Creations by Rose Thorn

Custom Digital Scrapbook Kit Design

2012-02-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

I've a new digital scrapbook kit called Robbie's Rockin' Red.

This is Robbie.

Robbie was the inspiration for this kit; a customized kit for his mother (and my online friend), Claire.

I always wanted to do a custom designed kit based on someone's collection of photos (be it a birthday, a wedding, a family reunion, or some other event) or based on their specifications, so when Claire mentioned that she'd been looking for, but not finding, a kit with the 'correct' color red to match her son's favorite hoodie (hooded sweatshirt), a kit not too feminine to scrap layouts for a boy, I offered to design a kit for her. Lucky for me, she accepted!

Working with photos of Robbie's hoodie, Claire's color choices, desired elements and paper styles, and a list of Robbie's interests, this kit was born.

A few elements in this kit were created by altering a designer resource base template but the rest of the kit is of my own creation using a combination of Photoshop styles, textures, brushes, actions and custom shapes; the sunglasses, ice cream cone, french fries, guitar, mobile phone, playing cards and the clock are all hand-drawn originals by me.

Although I designed this kit for a special teenage boy, the red, white, blue and gray colors make it usable for a number of other layout themes including, for many countries, patriotic events and celebrations.

The kit is now available for purchase at my E-Scape and Scrap store at The Nifty Boutique. Options to purchase the papers and elements separately are also available - add-on packages coming soon.

I'd love to do more custom work! If you like my designs and think you'd be interested in a digital scrapbook kit designed to your specifications and/or to match a set of your photographs, I'd love to hear from you; please feel free to send me an email - my contact information can be found by viewing my profile (the link at upper right, under my photo).

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

Holiday Treasures - a Color Challenge mini Freebie

2011-12-15T22:15:00.000-08:00

I participated in the December, 2011, color challenge going on at theStudio this month; I fell in love with the color palette. This means another freebie for my few followers... whoever you are. :)

The zip file for this 'Holiday Treasures' mini kit is hosted at MediaFire - the link is HERE - Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you. :)

Holiday Cookies - the Digital Kind

2011-12-07T20:10:00.001-08:00

Decorate your holiday scrapbook layouts with 'Holiday Cookies'... the digital kind, of course.

I have just added this 'Holiday Cookies' element pack to my store and it's on sale for half price through the end of this month.

Coordinates with the Nifty Designer Series kit, Nature's Holiday, which can be obtained free with a minimum purchase, from any designer, at E-Scape and Scraps store, the Nifty Boutique. Learn more about by reading my post on November 27th, or by visiting the store HERE (details can be found within the product description).

Thanks for stopping by; Happy Scrapping.

2011-12-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's time for The Blog Train!

What's a blog train? It's a digital scrapbooking collaborative effort. Multiple digital scrapbook designers get together (not in the physical sense, it is cyberspace after-all) and, working with the same theme and color palette, each create a mini digital scrapbooking kit (or other useful scrapping item) and then offer them to you, the digital scrapbooking community, for FREE. You, the person who scrapbooks, then travel from blog to blog collecting any (or all) of the mini kits you wish and when you've finished downloading them all, you have one mega-sized, digital scrapbooking kit to create beautiful, personal memory pages or books for yourself. Sounds great, huh?

The Blog Train for December, 2011 is called 'Traditions'. Beginning today (December 1st, 2011), and continuing through the end of the month, you can 'ride the train' to collect digital scrapbook products from 80 or more participating designers!

I am stop number 78 along The Blog Train route.

The stop just before mine is that of 'Meta Wulandari Design' at http://metawulandaridesign.com/ and your next stop, number 79, will be to 'Digital Gator Designs' at http://www.digitalgator.blogspot.com/.

But before you move on, be sure to download my gift for you.

Download it by clicking on the image - this is a MediaFire download.

For a complete list of participating designers and their urls, visit the home of The Blog Train at http://blogtrainblog.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

Nature's Holiday

2011-11-27T21:07:00.001-08:00

The designers at E-Scape and Scrap have put together a lovely 'Nature's Holiday', collaborative kit.

With 35 background images and 127 elements, it's a great deal for $8.00; however, through December 31, 2011, you can get it for free with a minimum purchase of $12.00 on other products for sale at The Nifty Boutique. For more information on how to take advantage of this deal, please visit the Nature's Holiday product page at the Nifty Boutique.

Additionally, there is a collection of Quick Pages available as well as a variety of coordinating add-on kits, elements packs and alphabets; all are at special prices through the end of December.

My coordinating add-on kit, shown below, is just $2.00 during this special sale. You can find it HERE in my store.

So head on over to The Nifty Boutique at e-scapeandscrap.net to find some great year end deals.

Nothing New For Me But A Freebie For YOU

2011-09-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

The winners of the Next Designer Contest over at theStudio were announced yesterday morning... Karen of Snickerdoodle Designs, Rachel of Pretty In Green Designs and Vickilyn of Paper Capers Designs. These 3 are the 3 I predicted would win; their design entries were beautiful. Check them out, along with all the other fabulous contest entries for that round, by going HERE at theStudio Gallery.

Since I was not one of the top 3 winners, that means there will be nothing new for me... for now anyway. However, yesterday I put together a quick little mini kit to contribute to theStudio's 2011 Birthday Bash, Member Mega kit challenge and that means a freebie for you!

