding the last bonus so I will tell you where it is, part 1 is in the “Flavors of the World” forum. I don’t want to waste your time making you hunt all around but I do like to have you stop into the forum and gallery, so I will make it super easy and tell you this one is in the “Down Through the Ages” forum, both of these forums were Jasia’s idea and Janalyn has been posting all kind of great links in them (BIG HUGS to you girl)
The next piece will be up Monday or Tuesday. I am going to spend the weekend getting the team together. If you are thinking about applying for a shop, co-admin or advertising wiz there is still time. To all of you that applied for designer and co-admin I will be in touch with you by Monday, if there is anything else you want me to see get it sent in soon and if you have any questions I will be glued to my keyboard so I can get back to you fast. Thanks all for your patience. Enjoy!
Grambie, did you get my e-mail??

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A Little Update

2007-07-26T13:08:00.000-06:00

I was hoping to get this posted early tonight but between taking care of some things for the calls and getting carried away making envelopes for Feelin Wonderful it ain't gonna happen. It will be there in the morning. A few people can’t find the bonus, but they tried, so it is in the forum “Flavors of the World. See ya tomorrow.

Previous post today
I just wanted to let you know that I am spending the day working on the embellishments for part two of “Feelin Wonderful.” I am not going to be answering e-mails unless they are an emergency until I get this part posted, probably early this evening. One more thing, all of the calls are still open but I am considering dividing the co-administrator position into two parts, one for helping manage the store and forums and the other for the advertising guru. The reason for this is I might find someone who is great with the managing forums part but does not feel comfortable with the advertising part, and vise versa. It might be the best way to handle that position so that we could all have the best of both worlds. By the way, this is a paid position so the co-admin will not just be working for “scraps”…LOL. A few people couldn’t find the bonus so I will give you a little hint, it is in the forum that is “Yummy”
Enjoy!

New Mega Kit Freebie and Mega Announcement

2007-07-24T10:02:00.000-06:00

I bet you have been wondering where I have been for the last few days, Well, I have been busying tying up loose ends on my big plans and designing a mega kit to give out to you over the next few weeks. I have been telling you that I have been working on something and today is the day to tell you about it. I will be opening Stone Accents Studio store near the end of August, and I am looking for 8-10 Designers, A Creative Team of 4-6 and a Co-administrator. I have that great big beautiful store waiting to be stocked with pretties and I know there are a lot of you that have great design ideas you would like to sell, so if you are looking for a home for your designs or if you are an established designer looking for another store in a warm pleasant “working” environment I invite you to apply for a position. I am also looking for 4-6 exciting people to be on my creative team, and to get my products free in exchange for making layouts and posting them in galleries, basically to do what you love to do only getting to do it for free. The most important position I need to fill is for the co-administrator, I need a person who is familiar with the digital community and advertising. This position will also involve management of the forums and the store, so if you are a real “Go Getter” and want to get in on the bottom floor of this new business I would love to hear from you.
If you are interested in these positions please e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com and I will send you all of the information you need to apply. These calls are open until the positions are filled; I look forward to hearing for you.

Now for the Mega kit. I hope you like paper, ribbon, flowers and all kinds of goodies. I have named it “Feelin Wonderful” partially because that is how I have been feeling, so the paper with text on it has synonymous of the word “wonderful”. Once I got started on it things just flowed. Like Eastern Spice I wanted to make it very versatile for you. I have made over 50 papers that all coordinate together. I have designed about 20 flowers and over a dozen ribbons with more to come, and I am working on the journaling pieces right now. I am sure that by the time I am done there will be at least 70 elements, Like I said they will all coordinate but I am mixing styles so you can get many different looks out of this one kit. I want to give special thanks to Carola Designs, I used her “Colored Flowers” commercial use gems in this kit, and also Al Ward Action FX, I incorporated his styles and patterns in the designs. I will post each part of Feelin Wonderful on the blog, because I really miss the wonderful comments I get here. Each part will also include bonus elements that will only be available in the forum or gallery for a limited time. They won’t be too hard to find because the forum and gallery is not so big that it would waste your time (I hate having to go all through a site to find something so I wouldn’t do that to you.) While you are in the gallery or forum I hope you will take the time to post a reply or to open a gallery and upload some of your layouts. Like Eastern Spice this kit lends itself to quick pages so starting next week I will be putting out the call for some more great contributions from you. Everyone enjoyed it so much last time and I have all that room in cyberspace so we might as well fill it up. The posting contest is still going on, 3 people a day that post will win a coupon for a free kit and if you start a really good thread or have a good idea you will also receive one. I hope that you feel this kit was worth the wait, I am very excited about sharing it with you and look forward to seeing some layouts and quick pages from it. Enjoy!

Some of the 48 papers for this kit.

