with love, by mushy

Project 365 freebie :)

2009-02-10T09:24:00.002+11:00

Did you see it? It is here on the new blog :)

Don't miss anything else, you can subscribe to the new blog by Email or with one of these readers:

New blog is ready and going

2009-01-22T10:30:00.002+11:00

I see there is still a lot of traffic to this blog, which I understand with all the people subscribed and a lot of freebies drawing people here :)

I am going to repost all the freebies on the new blog when I get some time (when I get some time!!!) In the meantime there are new freebies and a new tutorial over here.

For all the subscribers to this blog, please take a minute to sign up to the new blog :)

You can subscribe by Email here or with one of these readers:

I know it will take a while to get every one over there, but it was a necessary evil :)

Pencil Lines Sketch 118

2009-01-19T23:46:00.003+11:00

Pencil Lines Sketch 118 is up and I have started posting on the new blog :) Thanks so much for the great response, you can find my first "scrappy" post here.
I have also included a warning to the header of this blog for when people are directed straight to one of the freebies they know what is going on. I hope it is enough.

Thankful

2009-01-19T01:41:00.003+11:00

I am thankful to God.
I am thankful for being born healthy in a family that knew no poverty or hunger.
I am thankful for having had friends with no means so I could learn to value things and also help them.
I am thankful for quitting a relationship that would have taken me nowhere and having met my husband, who I trust and love with all my heart (even when we annoy each other).
I am thankful for moving to Australia and having quality of life I never knew possible.
I am thankful for my BEAUTIFUL children, who are a blessing and make my life so much brighter. They can drive me crazy sometimes, but then make me cry with a simple smile.
I am thankful for having a job and working with great people that I call friends.
I am thankful for having found a hobby and craft that I find meaningful and that have brought me so many friends.
I am thankful for being able to share what I learn and my craft with the world through publications and the internet.
I am thankful for having people around me that understand how I feel and don’t think I am crazy for being upset over a couple of online photos.
I am thankful for having taken the time to blog here, and having found all you guys to support me, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.
I am thankful for my darling husband’s encouragement to get my own domain.
I am thankful for having the clarity to see this is an OPPORTUNITY for something new and better than what I had before, so I have decided to start anew.
I am thankful for new beginnings.

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My prepaid internet was pretty bad the last couple of days, getting so slow I was having trouble connecting. I couldn’t download e-mails because it was timing out all the time. Friday and Saturday I could not connect at all. I was very anxious to see if flickr was going to contact me with any news. I have begged them to at least give me my username so I can still participate on the online communities there. Today the connection suddenly got back to normal, and we received some great news, our broadband connection request finally went through and hopefully we will go back to our normal internet by the end of the week. It will be great to ditch this prepaid crap (excuse my language).

Flickr still have not answered and I am not sure what is going to happen there. No matter the decision, I know the photos are gone forever. So I have decided to drop this blog, I can’t possibly go over 150 posts to fix the broken links, I don’t have time for that. However, I have also decided blogging is a big part of my online life that I so enjoy. Sometimes it is the only thing I have time for online. So we have bought a domain, www.withlovebymushy.com and we have installed blogengine.NET in there, so Alex can help me out with the coding. I have lots of new plans and things I am going to do to take my mind off everything I am leaving behind here.

The new website is nowhere ready yet, I am not sure if I am going to change the settings or not, where I am going to host my photos, where things go, etc. It is a true work in progress, but I am sure it will be a new fun corner so please let me know if there is anything you would like to see there (more tutorials? more projects? More products? freebies? More of my boys? More about me? LOL)

There will be some cross postings, I am not going to import this blog, I am going to start all over there. I might re post some of my tutorials and some of my projects from this blog in the future, but only time will tell.

So, THANK YOU for your support! see you soon and see you around!

Gone

2009-01-15T16:04:00.002+11:00

My photos are really all gone. I got confirmation from Flickr they have terminated my account. Here is the e-mail:

***************************

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Flickr Customer Care.

Flickr account "michellefilo" was deleted by Flickr staff
for violating our Terms of Service and Community
Guidelines.

www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

Flickr reserves the right to terminate your account without
warning at any time.

***************************

Even if I get flickr to let me keep my account name I am told that at this stage the photos are gone for good. One year worth of blog posts, over 150 posts, all very image heavy, all broken.

Maybe it is a sign? Maybe I am not meant to be doing this? Maybe I just wasted A LOT of my precious time. Time I could have spent creating more, recording more, or even LIVING more. All I wanted was to share my stuff with other people that would appreciate it.

Now I have to decide what I am going to do, and honestly, I don’t feel like wasting my time again. I will probably just close this blog and make better use of my time.

I am almost angry at myself for being so upset about this, excuse me while I go shed another tear.

I go away for ONE DAY

2009-01-15T00:41:00.002+11:00

and things go REALLY wrong (and I had a lovely day, by the way). But look at this blog, all images broken. It brings me to tears all the work I have put in here.... my flickr account has been deactivated. I am not sure what happened yet. No correspondence from them whatsoever, no warnings, nothing. I can only guess I have breached their Terms of Use by uploading my template previews there with a link to Little Dreamer Designs. If that is the case I wish they would have given me a chance to delete those. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think I have over 2000 photos on my Flickr account of which only less than 50 are my templates. Funny thing is that I only posted there because I wanted to get traffic TO my flickr account.

Actually, I really hope that the breach was the reason my account was deactivated, because the alternative of it being hacked is one I don’t want to think about :(

I am not sure what I am going to do now, my internet connection is really bad at the moment; it took me over an hour to download my e-mails. Then I found out about this. I had a really big day, over 6 hours driving to the Water park and back, I am really tired and I should have gone to bed instead of spending hours here trying to find what happened. I wish I could show you all today’s photos, they were really nice... it was a good day....

I am sorry, I try to keep rants like this away from my blog but I am only human :( I am going to bed and hope that things get better when I wake up.

home decor

2009-01-13T13:34:00.003+11:00

I have been having some fun at this new place. We feel this is the place we will stay for a looong time, maybe even retire in here, so we are a bit more willing to invest our time and money making it ours. We never did that before. So I started a little photography wall, which is going to expand in the future:

I also decided to play with Fancy Pant's All Fall Collection and create some shadow boxes. It was a lot of fun to put together:

These were also featured at the Miss Fancy Pants blog.

**** **** **** **** **** **** ****

I am packing now, we are going to Jamberoo Water Park tomorrow. It will be a hot day and I bet the kids will enjoy it. Will have to finish catching up another time :)

xoxo

Pencil Lines Sketch 117

2009-01-12T01:11:00.002+11:00

Sketch 117 is up, and here is this week's free template based on the sketch by me:

(click on image for link)

Reminder: if you do use the template above, don't forget to post a link to your page at the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

Here is my page:

and a little more detail:

I just love the colors of the Fancy Pants' About a Boy line :)

Hope you like the free template!

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Still no internet here. I am going crazy, but I am starting to upload things and catch up even if it is soooo slow.

Mix it Up!

2009-01-09T09:42:00.002+11:00

I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I didn’t post this before, but it got released in the middle of a crazy busy time for me and as I said, I have a lot of stuff I should already have shared.

There is a new SUPER cool challenge blog in town: Mix it Up. I really like the whole concept of mixing sketches and different techniques for making a page. Plus, I LOVE to mix mediums and scrapbooking styles and ideas. I am loving it :) The blog is owned by Melanie Blackburn and is peculiar as it is written in French and English. They have started on the 9th of December introducing the team.

Then there was a giveaway (as I said, I am sorry I didn’t let you know before). Then we had a just for fun challenge just before my move. I was able to create a couple of pages even though my scrapbook stash was all packed, that’s the beauty of digiscrapping right? :)

Here are my pages:

It was a sketch and colour scheme challenge, after I brought the sketch to photoshop and created my page I felt I wanted to do another one without being so loyal to the colour scheme.

We call the challenges “mixers”, and this week our first Mixer was announced: Mixer #1

Have a look at the blog for skecth and details about this word challenge (word is beginning), here is my take on it:

And a closer look:

Love these Making Memories goodies :)

So, you want to mix it up?

Playing with Paper - Set 6

2009-01-07T00:25:00.000+11:00

I meant to post this new product on my birthday, but it was so busy I just did not get to it:

30 photos in two templates to kinda "celebrate" my 30th birthday :) Well, at least I tried to be creative LOL It is perfect for that fun photoshoot where you can't pick a photo to scrap or to scrap a big event like a Christmas lunch :)

One of the pages I posted here. The other one is this one:

I created this page for a challenge at the Little Dreamer Designs blog.

As usual, here is the matching page, a scraplift of new dream girl Laura Watson.

I just had a look and there are at least 10 other layouts I need to share here, and 4 other products, I promisse I will get to it, I just wish my internet were not so slooooow :)

xoxo

Pencil Lines Sketch 116

2009-01-05T00:27:00.001+11:00

Sketch 116 is up, and here is this week's free template:

Reminder: if you do use the template above, don't forget to post a link to your page on the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

Here is my page:

It is actually a pretty bad photo of this layout, so I am totally taking another one when I have time (pfft, time?)

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I have loads to share, scrapbooking and personal stuff that I should have blogged about already, but I still don’t have my internet back and this prepaid wireless thing is much more expensive than we thought (it is mobile phone internet, you might understand). On top of that, it has become really slow, so it has been hard to be on line.

The new house is finally on track, a lot of little things to sort still but it will be slow because I want to do it properly. I am cleaning up and getting rid of a lot of dead weight, especially baby stuff we don’t need anymore. I also want to redecorate with my own handmade things, just don’t know what yet :)

The old house was sold, thank God and it just needs a good clean before we hand it over.

I don’t really like to write much without photos to illustrate so I will wait to share my many news when I have proper internet (or at least take it slow, we already have two images on this post LOL).

2009 has been great so far, hope it has been good for you too!

xoxo

happy new year :)

2009-01-01T03:16:00.002+11:00

happy new year :), originally uploaded by michellefilo.

I am here, in 2009! I feel the *new* already! I spent the first 3 hours of 2009 going back home from a party, putting the kids to bed, talking to mom, checking my e-mails, uploading pages to flickr, and creating a little card for this moment (and post), and now I am blogging. A lot of what I will do many more times this year, so that’s a good start, right? (except it is past 3AM and I plan to not go to bed so late during the year LOL)

And what lies ahead?
Lots of sharing, planning, expectations, lots of NEW. A new house, a new decade for me to enjoy (going to miss my 20s though), a new lens :D, new scrap room, new ambitions, new work regime, new routine, new school for Mateus (big boy school, wow), new childcare room for Lucas (up a level), new ATTITUDE towards life!

Planning includes redecorating the new house, learning photography, organizing myself, eating better, exercising, more activities as a FAMILY, but also, more ME time. Maybe even a trip to see family and friends in Brazil, maybe!

Anyway, hope your new year has it ALL!!! Happy 2009!

with love, mushy

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T15:33:00.004+11:00

We celebrate on Christmas Eve, so I just finished cooking two desserts and I am getting ready to cook a risotto. We are going to friend's house, it is tough being away from our family at times like this, but we still manage to have a good time with friends that feel pretty much like family :)

Hope you have a fun and safe Christmas!

a Ben 10 birthday

2008-12-20T02:43:00.001+11:00

photos as promised :)

sorry for the lack of labels,

you can click on photos for the whole story on flickr!

have a great weekend!!!

Happy birthday to me!

2008-12-17T23:35:00.001+11:00

Yep, it is finally here, the big three-o. Three decades :)

I owe photos of Mateus’ birthday, it was on Monday, a Ben Ten b-day at the park ~ He loved it!