To download this mini kit from MediaFire, for FREE, click on the image.
To checkout and download the other contributions to this Member Mega Kit Challenge, visit theStudio Galleries HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today; Happy Scrapping!

Now I Wait

2011-09-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

I didn't make it into the 4th round of the Layout Artist Competition over at theStudio but I did make it for the the 4th and final round of The Next Designer Contest. ☺ Yay! My design was submitted on Monday and, well, not I wait.

For the final round we were given a one word theme of 'Midnight' and the only requirements were to have no more than 14 papers and now more than 40 elements, one of the elements had to be an Alphabetic set.

I chose a dark color palette for my kit, one of purple, blue and silver, rather traditional I think for a 'midnight' theme, and then I added red for a touch of romance. The result? My kit called 'Midnight Romance' - free for a limited time (please go to theStudio gallery by clicking HERE to obtain the download links). Download link expired.

Thanks for stopping by... Happy Scrapping!

Rounds 2 and 3 of Contests at theStudio

2011-09-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

It seems that I'm a bit behind in posting my progress in both the Layout Artist Competition and the Next Designer Contest over at theStudio...

My entry for Week 2 of the Layout Artist Competition was created using the kit 'Afternoon Delight' by JW Digiscraps - I created a page highlighting the day my husband and I met Gerald Charles Dickens, the great, great grandson of the famous author, Charles Dickens. During the Christmas holiday season, Mr. Dickens performs in a one-man play of his ancestor's story, A Christmas Carol. All I can say is he is phenomenal and if you ever get the chance to see one of his performances, I highly recommend it!

A True Delight!

My entry for Week 3 of the Layout Artist Competition was created using the collaborative kit 'Goodnight Sweatheart' by BooLand Designs and JulieC Designs - I believe the polls are still open on this, until 24:00 hours EST tonight (Sept. 20th), so if you have the inkling to vote (you must already be a registered member to vote), the voting poll is HERE.

Pleasant Dreams

For round 2 of the Next Designer Contest we were given a two word theme of 'Summer Afternoon' and directed to used this as our title as well.

I spent a long time thinking about that theme and how I might apply it to a digital scrapbook kit, finally finding my inspiration on the idea of strolling through the park and feeding the ducks. Since I worked in Boston, Massachusetts for many years and always enjoyed visiting the Boston Public Gardens and Boston Commons, I tried to reflect those places in my mini kit... the swan (from the garden's famous swan boats) and ducks (from the well known bronze sculptures by Nancy Schön which were themselves inspired by the well known children's story, 'Make Way For Ducklings', by Robert McCloskey) were hand-drawn using photographs of both as reference.

Download link expired.

For round 3 of Next Designer Contest we were given the two word theme of 'Evening News' and a request (it was not an obligation) to give it a vintage style. We were given a base color palette which included 6 neutral colors; we were required to use at least 3 in our designs adding additional colors as desired. Addtionally, we were not allowed to use and CU (commercial use) designer resources so that makes my mini kit, 'Times to Remember', a one of a kind.

Everything in this collection was created solely with the tools included with my software program (Adobe Photoshop CS5), my hand drawing capabilities and digital image scans of physical objects I own (i.e., books in the public domain - published in the 1800s).

Download link expired.

That's all for now; thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

Next Designer Contest Round 1 - Mini Kit Freebie

2011-09-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

OK, I may be a little nuts for doing this but I not only joined the 2011 Next Designer Contest at theStudio, I also joined the Layout Artist Competition... if I'm lucky enough to survive the rounds of eliminations then my weekends will be busy at the computer for the month of September!

Here's my layout for the Layout Artist Competition... if you feel so inclined and want to vote, the polls will be open on September 5th (closing at midnight on September 6th) and, I believe, will be posted in THIS forum thread.

Click HERE to view in theStudio Gallery - comments are welcome.

For the first round of the Next Designer Contest we were given a color palette with which to work and given the theme of 'daybreak'. This got me thinking about mornings... birds singing, sun shining, drinking coffee, early morning blooms... from this I created this mini kit called 'Morning Glory'. These are original designs by me; the only commercial use products used were for textures and styles on my drawn items.

This mini kit will be available for FREE for a limited time - ~~click HERE to download from MediaFire~~. Download link expired.

Hats Off to Autumn - Free With Purchase, Designer Collaborative Kit

2011-09-02T16:31:00.000-07:00

There's a great deal going on over at The Nifty Boutique for the month of September! The designers of E-Scape and Scrap have once again collaborated on a digital scrapbook kit; this one is an Autumn theme in a vintage/retro style with 42 digital papers and over 100 embellishments, titled, 'Hats Off to Autumn'.

The kit is $7.00 by itself but if you spend $10 on other products in The Nifty Boutique during the month of September then (with the coupon code fond on The Nifty Boutique Blog) you can get the kit for FREE.

Additionally, there a quite a few 'Hats Off to Autumn' add-ons available for $1.00 or $2.00 for the entire month of September, including my add-on kit (shown below) for $2.00.

For more information, go to The Nifty Boutique Blog, to this post HERE.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

Digital Scrapbook Designer Contest at theStudio

2011-08-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

I've been in a creative slump for a bit and need to find some new inspiration... maybe, just maybe, I'll get it back again when I start on the Next Designer Contest over at Digital Scrapbook Studio, aka theStudio.

