There is no rest for Charlie, NSD is here!

Oh my, this is one busy day! You should be warned! there is so much here...wowzas! Charlie has been working us hard with all her designs (5 brand new products), just in time for NSD. Whether you are a scrapper or Designer or both, there is something for everyone! Plus her entire store is 50% off(discount at checkout) from the 1st to the 4th of May!Charlie has teamed up with Mel of A+ Designs to make this collaboration, Just For Mom. It's just in time for Mother's Day with its beautiful bright and cheerful Hues. This Collab contains 23 papers, 56 elements and an alpha. I am telling you it is huge and beautiful!
I loved this kit...and love my mumbly, so here is a great shot of her in all her glory...her laugh is from hearing Anna find an Easter Egg and seeing there is money in it. My mom hide the eggs and the kids had no idea! It was wonderful! Please click on it for a larger view! I love you Mumbly and your laughter is my life, memories of it and growing up are full of laughter. I am indeed a lucky woman!
Don't stop reading now! Charlie has MORE! Now this is for the designer that is in so many of you scrappers...Charlie's felt actions are remarkable...I even did a few, with some help from a tutorial from Flergs!

I played with the felt and it was fun, the masks, oh how I love masks, here is a picture of my dear daughters and hubby, I so love this picture...I used Charlies kit both Paper Princess (a bit of recoloring to match) her Paper Prince and Flergs new kit Tangerine Twist (freebie on MSA flourish newsletter) also with a bit of recoloring!
Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Blog Train of Freebies and Chance to Win Kit!

Claudi has been filling her stores;
Divine Digital,
Faith Sisters,
Inspiration Lane
and Digital Freebies
to the brim!

This is just one of her new kits; Purple Dream!

Her CT and QP ladies got together and did some brags from the kit to give out for
National Scrap booking Day!
These ladies have totally astounded me!

Here are my two:
Click on Image or Here for Download Link

Please stop by the following ladies blogs to pick up their contributions:

Penny

RoseFire

Janarae

Scrappy Charmer

Anne of Alamo <-----------You are here! Click for link to download!

Crazy Keira

Please have patience as we are all on
different time zones,
continents
and real life duties! lol,
they should all be up Friday sometime!
Enjoy and thank you for all your support for Claudi and her lovely designs!

oops I almost forgot, you can go to DST
and post a comment and have a chance to win the whole kit!
Go here and post that you want it, and one lucky winner gets it Friday night!

Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Wednesday Bible Study-Record Service

I know it is crazy when the kids in nursery are climbing the walls! ha ha...we have a rock back wall, and it screams climb me...so don't let the safety patrol know, we are pioneering and you do what you can to keep the kids happy, content and parents in church listening to the word of God! We were beyond excited to have 20 people out for Wednesday evening bible study! Seeing folks touched is just amazing, we continue to love them up, preach exort! It was so so so encouraging to us...they just kept coming in! We had to put up another row! Our faithful Colleen was home sick! Poor thing!
Tony is at the church now taking out the little cubby. (you can see it in the right corner of the picture), so we can get a few more rows out before we take those back walls out!

I went out on a limb!

and fell off!
But I have to tell the story, cause well that is what I do! I applied for a CT position for Holly Designs at Shabby Pickle! Now, I have this weird little quirk, I don't want to CT for folks who sell where my other awesome designers are at, and I really look for designers that are different from each other also...styles, colors, genre' etc....blah blah...
so I look at the calls for CT, and read the ad, and look at the ad stuff, then go to the store and see their kits. Well, gosh this Holly is really talented, I am not a shopper, I am cheap, there fore I CT...so I don't know the digi shopland very well. I applied. My goodness, she had 100s apply, 100s! she is very talented, and I come to see much sought after, so I figure if I am picked I have arrived..ha ha...
then Holly dropped her walcom tablet on her keyboard and it was wonky, I told her how to fix it! and reminded her I was a dork and applied for her CT! I am a dork and I did apply..ha ha
so today, I recieved the sweetest and most kind letter of nope not picked I have ever read! I mean class act this Holly, so please Friday is the big NSD! Drop by her shop and buy something, she is a top act!
I so enjoy the folks who scrap and design and all the ones inbetween who make this little community just a kick!
Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Go Charlie! Woo HOO! I hope you all have cleared your EHDs, because National Scrapbook Day is coming! In celebration, Charlie throws out a 50% off her whole store! That includes her CU stuff. WOOOOW! Do you realize how many hours this woman puts into her CU? This is a deal! Jump all over it!

Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Why we are here!

