Merry Christmas again!

Merry Christmas!

Here is an alpha freebie for you to help scrap all those Christmas layouts! Click the image to download. I hope each and every one of you have a very Merry Christmas.

Brag Book prize for raffle

Some of you may remember a few weeks ago I did a blog post (read it here) about a phenomenal woman named Corey and the fundraising she's trying to do for Heartline Ministries. Well, she's having a raffle on her blog, continuing to attempt to raise the money they need. Because my financial situation isn't one that I can donate as much as I'd like, I contacted Corey and I'm going to donate a 20 page brag book as a prize for her raffle. How it works is this: The winner will send me the photos (digitally or snapshots via snail mail, either way will work) they want included in the book, and I will digitally scrapbook them into a 4x6 brag book, have it printed, and ship to the winner. The winner will also receive the digital images of the pages so he or she can have extra copies printed if they wish. Here are a few samples of pages. Now, the winner will have input into what the pages look like, etc, these are just a few pages from one of my personal brag books.

Ok....so now if you want a chance to win this brag book, or any of the OVER 25 other prizes Corey is raffling off (including an iPod and a Wii!!), go HERE and read all about it and donate. Each $5 donation is one entry, and a $20 donation gets you five entries. What are you waiting for? Go!!

Alpha Freebie

It's been a while since I've had a blog freebie for you, so today I made this Christmas Alpha. I'll have a few more freebies coming up before Christmas so make sure you check back! Click the preview to download!

Meeting The Pioneer Woman

So last night I went down to Nashville to meet Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, at her Nashville book signing. It was a nasty day for driving, rained almost all the way down, but traffic wasn't too bad that early in the day. I arrived at the bookstore about about 2pm and went in to get my "line ticket." I got my ticket and I was in group 11, with 25 people per group, so I figured that wasn't too bad. I had a few hours to kill so I wandered around the mall and went to get a bite to eat, then decided to go on in at about 4:30 and settle in for the wait. When I got down to the area where the signing was going to be, there were a few people there, but not as many as I expected. I found a soft bench and sat down to wait it out and read to pass the time. There was a small bit of frustration as it was very obvious that the folks at Davis-Kidd had NO idea how big Ree was, or how big a crowd she was going to draw. They were totally unprepared and a bit unorganized, but only enough to be slightly annoying, and not enough to ruin the mood or the evening.
Ree got there at just a touch after 7pm, and she is absolutely stunning. She spoke for just a few minutes, saying she'd rather spend the time with people individually, which was very sweet. Here she is at the beginning of the signing.


This is a VERY small portion of the crowd that ended up in the store. They had a taped line on the floor that wound around the book and magazine racks where the line stood to wait.


Here's Ree about 3 hours into the signing. Notice that she still has a smile on her face. And she still looks gorgeous!


Most of you will have read where I've talked about my friend Jennifer. She lives down in Georgia and really wanted to attend Ree's book signing in Atlanta, but she couldn't make it. She was really upset that she couldn't go meet Ree, so when I was about 3 people away from my turn to talk to Ree, I called Jen, and when I got up to Ree, I told her about my friend who had wanted so badly to meet her, and asked if she'd talk to her on the phone, and amazing gracious lady that she is, she took my phone and said hello to Jen. She talked to her for a little bit and then told Jen I'd call her back, LOL. This is Ree on the phone with Jen.


And here's a shot of me with Ree. She really was beautiful and gracious and sweet. It was amazing to meet her.


And here are Hyacinth and Betsy, who were also completely sweet and friendly. They were handing out t-shirts and signing books on their recipe pages.


Here are some photos I took of my book after it had been signed.


It was a really fun evening. Everyone there was really patient and there was no pushing or maneuvering for positions in line or anything like that. I met some really sweet people, including this couple, Greg and April, who were in my group and completely cracked me up. Greg is actually the fan of Pioneer Woman, and April brought him to Nashville to the signing as a Christmas surprise for him. April happens to be the owner of Studio Calico, a paper scrapbooking supply company, so if you do paper scrapping, or hybrid, check out her website!


I just want to say thank you to Ree for her amazing dedication to her fans. There ended up being about 22 groups in the line, and our group was about half way through. I would guess that Ree was there for another three hours signing books after I left, and if I know anything about Ree, she was as smiling and cheerful and sweet for the last person in line as she had been for the first. Ree, thank you so much for living up to every expectation I had of meeting you. And I also want to say thanks to Greg and April who made the SIX hour wait so much easier and fun!

Check it out!!

