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

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

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

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

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

Sorry, Link Disabled

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

Sorry, Link Disabled

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

Sorry, Link Disabled

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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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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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 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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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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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 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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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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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

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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

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Vintage Dream Papers

Vintage Dreams Sampler

Download Vintage Dreams Here