If you're not familiar with theStudio or their annual birthday bash celebrations, you should head on over there and check things out. Be quick about it, all the activities begin Sept 1st, 2011. Not only is there a designer contest but there is also a Studio Layout Artist Competition going on at the same time (you have to sign up for this one). There'll be lots of freebies and fun to be had for sure, so head on over... soon... now even!

Here are the links:

theStudio home page: http://digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/
theStudio Blog: http://digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/blog/
theStudio Forum: http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/forum/
theStudio's birthday bash thread within the Forum: http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=294

See you there!

Summer Brights - New Digital Scrapbook Mini Kit Freebie

2011-08-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

I participated in this month's color challenge over at theStudio forum - the results are a freebie mini for you to download.

Here's what it looks like:

Click on the image to download.

Happy Scrapping!

The Design Factor 2011 - Final Kit - Free for a limited time

2011-08-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hello there digital scrapbook fans... just a quick post to let you know that my kit for the final round of The Design Factor 2011 will be available for free download for a limited time.

The final round of The Design Factor challenges was to create a kit with a food theme and two of the digital papers must be patterned with food items of our own making (doodled). I chose a theme of Italian Cuisine, hence the name of the kit is 'Cucina Italiana'.

I thoroughly enjoyed working on this kit and I'll probably add to it in the future... it definitely needs garlic and onions and... more! I hope you like it too.

If you haven't yet been to the DigiScrap Connect, Challenge 6, Design Factor Galleries to collect it, and all the other 'yummy' kits created for the final challenge round, do so quickly, before they're all gone!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

The 1st 'Digi Scrap Connect' Blog Train

2011-07-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the First Digi Scrap Connect Blog Train.

This blog train is comprised of 24 designers who, for the past 5 weeks, have been participating in the Design Factor Challenge. For our 5th challenge, it was required to make an element pack using CU items. Since quite a few of the items being used (and re-used) were the same for each participating designer, we worried that we were going to have flowers, ribbons and strings 'coming out our ears' so we decided to have fun with it and turn it into a great Blog Train by adding some fabulous papers as well. The 'Flowers, Ribbons, and Strings Oh My!!' blog train was thus born. We hope you have fun collecting the great mini kits.

Here's mine

- NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE -

Click on the image to download from MediaFire.

And, for your convenience, I've provided the list of URL links to each of the Blog Train stops. (Please note, some, if not all of the kits in this blog train will only be available for 1 week.)

DigiScrap Connect {Home Station}
Piccolina Designs
JDK Skrapz
Dancing Princess Designs
Inspired By Dominic Designs
Dana's Footprints Designs
Milly Dee Designs
Amanda and Millie Designs
Rose Thorn Designs <--- You are here.
NanaScraps
Kim Hackworth Creations
Scraps by Mara
Digital Gator Designs
Snackpackgu's Designs
Rumki Designs
Designs by Angel
Scrapdragon Designs
ScrapN2Nspire
Rebecca Meyers Designs
Ramona Memories
Bitny Designs
Lizard Dau Designs
Digital Harmony
Foosa Moon Creations
PamlaKlenczar
Midnight Owl

Thanks for stopping by... Happy Scrapping!

The Design Factor - Round 4 Freebie

2011-07-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

Round 4 of The Design Factor ends tomorrow, but I managed to get my kit finished and uploaded today.

Round 4's challenge required that the participants first create a shape of some sort, one of our own making, not a pre-made, designer resource shape, and then use that shape in 3 patterned papers and 5 unique elements as well as create an alphabet, also incorporating the shape. This particular challenge was, well, definitely a challenge; I found it difficult to think of different ways to use the same shape and I got bored with it towards the end. I do hope, however, that some of you digi-scrappers out there will find it useful.

We were allowed to incorporate 4 CU (commercial use) products or designer resources within our designs but I decided to create everything myself, from scratch, using only the basic tools provided within my software programs.

Here's my contribution to Round 4 - Free for a limited time, through the 29th of this month only, after that it will be available in my store.

Click on the image to go to the Design Factor Gallery - download link can be found there.

Thanks for stopping by today - Happy Scrapping!

'Christmas in July' Sale and The Design Factor - Round 3 Freebie

2011-07-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

There's a 'Christmas in July' sale going on right now through the 15th at E-Scape and Scrap; get Full kits, alphabets, printables, quick pages, mini albums, stickers and cluster frames at drastically reduced prices - visit the 'Specials' section of The Nifty Boutique.

While there, be sure to check out my 'Christmas Time' kit, a mix of traditional and modern holiday items, at 50% off during the sale it's only $2.00!

Round 3 of The Design Factor ended on Sunday, July 10th.

Round 3 required that the participants choose a neutral, monochromatic color scheme and add one or more contrasting, brighter colors to use as accents. The contrasting colors were not to be used on the paper designs and only sparingly on the embellishments. I really enjoyed this challenge and I think I may apply this coloring method to future designs.

Here's what I came up with for this challenge - Free for a limited time, through the 22nd of this month only, after that it will be available in my store.

Click on the image to go to the Design Factor Gallery - download link can be found there.

Thanks for stopping by today; happy scrapping!

The Design Factor Round 2 - Freebie

2011-07-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Round 2 of The Design Factor ended on Sunday, July 3rd but, due to the Independence Day holiday and the activities I attended in relation to it, I'm a little late posting about it here.