Busy doesn’t cover how crazy it has been lately. I cancelled all my 30th b-day celebrations, I was just tired and most of my friends were tired too, so I decided that is not how I wanted to celebrate my 30th. I am going to do something extra nice in January once everyone is back from holidays and I am settled on my new place.

Today started off as any work day. Woke up early, went to work, couple of phone calls here and there, it was great talking to mom and grandma, I had a lot of missed calls during a meeting, part of life. For lunch everyone at work went to a Turkish restaurant. I was quite surprised by how cool it looked, never been there before and the food was awesome! Very pleasant surprise :)

I left late from there and by the time I got home it was past 3PM. I organized with hubby for him to pick up the kids, I wanted to get some “me” time and get started with editing the photos of the last few days (over 700 photos). He called me and asked me to check my mail, he sent me an invite to a blog. I was very puzzled, and then I had the biggest surprise of the day. Hubby has created a blog page for my 30th, for friends to leave messages on my birthday, how sweet is that? He has contacted some of my friends a month ago to let them know of the surprise (I am yet to find out how). I think it was the sweetest gift he could have given me, but I did love that he also got some buttons for me to use on my scrapbooking (he hates buttons, so it was an effort) and he got Mateus to choose some too :) I am blessed!

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OK, it wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t any scrapbooking news today, right? :) So, TODAY ONLY my products are 35% off at Little Dreamer Designs.

I also have joined up with Tiffany Tillman to create a freebie, but again, it is only up for 24 hours.

Go grab it at the Little Dreamer Designs Blog.

******************************

I think this is it for me today. I have two new products but I don’t know if they will be uploaded in time for the sale, I will come back with links if they do :)

Hope you have a great day :)

Pencil Lines Sketch 115

2008-12-14T23:02:00.003+11:00

That was fast right? I wasn’t gone for too long. I guess I can’t survive long without internet :) This prepaid wireless internet is working great, just can’t get my e-mail to work yet, but soon all will be back to normal.

So, back from the "land of no computers" just to bring you Sketch 114. Special guest this week is the ADORABLE and oh so talented Brenda Hurd, loooove her work!!!

We have a very special sketch for you today, very "Christmassy" and this time we have a special prizes for the digi scrappers that play along. Gift Certificates from me and Designs by Lili. Isn’t it great? Here is the sketch and FREE template this week:

(click on image for download link)

And here is my page created with Lili’s latest collaboration with Emily Merrit: Once Upon a Christmas

Now, I was all done and set up, almost ready to move when Michelle Coleman released her latest Christmas kit: A Heartfelt Christmas. I could not resist and have created a couple of pages with this kit and CD Muckosky’s Serendipity Alpha.

This with with Pencil Lines Sketch 115 (and matching page):

Which made me decide to offer more templates :)

and here are another two pages:

and that was all done before my move :) God knows when I will have time to scrap again LOL

************

Moving houses is MUCH harder than I remembered, and I though it was hard before. First of all, no proper planning and a lot of distractions (and parties), second, no keys until 5 PM on the Friday, and third, pouring rain all through the weekend, resulted on today being the third day of our move and there are STILL a lot of stuff on the old house :(

The furniture is here, the computer is here :), there are clothes, kitchen appliances and TOYS everywhere. Everything we need to live is here, but there are still clothes, toys and almost all my scrapbooking goodies left behind. My body shows how unfit I am, and it hurts to breath LOL. But there were a lot of highlights this weekend, and I will come back sometime before Christmas with the photos :)

We were going to have Matty’s birthday party today but we cancelled because of the rain. Hope tomorrow is clear skies for his Ben Ten picnic, he is really looking forward to it.

xoxo

************

UPDATE: sorry for the hiccups with my blog posting. I got the title wrong for two of the Pencil Lines Sketches, so if you receive this blog via e-mail or subscribe to it in any way you probably got two Pencil Lines Sketch 114 and two Pencil Lines Sketch 115. Please come to the actual blog to see the actual posts and updates, sorry about that :)

This is it.

2008-12-12T22:23:00.002+11:00

We got the keys, we went to the new place tonight. I took a bunch of photos of the boys running around, they are sooooo excited!!! Tomorrow morning a removalist come to get the furniture, we already took a couple of things over. Tomorrow we also have a BBQ at lunchtime and a DressUp party at night. It is going to be THE busiest day! But so cool :)
I am about to take the computer apart to take to the new place and I don’t think I can get back online tomorrow just because it will be busy, but maybe Sunday. I also hope the wireless internet works all right.

So before I go, let me share my latest page for the OLW blog. The word this week is miracle:

I created it using the Gift of Hope kit by Leora Sanford, it is another benefit kit for Ryley, a little girl with cancer. They are going through some tough times, so if you have an to spare, please get the kit, you will be helping and will receive some super cute scrapping goodies to boot ;)

Since my previous page was a big whinge about not getting that perfect photo for my Christmas card, I decided to make a matching page with all the other photos that are not good enough but oh so cute :)

White background on both pages totally inspired by Dúnia, her style is so awesome, have a look at her 2009 Calendar:

simply amazing isn't it? you can leave her some love here.

ok, looks like I am having a hard time parting with my computer :) but I have to get back to packing... see you on “the other side” Have a great weekend everyone!

Where is home?

2008-12-10T14:36:00.006+11:00

If you read this blog you might have noticed I am moving houses this week. I was a little sad to be leaving my current home. I really love how cosy it is, and how everything is set up, and all the memories I had here. This got me thinking, does it matter where I live? Where is home? I have moved so many times, I have moved countries and all this moving made “Home is where the heart is” one of my favourite quotes. So I thought it was about time I made an album about “where is home”, for me. Here is the finished album:

Most of my supplies are already packed so I worked just with what was on the top of my boxes. You might notice the lack of buttons which I tend to use on all my hybrid projects. My buttons were too hard to get to, but fortunately, my Love, Elsie stash was just at the top, and the chipboard in that collection is super cute. I was saving it for another album, but that’s ok, I like how this one turned out :)

Here is a little more detail:

home is not a place, it is the people you love ~ family

Home is where the heart can laugh ~ LIVE & LAUGH.

Home is where the heart's tears can dry at their own pace.

home is anywhere we are together.

Home is a feeling ~ love

One of my favourite bits of the album is the “love” word I created out of embellishments. I ran out of letters from my American Crafts Thickers and had to come up with a way of spelling LOVE. Funny how my favourite ideas are always born from limitations of what I have available to work with. The harder it is, the more creative I get. ;)

Another first for me, I very rarely use black and white photos, VERY rarely. I love to blow up my photos with lots of colors, I love how colorful the world is and I am always tempted to leave a photo in color no matter how gorgeous it looks black and white. But this is an unusual project because it has photos of different times of the year, different colors, different lighting situations. So the only way to coordinate them all is to have them black and white. I actually quite like it, and now I am tempted of doing more albums like this, with collections of photos instead of photos of a single event.

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Update: Right now I am getting ready for the Christmas picnic at Matty's school. I have to go to a party or event every day for the next 7 days. Chirtsmas Party at work tomorrow, another Christmas Party on Friday, birthdays Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue and Wed, including Matty's birthday on Monday and my birthday on Wednesday. FUN! but crazy :)

I stopped by the new place today to have a look before the settlement on Friday. Looks like we are going to get the keys at the end of the day instead of early in the morning. This changes my day a little bit, as I had planed to start taking my boxes over before the removalist gets here Saturday morning....

oh, we have organized to have wireless internet while our internet is down the next few weeks, so I WILL have access to the net, just not as reliable.

I better get going :)

House Album Giveaway

2008-12-10T07:25:00.000+11:00

It is the time of year for gift giving. Check out the 12 days of Christmas Forum at DST, specially this post here, where I am giving away a Kaisercraft House Album and Template to match:

Playing with paper - Set 4

2008-12-08T14:00:00.004+11:00

A friend "reminded" me I haven't created any new page templates for the shop in a while. Well, I am too busy creating free ones :) So here is my latest set of templates, for those who would like to support me (for you, Lu).

Something curious about these pages, they "pair" with the pages I created for Pencil Lines. I like matching pages; they are not double pages, they just "go" together. I think it looks great in my albums :) So, every time I have a single page, I create a matching one. Here are the two pages of the template set above matched with my Pencil Lines pages:

(click on images for credits)

I like them matching like that, can't wait to start putting my 2008 album together and see these on print :)

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I am moving this weekend, can I freak out now?

Pencil Lines Sketch 114

2008-12-07T10:29:00.002+11:00

Sketch 114 is up, and here is this week's free template based on the sketch by Sandie Vincent:

(click on image for link)

Reminder: if you do use the template above, don't forget to post a link to your page at the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

Here is my page:

Credits: Life in Color kit, Bits of color papers by Julia Makotisnky. Free Spirit Alpha by CD Mukosky. Hollow Alphabet by Heidi Larsen.

All from Little Dreamer Designs. Font is SS whimsy.

Hope you like the free template, have a great week!

energy

2008-12-03T00:27:00.005+11:00

My page for the last One Little Word was picked their favorite. I always mention how much I love the inspiration there right? I need something to help me focus, blogs like OLW and Pencil Lines are perfect for this. This page was easy to put together, it was a "feeling" more than anything. I have to say it is one of my favorite pages of Lucas, it is SO him :)

UPDATE: got finger pointed with this page too :) right here.

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I am feeling a little overwhelmed right now... just thinking of all that is happening on the next two weeks, and more things keep coming up. Today I found out about two more parties..... one the day before we move and one on the day we move.. I mean, they are important, but when one can count 12 "events" in the 3 weeks before Christmas, something has got to give, right?

house - quick update

2008-12-02T00:35:00.000+11:00

My house has SOLD! that is all :D

Pencil Lines Sketch 113

2008-12-01T15:01:00.003+11:00

Sketch 113 is up, and here is this week's free template based on the sketch by Ingvild Bolme:

(click on image for link)

Reminder: if you do use the template above, don't forget to post a link to your page at the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

Here is my page:

Credits: Thankful kit by Michelle Coleman. Cupcake font by Lisa Sisneros

Hope you like the free template, have a great week!

*** Happy birthday to my hubby Alex***

6 Homemade Calendar Ideas + freebie

2008-11-28T21:57:00.006+11:00

Hello friends, today I would like to share a couple of ideas I had when I was creating my calendar stamps: Hybrid Magic 12 and Digital Magic 02.

Everything I am going to show you can be made at home with a printer and A4 paper. It works great with whatever photographic paper you choose, matte or glossy, just a matter of preference.

IDEA 1

Created with my Hybrid Magic 12 - 8x8 Calendar. Even though most of my stamps are 8x8 inches anyway, this set has small numbers and extra space which is perfect for the creation of diaries or any projects were you would like to make notes on special dates through the year; not only birthdays and anniversaries but also appointments and holidays.

IDEAS 2 & 3

Created with my Digital Magic 02 - Calendar Stamps 2009. Break an A4 page horizontally into 3 equal parts leaving a little white space on the bottom so you can fold the sheet into a triangle and attach at the bottom with double sided tape. This will create 3 panels per sheet, so you will need 4 A4 sheets (4 triangles) to make up a year. Then add either the week row calendar stamp or the full month calendar stamp and a couple of photos and you are done.

