Wednesday, November 19, 2008

SAS Mega Kit Freebie

It is mega kit time again and the palette is just perfect for those winter wonderland layouts. The kit has 73 gorgeous papers and 105 fun embellishments to decorate your pages. I have a sampler of the kit below and you will find it on sale only at SAS

The latest SAS newsletter came out today, it is full of specials, new products and freebies. If you are not registered at SAS you can get your copy here.


SAS November Mega Kit



Embellishment Close-up



Some of the 73 Papers



SAS Mega Kit Freebie



Download Mega Kit Freebie Here

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

October Mega Kit Freebie

It has been a long time since I was able to blog. Our Birthday Bash kept me hopping all month to say the least. It was a lot of work for all of us to put together and run but I am very pleased with how it went, as a matter of fact we are planning on making this an annual event. For those of you who were not following along, we had to move the forum and gallery in the middle of the Birthday Bash because the site was so busy that it slowed things down. That part was kind of a nightmare for me for a few days but now that it is done I am glad that we did it. One thing that came out of the forum move is that I learned a LOT of things about running a website and it made me want to learn more. I came to the conclusion that you can run a site without knowing everything there is to know about it but now I understand that the more I know about the technical aspect of it the better. For one thing, hiring professional help is VERY expensive and I would much rather be able to do the work myself than to pay someone else to do it. The guy I hired Luke, with Pure Development is a very honest and capable young man so I would recommend him to anyone that needs help, he was a little in awe of the amount of downloads that we have in a typical month since he has never worked with a digital scrapbook site before…LOL.

Now that the Birthday Bash is over and I have had time to recover a bit I am going to be working on ways to make the site better and easier to use for all of our members to use. I am also hoping that I can find some time to design again, the first designing that I have done in the last two months was the October mega kit, if felt good to get back to it so I need to make time for designing again. Speaking of the mega kit, we just released the October Mega kit and as you might have guessed, it has a fall theme, these colors are some of my favorite to work with and I think that you will find it a versatile kit to use. The mega kit is on sale for the month and you can get a nice sampler of it below

This week’s newsletter came out today and we have 8 newsletter only freebies and links to 27 other freebies for you so be sure to get your copy here.

Mega Kit Preview



Close-up of Elements



Sample of some of the 67 papers



SAS October Mega Kit Sampler



Download October Mega Kit Part 1 Here

Download October Mega Kit Part 2 Here

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

SAS Halloween Mega Kit Freebie

It has been a few weeks since I have had time to design or blog. The SAS Birthday Bash (BB) has been a big hit and I am thrilled beyond words. The first thing I want to do today is to thank everyone for the help and support that they have given to the BB. When we started planning the BB I was little worried because we had so many activity and freebie ideas that it seemed like it might be too much to pull off. Besides the initial slow down and a few glitches with the Designer contest things have gone so well (knock on wood) that I can hardly believe it. None of this could have happened without the great team that we have at SAS. I am so proud of everyone, the designers the support staff, the CT, members, everyone! Something this big takes a lot of coordination and effort, everyone that was asked to take something on jumped right in and worked hard to make it happen. You can be sure that this will be a yearly event.

The main glitch that we had, the slowdown was a real pain for a while but SAS members were so supportive that it took the edge off of my panic (yes, I was frantic for awhile) enough that I was able to focus and get it taken care of. I hired a Webmaster and he made suggestions and I implemented the ones that I was capable of doing and that has helped a lot. I am looking to the future of SAS and I want to make sure that we have room to grow so we will probably add an “addition” to our home by moving the forum and gallery sometime soon.

We are on day 17 of the Download a Day, to help speed up the site we moved those downloads off the server and you can get the direct links to the DAD in the store under SAS Gifts. If you are just now starting the DAD you will still be getting a huge kit so go check it out.

We are in the second round of our Next SAS-y Lady contest. The first round theme was “Our Heroes,” the kits that the contestants made contained elements that could be used to honor heroes, from military to firefighters. These kits are available for download in the Next Designer Contest Week 1 gallery. The week 2 challenge was making a kit around a color palette and the contestants did an awesome job, you can download the kits from the week 2 gallery. After downloading them please take the time to vote on your favorites, since it can be tough to choose just one from so many great kits you can choose up to three, the poll is here. The round 3 theme will be posted on Thursday.

