Freebies!

Okay, so I am currently in a 4 week challenge to become a designer for sunshinestudioscraps.com. I honestly don't know what my chances are because I am competing with about 30 very very talented ladies. But at least participating has given me a chance to practice and make two kits that you can have for free if you go register at http://www.sunshinestudioscraps.com/. All you have to do is enter an email address and password and you're good to go. Go to sunshinestudioscraps.com/gallery, go to "Mission Two" and you can nab this kit:

It's probably one of my favorites so far, but I say that every time. I extracted the flowers, frame, and wooden circle myself. (That was part of the challenge.)

The kit below is from last week's challenge. It'll be up in the "Mission One" gallery until Thursday. I'll be taking it down after that. So far it's gotten 462 downloads. Is that insane or what?

As fun as this is, it's very time consuming!! Does anyone want to come clean my house, or make dinner? Any takers? The boys are asleep, so I must get to work on my next kit if I want to get paid this week. I don't want to work tonight because I feel like I haven't seen my husband in a week. So at 8pm, the computer is getting turned off, and Get Smart is getting turned on. I can't wait!

I got a job!

I'm a Digital Designer! Basically that means I create digital papers and elements for digital scrapbooking.

I am just amazed at how the Lord works in our lives, so I want to write out how this came about.
Back in June, my cousin Lina came to visit. She introduced me to a few things in photoshop, one of which was brushes. This was door number 1.

Then in September, our financial situation shifted, and not for the better. This led me to start brainstorming about what I could do to help. This was door number 2.

For the past couple of years, I've been really into digital scrapbooking. I've looked at a million different scrapbooking sites and have downloaded dozens of digital scrapbooking kits. Well, in September, I decided to give designing a try. I looked at some kits and thought, hmmm...maybe I can make my own. So I spent a couple evenings experimenting. After a bit, I started to get discouraged and thought that maybe I was wasting my time and was going in the wrong direction.

Then I went to the Stake Relief Society Conference. President Uchtdorf spoke. You can read his talk here. He talked about creating. He said, "Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty. Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment." While I was listening to this, I strongly felt that what I was doing wasn't a waste of my time. I needed to keep creating. This was door number 3.

I kept working on my kit, and started trying to find places to sell it. One night, I spent 2 hours searching and searching, but found nothing. Again, I got discouraged and stopped looking for over a week.

Then, my friend Jae mentioned that she got a job in the scrapbooking field. I had put this whole thing on the back burner, but when I heard this, I thought, maybe I should give it another go. This was door number 4. (Thanks, Jae!)

So I started searching again, and within 2 minutes of looking, I found a site that was hiring. I submitted a kit to them and they liked it! I submitted another, and they decided to buy both from me! I would post them here, but I no longer own the copyrights. :)

Heavenly Father answers prayers. He opens doors in our lives and gives us the direction we need. I am sooooo happy that I'm going to be getting paid for something I enjoy so much. And it's going to put our financial situation back on track. I'm hoping that this is going to be a stepping stone into the world of digital scrapbooking. Maybe in the future I can sell on another site, too. And who knows, maybe down the road I can sell on my own. But first I still have a lot to learn.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This was our Christmas card this year. Except I didn't really get around to sending it out to people. Oh well. At least I got to enjoy it. :)

Preggo Pics

When I was pregnant with Diego, I took pictures of my belly every 2 weeks. But that was all I took. And then I totally regretted not taking some cute preggo pics wearing cute preggo clothes. It was always the same shot wearing the same shirt. Well, this time around, I vowed to take some cute pics! One Sunday, July 22nd to be exact, I told Marcelo we were going to take pictures. So we went to a park and got some cute shots. Marcelito was born 4 days later, so I'm sooooo glad I did it when I did it. I already digiscrapped the pictures. I printed the first one and have it up in the living room. I love it.

Happy Birthday!

Diego is a year old! I can't believe I have a one year old! We had a jungle themed birthday party for him because, well, he's a monkey. And his room is jungle themed. This is the invitation I made for the party:

I did it in photoshop. I've become addicted to digital scrapbooking. Too bad I didn't pay better attention in my graphic design class a few years ago. It's so fun! I worked really hard to digiscrap his first year by his first birthday so I could display the book at his party. It took forever, but I'm so glad it's done.

The guests at his party were my immediate family, Marcelo's immediate family, Tio Carlos and family, Irv and Andrea, Andres, Angelita, and Sofi, Chris and PJ, and Juany and Jerry. Yeah, it was a ton of people. My mom went NUTS decorating. This was the back porch:

She made those little monkeys to pass out the party favors. The party favors had animal crackers in them, as well as jungle stickers, candy, and I don't even know what else. My mom did it all. I made the cake, though. All by myself!!! I'm soooo proud of myself because I had never done anything like it and didn't know if I was capable. But it was really fun, so I look forward to doing his cake for future parties! Here it is:

Man, I'm still so proud of myself, haha. My friend made this for her little boy and I fell in love with it, so she told me how to make it. I was really happy with it!

Anyway, Diego had fun. He had no idea what was going on. And he didn't like the cake. Because of his allergies, I had to make him a separate little cupcake with no milk. He didn't want to eat it, so I had to be a bad mom and smear chocolate on his face just so I could get this picture:

All in all, it was a success. I didn't want to make it such a huge deal, but my mom got so into it and I just let her run with it. Why not? She had fun. I told her I don't want to go nuts like this again next year, though. Anyway, my baby is ONE!!!!!