ATC (Artist Trading Cards) Challenge at www.deco-pages.com

Oh, I am so excited. I recently found out about ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and tonight I made my first one! I decided to create a new challenge for you... if you want my card... you may have it... but you are at your honor to create one to share with everyone! Lets see how many cards we can collect! Please share a high resolution image so that people can print them out if they want to! Oh this is going to be so much fun! Please go to Deco-Pages to download the high res. image for FREE from me, and share one of your own! Here is a link to the gallery:

http://board.deco-pages.com/showphoto.php/photo/7677/cat/706

The April Mega Kit - Sweet Beginnings is now available for download to Club Deco Members at http://www.deco-pages.com/ This kit is full of so many adorable items for those baby pages just waiting to be created for your scrapbooks. The page I did of my son uses photos from when he was just a tiny baby... ok, so it's been a few years in the making... but it's still cute as can be! That is one of the things I love about scrapbooking... there are no rules... you can scrap a page with photos you took yesterday, last year, or ten years ago... not to mention if you are working on a heritage book, then you could be talking decades or longer! I just love Digital Scrapbooking and all the fun I am having creating scrapbooks.

Michaele Burkhart has a wonderful FREE template at www.deco-pages.com in the gallery that you can use to create wonderful pages for your scrapbooks. The page above is one created with her template as a guide. I really love the way it turned out! So come on over and create a page today, share it with us in the gallery, and Michaele says she has a suprise for you! Check out this thread in our forum to find out more:
http://board.deco-pages.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1595

My American Idol

This is the first year we have watched American Idol on tv... so I thought, just for fun, I would do up a page for Matthew ... If you didn't know, my son is an Elvis Presley Tribute Artist, he has been singing in public since he was in the 2nd Grade and we have had lots of fun with it. This page is about my hopes for Matthew... I don't care if he ever goes on that show... I just want him to have fun, and to continue to make people happy when he sings... he will always be my American Idol!

Well, I finally finished my Southwest Art kit. It is now available to www.deco-pages.com in the store. Here is a direct link for your convienience.


http://www.deco-pages.com/Deb_Ammerman_SouthWest_Art_P714.cfm

I've also been working on some photo restoration recently. This is a photo of my husband's grandfather....

I found this photo out in the garage. It was badly water damaged, had a streak going from top to bottom right through his right eye, but I think it turned out pretty good. And this next photo is of my Father-in-law Howard and his big brother Cecil.

I plan to do a scrapbook page with them very soon.

Moms Art

The other day I found the still life drawing by my Mother (shown in the layout above). As I was looking at the drawing, I realized that I have the vase she drew on the mantle above our fireplace. I am pretty sure that she created this drawing when she was going to college when I was in Jr. High School. I went to look at it, and also realized that the vase was one she did... with her Signature "Ro" at the bottom. I have already done a few page layouts with her drawings on them for Matthew, so I thought this would make a great addition. The photo of my Mom used in this layout was taken at my brother Brian's Wedding. The backgrounds used on these pages were created by me for the layouts, eventually I plan to create a Southwest Kit with them. It's on my never-ending list of things to do! :)

Wildlife Wonders

This is a new kit I just finished. It will be available at www.deco-pages.com very soon. This kit can be used for all kinds of pages, both for boys and girls. Here is just one example of what you can do with this kit.



This is a photo of my son when he was going to a day care center a few years back. This is what the journaling says:

Matthew, when you were 3 years old, you started going to Starz Academy for a part of the day so you could spend time with other children. Before that, you stayed with your Grammy whenI was at work. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done was leave you alone at theday care with “strangers”. You cried, I cried all the way to work that first day. But you had your Winne the Pooh bear with you, and for the first few months that you went there, you HAD to have him with you. One day, we forgot him at home, and I had to go and get him and bring him to you because you were so upset. But eventually you didn’t need Pooh any more. But I have him hidden away for you.
Font: Birch Standard

Greatest Wish for 2007

Tami Davis is hosting a very interesting challenge at www.deco-pages.com for the New Year. You can read all about the challenge if you go to our January Newsletter and read her Article. This is what I came up with for the challenge. No words or photos could be used, and it was supposed to show what we really want 2007 to be like. Thanks for a very interesting Challenge Tami!

