{we care. do you?}

Danielle is a talented layout artist known to most of us in the digital scrapping world as Artemia. She has a wonderful heart and a generous personality. Tragedy has recently come into Danielle's life. An accident injured one of her two little boys and may have permanently left her husband partially paralyzed. Many of us have poured out our hearts to Danielle. Now, 4 A5D designers, along with some of Danielle's friends in the industry have come together with an incredible collaborative kit to help her with her financial burden.

The kit is called Artemia for our friend Danielle and is all about hope, friendship and love. It has over 50 papers, more than 200 elements, and 3 alphas! It is available only at After Five Designs until the end of the year.

We want Danielle to keep hope and we want to keep her warm. Here's how you can help: Purchase the kit for only $7.99. With your purchase, not only will you receive this beautiful kit, but a complete 12-page quickpage album. You will also be entered in a random drawing to win one of 10 free issues of the December Digital Artist Magazine. Every penny of the proceeds of this kit will go to Danielle and her family. Show your support of Danielle, and if you don't know her personally, show your support for the caring digital community of which you are a part!

Be sure to keep your eye on our blog for more information and giveaways.

Show that you care.

{cake recipe}

I've had some requests for the recipe of the chocolate cake in my previous post. The recipe is from the Southern Living Christmas 2007 book. I'm not sure what the copyright for those recipes are and if I'm allowed to post it, so don't tell where you got it ;)

The cake was actually pretty easy! It uses store-bought items, so don't worry. You won't be covered in flour when you're done! I suck at frosting, so hopefully yours will turn out prettier.



Cheesecake - Stuffed Dark Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:



• unsweetened cocoa


• 1 (18.25-oz.) package devil's food cake mix


• 1 (3.4-oz.) package chocolate instant pudding mix


• 3 large eggs


• 1 1/3 cups milk


• 1 cup canola oil


• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract


• 1 1/2 tsp. chocolate extract (optional - I couldn't find it)


• 1 tsp. almond extract


• 3 (1.55-oz.) milk chocolate bars, chopped (I used Hershey's. Found them on the candy stand at checkout)


• 3 (16-oz.) cans homestyle cream cheese frosting (I wish I would have had one more can)


• 3 (7.75-oz.) boxes frozen cheesecake bites, coarsely chopped (this was hardest for me to find!)


• 1 (12-oz.) jar dulce de leche caramel sauce (couldn't find this, so I just used plain caramel)


• double chocolate rolled wafer cookies, broken in half (I used Pepperidge Farm. Watch out! They're expensive. Perhaps a cheaper garnish next time...)

Instructions:



• Grease 2 (9" - but I only had 8", so my cake was taller, but narrower) round cakepans, and dust with cocoa.


• Beat cake mix and next 7 ingredients at low speed with an electric mixer 1 minute; then beat at medium speed 2 minutes. Fold in chopped chocolate bars. Pour batter into prepared pans.


• Bake at 350 for 32 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool cake in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks. Wrap and chill cake layers at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours (this step enables you to split cake layers with ease).


• Using a serrated knife, slice cake layers in half horizontally to make 4 layers. Place 1 layer, cut side up, on a cake plate. Spread with 1/2 cup cream cheese frosting; sprinkle with one-fourth of chopped cheesecake bites. Repeat procedure with remaining 3 layers, frosting, and cheesecake bites, omitting cheesecake bites on top of last layer. Frost sides and top of cake with remaining frosting.


• Drizzle desired amount of caramel sauce over cake, letting it drip down sides. Chill until ready to serve. Decorate cake with rolled wafer fookies and remaining chopped cheesecake bites. Store in refrigerator.

Enjoy! Cheers!

{i heart lightroom}

Can I just say how much I love the new version of LightRoom? It has SO much improved over the last version. Keywording is much better, love the exporting features, and lots of other changes. My favorite? The adjustment brush (of course!) and post-crop vignetting!!! Wahoo! About time, I say. My one big problem with LightRoom was that it would only add a vignette to an uncropped photo. Now, I try not to crop. When I take photos, I always try to capture the photo exactly as I want it. But there are times when I don't have time to think about composition. If I don't snap *right then*, I will end up missing it. So I have to resort to cropping now and then. So this is a HUGE improvement for me!

Wanna see how great it is? I'm going to do something I usually never do and post some before and afters. Now you all will see that I'm an average photographer, but a FABULOUS editor ;)

I took these photos Halloween night. Because of the time change, daylight was gone by the time the kids got home from school, had a snack, and put costumes on. That meant I had to resort to low tungsten indoor lighting, and naturally I forgot to check my camera settings. I just snapped these headshots to have something that I could say I took on Halloween (I will make them get re-dressed in their costumes this weekend so I can take them outside for a photo shoot). So these are TERRIBLE. But I had to have them, and LightRoom saved them for me!

My Little Cowboy Before:



My Little Cowboy After!



Scarlet O'Hara Before:



Scarlet After!



A Mummy in Rags Before:



A Mummy After (she was really playing the part)!



Alice in Wonderland Before:



Alice After!



Now, if that doesn't sell you on this application, you can't be sold! Seriously, give it a try. You won't regret it! And no, I am not a paid advertiser for Adobe. I just love this application!

Not only did we have Halloween last weekend, but Helen had her birthday party too! She turned the big 1-1, and had a fun Guitar Hero party in the garage. I made her invitations to send to school:



Seven friends joined her, and we all had a blast!