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I got the comments about changing the tabs for the forum, I was planning on doing that soon, I just need to talk to Grace first so I don't blow the place up doing it. If you click the link above it will take you directly to the forum. Thanks.

A Mix of Quick Pages

2007-07-20T11:25:00.000-06:00

The quick pages I uploaded today brings me to the end of this exciting journey I so innocently (naively?) started a few weeks ago. What an adventure it has been. I have learned so much and accomplished something I thought was too big of a job to handle. The day I put out the call for the quick pages I never imagined where it would lead. It defiantly changed what I was doing with my days, until then I spent at least 3-4 hours a day looking for freebies and cruising various sites and blogs, there were daily downloads and personal stories I followed on a regular basis, along with keeping up with the “real life” things. Since that day I have spent 12-15 hours a day working on the site and have started giving my teenage daughter “allowance” again to help keep up with the housework. Every morning no matter how cruddy my arm feels I am ready to get up and get to it, and I am always reluctant to go to bed. Yep, this has been a big adventure.

Things have settled down a bit, the site is running smoothly and I am back to designing. I am very happy with some of the things that have been started in the forum, it is a good beginning, but it is only a beginning. I have lots of plans that I would like to pursue and ideas that I want to see grow. things that are starting to take shape. I do hope that you will take some time to visit the forum on your way to the quick pages, we have started forums for Era, Ethnic and Genealogy themes and I would love it if you would post a link or two there. We have some things going on in the Gimp users forum and I have just started a forum for Newbies, I am going to try to answer many of the questions we all had when we first started digital scrapping, so if you want to lend a hand there it would be much appreciated. There is also a posting contest going on daily, 3 people a day that post will be randomly be selected to receive a coupon for a kit (5 of which I am working on) and anyone that starts a really good thread or has a good idea for the forum will also receive a coupon.

I would love to see some of the layouts you have done with the kits, there is plenty of room in the gallery so you could post it there or send me a link to whatever galleries you have posted them. One thing that I can just about guarantee, now that I have this wonderful gallery and forum set up I WILL have a quick page challenge for every kit I give out. I hope to have the next freebie posted by Monday, so be sure to check back in.

I have the Infatuation QPs up and will have about 8 others from the other kits up within the hour. Enjoy!

Click Here to go to Stone Accents Studio

30 more Eastern Spice Quick Pages

2007-07-17T11:04:00.000-06:00

I am in the process of uploading 30 more of the Eastern Spice QPs today, With these, the total of QPs in the gallery from various kits is over 70, all of which are free for the taking. When you look at the gallery of Eastern Spice QPs you will be amazed at the variety of styles that have been achieved from one kit. Everything is running pretty smoothly with the site now so I have able to catch up a bit around here, my DH has a fondness for clean underwear and more than cereal for dinner so he is happy about that. I have been able to get some designing done and have 12 papers for three kits done. I hope that by this weekend I can get back to giving out some freebies. I have really missed that, because all of the comments from you have been a real bright spot. So I will probably give out the freebies from the blog.
If you haven’t been to the site you might not know that I have a posting contest going on, 3 people each day will be awarded a coupon for a free (as yet unmade…LOL) kit. The details of the contest are in 2 posts in the forum. When you come by stop in to the member’s gallery, there are some beautiful layouts there and there is plenty of room for you to upload yours.
Well I better get back to uploading the QP’s, I will be working on it through out the day. Enjoy!
Grambie, as far as I know I have never received an e-mail from you, please e-mail me and let me know it is you.

Click Here to go to Stone Accents Studio

Dusted Blossoms QPs Uploaded

2007-07-15T19:40:00.000-06:00

I hope by now that most of you have made your way to the gallery to have a look around and to help yourself to the quick pages in the gallery. I got the Dusted Blossoms QPs uploaded today, now there are 40 QPs available. We have the start of a nice member’s gallery and you are all invited to add your layouts there. There are also some good links for Gimp, PS and Photo Impact users in the forum. There is a daily posting contest going on, the details for that are in the forum also. I have about 6 “irons in the fire” today but things are under control now.

I have been able to get some designing done and that makes me happy. I am making some scroll brushes, I have tried to draw them with a paint brush before but I don’t have too steady of a hand (too mush coffee I think) so they never looked very good, I decided to make them with the pen tool and it is much easier and they are also much more adaptable like that, so you can expect to see a lot of fancy scrolls from now on. I have 5 new papers made and a good start on the embellishments. I will post more of the Eastern Spice QPs on Tuesday. The link to the gallery is below the preview, Enjoy!

