I have made a new kit called Songs of the Sea. It’s not released yet, however I’d like to share a layout with you – to give you a little sneak peak. I made this with my new kit and I will release this page as a Free QP for you. Hope you like it 🙂 This is my first daughter on a trip to Cabo San Lucas in 2006.

I have made a new kit called Island Paradise exclusively for DigitalArts-Cafe.com. Now available at my shop.

Making digital layouts look gorgeous is simple with this digital scrapbooking kit! What’s even better is that the colors are perfect for all your travel, vacation, seaside and summer holiday pictures… Especially if you been vacationing in paradise! This kit is great for honeymoon layouts as well! The textured floral papers are elegant and the elements are fun! You can pick up Island Paradise at DigitalArts-Cafe.com

Here is the kit preview:

The Papers:

The Elements:

Hi all, I have decided to take a small step back to my scrapbooking roots 🙂 I have been so busy doing digital scrapbook designing  that I have not made a traditional (or paper layout) in probably 6 months. I still cling to all of my old supplies, but haven’t pulled them out recently enough to justify keeping them 🙂  So when my 4 year old daughter asked me “Mommy can we please do something special, like craft with your papers?” and her picture was just sitting there on my desk calling to me…I couldn’t resist! We picked out the papers together, she has great taste, right! Since I always share my digital layouts, I had to share this one that we made… (quality is not the best – photo is from camera phone)

I do have to admit, it was kind of difficult getting back in the swing of things, but I’m so glad I did it!
Papers are Provo Craft, photo corners are Joanns brand, brads not sure, flowers are from a stem of silks, and ink is versamagic Tsukinek.

And here is what my daughter made!

Thanks for looking, have a great day!

I just wanted to share with everyone this absolutely fantastic digital scrapbooking GALLERY. It has the best of the best layouts nominated and submitted from all over the internet. If you are looking for digital scrapbooking ideas, different digital scrapbooking styles and inspirational layouts, you MUST go look at these winning layouts!!

I was the judge for the BEST OF BLENDING TECHNIQUE. While there were several absolutely gorgeous and stunning layouts, this one just gripped my heart… So I will share it with you today.

Be sure to stop in and congratulate SeattleSheri for her win and for sharing this heartfelt layout.

These were my comments:
This is the layout that my heart wants to choose… especially since I am a mother. Right away the kiss between mother and child stands out and captures the heart… Those sweet little lips, the feel of a child’s lips when they kiss you, it’s like heaven… And what a most beautiful and special moment to capture forever in a layout. For some reason, the blending or the actual photo – the emotion, the relationship is captured completely. Then the eye is pulled to the black and white picture where you can see this boy is just embracing the moment and the love! And finally your eyes glance around and see the journaling where you find that this precious layout has captured moments between a mother and child that will never happen again… It’s heartbreaking and beautiful and bittersweet… to me the best use of digital scrapbooking –relaying a message, evoking a feeling, capturing forever a moment and leaving it as the heritage for those who will follow. Well done!

I have a little story to tell you, about us. My hubby and I read a book to our girls called “Guess How Much I Love You”.  In this book 2 bunnies tell each other how much they love each other. Also, my husbands Mom always tells us she loves us more and we, of course, say “no, we love you more”… Well from this, our 4 year old has started to tell us that she loves us more. First it started with showing how big we could stretch our arms and saying I love you THIS much… Now it has graduated to saying just how much that is. We usually tell her how much we love her but she always tops it with she loves us from Earth to the Sky, into Outerspace, past Heaven and back. Now how can we beat that one!

Today my husband tells me “Listen honey, listen to this.” He wanted me to hear how he taught our youngest daugher to say I love you MORE… So he says to our youngest daughter, who will be 2 in July, “I love you.” and she says “I love yee too Daddy” He says “I love you more” she says “I love yee more” he says “No, I love YOU more!” and she says “To sky daddy!” as points up to the sky! She told him she loves him to the sky!! So I said, “Oh how cute, you love Daddy to the sky?” and then she pointed up again and said “to moon!” I was so proud of her at that moment… Both of these girls just seam to astound me!

