Hi All,
It’s Jen again. I am sorry there was no freebie list Monday. We were celebrating my husband’s birthday with my mother-in-law and funnily enough, my husband expected me to be there instead of helping Ginger troll the internet for freebies! There will be another freebie list soon!

This week we are meeting Sara, one of Ginger’s CT members.
What’s your name and digiscrap blog address? Sara Schwabedissen. https://belhepsibah.blogspot.com
Tell us a little about your family. I am married to Nate, my goofball and soul mate. We have been married for over 4 years. We also have our son, Zsolt, who is 6 months old – we are entirely smitten by him! (Editor’s note: I have seen pictures. I understand why you are so smitten!)
Do you work outside the home & if so what do you do? Nope! I’m proud to stay home with my little guy.
What other hobbies do you have besides scrapping? Reading, playing my saxophone and flute, sewing, and photography.
When did you start Digi-scrapping and who taught you? I started the summer of 2008 and was taught by my BFF Rachel (aka Harmonystar)
Are you on any creative teams? Yup, GingerScraps!
Do you design at all? Not yet, I’ve been considering getting started, but haven’t gotten far yet.
What is your favorite challenge here at GingerScraps? I like the photo technique by Harmonystar, I’m always learning new things from her!
Who are your favorite three designers? Ginger, Petit Moineaux, and Shabby Princess.
What are some of your must have elements? I just love ribbons, flowers and buttons – they’re simple but can be used so many ways!
Whose gallery here at GingerScraps do you just love? nutsaboutgabe. Her stuff is always so beautifully done!
What’s your favorite kit in the store right now? I love Kayla’s Quilt, I use it all the time!
If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? I would like to be a little less afraid of things and more outgoing.
What is the one word that best describes you? Ummm…quirky I guess.
Out of all your LO’s so far, what are your favorite 2 & why? I love my “Wonder” LO because it’s such a great picture of my boy and I just like the overall calm feeling of it.

I also love “My Love, My Life, My Everything” – I did it in a speed scrap and like the way the picture was separated and used. (Pssst! She used the Pixie Keepsakes kit, Retro Fall for this layout and it is available here in the Gingerscraps store!)

Who is the most important person in your life? It would definitely be a toss up between my husband and my son. Who could pick one over the other??
What is something that not many people know about you? I’ve always imagined the numbers in times tables as having personalities. Haha!
If you could travel anywhere where would you go? I would go with my husband to visit Hungary.
When you were little what did you dream of being when you grew up? It seriously changed every week. But I will say I always knew I wanted to be a mother, it was my ultimate dream.
What is your favorite food? I just love sandwiches!
How did you pick you user name? It was a name my mom and I used to joke about and then in high school I told people that it was my middle name. So it just kind of seemed a good choice for a screen name.
What do you like doing with your family? We love to just lounge around the house when we have no where to be and spend time together.
Where is your favorite place to be? Home with my family.
What are three things that are important to you? My church, my family, and chocolate.
Is there anything you would change about your life? Well, I think I would love to be independently wealthy! Yes, I could live with that for sure!!
What are you afraid of? So many strange things you would be surprised. One example would be gas stations. See? I told you it was strange.
Do you collect anything? Digiscrap kits. Haha!

Beach Glass- REVISITED!
Beach Glass was the first kit I ever made. I love the colors and the theme, but boy did it need an overhaul 🙂 So I gave all the papers more texture, and edited almost all of the elements. I hope you love it even more than the first time! 🙂 Here is the new preview 🙂
This kit was inspired by the beautiful colors of beach glass. All papers are 12 by 12 and everything is 300dpi.
This full kit (Kit + Add-On) includes-

• * 14 papers
• * 10 bracket frames
• * 1 pre-made border
• * 6 frames
• * 2 ribbons
• * 2 bows
• * 5 glass tiles
• * 4 eyelets
• * 3 glitter swirls
• * 12 pieces of hand made lampwork glass jewelry embellishments

Click HERE to get BeachGlass in my store for FREE!!

Hi it’s Jen again. Yes, I said that correctly. Today we are meeting Ellie Lash. Are you as excited as I am? I am very excited. Ellie is another designer whose stuff I just LOVE… so let’s find out more about her shall we?

What’s your name and digiscrap blog address? Ellie Lash https://ellielash.com/blog

Where do you sell? Scrapbookgraphics

Tell us a little about your family. My husband Chris and I have been married for almost 8 years. We have two-year-old twin boys, Adam and Luke.

