I guess I need to change my sidebar again soon to display another precious little child needing an adoptive family.

For several months, sweet Arnold‘s face has been featured there.

Arnold had been on my heart for a long time. Did you know that in some Eastern European countries, many orphans with special needs are transferred to mental institutions at the tender age of 4 or 5 if they haven’t been adopted? It is hard for me to comprehend. Arnold was scheduled for transfer this summer, so I was incredibly excited to see that a family had stepped forward last month to adopt him. My heart still thrills with joy whenever I think of it.

From the Reece’s Rainbow site:

This little love is said to have a very mild delay — they don’t even consider her as “special needs” at her orphanage, but yet she’ll never find a family in her country due to her Down syndrome diagnosis.

She has some physical delays, but her neuro-psychological development is said to be at age level.

Natalie is an orphanage favorite, and they are hoping to find her a family! They say she is the sweetest girl, kind and friendly.

Thank you for reading about Arnold and Natalie.

To start the hunt off, I upturned some furniture in the playroom and scattered green sequins all over the floor so that it represented leprechaun mischief. Then, right near the chaos, I had taped the first card, that was supposedly written by the mischievous leprechaun, to set them off on the hunt. The final clue was hidden with a handful of candy (the treasure).

My daughter and her friends loved it. LOVED IT. So much, in fact, that my daughter created her own scavenger hunt for me a few days later! She got up early in the morning and put it together while I was still asleep.

For a writing assignment at her homeschool co-op yesterday, she was supposed to list something she was looking forward to on Easter. She wrote that she was looking forward to another scavenger hunt. Uh oh. Guess we’ve started something here! So I created some scavenger hunt cards with an Easter theme.

I think what we’ll do is hide an egg along with each clue. It will make searching for eggs a little more fun. Instead of a bunch of candy, I may do fun things like cute barrettes, lip gloss and other girly things.

Close-up of one card (each one measures 3 x 2.5 inches):

Credits: Cute bunny and heart brushes were created by Graphics-Illustrations

The free printable is an 8.5 x 11 JPG or PDF (your choice). You can import the file into Photoshop and use the text tool to type out the clues on each card before printing. The free download can be found on my Digital Scrapbook Freebies page.

Hope you have a Happy Easter!

Scraplift of a layout by AnyaL, Kit is Zoe Pearn’s “Isn’t She Lovely”

When spring hits, especially when we have these mild Colorado days, we really struggle with Spring fever and the desire to be outside. Yet I keep looking at the calendar and comparing it with the number of lessons we have yet to do. Guess we’d better not play hooky for too many days.

You may or may not know that adoption and special-needs adoption has been close to my heart ever since discovering Reece’s Rainbow a couple of years ago. Even though my family cannot adopt a little one right now (as much as I’d love to), there are so many ways that we can still help these little ones. A few ways are to give to an adopting family (adoption is expensive!), participate in fundraisers, spread the word and profiles of children waiting for families and pray for these children and adoptive families. Every little bit adds up!

That said, I would like to share a way you can help an adoptive family with just a few minutes of your time.

Steve and Katrina have committed to adopting sweet little Carlene from Eastern Europe. Katrina is a fellow digital scrapbooker, which is how we “met” online.

Carlene has already been moved to an institution so they are trying hard to get to her as soon as possible. Did you know that precious children as young as 4 or 5 are sent to adult mental institutions if they have special-needs? It is a place no child should ever have to go. It breaks my heart to even think of it. Carlene just turned 6; the age of my oldest daughter. Please can you help?

Here is a note from Katrina:

Dear Friends and Family,

I have entered our family in a photo contest to try and win a $500 Visa card to help with our adoption expenses while in Russia. We are almost to the end of the contest which ends March 22nd at 11:59 p.m. PST. But this is a very tight race and every vote counts. As of right now we are in 7th place but could fall out of the top 10 very easily. (The top 10 photos with the most votes win the prize so we don’t have to be in first place to win)

We are asking everyone we know to please vote and share our link with your friends.

Also, if by chance you know of a business that would be willing to donate $500 as a matching grant to our tax deductible account if we are able to get 500 votes the last 2 days that would be fantastic. Sometimes that motivates people to vote even more. (Besides helping with our adoption now being $1,000 ahead instead of just $500 from the Visa card)

Thanks for any help you can give us in this contest. Every little bit helps us get closer to our little girl.

Katrina
http://family.go.com/i-heart-my-family-contest/favorite-family-photo/adoption-day-83469/

That’s it! All you need to do is create a login to the Disney/Family Fun website (you may already have on – I did!) and vote for their family. Literally five minutes or less of your time.

If you’d like to donate to Carlene’s adoption fund, you can find her profile on Reece’s Rainbow. All donations are tax-deductible.

Thank you for helping!

Another thing that often helps get me going is to scraplift myself. This is my most recent scraplift. It is from a template I created a few months ago so it was pretty easy to throw together. (I did change a couple of the photo box sizes.)

Credits: Kit used was Ellie Lash’s Aiobheals Garden

If you haven’t grabbed the free template yet, it is still available. Just click on the image below to be brought to my Digital Scrapbook Freebies page to download.

Also, the kit I used for the new layout above is a freebie by Ellie Lash. I just checked and as of today, it is still available for free download on her site.

It has also made it easy to do a kit cleanup / purge when I feel one is needed.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a hard time getting rid of things, especially if it is something I’ve paid for. Over the past few years, I have acquired a lot of kits. A lot. Freebies, kits purchased from stores and also kits received from monthly paid subscriptions.  But my hard drive was getting full and I kept running across those kit previews in iPhoto that I finally had to admit to myself that I’d never use.