We are also hosting a Member Mega Kit. So far we have some beautiful additions, I hope that this will become the largest digital kit ever made but that will be up to SAS members. If you would like to try your hand at designing you can find the palette here and you can download the kits here. Our Post the Most contest is heating up, the winner of this contest gets over $200 worth of SAS products of their choice.

If you have not been to the site since the first of the month you will be surprised, we redecorated. Sherah of Skrapper Digitals designed the most beautiful header I have ever seen. We are still trying to decide what the final colors will be for the site and you can vote on that here. As soon as we pick the colors we will start a Blinkie contest, you can find information about that and all of the other activities in the SAS-y Birthday Bash forum or in the newsletter link below.

We released the September SAS Mega kit today and if you are looking for things that go bump in the night this kit is for you. This Halloween themed kit has 95 elements and 65 papers, the regular price is $8.95 but it is on sale for $5.95 until the next mega kit comes out. I have a sampler of the kit below. BTW many of the mega kit are on sale during our BB this month. The SAS newsletter came out today and you can download it as a PDF or read it on-line. There are lots and lots of specials along with some newsletter only freebies. Lori has previews of the Designer contest kits along with layouts from the first week’s round and the DAD. Well, if you have not checked out our Birthday Bash I hope that you will come by for the last 2 weeks of the party and help us ROCK the digital world. Thanks and Enjoy!

SAS Download a Day





SAS Halloween Mega Kit





SAS Mega kit Free Sampler



Download Halloween Mega Kit Freebie Link 1 Here

Download Halloween Mega Kit Freebie Link 2 Here

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Butterfly Garden Freebie

I have finally got Butterfly Garden in the store. In the last year I have had a lot of requests for this kit, it was only the second kit that I had designed so I knew that it would need some work to get it ready. I found stray pixels (my pet peeve) and some really ragged edges on the flowers but all and all I am pleased with how good it looks. I added a frame and a few journaling pieces along with a lower case alpha but it didn’t need much more than that. I have a sampler of it below so you can get a good up close look at it. The kit is on sale for $3 this week.

I can share more of the details of our big September Birthday Bash. Last week I mentioned the Post the Most contest with a Grand Prize worth over $200, the Member Mega kit, Candee’s SAS-y Layout Design Challenge (a great learning opportunity,) and our Designer contest. The big news this week is that SAS is going to have a Download a Day, this gorgeous kit has 183 elements and 137 papers, the first downloads will be available on September 1st. We will have a month long Scavenger Hunt, all of the SAS-y Ladies have contributed Brag Book pages, they will be hidden in the store and a list of clues will be given out. We will be giving out random RAKs all month long, just for posting in the SAS forum you can win coupons for designer products and SAS mega kits. We are still working on a few more things but those will have to be a surprise for now. So if you like a big party plan on spending time at SAS in September, it will be the place to be!!

With all of these special things going on I need another assistant. If you would like to join a great team now is your chance, I am looking for someone that can spend 3 to 4 hours a week posting our Birthday Bash activities, specials and new products in various places. I would like someone that knows their way around the digital world and could commit to this position for at least 6 months, this is a “for scraps” position. If you would be interested email me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com.

Here is the link to the newsletter, there are some newsletter only freebies and lots of specials and new products. Some of the sales do not start until the 30th or the 1st so pay special attention to the start dates.


SAS Download a Day



Close-up of SAS DAD



Butterfly Garden



Butterfly Garden Freebie



Download Butterfly Garden Freebie Here

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

SAS Mega Kit Freebie

We are getting SO excited about our upcoming birthday celebration in September. We have a full month of special activities and freebies planned for every one. I can tell you about a few more of them today.

Candee is hosting SAS-y Layout Design Challenge, this is an intensive 4 week training course on layout design. Along with learning a lot of things everyone who participates will get prizes and 3 weekly winners will get even more prizes. For more information go to the forum.

A huge freebie that we have planned will actually come from SAS members, it is a Member Mega kit. I will post a color palette then everyone that wants to participate can design a kit or papers, embellishments, brag book pages or whatever they would like to make in that palette. Then you preview them in the SAS gallery for members to download. This one will be fun because a lot of people would like to try their hand at designing and this will be a good incentive, I think we will see a lot of creative ideas from this.

The last thing I can tell you about this week is a contest that has a GRAND Grand Prize. It is a Post the Most contest. We don’t have all of the details ironed out yet but basically whoever has the most posts in the SAS forum and gallery during the month of September will win the Grand Prize and that prize is over $200 of free products from SAS, yes I said OVER $200!!!!