What other hobbies do you have besides scrapping and designing? I love to read. I have to pull myself away from my books in order to make myself design most days. lol Between reading, designing, and taking care of my family, I don’t have much time for other hobbies. Someday I’d like to take up photography, though.

When did you start Digi-scrapping and who taught you? I actually started scrapping after I started designing. I just kind of learned by doing. I’m not an elaborate scrapper. Most of my layouts are simple, basic.

When did you start designing and how did you learn? I started designing the summer of 2007. I have a background skinning forums, so that was kind of my springboard. I took a class called Digital Design Fundamentals by Jen Maceyunas, which was helpful, but mostly I am self-taught.

Which programs do you use to design? Mostly CorelDrawX4 and CS3, but I also occasionally use PSPX12 and ArtRage as well.

Do you draw most of your items with a mouse, or hand draw and scan? Mostly I use a tablet. I have a Bamboo that I use to draw with. My mom is an artist and she sometimes sends me some of her things that I will scan in and use.

How did you pick your companies name? I was incredibly original. lol I just used my name.

Who are your favorite three designers? Oooh, so hard to choose! Probably Lorie Davison, Mary Fran, and Irene Alexeeva are right there at the top!

What are your favorite parts of a kit to design? Definitely the elements. I sometimes struggle with papers and alphas, but I love creating elements, especially if I’m drawing them.

What’s your favorite kit that you’ve designed? My favorite kit is almost always whatever I’ve done most recently, so I’ll have to say Sugarville.

What’s your least favorite? I’ve retired all of my least favorites! lol

How do you get started on a kit? Palette first? Rough idea on what you want your papers or elements to look like? It depends. Often I start with a color palette, but sometimes I’ll start with a theme. Like for Aquamarine, I decided to do mermaids and everything else just followed. Sometimes my mom will write and say, “Hey, could you do a kit with this, this, and this in it?” and I’ll build around whatever she asks for.

How long does it typically take you to make a kit? It depends on how motivated I’m feeling. If I’m feeling really inspired I can finish a kit in a day. If not, well, it can be weeks before I come up with something I’m happy with.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? I would be more confident. I lack confidence in every area of my life, including my designing, and I think it really holds me back from reaching my potential.

What is the one word that best describes you? Quiet

Who is the most important person in your life? I can’t choose just one! lol My husband and my boys are all equally important to me.

What is something that not many people know about you? I played basketball in high school.

If you could travel anywhere where would you go? Somewhere quiet, peaceful, not crowded.

When you were little what did you dream of being when you grew up? I always wanted to be a vet. I love animals.

What is your favorite food? Maki nori sushi

What do you like doing with your family? Pretty much anything as long as we’re together

Where is your favorite place to be? At home with my family

What are three things that are important to you? Family, health, and faith

Is there anything you would change about your life? lol Yes and no. I wouldn’t change anything big, but I do wish that I had made better choices health-wise. I wish I’d never let myself gain so much weight so that I have to struggle now to lose it!

What are you afraid of? Spiders, cockroaches, my children or husband getting hurt

Do you collect anything? Books and ladybugs! =)

Here are three of Ellie’s most recent kits. Aren’t they gorgeous?

We gave Ellie the Gingerscraps kit, Kayla’s Quilt, to play with. (Psst! It’s great for family heritage photos too!)

Now on sale in my shop 🙂 Chocolate Kisses!!
Chocolate Kisses is a beautiful kit made by the GingerScraps Team. With yummy combination’s of warm chocolate brown and flirty pink.

And it comes with a full set of word art too!!

And now for the eye candy. Here are the layouts from the lovely ladies of my CT. I hope you get some great ideas! If you click on their layouts, it will take you to their personal scrap blogs!

Rachel

Barb

Becka

Jen

Jodi

Laura

Misty

Sara

Stephanie

And last but not least, mine

Hope you all have a great day 🙂 Come back tomorrow for a designer feature 🙂

This week we are meeing Rachel, CT member and designer for Gingerscraps.

What’s your name and digiscrap blog address?I’m Rachel a.k.a. Harmonystar My scrapping blog: https://thoughtspotbyrachel.blogspot.com/My Family Blog: https://ryanandrachelyancey.blogspot.com/My Scrap for hire Site: https://treasureyourmemories.blogspot.com/

Tell us a little about your family. My hubby Ryan and I met in High School. He seemed to know at 17 that we were meant to be together. I didn’t share his confidence and went on to date other fella’s soon concluding that he was meant for me all along. He served a 2 year mission for the LDS church in Calgary Canada. While he was doing this I had a blast at college and served and internship at Walt Disney World. He got home in August, came to visit me with my mom during my last week in Florida and we all flew back home. He proposed in September and we were married in December in the Idaho Falls Temple. It’s been an amazing 4 years so far! He’s an electrician and qualified computer geek. September2007 Jaden came along and made our lives a whole lot better. He’s a high energy little hurricane but always has something up his sleeve to make us laugh (even when he’s getting in trouble.)