You can also break the A4 sheet vertically for a slimmer calendar. A step by step will be available on the Hybrid special edition of the DST newsletter (as well as a freebie to help you out). The DST Newsletter will be released on their website in December :)

IDEAS 4 & 5

Also created with the Digital Magic 02 - Calendar Stamps 2009. Break an A4 sheet in two, add two week stamps to it and maybe the year, a photo or other design element. Cut the sheet in half, to have one week per page. You will need to print 26 A4 sheets to make up a year.

You can also break up the sheet horizontally (or don't break it up at all) and place 8 weeks in the A4 sheet. With 8 weeks per sheet you will only need 6 sheets (and a half) to complete the year. You can cut up the 8 pages individually or leave them in groups of two or four.

I recommend you create a cardboard stand just like the one I did for my Mini Calendar (steps 3 and 4).

I am the first to admit this would be a time consuming project, so much so I know I won't be able to play with it and I didn't have time to make a template with this idea. But the week stamps are already made for you, so, if you have the time, I know this would be super useful and a rocking gift to a loved one :)

IDEA 6

For those that are running out of time and want to keep it simple, just follow the same process in ideas 2/3 but swap the white space for more monthly stamps. Here it is:

Another option is swapping the year spot for another photo, not fold it and stick it in the fridge for display :)

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FREEBIE

Since it is black Friday and there are sales everywhere (and I had no idea LOL) here is a FREE template to make it easy peasy (please note calendar stamps are NOT included):

(click on the image for link)

I hope you enjoy playing with calendars, I know I could include at least 10 more calendar ideas in here, but time is short and I have to move on to other things :) The sky is the limit here, so go have fun creating!

[digital papers in previews by Michelle Coleman]

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T09:11:00.002+11:00

We don't celebrate it in Brazil or Australia, but I bet it must be a wonderful time of the year for those who do celebrate. You don't need to celebrate thanksgiving to share the spirit of that holiday. I know I am thankful for a lot in my life and I can see how fortunate we are. What are you thankful for?

OneDollar Wednesday at Little Dreamer Designs

2008-11-26T09:24:00.001+11:00

I have my calendar stamps for just a dollar today only. Later I am going to show you some pretty cool projects you can make using those stamps, so don't miss out!

If you subscribe to the DSB Newsletter, you have probably already received my calendar template freebie and these stamps go beautifully with that template.

I also have a template freebie coming up on the DST Newsletter, it will be a special hybrid edition and once again, these stamps are perfect for that project :) Either way, if you miss out this bargain they will still be there :)

CD Calendar 2009

2008-11-25T23:54:00.000+11:00

My CD calendars are finally finished. I had to be striped from my physical scrapbooking supplies to get back into it :)

Best thing about using only designs by Michelle Coleman is that she is happy to let me offer the quickpages in the LDD store :) So, if you are running out of time to play with the template set, now you can just get the Quickpages:

All the work done for you, just pick a page and add your photos and calendar stamp

(and calendar stamps are included).

Can't wait to see mine in print :)

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My current house has had 5 inspections so far and today we got our first offer :D woohooo. The agent is negotiating for us. I am so looking forward to being done. Yeah, the house looks great, but I am tired of keeping it pristine, I want to leave our tooth brush on the sink :)

Lot's of planning going on for the week after the move. It is Mateus' 5th birthday and my 30th. I think we will have a lot of get togethers, none at my new place since I will probably only have boxes around. So, all I know is that it will be BUSY! Which is ok considering I will be celebrating, tidying up the new place and have no internet. I am certainly going to have withdrawals :) but it will be good!

xoxo

Pencil Lines Sketch 112

2008-11-23T23:39:00.001+11:00

Sketch 112 is up, and here is this week's free template based on the sketch by me :)

(click on image for link)

Reminder: if you do use the template above, don't forget to post a link to your page at the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

This week's sketch I based on an older design that I really love. It was one of the first pages I created in digital scrapbooking:

Credits: Traci Reed's Urban Vintage kit, In my Studio:Unbound kit and glitter overlay.

But since it was an old page, I decided to create a new never before seen page for the Pencil Lines blog, here it is:

Credits: Songbird Avenue Frosty Kisses kit - collaboration with the Little Dreamer Designers.

ah, I love digi scrapping :)

Hope you like the free template, have a great week!

sweet smiles [again]

2008-11-21T00:50:00.004+11:00

I know you must be tired of this page, but I really do like it. You might remember I even shared a free template for it. I love it so much that when I decided to create a hybrid page from a digital page for the Digi to Hybrid challenge at the Little Dreamer Designs blog, I picked this page again :) Here is the result:

(sorry about the BAD photo)

Yep, I love this page :)

Lucas is 2 years old

2008-11-19T21:48:00.003+11:00

Does anyone know how to teach kids to SLOW DOWN and be kids for a little longer? They grow so fast!!! I am telling it fells like yesterday I was pregnant playing Warcraft and wondering if Lucas was ever going to come :)

It was a super fast natural birth and we were back home that same day, 19/11/06. Then and there I should have realised things would move faster with this little munchkin. He does everything a little earlier than Mateus did. I guess he has his older brother to learn from.

We had a busy day today. I left for work he was still sleeping. But I left work earlier than usual to celebrate his birthday with his friends at childcare and Mateus also joined in (he goes to the same place Mon-Wed). Here are some photos:

He loved it. I think he got it was HIS day, his moment. He was very excited and loved the cake.

We went back home and got ready for another party with just a couple of closer friends. The party finished 9PM, wow, everyone crashed shortly after (except this crazy lady that insisted she needed a birthday post for this little one).

I’ll come back some other time with a page with the other party's photos. Now, I should really get some sleep, another big day at work and I don’t get to leave early again :)

xoxo

House is on the market :)

2008-11-19T01:09:00.000+11:00

Yep, see the listing right here. I hope to sell it quickly so we can afford the new house :) Also, we signed contracts on the new house, we are really moving on the 12th of December. Wish me luck!

Pencil Lines Sketch 111

2008-11-17T09:09:00.001+11:00

Sketch 111 is up, and here is this week's free template based on the sketch by Sarah Jane Dowsett aka Scrapfairy:

(click on image for download link)

Reminder: if you do use the template above, don't forget to post a link to your page at the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

Here is the page I created inspired by this week's sketch:

Have a great week!

Listen

2008-11-14T18:29:00.001+11:00

for the One Little Word blog :)

adorable photo of Mateus :) and true advice I want to give him and I hope he LISTENS!

and just because, here are some close ups:

Supplies:
Fancy Pants About a Boy papers, ribbon and die cuts.
Fancy Pants Transparent Letters.
Fancy Pants rough and tough buttons.
Making Memories tiny alpha.

Till later and happy scrapping :)

Countdown to a new home

2008-11-14T17:35:00.001+11:00

If it all goes to plan (finances, etc) I will be moving houses on the 12 of December. Then we will have no internet on the new place for another couple of weeks (seriously, I am going to die).

Yesterday we inspected the new house to make sure everything works, and we are still in love with it - I can't wait to move to show you all some photos. We are upgrading from 3 bedrooms to 4 bedrooms. Since I only have two kids, can you guess what the fourth bedroom is for???? YAY My very own scrap space :) I haven’t decided where all the furniture will go yet, but it looks like it will be a great fit for our little family.

I am actually already starting to pack because we have people going through my house which is on sale. So, all my “real” scrapping supplies are packed and I won't be able to do much hybrid/ paper scrapping until the new year. I was working hard to finish all paper and hybrid projects I needed done for my November/December deadlines. Now I am going to have to suffer through not being able to share then for a while :)

In the meantime, I can tell you there will be lots of freebies to come. I have a couple coming up on the bumper edition of DAM which will be released December 5. If you speak Portuguese, sign up for DSB Newsletter, also, look forward to special hybrid edition of the DST Newsletter.

I will continue to have access to the internet until I move, and will have some time for digital scrapping, which, in a way, is a good thing. I need to catch up with my digital albums.

Today I took the day off work and have been cleaning like crazy to make sure my current house looks its best. We have a photographer coming to take photos of the house so we can use it on the sale ads. I am hoping to sell it as quickly as possible so we don't end up with two mortgages for too long. It will hopefully on the market next weekend. I will give you links to the property and show you photos as soon as I have them, you know, just in case you want to buy a house in Australia LOL

Sorry for the long post with no photos. I will compensate with a LO share in a minute. Hope you have a great weekend! I am off to get some well deserved rest and a snack :)

xoxo

Skull Album Sneak Peek

2008-11-12T20:20:00.004+11:00

I want to shaaaaaaaaaaaaaare, cause I am so very happy with how it turned out, but I can't really, you will have to get the newest edition of the Digital Artist Magazine to be able to see it and read the tutorial.

The magazine is absolutely amazing as usual!!! Over 200 pages of pure digital and hybrid goodness and I don't think it is only Halloween oriented. I don't celebrate Halloween and I love the new issue.

Ok, maybe just a sneak peek just to prove it is not only Halloween on this edition:

If I were to celebrate Halloween, this album would be perfect for the photos, wouldn't it? :) Created with the Kaisercraft Skull Album and designs by Lori (Punked kit).

I also created a template set for it (off course) and it is 20% OFF until the end of our Fall sale at Little Dreamer Designs:

Tell me one thing though, I know I am his mom, but my boy will be the hotest bloke in town hey? He is such a heart breaker and he loooooves to pose for the photos :) Needless to say he loved this album :)

be back soon!

Pencil Lines Sketch 110

2008-11-10T00:06:00.002+11:00

Sketch 110 is up, and here is this week's free template based on the sketch by Cecile:

(click on image for download link)

I confess I am really happy with this page. First time I used Glimmer Mist, I could have used more but I was scared because the paper was warping so much. I always wanted to play with this Making Memories' set of flowers I had; and also, the super sized fabric brads from K&Company are soooooo cute :) Here are some close ups:

Supplies:
American Crafts Vinyl Thickers. Fancy Pants Chipboard, Making
Memories Papers, Flowers and ribbon. SEI Brads. KandCompany Fabric brads.
Glimmer Mist.
Font is 2Peas Goofball.

Hope you have a great week!

Organize yourself + Commercial use

2008-11-09T20:00:00.001+11:00

My last two calendar products:

This set includes 12 unique calendar templates in psd format, as well as frames, block mask and grid to help you create a funky 2009 Diary. (alternative labels in Portuguese also included)

Perfect personalized gift for this Christmas and also a great way to create a diary with birthdays and photos to make it easier for you to organize your life.

This set includes digital calendar stamps in 3 styles:
12 one line 12 inch full month calendar stamps.
14 square 8 inch full month calendar stamps.
52 one line 8 inch week by week calendar stamps.

Everything you ever needed to create projects to help you keep things under control in 2009, from weekly diaries to "to do" lists.

These stamps will also look beautiful to mark the dates in your scrapbook pages.

*********************************************

Commercial Use

I have great news for the designer that doesn't want to slave in front of the screen to create calendars and diaries. After a number of requests, all my calendar products and most of my albums are now available for commercial use. That means you can just grab my templates and calendars and add your beautiful papers and elements to create beautiful (and useful) products for your clients in record time :)

All you have to do is select the designer option in the product page before adding it to your cart.

I hope I will actually help some designers by making this option available :)

Check back a little later for this week's free Pencil Lines template.

