Ikscrap aka Ingeborg – Dreamy Island

A 1 kit call review, finally after summer it is time to scrap and play again and truly who can resist this 1 kit call? A Dreamy Island from ikscrap * Ingeborg* . I have no clue how store downloads are, because I received the files through 4 shared.  It’s a 3 files kit and no extra mess is added to the zipfiles.

The kit discription in store:

I created a fun little world with floating islands, flying houses and lots more. Great to make a fantasy layout, but also great for other kind of layouts. I already made several clusters to make your scrapping more easy, have fun.

Included are:

6 papers

33 elements:

1 berries, 1 cap, 4 flowers, 1 flower/wire, 2 frames, 1 map, 1 mat, 1 moon, 1 floweroverlay, 1 red leaf, 1 ribbon, toadstoolcluster, 1 treetrunk, 1 wings, 1 wire, 1 fantasy butterfly, 1 chain, 1 flying home, housecluster, 1 islands with and without houses, 1 seed, 2 snails, 4 toadstools and 1 wire cluster

My own thinking of the kit:

The preview is sweet and pretty and so is the kit. It is wonderful for blending pages and the mushroos inside this kit are amazing. Outdoor pictures, forest walks, tree huggers they will all love this kit, it is perfect for outdoors or creating fantasy. I love the watercolor look of the elements, allthough they are not truly ‘my style’ I just cant resist using them and falling in love with this kit!

Here’s my layout with the kit:

Oh such a lovely nature page, the photos are Vanessa’s girl they where to perfect not to use for this page!

Ingeborg what a great kit, your quality is perfect and I love the colorcombination you inserted here. If you happen to like Ingeborgs work you can visit her shops here and here.

Winter is coming

Well I know this doenst concern you all, but well winter is coming and after a busy summer season i’m ready to review kits again. In a few days you will find a new review up and running for you all, and I’ll do my best to post some extra the coming weeks.

 

Hugs carin

Cali Designs – Treasures of the Souk

Another fantastic 1 kit call from Cali, Treasures of the Souk.  The preview looks amazing, so I had to try. I have no idea how download in the store goes, since I got the files through 4shared from Cali.

The kit description in store:

Only the kit details itself, like the filsize and amount of papers and elements. There’s 25 papers and 93 elements.

My own thinking of the kit:

After counting the elements and papers since that is the only thing I can really verify with the kit depscription I’m happy to say they are the same. But there’s so much more to tell about this kit. The arabic, eastern patterned papers, the desert paper, the dry mud paper they are so pretty. The gold paper is pretty, but i’m not certain how to use that 1 and yes some papers are recolored bot they do not bother me. The basic colors are easy to combine specially for layouts with loads of paperstrips. And the elements, wow, I wish I had so much imagination and the designing skills to make it. Finally something a little different for a change. Offcourse there’s some eastern inspired lights we’ve seen in a zillion fantasy kits, and offcourse some leaves. But the desert trees are just amazing, and so are the teapots, the pots and plates, the pillows and waterpipes. and I truly adore the tiled arcade. WOW!

Here’s my page with the kit:

Little DD Aranka in her belly dance outfits and her crocs, she actually adores those things and wears them everywhere at anytime.

Cali did great creating something different for a change and I love the eastern influence she used as inspiration. I love the colors and elements in this kit and have to give her a big huge 2 thumbs up for Treasures of the Souk.

Katrins Design – Hand in Hand, Through the Sand

Another amazing new designer that I was lucky to try out is Katrins Design. Katrin is german and fairly new to the designer world and sells at scrap-dreams.com. The shop is standard in german, but has a switch to english, which makes it easy to navigate for all. Her previews are surely worth looking at, and they look amazingly pretty.

Checkout and download in the shop went very smooth and fast, and heres the preview of Hand in Hand, Through the Sand

The kit description in store:

With my new kit “Hand in Hand, through the sand”
comming beach-holiday feelings.
24 different Paper
- included 5 3D Paper
- 3600×3600
- all in jpg
- 300 dpi
128 elements
- 36 elements with shadow
- 92 elements without shadow
It´s S4F friendly

And then a list of the details of the elements.

This is my own thinking of the kit:

Well my first respons was, wow that preview looks amazing and I love the beach. I was caught by the fresh colors, and the amazing seagulls. The 3D papers are perfect for scenes and depth, and the elements are versatile and colorful. The photomasks are perfect for blend in photos or to use with the awesome frames inside the kit.  ome frames are pre-decorated but not over the top and surely very subtle and pretty. I love the green leaves and plants in this kit, and it is surely perfect for those beach and water pages.

