OK, I have been doing the digi thing for over three years now, and I had never scrapbooked before then. I can’t even begin to count the sad pages I did with some of Jordan’s baby pictures. Looking back at them now they are so pitiful! Digital gives you so many more creative avenues! Anyway, I have never been big into submitting layouts to magazines. I’ve done it a few times, and have never had one accepted. For some reason I got a bug up my butt about three weeks ago, and I decided I’d submit a few layouts with the new Bohemian/ Freestyle look. I didn’t expect much, even though I thought the layouts were awesome. I can just imagine how many submissions these places get, so I don’t take it personally when I never hear back from them.

Well, yesterday afternoon I got an email from one of them. I am FINALLY being published! And here’s the better news, it’s not just a magazine (not that I wouldn’t have been thrilled with that too) this is actually an idea book. It’s from Blue Media, and it’s called Scrapbook Styles: Defined. I have no release date on the book yet. Blue Media just came out with Layout Blueprints in June, and from what I hear, it has done really well.

I also found out today that Scrapbook Answers is shutting down. The November issue will be the last. I really hate this! It’s my favorite scrapbooking magazine, and the only one I currently have a subscription to. So sorry to see it go, and apparently so are a lot of other people!

Thanks for all the advice on the ornaments I made. I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and picked up some 20 guage copper wire and some copper and glass beads. The glass beads are really cool. They are an amber color with streaks of red and blue in them, so they match the colors of the papers that I used for the backs. I’ll try and get them done sometime today and post an updated photo tomorrow.

A lot of you wanted to know how I made them. Originally I wanted to use glass for the ornaments, but I wasn’t doing such a great job with the glass cutter, and kept breaking the glass – ugh! So I saw sheets of acetate in the stained glass area of Hobby Lobby. Acetate is just a thin sheet of clear plastic. It is sometimes used in pictures to lessen the weight. It scratches much easier than glass, but it is super cheap. I took the sheets and cut them into 2×2 inch squares. My DH had this little scoring took that made it pretty easy once I got the hang of it. Then in PS, I cropped my photos and papers to 2×2 inches. I added a date on the back before printing the papers. Then I took the copper foil, also found in the stained glass department of Hobby Lobby, and ran that around two squares of acetate with the picture and paper sandwiched between them. It was all so easy! I think I did all six of these in about half an hour, at most (not including the cutting and printing time.) Then I used my handy new Crop-A-Dile tool and punched holes for the hangers. I tell you – that thing is awesome. It didn’t take much effort at all to get that thing to punch clean through the plastic! I may also use it to set some eyelets in the holes before I run the copper wire through it. These were really simple and easy to make!

I also managed to get a layout done yesterday – LOL! It’s been a while since I’ve done one. For this one, I used the free template I gave away a couple of days ago and my Madison set from the YDD store.

OK, so now that I’ve written a book here, or at least that’s what it feels like to me – LOL! I guess you’re wondering about today’s freebie. Well, here it is – a sampler of my Magenta Magic set. Here’s what the full set looks like.

Here’s the freebie sampler.

HERE is the download link. PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THIS LINK! As usual, please leave a comment of you download! Hope you all have a great day!

THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST IN MY FREE DAILY DOWNLOAD SERIES. THIS PARTICULAR DOWNLOAD HAS EXPIRED!