Happy Birthday Suzi!

Hey Y'all,

Sorry I haven't been around lately; things haven't been going too good around these parts. Kim and the children came down on Christmas Eve and we had dinner and opened gifts and watched the children play. When they left to go back home it was very quiet and it was somewhat unnerving since our Christmas Eve's usually last 4 to six hours but not this year. Kim drove herself and the children down and she was trying her best to put on a happy face and be 'perky.' When she got back home to her husband (who didn't come down here) things went bad. Let's just say that it would be wonderful if everyone was considerate of each other and put their loved one's best interest at heart. Kim and I stayed on the telephone for over an hour and a half discussing her and Joshua's evening. Things have never gotten any better. It is so sad.

Sunday is my younger daughter's birthday. Suzi will be 37! I remember her infancy like it was yesterday; she was the most loving and joyful little toddler you ever saw. She still lives in my home state of Virginia, with her husband and two children. They are a very happy little family but I sure miss being able to see them whenever I want. I made Suzi a web card using elements from Lori Davison's Faerily Moonlit Kit, available at Scrapbook Graphics.com and Newlife Dream's Halfway to Paradise available at Shabby Pickle Designs. These two ladies really know how to put together wonderful kits.

The layout is clickable.

I am planning on uploading the photos like I said I would, it's just that I keep having these headaches and it slows me way down. I also want to make some Photoshop Actions that will help make working with it a little easier for you.

Love,
Liv

Uncle Wilber on U-Tube

Just realized I could put U-Tube on my blog! Duh, what a ditz I am sometimes! The name is spelled wrong but most people spell it with a 'u' not an 'e' like my grandma did. My cousin Kent made this video right after Uncle Wilber died and it has been very popular on U-Tube:

Just thought I'd share!

I have some new photos of Joshua. He was with me these last couple of days so Kim could do a little bit of Christmas for him. We made a gingerbread house, cooked an apple pie, played, watched movies, and had a good time together. He's such a little love; he's nine years old and is still small enough to sit in his old Nanny's lap and be cuddled! I'm sure he will start growing really big soon (my other grandson, Timothy, did!). Once I edit them to a smaller size I will upload and share them with you. That probably won't be soon because I need to finish my Christmas cooking.

Kim isn't doing good at all. She called last night to ask me if I thought she might have MS. She is having problems walking and is falling a lot but I think it is a side effect of the diabetes wrecking havoc with her blood pressure and everything else in her body. I am going to see if I can get her to come down here after Christmas and stay for a while since Joshua will be out of school.

Suzy is back from the Bahamas and is all tanned. She had a really nice time and brought us back some gifts and photos. I will post her 'shipboard' photo soon!

Here is a short video of the 'tree' at night! LOL! Fake packages and all!




Merry Christmas!
Liv

I Actually Finished A Layout!

Hey Y'all!
Can you believe it? I can't! LOL! I finally did a layout! Actually I did two but I kind of cheated: I did one and inserted two photos and reversed one page. Well, at least I DID one! It's been months since I sat here and played with stuff but I just couldn't resist all the beautiful Christmas kits we have at out mouse tips! Don't you just love those snow covered and flocked trees? Gorgeous!

Snowflake Brushes & Paper fromTraditional Christmas Kit by CL Graphics; PineTree by Russian/Dutch Heart Designs;PewterFrame and Paper #13 of VintageNostalgy by NewLifeDreams;Pointsettias & wide ribbon of HappyHolidays by NLD;Birds from Mom's Garden by Helen Ehrenhofer;FlockedTree from Noel Victoriana by Creative Victorian Designs;Red Ribbon of Cultured Prosterity by Creative Victorian Designs;Adobe Photoshop CS3

I spoke with Kimberli a while ago and she was sounding more rested and happy to be alive today! It's always great to get my heart lifted by her being 'perky!' Suzy has already left for the Bahamas and I didn't get a chance to wish her well and tell her good bye because I got my days mixed up and thought she was leaving tomorrow morning. I guess it would have been too much to ask for a teenager to call her grandmother to say good bye, huh? Guess I wouldn't have either, at her age.

Okay, you asked for this so I'm going to share. But NO smart-A remarks, okay? I have a perfectly beautiful seven foot lighted tree in my attic (along with 50 years worth of decorations) but . . . this old lady just cannot get it all down. I refuse to ask my friends to trek up there and bring all that down and then ask them to take it all back up in January when they have all their own Christmas stuff to do. Last year I got one of those Norfolk Island Pines from Costco and mini-decorated that but no lights and it just doesn't seem right to sit in the den and not have Christmas lights. So . . . my light weight, lighted, tacky, tacky, tacky, unstable, Christmas tree:


I told you! LOL! It's so tacky and it's leaning precariously even though I sat it on the hearth for stability! But now I do have my Christmas lights and when I put those fake packages around the base it will be really festive! LOL!

