I’m hosting the All About Me challenge, and you can get this kit when you post a layout about yourself:

In June, this kit, called Morning Coffee, will go on sale at all my stores, but right now you can get it for free just by doing the All About Me challenge over at Michelle’s Angels. This month’s challenge is to make a layout telling us something about you.

I made a layout as an example. Mine tells viewers that I’m a published romance novelist.

There are other great challenges, too. I love challenges, so I’m planning to do them, too. Today I posted my answer to the color challenge hosted by Ang. Her challenge was to make a mini kit using these colors:

The cool thing is you can pick up my mini kit, which I call Carleen’s Flowers, for free!

Download it here. Be sure to leave me a note so know that you enjoy my work.

I’m heading off with the Boy’s kindergarten class to the zoo today. I hadn’t planned this but yesterday he begged and begged for me to go and I guess it’ll be a good picture taking opportunity and how can I say no to my little guy?

So I won’t be home much but I wanted you all to know about some cool things happening in my stores.

First of all, I’m now in Scraps with Attitude and not in Bitchin’ Scraps any longer. And today is your lucky day as SWA is having a sale.

Also, Michelle’s Angels is having a Dollar Day sale, too.

I have to go wake the Boy up. Hope to post more later!

I haven’t posted in a while, so I guess I should catch everyone up on what’s going on.

The Boy turned 7 on Sunday.

Yeah, um, not the best picture of me!

The coolest part, besides that he had a lot of fun and got a TON of Hot Wheels, was the cool Hummer Bouncy House I got:

Today is designing day. On Friday, Michelle’s Angels is starting Challenges on the forum. I LOVE challenges, and I get to hostess the “All About Me” challenge. I’m not going to tell you want the challenge is, but this is what you’ll get when you finish a layout for the challenge and post a link to my thread on the forum.

This kit is called Morning Coffee, and next month, after this challenge is finished, it’ll be for sale. If you do the challenge you can get it for free, so that’s your incentive for doing the challenge.

In other news, still no news on our book at Baen. Every time the phone rings I wonder if it’s them, but not so far.

I’m working on Sword & Illusion and started outlining the first Fairy Godmother Bridesmaid Dress, which right now I’m calling The Millionaire’s Secret Desire. I’m not sure I like that, but it sounds like Harlequin or Silhouette.

What do you guys think?? Does it sound too cheesy?

Alexe, a member of the Creative Team for Michelle’s Angels, chose my newest kit, Natasha Camilla, to make some quick pages with.

She made some really sweet quick pages and was nice enough to send them to me. Here they are with family pictures put in.

The pictures were taken when we went out to dinner to celebrate 22 years of marriage.

You can get the QPs at Alexe’s blog. If they aren’t there when you visit, stop by again later.

In the meantime, the kit:

is available at any of my stores.

On that note, I want to point out that I’m no longer with Scrapping Divas There is no mysterious reason why I’ve left that store; no hard feelings or anything. Life is just too busy with my writing and all for me to give the right amount of attention to such a large number of stores. I got a little crazy when I started designing and jumped on every designer call I saw.

Now, with The Lady and the Necromaner at Baen and a good chance it’ll get published, I need to focus on my writing. I may be leaving a few other stores in the near future. We’ll see.

Yesterday my brother went into the hospital to be given a peritoneal catheter so he can start dialysis. It’s a family thing. Not that anyone in our family WANTS to be on dialysis, but there is a kidney disease in the family so it’s not totally unexpected.

Anyway, please pray for Rob.

This weekend is the Boy’s 7th birthday, so we’re looking forward to that. I’ll post pictures after his party!

Have a great weekend!

Welcome to the Good Friday Blog Train. I hope you’re having a blessed Triduum.

Here is my portion of the train:

You can download it by clicking on the links below:

Papers
Elements

I hope you’ll leave a comment when you download it.

Don’t forget to visit all the stops along the route and thank them for participating.

Hutchsbaby
Leigh
Nip
Candie
Sharon
Dawn
Nancy – YOU ARE HERE

Sorry, gang.I’ve been really busy this past week. I thought I was going to go crazy this weekend with everything that was going on.

We went to a party at the home of a co-worker of Beloved’s. It was a crawfish boil and I am NOT a crawfish person. In fact, I don’t want to even watch people eat them. Fortunately, there was a lot of food, including meatless pasta since this was a Lenten Friday. I took my plate of food and moved away from everyone else while they ate.