A Very Special Gift

I hope everyone had a wonderful and very Merry Christmas! It was a very busy week
and New Years day is just around the corner! Where does the time go?!

I have been meaning to do a layout of a very special gift I got a few years back, and I finally had a little time to do that today. I created this page with Backgrounds from my contribution to the Holiday Hunt kit which is still going on at www.deco-pages.com I also used the dancing girl from Carol Rupley and the Frame is from Caz... I did alter the color of that a little bit.

If you have not come and gotten the Free kit from Deco-Pages you can still do the Holiday Hunt until January 1st.

Hello Everyone. http://www.deco-pages.com/ is proud to announce our Holiday Fund Raiser for Charity. The proceeds from this sale will go to charity, to either the Make a Child Smile organization http://www.makeachildsmile.org/ or the Sparrow Foundation http://www.sparrowfoundation.org/ The image shown are the contributions to the Holiday Hunt and the Charity Fund Raiser Add-on kit from: Deb Ammerman, Carol Rupley, Dana Conditt, Becky Casey, Caz, Rose Made Designs, Jen Hanson, Kiki Scraps, Mary Ridgeway, Rumi Georgieva and Michaele Burkhart! Our Designers created this digital scrapbooking and greetings kit with love and hope that we can make a difference in the lives of children in need this holiday season. Please come to the site today and make a donation.

Our Design Team has worked together to create a wonderful digital kit full of Greeting Cards (Just print and trim), Scrapbook Quick Pages (Plop your photos in, print and you are done) and there are even some Gift Tags you can print, cut out and use for those gifts soon to appear under your tree. The reason we created greeting cards to include in our Charity Fund Raiser kit is that we hope that contributors will print them out and send them to a child from the "Make a Child Smile" organization, in addition to any money raised for the cause. Please visit the Make A Child Smile Organization website for more details. Our Design Team created this kit as our way of saying thank you for your donations to these wonderful causes... Lets all work together to make the difference... Let's Make A Child Smile!

In addition to the Charity kit, we also have a Holiday Hunt at our site, where you can get wonderful Christmas themed items for FREE. See my note in the forum for more details. http://board.deco-pages.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1140 The Scavenger Hunt and Charity Fund Raiser will be available at http://www.deco-pages.com/ until the end of the year, so please come see what we have in store for you!

Thank you all, and we hope you have a Wonderful and Happy Holiday Season!

Best Regards,
Deb Ammerman
Co-Owner
www.deco-pages.com
deb@deco-pages.com

Holiday Fund Raiser

Be sure to check back frequently with http://www.deco-pages.com/ in mid-December because we will be having another scavenger hunt! This time we will feature holiday papers and elements. In addition to free items scattered all throughout the store, there will be a matching pass-the-pixel kit containing quick pages and cards for sale. The proceeds from this sale will go to charity, to either the Make a Child Smile organization http://www.makeachildsmile.org/ or the Sparrow Foundation http://www.sparrowfoundation.org/ . So check back for these wonderful items. Not only are there many free items but the companion kit is for a good cause!

I will also be including this page of gift tags in the Fund Raiser Kit. People who purchase this fund raiser kit can print them out at home, cut them out and use them this year for presents under the tree.

December is just around the corner!

Well, December is just a few days away, and I can't wait any longer! This new kit that is going to be released for Club Deco Members is just too much fun! I created the page shown here with my contribution to the kit. I found these old photos and just had to do a page for Matthew. Look at how young we all were! I think I was only 14 or 15 years old when these photos were taken! What a hoot! I can't wait until the Club Deco Members see this kit! All of the designers have done an awesome job on it! If you have not joined Club Deco... you can still get $5.00 off the price of a years membership! What an awesome deal! And what a great gift club membership would be for a friend or family member! A gift that would keep giving for a whole year! So head on over to www.deco-pages.com and join today!

Play Time

Well, I finally took some time for myself today and did a couple of pages just for fun. I really needed a day to just play... and so I did it! Here are two pages I created .... You can click on the images below to be taken to the Deco-Pages Gallery to see them at a larger size.