CD Calendar Templates

2008-11-07T00:20:00.001+11:00

Continuing my week about calendars (which will certainly have to go over the weekend now LOL)

I have been working on my 2009 CD calendars to give away to my mom and mother in law this Christmas. My CD Calendars are longer than usual as to completely cover the CD case, but they purposely don't fit inside a closed case. I have to admit I am loving how it is turning out :) Here is what I have so far:

and I love this one:

(click on images for full credits)

Here is the template set I have created:

See you soon :)

Mini Calendar 2009

2008-11-06T22:36:00.004+11:00

Hi everyone,

It was going to be my week of calendars.... but Lucas is sick (has a viral rash) and time just dissapears when you are home with a sick child. I don't want to think about the pile of work waiting for me :)

But back to the fun stuff. Here is my Mini Calendar 2009 showcased on the awesome September issue of the Digital Artist Magazine:

Step by Step

Step 1. Create your calendar pages digitally.

Step 2. Print and cut your pages.

Step 3. Recycle a cardboard box (I have used a diaper box). Peel of any packaging or covering sheet to show a little of the corrugated board underneath (optional).

Step 4. Fold the piece of cardboard into a triangle and secure with double sided tape.

Step 5. Punch holes through the top. You can do them all at once if you have a crop-a-dile, or if one is not available, mark the hole placement and do one hole at the time.

Step 6. Embellish your pages (optional, but oh so fun!)

all done :)

A couple of remarks:
•When creating your digital pages, don't forget to include plain paper or "paint" under your text to improve readability, especially when using patterned paper.
•I have printed this project on double sided matte paper so there is print on both sides of the calendar page.
•I do not recommend the addition of ribbons to the rings of this project because it would make it too hard to flip the pages every month.
•The biggest advantage of doing this digitally is that you can create a couple of different albums to give to family and friends without having to do each design from scratch.

Supplies
Digital
Hybrid Scrapbooking Magic no.10 - Mini calendar by Michelle Filo
2009 playful calendar stamps by Michelle Filo (exclusive to Digital Artist Magazine)
Chasing Rainbows kit by Michelle Coleman
Fonts are Augie and Peach Fuzz.

Physical:
Double sided matte paper by Epson.
Chipboard alpha by American Crafts.
Flower, pearl and rhinestones by Kaisercraft.
Buttons and frost ribbon by Doodlebugs Designs.
Green ribbon by Love, Elsie.

Here is the template set I created for this:

and if you are running out of time, Michelle Coleman has allowed me to use her designs to create quickpages (a real life saver):

Happy *hybrid* scrapping :)

Pencil Lines Sketch 109

2008-11-03T13:01:00.001+11:00

Sketch 109 is up, and here is this week's free template:

(click on image for download link)

and then, when I was creating the template for this week's sketch I decided to do another page:

I used my friend's Paola Péia kit Please X-mas don't be late. Super adorable! Thanks so much Péia :)

Happy National Digital Scrapbooking Day

2008-11-01T14:57:00.001+11:00

They say it is "National" Digital Scrapbooking Day, but really, everyone celebrates, right? I say any reason to party is a good reason :)

I have teamed up with a couple of the Dream Girls at Little Dreamer Designs to create some gorgeous quickpages that we are giving away on the LDD blog.

Talking about Dream Girls, would you like to be one? I am telling you it is the BEST team I have ever participated in. Super laid back environment and fun challenges to choose and AMAZING products to play with. Have a look at this post on the LDD blog for more info.

Welcome to November! The year is just flying by, and this month I have lots to share, it will be another fun month. Check back tomorrow for the weekly Pencil Lines sketch and watch the blog this week for a Calendar bonanza (just in time for Christmas Gifts).

Happy Scrapping! Talk soon :)

Winners winners winners

2008-10-30T15:48:00.001+11:00

Hi, sorry I am a couple of hours late with this, but last night I literally passed out at 8PM. Totally unusual for me, but I was just really tired. So, that ate away at my scrapping time and “everything else” time.

I am so happy with the response to the Kaisercraft giveaway post, really surprised by everyone’s choices, I am totally going to work on the albums mentioned, thank you!!! The Skull Album is ready and at the store (more about that tomorrow) and the Fancy Flower Album is going into the store this weekend. And next I will be working on the House album :)

After so many replies I felt really bad to give just one album away. So, I am going to change the giveaway slightly. I randomly picked two winners and they will get their pick of favourite albums instead of the castle albums.

And the winners are (drum roll)

Chirstina (haloe)
I am assuming it is Christina, not Chirstina hehehe
She will get a Wings Album and a 10 dollar coupon to my store.

and

Jessica (justJess)
She will get a Train Album and a 10 dollar coupon to my store.

Can you please e-mail me at michelle(at)familiafilo(dot)com with your shipping info?

I REALLY wish I could afford the postage to send everyone an album, but the postage is a killer from here in Australia. Thanks so much for the kind words and comments; it keeps me willing to share my stuff around :)

I am thinking about organizing myself to sell these albums on my blog and help out people that have no access to them whatsoever. It will probably work out more expensive than buying from Cherry On Top, but I am not sure if everyone can buy from them. Thoughts on this are appreciated :)

health update

2008-10-30T14:46:00.001+11:00

My CAT Scan was super quick, but I have no idea what the results mean. The doctor told me not to come back unless I feel pain again AFTER I finish the antibiotics, my third course of antibiotics... I am almost hoping my headache comes back just so I can go see a specialist and sort this out.

I have sinusitis every year, before and after winter, something to do with the change of weather. It knocks me for at least two weeks each time. I would love to not have to worry about it. They gave me some nasal sprays that might help. I remember a doctor in Brazil once told me 10 years ago that if I used the nasal sprays every day for the rest of my life I would be fine. Since I moved to Australia I kinda forgot about it, so I guess in the end, it is all my fault LOL

Anyway, thanks so much for your messages and thoughts. I am feeling MUCH better, just hoping my stomach survives the medication :)

Talk soon!
xoxo

Pencil Lines Sketch 108

2008-10-27T23:12:00.005+11:00

Sketch 108 is up, and here is this week's free template:

(click on image for download link)

and another one inspired by the DigiDare this week (note I said "inspired by", not "for" the digi dare because I went completely off the dare flair):

I love to create matching pages, I know it will look better on my 2008 Album :)

***********

On other news, I have had a headache on and off for weeks, and I am getting tired of just ignoring it. It is sinusitis, but I am on my third course of antibiotics and still it hasn't cleared up. So tomorrow I am going to do a CAT scan to check if everything is all right, wish me luck!

Retiring products - Fancy Pants

2008-10-26T22:27:00.003+11:00

Fancy Pants is retiring two paper lines, Crush and Holly Jolly. I LOVE love love love these lines. So if you like them, don't forget to pick them up before they become a rarity :)

Here are some of my pages with Holly Jolly:

This last one was used on the advertising for the sale :) hehehe so proud!
and I also have another page, that one will apear on the December issue of Scrapbooking Memories, which I think is the next one (Vol.10, No.09)

and here are my pages with Crush, the first paper pages I have done after my two year break, felt great :)

the last one is a mini book I already showed here on this post.

Have a great weekend! Don't forget to enter the draw in the previous post and to come back tomorrow for another free template for Pencil Lines.

xoxo

Kaisercraft Album Giveaway

2008-10-23T11:38:00.012+11:00

How's everyone? First, let me give my American friends some GREAT news. I hear Kaisercraft will be available at Cherryontop.com. Now everyone can get their hands on those beautiful Off the Page albums by Kaisercraft.

If you still can't get it the albums, there is another way :) All you have to do for me is have a look at the Kaisercraft website (feel free to look in all categories) and post back here which album is your favorite. That simple.

I will randomly pick a winner by the end of the month. The winner will receive one of these two Kaisercraft albums:

Castle Album

or

Fairy Castle Album

AND a 10 dollar coupon to my store at Little Dreamer Designs where they will be able to get the templates for these albums :)

Come on, it is a nice giveaway isn't it? Now tell me your favorite Off the Page Album :)

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Fairy Castle Album

2008-10-22T23:54:00.008+11:00

I have titled this project "Magic Kingdom", it is all about Lucas and his time in our home (and how it can be a magic kingdom). I have been doing too many projects with Mateus so I thought I should make an effort to include Lucas LOL. Mateus did love it too, but complained that there were no photos of him in the album... oops. It is easy to get this little one jealous :) Anyway, here is my Fairy Castle Album:

Finally found the time to finish this off last week. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do with this album, but once I decided, it was quick. I really like the colours and you can see in this project how much I loooove buttons :) You can click on the images to go to flickr for credits, and there are more close ups posted there.

As usual, the template is available at Little Dreamer Designs.: Hybrid Scrapbooking Magic No 09.

I am very proud of this template, I faded each photo mask by hand so it has a nice vintage/ blended look to the background, just like the old story books used to have, love it!

I also have a giveaway I am posting soon. Check back later :)

Pencil Lines Sketch 107 is out

2008-10-20T13:25:00.000+11:00

Check out the amazing inspiration on the Pencil Lines blog. Here is the page I created with Fancy Pants goodies and inspired by the sketch by Anna.

and here is this weeks free template:

(click on image for download link)

Just a reminder, if you do use the template abouve don't forget to post a link to your page at the Pencil Lines blog for a chance to win great prizes from our sponsors :)

I have five half finished projects that are driving me crazy. Fingers crossed I will get them done this month, I don't think so... LOL

xoxo

Fairy Castle Sneak Peek

2008-10-19T21:43:00.003+11:00

coming soon ;)

Butterfly Album

2008-10-17T23:39:00.000+11:00

I have something to share that maybe most of you have seen :) It was on the August edition of the Digital Artist Magazine:

Isn't she a cutie? Gemma is my friend's daughter and has just turned one. I am so happy her mom allowed me to publish this :) I used my butterfly template for it. Here are the credits:

Digital
Hybrid Magic 06 template by Michelle Filo @ Little Dreamer Designs.
Hello Sugar Papers and Vintage Summer Papers by Michelle Coleman @ Little Dreamer Designs.
Font: Peach Fuzz

Physical
Butterfly album and pearls by Kaisercraft
Ribbons by Making Memories
Chipboard alphas by American Crafts
Assorted buttons and ribbons
Mod Podge
Kodak Premium Paper
Epson printer

Thanks for stopping by and having a look!

Have a great weekend :)

Want to win 10 dollars?

2008-10-15T23:07:00.003+11:00

Want to win 10 dollars to my shoppe? Well, all you have to do is use my stuff LOL. I noticed Nikki (also known as nikkiARNGwife in the galleries). Have been creating beautiful pieces of art with my templates and I decided to RAK her with 10 dollars worth of my goodies at the Little Dreamer Designs Store :) Have a look at her beautiful work:

These were created with my Playing with Paper - Set 01 and Set 02.

Thanks so much Nikki!

If you don't post at DigiShopTalk you can leave me a link on my blog or e-mail me at michelle (at) familiafilo (dot) com. Otherwise I always check DST for stuff with my name on it hehehe :D

off for tonight!
xoxo

quick reminder

2008-10-14T09:14:00.002+11:00

if you use the freebie template I have created for Pencil Lines by the end of the month, please don't forget to post back at the Pencil Lines site for a chance to awesome prizes :)

Pencil Lines + exclusive freebie

2008-10-13T11:10:00.002+11:00

Toot! Do you remember this post about how inspired I was by Pencil Lines and One Little Word? Well, it was really really true. I really love the pages I have created inspired by their sketches and prompts. So the good news arrived last week when I got an e-mail I was selected the winner of the July reader's gallery for this page:

Cool isn't it? By the way, I already received my RAK from Riff Raff Designs and I can’t wait to use it.

I was pretty impressed and over the moon with that when I get a second e-mail from the Pencil Lines team. This time with an invite, an invite to join their creative team... my jaw dropped. I mean, did I mention how much I am inspired by these ladies? Off course I said YES!

