A Special Request

Cheryl over at Home Dairy Goats wanted to know if I would make my Poppop's Farm mini kit available again for the ladies in her forum. These are the two full kits that are available in my SHOP. Since Cheryl also happens to be my mama, I of course said yes, and I added the little goat felt from the full kit to the freebie kit for these ladies. So for those of you who missed the mini kit the first time around, you get a second chance to grab it. Be sure to leave some love for my mama thanking her for getting you this second chance. Be sure to click on both freebie previews to get the full mini kit. (sorry, the links are now fixed for those of you who first tried clicking on the images)Links Expired

Back to Coloring My World

I am so glad so many of you liked the April Showers kit. Don't forget you can grab the full kit in my shop at DigiScrapShop.
Teresa-I am so glad you went and joined Digital Scrapbook Memories. Be sure to introduce yourself in the forum so that we can all get to know you better (there is a meet and greet section where you can start a new post and tell us a little about you). If there are any other scrappers who have joined, be sure to introduce yourselves as well. I think you will really like it over there.
Kristina-lets see the layouts of your meteorologist hubby when you use that April Shower's layout. I am so glad these will work for that.
I am also thrilled with the entries I received for the 100th post contest. I will be going through them shortly and picking the top three for you all to vote on. This is so much fun. And if you didn't send in layout (and you should have), don't worry, there will still be some other giveaways with the 100th post. I am pretty excited for this.
Now a little freebie before I leave you for the evening. We are almost done with the CMW Pastels and then we will get back to bold and bright colors.
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Get Those Layouts In TODAY

TODAY is the last day to get your layouts in for the 100th post contest, so you all better hurry up. We only have a handful of entries at the moment, so there is a GOOD chance that yours could be the winner. If you need the details, check out this POST.
I am so glad you all are fans of the April Shower kit. I was stumped for a long time on what direction to take with it, but I am quite happy with the outcome. The full kit is available in my shop at DigiScrapShop simply by clicking on the preview.Today you get the fun little elements for the mini kit. Again, I a don't know why I call these mini kits, the are packed with stuff. I guess it is because they are so small compared to the massive amount of stuff I put in my full kits. Sometimes I just get on a roll and in that design mode and can hardly stop myself.Link Expired
I hope you all are finding my tutorial from yesterday very helpful. I also wanted to share with you a wonderful forum that I am a member of. Digital Scrapbook Memories is a free forum and is full of wonderful people that are so helpful. I have learned so much there. The best part is the do monthly webinars for beginners and a more advanced class. What is a webinar? It is an online class where you get to watch how the instructor does things in photoshop elements and they have now added voice, so you can ask questions and get your answers right then. Yes, it is LIVE. If you want help, this is a fabulous place. The next beginner class is May 13th. This is a FREE class. Registration is limited to only 12 people, so if you are interested, hurry on over and sign up. You will not regret it. GO HERE

A Tutorial for You

Hopefully everyone is busy working on their layouts for the 100th post contest. For the rules and prizes visit this POST. I am liking the entries so far, but would love to see more.

Rebecca sent an entry and I commented on drop shadows to make it look more realistic. She was not familiar with drop shadows so I decided to write you all a little tutorial. The first page is without the drop shadows. It is just to flat looking. The second has the drop shadows added and it helps give depth to the layout. The tutorial is actually one on how to make your VERY FIRST LAYOUT in photoshop elements. So if you want to get started it had everything you will need except the picture. Yup, I included the papers and elements in the zip file with the PDF tutorial. And tutorial links will be forever links. I will not expire tutorials. Hopefully this is helpful to you all. Rebecca also asked about using templates. I will put together a tutorial for that in about a week.MAKING YOUR VERY FIRST PAGE IN PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS download

Now, I have a brand new kit in the store. It is called April Showers and there is no PINK in it. As you can see from the previews, it is jam packed (20 papers, 75 elements AND an Alpha). Click on any of the previews to be taken to my shop and grab it. And yes, there will be a May Flowers kit.Don't you just love the rainbow and the little frog?!And of course you get a mini kit to go with it. Today you get the papers.
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Hope you all love this.