I am pretty picky about the freebies I download, so most of them were keepers. The kits I purchased directly from stores were also mostly keepers, not because I’d paid money for them but because I’d purchased them individually and with intent. But the kits received from monthly paid subscriptions – not so much. Yes, I did receive many great kits that I love and will use. I was also glad to discover many new-to-me designers. However, I also received MANY kits that I finally had to admit to myself that I would never, ever use. Even many from “top-name” designers. Not that they were bad or poorly designed kits, they simply were not my style.

So I began deleting. It was hard at first. I kept thinking that maybe *someday* I’d want to use that artsy kit for a special artsy page. Or make a fantasy page with the fun fantasy kit. But realistically, I probably won’t do either. So off to my trash bin they went.

Then for the hard part. Actually emptying the trash. No going back now! 100+ kits deleted and my hard drive with 15GB more free space, I feel pretty good about my decision.

Have you cleaned up your scrapbooking supplies lately?

Credits: Kit used is Sir Scrap-a-lot‘s “Hearts of Winter”, Template is a freebie from Marie at Free Digital Scrapbooking

The day after the girls played in the snow in the above layout, my daughter wrote a little story about it at her homeschool co-op “Fun with Language” class. I will have to include this in our scrapbook, as it is a lot cuter than my own journaling!

It reads:

“I love my mom because she let me play in the snow. It’s my sister’s first day in the snow. My sister did not touch the snow.”

Credits: Kit used is Sir Scrap-a-lot‘s “Hearts of Winter”, Template is a freebie by Sahlin Studio

Both digital scrapbook layouts were created from FREE digital templates that I found online. The locations of both are linked up for you in the credits of each page so you can download them too.

Example from Introducing Timeline:

One of the first things that struck me when I upgraded my profile to Timeline in mid-December was how versatile the large cover photo could be for anyone who enjoys using Photoshop. Since it is also the first thing people will see when they visit your profile, why not personalize it?

Here is what I did for Christmas:

And then just a few quick changes for the New Year:

I have created a free Photoshop template to get you started in customizing your own Facebook Timeline Cover Photo. You can use it in the same way you would use a regular digital scrapbook template. Simply add your photos, background and embellishments and then upload to Facebook.

You can click on the preview below to be brought to my page of free downloads.

Once you have the Facebook Timeline layout, it is really easy to change your cover photo. Simply hover your cursor over your current cover photo and select “Change Cover/Upload Photo” and choose your new design from your computer.

I hope you are having a Happy New Year!

You can click on the layout preview below to be taken to my page full of free downloads.

Here is the original layout I used to create the template. This was my daughter’s Kindergarten graduation last spring. I cannot believe I have a first grader already!

We are getting our first snowstorm tonight. Hope the weather is good where you are!

At first, my little perfectionist was not too keen on actually tearing the paper to make her picture. So she cut the tree trunk and branches instead and I started ripping some leaves. After awhile, she loosened up and ripped some leaves too.

Here is her finished picture. I love how she made it her own by making it into a tree-house for Mario and Princess Peach.

I decided to use it as part of our autumn decor on our fireplace mantle.

Do you use Pinterest? (Be warned: it can be addicting!)

The first template is a 24×12 (2 page) template that can fit up to 10 photos. It also has plenty of room for journaling.

The second template is 12×12 and can fit up to 4 photos. It also has plenty of room for journaling.

You can click on either preview image above to be taken to my page containing all of my digital scrapbook freebies available for download.

If you found this post from the DST Blog Train, then you may arrived here from The Urban Fairy.

Your next stop on the blog train is Created by Jill Scraps.

If you want to see a list of all participating designers, you can visit the Blog Train blog.

Thank you for stopping by.

We have a new desk from Ikea. Adrianna and I share the desk, which has been working out great. Although I do look forward to the day when she will be able to do more independent work.

We switched up some of our curriculum this year. Here is a sample of today’s workboxes:

For Math, we are using Abeka.

For History/Geography/Social Studies, we are using Sonlight again. Their Usborne books are still on my favorites list and Adrianna really enjoys them too. She has really been getting into the Peoples of the World book shown below.

For Reading, we are trying out Bob Jones (BJU).

Spelling, Phonics and Handwriting are also BJU. Here is a sample of the spelling.

For Bible, we are using Sonlight. When I sat down on the floor to read this to Adrianna today, Bree spotted the book in my hand and immediately backed up her little hiney and plopped right down into my lap. She loves colorful books.

For Read-Alouds, we are also using Sonlight. Their read-aloud selections are another reason I chose to use them again this year. This is the poetry book we are reading out of. (Warped after a quick stint in the water table, courtesy of Bree.) We are also currently in the middle of Charlotte’s Web, which we usually read at bedtime rather than placing in a workbox.

I found this next book at the homeschool conference in June and, knowing Adrianna’s keen interest in maps, I thought it would be a great addition to our year. It has really been a hit so far and she likes coloring the maps after we are done.

For science, we are going to try out Real Science 4 Kids’ Chemistry curriculum. Hopefully it will arrive in the mail soon!

Bree is pretty good about entertaining herself during school, at least part of the time. Since our school room also doubles as the playroom, she happily toddles around pulling toys and books off of their shelves and generally creates a big mess. My little tornado.

Okay, on to business. I joined the DST Blog Train for August because I knew that I needed a little kick in the pants to get some more designing done. It worked. I have a little mini-kit available for you.

You can click on the preview image above to be taken to my page containing all of my digital scrapbook freebies available for download.

If you found my blog from the DST Blog Train, then you most likely arrived from Outside The Box Design Studio.

Your next stop on the DST Blog Train is Ramona Memories.

For a listing of all participating designers, you can check out the Blog Train Blog.

Thank you for your time in leaving a comment. Each one makes my day!