So, yesterday was my debut, and it was extra special. Not only it was my debut but Pencil Lines is celebrating 2 years of creative goodness. To top it off, they joined with my next favourite inspiration blog, One Little Word, to create the pages for Sketch 106. See the inspiration, read all about it, check out my intro: HERE.

Here is my page for sketch 106 and the word KEEP:

And to finish with a bang, what is my favourite kind of freebie? TEMPLATE! So whenever possible I will be creating templates for the sketches at Pencil Lines, Keep you eyes peeled for free templates almost every week. I don't want to hear any more excuses from you digi girls lurking out there :) Come play along!

Here is the FREE exclusive template based on Anna's sketch:

(Click on the image for download link)

Have a GREAT week!!! Mine is a promising one :)

Scrapbooking Memories Toot

2008-10-11T22:36:00.001+11:00

Way back in February, before I ever thought about designing or that I would ever be with the Little Dreamer Designs amazing team, I got an e-mail from Scrapbooking Memories inviting me to design their free paper and alpha for the month of September. It was quite a shock. I have being published in the magazine a couple of times but never thought myself capable of designing anything (still don't, LOL); so I went hard at work to design something suitable. My first attempt was a disgrace, my second attempt was too simple and subtle, and they wanted something really flowery and colorful. So my third attempt was ok, but they asked me twice to include more flowers... well, I kinda like it except that many flowers are not my cup of coffee, but I was ever so proud to finally see it in print (the colors are a bit weird in the photo).

If you have access to the Magazine, it was Vol.10 No.06.

I have another super toot I am dieing to share, but only tomorrow :)

Back to school challenge

2008-10-10T01:23:00.002+11:00

Thanks for the comments on my previous post. I do keep my family first, and I guess that is why the scrapping time is limited. I guess the main reason I posted about this again is that now that I HAVE found a balance between family time and my own time (scrapping) I am so tired with work that it is interfering with everything. But I have a feeling things at work will slow down a bit and I might get my energy back :)

*****
Just a reminder before I go.... 7 days until the end of the Back to School Challenge at The Little Dreamer Designs Blog. I am drawing a winner on the 17. Play along for a chance to win a gift card to the shoppe :)
Here is what I created:

xoxo

busy working mom

2008-10-07T23:07:00.002+11:00

Work has been unbelievable. It is go go go all the time. No time to check my forums, no time to visit galleries, sometimes no time for lunch... I am taking care of 59 publications. I have to "be there" from start to finish and sort out any problems, especially the ones that surprise us in the finish line. Since the reorganization here at work the new motto is "no surprises", but it has been hard to avoid them. It seens we always find something wrong on the last minute and then it is crazy to try and fix it before the advertised release date. The world is not going to end if people find out late how many bottles of wine were sold in a determined state.... but it sure feels like the world is going to end if we get it wrong. We are serious about statistics. Then again, the world might end if we get the consumer price index wrong and send our economy broke because of wrong decisions made based on the numbers we provide. If you got curious about where I work, check out our website here: http://www.abs.gov.au/

Why do I do it? Well, I didn't say I am not happy, I am just busy! I actually love when there is a meltdown and I can "save the day", love it! Friends, recognition and praise, I think that is why I work!

I am talking about work, 1. just so you know my life is not only kids and scrapbooking LOL, and 2. because I am trying to justify why I have dropped off the face of the Earth in the forums and galleries.

After I get home from work? First, take care of the kids. Pick them up from care, feed them, entertain them until daddy gets home, give them a bath (with hubby's help thank God) and get them to bed. Second, we have to get the house sorted, cleaning up dishes and the mess I usually make cooking dinner (that is why I love take away, less mess to clean up) Sometimes I have to do the laundry, but I like to leave those kind of chores to weekends. Third, hubby and me time, lets not give you too much info on this, LOL, but it has been quiet, usually means sitting together in front of the TV. Sometimes the kids still haven't settled, so it is more work to get them to sleep.

Lastly, scrapbooking, when hubby goes to sleep and I should go to bed get some sleep, I go play with scrapbooking instead. I try to fit it in whenever I can, the hard part is that I try to dedicate weekends to family time, so you can see there is not much scrapbooking time on my schedule...

So, tell me, WHEN do YOU scrapbook? I might get some ideas :)

Templates round up

2008-10-06T22:42:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone

I am always blown away by the creativity of the scrappers out there and I wanted to show everyone what was created with my templates. But it has become too much and too time consuming so unfortunately this will be the last of the free templates round ups. Now I have to start chasing the ones people bought at the shoppe :)

So, check out the amazing talent:

Hope you are having a great week :)

Come get you calendar stamps

2008-10-03T22:20:00.004+10:00

Happy October (already? seriously????) I have finished my FREE 2009 calendar stamps. I have an English Version and a Portuguese version for my dear brazilian friends :)

Click here for portuguese and here for english version. I hope you like their worn/distressed look for you calendars :)

You can use them on your scrapbook pages, or on your calendars. I can humbly say I have some cool calendar ideas in the shoppe, like this mini one and this desktop one. I am also working on a CD calendar and a couple of other things I hope to release this month, just in time for everyone to start working on their christmas presents :)

Just a reminder, there are also FREE 2008 stamps in english and portuguese, which you can use with my freebie desktop template or on your scrapbook pages.

Have a great weekend!

8 years together

2008-09-30T23:53:00.001+10:00

On Monday we celebrated our wedding anniversary, 8 years. It has just flown by. We keep having ups and downs, but I don’t think he realises how much happier I am since he entered my life. He truly is the knight in shining armour, even with flaws and imperfections, that only makes him human, and makes me love him even more. Because he needs me, as much as I need him :)

We went out to a fancy restaurant which turned out not so fancy. It was the first time we went out at night without the kids here in Australia. The kids stayed happily with grandma (my mother in law who is here visiting for four weeks). We talked a lot, but then, the kids never really kept us from talking, we always talk a lot LOL. It was a good experience and I wish we could do it more often, but the grandmas don’t come visit often enough ;)

Anyway, I’ll share a little something I created to celebrate my eternal valentine:

Credits:
Everything by Fancy Pants:
In Love (#758), Whimsical (#763), Devoted (#760), and First Date(#762) papers.
Crush Titles and Tags (#757) diecuts.
Book it (#923) and Mix-n-Match(#922) Biggest Board Chipboard.
Write Now (#744) Rub-ons.

Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget to check out the freebies on the previous posts :)

Digital Magic + freebie

2008-09-28T02:32:00.004+10:00

When I got my spot as a designer at the Little Dreamer Designs, the main focus was hybrid scrapbooking. It worked like this: I do the trial and error; you skip the errors and uncertainty and go straight to the goody finished project, ok? :) I like creating things that are not available out there. I don’t feel like a "designer", I can’t design beautiful paper and elements (not for lack of trying), but I can still help people create their scrapbooks, even if it is just by sharing my experience.

Having said that, I am a digital scrapper too, so you might have noticed I started to put some page templates on the store for simple digital pages, I am calling the series "Playing with Paper". Because I am a digital scrapper, I spend a lot of time around the computer, so I had the idea of starting to share stuff a digital scrapper would like to have in her computer. I am going to call this series "Digital Magic" (I like saying we can work "magic" LOL).

The first set in this new series are 12 Desktop Wallpapers Templates, one for each month of 2009.

Here are two samples I created, my husband has been asking for these for over a year:

As you can see, you can mix and match and use the templates as you wish :) So you can understand what I am talking about, I decided to share another freebie. Here is a template for the remaining months of the year:

DOWNLOAD FREEBIE HERE.

I created this desktop wallpaper with the template:

And for hubby's computer I created this one:

I hope you like it and, if you use the template, let me see what you create :)

Lastly, let me know what you would like to see in this product series. Next in line are blog header templates!

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ETA. Léa, the CALENDAR FREEBIES are coming :)

and the DAM winner is...

2008-09-26T23:35:00.003+10:00

(drum roll)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

"Kevin and Amy"

Congratulations!!! Please send me an e-mail: michelle (at) familiafilo (dot) com for your copy of the September Issue of the Digital Artist Magazine :)

Thanks everyone for the very sweet comments!

Have a great weekend!

Digital Artist Magazine Special Issue

2008-09-24T00:34:00.002+10:00

The birthday edition of the Digital Artist Magazine is finally out. Let me tell you, I know I am biased because I just joined as a contributor, but it truly is AMAZING!!! The magazine has a new look and it is jam packed with inspiration, tutorials, reviews and amazing freebies :)

Inside, I have a hybrid calendar tutorial, a digi to hybrid page, a digital page and a fun exclusive freebie calendar:

I am soooo excited to be there I am going to give away a copy of the magazine for a random commenter on this post.

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I forgot to mention on my last post I treated myself to a couple of things this weekend. I bought a sewing machine (yes, for scrapping, LOL) and a new printer. You might have noticed I do NEED a printer and the one I had was giving me a hard time. It was so bad I was starting to lose my mojo because I had to worry how to print everything. The problem was that it would have a blank "band" on my high quality prints. If I printed in draft it would be all right, but as soon as I selected high quality I would get my images with bits missing. Now, with the quality of paper I use, can you imagine how annoying and frustrating that was???

Anyway, I upgraded the software and did everything I could to fix it, to no avail. Nowadays, printers are so cheap it wasn’t even worth taking it anywhere to be fixed. So we just went out and bought a new one. It is not a specialty printer, it is a multfunction, I bought an Epson RX690, it has a nice scanner and 6 ink slots (which hopefully will help me save on ink). I just printed a project here and I love the quality. The other good thing about it is that it has a 200 years guarantee on the prints. So I am glad to know I will not be here when my projects start to fade :)

P.S. Notice I have no excuse for having bought a sewing machine LOL

I have lots more to share, but once again it is way too late and I should go to bed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a great week!

one photo stack FREEBIE - love

2008-09-22T00:28:00.002+10:00

I love the look of photos stacked or photos cut up in pieces. It is sooo much easier to do it digitally than when you are doing a paper layout. All you have to do is:
1. On a new document, create a rectangle shape
2. Import a photo and “clip” it to the rectangle (CTRL+ALT+G)
3. now, select both rectangle and photo and duplicate them a couple of times.
4. select all the photos and link them together
5. now you can move the rectangles around, resize them, add shadow, change blending modes, etc for different effects.

Now, this is MY way of doing things (and I have been told I do things in complicated ways). If this is a bit hard to grasp, maybe the template can help (or make it worse LOL).

There are a couple of important things about this template:

It is full of layers and might be really hard to get your head around it, so you need to be comfortable with layers in Photoshop to be able to use it.
I decided to include a sample photo (so you know where to place your photo) and I have kept all the layer styles. So it is a huge download (over 50mb)
I had to downsize the 12x12 page to 8X8 to keep the download under 100mb (yes, it was over 100mb at one point).
I have included brief instructions in the download.
I have only tested this template in Photoshop CS3.

Sounds nasty? Well, hey, I wanted to share, and I hope some people have fun using it :)

DOWLOAD HERE!

Playing with paper - set 3

2008-09-20T01:10:00.001+10:00

Here is the new set:

it is on sale until Sunday 21 Sep (with the rest of the store)

and here are the two pages I created with the templates:

(I loooove Autumn)

The plan was to design only stuff for the hybrid scrappers. I guess I changed my mind :) Because seeing an AMAZING page created with a template you made is just super rewarding! I mean, have a look at this page by Crissy:

Stunning isn't it? made my day!!!

