An ode to Mini Kits ;)

I adore mini kits....There is enough ellies & papers to make a gorgeous layout or two and I think they have so much flexibility and are brilliant value. One of the latest Duchess Designs mini kits is Funky Funk. I have made a little pressie for you....yes A FREEBIE!!! Its the first 6 months of a perpetual calendar set using Funky Funk. Need to keep track of your 365 project? Or some important scrapbook dates? Or I spose there are other lesser important things like doctors appointments you can use it for, lol! Anyway the link to download is HERE

And I used only the Funky funk kit. Its so cute and bright and....well....funky!! Check the kit out HERE The kit could be used to further embellish the Perpetual Calendar QPs or create your own co-ordinating scrap pages etc. Hope you enjoy them!!! Keep an eye out for the second half of the year that I will be putting up as a freebie in May :D Kel

April’s HUGE Blog Train!

Welcome to Duchess Designs!  Those of you who are collecting pieces from this kit have a very big journey still ahead of you.  I’m station #3 on the Blog Train Express! 

And for those who’ve never been here before, let me tell you a little about Duchess Designs!  I started designing just over a year ago, and opened in my first store on NSD weekend last year.  I now sell at and run the site Get Digi With It and I also sell at Elemental Scraps!  Some things that have been happening around here:

- I am participating in Inspiration Lane’s Desire 2 Inspire Contest!  Currently I am in the very last challenge of the contest and up against some very tough competition. We’re all very excited about seeing how our last kits come out and learning the results from our 6 weeks!

- Elemental Scraps will be going through a very excited site re-design this weekend!  The entire site will be down from Friday until Monday morning, when we open up with a fresh new look, A GREAT new Color Play, and LOTS and LOTS of awesome new releases!  Until then, you can shop the blowout sales at ES where retiring products are only ONE DOLLAR!

- And in the Spirit of Spring Cleaning, I’ll be going through a re-design of my own around here!  Stay tuned and check back often!

-Get Digi With It is welcoming 3 new designers today and tomorrow!  Click to check out their stores: FoxyDesigns, Kristi Westling, and Deiuwke (link coming soon)

- Every Thursday there is a Freebie Quickpage posted here on the blog.  For the month of April coming up, every Thursday will feature a quickpage from an upcoming kit of mine called “Besties”.  It will be released on April 6th at both stores, and is a collaboration with my BFF, Silly Beans Scraps.  If you come on every Thursday of April, you will end up with the entire Quick Album.

-Every Monday we give a Duchess Deal!  Here at the blog you can pick up a coupon code to get the item of the week for only ONE DOLLAR!  The coupon is good for only that day, so you’ll want to snatch it up!

Well, those are the things that are making me busy lately. :)  If you’re interested in keeping up to date on these things, go type in your email just to the left of this post and click subscribe.  The posts made here will go directly to your inbox without you having to make a special trip over here! :)

And now for your April Blog Train piece from me!  Click the image to download! 

 

And your Next Station on the Express is Creative Victorian Designs http://creativevictorian.blogspot.com.

Have Fun!

Desire 2 Inspire

Boy do I have exciting news! I’m taking part in the Desire 2 Inspire designer contest at ~Inspiration Lane~! I totally love Inspiration Lane as a shoppe and have often found exactly what I was looking for there. I can’t believe I have this opportunity to learn from them and the *possibility* of selling in their shoppe!

The great thing about Desire 2 Inspire is that they are really teaching some very useful information that will help us all grow by leaps and bounds and learn plenty new techniques.

So I put together a pre-contest mini kit that I’m going to give to you all here…. but ONLY for 48 hours!! you have to hurry because after 48 hours has passed, I’m putting this mini kit in my store!

Plus keep checking back here often (at least once a week) because I will periodically pass these freebies on to you, and at least tell you where you can get them. I’m told that at some point during the contest, the # of people who download the submission will be helpful to me. So stick with me my awesome fans!

So here’s “Just Wanna Have Fun.” (Thanks for looking! sorry the download has expired)

QP Thursday!

Hi everyone :) I'm here with 4 more brag book pages from the adorable Makenzie mini kit. I hope you like them. And remember, you can pick up the mini kit at Get Digi With It. Image is linked to the download and just so you know, Duchess Designs is not using 4Shared :)

Freebie Thursday!