Here’s my layout with the kit:

My DS Jeroen at the beach in Spain 2 years ago.

Katrins Design really took lots of effort to create an outstanding beachkit and she succeeded very well. I can totally recommend this kit for anyone who has beach photos to scrap. A big 2 thumbs up for Katrin and her Hand in Hand, Through the Sand kit!

Till the next review, Carin

Cali Designs – Lagoon

A 1 kit call from Cali Designs called Lagoon that I was chosen for. She had only parts of the preview up like a sneak peek, but I instantly knew I would have pictures for this kit. Since we have a waterrat in our household.

Download went through 4 shared, so I have no clue how the shop downloads work.  Here is a preview of the kit:

There is no description of the kit, only the content is written down, but I do not find it intresting to copy that list. The kit consist of 15 papers and 82 elements.

My own thinking of the kit:  The preview does not do the kit justice, truly I’ve seen better previes for worse kits. The kit contains enough elements to make wonderful water and beach scenes allthough the papers suggest a more nature and outdoor look, theres no beach paper inside. The papers are versatile, some outdoor, pebbles and natural colors that look truly fantastic. The versatile realistic animals in this kit make it perfect for zoo layouts, outdoor layouts and watery scenes. There’s a great balance between flowers, frames, natural elements like leaves and animals but also a great staircase and a wonderful curtain. The line between fantasy and outdoors can easily be set in this kit. I wanted to show of the versatile elements in my layout and tried using some of the outdoor and some of the more whimsy elements. I especially adore the bottle in this kit!

Here’s my layout:

Cali walked a fine line here between fantasy and realistic and if you want to try a fantasy layout but are to challenged by the real fantasy kits this truly is a treasure to have in yuor stash. You can easily build great outdoor pages and add that little twist, or leave the twist out and just make great outdoor pages!  Yeah Cali, you know I love your goodies and I cant wait to see what comes next…:)

Untill the next review, Carin

Magical Reality Designs – By The Lily Pond

This review is a request from a reader *cool we actually have some readers*.  This reader pointed me to these kits and asked if I had any of them and give my review on them. We are talking about the work of MagicalReality Designs, her kit previews look whimsy and wonderful and perfect for fantasy layouts and scenery. It fits my taste and I allready had some on my wihslist so with NSD I took 2 kits to try, in hope that it was money well spend. I like a good bargain and to try new things so this was perfect.

For this review I used By The Lily Pond

Download in the store went fast, even though I downloaded it during NSD, so that went totally smooth.

The Description of the kit in store:

Enter the world of MagicalReality, where every childs imagination becomes a magical creation! This lovely kit has 28 backgrounds -some scenery -some recolored. and 54 unique elements. Kit contians bird cages, bridge, bubbles, butterflies, dragonflies, cluster frames, frames, doodle, overlays, drops, falling rain drops, falling flowers, leafs, flowers, plants, ribbons, fountain, rainbow, rainbow rays, boat paddle, peacock, wings and best of all 3 ready made LILY PONDS! 1 day_pond, 1 night_pond both decorated with water lilies, and 1 plain pond just with rocks and grass. Not all shown in preview.

This is my own thinking of the kit:

The preview is very sweet and subtle, the colors are soft and the preview looks almost magical. The variety of papers is good, different colors, other sceneries and details it sure doesnt look like a standard paper recolored 10 times and that makes me happy! The 3 ready made lily ponds are fun for sure, allthough I havent used them yet. The glitter overlays, dragonflies and tiny butterflies are very pretty and of good quality, as are the leaves, frames and flowers inside this kit. The colorscheme is perfect for girly outdoor layouts, fantasy and non fantasy related actually.  The only downside is that I missed some frogs.

Here’s my layout with this kit:

it’s my oldest DD Esmee in her mermaid suite grandma took home from Scotland in 2002.

Katherine of MagicalReality Designs truly puts efford in her extractions and the ideas of her kits. This kit is very well color coördinated and theres not a single stray pixel to find. I give at least 2 thumbs up for MagicalReality Designs, a great designer to try if your looking for something new with good quality!

Joelle Designs – Where Faeries Grow

I’m so honored to write a review another kit from Joelle Designs. I’ve done her wonderland kit and she asked me if I would love to do where faeries grow as well.  Since I love fantasy, and allready noticed in her last kit that Joelle is a fast learning and growing designer I could not pass this offer.

