My decision and a freebie

After much deliberating, and since about half of you said that you wanted me to change the name or that you didn't care, I decided to change my name to Templates, Etc. by Erica. Since it's so close to my old name (which was my intention in choosing it) I'm not going to change my blog address, so you won't need to change anything if you have me on your google reader.

I've been missing giving you all freebies, and since it's nearly midnight here, we'll call it Template Tuesday! Here's a little template I made up for you tonight. It's based loosely on an LO that I saw here.

Download Template #55 here.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

It's been quiet around here, but I've been working hard on a few different projects, not to mention the fact that I've been gearing up for a trip back to the US. Here's a little sneak peek at one of the things to come:


I've been thinking, too, about my name. Not my real name, my digi-scrapping name, Templates by Erica. I don't just want to do templates anymore. But, everyone knows me as Templates by Erica, so if I changed my name, I might lose some of my peeps. :) What do you think? I tried to make a poll, let's see how it works. And, if you have any suggestions for me, leave me a comment!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Broken links

It has come to my attention that several of my older links are broken. I don't want you all to think I'm ignoring your requests, but I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about them. I let you know as soon as I've decided. Thanks for your patience.

Just a layout share

My scrapbook style is pretty graphic usually. Clean lines, geometric shapes, etc. But when I was working on this picture, it took on a life of it's own. This is so not my style, and it will probably be a while before I do anything like this again, if ever, but I wanted to show you all that I'm not just a template scrapper. :)



Credits: The background, the wings, the red and yellow flowers, the moss, the stardust, and the white flower in her hand came from a kit called Secret of Avalon. The mushroom is from Mrs. Miles. Most of the butterflies are from Butterfly Dreams by Attic Treasures. If you see anything else on there that I didn't mention and want to know where it came from, let me know. I was all over the place for this page.

Popcorn for lunch

I remember days as a kid when we had the day off, so we'd go to the movies and my mom would say, "Let's just have popcorn for lunch." Of course, I didn't mind, because I love popcorn, and having popcorn for lunch meant that you could have that much more of it. Now that I'm a grown-up mom, I know that the popcorn for lunch thing was probably more about not having to make lunch than anything else. At least, that's what it's about for me. So, a couple weeks ago, when the twins were so crabby that I had to put them down for a nap before they had lunch and then they woke up at 3 pm and lunch was too close to dinner, I fed my kids popcorn for lunch. Being the silly person I am, I had to get out my camera to document the experience, and then scrap it too, of course. :)

Credits: Saturday in the Park kit by Linda Walton (Bon Scrapatit) Fonts from top to bottom are Grilled Cheese, MA Sexy, and Joyful Juliana.

Download Template #54 here.

Back to my favorite scrap subjects

Thanks to everyone who left me such nice comments this week. It really means a lot.

This picture has been burning a hole in my hard drive, so to speak; I've been looking forward to scrapping it for almost a month now. Aren't my kids adorable? :) It almost makes it worth picking up all those tiny pieces of plastic food.Credits: The idea for the four squares came from a layout in the book Mastering Scrapbook Page Design with Michele Gerbrandt. The kit is Picnic by Krista. The block letters came from Shabby Princess's Sweet Sprinkles and the stitching (recolored) is from her Splendid kit. The font is Girls Are Weird.

I was getting bored with shades of gray. Isn't this template pretty? :) The block font on the template is Rubber Stamp from FontFace.com. I didn't take the time to make stitching for the blocks, so you can just use the outlines that I put on there, or you can delete those and replace them with stitching from your stash. Also, the scalloped page curls were part of the Picnic kit, so I can't give that to you. I made a scalloped tear for you instead. Enjoy!
Download Template #53 here.

A new kit

I have some pages I want to scrap, but before I can get to them, I had to finish this kit so that I can stop thinking about it. Seriously, I've spent the last few nights before I fall asleep planning what I'm going to make for this kit the next day. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm still learning so much.

I know you all are going to think I'm silly. Now that I've finished my whole Egypt scrapbook (all 22 pages), I started messing with one of my photos, and ended up creating a whole kit that I could have used. :) I titled it Arabia, because the colors and the abstract palm shapes really remind me of the Middle East, but I hope that the kit doesn't limit you. It's full of greens and browns and lots of glitter. So, without further ado, here's Arabia:
Download Arabia here.