Update on Freebies

I apologize if you tried to download some of the kits and got error messages. Josh helped me figure out the problem (who knew a space could be so deadly???) and they should all work now.

http://joshandcharlene.com/scrapbooking-freebies.htm

Help yourself to any/all of them!! And please, I'd love it if you'd tell me if/when you use any! It's so cool to see my kits in use :)

Also, and this is important (maybe)...I'm retiring a few of my kits. Goodbeans, Citrus and Turkish Carpet will all be retired at the end of the year. So you have a few days to get it and to tell your friends to get it too (don't give them the kit; please have them come get it from my site!)

Thank you!!

picture time

I saw my dear friend Sara on Christmas Eve, and we got a picture of us together. I bet you can't guess how far apart our due dates are :)
















And here's Jasmine in one of her new presents from her Great-Grandma Hudson

More to come, likely in the form of layouts :)

Christmas is behind us??? And final add-on

Since we got our Christmas cards out very early (so people would know our newest address) and it feels like we've been planning or shopping for months, it's hard to believe it's really over! Though for us it's not quite over for us, since we'll be celebrating with Josh's parents and his sister and her husband, once they (sis and brother-in-law) are in Africa until this weekend.

Jasmine loves opening presents! She got some great gifts, which she's really enjoying! She's been pushing around her doll stroller from my brother Phillip all morning, but up until I finally got it put together, her plane from my brother Daniel and his wife was the thing she kept talking about.

I need to apologize. I found out on the 23rd that I had managed to put the website over on bandwidth for the month, and was only on the computer for about 3 minutes on Christmas Eve, so I couldn't do anything about it. So I'm in the process of changing the links to a free webhosting service. Let me know if it works okay or is strange...I didn't want to go with yousendit, since they limit the number of downloads and/or how long the links are good. So we'll see how this works!)

Here's a preview of today's add-on:
the link is: http://joshandcharlene.com/scrapbooking-freebies.htm
(if you are a firefox user and have adblock on, you may need to open the link in IE for it to work!)

Add-on #4 (of 5)

I don't know what else to say today, so I'll just give you the link. I'm sure you can't guess what it is, if you got yesterday's :)

www.joshandcharlene.com

Happy Scrapping!! Don't forget...I'd love to see what you do with this! Feel free to send me a link to your layout :)

Jasmine Logic, a Happy Birthday and Add-On #3

I can't believe it. My sister Amy is 17!!! I was in 7th grade when she was born, the only one in middle school whose mom was having a baby, so all the girls I knew were jealous, especially when they saw her. What a sweet, beautiful girl! And you know what? She hasn't changed, just gotten bigger.
Here's a layout I made of her, using a kit I've just finished and will hopefully have up in Liddy's Loft very soon. (credits: flower by Debbie Fisher, all else from my Auld Lang Syne kit)


Jasmine is figuring out that the s at the end of a word changes it. I'm not sure if she's completely figured out the idea of singular/plural, but if she wants cheese she now asks for "chee," and a box is a "bok." :)

Ready for a link? Here you go! (You can see a preview there too)

Add-on #2 and a little more babbling

I was thinking it would be interesting to set up a poll and find out what my "audience" is. To the best of my knowledge, it's a handful of family and some scrappers, so I try hard to balance the two. That, and it's nice to talk about whatever's on my mind, which at this point is Christmas!

So I thought I'd describe my favorite part of Christmas every year. Not the presents, not the Candlelight service on Christmas Eve at church (though that's right up there, especially when we sing lotsa carols)...it's Christmas Breakfast. This year Josh, Jasmine and I will begin celebrating Christmas morning together, so we're figuring out what to bring from each of our favorite memories to make it our own.

Our family's Christmases have evolved, as I'm sure most people's have. Christmas breakfast has gotten more and more enormous, and more and more the center part of the day, though the presents are still a lot of fun ;)

After we open both our stockings and all the presents (and the coffee-drinkers enjoy their first cuppa joe), we head into the crowded dining room. Mom puts out the Christmas china (Pfaltzgraff Winterberry...what could be more appropriate for the Goodberry family??) and puts a Christmas Cracker on each plate. We all open our crackers, read the dumb jokes out loud and everyone laughs like it's the funniest thing we've ever heard, and then everyone stumbles over the French/Spanish/whatever other language jokes they put in there too. We then start passing around the Christmas spread: oranges, homemade sticky buns, swiss cheese/cheese logs/beefstick on crackers, eggnog, orange juice, milk and more coffee. YUMMM! It fills us up until dinner (well, I'm sure the Christmas cookies don't have anything to do with that!!) :)

Oh, and here's today's link :) Be sure to leave me a comment, please!! It encourages me to keep making freebies, so if you like 'em, tell me so!

And feel free to sign up for Feedblitz (link on the side)...that way you're sure to know about any freebies, and about any kits I'm making and putting in the store too!

Christmas Memory and an add-on

Christmas has always been a beautiful holiday for me (though I successfully pretended it wasn't really Christmas the years I was in Turkey, avoiding the sensation of extreme homesickness...easy to do in a country that doesn't celebrate it, in spite of being the birthplace of St. Nicholas) but my favorite Christmas memory would have to be when I was 7, and mom and dad managed to find a Cabbage Patch Kid for me. At that point they were very hard to come by, and I think they had to get it from Canada because the stores couldn't keep them stocked. They did find one, though, a beautiful redhead named Hope Marcella. (I thought I had a picture of her on this computer, but I can't find it.) She was followed by many more Cabbage Patch Kids, but none came anywhere close to being as special as Hope.

