Monday, March 31, 2008

Freebie Template: England

Today I am offering another Countries of the World template. In 2000 my sister and I went to London over Thanksgiving. We were there for a grand total of 48 hours from the minute our plane landed until it took off again.

I have a friend who lives in Yorkshire and he drove down to London and took us site seeing. We saw everything on the list...from the outside! LOL But we knew we wouldn't have time to see much of anything if we were limited to trying to stand in line to see something. There will always be other trips back there!


If you go to London, I recommend trying one of the tours on London Walks. We took 3 of these tours...Camden Yards, Hampton Pub Crawl and the Jack the Ripper tour. The JTR one was great...lots of history and things still standing as they were back then and it was held at night!!!!!

Anyway, here is the England template. Enjoy!

Sunday, March 30, 2008

More DIP Template Freebies


Here are more DIP converted templates from the State Template Series templates.

Belgium Template Freebie


Good morning! I'm happy to see all the response so far to my Countries of the World Template Series. It was nice to wake up this morning and see all the traffic from Australia picking up yesterday's template.

Here is the digital scrapbooking freebie for today: the Belgium template. I made a small attempt at humor by making the background on this template from a "waffle" pattern. Yeah, I know, pretty bad, huh? Well I thought it would be better than putting waffles (the eating kind) on the template.

Well it is off to another 8 hours of Pilates reformer training. I'm grateful my employer is sending us to these trainings, but this time I am missing the NASCAR race. Watch, Jr. will probably win the one time I'm not watching! Well, if that's what it takes to get him a victory then I'll gladly sacrifice for him! LOL

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Down Under Template Freebie


Real quick post this morning because I have another all day Pilates training today and tomorrow. This is the second of 4 training sessions. Another one is in April and the last one is in May.

Today's Countries of the World Template Series freebie is the Australia template. I used some aboriginal artwork on the template. The freeware font came from 1001fonts.com.


Friday, March 28, 2008

Such a Shame!!!

EV IS CLOSING!!!
The Ephemeral Victorian will be closing it's doors
within a short period of time. The abuse of our individual Terms of Use has just
gotten out of control. This blog, I feel was a good thing while it lasted, but
as with all good things, it must come to an end. Even after the blog is
completely closed, please continue to abide by the TOU's for each individual
designer. We will slowly be removing the oldest posts, but no new posts will be
made. Thank you for coming to visit us!The EV Team

DIP: More State Template Freebies



Lisa has been so very busy lately and I want to thank her again for taking the time to convert my State Template Series templates into DIP format.

Over the next few days I will be uploading the last templates she has converted. I also gave her permission to convert my new series, Countries of the World . If you would like any of those templates please write her at Oscrapmomo's and let her know.

Here are some of the templates:

Pennsylvania Template DIP

Arkansas Template DIP

Connecticut Template DIP

Thanks for visiting my blog and please pass the word on to all those who love digi scrapping. I would love to have twice the traffic I have now! LOL

Come back tomorrow for more DIP State templates.

Friday Freebie: Mexico Template

I'm sorry I didn't get this uploaded before I went to work this morning. But here it is now, the digital scrapbooking freebie for today from the Countries of the World Template Series.


I thought it was difficult to narrow down the ideas for each individual state for my State Template Series templates, but imagine the trouble I'm facing with these Countries of the World templates!

Today's freebie is the Mexico Template. When we took a cruise to Mexico we opted for the day trip to Tulum instead of shopping. (No, I am NOT a shopper. I hate it.)


For those of you familar with Mexican culture, I used an Aztec symbol on the template, but the ruins at Tulum are actually Mayan. (I'd hate to have anyone question my knowledge of certain historical facts!!)

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Template Freebie: Canada

I'm sorry if I got a little out of line with my earlier post today . All of these templates were SUPPOSED to bring us all together as having one thing in common no matter where we live: our love of travel and the beauty of experiencing new places with the ones we love.

So I am hoping this little incident didn't change your opinion of me in a negative way.

Here is the Countires of the World Template Series freebie for today. It is the Canada template.
Canada (if it is still where I remember it to be: wink, wink) is such a wonderful and huge country I had a hard time trying to decide what the template would convey. Of course as a hockey fan I wanted to give Canada its credit for the evolution of ice hockey.