CMW Soft Orange Alpha and CONTEST

Here is the alpha for the CMW Soft Orange set. It is a worn, scratched metal alpha. Again, I had issues with this mainly because of the color I think. Soft orange (peach) is not a favorite as I have stated and so it is hard for me to think things look right when using it. I hope you all like the outcome.
I don't know how many of you saw the last post. I am running a little contest and you can get one of my full kits for absolutely FREE. Check out the details HERE.
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Rebecca Withers asked about the pattern for the shoes. If you will go to this POST (just click on the highlighted word) to find the link to the tutorial.
Jacki: I would love to see the pics of your girls' dresses from the same fabric as my little one. How fun.
Chalece asked about my little ones Easter dress. It was actually a Simplicity Pattern #3854 . I usually grab my patterns from Jo-Ann's when they have their $.99 pattern sales (which they are doing on McCalls' patterns this week).
Dena Tippets: You would be more than welcome to come over and craft with me if you lived closer. I often get together with SouthernBellAng to try out several of the crafts we find through blogs.

A little Contest

I am quickly approaching my 100th post and to celebrate I want to give something away. What I would like to do is have a little contest. To enter the contest all you have to do is create a layout using mostly Piccolina Designs stuff (at least 80% of the papers and elements used in the design should be my stuff, and be sure to credit if you use anyone else's stuff). Once you create the layout, send it to me at piccolinadesigns@yahoo.com (send it at 600x600 dpi if you can). All layouts should be sent by MIDNIGHT (MST) April 25th to be eligible. I will then go through the entries with my digiscrapping buddy and my dear hubby and we will pick our three favorites. For my 100th post, I will post our three favorites on the blog and let you lovely people vote for the favorite. The winner will get the full kit of their choice from my shop. UPDATE: The two runner-ups will get their choice of any of my expired freebie kits (even if they are in the shop now) for free.
Since those in the top 3 will be posted on this public blog, please be sure that your layouts do not contain any of your personal information. I want to keep you all safe.
I am so excited to see your layouts. I hope you fill my mailbox with entries.

Last of the Easter stuff to show you

Thank you for all the nice comments on my last post. We think our little one is adorable as well.
These are the last of the Easter things, I promise. I just wanted to show you real quick how we decorated the tables. It was great for Easter, but would be great for any Spring/Garden themed event. Plus it was CHEAP. All it cost me was the bouquet of chrysanthemums ($5 at Sam's Club) since I had everything else on hand. I just took several canning jars in different sizes, filled them with water and added food coloring. The colors you use totally depends on you and your theme. I just used every color I had (I have the classic pack and the neon pack (love it) of McCormick food coloring from any grocery store). Then add your flowers. You can use any flowers you want, but I would stick with white ones just so they don't detract from the pretty jars. The first two pics are of the tables.

We just bought the plastic table covers in spring colors to cover the tables. Then we used paper grass, plastic eggs, the colored water jars and a basket with our cake pops as the decor. Oh yeah, the fun colored cups added to it.This picture was taken today of the jars in my window. The colors are not so great in the picture, but in real life they look so pretty in the window with the light coming through. Such an easy, peasy decorating idea.
Now for the second part of the CMW Soft Orange kit. I am glad you all like this kit. It was really hard for me to use this color. I am not a huge fan of the color "Peach" (love the real things though). So it was hard to do a kit in that color, but I think it turned out pretty well. Stay tuned for the alpha.
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Easter Dress

This is my little one in her Easter dress. She was so happy for the little photo shoot and I have so many fun facial expressions of her from it. I posted this one for the expression and because she was standing so you can see the cute little bloomers. I chose soft orange for the next CMW Pastel mini kit. No reason really, just chose it. Thank you for the nice comments on the CMW Pink Alpha. I am so glad you all like it. It took quite a bit of time to get the look I was going for, but I think I achieved it. You can be sure I save the template so that I do not have to put all that work in if I decide to do it in another color :)LINK EXPIRED