Hey there everyone,

Well, it’s been a while since I wrote. Just thought I would try to stay updated here of what has been going on. I have not had the baby yet, of course, not till June probably. My friend Crystal has had her baby. Had her at home and is thrilled about being able to do so. It really is so special to be able to do it that way.  This past week we had a yard sale. We got started late Saturday morning last week so tomorrow, Friday, we plan on finishing the yard sale up and donating whatever is left. Through the week my 1.5 year old has been very sick with 102 fever and now sores in her mouth. We took her to the doctor who prescribed her an antibiotic, then we took her to the dentist who prescribed her an antiviral. Now that she is taking the antiviral she is feeling better. So, it has been a long week. I have also been busy taking clients out to see homes again, as business is picking up again. I have been trying to make time for designing but with a sick baby it sure is difficult. Anyway, I think I am taking clients out today… which means writing more offers, less designing… Maybe tomorrow will be better 🙂

DigitalFreebies.com has released my kits Back to School Cool Page Kit and Back to School Cool Add-On seen below 🙂 go now and get 30% off!

Goodmorning all!

Here is  a little rundown of my morning so far: The kids have eaten pancakes, we kissed Daddy off to work, I made jasmine tea, I spilled syrup all over myelf and the couch trying to open the blinds, cleaned it up, we’ve played 52 grape pickup probably 3 times already (not fun), watched the little one run into the corner of my desk, iced her forehead, checked my email, thought about twittering, solved a fight about stickers, watched my 4 year old color (boy is she getting good), picked up scraps of paper from the floor, picked up toys, chased the girls tickling them, got pinched by my little one, applied sales to all my scrap stores, and finally now…set them up to craft with construction paper, punches, and sizzors.

It’s always interesting how much kids, babies, toddlers know – and we don’t know they know! Do you know what I mean? For instance, this morning my little one grabbed a pen and a water bottle and started saying “neem neem” I of course had no clue what she was talking about. Actually I was in such a hurry to empty my hands so I could take away the pen, that I wasn’t really paying attention to her intentions. But my 4 year old says “oh, you want to put your NAME on there” and she says “yah.”  Most of the time we will re-use the bottles by writing our name on them and refilling them from our big 5 gallon dispenser. I never realized she paid so much attention 🙂 I don’t know, I just think it’s amazing that a 22 month old knows that! I remember that my first child also surprised me a lot, knowing things that you just dont’ think kids know! So, even as they grow, I will have to try to remember that they know sooo much more than we give them credit for!

Anyway for all of you SCRAP FANS out there:
In honor of national scrapbooking day I have put all of my stores on sale! Yay… You will find that even my commercial use items are on sale as well! So, I hope you stop by and visit all of my shops 🙂 Happy shopping today!

These days my 4 year old sleeps in, leaving me the mornings alone with my little one (almost 2). Things haven’t always been this way. My 4 year old use to always be the first awake. Since she was my first born child, I’ve always had plenty of time with her alone. Especially since she defies sleep at night too. But for the past year, I have really enjoyed her sleeping in a little and finally giving me some one on one time with the little one- who has never really had too much one on one attention… She is soooo sweet and cuddly. She throws her arms out big and says Hug, to get the biggest hugs. And boy does she sqeeze tight. Sometimes we just sit around while she climbs all over me in her cuddly litte way. FOR NOW, I will enjoy this… but the new baby will be here shortly, only a month or so away. And then everything will change again. And this sweet time that I so cherish with my little angel, will be gone again. I will only be left with the feeling of sweet nostalgia. Bittersweet is the feeling, knowing that with the sweet birth of my next little one, I will lose the alone time with this little one.