The fleu de lis in the background of the template represents the design on the flag of Quebec (simply because it was an easy design to incorporate into a background.)

And of course the maple leaf is included in the template because everyone knows (or should know) that the maple leaf automatically represents Canada. It is the symbol on their flag.

Please Don't Embarrass Yourself on My Blog


Usually I try to be very neutral on my blog and not try to offend anyone for no reason. However, sometimes there IS a reason and I find it impossible to keep my mouth shut!

Such is the case this morning when I read the comments I got on my "Sweet Story" post from yesterday.

Monika from Austria near Germany wrote:
there is no East und West Germany since many many years, please update
your politicians knowledge about Europe
thanks a lot.
My response is simple:

Monika,
If you would read the entire posting about the East and West Germany templates (which was linked to the post you commented on) then you would see WHY I made an East and West German template. Perhaps YOU should update your ENGLISH.

Deltapdawn

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

A Sweet Story About East and West Germany

Great! Since my boyfriend is from former East Germany and I am from West
Germany, your templates will be used to scrap our special love-reunion ;-) I am
so happy that there's no border - otherwhise I would have never met him!!


How great is that? Thanks to Susanne for submitting these comments. Get the East and West Germany templates here if you missed them.

Kristi Yamaguchi


I have to admit I have never watched Dancing With the Stars and I probably never will. It just isn't "my kind of thing." However, I am keeping up with the results because I am interested in seeing how Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Bret Hedican's wife, Kristi Yamaguchi fares.
After the results round of the show we are now down to ten contestants - Adam
Carolla, Jason Taylor, Kristi Yamaguchi, Mario, Steve Guttenberg, Shannon
Elizabeth, Christian de la Fuente, Marlee Matlin, Priscilla Presley and Marissa
Jaret Winokur. The next round of Dancing With The Stars will be on Monday and
Kristi Yamaguchi remains the favorite contender for the Dancing with the Stars
title with odds 11/4 at BodogLife. ~OG Paper
It looks like she is doing quite well. I hope she continues to remain on the show. They say the entire Carolina Hurricanes hockey team watched the first episode together. They had a game last night during the show so I guess they had to TVio it! LOL

Guam Template Freebie

Today's template was requested even before I had decided to do a Countires of the World Template series. It was the third country requested. The East and West Germany templates sort of slid in front of it (so that I could keep all the German templates together.)


This is another template where you can do the journaling in a "free hand" style since I did not include a journaling box. I couldn't really find anything that fit in with what was already on the template. If you use a handwritten font for your journaling it looks like paper scrapping does.

The "seal" on this template is actually the Coat of Arms for the country. I thought it said it all so I used it. Also, the photo corners were scanned from a paper scrapbooking element I picked up in Hawaii. It is two canoe oars crossed with some leaves and flowers added. There is also a spear across the oars.

So here is the Guam template. Please let me see your layouts when you are finished.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Your Favorite State Templates


The three most popular templates in the State Template Series are:
2. California (1 and 2)
3. Iowa
Thanks to everyone who voiced their opinion.

East and West Germany Template Freebies

Thanks to Ann_Ominous who suggested something I hadn't even thought about. She wanted to know if I could make a template for West Germany before the Berlin Wall fell. And actually I was in West Germany when we lived over there, 1985-1987.

Since I was going to make a West German template, I figured I should also make one for East Germany. The new Germany has adopted the West German flag, so I kept the flag element from the Germany template. Because the East German flag was slightly different, I decided to add something else to the East Germany template.

I wanted to symbolize the Berlin Wall in some way but I could not find a picture that I could convert into a template element. That is why I decided to use the sign from Checkpoint Charlie as the symbol to represent the Berlin Wall. It is not my intention in any way to offend anyone. I hope that I have not done so.

Get both the East and West Germany templates here.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Freebie: Germany Template

Today I continue the Countries of the World Template Series that started with the Ireland template on March 14. Here is the Germany template.


I had the good fortune to be able to live in Germany back in the mid 80's when my ex and I had first gotten married. It is such a lovely place!