Boys Will be boys:



Totally blurry, but I LOVE this one:





Group shot:



My soon-to-be-sister-in-law (seriously, what do you call her? STBSIS?) also had a birthday recently. My bro had me make her a cake, and of course I had to opt for the huge, 4-layer, cheesecake-stuffed, chocolate monstrosity! I do enjoy baking, though, so this was a good excuse :)







Again, blurry, but I love it anyway!



And, since I'm on a roll, here are some random images from a couple weeks ago. 4-wheeler riding with my brother.















Well, this post has taken me two days to write, so I better leave it there! It's a beautiful Friday here, and I'm going to go enjoy it! But before I go, let me announce the winners of my DSD give-a-way! Random.org gave me these numbers:



which means that denali, donna rafferty, and joselle are the owners of my new kit! Congratulations!

Here's to LightRoom! Cheers!

{happy dsd!}

Today is National DigiScrap Day! Thousands of digiscrappers all over the world are coming together toady to do what we do best - create memories! I myself hope to find a little time to scrap, but my day is packed with my daughter's 11th birthday celebrations.

To celebrate, After Five Designs is having a blog party (among many other fun festivities)! Each of us who are participating will have a little something extra for you if you visit.

I'm offering a coupon to get my Crystal Cranberry kit for only $1.00!!



Use coupon code DSDdollar to get this kit for $1. All i ask is that you leave me a comment here, so that I know who's reading :) Also, please don't share the coupon code. It's a special treat for blog readers only! Direct your friends here to get the code instead. The coupon is good for today only!

On top of that, I am also going to be choosing a few random posters who leave me a comment today to win one of my new All That Glitters kits! Winners can choose the {His} or {Hers} version.





Be sure to visit the other mixologists' blogs to pick up even more goodies:
After Five Designs Blog
Camila Designs
Catherine Designs
Karla Dudley Designs
Lily Designs
Pink Ellie Designs

Don't forget to stop by ScrapBlog to enter for a chance to win 50 prints of your own customized holiday greetings!



Happy Scrapping!!

{happy halloween!!!}

Wow, I guess blog updating has not been high on the priority list! However, now that things are getting a little more organized around here (phew!), posting should be a more regular occurrence from now on.

I love Halloween! In fact, I think I love it more as an adult than I did when I was a kid. I love to start decorating the house with pumpkins, leaves, and other fall items. I also have my little Halloween town (The Spookytown Collection, available at Michaels) that I put up as soon as October hits. I really, really don't like the Christmas villages, but I just ADORE these little Halloween ones for some reason! Maybe because they're funny and playful :) This year we had to add the pub. Well, yeah, I mean it's a BAR :) Don't you love those little drunk skeletons in the front? They rock back and forth!



The kids and I also made some banners (instructions here) and hung spooky spider webs all over the house.









I also printed out some of my skeleton paper (from the Mysterious Melancholy kit) and pasted them on to little mini canvases:





So everything is set for trick-or-treating tonight! I even have a CD of spooky sounds that I play while kids are coming to the door! Alex has decided to be a cowboy this year. Helen will be a mummy, and Jessie will be Scarlet O'Hara. Morgan opted for Alice in Wonderland (I let her dress up, but I think 15 is a bit old for trick-or-treating). I can't wait to take photos!

I have plenty more pictures to share, but I think this post is long enough! Next time :)

shoppe talk

Our DigiScrap Day festivities are going on all weekend over at After Five Designs. Lots of new products, and everything's on sale! I have two new glittery kits, there's a new lottery ticket, and we have added another designer! Come check it out :) Oh, and be sure to stop back by this ole blog tomorrow, as there might be an extra goody to pick up ;)







Also, ScrapBlog, in partnership with Digital Scrapbooking Magazine, has created a challenge just for DSD! The theme is centered around "Scrapbook Your Holiday Greeting," because it is a timely project and one that is simple enough for paper scrapbookers to jump in. The prize is 50 prints of your own customized holiday greetings! So be sure to stop by there to participate.



Here's to Halloween! Cheers!

{progress}

such is life

Last weekend, we went to Target to purchase a storage solution for the mess on the dining room table. Now everything has been moved into a fairly stylish, *almost* perfectly designed cabinet. We got the modular cubes that you can mix and match to fit your needs. Fabulous theory, but a bit time consuming to assemble, and overpriced for the quality. But, overall, I'm very happy with it. We got two cubes with 2 drawers each, 1 with shelves to hold two little fabric bins, and 1 cube with a hinged door. We just stacked them on top of each other to make a tall, narrow cabinet in the corner of the office/guest room/craft room. Everything just *barely* fit! But now you can see the top of my dining room table!



I did a tiny bit of autumn decorating while I was at it:



The weather on Saturday was perfect for the zoo, not too hot but nice and sunny, so we took the kids for a family day out. We like to go at least once a year. Memphis has a pretty good zoo, and we like to take advantage of having cultural things like that so close. Alex was old enough to really enjoy it this year, and I had an excuse to snap photos all day! Here are a few of my faves:

Morgan wanted a picture with the giraffes:



The kids in the "bubble" with the sea lions:



How can you NOT love this photo? LOL



The zoo is great about having photo-taking props spread around, like this canoe:



A totem in the polar bear exhibit:



Helen was resting up during lunch:



Family portrait time!



I managed to catch Jessie for a second:



Alex's favorite part: hanging on all the rails!



Minus the short-lived kid pouting moments, it was a wonderful way to spend 5 hours!

latest layouts

Some fun ones with the latest LilyPad goodies:







I did this one for the Prima October sketch (please excuse the bad bad photo!):



Here's to progress! Cheers!