Okay, okay,

Well I have put off making this kit long enough, I better get started on it quick! I love the colors, but just have had my plate so full… No, not with designing, I wish!! With trying to get my house in some sort of order after the caos my husband has caused by buying a pool table for it. (I blame him because he’s not here to stick up for himself, hahaha) Anyway, it’s a great pool table (8ft) traditional style solid wood with claw feet, got a great deal on it for only 300. I think leveling it and refelting it will cost almost as much as buying it. We are turning our front room into a game room. He brought the pool table home the other night and the house has been in turmoil ever since, furniture everywhere, kids play area toys spread all over, yikes!! I can’t just sit at my computer and design with the house looking like that – so the re-organization has begun, blech! Ha ha ha…. I complain, but the game room has come together quite nicely (at least that is done). Only thing now is – what do we do with this extra stuff. I know a yard sale is one idea, but some of these things we need to keep for the kids, like books, we read childrens books EVERY morning… so I have to find a spot for the book shelves again! Anyway, this is the dilemna I am facing now… guess that’s not too bad – life is good!

Now go quick to DigitalArts-Cafe to find out what you get when you collect them all!

In this day and age, we are so busy. Too busy to do all the research we should before we vaccinate. Are vaccines the cause of Autism? Are we poisoning our children?? We trust that the government knows what is best for our children, we follow like good little sheeple… I am just as guilty. When it was time to vaccinate my first daughter, I questioned as many probably do. I looked for information about it. I asked our family doctor. Everything told me that it was safe, even my family doctor who truly believes it is safe. Although my heart tells me this is not so. Well we vaccinated our first daughter, but we did so very slowly. We took her in many times and broke up the shots as much as possible. She is okay, thankfully, but the guilt I feel for doing it blindly is huge.

We have not vaccinated our second daughter. It is time to consider her for vaccinations. I don’t know what to do, like many of you. In searching for some sort of information I did find this website and video which are SUPER informative. If you are considering vaccinating, I hope you will take the time to watch this video!  http://stay-healthy-enjoy-life.blogspot.com/2008/10/vaccine-overload.html This video is so full of information, it has more info in it than I could find anywhere else.

Well I am totally stoked. It’s not really new, but it’s new for me… As many of you know, I am pregnant. My little Santa Fe, Hyundai SUV has been a great truck to have. It seats 5 total, 3 in the back and then 2 in the front. But the third spot in the back is only big enough for a smurf. So, naturally we must have a larger vehicle to fit the 3rd car seat. So we have room for the whole family. I am totally excited because I think we have gotten a sweet deal. We filed our taxes and with the money we were able to buy this van… So what did we get?? A 2001 Pontiac gmc Montana with 69,000 miles on it, mechanical sliding door, rear air etc. It feels extended in the far back seats because there is actually some leg room. The price?? $3900 dollars. Isn’t that great.

This van, when it was new, must have been well over 20 thousand dollars, I’m sure! We do have to put some new tires on it soon, breaks and it is due now for an oil change. The carpet in the trunk area is beyond repair (battery acid maybe?) so we are putting a bed liner back there rather than recarpeting it. The only other thing that it needs is a window button for the passenger door and a detailed cleaning. Other than that everything seams really great. It didn’t come with keyless entry but we are able to get that online for about 30 bucks along with an extra key. 

So that was my day today, bought the truck, got the 10 day permit, got it smogged, went to the Pontiac store to see about the things it needed, back to dmv to get it registered, stopped by to see Jason for lunch, my dad put on the plates for me, filled her up, and we went home. It felt like quite a long day, so it feels really great to be home and relaxing. Well, there’s my little update, oh, by the way, my 4 year old was soooo excited to be in a van, it was sooo cute, she just raved about it. “Isn’t this nice Mommy”  “This van is great, do you like it too Mommy” “Can we take our van tomorrow too Mommy” She’s so cute! 🙂

P.S. Those of you following my digital designs… I know you’ve been waiting for something new!! I have some brushes I will be releasing soon… Will get to it this week! Also, you have to check out DAC’s Easter Fun kit, I’ll blog more about that soon! I have posted a challenge on my blog for you, I hope you will participate…and finally I will be starting a wordart challenge for DAC very soon! Hopefully this week 🙂 More to come…

Well, I’m just sitting here drinking cocoa with my 4 year old. It’s a nice sunny but windy here in Vegas, about 62 degrees outside. We just got out of the spa, took a little dip while the little one napped (don’t worry, took a monitor out with us) What a nice time. She got some one on one attention with me. We painted each other with a squirty toy and she practiced floating around a bit. I had to practice not floating – my pregnant tummy wanted to float up without the rest of me 🙂 lol. Ohhhh, there goes the little one, she’s beckoning.