Hi everyone :) I hope you are all doing well. I am here to give you some more freebie brag book pages! So here are 3 more BB pages from the Makenzie mini kit for you. You can find Girlfriends: Makenzie at Get Digi With It. (Image is linked to the download.)

Freebie Thursday!

Hi everyone! Amy here with a great Brag book freebie for you from Duchess Designs' Makenzie mini kit. I hope you all enjoy it! (sorry, link is expired)
And you can find the Girlfriends: Makenzie mini kit here at Get Digi With It. (and psst! Makenzie will be on sale for Dollar Friday this week at GDWI and Scrapdish! What a perfect time to pick up the kit and have the opportunity to make additional pages to the brag book album you're getting here free!)

Thanks for checking out the blog! Have a wonderful day!

Makenzie brag book QPs #1

Well once again my memory has failed me. I was supposed to make this post yesterday :( Better late then never right? So without further ado, here are your free brag book QPs made with the Makenzie kit by Hillary! We hope you enjoy them and have a great weekend! (Image is linked to the download.)

Come get your FREEBIE here!

It's that day of the week again!

We have had yet another long week at our house. On Monday we all woke up sick, yes all 4 of us. We have been fighting it ever since and man are we ready to be done with this sickness. It has been nice to be able to just be at home 'Chillaxin' and trying to get better. Speaking of Chillaxin I have a Freebie for all of you. It is a fun QP by JustPlainBee, made from Maria's Chillaxin kit.

(Image is linked)

Remember if you like it... snag it and leave some love.

You can also pick 'Chillaxin' up over at Get Digi With It for only .99 cents.

Holiday Flings Freebie!

Hey everybody! Sorry to get this post out so late. Things have been so hectic around my house. Anyway, I am so happy that I get to be the one to give away free things. I don't know how I got so lucky, but hey it's OK with me. This week I get to give away these Awesome Holiday Flings made by Ellie. I think they turned out really cute and I can't wait to see them when I am out and about in the Internet world.

The image is linked so click away and leave some love!

See you all next Thursday!

Oopsie Daisy!

So I've had our Dec Desktop on my computer for 5 days now and just yesterday did I notice that the dates were wrong! ack! LOL. It's funny because I rarely ever look at the calendar there even though I always thought how great it is that I have one at my fingertips!

So we have the updated and fixed calendar for you! I replaced the DL link in the original post so if you go there (http://duchessdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/11/whats-new_29.html) you can re-download.

And... I'd love to know if you noticed right away, or if you were like me and noticed after it had been up for a couple days, or maybe you haven't noticed yet. :) Let me know in the comments here and I'll pick one random person to win $5 from my store! be sure to leave your email address!

Another fantastic Freebie!

Good afternoon everybody! I just managed to pull my sorry not feeling very well butt out of bed and am now listening to the chaos that is my two little boys. Thank heaven their Daddy was a little slow getting up and to work this morning so that I could stay in bed a little later than normal.

I am super excited though to show you the next bunch of Christmas cards that Maria is sharing with all of you. So without further ado...... Here is the 2nd Christmas Card pack:

The image is linked so pick them up, but don't forget to leave some love!

Movin' On!

Well I have some great news!!! I was selected as one of the designers to move on to challenge #3 at Sunshine Studio Scraps! How exciting right?! Against such great talent I feel very honored to be in this place!

So I finished my Mission #3 Mini Kit this morning! The Challenge was to create a monochromatic kit using at least 5 of the 13 CU items they provided to us. If you want to pick it up, you can click this link (please make sure you are signed in to SSS) to find the DL information! Here's the kit: "Angel Eyes"



And, as always, I've made some QPs to go along with the kit that I'm giving to you here free! These QPs were made from templates by ChrissyW and by Sine. Click the picture to Download!

ETA: someone commented asking what I meant about the "CU stuff provded". Here's the answer. I am involved in the designer contest at SSS. There are 4 rounds total and whoever wins gets to sell at the store there. For Challenge #3, they gave us a small download of exclusive CU products, from which we HAD to use at least 5 of those items. Does that answer your question? The CU credits are in the TOU if you want to know about that. :)

Did somebody hear the word Freebie!?!?!?

I think I did!