We used to get in our car and drive. It didn't really matter where because there was always something to see. We were stationed in a small town called Budigen. My ex was in the US Army.
We once took a tour we found in the ITT Travel Book that covered the area around Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This town was right out of a midevil fairy tale!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter Freebie: Easter Eggs

Happy Easter to everyone! I hope you have a wonderful day. Today's Easter digital scrapbooking freebie is a collection of Easter Eggs. There are 46 eggs in this set.


If you want the rest of the eggs I have made for various other kits, you can find the links to all of them here.

Tomorrow I continue with the Countries of the World Template Series. The series started when I offered the Ireland template last week for St. Patrick's Day.

Remember, the countries will be offered in the order they were requested (and I am still taking requests.) I have 23 requests so far.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Freebie: Easter Papers


Now that the State Template Series is behind me, I decided to offer a couple of Easter packs before I jump into the Countries of the World Template Series with both feet!

Today's digital scrapbooking freebie is called Easter Papers. It contains 9 papers with spring colors . Some of the papers can be used with any kind of layout, and some are specific to Easter.

Tomorrow I will offer a set of Easter eggs so come back then!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Second State Template Series Extra Freebie


Today's extra for the State Template Series is a collection of Paint Shop Pro brushes. These will work great on additional layout pages of the same state.

You can use the State Template Series State Brushes to stamp the state outline in any color you choose. This is similar to the PSD 2008 Brushes I offered on New Year's Day. (Just remember, the state brushes are in Paint Shop Pro and the 2008 brushes are in Photoshop.) When I have time I will try to get both of these brush sets in each of the formats. Sorry for the confusion.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

State Template Series Extra Freebie

Thanks to all who downloaded my state templates. And thanks for your kind words and comments! I'm so glad you liked them. Some of them were better than others, but I did the best I could.



Let me know which were your favorites...and why. I think it would be intereting to see which templates were the most popular. I'll add it up by next Monday and post the top 3.
As part of the State Template Series I am including a freebie that contains each of the states' outline map. I thought this would help all those people who said they were going to use the templates for their child's school project or to teach them about each state.

So here is the State Template Series Outline Maps of States to download. Tomorrrow I have one more "special" freebie connected with this series.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

#50: Delaware Template Freebie


Here it is: the last template in the State Template Series. The Delaware template completes the set.
Delaware was the first state admitted to the union at 1787.

If you are missing any of the previous 49 templates, check out my page at Digi Scrap Depot. You'll see the entire list of what's been offered.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Connecticut Template Freebie

Only one more in the State Template Series after today. It seems like just yesterday that Pat from Houston asked me to make a Texas template like the North Carolina template I had posted.

Today's State Template Series freebie is the Connecticut template. This was another state that was difficult to pin down on a template so I decided to go with simplicity this time. I added the brackets so that you could put your journaling in them.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Freebie Links Fixed

It seems the links to the Wisonsin and Vermont templates weren't working correctly so I have uploaded them again. If you were having trouble downloading either template, try now.



Don't know what was wrong...some people were able to download but others (including myself) weren't. I know it was working for me when I posted it.

4 Shared...gotta love it!

Your Layouts!


Thanks to Mat for this great St. Patrick's Day layout using my St. Patrick's Day Set Add On. Get all of my St. Patrick's Day freebies here.

Today: New Jersey Template Freebie

While making the New Jersey template, I discovered that New Jersey's state flower is the violet. The flowers on this template are a partial overlay (it isn't 12 x 12) and can be lightened or darkened however you like. Just use the slider in the layers window.

Two more templates after today!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Today's Template Freebie: Vermont

Here is the Vermont template. I used the theme of maple syrup and beautiful autumn foliage.

There are 3 more templates in this series. If you don't think you have them all, check out my page at Digi Scrap Depot and they are listed there.

At the end of this series I have 2 suprises! I thought you guys would like both of them! They should be ready to post Thursday and Friday of this week.

Come back and check everything out every day. I post something new every day.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Montana Template Freebie


I only have 5 more templates in the State Template Series to upload (counting today.) The Montana template has a little something "special" in it.

For all of you with Hanna Montana fans out there, I used the style of part of her logo for the word Montana. You can copy it from the template and use on other layouts if you'd like.