Okay so she is awake. Just brought her downl She does the silliest things, crinkles her little nose at me and shoots me a funny look. Right now she is sitting across from me, trying desperately to pop a blue balloon. She keeps saying “POP, POP, POP” and sitting on it, bouncing on it, falling off, anything to get the darn thing to pop. lol. I’m feeling pretty lucky to spend these days at home with my kids. Not everyone gets to do that.  Here’s a funny thing that just happened with my oldest. She was so excited to get her strawberry shortcake book down and color it. She got it down then decided she wasn’t sure she still would color. When I asked her about it, she said, “oh, I guess I could just color with black” hahahhaaaa so funny. I was confused for a second then realized that it’s just about the only color left for her to color with, poor thing. The little one has broken all the rest. I guess it’s a good thing I have a spare set in the cupboard.

Now my 4 year old is singing to the balloon to come down from the ceiling, lol, and my youngest is yelling at it “come on, come on” telling it to come on down. I’m just glad they aren’t climbing all over my desk mauling me like usual!  This is my favorite time of year, Spring! The weather is perfect here. I’m glad to be rid of Winter. We can go outside and enjoy the parks, go for walks, and enjoy the spa. We get to look forward to Summer’s in the pool. The little one just pulled down Mr. Fuzzy (looks like a fuzzy worm on an invisible string) and was holding the string, when she walked, he walked with her and it scared the crap out of her!!! My 4 year old tried to show her it’s okay but she wasn’t having it. She screamed no no no! Well anyway, there’s just a small snippet of what it’s like around here, these days!

I’m not sure if I showed everyone this old book, but it sure is cute and commercial use and scrap for hire is permitted. So you can do tons with it! Use it for journling, use it as a frame, wrap it with ribbon, clip it, rubberband it, stick a bookmarker in it, use your imagination!

Terms of use require: If used for commercial purposes, thank or credit VIVAYNE in your Terms of Use, included with the file.

Today was a great day. I was able to update my Scrap Outside The Box store and put more product for sale in there. I only have two items left and then my store is fully updated. Phew!! Finally I will be less worried about that and maybe I can concentrate on actually doing some designing. I feel like I’ve been so busy just trying to keep up – with setting up all my product at 2 more stores, picking up CT, having CT move on, keeping up on blog freebies so my traffic doesn’t die off, making my portion of exclusive collab kits for the sites I design at, setting up my first forum challenge (fontalicious at SOTB), and trying to get a new items into the stores… yikes, what did I get myself into?? lol.

Now I am looking to add 2 more people to my creative team, the gals I have now are fantastic and we just lost Pebbles (she was a fab team member to have). I know it will be hard to fill her shoes but with the team I have now, I’m confident we can make it work!

So, on to why it was a great day… this afternoon my 4 year old was outside with my husband and said “Daddy can we go fly my kite today, it is a windy day” so he said “sure.” Now, you could not ask for better kite flying weather… It was blissfully breezy, just a nice cool breeze blowing on a warm day. The breeze felt so good out in that grassy field. It didn’t even give us a chance to get hot.

Flying the kite was effortless practically 🙂 All we had to do was hold the kite off the ground for a second, and it lifted right up into the sky. My 4 year old was so excited to hold it, but I think it surprised her how strong the kite was pulling! My one and a half year old was reaching up to the sky, jumping and saying, “kite, kite, kite.” She was so excited to run in the grass and play. She even saw some other little ones her age. She was trying to hold their hands and looked like she wanted to just hug hug hug them! It was so sweet. After Daddy took the kite handle again, both girls just ran around together under it, jumping and playing and watching it dance up in the sky. It was really cool.