Round 2 presented the participants with the challenge of creating repeating patterned background images (digital papers) using our own 'drawings', be it doodled, painted or drawn and to only used designer resources for texture and styles. Using InkScape and Adobe Photoshop CS5 software, I designed shapes which I then used to create the leaves, flowers and butterflies; the birds are hand-drawn using the pen tool in CS5.

Here's my contribution to Round 2 - Free for a limited time, through the 15th of this month only, after that it will be available in my store.

Click on the image to go to the Design Factor Gallery - download link can be found there.

Thanks for stopping by today; happy scrapping!

Birthday Celebration, New Kits, Blog Train and a Freebie

2011-07-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

This month, The Nifty Boutique at E-Scape and Scrap (the place where my digital scrapbook products sold) is turning 7! In celebration of this event, Julie Mead, the owner of E-Scape and Scrap and The Nifty Boutique, along with her design team, has collaborated on the making of a beautiful, digital-scrapbook kit, called Lucky 7.

For the entire month of July 2011, if you purchase $10.00 of products from The Nifty Boutique, you can get the Lucky 7 Nifty Designer Series kit for FREE. Please visit The Nifty Boutique Blog to learn more about this offer and other offers going on the month of July (including a blog train of Lucky 7 coordinated freebies).

Many of the designers loved this kit's theme and color palette so much that they made a number of 'extras' that will coordinate well with the base kit; I created this mini add-on which will be on sale for $2.00 for the month of July.

Click on the image to go to this product in my store at The Nifty Boutque.

That's all for today but I'll be back in a couple of days to post about my round 2 kit for The Design Factor.

Thank you for stopping by and happy scrapping to you!

Digiscrap Forum Blog Train

2011-07-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

For the month of July, 2011, Digiscrap Forum is having it's first ever blog train and you're invited to hop on board!

What's a Blog Train? Click HERE to go to an earlier post of mine where I (attempt to) explain it.

The blog train station (the first stop) is located HERE in the Digiscrap Forum. There are 25 designers participating, all using the same color palette.

My blog is stop number 16; if you came to my blog by following the train stops in order, then you would have come to me via the site of Farynar's Wings.

Here is what I have for you; I hope you like it. :-)

PU/S4O/S4H but NOT for Commercial Use

Click on the image to go to MediaFire to download.

Your next stop on the blog train is to ~~Digi Deborah's Designs~~ Dyabel Designs.

Have fun and thanks for stopping by today.

The Design Factor

2011-06-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hello!
Have you heard of The Design Factor, the challenge going on over at Digi Scrap Connect? It's similar to the layout challenges that you can find a many digital scrapbook forums only this one provides challenges for designing digital scrapbook kits rather than layouts. It's not actually a contest, that is, there is no voting for favorites and there are no eliminations each week. As long as each designer meets the challenge requirements by the deadline each week and they receive a small (digital) gift and if they finish all the challenges, there's a larger gift at the end.

The Design Factor gives digital scrapbook designers new ideas and the great part, for all you digital scrapbook keepers out there, is you can collect, for free, the kits contributed to the challenge - each kit is expected to be available for a minimum of two weeks.
So, don't miss it! There are over 100 designers signed up to take part in this; that's a lot of digital scrapbook kits!

The first challenge was to create a summer themed kit and this is what I came up with - my 'Water Yum Fun' kit (I know, a weird title but, LOL, I think it works).

Free for a limited time only!

So, head on over to The Design Factor gallery at Digi Scrap Connect now and check out all the kits. To go directly to my kit, click HERE or on the preview above.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

Blog Train Time Again

2011-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's time for another blog train; this one is called 'Monkey-ing Around'.

If you've been 'riding the train' from the beginning, then you would have arrived here from Wyld Web Designs; your next stop along the way is to the blog of 'Just Jaimee'.

You can find the list of all the stops (url links) for this blog train by going to the site of The Blog Train.

I hope you enjoy my freebie as much as I enjoyed creating it!


PU/S4O/S4H but NOT for Commercial Use

Old Fashioned Things - New Kit In My Store

2011-05-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

I have a new kit in my store called 'Old Fashioned Things'. A great kit to add to your digital scrapbook collection of old, worn, vintage type kits.

For more information, visit my store at The Nifty Boutique or click on the preview image above.

Thanks for stopping by; Happy Scrapping!

My 'Gentle Blooms' Digital Scrapbook Kit - Sale and Mini Addon

2011-05-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

I have a mini add-on to my 'Gentle Blooms' kit available at The Nifty Boutique - available free through Friday, May 6th, 2011.

Free for a limited time HERE in my store at The Nifty Boutique.

Also, through Friday, you can get the full 'Gentle Blooms' kit for 50% off it's regular price.

50% off through Friday, May 6, 2011 - HERE in my store at The Nifty Boutique.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

Japan Charity Kit and Upcoming Freebie

2011-04-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a post that is a bit overdue. I contributed to a digital scrapbook kit created for purposes of raising money to send the the Red Cross in Japan, to aid them in their efforts of helping the countries victims of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that took place there this past March.

If you'd like to do a little in the way of helping them, consider visiting the Enchanted Studio Scraps store to purchase this HUGE kit; all proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross.

Click HERE to go to this kit in the Enchanted Studio Scraps store.

Heads Up... I'll have a freebie available for the Tuesday Treat at The Nifty Boutique next week (May 3rd) - an add-on to my kit, Gentle Blooms.

