Dancing Under the Stars - Free for a Limited Time

Here is my entry in the final round of the Second Chance Contest at DSS. The requirements for this round  were to tie into a theme of midnight, include an alpha and create a kit of with a maximum of 14 papers and 40 elements. Other than that, it was a free-for-all. This round was particularly hard for me because it takes me much longer than 4-5 days to create a kit of this size. I also had several other commitments this past weekend, so time was a very limiting factor.

My midnight theme was "Dancing Under the Stars." I recently read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and the Damned" and "Bright Young Things" by Anna Godberson. Both are set in New York City in the jazz age of the 1920s. So I was thinking of speakeasys and flappers and cigarette girls as inspiration. The kit mixes glamour and romance with a little bit of shabby.


You get 12 full size papers, 28 elements and alpha (upper case, lower case and numbers). The elements include: 3 bows, 2 button bows, 2 curled ribbons, a disco ball, 2 dress forms (one plain, one with a dress), 3 flowers, 3 frames, a glitter border, the moon, stars, iron flourish border, 2 pins, ribbon lace strip, pleated ribbon lace, a pocket watch, a 6-pointed star, a tag and a candle. I created several of the elements (including the dress and dress form, the moon, stars, candle and disco ball) entirely in photoshop. And here's the preview.

Download links are in the DDS gallery here: [link] Sorry - this freebie has been retired

Enjoy and download soon as it will only be available for a short time!

The Way It Was -- Free for a limited time

Yeah! I made it to the next level in the Second Chance Contest at DigitalScrapbookingStudio! As a result, I needed to make a mini-kit of 4 papers and 10 elements with no CU at all - no brushes, actions or stock photos for elements and textures. Also the theme was to be "evening news" and the style vintage. So here's what I came up with:

Here's the description: 

Famous news anchor Walter Chronkite used to sign off his broadcasts with the phrase, "That's the way it is." As a take off on that, I decided to call my mini-kit "The Way it Was." It's a vintage kit with a news/media theme.

In keeping with the contest rules, no CU was used in the creation of the kit or the packaging (including my designer button). 

The kit contains four textured papers, 2 with subtle patterns. For the elements, I tried to do a mix of photoshop generated and extracted from my own photos. 

The elements are:

- flower w/ button center (flower and button extracted, thread generated)

- film frame and square frame (both generated)

- journal stack (newspaper, flower, leaf extracted, note paper generated but distressed with overlay 

that was created from a photo)

- foliage (extracted)

- postcard (extrated; curl added in ps)

- radio (extracted)

- ribbon (generated)

- rivet/brad (generated)

- tag cluster (key, string extracted; tag generated)

The download link is available in the kit description in the dss gallery [link]. (Sorry - this freebie has been retired) While you're there, check out the other free minis -- there is some gorgeous stuff to be had!!

Hope you enjoy! (if you like it, download soon it will only be available for a short time) 

Summer Afternoon - Free for a Limited Time

Over at the Digital Scrapbooking Studio they are celebrating their Birthday Bash during the month of September with many special activities. And, of course, one of those activities is the annual next studio designer contest. There are some absolutely gorgeous kits being offered for free -- check them out in the studio gallery [link].

I didn't get around to entering the contest -- not a great time with school starting and hurricane Irene followed by a week of rain and flooding in our area. But they are allowing designers who missed the start of the contest, as well as those eliminated in round one, to enter the Second Chance Challenge. So I entered that for a chance at free enrollment in their design classes. And so all that is a very long introduction to my latest freebie - Summer Afternoon. For this challenge we needed to create a kit with 6 papers and 20 elements - including a cluster element. The kit name and theme (Summer Afternoon) as well as a kit preview template was provided. The designers could chose their own color palette and needed to make an "eye-catching" product name/label for the preview.

My kit has the required 6 papers - all 12x12 at 300 ppi. The elements include a rectangular frame, a perspective triple stamp frame, a double circle frame, a vine, a leaf spray, 2 flowers, a wooden butterfly, a wooden canary, a wooden teapot, a wooden button/brad, a lacy mat, a long curled ribbon, a short curled ribbon, a bow, an iron flourish, a rope with beads, a wooden sign/plaque, a line of cross stitches and a cluster frame (based on the double circle frame). So here is the preview:

Download links are provided in the gallery posting: [link].  Grab it soon as it will only be available for a short time. (Sorry - this freebie has been retired.)

Summer Afternoon was inspired by the rustic elegance of my Aunt and Uncle's "cabin" on the lake. I spent many summer afternoons there over the years. Here's a layout I created with the kit that shows some of outdoor scenes at the lake:

That's about it for now... thanks for stopping by my blog and hope you enjoy the kit!