I am trying to do another round up of my pages, but there are so many it is taking me a while to figure out how to post LOL I have seen some amazing stuff (and sorry for not leaving love yet, just lack of time really!) But I will get to it soon!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

After 5

2008-09-19T22:41:00.003+10:00

I am so happy for Jen, Catherine, Amanda and Camila :) They are some of my favorite people in the digiworld and I wish them all the best venturing into designing. Remember girls, keep it fun!

Honour at Scrapkut

2008-09-17T22:41:00.001+10:00

The girls of the Brazilian blog ScrapKut are doing a paper to digi challenge, and guess who is the inspiration???? Yeah, I was quite happy when Léa told me. They also asked for al little something for those who play, so I am giving away a 10 dollar coupon for the winner :) Here is the inspiration:

If you would like to play just post a link to the lift of the page above on their post here. You only have until Monday (22/09). Have a look at what the other girls on their team already did:

(clique on the images for credits)

Little Dreamer's Sale :)

2008-09-16T01:16:00.002+10:00

DSM toot - 10 months quickpage freebie

2008-09-14T23:47:00.003+10:00

My latest page published, the last before I got full on into hybrid and my digital mojo died LOL. It was on the T3 session of the August/September issue of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine. All about getting all your photos to go together even though they were taken at different times, with different settings.

The sweetest Lili allowed me to offer this page as a freebie. There are two versions, one plain, and one with the brownish tint. If you use the tint don’t forget to boost the contrast of your photos so they don't become dull :)

DOWNLOAD HERE.

Have a great week!

cards + new products

2008-09-11T22:59:00.003+10:00

I have been trying to create more cards... I have trouble creating cards :) Some of my best "scrapping" friends are card makers and I just love everything they do, but I feel I have trouble getting the mojo right for card making. It might have something to do with giving it away, I don’t know.

So I decided to push myself :) and I have a challenge to make hybrid cards going on at the Little Dreamer Designs blog right now. Hybrid sure is the best way for me to create cards, I find it much easier to plan :) Have a look at these:

I just cut up all the pieces of paper, added a fabric alpha + ribbons, and voila:

And since I am talking about cards, let me share a couple more I created:

(credits on flickr)

***************************

A little update on Lucas, remember I was going to cut his milk? Well, the doctor was right and it worked. He was filling full from all the milk and now that he is not getting the bottle he is eating much better. The difference is incredible, like day and night. Actually, now he usually finishes dinner, and starts tapping on the fridge so I open it for him and he gets more food, usually yogurt, which is awesome because I need to make sure he eats lots of yogurt and cheese so he can get the calcium he needs. He is doing great :)

And before I go, I just wanted to share two products I have on the store that I have not posted here:

(watch for this one on the September issue of the Digital Artist Magazine)

Thanks for stopping by :)

a break + I love your blog

2008-09-08T01:00:00.002+10:00

So, I took a break from scrapping. Yes, two weeks without touching anything, no new pages, no new albums, no challenges, and lots of missed deadlines for magazine submissions (the only thing that bothered me during the this break). You would have never noticed it because I have a lot of projects I have finished but that I could not show at the time I created them. The fact is, I have not touched scrapping since the Stamping'Up party (and I don’t even consider that scrapping).

I took the break because hubby was jealous of/ or annoyed by my scrapbooking (yes, I guess it happens to every scrapper), and that simple fact killed my mojo. But this weekend my mojo kinda came back. I had a deadline with DAM and my mother in law is arriving next weekend, so I felt I needed to push myself and get it done before she is here. It was great to get back into it. I wasn’t feeling myself anymore :)

**********************************
I have been tagged by two people with the “I love your blog” tag. I simply LOVE the work of them both. Brenda is an amazing paper scrapper and Kate really is the digi scrapping queen (as her blog address so eloquently points out). This has been extra special because when you look at the seven people these ladies picked, I just blushed to be considered amongst such talent. Made my day girls!!! Thank you so much!

Here are the rules:
1. If you’ve been tagged, you can put the logo on your blog.
2. Link the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you’ve nominated.

Now, nominating is always hard for me because I am late with everything and everyone seems to be already picked :) I really like all the blogs I visit and actually there is a whole bunch of blogs that I just didn’t get around to adding to my blog list but that I also love. But anyway, here they are:
Jess
Nancy
Gabi
Carina
Lili
Kellie
Danielle

and to finish the post, a little kiss:

hope the Australians had a great father's day (it was yesterday here) and have a great weekend everyone!!!

Castle Album

2008-09-06T01:43:00.003+10:00

So here is my castle album:

Credits:

Hybrid Scrapbooking Magic 08 by Michelle Filo.
Fairy Tales by Jackie Eckles and Sausan Designs.

Castle Album by Kaisercraft.
Ribbons by KandCompany and Making Memories.
Mixed buttons - unknown.
Mod Podge.

And especially for grandma, a video of Mateus getting the album for the first time:

Hope you have a great weekend :)

castle album in progress

2008-09-04T03:32:00.002+10:00

castle album in progress, originally uploaded by michellefilo on flickr.

just a sneak peek :)

feeling better + new templates

2008-09-02T02:34:00.002+10:00

I am feeling much better, and I could almost say no one is sick around here but hubby is complaining of a stuffed nose hehehe :) The weather has improved a little and spring is in sight, I am really looking forward to it. Mac continues to be a ray of sunshine and apart for a little mischief here and there, she has been adorable!

I have been in a serious scrapping funk this last week, feeling too tired to unglue myself from the couch and come “do my thing”. I have loads to catch up though, so there will be lots to blog about for the month even if I don’t create anything new LOL (but I will!!)

I have a couple of new templates on the store:

I am pretty proud of those, they are simple, perfect for hybrid, but still my style of trying to imitate real paper. I have used them to create this little keepsake for my friend:

Ok, super busy day at work tomorrow so I guess I have to go to bed ;) Hope you have a great week!

Newest addition to our family - Mac

2008-08-28T02:05:00.003+10:00

Mac, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

Meet little Mac, the newest addition to our little family.

She came to our house yesterday with 6 weeks and 2.5 kg ;)
She is a Spoodle and is very sweet, she has behaved very well so far, cried very little through the night.
Everyone here is a bit sick, so, she was a much needed ray of sunshine.
She is very loving and cuddly, we are in love!

ETA. Video of her first moments with us (poor thing got squished and didn't even mind)

A DAM announcement + more

2008-08-23T23:55:00.000+10:00

I have been missing out on lots of things but it sure isn’t because I am sitting on the couch watching TV (ok, maybe a little). I have created two projects for the upcoming September issue of the Digital Artist Magazine, it is going to be the BEST yet, I can almost guarantee from what I have seen so far! Shortly after I submitted the first project they have invited me to join the team as a contributor :) So, there you have it, I am behind the scenes now and LOVING it. Such an honour to be amongst such talented ladies. I could not believe most of my faaave digital scrappers were there :)

A little clue of things to come: September will be awesome!!!! So, watch this space!

This afternoon I went to a Stampin’Up party, my work friend Janet was the host and my dear friend Pam is my dealer... I mean, supplier :) It was the first time I created a fully hand made card, no computer and printed bits to help me out. Needless to say, I felt a little unprepared and missed the undo button terribly, but I kinda like the result :) I owe you a photo because ...ahem.. I forgot it at the party LOL oh, and I also created my very first artist trading card (ATC). I see how these little things can get addictive. Shame I gave it away without taking a photo, but now at least I know it is not a seven headed beast.

On other news, I am praying winter finishes sooner rather than later! I have the whole family sick at the moment. I am the one that is feeling best, since I was sick last week and just getting off of it, but the boys are super sick. Mateus was diagnosed with the croupe and has to hang in there for a couple of days, especially with his asthma, we really have to watch it. It is starting to look like Lucas got it too, and Alex is certainly run down (well, after spending the afternoon with two sick kids, it is expected)

OK, off to have a look at the Stampin’Up catalogue and then bed. Something tells me tomorrow will be a long day.

DAM giveaway winners

2008-08-23T22:53:00.004+10:00

Winning posts are the following:

So, congratulations Dúnia, Kelleigh, Kate and Melinda. You have won the August edition of the Digital Artist Magazine.

Please send an e-mail to michelle at familiafilo dot com so I can get you a copy. Kate is contributor to the Digital Artist Magazine, so she already has it and that is why I decide to draw a fourth person :) Thanks to all that have left a comment, I am totally doing this again next month!!!

DAM Giveaway draw

2008-08-23T22:43:00.003+10:00

please pardon my accent and terrible english (and oh so rusky voice) and also, Mateus is super sick with the croupe, so he wasn't as cheery as usual (but still enjoyed it)

Reminder + latest pages

2008-08-20T22:48:00.002+10:00

Reminder: last day to leave a comment on the post below for a chance to win a copy of the August Issue of the Digital Artist Magazine.

Let me tell you, I offered the giveaway BEFORE I saw the issue and it is PACKED with awesome pages and great information. I am addicted to magazines and I buy a lot of hardcopy ones and I have to say this magazine is a bargain if you look at the content. The kit alone was worth the 6 bucks! Amazing!!!!! I am printing out the entries and announcing the lucky random winner on Saturday!

I have heaps of hybrid projects I would like to share, but can’t just yet, so, in the meantime two more paper layouts:

(you can click to go to flickr and see the credits)

Can you BELIEVE I missed the myscrapbookart.com’s birthday party??? The awesome free kit, all the challenges.... I also missed out on the third round of freebies at the Funky Playground...gosh... did I mention I have been slow? I am working on that! It WILL get better :)

Super slow + DAM Giveway

2008-08-11T01:34:00.003+10:00

I AM! I am super slow!!! Oh my, I can’t even say I am part of the digiscrapping community anymore!!! So much going on I didn’t even know about. I missed out on a couple of great sales and lots of fun challenges everywhere. I even miss out when people talk about me... like on this challenge at the DAM blog. They had a quiz and one of the questions was: 7. Which Brazilian designer knows how to work magic? And the answer is ME :) with a link to my hybrid magic templates... I mean, is there anything more flattering than that????? It really put a huuuge smile on my face. Thanks Nancy and everyone at DAM, they are just the sweetest people :)

So, to pay it forward I would like to show all of you how cool DAM is. Especially if you never bought it before, LEAVE ME A COMMENT ON THIS POST BEFORE THE 20th OF AUGUST for a chance to win the August edition of DAM.

Please keep an eye on here for the winner announcement around the 22nd because I will need the winner to e-mail me their details :) (it is a shame blogger doesn’t give me the commenter’s e-mail like typepad does... I am thinking about moving...)

Something else I noticed, the teacher’s pet at the Funky Playground Designs. I have a couple of friends participating and I think I recognised a couple more usernames... but as I mentioned, I didn’t even know about it until last week, and just today I noticed the second round freebies, I didn’t download many freebies on the first round for lack of time... what a shame! and I haven't scrapped with any freebies for months... I will try to pay more attention, but if you see something cool happening and you think I might like to know, please shoot a message to michelle at familiafilo dot com :)

Better go because I NEED to work hard this week to make up for last week!
Hope you have a great week!

template pages round up

2008-08-10T10:59:00.004+10:00

A couple more pages I found at DST created with my "My boy" template:

I loooove looking at these, such creativity!!!

Pages using my "sweet" template:

Some of these really blew me out of the water... WOW!!! I won't point out the ones that really impressed me because I don't want to play favorites, but as I said, I am LOVING this :)

I did the draft for this post last Thrusday, things just have been buuuusy! Even though I haven't worked this week at all. Lucas had conjuctvitis and I just stayed home with him. One would think I would get heaps of scrapping done but it was just the opposite. Lucas has a thing with the computer, looks like he haaaaates sharing me with the big black box... every time I come near the computer he comes and hugs me and plonks himself on my lap. He even turns myself towards his face if I keep looking at the screen. So this week I gave up trying to trick him and just chilled on the couch. It was good, but I had heaps to do and now I have to catch up.