If you're signed up for The Nifty Boutique Newsletter, then you'll receive an email about it - if you're not signed yet, what are you waiting for? Head on over to the The Nifty Boutique now and click on the "sign up here - Newsletter" link found at the upper right of the web site.

Not interested in signing up for the newsletter but still want to know more about the freebie? Well, you'll just have to visit my store in The Nifty Boutique Blog next week...

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

New Digital Scrapbook Kits - In The Pink and Gentle Blooms

2011-04-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

I have two new kits to show you.

The first, 'In The Pink', is one I completed in February but, silly me, I forgot to post about it. It's soft, pink colors give it a nice feminine style. All items are 300ppi and the kit includes 7 papers/backgrounds (3600x3600px) and 26 elements/embellishments to dress up your layouts, most of which are my own designs, giving you a unique collection of scrapbook items.

And, here is a layout I created with this kit, using a photograph of my maternal grandmother.

'In The Pink' is available HERE, in my store at The Nifty Boutique.

My other new kit, just posted today, is 'Gentle Blooms'. I think you'll find this kit to be fairly versatile in the type of layouts you can create with it (as shown in my sample layouts below).

Although I used a few outside resources in the creating of this kit, as with most of my kits, those resources were used to enhance my own designs, I think you will find that most of the items here are unique to the digital scrapbook world.

All items are 300ppi and the kit includes 18 papers/backgrounds (3600x3600px) and 46 elements/embellishments.

And, here are 3 layouts I created with this kit, all with a different style, to give you an idea of the kit's versatility.

'Gentle Blooms' is available HERE, in my store at The Nifty Boutique.

That's all for today, thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

Charitable Digital Scrapbook Kit

2011-04-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yikes; it's been awhile since I've posted anything here!

I've been spending my time creating contributions to a couple of digital scrapbook kits for charity and I also hooked up with my ADSR partner from last year, Cee, and we're doing the ADSR6 together again, this was week one. As for personal designing, I've found myself in a bit of a low, I've been working on one kit now for about a month and I'm constantly discounting my own work... I've created and put aside a number of things and was having trouble getting it all to pull together in a way that I like. However, I'm finally putting the finishing touches on a new kit and I should have it for sale in a few days.

For now, I wanted to show you this awesome, and jam-packed, charity kit now available at Scrappity-doo-dah. This kit, named 'Believe In Miracles', shows how our community of scrapbook designers can really rally together when another in our community is in need. When it was learned that designer Heather Manning lost her home in a fire, over 70 designers got together to create this kit in an effort to raise money to help her in building a new home. All proceeds go directly to Heather Manning and her family.

Here's a preview of the kit (with 200 papers and 376 elements, I think it goes without saying that not all items are represented in this preview).

This kit is available in a number of options, and are linked to their location in the Scrappity-doo-dah store:

And here is what my contribution to the kit looks like:

For more information on Heather Manning and her story, you can visit her blog.

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I mentioned that I had been working on a couple of charity kits. The other one is a kit to raise money for the red cross in Japan to help with their recovery efforts after the country's devastation after the earthquake and tsunami in early March. This Japan charity kit should be available very soon at Enchanted Studio Scraps and I will post again when it is.

-----------------

And lastly (for today), I thought I'd show you the layouts I created for the two ADSR6 challenges this week. The images are linked to their location in the NDISB gallery so, if you're so inclined, you can head over there and leave me a comment... and perhaps find inspiration of your own by browsing all the other gallery layouts.


For this layout I used designs by Carolyn Kite and Brandy Designs.

For this layout I used designs by Cathy Ann Designs and from a designer collaborative kit by Elemental Scraps (no longer in business); also, the leafy cut-outs (they look red in the image) are from a design I created and will be used in my soon to be released kit.

For more information about my layouts, please visit their posts in my NDISB gallery by clicking on the images.

Thanks for stopping by; Happy Scrapping!

Mini Kit Freebie

2011-02-25T09:22:00.000-08:00

Hello.

I've a free mini kit for you today. It was my Round 1 entry in the Design Star Contest currently taking place over at ScrapMatters. Round 1 was blind (we were given numbers to use in place of our names) but now that the winners have been announced, we're welcome to reveal ourselves.

Sadly, I was not one of the 17 selected from the 90 entrants to move onto Round 2, but for as long as I am enjoying myself, I'll continue to work on new designs with an occasional freebie for any of my digital scrapbook friends who happen upon my blog site.

You can download my freebie by clicking on the preview (shown above). However, if you want to be able to download the coordinated minis created by other contestants (we each used the same color palette), you'll have to visit the ScrapMatters Gallery; the minis will be available for download there at least until March 1st, after that, it'll be up to the individual designer. Do note, however, that you won't see the Design Star 2011 section of the gallery (where the freebies and their links are located) unless you are logged into the site; you must be a registered member.

As for my freebie, I haven't decided yet what I'll do. It may remain free here on my blog or I may make it part of a future, full-sized kit... I guess that may depend upon how much people like it. :-)

Well, thanks for stopping by and a special thank you to all those who have, in the past, left me kind comments. Those comments help to put a smile on my face.

Happy scrapping all!

The Blog Train - My Heart's Dream - Freebie

2011-02-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Yes indeed; it is yet again time for The Blog Train!

This month's collaborative is called 'My Heart's Dream'.

If you are following the train in order, then you will have arrived here at my blog from the blog of ninigoesdigi and your next stop is that of Christine Smith Digital Design.

