Just stuff…

I was playing around in my Twitter account today, and finally remembered to add Dawn from Because I Said So (funny, funny blog if you aren’t already a reader) to my Twitter feeds. As I was reading through her posts I followed a link, not knowing that she was setting me up on a new addiction…

Blip.fm

Basically it’s like musical Twitter. You can DJ your own stream, listen to other people’s stations, or get a mix of everyone who’s playing music. It’s really cool and you should go and sign up now! I’ll wait for you to get back. :D

That was easy now, wasn’t it? Now add my station to your favorites: StormRose That way I can find you and add yours to mine! Then we’ll be Blip friends and all will be right in the world.

Yea, I know my musical tastes are a little eclectic, going from Disturbed to Eva Cassidy, but if you can believe it I’m one of the tamer ones in my family.

Next subject…

Last week I posted a graphic I made for TommyD, and I wanted to show you another bit of recent Photoshop work I created.

The snake forum I hang out on has seasonal contests for photography and photo manipulation. I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the last one, and entered a little snaky valentine.

What you’re looking at is a composite of three different pictures. The first is the background with the red tag laying on it. The second is the heart shaped box, and the third is a picture of Kauket when I first got her (she was so tiny). To fit the love theme a little better I also took her markings and changed them into hearts (click on the picture to see it full sized).

It’s a good ‘chop, not perfect but mine rarely are. :D It did well enough though. I took first place in the photo manipulation category (out of two entries LOL), and won myself a gift certificate to get a new baby corn snake from Dakota Corns. Now I just have to wait for Breeding season to swing into gear so I can pick a hatchling.

Kek is about ready to move up into a 20 gallon tank, so the baby will take his old 10 gallon. Then it’s no more for me until Kauket has her own babies next year. I’ll probably allow myself to keep one of her beauties so that I have a grandchild, the rest will go to Chad to place in new homes.

Speaking of the snakes, I’m going to see if I can get some new pictures for you in a couple of days. All of them shed last week, so they’re looking gorgeous in their schmexy new skin. They ate last night though, so I have to wait for them to digest.

Next subject…

As of last Saturday we’ve officially had Zathras for a month. It’s amazing how much he’s changed in that short time. He’s bigger for one, and now he’s fully quilled. When we first got him his quills were pretty sparse and you could see patches of skin between them. Now he has a pretty thick blanket of quills that bristle out in a cactus-like way when he’s feeling particularly grumpy.

He still hasn’t taken to his exercise wheel, I moved it lower in his cage last night though so maybe he’ll start using it if it’s easier to get in and out of. He also still sleeps a lot, but it’s ok. We’ve bonded and now he’ll sleep on my lap when I take him out for play time. He’s adorable when he’s sleeping. :)

Last subject…

If you already follow the Creative Dreams blog you can skip this part because you already know. lol

I finally got some of my digi designing mojo back, and I released a new kit in the store last week. It’s called Aliens Among Us, and despite the fact that making it felt like pulling teeth, I’m actually quite happy with it. There’s a freebie add-on up on the CD blog, so go snag it if you enjoy digi scrapping.

After I made the kit I needed to make a sample page to go up in the store, and that was hard. I don’t have many pictures of CJ when he was little (due to the circumstances of my divorce), which made me sad. I did manage to find a more recent picture of him that worked well enough though.

I’m not sure he appreciated the sentiment, but I like how the page turned out. lol There are also some really cute pages that my creative team made up in the preview section of the store. Be sure to go take a look because wow are those ladies some talented scrappers!

OK, that’s enough out of me for today.

Hugs,

Big News and a Freebie!

You have to suffer through my big news before you get the freebie. Sorry, but that's how things work! LOL

My big news is that I've opened a digi store! John and I thought it would be a great way to defray some of the operating costs of A Shade of Blue, and so all proceeds from the store will be put back into ASB for hosting, upgrades, and prizes.

I'll be releasing at least two new kits each month, and the cool thing is that the first month a kit is available it will be on sale for 50% off! That's just $2.50 for a full kit! If you don't want to purchase a whole kit, the papers and elements are available separately for just $1.25 during the first month.

Not a bad deal, huh?

This month I have two kits that I just love!

Pretty in Punk:


and

Winter Chocolate:


Click on the picture to be taken to the product page in the store.

If you'd like to see some cool pages the Digi team has made with these kits, check out this post on ASB:
February Project Share

Ok, I've made you wait long enough!

A while ago I made a freebie kit called Cherry Cheesecake, in fact, it's still available here, and here. It's been my most popular kit, and so to celebrate the opening of my store, I've expanded it with an add-on pack!



