Halloween is coming up soon (and my birthday, too!) So I thought I would share some really awesome Pinterest Halloween boards with readers to help give them some inspiration for some cool Halloween decorations. Click on the links below to check 'em out! Don't have a Pinterest account? Simple to remedy - just go here to sign up!

My Halloween Board

Kristyn's Halloween Board

Life and Art Collide

Costume Works

Decorative DIY Wreaths

Angie King

Una Volta

Shindigs

One Charming Party

Ashley Davis

Hope that you can find something that goes bump in the night to help make your Halloween one scary day!

Raising Awareness for Children's Health Issues

I recently came across a site asking to help raise awareness for children with heart issues.... on Facebook's game Farmville, of all places! I am an armchair activist -- I want to support causes like this and because I have no money to donate, and am pretty much housebound because of my own health issues, I try to help by doing what I can, such as signing petitions and trying to get information regarding these cause out to others. One thing that touches my heart the most is that of children's health issues. Kids go through enough growing up without having to deal with serious and terminal illnesses. It just doesn't seem fair to me that they should have to go through things like this. Yes, I know that life is not fair, but there are ways to try to help level the playing field with these kind of problems, and getting out the word about organizations like Children's Heartlink is one of the ways to do that. I hope all of my visitors will go by their web site and check to see if there is anything they can do to help. The link is below.

Brightest blessings on those who choose to help!

Children's Heartlink

Merry Christmas - About Two Weeks Late!

It isn't quite Valentine's Day as I predicted yet, but I did finally get my Christmas scrap done .... hurray! I'm going to try to work on both a New Year's scrap AND a Valentine's scrap, so just maybe I'll be able to have the Valentine's scrap up before the holiday arrives! *laughs*

I'm also working on several everyday scraps that I hope to finish and have available for those who are interested in them.

I am trying to learn how to use Photoshop CS3. I have seen so many beautiful scraps created using this program that I feel I must learn it so that I can produce better looking graphics for my scrap kits... a difficult task for someone who doesn't have an artistic bone in their body! Learning how to mouse draw all the things I have in my kits is a real challenge, especially things like hair... which I haven't mastered yet, by the way. *grin* Hopefully I will learn how to do this soon, and will be able to create better kits to offer.

Okay, so the 'Blue Christmas' preview is below, as is the 4shared link, for anyone who wants it to grab. Please remember to abide by my terms with the kit.... you'll find my TOU in the right sidebar... and enjoy creating your page. In the meanwhile, Happy New Year to all!

Blue Christmas by Blue Nile Scrap Designs

Greetings, fellow scrap makers and users, and Happy Holidays! Just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy (pending) New Year... I hope your 2013 will be happy and prosperous!

I am still working on my Christmas scrap.... inspiration has been sparse in the past month. I hope to have it finished and posted by, oh, say Valentine's Day! LOL!

On a more somber note, I hope everyone will be remembering the family and friends of the victims of the Newtown shootings and also, those of the firemen who were killed in upstate New York. These are great tragedies, and we should all take time to send our good thoughts to those who are left behind. We should also pray for the families of those who committed these awful crimes; I'm sure they need comfort while asking themselves where their loved ones went so wrong.

Let's Talk Turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! In honor of this uniquely American holiday, I have made this scrap called 'Let's Talk Turkey'. To me, the turkey is the perfect representative of Thanksgiving... who doesn't think of the luscious roasted turkey that is the centerpiece of most Thanksgiving dinners, along with the mashed potatoes and gravy, the bounty of vegetables, and the awesome pumpkin pies that we give thanks for on this day? I have tried to represent the colors of Fall in this scrap as well. I hope someone will find it worthy of using to capture their Fall or Thanksgiving memories. If you use it for a page in web based scrapbook that is publicly viewed, I would greatly appreciate a link back to my blog, so other folks can come by and take a look at the scraps I have to offer.

There is an accompanying decorative alpha for the scrap which is also attached below. Happy scrapping!

Let's Talk Turkey Scrap zip

Alpha Zip

Happy Hauntings!

With Halloween (and my birthday!) just around the corner, what else could I have done a scrap for? Yes! Halloween! I guess it's more of a mini kit, since I don't have forty papers and a hundred elements in it like some creators have in theirs (gosh, when do those people sleep? I'm jealous! *laughs*), but I think it has enough to make a nice little layout for your Halloween memories. There are seven papers and twenty-one elements, all hand made by me and my little mouse. I am still learning, but I think some of the elements look pretty good; others I hope to improve on as time goes by.

Anyway, I hope a few folks like it and use it to preserve their Halloween this year. If you make something that you are putting in an online scrapbook, I'd sure love to see what you did with the kit. Peview of the kit and the zip are below. Happy Hauntings, all!

A Haunted Halloween by Lady Red

The Graphics Police Are on the Prowl...

Being a creator of web graphics, decorative alphas and scrap sets, I totally believe in supporting copyright, but when there are folks who 'monitor' (read 'spy') graphic sharing groups for anything they may consider to be a copyright violation, such as reporting an alleged violation of a copyright wherein the person involved had legally purchased a license for said artwork, and had used it to create and share a sig tag, all legitimately within the artist's TOU, and used that alleged violation to cause Yahoo to shut down not one but five groups that I belonged to; this person then offered to allow the mod to continue with the new groups she had started, provided the mod would allow her to 'monitor' the group. When the group owner refused to have a snitch within the group, the owner of the policing group immediately went to Yahoo and had them shut down the new groups out of spite because her 'generous' offer had been reused. The new groups had only been open for two days and the mods were VERY carefully searching for anything that might be a copyright violation and not allowing those shares to continue on to the group. No other copyright violations had been discovered. The owner and the mods were doing everything to keep anything that was not legal from being allowed to go into the group.

While I completely support the sanctity of artist copyright, this type of Nazi storm trooper tactics must not be allowed to be used. 'Violators' must be allowed to give their side of the story and to take steps to remedy the situation before actions with finality such as closing down a graphic sharing group should be used only when the group owner refuses to curtail the illegal activity. Remember, the 'accused' has the right to be able to confront their accusers and refute any 'evidence' against them. Yahoo needs to start practicing these policies before they push themselves ever closer to their demise. They are no longer the only game in town. And the copyright police need to determine actual guilt before they ride in on their white horses.

Just my opinion.