Happy Father's Day for those in Brazil :) Hope everyone is having an awesome weekend!
xoxo

one little word + quickpages

2008-08-05T01:59:00.000+10:00

I always loved the whole concept of the one little word blog, but I was somewhat intimidated by the sheer talent of the paper scrappers and I didn’t want to play with a digital page, even though I know this is just me being silly, there are loads of people participating with digital pages... but anyway, now that I am paper scrapping again, I decided to give it a go:

I love the result! Seriously do! And I am also taking the opportunity to play with the Pencil Lines sketches, so it has been extra fun :)

It is all about quickpages right now, we have a challenge at the Little Dreamer Designs Blog encouraging you to use quickpages and making them yours. Or you can be lazy like me and just USE them :) I loooove quickpages. I adapted quickpages on my hybrid freestyle album, it saved me hours of design time :) and I also created a project for the Quickpage challenge, here it is:

Because I used quickpages, I finished this little 4X4 keepsake in less than 3 hours from start to finish... see why I love quickpages? :)

Still on the topic of quickpages, I am posting some pages in my digital galleries (good to be back), using the Hope for Ryleigh fundraising kit:

Well, the pages I am posting are soon to become a quickpage set on the LDD store :) it is my contribution to the cause, since I can’t really design hehe

Lastly, I just started saving up pages using my freebie templates for a for a round up here on the blog. There are way too many for me to put together right now, but I am sooooo happy to see the results out there!!!! Amazing stuff, you will see, next post :)

Oops, it's late! What is with me and starting things just after midnight??? LOL Good night! See you soon :)

Successful?

2008-08-01T14:43:00.003+10:00

The ever so lovely Jess from the Scrapbooking Ideas blog has invited me to answer a couple of questions on her blog. I love her blog, I am a major lurker there and so inspired by everything she does. It feels just like getting published in a magazine, so you might get my excitement!!! She showcased a couple of her favourite projects made by yours truly ;) and I must say they are some of my favourites too :) You can have a peek at the interview here: Scrapbooking Ideas: Michelle Filo (Mushy)!

The other thing tickling me pink is the fact that I am doing “all right” in paper scrapping and getting a lot of recognition :) I mentioned I have signed up for the Scrap in Style TV website and have been posting my paper LOs there. It is a woooonderful community and the site has some awesome features, like showing you your favourite sisters’ comments and layouts, that sure helps me a lot. Anyway, soon after my almost 30 album made it to the catwalk, my Monkey Boy page was selected LO of the day :) Here is the LO:

On Two Peas in a Bucket I have manage to get into the top 10 views/ votes a couple of times (as mentioned here). My latest LO to make into the top 10 was this one:

So, I guess I am very “successful” in the scrapbooking arena LOL :) but then I was looking for some photos to print for scrapbooking and I noticed how different I look from last year. 10 kilos heavier, it doesn’t really show in my face, but I can see it in my arms and legs... so, I guess I have failed keeping my weight down :(

Today is the first of August. I have decided to get back on track with my weight. No more second serves and everything else I do is super easy to follow. The rule is simple: add veggies +water and replace fat. All I have to do is make sure I include fruit and veggies on my diet every day. I sounds simple, but I don’t have fruit and veggies and I don’t drink water unless I “get into it”. It is hard when I am going to work and there is a lot of crap available to eat, but I have to find a way! Also, replacing full fat for diet products: no full fat cheese or milk, this is a small thing that makes a huge difference long term, and I guess that is were I am really failing. Wish me luck on following my simple rule!! Or else I will have to make another page to complement this one and document my failure... LOL

Have a great weekend!

Summer Memories 2008

2008-07-30T01:19:00.001+10:00

Oops, I forgot to post my Summer Memories book here :)

(click on images for full credits on flickr)

Quickpages available at Little Dreamer Designs (on sale right now):

Not a charity thing, but I should mention the proceeds go to our moving of servers at Little Dreamer Designs. If all goes well, we will have a public forum :) how exciting is this?

Ok, big day tomorow, talk soon :)

I inspire me

2008-07-29T01:24:00.000+10:00

I inspire me is an awesome new inspiration blog that I have just discovered. I loooooove the whole concept and the inspiration there is absolutely amazing! Well, guess who is their guest artist this week??? me me me.

Sorry I am late sharing this, I just noticed I am late with a lot of things :) LOL Here is my page for the Clothing Inspired Theme:

and the inspiration was this shirt:

Thanks so much Lana Rappette and the Inspire me Team for the honour and incredible inspiration :)

Fancy Pants Designs + big changes

2008-07-27T00:46:00.006+10:00

Well, most of you already know anyway, but I thought it would be proper to make an official announcement: I am one of the very luck ladies participating in the Fancy Pants Creative Team :) The official announcement is in their current newsletter (on the website homepage) and here is a link to my profile there. If you like paper scrapping at all and you never heard of Fancy Pants you don’t know what you are missing. If you are a digital girl, you would be very tempted to play with real paper when you see the designs from Michelle Coleman, Nancie Rowe Janitz and Jackie Eckles in print. Here are some of the papers I have (it doesn't include the latest release):

Because of real life commitments (meaning work) and consequent lack of scrapping time I have decided to step down from all my digital Creative Teams, except Little Dreamers Designs, where I am a hybrid girl and also a designer. It was a VERY hard decision, because I LOVE them so much, but I just didn’t have time to apply myself to CT work. I am very uncomfortable when I don’t participate, even when I am told I don’t have to, it is always in the back of my head. I also think it is bad example for other CT members and I feel bad about it. Anyway, I know I can’t have it all no matter how much I want, so something had to give and let me tell you, I do feel relieved :)

Well, it is not like I am going to stop digi scrapping, but, I sure have to organize myself better and will be doing a lot less digi than I used to. I mentioned before I used to make about 20 pages a month, that is just not feasible anymore, I don’t have mojo for that. Anyway, I guess I rambled enough for today LOL what about I show you some pages I did for Fancy Pants?

(you can click on the photos to go into flickr and see a larger version :)

I will continue to work on my hybrid templates and hopefully get some pages done for my 2008 albums, but expect to see much more paper scrapping here from now on, I hope this is good news :)

Have a great weekend and happy scrapping!!!

ETA. By the way, I forgot to mention Fancy Pants is having a CT call!!!

Butterfly Album Template

2008-07-24T00:13:00.000+10:00

Yay, I have been meaning to do this forever! Just lack of tme and letting other projects take over. These are photos of when I turned one, and even though they are not great, I just loooove how this turned out. The photos simply don't do it any justice (I might try photographying it again some time), but here you go:

and obviously I have created a template for it.

Can't have all this work and not share it, right? :)

Hope you like it :)

butterfly sneak peek

2008-07-23T02:05:00.001+10:00

butterfly sneak peek, originally uploaded by michellefilo.

no time to blog properly but... here is a sneak peek of my next album :)

thanks for the well wishes! I am feeling much better!

see you soon!

Back + snow photos

2008-07-21T01:30:00.003+10:00

Hullo :) here I am, sick again, bleh, but on the mend! I have scrapping news I wanted to share since last week, but they will have to wait another day or two, not in the right frame of mind to write about it right now :) So, I will just leave you with some photos of our quick getaway cut short a day, but still quite enjoyable (there are 60 photos on the flickr set that I managed to select from almost 300, the ones bellow are not exactly my favorite, but I kinda like all of them):

Mateus had the bestest time! He was really keen on the whole snow thing and wanted to have snowball fights and snow board.... gosh, too young for that :)

Lucas was alternating between enjoying the snow and being super cranky! He wanted his gloves off, so he took them off all the time only to be upset a minute later because his little fingers were cold (obviously, but he didn’t get that)

We managed to get a half nice family shot (at least there is one!!!)

We had a lot of fun with the toboggan we hired. I have to say it was the highlight :)

Mateus was very specific about the way we should build the snow man, he wanted grapes for his eyes and mouth and a carrot for his nose. That was our plan for Sunday, but since everyone got gastro overnight, we had to pack and go home instead.... oh well, maybe next year!

Before I go, thanks so much for the links for the pages using my templates, oh my I am LOVING it, some of them are just blowing me away. Stay tunned for a future post with all this goodness :)

Hope you have a great week!!! TTFN!

LDD's July hybrid challenge

2008-07-17T13:50:00.013+10:00

Before I go to the snow (woohoo) I thought I better share this challenge. I will be super busy when I come back I might forget to share hehehe :)

Adapted from the LDD blog:

My challenge this month at the Little Dreamer Designs blog is to create a freestyle album. Freestyle, as in album shape, means to mix different sizes and shapes in your album. For this challenge I have created a basic mini album designed from an A4 sheet, just to keep things simple, but feel free to add other shapes and sizes when creating your own project.

Here is how to do it:

Create an A4/Letter document and cut it up in 4 different sized parts (or use the challenge's freebie). Design your pages based on each part you have cut, in my case, I have just used Michelle's Tried and True Quick Pages - Serendipity and adapted the pages to the sizes I wanted, easy peasy:

Now to the fun part of putting together a freestyle album. I have had a lot of people approach me to complain they can’t get their favorite shaped chipboard album anywhere. Well, you don’t have to worry about that with a freestyle album, just use whatever you have available to create your own shapes. Heavy cardstock, photographic paper (of a heavier weigh) and cardboard are my favorite alternatives to chipboard bases.

So, get a box, any box! (I used a diaper box, because I have lot’s of those around LOL) and open it up:

Cut to the size/shape of your page and then tear the print from the box:

(I love the grunge look of tore corrugated cardboard)

Adhere your page to the cardboard.

I tore parts off some of my pages to let the corrugated cardboard show through.

Also, remember to do any stitching/ stapling/ punching BEFORE you adhere your pages to the cardboard.

Repeat the process for each page and then mark where you need to punch holes to tie all of them together. You can use metal rings or just ribbons. Then you are done.

Here is my finished project: you at 4

Hope you come to LDD and play along :)

All righty, see you next week!

New freebie template - sweet

2008-07-16T14:31:00.001+10:00

By request :) another template. This is very similar to my previous one, but I hope you like it. Download here.

Credits for the original page:

Lisa Whitney ~ Ultimate Stitches Vol2
Lisa Whitney ~ A Beautiful Mess background paper
Fee Jardine ~ Big adventure alpha
Michelle Coleman ~ Sweet June patterned papers
Font is 1942 report
(previously posted as my week 2 SUAS entry - use patterned paper challenge)

I have another one ready, but I need to write a tutorial on how to use it. I will do it once I come back from the snow :) I am going tomorrow with my dear friend Melissa and her boyfriend. I am so excited, it will be fun and I can’t wait to take some snow photos with my new camera :)

See you when I get back!!! Have a great weekend :)

Color my world book

2008-07-14T22:37:00.005+10:00

First of all, let me just thank all of you that have been coming here and reading my ramblings. Be it when I have a toot or when I am whining about something, everyone has been so supportive. THANK YOU! Even when you don’t leave a comment, I know the good vibes you send make a world of difference for me (especially to counter act the bad vibes I know I get!!! LOL) Also thanks to the girls sending me the url to their pages using my templates. It makes me really happy to see them (super incentive to create more too!) . Also, special thanks to Jen for giving me a brillant weblog prize :)

Do you remember the Color fun album I created for Amanda Heimann? I was feeling frustrated I didn’t create a hybrid project with it, like I usually do with these things, because I just ran out of time. It became one of those things that you are “going to do sometime” but because it is not top priority it never gets done... Well, Kelleigh did one album very similar to what I wanted to do and I feel somewhat accomplished that someone used the quickpages the way I intended hehehe

Thanks so much Kelleigh :) this made my day!