This past Saturday, the church in Santa Rosa sent a HUGE impact team to labor all day, then do a complete music scene in our parking lot! Here is a pic of the set up and our sign! woo hooThis is Pastor Hernadez' daughters whose voices and spirits are just so clean and beautiful...PK rock! They had like 15 people who were in and out of the bands and just ministered and testified about Jesus Christ all evening!

And our people were there, here is our faithful Colleen, who doesn't miss a thing, she comes and is there and encouraging the new people. What a joy to have her!

Yeah! Amber is doing so good! You can see a like spirit between her and myself! lol, She is really making great decisions! Pray, pray, pray for her!


This whole family are another of our faithful, from the back, William, his wife Helen, Helen's mom, Sandra (eating hotdog) Connor (their nephew) and Albert, who came to church 1st time this past Sunday!


Okay, my heart was torn to see this family, kinda hard to see, but a white shirt man in a wheelchair. Jeremy and his dad, Donald. Lisa, his wife is not in the picture. All three gave their lives to Jesus at the altar call, and Jeremy has Muscular Dystrophy, my 1st time talking with a person with this body altaring disease. Jeremy is 21 and his mind is perfect. This family has a full load, and want to live for God...the disease is very demanding on them and pain a constant battle for Jeremy...I ask each one of you to contend for healing for this man, he NEEDs a miracle and a touch from God. I can't tell you how much this family affected me...they so want Jesus...
Thank you dear friends, and I hope you are getting a glimpse that we are here to preach the Gospel and that life is right where we should be!

Spotlight on AnnaBo

I was goin' thru the April pictures and I have to put these in here! These are Anna's glasses and yes, that is blood all over her glasses. The turmoil of her splitting her eyebrow open was over, and cleaned up, and I picked up her glasses and we saw this, and of course we take a picture, wouldn't you?
The story, Sunday after church, I am at my desk talking to Tony who is depositing the offering money and trying to manipulate (no I mean convince) Tony into taking us to Wendy's for lunch! Anna comes screaming down the hallway, hand over eyes, blood all over hands and face..."I split my head open!" over and over. I drop the phone, Tony still on the other end to hear the drama...and my emergency mom kicks in, grab towel, wet it and place on darkest area of blood. Anna is yelling the fan cut my head, the fan split my head open. I am calming her down, totally lost how a fan got her eyebrow?
It was a small cut. She was on the top bunk, leaning under the ceiling fan to turn the light off and leave the fan on, and she put her head into the spinning fan. Ouch!

The above is a rare picture of Anna without her glasses, to prove it, she is sound asleep here and yep, has her glasses on!



Here is both girls, Abby in forefront and Anna in back. This is the usually look of joy on these girls, they so make me smile. I can't believe I have girls, I was so scared to be a mom of girls!
Thanks for reading about our life, and please enjoy!

Anne

April in a nutshell!

I couldn't go back to when I stopped blogging and add pics, so I needed a starting point, and Easter is a great place to start! We had beautiful weather and set up a table on the back patio to do eggs! I had gotten kits before we left Alamogordo 2007 Easter clearance sale! lol When we got to Yuba City last year, it was chaos, so coloring eggs got put on the back burner til uhm, well this year! ha haHere the boys are enjoying different kinds of egg dyeing! You put the egg in a bag and drops of real thick dye (maybe thick because it was so old)
The girls were so serious, but had fun and you can see the final results! I thought they were beautiful! Plus they were yummy! You know I was eatting some tuna salad sandwiches for a while...my favorite!


Tony helping out in school. The girls science pack they had to do an experiment, you can see the end of the fizz blowing the balloon up. the ol' vinegar and baking soda gas experiment. I love this pic and it will be a layout...actually it already is, but not for public viewing yet...lol holding for designer to put in store!
Lastly here is me in the nursery, one of the boys in the nursery taking my picture! We had a blast! Lovely shot of my chins and blue gum! ha ha


Okay, I am feeling rather good about this blog now, it's moving and groovin'

You asked for it!

I have had a few emails, phone calls and comments left from my peeps...the people who pray for me and sent us here to California for more pictures and life stories and less scrapping...lol,
I have taken my 365 blog and changed it to More of Us, Me and Family. I will update it at least weekly with more personal pictures and adventures of the Pistilli family! I encourage you to go there now and bookmark. More of Us, Me and the Family <---that is the title but the blog address is http://annes365pictures.blogspot.com/ . I appreciate ya'll hanging on thru the scrapbooking business. I will also put a link to the blog on the side of this blog!
I really am enjoying the digiworld of scrapping and totally understand it is a different world! ha ha...I wanted to keep this blog for scrapping and then will use the two to keep everyone semi-satisfied!
I am Anne of Alamo...and will never forget those who invested in prayers, finances and just all around support in our lives to help us be smack dab in the will of God; pioneering a church that preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ!