There isn't a specific place to do your journaling on this template. Just put your writing anywhere on the page at all...sort of freestyle.

The feather represents the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Ireland Template Freebie

This post this morning covers two things at one time. Not only is it the last of 4 St. Patrick's Day freebies, but it is also the first in the Countries of the World Template Series.

Here is the Ireland template. I hope you enjoy it.

If you missed the other St. Patrick's Day freebies you can grab them here.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

It's Finished!

I made the last State Template Series template this afternoon!! I have a few left to post: Montana, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware.

I have been working on a few other things, but I am going to do the Countries of the World Template Series. I may mix those in with other things. I like doing the template series, but I kind of get burnned out doing so many templates in a row!


Someone suggested Famous City Templates. I like that idea as well, but I am not sure I will live long enough to get everything done! LOL


I may have more than one series running at a time. I haven't decided how I am going to do it yet.

Utah Template Freebie


While doing the research for this template, I found out that Utah is the beehive state. So of course I decided to use a beehive theme for the Utah template.

Once again, this template can be modified to use if you are "into" bees or beehives. Just delete the "Utah" layer and the Utah map layer. Journaling can be done on the bottom level of the beehive...that's why I didn't center the state!

By the way, I did the math and I see that if an average of 190 people downlaod each of 50 templates, (and that is a WAY LOW estimate...some have been downloaded almost 400 times) that is 9500 layouts! Ok, then why do I only have 3 layouts from people? That's really sad.

You say you love the templates, but I never get to see your work!!! :( I'm needing a little encouragement to tackle the Countries of the World Template Series...hint, hint.
Simply email the layouts as a .jpg attachment (like a regular photo) to the address in my extended profile. Thanks! If you don't like the idea of your pictures being on the internet, you can blurr faces on the photographs. I think that will be safe.

St. Patrick's Day Freebie #3: Lucky Alphabet

Today's 3rd St. Patrick's Day freebie is a shamrock alphabet. Lucky Alphabet will go great with my St. Patrick's Day Set and St. Patrick's Day Set Add On.


Here is a close up of the detail in the letters:

Tomorrow will be the last of the St. patrick's Day freebies. Don't miss it!
Today's State template Series template from Utah will be posted later in the day.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Wisconsin Template Freebie


Real quickly before I go back to work, here is the Wisconsin template freebie. The official state dance of Wisconsin is the Polka so I thought I would put that on the template.


If you didn't get today's other freebie, the St. Patrick's Day Set Add On, then pick it up here.

2nd of 4 St. Patrick's Day Freebies



I'm uploading the St. Patrick's Day Set Add On this morning. There are still 2 other freebies I have for St. Patrick's Day so make sure you come back and get them this week.

This add on goes with my St. Patrick's Day Set I offered yesterday.

Also, today's State Template Series freebie, the Wisconsin template, will be online later this afternoon.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Arkansas Template Freebie


This is the second freebie offered today. If you missed the first one, the St. Patrick's Day Set, then you can get it here.

This Arkansas template is #43 in the State Template Series. I can't believe I've made 43 of these things! Some I like more than others. It is challenging to keep the elements in the templates from repeating several times in other templates. I'm trying to imagine your finished templates as a slideshow.


I know my Dad finally visited his last of the 50 states when he went to Hawaii in February. I know many people still travel in RVs and tour the country. How nice is it to be able to digital scrapbook while you are still on your trip? With or without a network connection, you can just pull up your stuff on a desktop or laptop and not have to worry about lugging all the scrapping stuff around like you would in paper scrapping.

For those of you who fall into that category, please pass my website information on to fellow travelers who might be interested in these state templates. Thanks!

Space Shuttle Lift Off At Night

One of the benefits of living in Florida ia being able to see the Space Shuttle take off from our back yard. Since it had been so long since NASA has had a nighttime lift off, we decided to drive down toward Cape Carnaveral and watch up close.


We stopped in Titusville and parked in a Walgreens parking lot. We were about 10 miles away. Here is what we saw:

There was a tremendous amount of cloud cover, so we lost sight of the shuttle pretty soon after it took off, but the sight of the blast off was unbelieveable!

