About white space and my first free template

So many things to do in so little time.... where should I start?

Okay, white space. To answer a personal Frequently Asked Question; Yes, I do love white space very much, though not really to the point where I can't or won't do other scrapping styles! LOL!

It's true that for the last month I've been creating a whole lot of LOs with white background, but it's only because that's the theme I set for the family 2010 calendar project I was working on. We've been making desk calendars to give family members and friends every year since Neill was born. For the first few years we hired a professional for the job but frankly we didn't think the design quality was worth the money. That's one of the reasons why I started to teach myself GIMP a few years back. And then around the beginning of last year, I discovered digital scrapbooking.

So, last year was the first year that I designed the whole family calendar myself as a digiscrap project. It actually turned out quite alright, with one of the pages even won a templage challenge at ScrapMatters! (It was the first time I ever put a layout on any gallery. And I didn't even claim the prize coz I had no idea what to do with it!?! Here it is in SM gallery if you wanna take a look.)

I sent the project to print not long after that and only then I found something that made me want to redo the whole thing! LOL. It's Dunia's CD calendar! She is a fabulous scrapper and I have always loved her style: creative, clean and crisp! Her project (click to see it in her DST gallery) inspired me so much that from the moment on I decided that I had to do a white background calendar this year.

I'm not ashamed to admit that my calendar could be called a blatant scraplift of Dunia's, coz her works really impressed me and I believe that you have to learn from the best if you want to be better at something. Although I feel I still have to point out that other than the idea of white background (and the front cover that it's my intention to scraplift and credit Dunia for it--to show the reference), I took a lot of care and put in the effort to make the project my own. :)

Well, I just finished the last page late last week and now the project is in printing process. I saw the proof the other day and, if I may say so, it looked not bad at all! I'm sure the friends and family members are gonna enjoy them! So here it is: 26 pages for 12 months front and back plus covers. Thank you so much, Dunia, for the inspiration!

(click on each image for larger view -- all credits are in the one right below here)

Whew! Now onto the second matter at hand. My first template freebie!!!

Like I said in the previous post, I had such a good time with Rachelle (Rachness)'s kit Infatuation and was very satisfied with all 3 layouts I made with the kit. After giving away one as a quickpage freebie the last time, I was able to coerce umm.. coax Rachelle into letting me share another layout though as a template this time. :)

So here it is. You may click here to get it or just click on the image below. As always, please leave me something here if you like it enough to download. (A comment or some chocolate bars if you prefer that. LOL!!) And don't forget to go to Rachelle's blog or store to check out Infatuation as well. You'll love it like I do.



Oh! I forgot to put in the calendar credits that I did the calendar dates myself and had offered the files on the blog a while ago. I'll repost it here to make it easier for those who are interested and missed it the last time. (Comments, please?) Click here or on the image. Enjoy! :)