Stone Accents Studio Gallery

Posting Contest

2007-07-13T20:31:00.000-06:00

We are going to have a posting contest. Every day for the next 4 weeks the top 3 posters on the web site for that day will get a coupon they can redeem for a free kit of their choice. Now it might seem silly to have a contest with a prize you have never seen but I do have plans to start selling my kits in the next few weeks. I have a few in the works but I kind of got side-tracked for the last two weeks working on the site. So if you like what I have done so far I think you will be happy with what I come up with next. Just about everything you do here will increase your count. Posting replies, starting threads, uploading to the gallery, comments on peoples uploads all count for 1, and for referrals you will get 3 towards your count instead of 1. Some of you are so active and sharing anyplace you go, so to give everyone a chance to win, you can only win one coupon a week.
I have not quite figured this part out yet but if you have any ideas on interesting things we can do here and want to get it started you will most defiantly get a coupon for a free kit. Here are the top posters as of right now; they will receive a coupon (as soon as I design it.) The contest started the day the site opened on the 10th and goes from midnight to midnight, central time. I have posted the names of the winners for the first two days in the forum.
Link to the forum

I Survived the First Two Days!

2007-07-13T12:16:00.000-06:00

Things went better than I could have hoped with the opening of the site. I expected a glitch or two and I am still not able to figure out how to make the “Contact Me” link work, so I have my e-mail address plastered all over the place in case you have any problems. I got the first draft of the newspaper off to the editor, which leaves me the rest of the day to work on the site. I have some of the Butterfly Garden quick pages uploaded to the gallery and I will be uploading more as the day progresses. I have a post in the forum under “General Chatter” that I would appreciate it if you would read it if you have the time. I have been warned that I am leaving myself open for problems if I do not require people to register in order to post or download things, so even thou I would rather not do it I am going to have to. When you register it will take care of both the Forum/ Tutorial area and the Gallery. If I ever open the store that will require a separate registration. I did make a few sales yesterday, I have a “Welcome“ sign in the store that has an “Add to cart” button on it, 8 people “bought” and downloaded it...LOL. Well, get over to the gallery and help yourself to the goodies. The preview I made is not great, they look LOTS better in person, Enjoy!

Click Here to go to the Gallery

Today is the Day, the Site is Open!

2007-07-11T17:41:00.000-06:00

I can’t believe that I am opening the site today. Until I started writing this I was OK, but you would not believe how nervous I got all of a sudden. I have uploaded over a dozen of the quick pages that were sent in (in alphabetical order, but they show up in reverse,) and I will be uploading more after I get the newspaper done. Be sure to stop by the forum to check out the suggested reading list and leave me a note so I will know you stopped in. Feel free to use the gallery to display your layouts and to give out your freebies. And I would love it if you would share any tutorials that you have. Think of it as your gallery, because without your encouragement and quick page contributions I never would have undertaken this. I did just find out that there is a problem with my e-mail link so if you have problems with ANYTHING please e-mail me at stoneaccents@hotmail.com
Click here to go to Stone Accents Studio.
Enjoy!

Coming Soon!

2007-07-10T13:25:00.000-06:00

I have some good news. I figured out (with the help of Grace) how to put a direct link under the previews. The way the software usually works is that you have add a photo to your favorites, then download them from there. That option had a few things I didn’t like so I was determined to do it with a direct link. I have a lot of the quick pages uploaded and have checked the links (THEY WORK, WHOOPIE!!) I am so excited, when I see all of those beautiful pages lined up side by side, it is GORGIOUS. I have a little tiding up to do in the gallery and I want to add some book reviews to the tutorials section in the forum. If you have a good tutorial or a link to one it would be great if you would add it when you come by. The gallery will be available for you to show your layouts, you can register and set up your own gallery if you would like. If you have any other quick pages to share you can do it through your file-sharing site and put the link in the description or you can send them to me and I will do it.
After going through all of the things involved with setting up a site and seeing the limitations the software that control it imposes I will have more tolerance for those sites that have things out of whack. It takes a lot of time to track done a problem and sometimes the fix involves a compromise, one of which I had to make in order to keep the site from growing too big for the screen as you browsed the thumbnails.
I have to get a lot done on the newspaper before I can finish up the site so the opening will be late Wednesday. You better start cleaning out your hard drive to make room for the quick pages because you will have a hard time choosing which ones you don’t want…LOL.

Eastern Spice Pin Alpha

2007-07-07T10:58:00.000-06:00

I made this pin alpha for the Eastern Spice kit that was not included in the freebie yesterday. I thought it might be too many alphas, with uppercase and lower case in “hot and mild” and the pin alphas in “hot and mild” and upper and low that made 8 alphas. But since it is already done I might as well let you decide if you want it or not. These 4 alphas are about 17 mgs.
I worked my way through two of the control panels for the site yesterday and I think I have them figured out. It was a lot of trial and error. Fortunately I didn’t mess anything up so badly that it was not fixable…LOL. I have another few things to learn but I am going to start uploading the quick pages today. The site is SO pretty, I can hardly wait to show it to you.