Back from Easter

I'm back. I really tried to get this posted for last night, but I had to finish up the alpha and it took way too long (I have all the mini kits done for CMW Pastels, but I am making the alphas as we go). Anyways, I finally finished and uploaded it this morning.
Before I say anything else, I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that has purchased from my store. We received the sales report last week and I was very happy with it. I am still amazed each month that you all like my stuff enough to spend you hard earned money on it. It motivates me to continue to design high quality kits for you all.
Easter was great. We had rain here, which we are definitely in need of, but it meant we could not go outside for the egg hunt, so we did it in our basement. We only had 3 kiddos looking for eggs, the other two are under a year, so we just gave them a few to play with. It was a lot of fun. I will have to post pictures of the table decor (so simple) later and of the little one's Easter Dress.
In response to some of your comments about when do I sleep, to be honest, last week I did very little of that and it is catching up to me now. I am currently training for a 1/2 marathon and a had a few days last week where I was up way before the sun to meet my running partner so we could get the run in before the hubbies had to leave for work. And then of course I would stay up late working on my projects, my body is getting back at me now for it. Oh well, it was a good week.
Light left a comment on 4shared hinting that she would like to have all the CMW soft kits by the end of the month. Sorry, I don't think it will happen. Each color has three parts and there are three colors left, so that is 9 posts and I usually only post a freebie every 2 or 3 days, so to do the math, the earliest to get them all would be the first week of May, but don't count on it. I am planning to hand out some mini kits that go with new kits I am putting into the store, so those will take up a few of the freebie spots. Sorry. If there is something you just absolutely have to have from one of the remaining colors (violet, yellow and orange), let me know. If it is not too much, I may be able to help you out.
So here is your alpha. I tried to make it look like worn (grunged the edges) wood. I hope you all like it.
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Last Post!

Ha ha! Did I scare you with that title? This is just the last post before Easter. We are hosting the festivities at our house and I really need to get some yard work done so that they can actually find their eggs. I also have lots of cooking to do, but I am excited. I love cooking for others and having people over.
I wanted to show you a few more things that I have been working on. First off, I am addicted to these little baby shoes that I posted earlier. If you need the tutorial, go here. I just wanted to post this picture to show you that you can do all sorts of styles and yes, you can do BOY ones. The little ones are for my nephew (shhh...don't tell my sister...oh, wait, she reads this). I really like the buttons on them and there are so many cute buttons out there. I hope you all are having fun with them.Today my friend, whom you know as Southernbelleang from the comments came over and we made these cute little cake pops from Bakerella. This lady is incredibly creative. I love all the ideas she comes up with. I will admit that we did not do cake for our centers, we used Oreos!! I crushed the Oreos finely and then mixed them with a room temperature package of cream cheese. Then you can roll them into the shapes you need. You do need to refrigerate them, but they taste so yummy!! The first picture is of the chicks we made. The second is of the eggs and the third just shows how we packaged them up. I think the children I teach at church are going to love them. I think they are adorable. Be sure to check out Bakerella for some awesome ideas.Lastly, these are fabric eggs that I made with scraps of fabric from the little ones dresses and from her nursery set. These eggs actually have a little pocket in them so you can put a treat in them and hide them. The pattern for these fun eggs is at Sew, Mama, Sew. I did make my pockets just slightly wider and deeper, just so that you can put a treat in them easier. These are great to use up those scraps and they are pretty quick. I think that about covers it for my Easter crafts. I did get the little one's Easter dress done, but I will not post that until after I take her pictures on Sunday.
I don't know if any of you are interested or not, but it has been a concern of mine on how to keep the true reason for Easter in mind. I really don't want my little one to grow up and think that Easter is all about the bunny and finding eggs. If you want some fabulous ideas on how to keep the Savior in your Easter celebrations visit SugarDoodle.
Ok, now for the real reason you are all visiting me today, the freebie. This is the second part of the CMW Soft Pink mini kit. I will be back after Easter with the alpha.
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Wow!

I am overwhelmed by how much you all like the CMW Soft Green Alpha. It has already had more downloads than any of my other alphas. And you all have left some very nice comments. I'm glad you all like it. I am considering making some more bread tag alphas, especially since you all seemed to love this one.
Here are is the first pink mini kit for the CMW Pastels. It is one of the other colors that was requested before Easter.
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CMW Soft Green Alpha is here

Thank you for all of your kind comments. If you want to get comments, write a post complaining about not getting comments :) For those of you who blog and design, you understand how important comments are. I never realized that fact for myself until I started designing and handing out freebies. I would call comments "Design Fuel". Sometimes I run out of energy or ideas and I'll read a comment and get the fuel I need. Comments are great. Anyways, like I said in the last post, don't worry, I'm not quitting. I just needed a break from the computer and to get my hands doing something else. I love digiscrapping and designing too much to give it up.
Stephanette commented that she wished she had a baby girl to make the shoes for. You can make the shoes for any gender. My friend came over last night and we made some sport ones for her little guy and some monkey ones for my little one. For the boys you can put buttons or little appliques on the toe box instead of bows. The possibilities are endless.
Now for this alpha. I think it turned out so incredibly cute and I wanted to be sure to give it to you in time for Easter because I think (as you can tell from my preview) that it would be great for scrapping those Easter egg hunts. I hope you all like it as much as I do. I am thinking of doing some more alphas with the bread tags, what do you think? Anyways, grab it, use it and have fun. (I did include the ribbon)
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I have a confession