I created the page above with Dana Conditt's November Color Challenge Starter kit from www.deco-pages.com and I used a free template from AmyW's blog http://Scrap-a-lot.blogspot.com The templates are fun to work with and give a great foundation for creating wonderful pages.

This next page was created using a Template from Michaele Burkhart, one of our designers at www.deco-pages.com you can get her template at her blog for a limited time... http://burkhartscrapzone.blogspot.com/ This is a photo of Matthew from when he was just a little guy! For the "Let it snow" layout, I used Bobby Wilkes Contribution to the November PTP kit "Winter Decorations" for Club Deco Members at www.deco-pages.com I also used items from Michaele Burkhart (jburkhart) contribution to the same kit.

Halloween Scavenger Hunt

Oh something exciting is coming to Deco-Pages! Check this out! Come see us on Halloween! Don't miss out on all the fun!

Shhhhh..... don't tell anyone I showed you this!

I am so excited about the new PTP kit that is coming out for our Club Deco Members for November, I just had to spill the beans! This is a layout I did with my contribution to the kit.

My Contribution has 14 Backgrounds, 4 Frames, 3 Cracked Paint Snowflakes, 1 Gold Lr. Snowflake Brad, 1 Gold Bottle Cap, 1 journalling box, 1 Quilled paper snowflake (Thanks Andi for letting me use your quilled snowflake... I think it turned out really cool), and a quick page...

Club Deco is so cool! We have so many designers who all contribute a mini kit to form one awesome kit each month! These kits are not just Mega kits... they are SUPER MEGA kits!

Right now, Membership fees are still in the introductory price range... Members get 12 Mega Kits (One per month for a year) and a whole bunch more, for just $20.00! Talk about a deal! If you are interested in joining the club, here is a link to find out more...

http://www.deco-pages.com/Club_Membership_P441.cfm

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today was my Dad's birthday. We are going to go out for lunch tomorrow to celebrate.

I have been so busy, and I still have a million and ten things I should be doing, but it's been so long since I have written anything in here, that I decided to spend a little time.

I am so excited about the heritage layouts I have been doing. I love looking at all the old photos of family. This is a layout I did of my Grandparents wedding -- my Mom's parents. I used my Roses for Mom kit to create it. I have done several pages with this kit now, and each time I use it I am amazed at how wonderful they look! I hope that some day future generations will look at these photos and be glad that I created them. When I saw this photo, I did not even know it was my Grandparents wedding photo. Aunt Hope told me that it was them, or I would not have known.

Things are really getting exciting at Deco-Pages! We are going to have the Chat hooked up very soon. Dana is working on getting it ready, and it should be live this weekend! I think that is going to add a whole new fun side to the site!

The Club is going really well... we are getting new members just about every day! It really is a great bargain at only $15! ... of course it will be going up to $20. next month, but even so, that is a really good deal for all our members get!

Oh, we finally got rid of the old black geo prism yesterday. They came and towed her away ... the poor thing! She was falling apart! She was a good little car... we brought Matthew home from the hospital in her. I drove Matthew to the day-care hundreds of times... it was sad to see her go.

Well, I guess I should get back to the things I need to be doing... ttyl :)

Oh, what a fun day at Deco-Pages today! We launched out new Membership Club and the site was jumpin! I am so excited about this new program we are offering! Our Design Team did a wonderful job in creating the first kit for our Members, and it turned out beautifully!

Click Here and you will be taken to the section in the gallery where you can
see the contributions by our Design Team at a larger size.

It was so exciting to see all the people come to the site to learn about the Club. We are having a contest too! To name the Club! I hope that you will stop by the site and learn all about it!

One of the wonderful things about helping to create this kit for me is that I got to do some scrapbooking of my own! I did a few layouts last month, and it felt so good to get creative and have some fun again! Here is one that I did with the Creative Endeavors Kit...

Click on the image to see a larger version of the layout.