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Eastern Spice Bonus + Clarification

2007-07-05T23:06:00.000-06:00

First I want to clear my last post up a bit. I said I was reading the comments “with tears in my eyes and a silly grin on my face” I wasn’t in tears from my cruddy elbow, I was just touched by the very sweet comments that I had received, they really meant a lot to me. I did a little rewrite on that post.
Now the next thing I want to say is THANK YOU for being so patient in waiting for your Eastern Spice bonus. As I mentioned before, getting the web site set up for the quick pages you sent in was a LOT more work than I ever imagined. I kind of got side tracked with what needed to be done, designing the graphics and learning about all of the control panels. Grace has done a wonderful job, that girl deserves more than she charges, especially if you consider how many questions I asked her, Everything is all set up and ready for me to start uploading those beautiful quick pages. I am going to be doing it in batches. Today is the start of production week for the newspaper I do the layout and design for. I have 6 ads to design and another dozen to make changes to. We usually print in black and white but this month we are doing full color so that takes me a LOT longer. Hopefully (but no promises) I will have the first batch ready sometime Tuesday.
I think I am ready to move on from Eastern Spice, it has been a lot of fun to design and I could go on and on with variations on the paper, but there new creations floating around in my head waiting for me to put them on the screen. I hope these new pieces will make Eastern Spice even more versatile for you to work with. I made the alpha in “Hot and mild” again and I couldn’t resist making sone new papers. If you look closely at 04 and 05 you will see that they made like stain glass, they have pieces from 7 of the other papers and came about while I was experimenting with a technique, not the prettiest of the lot but kind of interesting. There is a cluster frame and I also have two bare naked frames for you to work on. I also included the beads in their original size for you to play with, I really like how they look and there so many different arraignments you can make with them. I would sure love to see some of your creations in the gallery when it is set up. I hope you will all come back for the gallery opening. Enjoy!

Here is the preview of the beads.

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Tears in My eyes and a Smile on My Face

2007-07-04T16:52:00.001-06:00

Wow, you guy are SO great. I came by to see if anyone had any ideas of how to fix my gallery download problem (see post below) and I read the comments that were put up in the last few days. I just sat there with tears in my eyes and a silly grin on my face, THANK YOU, I needed that.
I’ll tell you a little story that I mentioned in my “About Me” when I set the blog up that will kind of explain why I do this.
A little over a year ago I was walking across my kitchen to get my daughter a glass of OJ to go with her 17th birthday breakfast and I tripped over my REALLY big dog. I landed on my elbow and shattered it into little bitty pieces, The Dr said it was the worst break he had ever seen, and called it “the worlds smallest jig-saw puzzle.” He put it back together with all kinds of screws, bolts and plates. He did a great job of that, after two months in a cast, then two month in a removable cast and A LOT of therapy it is functioning pretty well. BUT he did not want to prescribe much in the way of pain control. So for almost 8 month I was in the most miserable pain I could ever imagine. I could not function in almost any way, and I definitely lost anything in the way of creativity. About 5 months ago I started seeing a pain specialist and he is prescribing what I need to take the edge off of the pain enough so that I can think clearly. I feel as though I have gotten my life back. It still hurts too much to do most of the things I use to do, like quilt, spin yarn (yep, people still do that,) lay tile and household decorating, the kind of projects that kept me busy and excited. But the silver lining to this very dark cloud has been that I found digital scrapping. I’ll tell you, it is what gets me out of bed in the morning. I only sleep 4-5 hours a night because I can’t sleep on my back or left (broken) side. When I wake up I usually feel like I have been run over by a truck. Digital scrapping, this blog, giving out freebies, your comments and the plans I am making have given me a happiness and excitement I have not felt in a LONG time. I am enjoying the heck out of this and have a hard time dragging myself off to bed. I have always been a night owl, but I take a nap in the afternoon. Thank you again for you very sweet comments, they made my day.

Now for a little update. The site is all together and I have figured a lot of things out. The one thing I can’t figure out is how to make the items in the gallery downloadable. There are a lot of sites like Scrap Artist and 3 Scrapateers that have member downloads, I am using the Photo Post software they use, but nothing seems to work for me. If I can’t work this out soon the other option I have is I could upload the quick pages to the “Store” area and you could just put them in your cart and download them like that. If anyone knows anything about this, HELP!!!

I will have the alpha and some other things here sometime Thursday afternoon.