Come check out the Orchard for special savings every day in December! AND!! The fabulous Honeybees (The Orchard CT) have put together a FABULOUS brag book featuring the December Mega (which goes on Sale December 1), and the Orchard is giving away a page a day starting Dec 1!! Come on over to the Orchard and check it out!

Farmer's Market at SO

Want to get a jump start on your shopping? Check out the Farmer's Market at Scrap Orchard!


The Farmer's Market is open NOW!! Head on over to Scrap Orchard to get TONS of goodies at only $1 each!! Sale runs through Sunday night! Click the ad to go there now!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving (for those who are celebrating this week). Check back next week for a blog freebie from me!

An amazing woman with a worthy cause

Hey everyone! Non scrapbooking blog today. For the past few weeks I've been reading and following the blog of a woman named Corey. She's amazing. She's a mom to six children, five of whom were adopted by her family from Haiti. She's faced more challenges in the last two years than many of us will face in our entire lifetimes, and she has continued to come through them with a sense of humor and a strong love for her children. She continues to fight for (and sometimes, given the challenges she faces, against) her kids. She teaches them every day about life, and love, and what it means to be a family, and let me tell you that she has taught ME a thing or two about being a mom. Her blog never fails to move me. Sometimes it's to laughter, several times to tears, but always she moves me in some direction. Corey is truly an inspiration to a lot of people, including me. I posted on my old blog a few weeks ago asking you all to go read a certain post on her blog, and asking you to pray for her and her family. The good news is that those prayers have been answered. Corey has been able to take that post down from her blog, and I'm truly grateful for those of you who prayed for her family. Now I would like you to consider supporting Cory in a different way. In January, Corey will be running in the Disney marathon in support of a really worthy cause, Heartline Ministries. Go check out their blog. Read about why they're running in this marathon. Go back to Corey's blog, and read about her journey to the marathon, and make a donation to sponsor her. I know money's tight, believe me my budget is tighter than a lot. I donated $3 to sponsor Corey. Lame, I know but EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS folks. Every single dollar moves Corey and her team closer to their goal.

Happy DSD!

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend, and that you are taking advantage of all the sales, freebies, and fun activities going on as a part of Digital Scrapbooking Day! As promised, I have a freebie for you. It's a collection of alphas and papers with a Christmas theme. Yes, yes, I know, lol, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but this time of year I start itching to break out the Christmas lights and wrapping paper so I couldn't help myself. Thanks for coming by and enjoy the rest of your DSD! Don't forget to check out Scrap Orchard and The Lilypad for all the DSD stuff going on! Click on the preview to download the freebie!

Here we go...

Hey everyone! Wow there is so much to tell you today, so let's get going....
It's BYOC release day at the Lilypad! The designers there have a beautiful color palette for you to play with this month. Take a look at Amy Sumrall's portion of BYOC and you'll see what I mean!


Isn't it just gorgeous! AND...even more fun and exciting...the Lilypad is going public today! There are now public forums and galleries, so hop on over and check it out! The previews are linked to the main Lilypad page!

Now let's talk about DSD! Besides the awesome new stuff at The Lilypad, There are TONS of activities going on at Scrap Orchard! There are chats and challenges going on ALL day tomorrow, including a chat hosted by yours truly!


Click the ad to go to the thread about my chat, and click HERE to see a full schedule of events for the goings on at the Orchard.

And last but not least, if you come back tomorrow, I will have a freebie for you. I'm working on some alphas and papers and maybe a few elements, so make sure you don't miss it!

Wow!

ALL kinds of cool stuff is going on this weekend! FIRST up is BYOC at the LiliPad! The wonderful designers there have a GORGEOUS set of goodies for you to choose from to Build Your Own Collab. BYOC will be available Friday! Check out this page I did using Amy Sumrall’s part of it….

NEXT UP…..Friday is always Fresh Fruit day at Scrap Orchard! And let me just tell you that the Orchard Girls have completely outdone themselves this week. There are sooo many gorgeous kits coming out this week. I can’t give you any sneak peeks just yet, but trust me when I tell ya that you don’t want to miss this week’s FFF!

And FINALLY, don’t forget that Saturday is Digital Scrapbooking Day. There are TONS of activities going on at The Orchard. There are challenges and chats and free kits and coupons galore. Make sure you check it out!

Come back here Friday for some peeks at what’s on at the Orchard and links to the BYOC stuff at TLP!

Welcome!

Welcome to the new home of Rainbow Sky Designs! I've been feeling the need for a change, mostly because I want my blog to be pretty, so here we are, lol. Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to come back soon for fun stuff going on this week and this weekend, with Digital Scrapbooking Day!