After a bit, the excitement wore off so we walked over to the playground and let them play. Wow, what a good idea! After getting the little one used to the little slide, Jason and I actually got to visit without kids constantly interrupting. Well, other than the occasional fright (worried the little one would fall from way too high), lol, we were able to hold down a conversation – in daylight! Ha ha ha.  We stayed for a couple of hours at least. When we got home, we turned on the spa. It was just so very enjoyable. Jason threw some steaks on the grill and we all hung out in the warm water (with the brrrrrr cold breeze blowing) while the steaks cooked. Life it good. I feel so blessed.

And to top it off… It was soooo easy to get the girls to sleep, full tummy’s, wore out, and passed out! 🙂 We didn’t get any pictures today, it was all just spur of the moment. But what a nice day it was!

Hey everyone, you have to forgive me for all the photos that you can’t see on the blog – I have exceeded my photobucket bandwidth usage. I have upgraded to a pro account but there was some sort of glitch so they are fixing it, they said it will take 2 days to fix, ugh!

I do hope you will be patient with me and stop back in soon when it is fixed!
Thanks!
Vivayne

Hi all, I am having a CT Call. I am looking for your creativity!! I already have 3 people, I’m looking for 2 more to complete my team. If you are interested, please email me something about yourself, a link to your gallery, and a link to your blog: vivayne@hotmail.com

Also, I have made this free quick page for you, from ScrapOutsideTheBox’s free March Daily Download. You can get the rest of the kit here at SOTB’s Blog!! Just check the daily blogs to get a new download everyday 🙂

When you TAKE a freebie Could you please LEAVE a comment on my blog!   Thanks a bunch for your support!

DOWNLOAD FREEBIE

Well, I should be in bed! I signed out and everything but decided, I better get this done while I have peace and quiet, because tomorrow once the girls wake up, it will be run riot again 🙂 So, I will do it now…

Here is my challenge:

This picture cracks me up… This is my little one, 1.5 years old. She was standing on her head like this and every time her sister or my neice Alexis would run up and tap her on the bottom, she would just start cracking up, laughing so hard that is sounded like her tummy must hurt from laughing so hard! So I ran over and snapped a picture of it.

She is just so adorable. I’m sure you are wondering… where are her pants? Well this is somthing we go round and around about, I put ’em on, she takes ’em off, I put ’em on, she takes ’em off… and yes we do this all day until I give up sometime after noon, when it just isn’t worth it anymore. So we have lots of pictures of her running around in a top and diaper. This little babe, she likes to put stuff in her mouth, anything that doesn’t belong there, she likes to try. I really have watch her! She is super lovable, gives BIG hugs. She kisses my eyes so soft and gently, her older sister taught her that. So cute! She is SUPER gentle with animals, but not so gentle with her sister. She is ALWAYS eating. She calls candy Nonny and sissy sometimes sounds like tseetsee, she says nyet instead of thank you (and signs it too), and she likes to play with babies and dance to mozart. She LOVES to go to bed when she’s tired, YAY! So, now that you know a little more about my daughter’s personality, I challenge you to do this little challenge too. What a great idea, to pick a random picture and talk about it… Maybe I will try this in a layout too, rather than always going for the perfect ones!

One more thing, I just finished up my portion of the HOPE FOR MCKENNA charity kit (yes that is why I’m up sooooo late) we are doing it for www.scrapoutsidethebox.com owner Dani, her neice is McKenna. The kit is a fun and flowery-ish and I’m sure many of you will love it, but if you have time, please just stop by and meet McKenna, at the blog Dani made for her: http://hopeformckenna.blogspot.com/. I will post more as soon as the kit becomes available, I was just hoping you could stop by and read about this sweet little baby and her family!