It is 3:30 a.m. Again

2007-07-04T02:43:00.000-06:00

It is 3:30 a.m. again and here I am posting instead of in bed. What an exciting night it has been. I was working on a cluster frame (I have mentioned that I LOVE clusters haven’t I) for Eastern Spice when I got a message from Grace that everything was ready. For the last 6 hour we have had e-mails going back and forth getting a few things tidied up and I have been busy TRYING to figure everything out. Do you know that to run a full website with a store/gallery/forum you have three control panels to handle, and that does include whatever it takes to make changes to things like the header. Fortunately the control panels are pretty straight forward, once you figure out what things like “Bread Crumbs Navigation Separator” and the “option name manager” mean it isn’t too bad at all. I am not going to have a store yet but I did get a lot of those things figured out. But the bad news is that I still do not know how to make the QPs downloadable from the gallery. That is what I am gong to focus on tomorrow or I guess I should say today. If any of you are familiar with Photo Post I could use some advice.
Because of all this exciting stuff I was not able to get the next download packaged up and uploaded for you. I PROMISE that I will have the alpha and some other goodies up by this evening. Like I said I am working on a cluster frame and it is looking good so far, I should have that done by Thursday morning or afternoon. If we all keep our fingers crossed and think good thoughts I should have at least SOME of the quick pages uploaded to the gallery and ready to go by Thursday. Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments, they always make me smile.

Having a Heck of a Time

2007-07-02T21:52:00.000-06:00

I may not be able to get the new goodies up tonight. I still want to make a few things and I have been tied up all day trying to get the gallery figured out. Send good thought my way. I will update you tomorrow.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You, More Freebies and QPs!

2007-07-02T02:00:00.000-06:00

It is 2:30 am here and if I stayed up until 5 or so I could get everything finished and uploaded, but since I had one day this week when I did not get to bed until 8 in the morning I probably should quit for the night. I am real happy with the alpha, although it went through many incarnations to get to the point where it was what I envisioned. These new pieces might even inspire you to make more QPs…LOL.
Some really great news is that Grace is almost finished with the site. And what a beautiful job she did. The only hold up now is me finding the time to organize and upload the QPs. Of course that is dependant on me learning HOW to use the software…ROFL. Wish me luck. I should have the alpha and other things up sometime Monday night, and hopefully I can get the first batch of QPs to the gallery later in the week. Stay Tuned!

A Little Update

2007-06-30T20:17:00.000-06:00

I wanted to keep you posted on the happenings here. Now that I got the header for the site to Grace she is making fast progress. It was like Christmas morning for me today, when I got up and checked my e-mail there was a link from Grace to the site so I could see what she had done. Wow! I am so happy with it. I don’t know when the gallery will be done, but it shouldn’t be too long now. I still have to learn a few things about the software I will use to get the quick pages on to the gallery and then I will have to upload them, we all know how tortuous of a process that can be. I want to make sure that I label everything so you can have credit for the work you have done. So it could still be a week or so until they are ready for you. This really did turn out to be a bigger project than I thought it would be, but I have learned a lot and had a lot of fun with it.

I have most of the QPs downloaded, but it has been a slow process, I have to keep my eye on them so I can be sure I put the right name on them. At the same time I am working on the alpha and it is also the start of a busy two week with the paper I do the layout for, lot of ads to do,and that is what brings in some cash. If I did not get to your page yet I should be able to take care of it on Sunday. I am starting to feel like a one armed juggler... LOL.

I still have a little bit of work to do on the alpha and other pieces for your bonus download. The alpha is a multi-layered monster, but it is coming out beautifully. I should have it on the blog either late, late Sunday night or early, early Monday morning... LOL. You may want to get busy clearing out some hard drive space for the quick pages, there are so many beautiful ones you might want them all. See ya soon!

Update on Quick pages

2007-06-27T23:04:00.000-06:00

I have had a few people ask if I got their QP because I have not downloaded it yet. I probably have received it but I have been so busy getting things ready for the gallery and finishing up the alpha and other things I promised you that I have not had time to download them. I should be able to get to them tomorrow. I will start getting them ready to upload so that by the time Grace has the site together I will have them ready to upload. I will keep you updated.
Grambie e-mail me and let me know it is you please.

OK, You Can Stop Now

2007-06-27T15:53:00.000-06:00

I don’t have a firm count yet but I am sure we are over 50. If you still want to send them go ahead and I will try to get them all up. Or you can hang on to them until I get the gallery set up. Once the gallery is up and running I hope to be able to make it available to you to post your quick pages and layouts. I have gotta run for now, a lot left to do still. Don't forget to get part 5 while you are here, more to play with.
A big HUG from me!

A Special Thank You Bonus

2007-06-27T01:51:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post to let you know that we are real close, hopefully by the time I get up (probably a little late because it is almost 3 am now) we will have our 50 quick pages. Your responses and comments inspired me to make a few more goodies as a bonus. Please, Please read yesterdays post, it has details about something exciting. This download includes 2 “carved” wooden medallions, pins and rusty metal border scrolls, and I couldn’t resist, I made a couple of striped papers. The link is below the post I would like you to read. Enjoy!

The link is below yesterday's post.

You Guys are Great and A Surprise!

