Just the Basics Released!!

Well it’s Friday and that means new releases at Enchanted Studio Scraps

I *shock and awe* have a new release this week! I love neutral colored additions to pages and pages done fully in neutral colors, so I created this somewhere between mini and full size kit for you. Just the Basics has 9 papers and 18 elements for all you digital scrapbooking needs!

It’s available for PU and S4H and right now you can grab it for 30% off! The sale will only be on until Sunday and then it will go back up to full price. This would be a great stash builder since you’d be able to snag elements and papers from it to help complete almost any layout you may be working on. You can pick it up HERE or by clicking the preview above!

Happy Friday and hope you all have a great weekend.

A Layout and A Sneak Peek!

I scrapped yesterday for the first time in a bit and it was nice! I’m trying to get things all settled down in the house and back to a scheduled peaceful existence, but it’s definitely not easy going! The girls are doing better give or take a few tantrums, but this week has definitely made me want to scrap a “happy and joyful” memory of them. For this I used the kit A Fresh Start by Sugar Pie Scraps.

And I have a sneak peek of a new kit from me that will be releasing tomorrow!! I’m excited to have it release, and I’m excited for some of my upcoming releases as well

Tomorrow I will post the reveal of it and it will be released into the world!

A Fashion Inspired Post?

So this may seem weird since it’s really the first time I’ve done one, but it’s my blog and I’ll do whatever I want. Hahaha. Just kidding, I’ve been hearing a lot of that “I’ll do whatever I want” from my 4 year old the last few days. I’m going to start sharing more of the other things (aside from scrapbooking) that I’m interested in. The last month I’ve been getting into the shopping/fashion interested side of me, which had died with the birth of my kids and a sinking feeling that I’d never be able to do anything I liked again and never be able to spend money on myself ever again. Yes, I was over dramatic maybe, but oh well. I was looking through some of the ready to wear collections for Spring 2011 yesterday and I fell in love with a few of the styles I saw. I’m going to share one with you today from the Burberry:

Ummm yeah. LOVE <3! So I searched etsy for some cute neutral coats and bright belts and purses and came up with 3 different variations on this look, for what I’m sure would be much cheaper than the Burberry version.

Outfit 1

1. Vintage Butter Car Coat 2. Vintage Liz Claiborne Neon Yellow Belt 3. It’s Electric – Vintage Yellow Clutch 4. 1950’s Black Risqué Pointy Toe Stilettos

Outfit 2

1. Black Cashmere Military Trench Coat 2. Extra Wide Bright Pink Woven Belt 3. 80’s Bright Pink Purse or Clutch 4. 50’s/60’s Black Suede Heels

Outfit 3

1. Retro Bone Colored Trench 2. Electric Blue Liz Claiborne Skinny Belt 3. Vintage 60’s/70’s Electric Blue Mod Handbag 4. Black Bow Vintage High Heel Pumps

Of course there are tons of ways you could wear this look and make it your own, so have some fun with it!

BAD Blogger

Wow folks! I’ve been a very bad blogger this month Bad bad Keira. In my defense I was dealing with the man leaving for 6 months, a very unhappy teething baby and an insane cold snap that made me very bleh and depressed. I went through a couple weeks of “woe is me”-ness. It sucked.

The kids are all kind of settled and ok with daddy not being here now, I ‘m armed with baby Orajel and infant tylenol. I have medicine for the 2 older kids should any kind of cold infiltrate the house the rest of the winter. I also went through a really horrible phase of post holiday sugar and caffeine withdrawal which lead to headaches that could very possibly be the worst I’d ever had in my life. The headaches are gone, my sugar intake has been limited to a point where as long as I don’t go on a crazy sugar kick I should be ok.

Today I started a 10 week long training program to try and help me to lose the “little extra of me to love” before I have to stop wearing sweaters and hoodies and am expected to be comfortable in more revealing clothing. So I did an 8.5x11 layout as my starting point, with stats (no weight though. I’m not really at all worried about what I weigh, I just want to lose some inches in a few spots.) I’m hoping to do one at the start of each month, but there likely will not be a whole lot of change between this months stats and next months. Also, I know it’s the wrong way to measure, but I don’t measure my waist at it’s slimmest spot, I measure my waist an inch below my bellybutton since that is usually where my pants are sitting and is therefore MY waist.

So that is January’s layout, February’s will be posted hopefully by the first weekend of the month. Like I said, since really I did just start (but had hoped to start earlier) I don’t really plan on seeing much change. Also there was a set of questions sent to us that we were told to journal about, so I’m going to do that now too.

1) Do you remember how great you felt both physically and mentally when you were at your peak physical condition?

I remember feeling so confident about myself no matter what situation I was in, like I could do everything and anything. Physically I remember feeling great. I didn’t get tired on walks, I could rollerblade for hours, I could go for runs and jogs down the highway. I had so much energy it was crazy.

2) List 3 specific things (solutions) you have to change about your current daily habits to attain results like that again?

First off I have to actually start exercising again. I guess you can’t count chasing the kids around the house as enough exercise forever and I’m afraid I’ve got to be done milking that cow. I’d like to workout 5 times a week for at least a half hour, if not more. The second thing I have to change is my diet. Badly. I eat such crap, especially when the man is away. I do a whole lot of take out or fast food or deepfry goodies. I also snack. A LOT. On things like chips, chocolate bars, chocolate chips, etc. I need to eat much better meals, I need to eat more vegetables and I need to start snacking on better things and cut back on the candy and chips. The third thing I need to do is to stay focused and on track with it. Since I spend most of my time at home with the kids, who don’t care if I workout that day or not, I have never really been accountable before and have always ended up giving up easily and saying “ok you tried.” I can’t do that anymore. It’s not just about looking ok at the beach, it’s about feeling ok. I’m far to lethargic and out of shape for someone my age and with my background. I NEED to change it.