If you get lost along the way or if you've happened upon my blog from another source, you can find the list of all contributing designers and the links to their blogs by going to The Blog Train Blog.

Here's my contribution for you.

Click on the image to download from MediaFire.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping!

Supporting the Flood Victims of Queensland, Australia

2011-01-29T10:07:00.000-08:00

In an effort to help support the victims of massive floods in Queensland, Australia, of 2010-2011, I, and a number of other digital scrapbook designers, put together one large and truly fantastic, charity kit called 'Friendship'.

The above image is an animated .GIF file - if you do not see the image changing views to display the components of the kit, try clicking on the image, this should open it in another window or tab and show correctly.

All proceeds from the sale of this kit will go to the Disaster Relief Appeal : Queensland Government, a fund launched to help residents affected by the devastating floods. Your purchase of this kit will help to assist the over 200,000 people who have been affected.

The kit includes over 100 digital scrapbook papers, over 200 embellishments, 3 full alphabets and 2 sets of 4 templates and can be purchased for $10.00 U.S. dollars for immediate download at Scrapbook-Bytes. For an additional fee, you can, if you prefer, have the kit delivered to you on a DVD. The links to the both versions of the product at Scrapbook-Bytes are as follows:

DOWNLOAD VERSION of the 'Charity Collab Flood Relief Appeal'

DVD/SHIPPED VERSION Charity Collab Flood Relief Appeal

To learn more about the PREMIER'S DISASTER RELIEF APPEAL or to donate directly to the fund, please visit: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

Thank you for stopping by today.

In The Spotlight, New Kits and another Freebie

2011-01-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

I'm in the designer spotlight for the month of January over at The Nifty Boutique blog site! This is a good thing... for YOU. Why? It means you can get my new 'Vintage Frame Collection' for free during the entire month of January, 2011.

To learn more (about me and how to obtain the free kit), go to The Nifty Boutique Blog and read the post dated December 31st titled 'January Designer Spotlight on Rose Thorn Plus A Freebie'.

Also, today I've added my 'Vintage Mini' kit to my store - it coordinates with my 'Vintage Frame Collection'.

Find it in my store HERE.

Thanks for stopping by; happy scrapping to you!

The Blog Train – Grandma's Quilt – January 2011

2011-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Once again,it's time for The Blog Train!

What'sa blog train? It's a digitalscrapbook collaborative effort. Multiple digital scrapbookdesigners get together (not in the physical sense, it is cyberspaceafter-all) and, working with the same theme and color palette, eachcreate a mini digital scrapbook kit and then offer them to you, thedigital scrapbook community, for FREE. You, the digital scrapper, then travel from blog to blog collectingany (or all) of the mini kits you wish and when you've finisheddownloading them all, you have one mega-sized, digital scrapbook kitto create beautiful, personal memory pages or books for yourself. Sounds great, huh?

TheBlog Train for January, 2011 is called 'Grandma's Quilt'. Beginning today (January 1st, 2011), and continuing through the endof the month, you can 'ride the train' to collect mini kits from 100participating designers!

The theme for the 'Grandma'sQuilt' blog train is rather summed up in it's title. The designersare hoping that the collection imparts a feeling of comfort andwarmth one might feel while snuggling up with Grandma's quilt on acold winter night.

Ihope you enjoy my contribution.

Download by clicking HERE or by clicking the preview image.

If you're following the BlogTrain in order, from start to finish then you would have arrived herefrom the stop just before mine, that of SecretStash athttp://secretstashdesigns.blogspot.com/and that means your next stop will be to PIXELilyDesigns athttp://pixelilydesigns.blogspot.com/

For the complete list ofparticipating designers and their links, please visit TheBlog Train - http://blogtrainblog.blogspot.com/

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Time

2010-12-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

Yikes, it's been almost 2 months sinceI've posted anything here on my blog! I've just been so busy!

Most all of my free time of late hasbeen donated working for my local chapter of the national group knownas The Compassionate Friends. This is a non-profit organization who's mission"is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grieffollowing the death of a child of any age and to provide informationto help others be supportive."

I discovered this group in 2003,shortly after the death of my 13-year-old son, Evan. Beingbereaved parents themselves, they were an amazing source of comfort,support, understanding and compassion during the early stages of mygrief and because of them, and in honor of my son's memory, I try togive back when I can. So, each year, during November and earlyDecember I create over 200 photo gifts and produce a memorialslide-show, featuring an even larger number of photos, forpresentation at our chapter's annual observance of the event known asthe Worldwide Candle Lighting. This is a project of which I am verycompassionate and I gladly do it for the chance to be able to provideeven a small bit of comfort to those struggling to find their wayalong life's oh-so-difficult path after losing one so precious.

The WorldwideCandle Lighting has passed for this year but if you would like tolearn more about it and about The Compassionate Friends organization,please visit the web site of the national offices by using the links I have provided here.

Now, onto the business of digitalscrapbooks and the winter holiday season...

I realize that Christmas is only 3 daysaway. AND I realize that I'm rather 'late to the game', as they say,with my latest kit, 'Christmas Time'. But, well, um, that is me, Ms.Procrastination... and well, as I mentioned above, I have been otherwise occupied.