2007-06-26T15:51:00.000-06:00

Just popped in to tell you that you guys are doing an incredible job on the quick pages. I am so happy to hear that this call for QPs has prompted many of you to attempt one for the first time. I am very impressed with the range of layouts. We have not reached the goal of 50 yet, so keep them coming. I spent a lot of Monday sending out thank yous to everyone that sent in pages, I managed to send them to everyone that sent one in before midnight (I think), but I have to put that aside for awhile so I can focus on getting these beauties to you, If you did not get a thank you from me I want you to know how much I appreciate what you have done and all of the wonderful comments you made. You put a smile on my face and in my heart. THANK YOU!!

Now I have a surprise for you. I am in the process of setting up a website with a gallery to display and distribute your contributions. It might seem like a bit of over-kill but I want to do this right. I have the wonderful designer Grace Bennett setting up the site for me. I am not sure how long it will take to get the gallery up and ready. There will be a lot to do, first I will have to learn how to use the program that manages the gallery, then I will have to label, upload, place and who knows what else to the QPs. I will keep you updated on how the process is going.

So keeping this in mind you will have to be patient with me. I had to spend a lot of time looking for a web host and figuring out a few things, I also need to design some of the graphics so the site will have the feel I want. I can almost guarantee that I will not have anything new for you until Saturday or Sunday. Till then wish me luck!
Remember, keep sending then in.
P.S. The first comment I got is "What is a QP?". If you need more info on how to do one go to the previous post, near the bottom there are some good links.

Download Eastern Spice Part 5 Here

Part 4 and Let’s Make a Deal

2007-06-24T23:07:00.000-06:00

Today’s download of Eastern Spice include one of the best embellishments I have ever made. Take a good look at this inlaid tile frame, I hope that you will feel this ONE piece alone is worth you going and giving a big “thank you” to whoever turned you on to my blog. I am providing the frame and the clusters in two “flavors” one for the muted papers and one for the “Spicy” papers. There are also two new diamond papers in those “flavors.”

Part 5 of this kit will include the alpha among a few other things. BUT I am going to ask you to work for it. Some of the other designers that give out freebies have received over 50 QPs from ONE kit. I have given you FOUR kits and I am almost embarrassed to say I have only received three, QPs and two layouts. Before I upload the last piece of Eastern Spice I would like to receive 50 QPs using ONLY elements from my kits. You can use solids that you make, and alter my pieces anyway you want. The reason that you can only use elements from my kits is that I will get the rights to the QPs. I am looking into ways to display and distribute them (possibly a web-site or another blog) and I will probably have to buy on-line storage to make them available to you. If at some future date I choose to, I would have the right to sell them. So send me your links. Please include your info so that I can include it in the description. If I do not receive 50 QPS I will send out the links for part 5 and the QPs to the people that have sent in pages. I don't want this to sound negitave because I get so much out of these freebies, I want you to take them and use them, but on the other hand I really want to see some of the results of what you have done with them. I don’t think this is too much to ask considering I am fast approaching 25,000 download, so let's have fun with this! (thank you anonymous)

As an incentive, the alpha I am working on is based on the technique I used for the frame. I will give you a little hint as to how it was made, I used Al Ward’s styles at Action FX as a starting point. I have a few ideas for next week’s kit but it will probably be Wednesday before the first part is ready. Please send the QPs ASAP so I can give you all of the extra goodies.

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Remember, use ONLY pieces from ANY of my kits or solids that you make yourself. I do not have the right to give another designer's stuff away.
I have had a few comments that some people do not know how to do QPs, anonymous said that Dusty Bear (Laura Payton) and Tina Williams have started Yahoo groups where they do QPs exchanges and they post details of things that would be helpful. I LOVE both of these designer’s work and you can’t go wrong taking advice from them.
Here is the link to Tina Williams blog, if you have not seen her designs yet you will be amazed, I understand that her Yahoo group has info on making QPs.
Another place to go is Scrap Quick, take a look around at some of their great stuff, I bet you will leave with some ideas and a few purchases.

The main way to think about QPs is that it is a layout without the pictures. One way to approach it is just do what you would normally do for a layout then take out the pictures. The preferred format to save it in is png.
You can upload them to a file sharing site if you have one (like 4 shared, it is FREE) or you can send it to me as an attachment in an e-mail to stoneaccents@hotmail.com

Anonymous suggested that I should request a release from you. In the body of your e-mail just say that you release the rights to me for the QP you have put together with my products. Thanks and enjoy!

Just a quick post

2007-06-24T01:21:00.000-06:00

I was trying to have some goodies up by the time I went to bed but it is 2:30 am right now and I am not going to make it. I had to take care of some ad work because that brings in cash (a very important point.) and the embellishments I am working on are REAL involved (did someone say CLUSTERS!) and wait until you see the frame!!, I promise, you will never have seen anything like it, The new pieces will be up by Sunday night or early Monday morning. Thanks for all of your great comments. Hey, How about some quick pages that I can share with everyone, PLEASE send me some.