Hope you are all having a wonderful, homey, family December. Merry Christmas and thanks for the prayers!

Hugs,
Liv

Kimberli Update

Hey Y'all,
Thanks so much for all the prayers offered in Kim's behalf! For those of you new to my blog, Kimberli is my adult daughter who is disabled with Type 1 Diabetes. Kimberli has two children, a husband, 3 dogs, and 2 cats (was 3 but we lost Murphy to old age last week). She is the oldest of my two children and lives about 50 minutes away in Concord, NC (home of Lowes Motor Speedway). Here is a photo of Kim and my Dad last February; he passed away in August at the age of 89.


Kim is being released from the hospital today. Last night they told us that Kim would likely have to have another blood infusion because her hemoglobin count was low. Today they say they were 'mistaken.' Anyway, she is going home to be with her family which is a good and bad thing. It's really good because she gets to see her daughter before she (Suzy) leaves on a cruise to the Bahamas with some family friends and she gets to see her little Joshua who has been missing his mommy. The bad part is that I don't feel she is stable enough to head for home just yet. What do I know?
Hugs,
Liv

PS: Thank you from the heart for all your sweet messages and comments on my kits.

Another Link

Had some complaints about my beloved 4shared. I opened an account at Media Fire and uploaded the CATW kit; it took forever . . . . Here's the Link if you need it. Rapid Fire was also suggested but several of the designers are using Rapid Fire and it would only let me download 1 part of their kits! No thanks, thanks anyway.

Kim is still in ICU. They put a new pic line in her right arm and left the dirty one in her left arm. They still have not received the results back on the lab cultures so it might be a couple more days before she can go home. While they were putting in the new pic line her breathing was shallow and labored so they rushed her down to xray so they could check if the tubing had gone in the wrong place! Hospitals, can't live with them or without them.

Anyone have any suggestions for a reasonably priced gift for a 9 year old boy? He's got all the XBox and PSP games anyone could want and every other toy I can think of so I'm at a loss to know what to do for him. Everyone else is getting promises for Christmas but he's too young to understand why Nanny didn't get him anything for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas! You know I said I haven't had a Christmas tree in years because I'm not able to bring it and the decorations down from the attic? Well I bought a really, really, tacky spiral indoor/outdoor tree today! LOL! I couldn't resist and the price was fabulous. It has really gross green tinsel wrapped around the wires and large orangery red, bright blue, white, green, and school bus yellow light covers with a school bus yellow lighted star on top! LOL! I'd take a photo but I'm just not ready to share this creation with y'all yet!

I see a number of you really like my CATW offering. I'm really pleased that you like it and hope to see some layouts using some of the elements or papers. Hint. Hint. Think you could post me a link or two to your Christmas layouts this year? Thanks, I'd enjoy that. I see where my creations are downloaded by the hundreds but I sometimes wonder if those are real people doing the downloading! I hit the galleries on a regular basis and I hardly ever see my stuff being used. :-( Makes me wonder if I should just stop putting out the effort. Anyway . . . hope you do enjoy this one and don't forget you can use the link above if the 4shared one (last post) isn't working. I've never downloaded anything from Media Fire so I don't know what to tell you to expect. Good luck!

Merry Christmas and Happy Scrapping!
Liv

It's Here! Christmas Around the World Mega Kit!

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas Y'all! The Christmas Around the World Blog site is up and running! Get my part to this tremendous, world wide collaboration then go to the blog site to get the rest of the links. You can click on the CATW blinkie to link up to the blog. You can go HERE for the download of my kit! There are 18 patterned papers, 31 elements, 3 overlays, and 1 set of brushes; everything is high resolution so you can print out any elements you'd like to use for cards, tags, bookmarks, etc. So many links are going to be available for this blog train that I am sure I won't be able to get to every one of them so if you see something fantastic, hop back over here and let me know about it, okay? Thanks! Happy blog hopping everyone!
My previews:


Love,
Liv

Kimberli

Hey Everyone. Kim has an infection in her blood. Her white cell count is very high and they are currently trying to find the root cause. It is probably the 'pic' line that is in her upper arm that is used for her daily IV bag of fluid. The pic line has two exterior tubes and one of them has been clogged for a while-why they have left that in is beyond my understanding. Now they want to put a new one in but not until the current infection is cleared up-how can it clear up if the source is the current pic line? This is so frustrating-the doctors never listen to reason and think they should be blindly followed. If Kim always let them do what they want she would have died by now. They are always trying to give her insulin when she has already been given some-that could put her into a coma! And last night they didn't give her her nightly shot so they wanted to put her in ICU on an insulin drip because the count was elevated this morning! Duh! Of course it was elevated-she needs insulin to control it not be put on a drip that would take it lower than safe! Sorry, just ticked off at how unfair life is to her. Wonder what's in store for her now? Thanks for your well wishes and prayers.
Love,
Liv

Part 10 of my Traditional Christmas Kit

Hey Y'all!
Here is part 10 of my traditional Christmas kit. It includes an uppercase alpha with numbers and symbols. Be sure and read the included instructions if you are not familiar with "sheet" elements. You can download this part from this link HERE! As always, hope you like it! I see where a lot of designers are not using 4shared anymore for their downloads because of the new rule of having to register to leave a comment. I contacted them and you can leave a comment if the file holder has designated that comments may be allowed! I love 4shared and really appreciate the fact that they give me so much space for free!