As you might know we are also hosting a Designer Contest starting September the 4th. We are looking for a few more designers to add to the team so if you are interested the details are in the forum.

I have a sampler from our latest mega kit Summer Daze, this kit is so bright and cheerful, just perfect for scrapping those fun filled summer pictures that you took. There are 80 papers and 123 elements in this humongous kit. My contribution includes 24 papers that have a watercolor/Batik look. As usual we have the mega kit on sale for $5.95 for the first month so now is the time to get it.

You will not want to miss this week’s newsletter, there are lots of great new products and specials along with 6 newsletter only freebies, download it here.

I will be back next week with more exciting details about the SAS-y birthday party.

SAS August Mega Kit



Close-up



Some Papers



Mega Kit Sampler



Download Mega Kit Sampler 1 Here


Download Mega Kit Sampler 2 Here

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Memory Lane, All Links

I still don’t know why Memory Lane part 5 didn’t work for so many people, the first time I had a comma in the name but after I fixed it the link should have worked for everybody. I re-zipped and uploaded it 5 times and I even re-saved the elements in case one of them was corrupt but nothing worked. I finally decided that it was cursed and that was that. I had Lori download it and she re-zipped and uploaded it so the 6th time should be the charm. I have put all of the links at the bottom of this post so you don’t have to hunt for them. I changed the names of the first two links so that it is not so confusing, the first two links contain the first 4 parts of the kit. The other links are parts 5, 6, and 7. Since this has been so messed up I will leave all of the links up until Friday the 25.

Even though I have 18 kits in various stages I don’t think I will have time to finish up one for August. The reason I won’t have time is because SAS is having a birthday soon. Yes, SAS turns 1 on September 12th and I will tell you what, we plan to celebrate big time. We have SO many things planned, special contests, activities and FREEBIES, lots and lots of freebies, so many freebies that they will be coming out of our ears (excuse me I got carried away…LOL.) I have to keep most of the festivities secret for a little while longer but one thing I can tell you about is that we are having a designer contest. We are looking for a few designers to join the SAS team. If you would like to give it a try or if you want lots and lots of free kits from the contest be sure to check in to the forum on the 1st of September. We will have more information posted there soon. Well, that is all I can tell you for now but stay tuned for more exciting details.



Memory Lane 1 to 4





Memory Lane 5



Memory Lane 6



Memory Lane 7



Parts 1 to 4 are combined into 2 links
Download Memory Lane 1st part of 1 to 4 Here

Download Memory Lane 2nd part of 1 to 4 Here


Download Memory Lane 5 Here


Download Memory Lane 6 Here


Download Memory Lane 7 Here

Friday, August 1, 2008

Memory Lane Part 7

The post below was scheduled to show up on Saturday but obviously it didn’t. I don’t know why the scheduling option is not working for me but hopefully I can get it figured out. I was going to disable the links to Memory Lane on Friday the 8th but because of this glitch I will leave them active until Friday the 15th. In the mean time I wanted to post the link to this week’s SAS newsletter. and to tell you that today I added Leaf and Stem Packs to all of my Commercial Use Designer’s Garden kits. To celebrate all of the kits are on sale for 30% off. If you previously purchased any of the kits you will be receiving the link to the appropriate Leaf & Stem pack soon. So far there are 8 different kits available with more to come soon. You can get the links to Memory Lane below. Enjoy!

A Designers' Garden 6





A Designers' Garden 2





(Scheduled for Saturday 2nd)
I don’t have time to blog too much tonight, I just wanted to get part 7 of Memory Lane set up. I am trying the scheduling option again, I hope it works this time. I have a doctors appointment this morning but I will check when I get back to make sure it is showing up.
I am still getting emails from some people saying that they are having trouble with part 5. I think it must be cursed. I have rezipped and uploaded it 5 times, the last time to 4-shared. I even resaved the elements from the original Photoshop docs hoping that would help. I am going to ask Janalyn if she can upload her copy somewhere that I can link to. I will leave all parts of the kit active until the 8th of August. If you are new to my blog be sure to go back to the old post to get the freebies from the SAS Mega kit, they are all still active. Well, I’ve gotta run so I can get up early for my doctor’s appointment.