On Saturday, we went to a wedding reception. This, again, was for a friend of Beloved’s although I kinda know the groom a bit. We gave them a check and a gift certificate for 10 pages of digital scrapbook pages (printed) done by RomanceChick Designs and an offer for any more pages in the same album for 1/2 price. Maybe this will be a good start in getting my Scrapbook Business started. Who knows?

Along with that, I uploaded a new kit in all my stores.

Note the new preview style and that I figured out how to make my papers look rolled! I know this isn’t a big deal to most of you, but I see all these other kit previews with rolled papers and I couldn’t figure out how to do it. So, I searched for a plug-in or something and almost right away a blogger I follow posted a tutorial on how to do it! So, yea!

Also, someone suggested that I try to make my previews look more like art all on their own. So I’ve been working on it. I’m not sure I have it down yet, but I think this looks cool.

Also, this was a personal challenge for me because I used a palette from a generator made by Serenidipity and named it with her Princess Name Generator.

I kinda got a little over eager with this one and made a few too many papers and too many hearts, but that turns out to be cool for you.

You can get these here

Plus, I made a Quick Page for this kit:

You can pick up this QP here.

I’d love to see what you do with it! Don’t forget to add a comment when you download!

Okay, so I’m late. It’s after 6 pm here, and I’m just getting this freebie up for you. Sorry about that, but my mother and brother and mother are here and we’ve been doing stuff so I haven’t been able to get to the computer.

In all my stores, there is a kit called Irish Wedding in the Rain. I wanted to do something a little different for St. Patrick’s Day and as the RomanceChick, I kinda like to focus on wedding stuff.

Here is the preview of the kit:

Check out any of the stores on the sidebar to buy the kits.

In the meantime, here is a quick page I made with this for you:

You can get it here

Gang, I uploaded a couple of my kits to two more stores yesterday and you get a gift!

This is from my Be Mine kit and you can find this personal use kit at any of the stores on the sidebar, but especially check out TKO Scraps and Desired Designs. They are the newest stores I’m in.

Click here to download.

I’m still trying to get over this learning curve. I’ve made five kits already but one store wants the elements names one way and another wants them named another way, and then two stores accepted my application on the same day…and…well, I feel like I’m up to my eyeballs in being behind.

I finished work on my part of an Easter/Springtime collaboration kit that will be at Scrap Happiness next week. Here’s my part:

Tomorrow is Wednesday and again, The Creativity Box is having a Wacky Wednesday Sale. Stop by and pick up some great bargains!

WRITING UPDATE:

Last year, Beloved submitted our book Lady and the Necromancer to Baen Books after a major rewrite. They’d seen it once and had some suggestions. Their site said it would take about 9 months for them to respond after submission.

That 9 months ended around Christmas and we never heard anything. Finally, today, Beloved contacted them.

Turns out they never got it!!! We’ve been waiting almost a year for nothing.

The good news is that they remembered the story and said if a major rewrite had been done, they’d look at it, so off it went today. We got confirmation that they got it, so now we wait another year.

I’ve just signed an agreement with TKO Scraps and will probably start selling stuff there next week. In the meantime, they’re having a sale today!

Stop by and see what’s on sale!

If you like blog trains, mark your calendar for 1 April. This is when Michelle’s Angels Easter Egg Hunt starts.

And speaking of Michelle’s Angels, we’re looking for a Creative Team.

If you’re looking for a fun team to work for, consider applying.

LIFE UPDATE:

The Boy has been doing better in school, however, he got a red yesterday.

Beloved and I are planning our bed and breakfast trip, probably in two weeks. In preparation, I ordered a cute short satin robe for a romantic getaway. I had to order it online because every store I looked at either had flannel jammies, cute sets that said, “Hey, I’m a teenager on a sleepover” or strange house dress looking things that said, “Hello, I’m your grandmother.” !!

None of those said, “I’m a nice, Catholic woman going away with my husband of many years for a nice romantic night away from our kids!”

Oh, well, one store had stuff that said, “Hi, there, I’m a slut.”

I did find one store that had gorgeous silk kimono type robes that said exactly what I wanted, but they said it for $189!! Given that my budget was about $40, even with 60% off (which these were) I wasn’t sure they were saying what I wanted in the right tone of voice!

So, anyway, even though it sounds cheesy, I found exactly what I wanted at….

…wait for it…

Frederick’s of Hollywood!

Yeah, I know it’s Frederick’s and all, but honestly, I bought stuff from them when I was single and I always liked their clothes. My favorite blouse OF ALL TIME came from there years ago. It’s long gone now but I have fond memories.

Well, I need to go spend some family time. Leave me a note to let me know you’ve been here!