Kim continued to vomit through the night. She got behind in her fluid intake and her sugar levels were very high. She called me around 7pm tonight and said her husband was taking her to the hospital. She has really done well the last few weeks. When the vomiting starts, it doesn't stop until some mighty powerful meds are given to her at the hospital. She was doing fine until she ate dinner last night which her husband cooked. It wasn't tainted or anything, she just cannot eat certain things and I'm sure she didn't want to hurt his feelings, so . . . . I pray she will come back home tonight or tomorrow at the latest. Her daughter is going out of the country and Christmas is coming and oh my! Joshua is going to have a fit if his sister leaves and his mom isn't home yet. Pray with me . . .

Thanks,
Liv

Part 9 of My Traditional Christmas Kit

Hey Y'all,
Here is another part to the kit! These are photo ornaments that can be used on layouts or your Christmas cards. Just layer your photo behind the ornament for a custom fit. There is another ornament hook included in case you didn't get the other parts of the kit which contain ornaments. Everything is in 300PPI for crisp printouts without drop shadows. When adding shadows be sure and layer your photo, ornament, and then merge before doing so. There were trees included in part 4 that can also be used with the ornaments. Hope you enjoy! Go HERE to download! I still have more to go so check back in!


Kim is not feeling too good this evening; the vomiting has started again. Poor Joshua is so worried about his mom, he feels such frustration because he can't make her feel better. I'm sure he is also thinking that she's about to go back to the hospital again and he still has to go on with school, homework, chores, etc. I know how hard this is on him and wish there was something I could say or do to help him understand.

Hope y'all are having a great week.

Love,
Liv

Part 8 of my Traditional Christmas Kit

Hey Y'all!
Here is part 8 of my traditional Christmas kit! It includes 4 .png overlays, 3 3.5" x 5" overlay frames, and 1 set of 5 brushes. I stayed up most of the night doing them but don't worry-I loved it! If I weren't such an anal personality I could just do them and let them be but I keep going back to tweak everything over and over. LOL! How did I ever get my children raised? I didn't, I'm still trying to 'tweak' them! Anyhow, the link for this part is HERE!



I still have at least one more part of this kit to go and if I get it finished I might do some more that I have been thinking of-I love doing this and giving them away! It's so much fun to read what scrappers have to say about my work and I get a kick out of the ideas that y'all pass along too! And Kim is staying pretty stable (Praise the Lord!) so it frees me up to come up with more ideas of my own.

Have a Merry Day!
Liv

Part 7 of my Traditional Christmas Kit

Hey Y'all!
So sorry to take so long to get this part of my Christmas kit to you. I spent hours trying to make a pom pom bow like I was picturing in my head and my thoughts didn't process in Photoshop! LOL! I finally got it finished though and I hope you like the end results. I'm really trying to hurry and get this one finished because the Christmas Around the World kit goes online on the twelfth (Next Friday at 12:00am!). You can get today's part HERE!














Hope your weekend has been lovely!
Hugs,
Liv

Part 6 of my Traditional Christmas Kit

Hey Y'all!
Here is Part 6 of my Traditional Christmas Kit. Hope you like it; it is a quick page for a boy's Christmas photo. I hope to make a girl's quick page next. You can down load it HERE!


Love,
Liv

Part 5 of my Traditional Christmas Kit

Hey Y'all,
Here is part 5 of my Traditional Christmas Kit. There are 15 high resolution (300ppi) patterned papers that may be used as background papers for layouts, backgrounds for printed greeting and postcards, as texture and clipping layers in PSE and PSCS2 & above. Make a frame for your photo or even print them out to wrap small gifts! I hope you like them-I am trying to figure out if 4Shared has disabled comments because I have not received a single one in DAYS even though all the parts are continuously being downloaded! Anyhow, the link can be found HERE!



Kim is doing okay. We had another scare yesterday because she had an anxiety attach. They are hard to distinguish between them and a heart attach, even the emergency response teams cannot tell the difference. She was with her family at a restaurant after church when it struck. Only thing we can figure to cause it was the fact that she had on short sleeves and people could see the 'pic' line that is inserted in her upper arm. She is better today but very tired from the attack and the weekend.

Hope all is well with my great blog friends!

Love,
Liv