Memory Lane Part 7



Download Memory Lane Part 7 Here

Friday, July 25, 2008

Memory Lane Part 6

Things didn't go as planned with this post. I had scheduled it so that the post below would come on line on Friday while I was on vacation. It looked easy enough, click on Post Options, choose the date and time that you want the post to show up, enter those totally unreadable verification letters and you are good to go………LOL. Surprise, Surprise, while I was away visiting my daughter secure in the knowledge that this post and Memory Lane part 6 would be here waiting for you, the post did not show up. I am going to try to make the scheduling thing work on Friday, today I will set it up so that part 7 shows up Friday morning but I will check it when I get up to make sure that it works.
I am still receiving a few comments that people are having trouble with part 5 of Memory Lane. I have re-zipped and uploaded it 4 times, I tested it every time and it worked for me. This time I have re-zipped it and uploaded it to 4-shared instead of my web site, the new link is two posts below at the bottom of the July 16th post. Read on for the post that you should have gotten on Friday and come back this Friday for the final piece of Memory Lane, Enjoy!


Well, if everything works like is should you are reading this post and I am visiting my daughter. I was so excited when I found out that you can schedule your posts in Blogger. Sometimes when I want to post something I don’t really have the time that I need to do it well. With the ability to schedule posts I can work on them a little bit at a time so that I don’t’ have to rush and get it done all at once.

I have part 6 of Memory lane for you today. This part has one of my favorite papers of the kit, paper 2 is blue with tan scrolls, I just love this particular color combination, I think that it will go with a lot of things. I like it so much that I have a close-up of it below. I will have part 7 for you next week. I will keep all of the links active until the 1st of August then it will disappear for awhile before I put it in the store.

The link to the SAS July Mega Kit sampler is still active also. This kit has some great elements. There are 61 papers and 100 embellishments and it is on sale for $5.95. I am real happy with how the pier border came out, I think it will set of a layout well. I did the copper shells with one of Al Wards of Action FX styles. If you have not signed up for Al’s subscription plan now is the time to do it because the rates are going up on the 1st of August. He has at least 100,000 things to download, all for one very low price so get it while the getting is good. BTW, Al also has a very good book on Photoshop called PS for right brainers, it is worth adding this one to your PS library (yes, I have a large PS library…LOL)


Some of the SAS July Mega Kit Elements




I better wrap this one up so that I can finish packing for my trip. I hope that I get lots of good pictures so that if I ever have time to scrap I will have some pictures to scrap with. Enjoy!

Memory Lane Part 6, Paper 2



Memory Lane Part 6



Download Memory Lane Part 6 Here

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

SAS July Mega Kit Sampler

While I was putting parts 6 & 7 of Memory Lane together I realized that the part 5 zip had a space and a comma in the name and when I came and read the comments I see that some of you had trouble downloading it. I always test my links, it downloaded and unzipped fine for me so I didn’t notice the problem. I have fixed the link so that everyone should be able to download it now. Sorry it took so long for me to realize it. I will have part 6 on Friday and the grand finale next week. I am going to Nebraska to visit my daughter Beth at the Air Force base where she is posted so I am going to schedule the Friday post. I am looking forward to seeing Beth since it has been a few months since she came home. Her husband has been deployed so this seemed like a good time to make the trip. I have heard that Omaha has a really nice zoo so this will give me the chance take some pictures with my new camera, something besides the silk and real flowers that I have been photographing. I have been having a lot of fun making the Designers’ Garden CU flower kits and I should have a few more ready next week.

Designer’s Garden 3



Our July Mega kit has been released today. If you feel like I do about the ocean then you are going to LOVE this kit. I was raised in Massachusetts and as a kid I spent a lot of time on Cape Cod fishing and having picnics, the water was a little too cold to swim in but I have so many great memories of walking along the beach and climbing on the break waters. We also use to go to the piers where the boats came in with their catches of lobster and fish, those are some of my most vivid memories. I spent the summers with my dear grandma Elizabeth, one of the gentlest souls I have ever known. She lived on Anna Maria Island in the Gulf. In those days no one seemed to worry about sun burns so I always spent the first few days as red as a Cap Cod lobster, my grandma would spray me with vinegar to cool me down. I got to spend 3 months every year playing in the sand and sea, looking for shells and making sand castles for the sand fleas. I have been back to the Gulf a few times in recent years and as far as I am concerned it is the fountain of youth, it takes years off of how I feel physically and emotionally. Well, enough of that rambling…LOL. As I was saying about the July Mega kit, if you have any pictures of you family frolicking in the waves you have got to have this kit. The designers came up with some awesome papers and embellishments, there are piers, boats, anchors and shells to decorate our layouts with. The SAS CT team has been busy making some beautiful layouts so stop by and take a look at their handiwork.

