Sundance made my heart dance...

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about Designs by Krista ... a woman with a rare talent for both design and generosity ... and the other day she released a magnificent free kit called Sundance from her blog.

Well, I recently bought one of those lovely little chipboard bracket albums at Michaels craft store and I'd been dithering about what to do with it, particularly as I'm sans mojo at the moment. But when I saw this kit I just knew it was perfect for it. So I started by tracing the outline of the album on paper and then scanning it in (cause I had no idea how to make that shape otherwise lol!) and it was all plain sailing from there. I was so pleased with the results that I sent Krista the preview and she's very kindly posted them on her blog.

So if you fancy making your own bracket album (or dropping them onto larger layouts) you'll find the complete set of 8 here: Designs by Krista ...and if you scroll back a couple of days you might still be lucky enough to snag the kit itself. Don't forget to leave her some love!

If the links for the kit have expired by the time you read this, don't panic, Krista usually posts her freebies in her store within a week or so for about $1.50 - which is the next best thing to free in my opinion. You'll find the link to her store on the main blog page.

Out of the Mysts...

Here's a kit I've been longing to release for ages...I created it last month but decided to enter it for the Little Dreamer Designs' Apprentice contest. Sadly my little effort didn't even make it through the qualifying stage, but I really like it and wanted to share it with you anyway. I think it will be perfect for St Patrick's Day, but also pretty useful for Easter or heritage stuff.

The original entry was limited to just three papers and three elements, but in order to actually decide on three papers, I made quite a few more...and I'm working on lots more elements to go with it, hoping to get some of them finished and uploaded over the weekend, or early next week. (Curious what I'm working on? Well there's a mixture of celtic knotwork, mythical beasts, lace, precious metals, sheer fabric and stonework...and that's just for starters lol! There might even be a shamrock or two, but I'm afraid if you're hoping for leprechauns and rainbows, you'll be out of luck lol!)

But for now it consists of 9 papers, four elements and my first ever alpha...it's a very simple uncial alpha but I rather like it and hope you will too.

And I have a question for you! I seem to recall seeing an action somewhere that automatically separates letters and saves them individually...but can't remember where! If anyone has any ideas or can point me in the right direction, it'd be much appreciated, cause it's a boring task to do manually lol!!! I've managed to create one myself that tackles half the job which saved me some time, but I'd love one that does the whole thing (and maybe makes some tea while I'm waiting, good idea eh?)

But without any further ado, here are the links, and I'd love to know what you think of it, or if you use it, so please let me know!

Belanna's Celtic Mysts - Alpha
Belanna's Celtic Mysts - Elements
Belanna's Celtic Mysts - Papers 1
Belanna's Celtic Mysts - Papers 2

Slainte!

Carol recently tagged me to divulge 7 random facts about myself....

THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

I've pondered this and can really only half-comply...since I don't know seven other people with blogs, and even the handful I know have probably already been tagged, so let's just say if you wanna be tagged by me, leave a link in a comment and consider yourself tagged lol!

So here are my seven facts, and some are a little weird so don't say you weren't warned...

• My first computer was a Commodore 64, which I programmed to play tic-tac-toe and respond with dialogue akin to WOPR in the movie War Games....it seemed really neat at the time.

• My first kiss was with a boy I met in a psychiatric ward....I was 17 and he was 19. He was admitted after he put his fists through a window in an attempt to slit his wrists after being told that his ex-girlfriend had been pregnant with his child but had an abortion...all of which later turned out to be untrue. I was there because I had (and still have) a dog phobia which nearly caused a complete breakdown. We spent most nights sneaking into the kitchen of the ward late at night to make coffee and exchange tales of woe. We only met once briefly after we were discharged (since he didn't live in Dublin), and before he left, he kissed me and told me I was beautiful...which I think was kind of a turning point for me.

• I spent two years in drama-school on a part-time basis and one day, following a series of videoed screen-test exercises, was told by my drama-teacher in a very grudging fashion that the camera loved me...think the rest of the class hated me after that lol!

• At around that time, I applied to work as an assistant dogsbody for a touring company called Renaissance Shakespeare, started and run by no other than Kenneth Brannagh, and was utterly shocked and thrilled when I had a handwritten reply from him urging me to keep up my studies and reapply to the company as a jobbing actor when I'd finished. Sometimes wish I had!

• I worked in retail for nearly ten years and for a short spell had the pleasure of counting Brian Dennehy amongst my regular customers, while he was appearing in the Iceman Cometh in Dublin. The first time I saw him, he allowed himself to be elbowed out of his place in a queue by an aggressive little grannie and smiled at me over her head in amusement, and I was always impressed by how genuinely pleasant, gentle, soft-spoken, good-humoured and polite he was, a real gent (such a rarity in Dublin even in those days!).

• I type in my sleep...no kidding! When I quit retail, I retrained to acquire some office skills including typing. Due to the intensive nature of the course we were encouraged to 'type' as often as we could i.e. to move your fingers as if typing while doing other things....so I would 'type' shop names and billboard ads while on the bus for example...this habit became so ingrained that I still do it...apparently even in my sleep...I just wish I could find out what it is I'm typing when I'm asleep lol!