I found the photos when I was going through my Mom's belongings. They were taken at my Brother Brian's wedding. We were staying at a hotel, and my Mom had given Matthew some Tootsie Rolls. After a few, she told him he could not have any more. Several minutes passed, and all the adults were visiting with each other, when we realized we didn't know where Matthew was. Well, My Mom found him... in the closet... with the bag of Tootsie Rolls! Rather than scold him, she said "Oh I have got to get my camera!" and she took a photo of him... everyone started laughing, and so did Matthew! It was so cute! I was so happy when I found the photos, and that finding them brought back this wonderful memory of My Mom and Matthew.

Matthew wasn't feeling well tonight. He has a little bit of a temperature, so I am trying to stay awake to keep an eye on him. I guess he must have caught a little bug. He said... "Oh, why did this have to happen before I went back to school!" I guess kids think they should only be sick if they can get a day off of school! He cracks me up!

Roses For Mom

Well, I finally finished up my Roses for Mom kit. I am in the process of setting up the product in the Shopping cart. It should be available before the day is over. I really love the way this kit turned out. Being that the kit is a dedication to my Mom, I feel really good about it. I even created a couple of Quick Pages to go with the kit. I hope you will all enjoy them. I plan to make a freebie Quick Page with the kit this week. Here is the link to the image above at our web site if you want to see it larger. http://board.deco-pages.com/showphoto.php/photo/1810/cat/526

RiverFest with Irv Cass

Matthew sang at RiverFest in Niles today (when Irv Cass took his break). Matthew did a great job. The crowd really seemed to enjoy his singing. He sang 5 songs, His fans included his Poppie, Myra, and a couple of other friends from the Waterford, where Poppie lives, Papa, and of course his Mom and Dad! I think a teacher or two from Brandywine Elementary School was spotted in the crowd! Thank goodness the show was today and not last week... it was in the 80s today, but as you can tell from the photo, those jumpsuits are still pretty warm!

Catching up

Oh, it has been a LONG time since I have posted anything in here!
Well, lets see.... what has happened since MARCH! LOL

Most recently, we had to put our cat (Gus) to sleep. I miss the little guy so much! He was almost 15 years old, he started serious weight loss over the past few months and the day we lost him, he was down to 6 lbs... (a year before that, he was more than twice that weight). It was one of the hardest things I have had to do, but I know it was the kind thing to do, he was suffering, and this was a peaceful way for him to go. I held him when the vet injected the medication, and he just went to sleep and was gone... no pain... very quick. He was a good cat, because our house is surrounded by woods, we get the occasional mouse, and he always got rid of them for us! He was very loving, and he even kissed the tears off my face when I said good-bye to him. We brought Gus home to live with us when he was about 8 weeks old, so he was a part of the family for a long time. I will miss him...

On to happier things... www.deco-pages.com is really starting to bloom. We have new designers coming on board, the forum and gallery are fully functioning, and people are starting to use them. We hope to have the chat installed this week! I am very excited about that! If you have not stopped by recently, I hope that you will!

Matthew is enjoying his summer. He will get to sing next month at the RiverFest in Niles. He spent the night at a friends house last night, and called me at 7am to come home because he had been up all night and was tired and wanted to come home and go to bed!

Jeff has been workin hard, doing the landscaping, piano tuning, side jobs, and now he is taking a computer class at a local college. I hope he learns how to fix computers so he can take care of mine! I did get a new computer this past month. It's great! I love it! FAST! Has enough RAM so I can work in my Adobe products! And it doesn't crash every 5 minutes!

I have been working on a new kit since Mother's Day... lol... how long ago is that now! There just are not enough hours in the day! This is a layout I did with it of my Mom and my brother Scott, it was taken a year or so before she passed away. I think it is a wonderful photo of her, she looked so happy. I hope to have this kit finished and available at www.deco-pages.com very soon.

Well, I guess that is about it for now. I will try to post in here more often... but I am not promising anything!

St. Patty's Day Kit

This is a layout I did with my newest kit -- St. Patty's Day which is available in our store.
Here is a link to the kit:
http://www.deco-pages.com/Deb_Ammerman_-_St_Pattys_Day_P310C38.cfm

I took the photo of the shamrock last fall. It is my husband's work. Isn't it beautiful?