Before I get to my confession, I need to tell you all that I am a little saddened. As of this moment I have had 140+ downloads of the second part of my CMW soft green kit. Can you guess how many comments I have had? Six. Two from freebie search engines were left on the blog and 4 from some great ladies were left in 4-shared. Six comments is less that 5% of the number of you who have grabbed my freebie. Now, I know you are all busy and I will admit that I have been guilty of grabbing and running a few times, but not if I ever downloaded more than one item from the designer. I put a lot of my time into designing for you all and I feel that I do offer you a lot of items for FREE, all I ask is to hear a little from you. It really does help to keep me motivated and wanting to design more.
Now with that said, on to my confession. I am burned out with digiscrapping right now. It feels like I am always on the computer. I am either designing freebies for you all or designing kits for the store or designing ads and posts for the blog. If I am not designing, I am trying to do my own scrapbooking. And to be honest, I have reached a point where I do not want to open photoshop (even though it is opened at this moment:) ) . Lucky for you, I already have all the CMW pastel color mini kits done :). Don't worry, I am not quitting, I just am taking a break and I wanted to show you what I have been up to while taking my break. Just to show you that I am not a one-trick-pony :)
The first is an dress that I made for my little one. I am planning on making an Easter dress for her and I already have the fabric for it, but I saw this fabric in Hobby Lobby and had to have it. So the little one gets two dresses. The bloomers are made out of a striped fabric that has the same colors. Don't be surprised if you see this color palette popping up in some of my designs :)
These little booties/shoes are so stinking cute. She wore them yesterday and I swear that ever mother or mother-to-be we were around wanted to know where I got them from. I followed a tutorial from Star Dust Shoes that you can grab here. They were so easy to make. They only took an hour and a half, so I am sure my next pair will be even faster since I know what I am doing now. I do need to make them a little longer since the little one inherited big feet from both her mama and daddy :)These are some string eggs that I made with my younger brother and sister and nieces when they were here. This is a great project to make with your little ones. I don't remember where I saw to do this, but I did find a tutorial on Family Fun for some (this site has a lot of fun crafts). I would definitely use the glue like they mention (but you can totally use white school glue in place of craft glue, much cheaper). We used liquid starch, and though it worked, they are a little fragile. I think the glue will make them stronger. We also used embroidery floss/cross-stitching floss instead of yarn. I was able to get a lot more colors for a lot cheaper ($0.35 each) and I like the more delicate look it gives. This is a wreath made from Easter eggs and grass (I used the paper grass, I just like the look better that the plastic grass). The tutorial for this fun little project is from This is My Life and you can grab it here. How fun would that be to have a Mom's Night Out where you went and got crafty together.After making this wreath, I was in a creative mood and I made this egg tree. All I did was make a pyramid from some cardboard scraps I had laying around (cut 4 triangles of the same size and tape them together into the pyramid) and then I just added the eggs and grass the same way I did it on the wreath. I love the way both of them turned out. I have never decorated for Easter before, so this is a lot of fun.There will be more to come as I have several more projects planned. I hope you enjoyed these and can use some of the links. Leave them some love if you do.

Last day of the sale

The sale in my shop ENDS tonight at MIDNIGHT (EST). If you want to take advantage of the great prices on my full kits, you better head over to my shop right now.
I really need to get back to designing some more stuff. I have been having a blast this week working on other crafts (sewing, wreaths, etc). I will have to post some pictures. But I really have been having a great time with them and not doing much designing. Lucky for you all I already have all the pastel mini kits done so you will not be deprived of any freebies. Here is the CMW soft green mini kit 2. Stay tuned for the alpha, I think you all are going to love it.

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My Entire Shop is On Sale!!

This is not an April Fool's joke. My entire shop is at least 25% off and some of it is 50% off. Why you may ask, because I was selected for the DigiScrapShop Designer Spotlight.I am very honored to be spotlighted and wanted to pass along the goodness to you all. So click on the above image to visit my shop and grab my full kits while they are on sale. The sale will only last until midnight on Friday, April 3rd, so make sure you get into the store.
There were a few of you that requested the pastel green be the next CMW kit I give out, so here is the first mini kit.
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