• My earliest childhood memory is of a particularly vivid recurring dream in which I was weeping against a man's shoulder, and while I could not see his face, I could feel the texture of his jacket and smell his aftershave, and I knew he loved me and would keep me safe. The dream continued with decreasing frequency into my twenties. But the experience in the dream actually happened some months after I met my other half, and that was the moment I knew we were meant to be together...and I've never told him.

Well that's probably more info than you ever expected or wanted! I'm working on a freebie that I hope to get posted tomorrow...so I'd best get back to it....cheery all!

Back at last!

Isn't it strange how you get so used to being 'connected' that when you lose your connection for any reason you feel at a loss? I've only been without internet for a couple of days but it's been weird...and once back online my priority was to catch up on work, but now finally I'm back. Nothing for you today (for all the obvious reasons lol!) but I've been furiously trying to get some Mother's Day cards finished (it's on March 2nd) and thought I'd share them with you:

Credits: Flowers by Anna Benjamin of Paper Moons, Lace Action by Karen Stimson of WoolSweater Street, Pearls from Jenn Trippetti's Rosy Outlook, Actions by Atomic Cupcake, the rest by me.

Of course, this size and resolution doesn't really do them justice, but I kinda like them. I was working a bit outside my comfort zone because the palette came from this month's colour challenge at Deco Pages. I think they only want layouts rather than kits submitted, but since I did create papers for these, let me know if you'd like them. There's a stone texture (for my mom's strength) and a damask print (because she was a weaver before she married and made damask).

Really glad that so many of you are finding the Asphalt Farewell kit useful, I was disappointed at not being able to submit it, but I feel heaps better about it now.

Just a slight detour...

Now this little kit may seem kinda odd, but there's a story behind it. I've been keeping an eye out for colour challenges, because a) I enjoy them, b) they stretch me and c) it's always eye-opening how people can create such diversity from a handful of colours.

Anyhow I came across another today and it had a theme as well as a palette...it was in response to a kit request from someone who's hubby was retiring from working in road construction...so a combined theme of 'retirement' and 'road works'. Sounded like fun so I gave it a shot.

But when I'd finished and went back to look at the submission guidelines, I realised that the site was planning to sell the submissions, so I didn't send it in. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not criticising them, they were stating it clearly and it was my fault that I hadn't read it properly first time around...it's just that I didn't feel comfortable submitting on that basis. So I decided to release it here as normal...though because it's a fairly specific theme, I'm not sure how much use it will be to anyone else lol!

There are four plain papers with an asphalt texture (which the preview really doesn't do justice), and four patterns on an asphalt background, and a total of twelve stickers...hopefully you'll find some that you can use...if so I'd love to know what lol!!!!

Belanna's Asphalt Farewell - Papers
Belanna's Asphalt Farewell - Elements

Making a name for myself....

Okay it's a weak pun, but I couldn't think of a title! Never mind, the thing is that in the midst of my playing I've been trying out some freeware actions and came across a really cool one that essentially creates a word of your choice in glass witha photo of your choice behind it...so courtesy of clickBoom's action, may I introduce...

(Click on it to see it enlarged in all its glory!!!)

Yeah, I know, it's kinda sad using multiple pictures of my avatar but it seemed like a good idea at the time! In the process of playing today I learned tons of stuff and I have ideas just brimming at the moment. I'm working with some really great images of Celtic mythic beasts, the kind you see in the Book of Kells and I can't wait to show them to you...but I'm having too much fun at the moment to package anything and upload it. And besides, just when I think something is finished, I discover half a dozen other cool things to do with it...lol!

On another topic, I'd really like to mention Bookcrossing. I discovered the site a couple of years ago and love it. If you read any kind of books at all, you just have to go and have a look. The concept is that once you've read your books you 'free' them...by registering them on the site and then either release them into the wild or pass them on to friends or other Bookcrossers. Hopefully whoever finds or receives the book will visit the site and add a journal note telling you what they thought of the book and how they intend to pass it on. I used it to 'free' my entire library before we emigrated and it was a very liberating experience. But wait...that's just one side...the other side is that it's a huge and growing community of people from all over the world who share a love of books and chatting. I've met some wonderful people there, and had some wonderful books sent to me by many of them once we were settled again.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention it because you may not have heard of it, and if not, you'll thank me for it!

Challenging colours...

I came across another colour challenge at Stone Accents run by Boo (of Booland Designs) and the palette looked lovely so I thought I'd have a play. And this is the result:

I find the challenges are a real incentive to get me to try different things. I struggled with the colours initially because although they looked lovely, they're really not 'me' if ya know what I mean, but I was pretty pleased with the final results for the papers.

Still not overly happy with the elements, but I used Atomic Cupcake's cutout action which worked like a dream for the stickers. After months subscribing to Atomic Cupcake I'm so pleased that I can finally use the actions now that I've got CS3 (couldn't used them before coz my version of PSE was so old it was made out of chipboard and wood glue lol!) ...so that's a whole other list of things I have to play with in addition to all the presets in the program itself!

Anywho, here are the links, and be sure to let me know what y'all think...
Belanna's Classical Reverie - Papers
Belanna's Classical Reverie - Elements