Do you work outside the home & if so what do you do? Not any more. I used to be a Title 1 Aid. I loved it, but when Jaden came along it was more important to stay with him.

What other hobbies do you have besides scrapping and designing? I’m a ballroom dance teacher. I love dancing so much! I’m teaching private lessons to a teenage girl right now. I also really enjoy reading and playing computer games.(I’m quite a computer geek myself)

When did you start Digi-scrapping and who taught you? I taught myself digi-scrapping in 2002 though there wasn’t even a term for it then. I always did all my projects using the computer so it was natural that when we had a great group date I would make a layout on the computer and then print a copy out for everyone. They weren’t even remotely as fancy as today. Mostly just a white background with some clipart. When I first got married I got into it a little more, then around April of last year I found the digi-scrapping world I never knew existed! My I’ve had fun since!

When did you start designing and how did you learn? When I brought speed scraps to my cafemom group I thought it would be fun to have a participation prize so I started scanning things in and extracting them. I was into photo editing and graphic design before I got into digital scrapbooking so the transition to making my own stuff seemed pretty natural. Most of what I make is still for participation prizes.

How did you pick your companies name? Harmonystar has been my screen name since I was 12. I’ll give one of my products away for free to the first person to pm me with where the name Harmonystar came from! I usually keep it a secret, but someone may know.

Who are your favorite three designers?Just 3? That’s a toughy! Lets see, in no particular orderGinger ScrapsLily DesignsPetit Moineaux

What are your favorite parts of a kit to design? The elements. I love finding stuff around the house to scan in. Sometimes I think “I have no idea what could be done with this, but maybe someone else will!”

What’s your favorite kit that you’ve designed? I’m currently working on a kit called Garden Grunge. I think it may end up being my fav. I really love my leaf collection also.

What’s your least favorite? My first official “kit” was Vector Floral. It’s not real great.

How do you get started on a kit? Palette first? Rough idea on what you want your papers or elements to look like?I try to to think of a theme first. Then I usually do palette, elements, then paper.How long does it typically take you to make a kit? That’s hard to say. A Participation prize will usually take me about 3 to 4 hours and that’s after I’ve been thinking forever about what I want to do. Kits have taken me anywhere from a month to 5 hours.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? I’d be skinny like I was in college. Something about getting married really adds the pounds.

What is the one word that best describes you? Fun. I think people have fun when they’re with me. I usually have a lot of positive energy and love to pass it around.

Who is the most important person in your life? The most important would have to be my father in heaven. He’s given me all that I have and I feel very blessed.

What is something that not many people know about you? Anyone who has seen me knows, but in the digital world perhaps not, but I am really really short. I am 4 foot 10.5 inches. I auditioned for Mickey Mouse in Florida (they love short people) made it too. Was suppose to go back the next summer, but got married instead and Ryan didn’t want to live in Florida *shrug*

If you could travel anywhere where would you go? Hawaii would be nice. Or a great tour of England would be fun too!

When you were little what did you dream of being when you grew up? You know those dolphin trainers at sea world? Yup! That’s what I wanted to be… Huh I kinda still do! It’s just so cool!

What is your favorite food? Chicken Cordon Bleu

What do you like doing with your family? Going and playing at a park & taking pictures.

Where is your favorite place to be? Sadly right here in front of my computer. LOL!

What are three things that are important to you? My family My friends My computer

Is there anything you would change about your life? My life is really quite great! I don’t think I’d change a thing!

What are you afraid of? My husband dying young. I depend on him so much. I’m not sure I’d survive without him.

Do you collect anything?scrap kits. LOL I currently have 86 gig worth. Yeah, you could say I’m a bit out of control!

Here is one of Rachel’s recent Layouts with the Gingerscraps kit, First Day of Spring

Rachel is very good at extraction… Check out all of her CU items in the Gingerscraps Store!

Want a freebie? Look below!