But first.... here it is Wednesday night and I just got home from a well deserved break from my two little angels. I got to go out to dinner with some friends and chit chat like us girlie's are sometimes known to do. Oh come on who am I kidding that's all we do. And you know what? I bet everybody is going to be talking about these wonderful Christmas cards that Maria is giving away for FREE!!!!!

Check them out....

Aren't they so cute!!!! I have to admit I might be a little biased since I made one but I think that they are some of the best cards out there.

You can pick them up by clicking on the picture...and hey....ENJOY!

I'm Chillaxin' at Sunshine Studio Scraps!

I made a new mini kit for the Sunshine Studio Scraps Project Sunshine designer contest! And it's toally the bomb too! I even had to extract some of my own elements for it and they turned out pretty good! I had to deal with a few camera issues first though! lol. But in the end I really like it! You can pick it up in my store! Sorry, download links have been removed.

And, just like last time, I made some QPs to give to you too! (sorry, link has expired)! Hope you like them!

(By The Way: I just thought I'd give a shout out to my girl ChrissyW who is the best template maker around! Both these QPs were made from her "Gotcha Cornered" template set and in addition, most of the QPs I make (as opposed to my team) are made with templates by Chrissy! Go check out her blog here!!!)

Just One More Day And A Freebie!

Hey all, Ellie here - one of the newest members of the Duchess Designs CT :) I've only been part of the team for a few weeks but I am loving it!!
I'm here today to remind you that there's just one more day left for you to enter the blog scraplift challenge (you get a coupon for the DD store at GDWI just for participating!) It finishes on the 31st with a prize for the winner so take a look at the challenge post here. I wouldn't want you to miss out on that coupon so make this one of the last pages you do before your Halloween really gets going!
I envy what Halloween must be like in the States - I live in the UK and as you may've guessed it's all a bit more conservative over here. My eldest child is only two so we're yet to go trick or treating - I don't ever remember doing it when I was young - how sad is that lol! Anyway for all your spooky pictures that I'm sure you are going to take you should check out the Duchess' kit - 'Happy Haunting' at GDWI
It's an awesome kit for scrapping all those trick or treat photos and just think if you entered the blog challenge you could get this kit for practically nothing!!!

Now for your freebie! It's one of (if not the last) in the set of the mint tin quick pages made with the fabulous 'Falling Leaves' kit.
These were made by our lovely Ruby so please leave a thank you if you download (sorry, link has expired) :o)

Well that's all from me, I hope you enjoy your freebie, feel free to drop us a line to show us what you've done with them and I hope you have a wonderful happy, spooky and safe Halloween!

Sunshine & Giggles & Secrets

I decided to join the designer contest at Sunshine Studio Scraps last week! I've never done a designer contest and thought it would be a good way to challenge myself plus SSS looks like a fun place to be with a ton of really great designers!


Our first challenge was posted Friday and I got mine done and posted today. I don't know the number exactly, but there must be about 30-40 designers participating in this! How exciting to be among them! All the entries thus far are looking so great, so if you're not a member of SSS, you should go sign up and you'll be able to DL all the minis from this first challenge free!


Mine is called Giggles & Secrets. Now, I must admit that I always have a very hard time naming my kits. I have no idea why, but naming things have always been difficult for me. My husband chose the name for my photography business when I couldn't come up with anything better than Snapshots photography! lol. Then, when I was pregnant, I can't tell you how many times I cried myself to sleep thinking that my child would go his whole life without a name! (Can you say irrational pregnancy hormones?!?)


So as I sat at my computer staring at the kit, trying to feel out a name, I was hit by how it reminded me of a friendship. So I got out my trusty "Word" book and looked under the heading friendship. And there it was.... "Giggles & Secrets" What better way is there to describe a playful and intimate friendship among women?!


Anyway, here's a look at the mini kit. It has 5 papers and 10 elements, and you can get the FREE download link by logging in to the gallery at Sunshine Studio Scraps and navigating to this image in the "Missions" gallery. If you like it, leave me a comment there! And if you scrap with it, submit it to the SSS sub-gallery just for layouts done with the Missions kits.





Also, because I love this kit so much, I decided to make a few QPs to go with it! The QPs you can get here by clicking on the preview (sorry, link has expired)... but remember, the kit preview will take you to SSS where you will have to get the link. Hope you like!