3) What is your #1 goal for the next 10 weeks?  What is the “#1 solution” you must stay focused upon in order to attain that goal?

My number one goal is too stay focused. Too keep it up and to stay on the path. In order to do that I need to continually remind myself why I’m doing this. What I want out of this experience and why. Of course I want to look cute in a bikini this summer, but I want to be able to chase the kids around outside without needing a nap. Heck, I want to be able to do anything without feeling like I need a nap after!

Well that’s it for today folks, the baby woke up and I should get a start on supper now or it will never be ready. Darn those supper fairies for not showing up!

ESS Birthday Blog Train!

ESS is 2 years old!! To celebrate we are having some fun birthday themed challenges and all of us designers got together to do a blog train. It’s an All Seasons blog train, so throughout the blogs you’ll hop to you will pick up a mini kit based on one of the 4 seasons. We’ve got ‘em all covered so in the end you can have 4 nice full kits for all your seasonal scrapping needs!

I have a winter mini (well not so mini I guess) kit here for you all. I got a bit carried away so the kit ended up being 8 papers and 18 elements of free wintery goodness for you! I hope you enjoy and would love to see anything you create with this mini.

Papers

Elements (ok and 1 paper!)

***Edited to fix the links, they have now been uploaded to 4shared because you wonderful people loved it and downloaded my box.net bandwidth to death!! Thanks you!!! Sorry if you have slow wait times with 4shared, that's why I'd uploaded to box.net in the first place.***

Now you can hop on the (or back on) the train and head off to visit the other ESS Designers and snag their goodies! Don’t forget to stop by ESS and participate in some of the fun birthday activities…you never know, you might win yourself a few nice things

Kat's Creations - http://princessk316.blogspot.com
Jusme Digital - http://jusmedigital.blogspot.com
My 4 Princesses Designs - http://www.my4princessesdesigns.blogspot.com
MDK Scraps - http://mdkscraps.blogspot.com
Blueheart Scraps - http://www.blueheartscraps.com/
Missy's Bits - http://melissas-place.blogspot.com/
Knittinjen Designs - http://knittinjen.blogspot.com
Circle of Life Scraps - http://circleoflifescraps.blogspot.com
Elaine Therese Designs - http://elainetherese.blogspot.com/
Designs by Keira - http://thislifewithkeira.blogspot.com/ (you’re here!)
Get Digi With It - http://getdigiwithitdesigns.blogspot.com/
Sugar Pie Scraps - http://www.sugarpiescrapping.blogspot.com
Starry Eyed Designs - http://starryeyeddesignsbyamy.blogspot.com/
Designs by Tina - http://www.digiscraptina.blogspot.com/
Wildcat Designs - http://www.wildcatdesigns.blogspot.com
What's All the Scrap About - http://whatsallthescrapabout.blogspot.com/
Happy Scrap Arts - http://happyscraparts.blogspot.com/

Don’t forget to keep in mind that we all live in different time zones, so if a part isn’t up yet, just check back later and it will be there.

Happy downloading and Happy Birthday ESS!!!

Welcome 2011!!!!!

So we are starting a brand new year! Yay!! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating the ringing in of the new year. We went to the house of the girl who babysits for us occasionally, her mom and Kurt work together. There were lots of other kids there for the girls to play with and Kale kept the women pretty entertained. It was nice, rather low key and the kids had a blast, so that is what matters most!

I have a couple layouts, 1 from 2010 still and then some new stuff for 2011, plus an exciting new project from me will be revealed today. There are a couple other ones in the works, but they still need some tweaking.

This first layout uses a really cutesy kit from Kats Creations and Starry Eyed Designs called Wobble and Toddle. The variety of toys in there made it perfect for scrapping the mess I like to call the kids playroom! This is also the color palette for the January Color challenge at ESS.

I did another layout for my Journal challenge at ESS as well, this time I used the elements and papers from Kats Creations contribution to the January CAC (Create a Collab) which she called Brand New Year.

I also decided to go on an art journal journey this year, so I signed up with a class of sorts and have completed my 2011 cover and my first page as of today! It’s really fun, because I’ll be doing the majority of mine digi style, I get to play around in digi in a way that isn’t traditional digi scrapping. I really enjoy it so far. I like using your imagery to paint a deeper picture. I like art journaling to calm my mind and relax me so that I can be creative in other parts of my life. The class/workshop/whatever I’m taking is called Art Journal Caravan, so my cover shows my new trusty camel (who of course is with me in a caravan.) I’m doing my art journal small for this year 5x7, for ease of printing if I feel so inclined, and so that I don’t overwhelm myself with something so new to me!

And here is my first page, it is about my word for 2011. My word is “self” because I feel like I spend so much time doing things for everyone else. Even my scrapping is more for the kids to remember things. I need to start taking better care of me so I can continue to take care of everyone else! I will have a regular scrap page going into more details about my word and why I chose it and what I hope to accomplish with it this year too. It should be started soon.

Everything so far for my journal pages has been from Tangie Baxter, some parts are from a collaboration between her and SherrieJD. I’m not listing regular credits because there are so many different products used in a single art journal page that I would stop doing it.

So that’s a quick peek at one of my new projects this year. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day you will get your first peek at one or two of the other new projects coming into my life. Have a great 2011 everyone!!!