St. Patricks Day Twisted Convoy

May your day be touched by a bit o’Irish luck,
brightened by a song in your heart,
and warmed by the smiles of people you love!

Today the St.Patrick’s Day Convoy heads out with the help of 22 other leprechauns! I took a quick peek this morning to see what freebies that the designers were offering. I immediately though of how lucky anyone who takes advantage of this convoy will be.

Wishing you a rainbow
For sunlight after showers -
Miles and miles of Irish smiles
For golden happy hours -
Shamrocks at your doorway
For luck and laughter too -
And a host of friends that never ends,
Each day your whole life through!

One of the designers has incorporated glasses of Guinness Stout into a background paper.
So head out and gather some free “digi-gold” today!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!!

Irish blessings are great inspiration for scrapbook pages check out the blessings here at

Island Ireland
which is a great internet guide to art, culture and environment. Both of the Irish Blessings I quoted today were found here!

The challenge and art of clustering

Okay…clusters of photos are easy for me. Yet there is a clustering technique that I’m finding very challenging even after several tries. I really admire those layouts that have a cluster of flowers, leaves, ephemra, ribbon and such but I’m having a hard time with mastering it. I’m pretty sure it’s a style that you can’t just take a class called “The Principles of Clustering Elements” at your favorite digiscrapping site. But it seems to be one of those techniques that just come with practice or study of layouts where someone used it and it caught your eye. I’ve posted simple credits but due to the volume of designers and items used I’m not including actual links. I’ve attempted it a couple of times. Once was basically a premade cluster from that I added a couple of elements to.

Credits: End of Summer Kit by Melissa Daniel and Neverland Scraps
Photo Frame: Iced Mocha Divine Digital Feb 2008 Collab Kit
Bracket Mats & Grey Mat: DivineDigital Birthday Kit
Burgundy Mat: I Just Love Her Kit by Royanna Fritschman from DivineDigital.com
Alpha: Antique Alpha by LBCreations from JustForTheScrapOfIt.com
Font: Pea Olson from KevinAndAmanda.com

My second attempt was an ADSR 4 Challenge where we had to scraplift a layout that inspired us. I found a layout that had clustering and didn’t copy it per se but used it as a guideline. So even though I created the cluster by myself I used another layout as a guide. Here is the link to the original layout . Here is my version:

Digital Kit:Feeling Lucky designed by Royanna Fritschmann
Word Art:Express Yourself designed by Ronna Penner
Star Swirls:Some Gave All designed by Heather Manning
Circle Stitching:O So Thankful designed by Anita Steriou
Stitched Flower Border:Road Less Traveled designed by Theresa Hernandez

On Sunday I created one where I used a background paper that had a “cluster” as part of it already. I “enlarged” the cluster and “expanded upon it” so to speak. Although I used a ton of elements in making it I really don’t consider it an original quite yet because the background paper was my inspiration and guide.

Background Paper, Flower Clusters, Frame:designed by Eirene_07 for the Digital Scrapbook Day 08 Treasure Hunt
Matting Papers: Boys Rule designed by Melissa Daniels
Envelope, Yellow Ribbon Curl and Angel Stamp: Imagination Collab Kit from Digitals
items designed by Tallula Moon, Kathryn Estry, Beth Rimmer
Gold Charm: The Vintage Gypsy designed by Stacey Crossley
Blue Clock Brad: Angel by Royanna Fritschmann
Notebook Paper: Simplement Maryse designed by Maryse Vincent
Heart Charm:designed by Bel Vidotti Scraps for the Twisted Convoy Valentine Convoy
Raindrops: designed by Booland Scraps for the Christmas Around The World 2008 Kit
Victorian Bookmark: from TwistedPapers.com

So the next step in my journey to master “clustered layouts” will be doing one completely from scratch. But I think I’ll continue “practicing” like I have been. After all…..practice makes perfect!

Valentines Convoy

I know that Valentine’s Day has come and gone already. But I just can’t resist talking about Twisted Convoy’s Valentines Convoy. I spend an afternoon downloading some great stuff from the designers that participated. The links are all good until March 14th so if you have a few minutes you may want to pop in and see if anything catches your eye before it’s gone.

Apparently there were some complaints about the size of a few kits (there were a couple that could be classified as “mini kits”). As such they are clarifying what is a “full-sized kit” before the St.Patrick’s Convoy heads out on March 17th.

Winter Twisted Convoy!!!!

Hey…..if you were a fan of the Holly Jolly Blog Train or the Christmas Around the World Kit you may have noticed that several participants also created items for a Christmas Convoy. You may be happy to know that the creators of the Christmas Convoy have decided create a series of blog trains/convoys that happen year round. On Friday they kicked off the Winter Convoy with 32 designers participating. The colors are a way to start transistioning to those warmer spring colors yet still give you winter options. The New Years Convoy yielded me some great items. Go check out the first driver here.

The Valentines Convoy hits the road Feb. 14th is shaping up to be a great one. I love how a glitter is included in all the convoys. Here is the color swatch that the designers are working from for Valentines.

One could end up with a wonderful selection of freebies for every season/holiday under the sun by following the Twisted Convoys all year long.