Maybe there are some of you out therethat are my opposite and create things early, well in advance of thenext year's holidays and events, and instead of thinking that I'm'late' with my new designs, maybe you can think of me as very'early'??? LOL. Whatever anyone thinks, early or late, here's mylatest kit, which you can find in my store by clicking here.

And here's a little gift for you; itcoordinates with my Christmas Time Kit. Download by clicking here.

Moving forward into 2011, I hope togive my blog a make-over and not leave it so poorly neglected... here iswishing everyone a Happy New Year; may your year be filled with lotsof photo memories to scrapbook!

The Blog Train - The Orient - November 2010

2010-11-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

It's time for The Blog Train!

What's a blog train? It's a digital scrapbooking collaborative effort. Multiple digital scrapbook designers get together (not in the physical sense, it is cyberspace after-all) and, working with the same theme and color palette, each create a mini digital scrapbooking kit and then offer them to you, the digital scrapbooking community, for FREE. You, the digital scrapbooker, then travel from blog to blog collecting any (or all) of the mini kits you wish and when you've finished downloading them all, you have one mega-sized, digital scrapbooking kit to create beautiful, personal memory pages or books for yourself. Sounds great, huh?

The Blog Train for November, 2010 is called 'The Orient'. Beginning today (November 1st, 2010), and continuing through the end of the month you can 'ride the train' to collect mini kits from 100 participating designers! And, I must say that in my opinion, this month's collections of kits are just superb; I can't wait to download them all myself!

The stop just before mine is that of MaitriScraps at http://www.maitriscraps.blogspot.com and
Your next stop, will be to Design by Anita at http://anitarichards.typepad.com
The starting place for the entire Blog Train, along with the list of all contributing designers, is at The Blog Train - http://blogtrainblog.blogspot.com/

But before you move on, be sure to download my gift for you.

Download it by clicking on the image - this is a MediaFire download.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

Free Mini Kit, 'Tranquil'

2010-10-22T05:45:00.000-07:00

I created a mini kit for this month's color challenge over at theStudio.

When I looked at the combination of colors in the color palette, I had a feeling of peacefulness, hence the name of my kit, 'Tranquil'.

It's free until the end of the month by using the 4Shared download link below. After that it will be available in my store.

Sorry - link has expired.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

A New Digital Scrapbooking Kit, 'Softly Fading'

2010-10-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Oh my, it sure has been awhile since I've posted! And today I've just a quick post to show you my new kit, Softly Fading.

Inspired by the fading colors of the natural world during the autumn season, of which I am in the midst. I think this kit might be nice for creating layouts with your autumn-time photographs, I also think the soft colors, along with the tree and leaf elements, would work well for family history pages.

Here is a layout I created using this kit - it's a photo from my family photo archives, before I was born:

My 'Softly Fading' kit can be found in my store in The Nifty Boutique.

Click HERE to go my store now.

Well that's all for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Sale - New Kit - Contest Update - Freebies

2010-09-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

Whoa, it's been 3 weeks since I posted! I've been rather busy.

SALE

First, I'm having a 2-day 'Celebration of Fall' sale starting tomorrow. All products in my store at The Nifty Boutique will be 30% off Saturday and Sunday, September 25th and 26th, 2010. Be sure to stop by and check it out.

New Kit

I've added a new kit to my store called 'Georgette'. It has soft pinks, browns and grays with a touch of not-too-bright yellow, usable for many different layout themes. This new kit will of course be included in the 'Celebration of Fall' sale this weekend.

Contest Update & Freebies

And finally, an update on my standing in the 'Next Designer Contest' that I mentioned in my last post. Well, I'm almost embarrassed to say, I didn't get enough votes to move beyond the first round of the contest. However, those that didn't make to round 2 were given the opportunity to participate in what they called the '2nd Chance Contest'. This one I did manage to survive but that has since ended and the winner was not I. If you want to know more about the contests and other birthday celebrations going on at Digital Scrapbooking Studio, click on the link I have for theStudio in my 'Digital Scrapbooking Sites of Interest' column.

Here are the previews of my contributions to the contest. The previews are linked to their location in the gallery of theStudio where you can obtain the download links. Please note, these will be free for downloading only through the end of this month.

That's all for today; Happy Scrapping All!

Next Designer Contest and Loads of FREEBIES!

2010-09-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in the Next Designer Contest over at The Digital Scrapbooking Studio (aka theStudio) which began Wednesday, September 1st. I think there are a total of 92 participants enrolled so what that means is, LOADS of FREEBIES for you!

In an effort to keep the contest fair and based on the creativity and designs of the participants as well as prevent it from becoming a popularity contest, all participants were given a secret identity (a number) so, I can't tell you which kit is mine.

Today at 3:00 PM US Eastern Time is the deadline for submitting our mini kits based on this color palette and theme:

Some time after that there will be a poll posted for voting and even though I can't tell you which one is mine, I'd still love it if you headed over and voted for your favorites (deadline for voting is Monday, the 6th)! And of course, while you're there, pick up some of those freebies!

Here are the links:
Main Page of The Digital Scrapbooking Studio: http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/
The Gallery: http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/gallery/

The Gallery for Week One's Free Mini Kits: http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=1157
The Forum (you'll need to be a member in order to vote - but membership is free and it only takes a few minutes): http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/forum/

Thanks for stopping by today and Happy Scrapping!

The Blog Train - Fall Carnival - September 2010

2010-09-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's time for The Blog Train!

