Hi everyone! I am sorry to be so late in telling you about this weeks Friday Freebie at Polkadotplum. My son has been sick for a few days. I took him to the doctor this morning, and  when we got home I was so busy taking care of him and my new daycare kids, I totally forgot to make my weekly post. This weeks freebie is a Quick page of the layout I made for my January 2012 RAK challenge.  I made this Quick Page with Bestest, a kit by this months challenge sponsor, Traci of Horsedreamn Designs.  Click here to download from the Polkadotplum blog.

Check out Bestest, a kit by this months challenge sponsor, Traci of Horsedreamn Designs. Traci is going to give every challenge participant a mini kit and one lucky winner will receive a gift card to her store!! It is not to late to join in the fun!

Ready another fabulous Friday Freebie?

This week, I made you a Word Art and Frame/Element Cluster featuring elements from Birthday Bash Element Pack by L Posh. Background paper not included. Visit the Polkadotplum blog to download.

Font is Chocolate Box, and happens to be highlighted in our January 2012 Font Challenge, hosted by Shauna.  The quote in today’s freebie, is just one of several options from our January 2012 Quote Challenge, hosted by Wanda Pearcy.  Use today’s freebie to give you a head start on either of these challenges! Our challenge  sponsor for this month is Tracy with Horsedreamn Designs. She is offering everyone who participates a mini kit and one lucky winner will get a gift card to her store. We have lots of great challenges this month, I hope you will join in the fun!

Here is the layout I made of my birthday, for the January 2012 Quote Challenge at Polkadotplum.

I also made you a free template, based on my layout above. Click here to download.

I was pretty proud of myself for getting so many photos on one layout and still having “white space”. So I thought maybe you could use a template. Click here to download my 41 Photo Template.

My son and our family friend are crushing on each other! They are so cute together, I had to make a special layout just for them.

Quotes inspired by: Tata Young
Album: I Believe
Title: Crush On You

Both layouts were made using Flaming Paisleys Full Kit  Created by Cinda Alspaugh Digital Compilations 2011

Last but not least, here is a free campfire word art, if your interested. It is made to overlay on the fire background in Cinda’s Flaming Paisleys  kit, as shown in my first layout. It will also work nicely on what ever background you choose. Click here to download. Fonts are CM Old Firehouse and Times New Roman

I made this layout for the January 2012 Photography Challenge at Polkadotplum. This month’s challenge is about saying good-bye to 2011 or Hello to 2012. Lisa asks us to show her what we did in 2011? Or what you hope to do in 2011? Or to show her a NY’s Eve party from the past that you’d like to remember and journal. Whether it’s just a pic or a layout – she’d love to see it! I made my layout about our biggest change in 2011, a relocation. I used Fresh Meadow Kit and Fresh Meadow Clusters both by BeeHaven Designz.

Journaling Reads: In the summer of 2006, shortly before our adoption of Anna was finalized, we decided we needed a bigger house to accommodate our growing family and daycare facility. We moved into our new home in ****** the weekend before school started that September. Shortly afterward, the economy took a nose dive. For the next few years Don did not receive a single pay increase, bonus or incentive. My daycare also took a hit, as more and more people, effected by the economy, opted for cheaper childcare or none at all. In 2010, Don lost his job at ****** . Though he quickly found another, Don remained under employed, even as he accepted two more jobs over the next year, each with increasing earning potential. In 2011, Don took a job in San Antonio, making almost as much as he did at ******. With Don now living and working in another city, and our savings severely depleted, we were forced to accept that we could no longer afford to keep our happy home in ***** Park. In the summer of 2011, we left our family and friends and relocated to ****** , a small town outside of San Antonio. Though our new house shows its age, needing numerous repairs and updates, it has nice features. Perhaps someday,  we will love it as much as we did our home in ******.

Old Address 4,337 Square Feet, 5 Bedrooms, 3 Baths, Built in 1997 The extra large island kitchen with yards of counter space, huge breakfast area & open floor plan, made this home perfect for entertaining. The downstairs included a formal dining area, daycare room and living room. Upstairs, we had a loft style game/craft room & extremely roomy master suite. We enjoyed the Texas weather relaxing on the custom built wood deck & swimming in the above ground pool.

New Address 2,810 Square Feet, 4 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths, Built in 1990 Our new home is located on a corner lot with lots of beautiful mature trees, custom landscaping, & covered deck. The eat-in kitchen has a small island, breakfast bar & built-in appliances. Both the downstairs family room & upstairs master suite feature a fireplace. The luxurious master bath includes a jetted garden tub.