This add-on includes:
5 Papers
1 Tissue Overlay
1 Brass Frame
1 Brass Nameplate
1 Brass Photo Turn
1 Chipboard Nameplate
1 Chipboard Photo corner
1 Chipboard Photo Turn
1 Chipboard Journaling Tag
1 Chipboard Bracket
1 Paper Flower

And you can get it here:
Cherry Cheesecake Add-on

I would like to ask that you do not distribute the direct download link to this file, instead, share the link to my blog. It's free either way, and no extra effort. Thanks so much!

And last but not least... As always, I love to see what you do with my kits, and I love to hear your comments. Link me up if you make something, so I can give you some love in return! Or, drop into the ASB forums some time, and say hi. We'd love to meet you!

Enjoy!

Flower Clip

I have a quickie Freebie for you today.

I made this clip to match a freebie kit I'd downloaded awhile ago. The kit is Pink Paradise by Amelie Scrap. I'd give you a link if I had it, but I didn't keep that info on file. Anyway, I figured that you might get some use out of the clip too. It's just a little thing, but it's kinda cute. :)

Here's the page I used it on:

And here's the link to download:

Flower Clip

Enjoy!

Sing the Blues - Elements

Have I made you wait long enough for the elements pack yet? I don't want to overload you all at once! LOL

Here it is, I hope you like them!

This pack contains:

4 Bookplates

2 Tags

5 Twill Ribbons

3 Word Art Sayings

2 Stamps

2 Negative Photo Frames

1 Flourish Frame

1 Chipboard Flower

1 Photo Corner

Download here:

Sing the Blues Element Pack

If you make anything with this kit, I'd love to see it! You can upload it to A Shade of Blue, or email me a photo!

Happy Scrappin'!

Sing the Blues

I promised you new music, and I'm finally ready to make good on the threat. lol

The band has been revamped, and we put a couple of rough clips up on the MySpace page. Now they're really rough, just quickie recordings made in the basement, so don't judge us too harshly. We wanted everyone to get a glimpse of the direction we're moving in though, and as time goes on we'll add more clips, and improve the recordings that are up there.

We have some great songs that we're working on that aren't even ready for a rough recording yet that I can't wait for you to hear. One is a fractured fairy tale, and another is a Heart-type hard rock song with an opera intro. I know it sounds strange, but it works! lol

Oh... the new band name? ChupaRosa
Pretty cool huh?

It's a flower that blooms in the American Southwest, it's called a "Sucking Rose" because it has a petal that looks kind of like a tongue. I really like the slightly twisted variants of roses, hence my nickname StormRose. I totally relate, because just like me everything looks fine and good on the surface, even beautiful sometimes, but underneath there's something not quite right. Describes me to a T.

To celebrate the Band's passage from the Blues into something else (we're not quite sure what it is yet) I have the start of a new Digi kit for you!

It's been awhile, I know...

In my defense, I've been working on a kit that was just stumping me. I didn't make a single element or paper for it that I liked. So I'd work on it awhile, and when nothing clicked I'd just walk away. Well, yesterday I decided that instead of walking away I was going to start a new project. A kit built off of a paper I made awhile ago...

That one sparked, and within an hour I had 10 papers made.

I have to remember to move along when I hit a creative roadblock. I have a really hard time setting a project aside when it just isn't working.

So here it is... I hope it was worth the wait!

This zipped file contains 15 papers:
5 Solid Textured Papers
5 Grunge papers
5 Patterned Papers

Download them here:Sing the Blues Papers

The element pack will be posted Tomorrow, so keep an eye out!
Enjoy!

Cherry Cheesecake Embellishments

Before I do anything else I gotta say...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CJ!!!!

This year he decided to take his birthday trip to the EAA Air Museum in OshKosh Wisconsin. It was really cool, he took a ride on a flight simulator, and flipped it a couple of times. Watching, I was afraid he was gonna break the thing. The coolest part of the trip was this though...

Not only did he get to ride in that plane, but he got to fly it! The pilot took off and landed for him, but he got to take it for a spin around OshKosh. He was really psyched, and if he didn't want to be a pilot before, he does now!

It was only a day trip this year, so today we'll stay at home and celebrate with brownies and cheesy movies.

So on to the real reason you're here... :)

I did get some elements put together for the Cherry Cheesecake papers. I'm not totally happy with these, so you may see another embellishments pack for this kit somewhere down the road. I think I need to walk away from it for a bit though before I try again.

This pack contains 20 Embellishments:
4 Brads
4 Eyelets
3 Ribbons
2 Tags
2 Bookplates
2 Flourishes
2 Word Art Overlays
1 Frame Overlay

You can download them here.