Okay, have a great day/night!! Time for me to go fall down into bed! … If I make it that far!  🙂

Hi all, here is a preview of my newest release:  The Moonlit Rose Page Kit.. Posting a little late, but you’ll love this super fun grungy and edgy digital scrapbooking kit… and I know you’ll love it for any time of year! 

Regular $3.50  on sale till the end of Feb:

$2.63             
Save: 25% off

CLICK HERE

Well I haven’t written anything personal in quite a while so I thought I’d give you a little update. We had been sick there for a couple of weeks between me and the kids with our sore throats… Somehow they got Croup, yikes, and they were miserable, then I was miserable, ugh. As you can see in the superbowl pics, we have half of our tree still up. No, we aren’t still celebrating, we have just been busy and sick and been feeling lazy about it. But I do have to get the stuff up before we have no more bulbs left. We’ve got our tabby cat (Chevy) crawling all thru it and my little one trying breaking them left and right!

So, now that we are feeling better, and I can actually (maybe) think, things are a little nicer around here 🙂 Being able to think is nice! Ha! Let’s see, we’ve  been to the doctor (3 days total) The first day I went to see our family physician, that took 2 hours, just to be seen so she could order an ultrasound. The next day I went to take the kids to the Pediatrician and get their perscriptions, give them treatments. Thank goodness my Dad volunteered to go with me, made it so much easier with the kids to have another adult around. The next day, went for my ultrasound, that was like an all day event. Had to drive 40 minutes across town for them to tell me they didn’t have time for me, then they decided to take me an hour later and rush the whole thing. They guy who did the ultrasound was  a total ass, wouldnt’ answer any questions about it, didn’t let me see what he was doing on the screen, so I barely got to see the baby, wouldn’t let my husband in the room because he might ask too many questions and slow him down, couldnt’ figure out the sex of the baby, felt like I was on the table for WAY too long, took only 3 pictures of the baby (pretty much ones that were no good) and finally couldn’t even tell us the sex of the baby… So, Jason scheduled me to go to another ultrasound later that night, we drove accross town to do that, found out IT’S ANOTHER GIRL! and got pictures. We got  3-D pictures, which look totally freaky to me, but he likes it so whatever. I felt bad, this ultrasound came with a dvd and we never got on for my littlest baby, so she is the only of the 3 that doesn’t have ultrasound video. Oh well, hopefully she will understand when she gets older.

What else?… We went to the Springs Preserve here in Las Vegas, NV. That was really cool, we have a pass and this time of year is THE BEST time of year to do these things. It has lots of exhibits that are fun, like archaealogical digs with fossils thru the whole place, information on Las Vegas Fault Lines and geological information, aquafers, nomads and settlers, Paiutes, Mohave Indian pueblo… It shows about the springs in Las Vegas, on a huge big screen and all the exhibits are interactive and make the boring stuff interesting, somehow… The whole  Springs Preserve is ALL about living GREEN. They have tons of classes about living green and exhibits that tell how to live green in easy ways. They show how trash is turned to treasure… plastic bottles reused to make carpet, an art show made of only junk, glass turned into decorative rock for around your house or made into gorgeous countertops. They have tons of stuff re-made into building materials for homes, they show how to make air passages into homes that actually promote cooler air in winter and warmer air in summer. They have walking trails down to the spring. They conduct all their own electricity with solar panels that also act as parking shades for cars. There is a huge amphitheater section for concerts and performances, a desert botanical garden. I think you can bring your own food and drinks in and make sort of a picnic day out of it. There is an old fashioned train displaying early life in Las Vegas and video games that you win by being water smart, a small park for kids to play at and the building structures, fences and the architecture is beautiful. And, it’s practically in the center of town. There’s so much to see that you just can’t see it all in one day, but you can make such a relaxing day out of it and not rush around. They even have the Wolfgang Puck cafe, it has a wonderful outdoor patio that looks over the whole preserve.

Anway, not sure what else we’ve been doing… but right now it’s lunch time, so I’ll talk at ya’all later! 🙂