Downloadable papers and digi-scrapping elements

I occasionally scrap digitally - usually only as a test to be created in paper later, or if I haven't time to get all the paper and glue out. Ideas that go on the blog are most often roughly scrapped digitally! So it's great to find places where one can download free goodies which can be used for digi scrapping or printed out and used for regular scrapping.

Canon's Scrapbook site
http://cp.c-ij.com/english/scrapbook/index.html
Downloads including patterned paper (there are some lovely Chiyogami patterns)

Some Gwen Stefani designs are offered by HP
http://welcome.hp.com/country/uk/en/welcome.html

Digi-scrapping free downloads (personal use only) from http://theephemeralvictorian.blogspot.com/

Maria's blog has a freebie search engine, DigiFree. It's a computerised search engine that scans blogs for possible links to digital scrapping freebies and their previews.

Write it on Wednesday - Superstitions

ow was she to know that a black cat would cross her path, just as she walked under a ladder? She tripped and the mirror she was carrying crashed to the ground. If only she hadn’t stood on the cracks in the pavement on Friday the 13th. As she nailed her upturned horse shoe to the wall, she hoped that - touch wood (the door jamb in this case) - this and her new brass elephants with trunks stretching upwards would help neutralise the seven years' bad luck she had coming...

Today why not write about a superstition that fascinates you?

For example: never leave shoes on a kitchen table.

She pulled out the grey hair, mumbling that she didn't believe in silly superstitions about five grey hairs growing in its place. So when three grew back the very next day it didn't worry her because the number was wrong...

Tell a tale about a superstition in the past that you remember or were told about.

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Christmas quotations

Many scrapping titles around Christmas are song lyrics...

• White Christmas (if we're that lucky!)
• Have yourself a merry little Christmas
• Joy to the World
• All I want for Christmas is...
• It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
• Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree
• Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
• The Night before Christmas
  

Here are some alternative Christmas quotations:

At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
- Thomas Tusser

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), 'Love's Labour Lost'

Peace on earth will come to stay,
When we live Christmas every day.
- Helen Steiner Rice

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
- Peg Bracken

This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone.
- Taylor Caldwell (1900-1985)

It is the personal thoughtfulness, the warm human awareness, the reaching out of the self to one's fellow man that makes giving worthy of the Christmas spirit.
- Isabel Currier

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
- Charles Dickens (1812-1870), 'A Christmas Carol'

It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.
- W. T. Ellis

From home to home, and heart to heart,
from one place to another.
The warmth and joy of Christmas,
brings us closer to each other.
- Emily Matthews

At Christmas, all roads lead home.
- Marjorie Holmes

It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart.
- Marjorie Holmes

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
- Calvin Coolidge

The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.
- W. C. Jones

Heap on the wood! - the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
- Sir Walter Scott

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?
- Bob Hope

Ill...

It's not easy to keep a blog going when you're ill :( Back soon!

Write it on Wednesday: Food traditions

Sometimes memories can be inspired by objects, people or places in what seems like a random way. In fact, smells can be some of the most potent connectors with memories.

Are there any smells that bring up a strong memory for you?

Are there any foods that have a particular resonance? At this festive time of year especially there are often very distinctive smells associated with family traditions.

Do you have any special foods or eating traditions associated with Christmas or any other festival or family event?

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