I Got Carried Away, Eastern Spice Part 3

2007-06-21T02:45:00.000-06:00

Well I got carried away designing paper again. I just love the heck out of making paper. With all of these papers you should have a lot of options, from soft and mellow to Hot! Hot! Hot! In the process I did not get some of the other elements made that I want to add to the kit. I have some nice journaling pieces for you and a cardboard corner that I made using Bannerwoman’s fun product, Cardboard Craze as a base. I have had a few requests to separate out the beads from the ribbon so they are included in this download.
I am working on the alpha and something SPECIAL that I am making with the beads, and did someone say CLUSTERS!! (as I have said before I LOVE clusters.)

If you did not come by yesterday, take a minute to read yesterday's posting, there is a little info about what it takes to make paper like this.

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I’ve Been Tagged, Paper Preview and a Note About Tutorials

2007-06-20T11:03:00.000-06:00

I just want to make sure you know that all of the kit links are still active but I will be taking Infatuation down next week.

I’ve been tagged by Happy of "Happy Scrap Girl" so here goes.

I am 6’ tall blond and weigh 130 lbs (In my dreams! Actually one of those is right.)

I am a bit of a Mac and Photoshop geek, I run a Mac dual 2 GHz with 4 ½ gigs of memory. It is 3 years old but still handles everything I can throw at it, including the 600-800 mg docs it can take to make the richly textured papers I like to make.

My nest is empty most of the time with the exceptions of my DH, my little dog Zoe, my big dog Shadow and a kitty, Cricket. My youngest DD is home from college for the summer, my DS is on to graduate school and my “middle” child, a DD is in the Air Force learning to speak Arabic.

I am a bit of a recluse having been a stay at home/home schooling mom for the last 25 years (I only home schooled for about 6 years.)

I have been scrapbooking on and off for 11 years. I actually designed a scrapbook book called “101 Photo Mat Ideas” Designing the book is what lead to me getting my Mac. In the process of designing the book I ended up falling in love with the Mac and Photoshop. The book went down the drain because I was scared to spend the $75,000 it would have taken to print and market it (I SO wish I had done it.) At the time the material was great, but now it looks like kindergarten stuff compared to what we do today.

My other hobbies use to include knitting, spinning yarn, quilting, ad hand dying yarn and quilt fabric. Since I shattered my elbow last year they are all too painful to do.

Digital scrapbooking saved my sanity. I am always happiest when I have a project, I have recovered couches, done faux finish wall treatments, sewn curtain and all kinds of stuff, but my elbow has put an end to that. I was mind numbingly bored after a few months in the cast when I saw an article in Scrapbook Trends magazine about digital scrapping. The rest is history.

I am a recovering freebie addict, it is better to give than to receive (I still do my share of receiving.) I am enjoying the heck out of this, thank you for making it possible.

I am still not sure who I am going to tag yet, so beware!

I Am Running A Bit Late With Part 3

I spent a lot of yesterday designing a floral paper for the kit. It took forever to get the flower bunches the way I wanted them so I could use them as brushes. I have included a preview of the paper with a close up so you can see the rich textures. I have had a lot of people ask me it I would do a tutorial on making papers but for now all I can say is texture, texture, texture. To make paper like this you REALLY need at least 3 gigs of memory (I have 4 ½.) Some of my papers can have 12-15 layers, some layers make a little bit of difference and some make a lot of difference in the appearance of the paper, A doc like this can be as big as 800 mgs and use a gig and a half of memory. Without enough memory this can be a painfully slow process. Well, take a close look at the paper below and be sure to come back tomorrow for the next part of Eastern Spice.
The preview DOES NOT do it justice, it looks fuzzy here but is actually very crisp.

Eastern Spice is getting Spicier

2007-06-18T12:26:00.000-06:00

I named this kit Eastern Spice for a reason, the first part was kind of mellow but this part of the kit is HOT, HOT, HOT! I am SO happy with this kit and have a lot more embellishments and papers in process, just wait till you see the journaling pieces! I told you earlier that I wanted an exotic looking flower, well my search was kind of fruitless so I had to make one myself, I have to say I ended up with what I was envisioning for the kit. Today’s elements are one color but I am in the process of recoloring them to give you lots of options. Once again these papers are almost making themselves, there are so many ways I could go with them. I should have more of the kit ready by Wednesday so check in then.
After 3 1/3 kits I am up to over 18,000 downloads. I have decided to do something special when I reach 50,000 so be sure to keep coming back for it.

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Don't you just love it!