If you guys make anything with my freebies, send me a copy! I'd love to see your layouts!

Enjoy!

Cherry Cheesecake

First off let me say, I totally respond to your comments, so leave me a little love and let me know what you're looking for! Someone on the Creative Dreams blog asked about the musical elements I used to make the band page, and while I can't share them because I didn't save them (D'oh!), now that I know you'd like some I'll see what I can do. The more I see what y'all dig and what you use, the better my downloads will be. :)

Now, I wasn't going to post these papers until I had the whole kit done, but I'm hitting a roadblock with the elements, and I thought that the papers are pretty cool on their own.

I found this color palette on Kuler; for you designers out there, it's a great website to play with color combos and to find inspiration. This palette was created by a user named donald.agarrat, do a seach for his gallery, he's got some great palettes in there!

There are 15 papers in this pack, 5 textured solids, and 10 patterned papers.

You can download them here.

Hopefully I'll get some playtime this weekend, and I'll be able to finish the elements to match these papers.

Until then, Enjoy!

Retro Red and Black

Turns out, I was right about my day yesterday. I dropped CJ off at school, came home and put Boo in the tub, and next thing I know my cell phone is ringing... No one but my kids call my cell when I'm at home, it's because they can't remember our land line number, but my cell is an easy one. So I knew something was up right away. The power was out at school, and they were closing the school for the day. I ran back upstairs, yanked Boo back out of the tub, got her dressed in record time, and headed back to the school again.

I got to thinking about it though... Did they ever cancel school for power outages when you were a kid? I can remember sitting in darkened classrooms reading the chalkboard from the light coming in the windows. We never got sent home in the middle of the day unless we were puking or the building was on fire.

Yesterday, the power was out for less than an hour when they made the decision to send the kids home, and by the time I got there to pick up CJ, it was back on. They said they were sending them home anyway because they didn't want to risk it going out again...

Risk? Risk what?!?!

It was a beautiful day here yesterday, cloudy but warm. The kids weren't going to freeze because there wasn't any heat. All of the classrooms except one have windows, and that class could have easily gone to the commons room that has windows. I think the biggest risk for the school is that the teachers would have had to rely on books and chalkboards to teach the kids instead of PowerPoint presentations and videos.

It's an odd world we live in...

Anyway, on to the artsy stuff. I had someone ask for reds on the Creative Dreams blog yesterday, so I pulled out this old kit I made and dusted it off. It's the very first kit I ever tried putting together, and I posted it on ASB awhile ago, but since it's my first I'm sure you'll find things I could have done better. the papers are cool though, and that's the most important part, right?

I made the kit so that I could do this layout for my band:


So, without further ado, here it is:

This kit contains:

3 Solid Papers

6 Patterned Papers

2 Ribbons

9 Embellishments

You can download the whole kit here.

Enjoy!

Preppy Kit Freebie

I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. With the kids starting back to school on various days this week, I'm never sure when I'll have a chance to sit down.

Last spring, some of you might remember, I took a bunch of pictures in my garden. This one of my Columbines was by far my favorite:



I just love the colors in this picture, so I ran it through a palette generator, and came up with the inspiration for my next kit.

This kit contains:
4 Textured Solid Papers
8 Patterned Papers
4 Twill Ribbons
3 Fibers
7 Embellishments

You can download the papers here.
And the embellishments here.

I hope you enjoy it!

Anne

And a Layout

Sorry I didn't have this for you earlier. I didn't think about putting together a sample layout until after I'd posted the kit... DOH!

Digi Scrappin'

So here's the deal... I've decided that this blog is becoming pretty bogged down with my personal psychosis, and people who come looking for papercrafting stuff have to wade through a lot of weird junk to get to the good stuff. So I decided to make a blog just for my artsy stuff.



Awhile ago John and I were playing with some blog software, we were thinking of adding blogs to ASB but it was way too much of a pain, and so I had this premade blog sitting there that can now be put to good use. So if you want to skip the personal stuff in my life you can just go to Creative Dreams instead!



I'll still be posting my artsy stuff here too, I think, so if you like reading my twisted tales along with my attempts at creativity, you can keep dropping by. :)


Ok, so on to the good stuff. I made a digi kit! Well, actually I've made a couple, but this one is packaged up and ready to be shared. So here it is...

It's called "Spumoni" because the color palette reminds me of Spumoni ice cream.
This kit includes:
4 Textured Solid Papers
10 Patterned Papers
5 Twill Ribbons
14 Embellishments
3 Overlays

You can download the papers here.
And the Embellishments here.

I'd love to hear what you think!
Enjoy!