I have a new template ready for you, but I decided it need a little step by step on how to use the technique, so I will figure out how to show you and then post it here. Also, my quickpage album for LDD is ready, but it still needs a preview to go on the shoppe, so not there yet hehe, soon!!!

Hope you are have a great week!

cold

2008-07-10T17:14:00.003+10:00

Oh wow, it is sooooo cold around here lately. Top of 9 degrees Celsius today but it feels like much less, the wind is unbelievable. And I saw this drizzle slowly falling to the ground today... I swear it looked like snow (that probably melted before it hit the floor).

It is school holiday around here, only two weeks, and it is close to the end of the first week. I took three days off work this week, but I haven’t had the courage to do anything because I just don’t want to leave home in this weather...ugh... lucky Mateus is happy to chill at home with me (he can be so sweet). Lucas, however, is still going to childcare, because he goes up the wall if he is stuck at home.

We are going through a bit of drama with Lucas right now because his doctor asked us to cut the bottle cold turkey. He is allowed to have milk, but it has to be from the sip cup. Well, he doesn’t like that at all, especially at bed time. It is a necessary evil. The doctor is concerned that he is not eating properly because he is full on milk. That is causing serious constipation problems and he is on medication daily to help with that. Poor little bugger is so tiny to be going through this, but he wouldn’t have to if he wasn't so stubborn... takes after mom and dad... what can we do? *shrug* I know we will get through it.

Onto scrapping news I am working on a quickpage album for this stunning kit by all the LDD designers.

Proceeds go into our changing of servers, it has an alpha from me in there :)

In other news, I managed to get another real life friend into scrapping. I am so excited that Luciana got into DIGI :) She is just starting but you can see in her gorgeous pages she has an eye for design and even before she knew what were blending options her pages looked great. If you have time please stop by her gallery at MSA and leave her some love :) It is great to have someone "real" I can talk too that actually understands why I "waste" my time posting pages in digi galleries... LOL (by the way, she is also a brazilian living in Canberra!)

On a side note, I had trouble finishing my previous post. My computer crashed and right click stoped working for a while (I can’t live without right clicking...). So I added about 10 more pages to the list yesterday and I think I might have missed a couple that I can’t find now. Going to have to research again LOL maybe later :) Plus I am sure there are more pages that I am not aware off :)

I have been getting messages even at DST that I should make more templates. I will surely have a look at my LOs and see if there are any worth doing. But I have noticed my pages are increasingly simple and I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time with something easy to replicate :) It is hard when you do well at something you want to keep the standard, but I don't think I will ever do better than I did with that "my boy" one LOL It was "beginner's luck" :) but there will be more templates, promise, maybe even on the next post :) In the meantime, I would recommend you have a look at this stunning template by Dúnia and there are many more on her blog.

xoxo

my baby is back!!!

2008-07-09T23:30:00.000+10:00

that is all :)

overwhelmed II

2008-07-08T22:53:00.006+10:00

The other day I was browsing my favourite blogs and came across this stunning page by Katie on her blog:

I haven't had time to browse many blogs and galleries lately (remember I was trying to cut on that?) So I wondered what have I missed since my last post. I decided to check DST again and WOW, check out the new pages I found using my free template:

I am so inspired by such talent and creativity, how everyone made it “theirs” and used in different ways. Thank you so much, this truly made my week!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-07-02T12:40:00.002+10:00

Oh wow, so much going on!!! Did half the year really already passed? Gosh, I feel like I am so late with everything! I have not scrapped in two weeks, I am starting to feel nervous about it, when is the mojo coming back? I have deadlines LOL

I don’t know if you have notice the dramatic decrease in my scrapbooking “production” since I started hybrid scrapbooking. From around 20 digital pages a month to.... 5. Off course each hybrid project has like, 8 pages in it, but still, my 2008 album won’t be a thick as the 2007 one hehehe There are other reasons for that “decline”, that is why this post is entitled “changes”.

Anyway, the changes... mmm I just remembered that I can’t tell you the scrapping ones yet, bummer. I can tell you though that I have been paper scrapping and it has been aweeeeesome!!! Truly had no idea how much I missed it. Love my digi world but wow it is fun to mess with paint and glue and scissors, etc :) I am going to be sharing my pages here very soon!

There is a big personal change that I am very conflicted as to whether it is good or bad. I finally managed to get a full time spot for Lucas at the ChildCare and that means I am back at work on Wednesdays. I am still not sure why I did it, it is good because it looks like I get to keep my job, since there were cuts at work lately and I was worried that I might be chosen to go. The problem is that now I don’t have a day of the week to do the housework, scrap, meet friends, go to appointments, etc. I used to leave everything to Wednesday and now I am going to have to do these things at night and weekends.

I keep telling myself it is just for 6 months because next year Mateus will go to school every day and I am going to have to leave early to pick him up. But it will be hard to adapt.

I am still trying to organize my scrapping life, I have cut on forum participation to about once a week (miss it sooooo much!). I visit blog once a week, mainly people that visit me. I don’t have a perfect time to scrap anymore, so it will have to be some time during the hours I should be sleeping LOL. Now that I am paper scrapping I also organized a method as to not get overwhelmed with projects (please don’t laugh) Digi will for year in review albums, day to day memories I want to keep. Hybrid will be for little events and milestones, heartfelt gifts, etc. Paper scrapping will be just for fun... Does this line of thought makes any sense at all??? I am so silly sometimes :)

Lastly, my camera broke last week and I had to send it to be fixed in Sydney. They said 4-6 weeks........ what????? Yeah, no camera for that long, I am just dieing in here. I want my baby baaaack.

Well, while I don’t have my baby back maybe I will share a video I captured a little while back. 2 minutes of me bugging Mateus to tell me if he likes the t-shirt I created for him. I wanted him to say “I love my t-shirt” again (cause he said it when I gave it to him) but I didn’t want to prompt it hehe It is a good record of a nice moment anyway. He is so cheeky and cute :) loooves the camera.

Hybrid T-shirt Challenge

2008-06-28T16:46:00.007+10:00

I am hosting a challenge at the Little Dreamer Designs blog. Have a look there for more examples or have a peek here. From the Little Dreamer Designs Blog:

For this challenge you will need a T-shirt, a fabric transfer paper, and an iron :)

Fabric transfer paper comes in two varieties, for dark fabric and for white fabric. Choose carefully as this will impact on your final result. Follow the transfer’s instructions carefully.

Five little steps to get you started:

1. Start by creating your digital design,
here is mine made with brushes from the Punked kit by Lori:

2. If you choose the transfer for white fabric you will need to flip your image, like so:

(DO NOT flip your image if you picked the dark fabric transfer paper)

3. Print your design into the transfer paper carefully following the instructions:

I used Inspired 4x6 White T-shirt transfers by Avery.

4. Iron on your transfer into the shirt:

5. Let the transfer cool before removing and voila:

Here is my little boy showing off his shirt:

Fun isn't it? Would love to see what you come up with :) there are two more weeks to play!

OH MY GOD I just have to toot!!!

2008-06-25T02:59:00.004+10:00

Sorry, I never intended my blog to be only about scrapping and self promotion but it is not my fault no family (except hubby) reads this. So I talk about the stuff people that visit this blog dig, and that is Scrapbooking ;)

Back to the story, last week I decided to reactivate my account at Two Peas and create an account at SISTV (more on why in a future post).

So, I posted my car album at Two Peas and a friend sends me and e-mail to let me know I made it to the Top 10 by views AND by Votes. ????

I was laughing, could not believe it. Hubby didn’t quite know what I was going on and on about LOL I was stunned by the receptivity of the community to a hybrid scrapper :)

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Today I got more great news, I found out I got into this week's Catwalk at SISTV. Cathy picked my {almost 30} freestyle album. I mean, that also blew my mind, and the comments and love in that website is amazing!!!

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Then just now I posted my Train Album at Two Peas and it was picked Featured Layout of the Day...... I had to double check...

And then I said, that’s it, I am tooting!!! LOL Just had to share, thanks for letting me gloat :) Now I NEED to go to bed, it is almost 3AM :)

Freestyle Album Template

2008-06-21T00:04:00.004+10:00

Got a new template at Little Dreamer Designs :) Super fun to create!

Here is a closer look (not great photos for lack of sunlight!!!):

Credits

Hybrid Magic no. 05 - Freestyle Album
Bohemian Summer kit and Floral Spray Brushes by Michelle Coleman @ Little Dreamer Designs.

Freestyle album, Rhinestones and paint by Kaisercraft.
Ghost flowers, glossy white chipboard and green “adore” ribbon by Heidi Swapp.
Yellow ribbon by Doodlebug Designs.

*Photos by Lanne :) (paintedwithlight.com.au)

Not much else going on except "rain rain go away, please come back another day" LOL but here we don't complain of rain *sigh* I don't like dark days though, getting tired of them!

Randomness

2008-06-17T00:48:00.005+10:00

Ok *slaps own face* wake up! I am tired of feeling sorry for myself. I have been sick over four weeks, with good and bad days and the kids also got sick in this meantime, and I think I gave up fighting on this last week. I started taking Mersyndol which would put me to sleep at “normal” hours (as opposed to my usual past midnight bed time) and that put me behind big time. BUT I am here, decided to fight this, as my useless doctor says, just “soldier on” ;)

So, while I was gone I was going to have a post with some Valentines and loooooove scraps I made. Why? Because Valentine’s day in Brazil was June 12 :). Then I thought of a funny post for the Friday 13th, got too late for that one too. Then a Father’s day post, maybe?... well, too late for that too and too early as we only celebrate father’s day in August in Brazil and September in Australia...

but I am still going to share a father’s day present I created for hubby. I am ever so jealous that he gets to celebrate it 3 times LOL but when Cathy from Digital Artist Magazine invited me to create a hybrid project for the May issue I thought it was a nice excuse to ask HIM, what kind of crafty project he wanted made. I took him to the Craft Store and showed him the Kaisercraft stand with all the off the page projects, I was aiming for the wall clock but he went for the pencil holder... FINE, ok LOL :)

Here is the end result:

Made with designs by Nancy Kubo (Daddy-O Kit, btw, it is on special right now) and pencil holder and paint by Kaisercraft.

And before I go, a little tag. Alice tagged me. Thanks sweetie, it was the push I needed to blog today!

I had this tag before, Line tagged me last year, but I did in Portuguese, so I guess it is ok to translate it now :)

1. When there is a food I like at home, I can’t stop eating until it is all gone.
2. I love computer games and completely lose track of time when I am playing (so I avoid it)
3. Sometimes I value what other think more than my own opinion (sad)
4. I was a bad apple at school until I got to College, then I become top of my class (go figure)
5. I *also* like Heavy Metal (used to be only heavy metal but nowadays I am normal... LOL)
6. I don’t like high heels, skirts or lipstick...
7. Sometimes I will pay to stay at home rather than do anything outside.

There you go, completely random things about me that I think most people don’t know :)

I am tagging Jackie, Nancy, Catherine, Michelle, Gabi, Amanda and Lanne.

Oh, I almost forgot a little “announcement”: Amanda Heimann is having a CT Call.

Hope you have a great week!