Quick Page Freebie!

Wow! I feel so disconnected right now... I've been out of town for a week and haven't had access to any of my scrap stuff and now that I am back I feel all out of it!! DH has been going to the other side of the state for one week every month and since my family is all over there, I have been going with him. It's been really nice to see them all but being out of town one week a month is definitely getting to me!!

So the big news is that Cole turned 1 last week!! I still can't believe he is already one (and I haven't even lost the baby weight! LOL!) He, of course, got soooo many new toys for his birthday... He seriously has no idea where to start and just runs around from toy to toy all day... lol!

Well, back to business... Today I am bringing you another freebie!! So this is the next set of the "Mint Tin" quickpages using "Falling Leaves". The link will only be good for one week. Be sure to look for the rest of the quickpages later in the month and if you've missed any, the entire set will go on sale Nov. 1st!

National Cardmaking Day

Did you know that October 4th is National Cardmaking Day? I didn't either! well, My creative team manager had to tell me so, so I guess she knew it was. and probably a handful of you did know too.

Well I decided to make some card templates in honor of National Cardmaking Day! It'll be my perfect excuse to get some Christmas cards made.... or the slew of birthday cards I always have to send out at the end of the year.... lol

k, just so you understand this end of the year birthday rush I have, let me enlighten you... ;) First off, my birthday is Dec. 28th. Not a biggie though because I don't have to make a card for myself... then, my nephew was born on Dec 30th. 3 years later my son was due on Christmas day but ended up coming on Jan 3rd, and he shares the birthday with my cousin who shares the birthday with his girlfriend. now, 2 years later, we're expectig yet another Nephew on or around December 28th... and if you'll remember, that's my birthday. Now THAT'S a lot of birthdays! It makes me exhausted just thinking about it!!!

Now to get back to this whole Greeting Card business....

Here's a pack that has JUST been released right this morning! How's that for hot off the press?! And for today and tomorrow ONLY they will be just $1.99! Take a look:

And, just for you my faithful blog readers, I've made an extra card for you to have for free! This is a 4"x6" greeting card perfect for any occasion! (Click the image to download)

So be off, and spend today making a card for someone special on this National Cardmaking Day! (Hey does anyone want to make a birthday card for me???)

OH WAIT!!! I almost forgot! Tonight is our weekly Speed Scrap at Get Digi With It! Come join us at 10pm EST in this forum for all the fun!

Oct 1-15 Challenge

I can't believe September is over!!! It's really starting to feel like fall around here, and I'm looking forward to the leaves turning. I've heard it's supposed to be a great color year in the Midwest. I just love the warm days & cool, crisp nights! But, I don't like that it's getting dark earlier & earlier! October really is the kick-off to the holiday blitz! Halloween is so much fun. It's seems there's more & more decorations out there to have fun with.






And, speaking of decorations, I've got a freebie for you & the next challenge! Here's a fantastic new alpha from Duchess Designs:

You can download it for FREE here.

This alpha coordinates perfectly with Duchess Designs newest kit, Happy Haunting!

I love everything about this kit! The glittery bats, the spider webs, the amazing paper! AND, this is your prize just for participating! That's right...everyone who completes this challenge will receive this kit! All you have to do is complete a layout using the Happy Haunting Alpha freebie, post that layout in the gallery at Get Digi With It!, and link back here in the comments by midnight Oct 15th! How is that for AWESOME! Plus, one person will be chosen to also receive the coordinating Happy Haunting Glitter Fills!
You'll be set for those Halloween photos I know you'll all be taking! So, Happy Haunting & I can't wait to see your layouts!

Take a look at what Hillary created with the alpha and the Happy Haunting kit. I LOVE it! How about those cute pumpkins, too (the kids & the real ones, LOL)! Click on the layout to leave her some lovin!

~Carey

Freebie QP!

Hey all!! So I am currently in Eastern Washington visiting my family. We've been here for almost a week and it's been nice to visit them all and for Cole to see my parents and everything but I am definately ready to go home... LOL!!

Well.... I'm here with a QP freebie! And this one is by ME using the kit "Buddies:Kooper" (and the freebie add-on). Hope you like it!!

Click Here to Download!