Eastern Spice Part 1

2007-06-16T10:20:00.000-06:00

I have some awesome papers for you today, I have been playing around with blending modes and textures and I LOVE what I came up with. Despite what I said the other day about not focusing on kits this is going to turn into a kit. I want to make a spectacular flower to go with these papers so I decided to check the stock photo sites for a flower to base it on. I want a spiky, exotic flower, something to go with the Mid Eastern flavor of the papers, I found hundreds of daisies and roses but nothing that really looked exotic. I have a few more sites to check and I have found a few possibles so we will see what I come up with. I have some great ribbons and journaling pieces in the works, they will be here Monday.
The swirls on these papers were made with brushes by ca_pris. http://papersweets.fan-arts.net/ This artist has an incredible collection of brushes for download.

I am getting strange messages from 4shared so I
set up an alternative download on Send Space
Download Eastern Spice Part 1 Here. 4 Shared
OR
Download Eastern Spice Part 1 Here Send Space

I am working on some papers

2007-06-14T14:01:00.000-06:00

I just stopped in to let you know I am working on some papers. I am trying out a few new techniques with some awesome results. I should have them up some time tomorrow. In the meantime PLEASE send me some layout or QPs if you have any done. Thanks again for the nice comments and for all or you freebie hunters posting my kits. While I am on the subject of freebie hunters I want to remind you to leave some love for them. I know that it takes a great deal of their time to find and post the wonderful freebies for us, but I think many of us forget to let them know how much we appreciate them so HUG A FREEBIE HUNTER TODAY!!

Clusters, Clusters who Loves Clusters!!

2007-06-12T11:02:00.001-06:00

I just love clusters but I did not have time to get these ready earlier. I am still working on hangers for the alpha, The string part looks good but I am not happy with the knots yet. I spent a lot of yesterday catching up on organizing the freebies I got the last three weeks, I just hate it when I let stuff pile up. I also started one of the Photoshop books I recently got. I learned a few tricks and I am working on something special, I should have it here on Thursday and possibly tomorrow I will post the QPs I have received, if you have one you would like to add let me know ASAP!! Well, enjoy the clusters.

Sorry Link has been removed.

OK, So Here is the Plan

2007-06-10T13:45:00.000-06:00

If you read my bio you know that I have been using Photoshop for almost 7 years and I have not done too much creative with it till I discovered digital scrapping. When I first got PS I read every book I could find on all of the neat things you could do with it, but from disuse of all of the cool stuff I have forgotten more than I remember. I recently got some more great PS books and I am going to work my way through them. I have been focusing on making kits lately, the papers are SO easy for me, they almost make themselves, but I have a hard time coming up with the embellishments. So while I am upgrading my PS skills I am going too focus on making embellishments. For the next few weeks I hope to be giving you all sorts of neat things. I can’t promise that anything will coordinate with anything else but I can promise I will only put up the best of the best. Be sure to come back on a regular basis because my 4Shared is getting full and I do not know how long I will leave any single piece up.

Here is part 3 of Dusted Blossoms, I love, love, love the papers, lace and alphas. Look at the detail on the lace! Please send my some QPs or layouts so I can post them. Enjoy!

I just noticed I misspelled "Blossoms" in my preview, I have never been known for my spelling skills.

Sorry, Link has been removed,

Running a little late

2007-06-10T00:07:00.000-06:00

I hoped to get part 3 of Dusted Blossoms posted tonight but I spent a lot of the day trying to figure out hangers for the Stone Sayings in part 2. I am still not happy with the hangers and I am too tired finish up the rest of the elements and package it up tonight. Sunday is my day to play and I plan on playing with PhotoShop and Dusted Garden. If you have not downloaded the 3 parts of Infatuation be sure to do it soon, my 4Shared is getting full and I have big plans for next week's freebies so Infatuation might have to come down. Come back after 3 pm central time and I should have the rest of Dusted Blossoms up. I am going to go to bed and wake uo fresh. Good Night.

My First (successful) Ribbons

2007-06-08T10:17:00.000-06:00

I have always had a lot of trouble making a decent ribbon but I think I finally managed to make some pretty good ones. The “Stone Sayings” and frame have gone through SO many changes, they took a good part of the day to make. I actually ended up with a lot of good ones but none of them fit just right with the paper. I am very happy with what I settled on and hope you will be too. The one thing I didn’t have time to do is to make is hangers for them, I should have them ready Sunday. I think all of the computer problems are worked out and I am done with the newspaper, so now I have time to concentrate on part 3 and start on next week’s kit which will be up Sunday.
I have received a few nice QP’s of “Infatuation” and “Butterfly Garden” from some of my wonderful readers and I will post them soon. If you have a QP you would like to share I would love to post it. and I would appreciate getting some links to your LOs.
Thank you for all of the nice comments and for your understanding about the download problems. Your kindness put a smile on my face. Enjoy!!

Sorry Link has been removed.