I also used part of this layout to create this weeks Friday Freebie on the Polkadotplum Blog, a frame and elment cluster.

 Like today’s freebie? Then you are going to love the kit! The elements are so pretty and the colors are versatile, you will find you can use this kit to scrap all sorts of topics. Check out Fresh Meadow Kit by BeeHaven Designz.

I am hosting the January Template Challange at Polkadotplum and I have made this months template based on my layout below. As I was working on my layout of our new house, I realized I had placed 12 photos around the edge of the page. Perfect, I thought, for a year at a glance layout! Which is why I choose to make it into a template for you, being a new year and all. It would also be great for the 12 days of Christmas, through the years school photos, baby’s first year, and so much more. I can’t wait to see what you do with it! I made this layout with  Fresh Meadow by BeeHaven Designz.

  This months challenge sponsor is Traci of Horsedreamn Designs. She is going to give everyone that participates a mini kit and one lucky winner will receive a gift card to her store! To participate in this challenge,  snag your free template here.

Use the template to create your layout and post it in the challenge gallery by January 31st at 11:59 pm. Show it off in the challenge thread, and record it in your monthly challenge tracker in order to receive points. By participating in the challenges at Polka Dot Plum, you can earn points to get discount coupons and be entered to win a prize each month. It is simple, fun and a great way to stretch your creativity. You’ll get a point for participating as well as an additional point if you use 90% PDP products.

I am so excited to announce that I have found a new digital home and  joined the Creative Team at Polkadotplum! (This will not interfere with my duties as a ct member for a paper company, if I happened to be chosen.) Polkadotplum has long been one of my favorite digital scrapping sites, the designers are awesome, the people are friendly and the challenges are always inspiring. I will be hosting two challenges at PDP this month, the first being a RAK challenge. I thought a RAK challenge would be a fun way to get to know everyone. If you’re not familiar with a RAK, it stands for “Random Act of Kindness.” To participate in this challenge, each person must post a photo, the next person will grab it and create a layout with that photo. It is so much fun to see what someone else makes with your photo, and great for those photos you just can’t decide what to do with! To get the challenge started, I created this layout with a photo of Wanda’s daughter and her friend.

I made this layout with Bestest, a kit by this months challenge sponsor, Traci of Horsedreamn Designs. She is going to give everyone that participates a mini kit and one lucky winner will receive a gift card to her store. Click here to participate in the January RAK challenge at Polkadotplum.  I will also be hosting a template challenge, come back soon for more information on the template challenge.

In addition, I have the honor of  making all the Friday Freebies for the month of January at PDP! I love making freebies! Yesterday,  I posted a fun word art & cluster frame using The French Countryside” Frames Element Pack, Stickers/Word Art Elements, and Card Element Pack. Background paper, not included in the Friday Freebie, is from The French Countryside-Jaunes paper pack. All by Sweet Sunshine Designs. The Polkadotplum Friday Freebie is available for a limited time, so be sure to visit the blog and snag your freebie before it is gone.

Without Faith Sisters, I feel homeless on the net. So I set out on a quest to find a new creative team. I checked out Scrapbook Calls & Contests where I found a kit club, forum, and online store that is searching for new creative team members. Becoming a member of such a creative team would give me the perfect opportunity to combine my love of traditional paper crafting with my digital crafting world.

My paper crafting supplies are currently limited,  but I decided to audition for the part anyway. I made all these items in honor of my daughter decorating her new bedroom. Everything was made with products from K & Company and Hot off The Press, as well as a few odds and ends I had laying around.

I made a Truth or Dare game with magnetic pieces in a altered tin, a door hanger with “Hi” on one side and “Bye” on the other side, an altered composition book, a pencil holder for her desk, and of course a few pencils to get her started.

Another quick share today of a layout for my daughters adoption album, defining her relation to a family member.

In today’s layout, I used Sisters Forever Elements Kit  and Sisters Forever Paper Collection both Designed by: by the Shore designs by pammie~k. Template is Creative Juice No.1 by Biograffiti.

Camped at the Texas Renaissance Festival  with friends and I could not wait to use Pirates Not Allowed by: Steadfast to scrap the event! Template is partyon_templ01 by BioGraffiti. Font is BD Renaissance This will be my last post until after Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday everyone!