What's a blog train? It's a digital scrapbooking collaborative effort. Multiple digital scrapbook designers get together (not in the physical sense, it is cyberspace after-all) and, working with the same theme and color palette, each create a mini digital scrapbooking kit and then offer them to you, the digital scrapbooking community, for FREE. You, the digital scrapbooker, then travel from blog to blog collecting any (or all) of the mini kits you wish and when you've finished downloading them all, you have one mega-sized, digital scrapbooking kit to create beautiful, personal memory pages or books for yourself. Sounds great, huh?

The Blog Train for September, 2010 is called 'Fall Carnival'. Beginning today (September 1st, 2010), and continuing through the end of the month you can 'ride the train' to collect mini kits from 100 participating designers!

I am stop number 72 along The Blog Train route.

The stop just before mine is that of 'Snips and Snails Designs' at http://snipsandsnailsscraps.blogspot.com/ and your next stop, number 73, will be to Maitri Scraps at http://www.maitriscraps.blogspot.com/.

But before you move on, be sure to download my gift for you.

Download it by clicking on the image - this is a MediaFire download.

For a complete list of participating designers and their urls, visit the home of The Blog Train at http://blogtrainblog.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

A Birthday Bash and Freebies

2010-08-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Starting on Monday, August 30, 2010, E-Scape and Scrap is having a big birthday bash that you probably don't want to miss!

E-Scape and Scrap turned 6 years old in July but because of the server hosting problems that occurred in June and July the celebration has been delayed. But we're ready now! Please help us all celebrate by stopping by on Monday. There will be a treasure hunt for free downloads of our designer collaborative kit 'Astrological Dreams', challenges, games and prizes, and some 'silly' sales.

Visit The Nifty Blog for more information and to keep informed about the happenings during the week long celebration.

E-Scape and Scrap 'Meet The Team' page:

http://www.e-scapeandscrap.net/meetourteam.htm

The Nifty Boutique:

http://scrappado.wordpress.com/

The Nifty Blog:

http://scrappado.wordpress.com/

The E-Scape and Scrap Gallery:

http://www.e-scapeandscrap.net/gallery/index.php

E-Scape and Scrap Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/E-Scape-and-Scrap/102140643164437?v=wall

Happy Birthday E-Scape and Scrap!

Tuesday Treat at The Nifty Boutique

2010-08-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Every Tuesday, one of the E-Scape and Scrap designers offers some sort of 'treat' for free. The Tuesday Treat is free through the Friday following the day it is first offered.

This week's Tuesday Treat is by me, an add-on to my Baby's Firsts kit. Although it is an add-on to my baby themed kit, all of the items are fairly generic and can be used for most any theme you can think of for your scrapbooking pages, you don't have to be restricted to using it for scrapping your baby pages.

Get it FREE starting today, Tuesday, August 24, 2010 and continuing through Friday, August 27, 2010. After that it will still be available in my shop for $2.99.
.

The download is available through The Nifty Boutique; click on the image to go there now.

While you're there, you may want to sign up to receive The Nifty Boutique newsletter so you can be kept informed about all future Tuesday Treats.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Scrapping to you!

Free Digital Scrapbooking Mini Kits

2010-08-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a free mini kit available from The Nifty Blog.

Just click on the image above to head over to The Nifty Blog to download this mini and a few others too.

Happy Scrapping!

Designing Contests and Freebies

2010-08-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I'm just checking in today to bring you (LOL, if there are any of 'you' out there actually following me) up to date on my status with designer contests and to let you know about some freebies available over at The Nifty Blog (the blog of the E-Scape and Scrap designers).

I'm no longer participating in the Designer Survivor Contest over at Brownie Scraps; I needed to drop out due to having too much on my plate with other things that needed doing. However, I will be joining the upcoming designer contest that theStudio will be having starting September 1st as part of their birthday bash celebration.

I'm very excited about joining this particular contest because theStudio was my first 'home' in the digital scrapbooking world (back when it was called Stone Accents Studio) and I was on the creative team there for 9 months in 2008. I would be ever so happy to be able to 'win' that contest and be offered a position in their store; for me this would be, as they say, the icing on the cake!

So, be sure to head on over to theStudio and join the forum so you can join in on the voting when the time comes.

I also wanted to tell you about some freebies that can be found over at The Nifty Blog. The designers at E-Scape and Scrap have created a bunch of mini kits with the same color palette.

A new mini is being given away for free each week. This was started on August 3rd and I'll have one coming along there soon myself. Don't miss out, head on over and check it out (the color palette image is linked to the blog).

Also, if you aren't already signed up for the E-Scape and Scrap Newsletter, why not take a few minutes to do that today? That way you won't miss out on all the Tuesday Treats (more freebies). Just go to The Nifty Boutique and you'll see the newsletter sign-up near the top left of the page.

That's all for today.... Happy Scrapping!

Back In Business and a Special Coupon!

2010-08-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've great news!

The Nifty Boutique is up and running again!

All the designers at E-Scape and Scrap, myself included, have been busy the last couple of days restocking our store shelves at The Nifty Boutique. Stop by and have a look around.
Here's the link to my store at The Nifty Boutique: Rose Thorn

But before you head off to shop... check out my newest kits and get your special, store-wide, coupon below!

My Mega 'Baby's Firsts' kit*

(for scrapping your Baby's First year and beyond)

* Both the Element Pack and the Paper Pack can be purchased separately if desired.

The Element Pack