My fiance is a huge space program fan. For a Mother's Day gift one year he got me into the Astronaut Training Experience (ATX). The program includes working on a space shuttle simulator and an up close, behind the sceens tour of Kennedy Space Center.

We also went to the private, season passholders only opening of the Shuttle Launch Experience at Kenney Space Center. We even saw Sally Ride inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Make sure when you are in the Orlando area that you take one day away from Disney, Universal and Sea World to go to the Kennedy Space Center.

St. Patrick's Day Set Freebie


I am going to be offering 4 St. Patrick's Day themed freebies between now and next Monday. The first one is the St. Patrick's Day Set
This set includes a glass of beer paper along with some wordart and several celtic borders. This paper can be used for other layouts not involving St. Patrick's Day!

Tomorrow there will be a green glass of beer paper in the St. Patrick's Day Set Add On. Come back later today for the State Template Series freebie. Today is the Arkansas template.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The Other Boleyn Girl

I just finished reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Originally published in 2002, it has just made it to the big screen. I haven't seen the movie but the book was VERY GOOD reading.

I am not hung up so much on 100% historical truth to the story or not. I think that period in history is way too confusing anyway!

It was a very entertaining read and I finished it in 4 days. There was someone on line that said she had read the book in one day. Yeah okay.

I want to see the movie but I am afraid to go to the theater in case I don't like it. I'd have to get up and walk out. However, Eric Banna in tights might be well worth it!

My problem would be in not being able to picture either actress as being in their mid teens when the story first starts. Also, I don't think Henry VII looked like Eric Banna!

Jim Sturgess is in the movie as well, as Ann and Mary's brother Charles. He was very good in Across the Universe.

Eric Banna will be in The Time Traveler's Wife, which is in post production. The book was good, but I'm afraid it might not transfer well to the big screen because it is so confusing how he travels back and forth.

Let me know what you think about any or all of this.

Freebie: South Dakota Template


Here's a quick post before I head off to work. This is the South Dakota template.
The photo of Mount Rushmore is in grayscale. You can add color to it if you want or leave it as a B&W photo.
For those of you who are interested, I have been asked by several people to start a Countries of the World Template Series after I have finished the State Template Series.
I already have requests for 23 countries!!!! We'll see how that goes. That's a lot of templates!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Template Freebie: North Dakota


The North Dakota template is today's digital scrapping freebie. Jamestown, North Dakota is home to the world's largest buffalo!

Check out the entire site, World's Largest Roadside Attractions. Who knew all that stuff was out there?!? There's some pretty cool stuff.

Enjoy this template. Come back tomorrow for the South Dakota template.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Oregon Template Freebie


FINALLY! 4 Shared was acting up earlier this morning. It seems to be ok...for now. lol


Here is the State Template Series freebie for today: Oregon template.

If you have missed any of the other 39 state templates then you can go to my page on Digi Scrap Depot and see a listing of everything I have uploaded to that site. I hope I posted them all...lol...this is ALOT of templates!

I thought this would kill two birds with one stone:
1. You will see not only the name of the template but also a picture and it will link right to the page you want.

2. You'll go to Digi Scrap Depot if you have never been and you'll see the thousands of freebies Vicky has to offer. Have fun! See you somethime this summer after when you finally take a break from downloading!

Check Out This Site

While waiting for 4 Shared to fix itself so I can upload the template for today I was surfing the internet and found this site: Scrap Zone.

There are some travel background papers that you might want to download if you've got the "scrappin' my trip" bug and want to do more layouts than just one page per state with my State Template Series.

This is just one page of the blog, so make sure you check out the entire thing. This is simply beautiful work as you can see by the example below:

Friday, March 7, 2008

New Hampshire Template Freebie


This morning's template is one of those that was hard to put down on paper. After doing some research, I found out that the state insect for New Hampshire is the ladybug.

The ladybug overlay on this New Hampshire template can be removed if you don't like it on your state layout. It can be used by itself for a different layout. All you have to do is highlight that layer, copy it and then open a new window and save it to your hard drive. Then you will have it for another project.
On this template you can color the ladybugs or you can leave them gray and use a red background. Be creative with them.