Yesterday I got a one-month subscription to Atomic Cupcake and have been having a blast trying their actions (um, no pun intended). So, this being the Christmas season and all, I thought it would be fun to try to make a small add-on for my 2006th Noel kit, for every day from now until Christmas Eve (I won't be home that day so it may just be now through Saturday). I won't keep the links up long so grab 'em quickly!!

Glitter Elements

One Week until Christmas

I love Christmas. It hasn't lost its magic for me.

I love the cookies, getting to see family I haven't seen in a long time, that orchestra is suddenly "cool" again, and that it's the one time people, even those in Buffalo, actually want to see snow.

But this year will be even more amazing. It's Jasmine's second Christmas, but this year she's a lot more aware of all the things going on around her. She adores trees and asks us to turn them on whenever she sees them. She loves all the pretty lights. I can't wait to see her opening her presents, either, though I wouldn't be surprised if the paper is still as exciting as the presents themselves. She loves new clothes, so trying on her beautiful new Christmas dresses is an exciting prospect...it really is magical!

Credits: Everything from Tamra Burwick's 'Precious and Few' (polkadotpotato.com)

Credits: all from Holley VanDenBerg's 'Shabby Christmas' kit Fonts: Dactylographe

Christmas Dresses

I'll be making a layout (or three!) soon, but I wanted to get these up right away. Enjoy :)

Long-overdue trip to the Zoo

I've wanted to take Jasmine to the zoo for ages, but it just hadn't happened. The weather is so nice this week, though, and Jasmine is so fascinated by animals, especially giraffes (faff!) that Josh took the afternoon off so we could go see the animals.

I think she was more than slightly overwhelmed. They're a lot bigger than they are on her animals DVD! She warmed up to them eventually, though, and enjoyed herself. She wasn't as excited as I was that the gorilla came right up to us and put his hand on the glass...I thought it was neat to be so close :)

Here's a layout I put together while she was sleeping :)
Credits:
inked border by Nancie Rowe Janitz
patterned paper by Jen Reed (from her Digi Pick sampler)
staple from Jan Crowley's 'Little Black Dress' kit
journaling strips by Kimberly Geswein
"zoo" alpha by Christine Smith

Fonts: KGD Tiffany, 1942 report

Jasmine, what's a cow say?

We got a priceless video a few minutes that I thought I'd share.

And a few little gems from our talkative tot:

"wherearewe" when we park the car. I ask her "Where are we?" when we pull up to someplace familiar (Wegmans, either set of grandparents', our our apartment) so she asks now, too.

"Some?" when we're eating something she thinks looks good.

"moooooore????" when she's eating and has decided it's time for seconds (or thirds). Often she's not quite done with what we already gave her, but she's ready for it to be replenished.

"Mirror?" so she can admire herself and watch as she makes funny faces.

And my favorite:
"Bessoo" when someone sneezes. She now says it when she coughs or sneezes, too!

A sale!!!

Go check it out!!! This will be the last opportunity to buy my designs for awhile (until I figure out where I'm going to sell and they say yes!!)

Here's a link to my kits.

Changes

Keeping a very long story very short, my stuff is back up in Liddy's Loft, for the time being. So the calendar isn't available on our website anymore, but the Christmas freebie is still available (so feel free to take it!! and don't forget to show me when you use it. I'd love to see your creations!)

It's funny. I'm actually really excited to get in and try designing something I've been pondering, but I've been doing everything but! So it's time. I'll show you if it works (and if I can find someplace to sell it) :)

Ever have one of those days...?

Ever have a day when you feel like you get behind no matter how hard you try to at least stay in the same place?
Like merely treading water would be an improvement?

I need a vacation. Out of the snow.

A few quandaries

Hey! Check out baby's ticker!!! "They" have a good chance of survival at this point!! Eddie is good proof of that :)

So just a few things I've been pondering:

You know the song "Big Yellow Taxi"?? Why "put up a parking lot"? Shouldn't it be "put down"? Parking lots are flat, unless you're talking about a parking garage, but that's not what's sung!

Why does an apartment complex that pays for the heat put up windows that aren't well insulated? Sitting in front of our living room window was like sitting in a fridge, until Josh and I put up plastic yesterday. It was really bothering my skin to turn up the heat too much, and we still didn't want to sit on the couch, which is right in front of the window. I just don't get it.

Rats. There was a third thing too. Wonder what it was??

Don't forget, you can still grab my Christmas kit (see link below) :) I'd love to see what you do with it, if you use it!!

2006th Noel

I made some of this for Liddy's Loft's mega-kit, but since it isn't needed now, I changed the colors and added more papers. Enjoy it, and please leave me a comment if you snagged it :)

http://joshandcharlene.com/

(feel free to grab others you might not have, too! :)

Changes happening!

Liddy's Loft is now closed. After three hacks, she's decided it's time to try something different.
So I am now 'homeless.'

My kits are all on hold, except for my calendar. You can see (and download it) here...I'd love it if you wanted to make a donation to paypal, but it's not required. Just think of it as something to make Jasmine's Christmas a little more presents-filled ;)

I'm working on a Christmas kit, most of which I made for the megakit Liddy's Loft was putting together. I'll hopefully have it done by the end of the week, so watch for it :)

In personal news...I'm feeling the baby's hiccups now, which I love. Josh likes it too, because s/he can't stop hiccuping when he tries to feel it, unlike when he tries to feel the baby kick :) Jasmine is talking up a storm. She seems to understand the concept of "two," though I'm not exactly sure if she knows that it means two of something, or just more than one. She repeats everything we say, and she remembers words too. It's a riot!