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

For those who want personal!

I send an email about life pioneering a new church in Yuba City everyweek to my friends and all from Alamogordo and beyond! I had used this blog for a project called 365. You were to take a pic a day and post it. I did real good, then life got in the way! lol
There is the basis for the change of this blog plus this fact. Vanessa aka Freddy said she was tired of all the scrapbooking stuff and wanted to see pics! I pondered this a few days.
The Anne of Alamo blog is really turned to a commercial site as it is a part time job now (with a small paycheck every month). I enjoy it, but don't want to stop keeping a more personal journal type blog. So I will update at least weekly here, before I send out the email! I'll be back with some pics for you all!

Charlie's product release is mini(well sort of..lol) called Summer Nights Dream. Charlie had wanted to try something a little more whimsical and was a bit unsure whether it was a workable kit or not. I opened it and knew I had to do a black and white shot...and wasn't sure about how! I went thru a few pictures and then began laying it out...it went so fast I felt a bit worried! But I loved the end result...my Anna in quite a spectacular pose of happiness!The kit is on sale right now at ESS, so pop on over! ESS is Enchanted Studio Scraps, my brain always wants to switch those S words around. ESS is having a huge going on for National ScrapBooking Day: Take a look at this schedule:
Date: Friday, May 1 thru Monday, May 4
Event: Brag Book Blog Train by the Enchanted Pixies
Start Time: 12:00 pm EDT (Friday)
End Time: 11:59 pm EDT (Monday)
Link to event: http://enchantedstudioscraps.wordpress.com/

Date: Friday, May 1 thru Monday, May 4
Event: Scrap-a-thon
Start Time: 9:00 am EDT (Friday)
End Time: 11:59 pm EDT (Monday)
Link to Event: http://enchantedstudioscraps.com/forums/
***Prizes for the winners

Date: Friday, May 1 thru Monday, May 4
Event: NSD Storewide Sale--50% OFF!
Start Time: 12:01 am EDT (Friday)
End Time: 11:59 pm EDT (Monday)
Link to Event: http://www.enchantedstudioscraps.com/xcart/
***Spend $10 in the store and receive a never-before-released Mega by the ESS Designers!

Date: Saturday, May 2 thru Wednesday, May 6
Event: NSD Speed Scraps
Start Time: varying
End Time: varying
Link to Event: http://enchantedstudioscraps.com/forums/


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Claudi is having a BIG sale

Okay, this is a big one and I am excited, 1st ad I have done for her! yeah, I am excited! Go get something! lol The image is linked to the Divine Digital shop!


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

st. george and loucee

click on image

I am on one of the funnest Creative Teams with Charlie's Designs...we have a forum for all the tasks that Charlie barks (ha ha) at us and schedules and such, but we also have fun. I mean giggles and laughter that we have all pinkie swear not to tell...so you will never hear from me, about incontinent designers...ever.
Well all that said, Louise, who will always be loucee, no caps is designer and a CT member! This lady makes me smile and laugh! She is in England, and she loves her country and had a hankering for a St. George kit. So, Vicki and her put this cute little kit together and Charlie said she could ask us (Charlie's CT) if we wanted to do a bit of CT for loucee..of course I said yes.
Now, I have to interject in my already rambling post full of run-on sentences. Our loucee has a precious dog named Lenny. Perhaps it is the name, I have never heard of dog named Lenny, or perhaps the video she has on her blog, with Lennie playing in snow? This dog just got to me, and Lenny is very sick. Heart probs and all...things I don't understand. But thru it all, her precious Lenny, loucee has pushed thru and posted her dear kit. Please go by her blog, pick up the fun kit and leave some love (not just for loucee) but a scratch behind the ear for Lenny!
So here is my layout for loucee. My son Gman whose imagination is the biggest and his love for play is also!


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Layouts I love with Masks!

Doris Castle from Scrap Book Graphics tossed a few sets of masks at us early this week, and I love masks. They really add so much to a layout, it is like blending with a bit of control! I took a ton of pictures when we went to the coast for my Dadem's birthday! So here is one of my hubby. He thinks he looks like a monk...ha ha but I love his smile!

Then the boys had just settled in for a long game of Risk! (is there such thing as a short game of Risk?) and I was playing taking pics with and without flash, cause I liked how the light was illuminating their board!
love framing the mask...just liked the look to this layout!
I don't usually work from more than one kit, I have a bit (shall I say) focused...lol off balanced, over the top. but I opened like 3 of Doris' kits, Dreams, Gypsy Chic and Sunday Love and her word arts...and began grabbing and dropping and it all worked, so I hope you enjoy these, as I really had fun putting them together!

Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

for those who create, this is for U!

My poor dear overworked friend and slave driver boss Charlie (tic), has made the lovliest Designer Bits 2 set for those who create. She didn't push an action button and make a bow and then change the color 12 times, she painstakingly erased and extracted (as in no stray pixels) these:
This weeks product release is the the second in a series of commercial use products called Designer Bits 2. There are 19 png files ( original and greyscale) which include a ribbon with bow, rick rak, paper flowers, ribbon flower, ribbon butterfly, scattered beads and a crocheted lace. They are all 300ppi and contain no stray pixels.No credit required but appreciated.These fabulous designer items will be on sale for 30% off for 1 week only.
I totally am NOT a designer, I get all sweaty and hypervenilate thinking about designing, but I know how much time and effort my friend puts into these...they are so worth you getting!
You also might want to pop over to Charlie's blog, because my more talented CT co-workers have whipped up some freebies for you! Buy 2 of them, because you see Creative Team Appreciation Week is coming up, and well she needs cash to spoil us! woo hoo


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

I get so excited everytime I see it all packaged up!

Okay, I love art to be artsy, and I could never get the pencil to do what was in my head. I can sketch it out if I have the picture in front of me, copy it...but to just draw what is in my head it won't come out. I think I have a short in my brain to my hand...ha ha
This is why I love scrapping on the computer, I can fiddle with an elements until I have skewed it or taken a small part off and rearranged it to be just what I want it to be. I see it in my head first, and getting it to become is very satisfying!
Netta at Creative Victorian Designs is one of the designers I also do Quick Page (QP) creations for. This means I take her kits and don't do layouts for her to showcase (although I will do layouts for me with them...lol), but I make clusters out of her elements that others purchase and use in their layouts. It already has the the shadows and the layers are all merged so it has become one element. I also do stacked papers, this is a base for a layout. They are just fun to make! The QuickPages are just a layout without the picture, title, dates or journalling, that is all for the buyer to put in.
So that is a bit of what it is, and why I do it, so now here are some of the new to the stores over at Creative Victorian Designs
I love these page clusters and think they are just soft and really show how versatile Netta's kits are. These were all made from one kit; ByGone Innocence. All of these are available at Creative Victorian Designs
But really, go and see this store, I am in awe and am fast collecting about everything from dear Netta!


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

some new stuff for sale!

Claudi has been stocking the shelves and I love seeing my creations in them! She has them in three stores;
Inspiration Lane
Faith Sisters
and
Digital Freebies

These are all made from her kit A Mother's Touch. I had done a couple other QP's earlier, but the clusters are just a blast to make! I think the page clusters have become my favorite! It is a challenge to make them different from all the others...and I try and use the elements in different ways. Making 8 Brags after 4 QP's and 3 full clusters was just an easy task, as the kit is so full of fun and bright elements! My favorite is the green with that teal blue...it just goes so good with the silver in my opinion..lol
I am having a blast working with Claudi and the other lovely ladies on the QP team. Claudi has some fun things for the future and I am excited to be a part of it. I am learning the other side of scrapping, the business end. I enjoy the organization (you who know me, know I love to organize) and seeing the whole process, from design (which I have NO plans on doing), to the CT teams, QP Teams, to the store and beyond! lol
It is amazing all the ins and outs of scrapbooking, and I have just met just a few people in the world of scrapping.
I love to learn and this is a fun thing to play and enjoy!


Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

I have been remiss...

I love that word, remiss...sounds so smart! But I have been going on and on about all the designers I am lucky enough to create for, and have completely forgotton to tell you about a dear sweet woman named Carolyn Rose Kite.
Carolyn is another Australian, who is just talented and like most designers, doesn't sleep much! Her heart is bigger than the whole country of Australia, and some of you saw the kit she helped distribute with all the funds going right to the Salvation Army for the horrible fires a month back in Australia!
Well, Carolyn has a new kit out, that is one that can just take your breath away, I really believe it is a kit that you can pour your heart and dreams into the layouts. The kit is called House of Hope. The kit is available only at Scrap N Tag. This kit was inspired by Carolyn's upcoming move to Queensland, with a theme of hope and new beginnings. In shades of blue, green, teal and brown, it has a definite masculine look to it, but can be used for both male and female pages. For those who struggle with journalling it also comes with a BONUS: 67 Hope inspired Word Strips
Here is a layout I did with it:
Last week, my girls went swimming at my parents, it was cold and rainy, but they went. I was snapping pictures of the giggles and shivers, and when I uploaded the pictures, my heart lept in my throat, for my little daughters faces are growing up...one of the pictures was a bit blurry of Anna, on the bottom, but both capture her face as it has changed.

Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

My hubby blessed me as usual!

I have been busy deleting almost all the FREEBIE grabs I did 2 years ago or more...the ones I frantically downloaded. I remember being almost rabid to get the freebies for the day! ha ha, amazing how our priorities change.
so...........my EHD (External Hard Drive) filled to the brim(500G)...I was very proud of myself for getting rid of 15 Gigs and I had tried to burn CDs, but they only put a little bit on them...
so my dear husband brought home an External DVD/CD writer with Litht Scribe (it make a nifty keeno label on the CD with what is on it!) and a Blue Tooth for my cell phone! In California, it is illegal to drive and talk on a cell phone! I am not a big talker on the phone when I am driving, but (okay you can laugh) I loose my cell phone in my purse ALL THE TIME! I can see it glowing in there, but can't find it! I had a string wrapped around it at one time...ha ha...
so now I pop in the ear phone and just wear that around the house and leave the phone in my purse. Yeah me!! Yeah my honey!
So tomorrow, as my children finish their essays for school and clean their cluttered rooms and do laundry, I will burn all my PSDs and kits from the dear designers that I have completed. I also want to put my photos on DVD...I am leaving them also on EHD along with the save for web layouts...because the family loves them!

Just a little babble, because I can! lol

Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

Ready? Here it is!

I woke up to read my #3 issue of Charlie's DigiScraps Newsletter. Wow! My fellow artist on the team are remarkable, I so hope you signed up, the freebie from dear Denise is fabulous...wow, wow, wow! Then a coupon for more off?
The newsletter also is my permission to tell you about this new kit:Granny's Farm, available exclusively at Enchanted Studio Scraps. This kit is so original! The papers are like material and the elements just flow together! I was able to make an 8 page (with cover and back page) recipe book for you also:
The recipe book also includes 6 bonus recipes! My shortbread recipe and (don't tell my sister in law Mary but her) Sunshine Carrots recipe is in there too!
When we all downloaded the kit, LouCee (the dog grooming sweetie from England) made a lovely layout of a quilt, but needed some Charlie made stitches! oh my, and Charlie came thru! these stitches go fantastic with this kit.
The kit was inspired by a quilt of Charlie's, so it was fitting to have the quilt theme layout!
So you have the kit; Granny's Farm, recipe cards (including bonus recipes), and an add-on of stitches that completement the kit! That is huge, so Charlie has a heck of a deal for ya,
tell the people about it Charlie:

"I have another Jumbo deal for you all. Buy the full kit and Recipe cards and get the Stitches for FREE! What an awsome deal."

Thank you Charlie, sweet of you to drop over to my blog. She is very kind to us! lol...

I almost forgot my layout! Geesh! I didn't think I was going to have time to get a layout done, as I had obsessed on the recipe cards and getting the right recipe for the bonus ones. I am a bit compulsive, has anyone noticed that about me, I try to keep that hidden...lol
February of this year, my parents came up to visit for the day, and my oldest Mr. E made dinner, it is Chili, and it is a famous recipe (not in bonus cards), that many of my friends use! (waves to Alamama and her family)! It is a good meal stretcher and cheap! lol Eric and I thought the beans looked rather beautiful in the pot. (It was a 365 pic a day shot too). I thought he looked rather handsome cooking! I hope you go and pick up Granny's Farm, it is just a fun and full kit! Get the recipe cards, the stitches and goodness while you are there pick up Funky Love Birds kit too, it's awesome! lol

Thanks for reading!

Anne


Never lose your joy!

ewe deserve a sneak peek!

Wowza, topsy turvy holiday! We had to change plans due to high winds and heavy rains Thursday at the ocean, so we went first to Napa, it was cold and windy, but we were inside eating yummy elk! I am so much a lover of elk now! I did a bagoki, a soy sauce marinade and BBQ it...oh my, it was super fabulous! btw, that recipe is from me! lol actually from Wilma, the bomb diddily in Alamo who first made it for me, many years ago!
I wanted to make a post, cause I am holding back from blogging on Charlie's new kit! I can give you a little peek! This kit is so fabulous! I wanted you to hurry and sign up for Charlie's newsletter, because she has nifty coupons and FREE things that are only available in the newsletter! Tomorrow I will show you the whole thing and something completely different that I was able to do for Charlie...it was remarkable and so so so much fun...gosh, I hate hate hate to wait!
There, now I can go have that egg salad sandwich I wanted all day! lol
Pop back in tomorrow for the unveiling!


Thanks for reading!

Anne

Never lose your joy!