Hi all – It is Monday… which means more FREEBIES!!!
I have some VERY exciting news for you all!!
I have a new full kit for you .. and it is FREE!!
It is actually one of my favorite kits ever 🙂 It was so fun to make!! It is March’s ScrapStreet magazine feature!!
Click on the preview to be taken to the magazine and download this kit 🙂

Feature starts on page 35-Pixel Place

Check out some of these Layouts done my my CT and the ScrapStreet CT

By Becca

By StephanieBy JillianBy JodiBy BarbaraBy Dora PhillipsBy LauraBy MistyBy Jorinde van DongenBy Rachel

But wait there’s more!!! If you have not been following the Brownie Points Designer Training you have been missing out!!! They are designers in training and each week they have a new assignment. And guess what that means for us… we get all their finished goodies for free!! But hurry they are only free for a limited time. These are just a few of my favorites… there are tons more!! Click any of the previews to be taken to the designers blogs.

It is time for the Friday Feature!!!
I found this site a while ago, and I just love it!!!!

Do you ever look at professional photographs and wonder how you can get the look they achieve? Well, it take hours of tweaking settings and messing with photoshop until you get it all looking jut right. Well, todays Friday Feature has done all the work for you. She wraps it up into an action, that you can instal in Photoshop. You can then run her actions on any photograph and taadaa your photo now looks like t was taken by professional!!!!

And guess what the best part it.. she does it all for FREE!!!! So here she is.. the lady of the hour….Rita of-
Here is a pic of Rita and her family

Click on this link to read all about Rita

And here are just some of her awesome actiona that you can get for FREE on her site CoffeeShopActions. All previews are linked to Rita’s site so just click any of them to be taken to CoffeeShopActions. And make SURE you leave her some love!!

Thanks for stopping by today 🙂 hope you all have a great weekend!! Ginger

Hello, it’s Jen again. We have another interview with another wonderful designer. Without further ado, Kami Leonard of Ziggle Designs!

What’s your name and digiscrap blog address?
Kami Leonard, Ziggle Designs
www.zigglescraps.com
Tell us a little about your family.
My husband and I have been married for 15 years and we have one beautiful daughter named Zoe.
What other hobbies do you have besides scrapping and designing?
I enjoy photography and I am an avid reader!! I love curling up with a good book!!
When did you start Digi-scrapping and who taught you?
I started digi-scrapping in 2005 and I taught myself!
When did you start designing and how did you learn?
I started designing in 2007 and I taught myself!! LOL!!
How did you pick your companies name?
The Ziggle comes from my photography business (Ziggle Photography). And Ziggle comes from my daughter’s initials (ZGL).
Who are your favorite three designers?
WOW! This is tough. Only 3- huh? I don’t know if I could narrow it down to 3. I mean, it goes without saying ALL of the Scrap Orchard Designers, right? The most recent designers that I have purchased kits from are: Jofia, Brigit Kerr and Newlife Dreams.
What are your favorite parts of a kit to design?
It really depends on the kit, but it is usually the spark that inspired me. It could be an element or paper, but whatever it is that is driving the kit.
What’s your favorite kit that you’ve designed?
I love Firefly Lane right now. It was SO MUCH FUN to design.
What’s your least favorite?
Um…. probably all of my older stuff!!
How do you get started on a kit? Palette first? Rough idea on what you want your papers or elements to look like?
Each kit is different. Mostly the palette comes after I have an idea, but I have found palettes that I just love and gone from there. Usually it’s some new technique or idea that I have that I want to try out. I love the challenge of figuring out how I would do something.
How long does it typically take you to make a kit?
6 to 8 hours
If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
Um… digital scrapbooking related or just in general? In general… I’d like my “backside” to be considerably smaller. Digital Scrapbooking-wise, I wish I could draw better!
What is the one word that best describes you?
oh… it really depends on the day!
Who is the most important person in your life?
Zoe
What is something that not many people know about you?
I am 5 feet tall.
If you could travel anywhere where would you go?
Well this is assuming I had some serious drugs to help me get past my extreme fear of flying (another thing people might not know about me!), I would love to go to Greece.
When you were little what did you dream of being when you grew up?
A dancer.
What is your favorite food?
All of them (thus the larger-than-I-would-prefer “backside”)
What do you like doing with your family?
Traveling
Where is your favorite place to be?
My house
What are three things that are important to you?
My family
My friends
Starbucks Frappuccinos
Is there anything you would change about your life?
Not for a second.
What are you afraid of?
Dying (all kinds of different things… but they all end in death, so I’d have to say overall… just dying)
Do you collect anything?
Dust- my house is a veritable dust museum.

Kami it was great getting to know more about you. I will second your dust collection. Hardwood floors + dogs = unspeakable amounts of dust.

Here are three of my favorite Ziggle Kits

Gathering Leaves
Sunny Side Up

And here is Kami’s current favorite, Firefly Lane (I LOVE the papers in this kit! and such a wonderful palette!)