Click here for the link to the newsletter. We have newsletter only freebies and great specials every week. If you do some shopping be sure to take advantage of our Free with Purchase kits, we always have at least two kits or combination of kits that you can get free with a $10 or $15 purchase, just a little way to help your $$$$ go farther.

Sampling of Elements from SAS July Mega Kit



Close up of SAS July Mega Kit



SAS July Mega Kit Paper Samples



SAS July Mega Kit Freebie



Link to SAS July Mega Kit Freebie

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Memory Lane Part 5

It has been a busy few weeks for me. As I mentioned in my last post I have been camera shopping, I had some previous photography experience and own a nice Pentex SLR so I considered getting a Pentex digital SLR because my old lenses would fit a new digital Pentex. The main problem I ran into with a digital SLR was the price, to get everything I wanted in a camera would have ended up costing around $1400. The next best (and cheaper) option was the Canon G9, it does almost everything a digital SLR does but at about a third of the price. One really nice thing about it is that even with all of the bells and whistles that it has it will still fit in a shirt pocket. So I ended up with the G9 and so far it seems like a good decision. I have been playing with it a lot and I am amazed at the detail I can get with it. Using foam core and every small lamp in the house I have a set up a little table top studio in my kitchen. I have been taking pictures of lots and lots of flowers to use in my kits and for Commercial Use products. My DH has never been too big on buying me flowers but now I have been buying them for myself and photographing them, it is a business expensive so it makes it more practical and I get to enjoy them after I am done.

I managed to put together 8 CU flower packs so far, they are called A Designers’ Garden. I hope that you will be seeing them in some other designer’s kits soon. The details are incredible and I just about went blind extracting them…LOL. They are all full color instead of grayscale. With full color when you re-color them you still have all of the tints and hues like in the original color, that is something that you cannot get with grayscale. Many of them are layered so that the leaves and centers can be colored separately. That part took forever since every little piece of the leaves or centers had to be extracted or they would have shown up on the flowers and that would not look too good.

With being wrapped up in that I never got around to posting the rest of Memory Lane so today I have part 5 and next week I will have parts 6 and 7 (I promise.) Parts 5, 6 and 7 have an additional 24 papers and 22 elements so all together there are 40 papers and 34 elements.

Here is the link to this week’s newsletter, there are always some newsletter only freebies in it and all of our sales are listed.

Some of A Designer's Garden line












Memory Lane Part 5



Download Memory Lane Part 5 (Link fixed)

I have had some emails saying that people are still having trouble with part 5. I have tested the link a number of times and it is OK for me. One thing you could do is clear your browser cache. I am putting the new link here also. If anyone is still having trouble with it I will repackage it and post it next week with part 7, part 6 will be posted on Friday

New link to part 5


Latest link (July 30th) to Memory Lane Part 5

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Watercolor Dreams Freebie

I did a boo boo, the two links to Memory Lane were the same, I fixed them so that the second link is REALLY the link to parts 3 and 4, sorry about that.

Today I am introducing a kit that I have been working on for a few months, Watercolor Dreams. I originally made some patterned papers to go with the watercolor papers but I was not real happy with them, I reworked them a few times but never got them where I thought that they fit with the watercolor papers. Last night I finally decided to get rid of the patterned papers and put the kit together with just watercolor papers. I have been trying to develop a convincing watercolor technique for a long time. Before I shattered my elbow I use to hand dye fabric to quilt with and roving to spin into yarn to knit with so I have always loved the hand dyed/watercolor look. It did not seem like a big deal to be able to do it in Photoshop but it turned into a real challenge for me. I think that with these papers I am on the right track so you can expect to see a lot more of them from me. Because I was working on this kit for so long I ended up coming up with a lot of elements to go with it, my favorite on is the heart/flower/yarn cluster, it was a lot of fun to make. I have a freebie from Watercolor Dreams for you, the pieces are taken from the kit and the add-on paper pack. The kit and paper pack are on sale the week. Here is the newsletter, be sure to check it our for all of the great sales and freebies.

If you are new to my blog be sure to check out my previous posts, there are a lot of freebie links still active.

Watercolor Dreams



Close-up



Watercolor Dreams Papers



Watercolor Dreams Freebie



Download Watercolor Dreams Freebie Here