I got the kit Where faeries grow through Megaupload, so I can not tell you how the store downloads go, but I assume that they will be without problems.

This is the description in the store:

I so loved design this kit.
Everyone knowing me, knows I simply adore that beautyfull, magical  fairy LO’s.
You can create alot of different LO’s with this full scrapkit with:
17 papers
72 Elements
all created 300DPI
Welcome in my fantasy world……..
PU/S4H Ok

This is my own thinking of the kit:

Amazing preview, very catchy and beautiful. I love the first fact that it is not totally pink, green, blue or red. It has a diversity of nature colors in it, maing it easy to mix it up with everything in your stash. The papers are versatile, and the ewlements ‘handy’. There’s some nature elements like mushrooms, treestumps, but also some flowers, some lantarns and that amazing unicorn! I can see myself making fantasy layouts with the little mice, but I can also see some perfeclt outdoor pages, with the treestumps, mushrooms and leaves. It does not limit to 1 page for sure.  It must be easy to make a variety of pages with this kit, without getting it all to look the same.

And here’s my sample layout:

Joelle is a fast growing designer, her skills are getting better with each kit and I see a bright designer future for her, which is cool cause that way we can all enjoy her wonderful work for a long time!  I raise 2 thumbs for Joelle’s kit Where Faeries Grow and can not wait to see what she comes out with next. And for all those fantasy/ whimsical lovers, this is a kit you can not go without, I know this will be a great treasure to my stash.

Ashalee Walls and Nicole Perry, Fairytale Collection Willows

Anoter great quick 1 kit call, and I’ve actually not played with Ashalee Wall and Nicole Perry goodies so this was a great oppertunity that I could not pass. Thankfully I was picked and received the kit through a special send box. I can not give any opinion about the downloads but knowing Oscraps they normally go smoothly.

I was so happy that Ashalee send me the gorgeous kit Fairytale Collection Willows

This is what the description says:

Ashalee Wall and Nicole Perry bring you a beautiful kit that is full of unique elements. A fairytale kit that is awaiting your pictures to join it. This is a mega pack that brings all the elements of a great kit into the making. You will receive a scrapkit with over 60 elements, 6 12×12 quickpages and 7 psd layed frames to add to this already amazing kit. Let’s not forget the alpha with full/uppercase letters and numbers. A  beautifully crafted mega pack by Ashalee Wall and Nicole Perry.

This is my own thinking of the kit:

A fairytale kit, now that is for sure. The possibilities are endless I love the overlay papers, the texture of the tree paper and the leaves with dewdrops paper, they are amazing. I did the jaggy test on the fern clumb and am amazed by the quality of the elements a great extraction job on this for sure! The twig with frames is a great one I’m certain that is going straight into my fav frames folder in ACDsee.

Making a layout with fantasy kits is something I really love, so to me it was easy to make a page, the most time went into finding the photos I wanted to use. A whole variety of possibilities can be made with this kit and it does NOT limit itself to fantasy layouts, great outdoor pages can be made as well. And I’m certain 4 pages is possible without getting the same look on all your pages.

Yes I love this kit, I’m sure i’m going to use it more, the birds the fawns, the colors it is just my type of kit and the quality is perfect. I certainly raise 2 thumbs for Ashalee and Nicole cause they surely deserve it!! Ashalee & Nicole thank you for letting me play with Fairytale Collection Willows

See you next time, Carin

Mandi Nickell – Chris Greiser collab, all who wander

I replied to the one kit call from Mandi Nickell and I ended up with this great collab kit all who wander from Mandi Nickell (AE designs) and Chris Greiser. The kit is sold at Divine Digital, Sunshine studios and Faith Sisters. But I got it through Mediafire, so can’t tell anything about paying and uploading through a store.

The description in the store

This is the first Sunflower collaboration by AE Designs and Chris Greiser. Full kit includes over 25 bohemian inspired elements, some in various colors, a full uppercase glittered alpha, and 15 individually textured papers! All elements created at 300dpi and are provided without drop shadows. Select elements and clusters are provided with additional shadowed versions!

Elements Include:
wooden peace sign
paisley stickers
clay butterflies
2 silk flowers
2 wrapped frames
beaded ring
2 strings in various colors
tag
twill
gem
foiled journaling spot
paper matte
stitches
metal swirl
3 frames
ribbon flowers
4 buttons
2 bows
2 frayed fabris strips
crocheted flowers

My ideas on the kit

I really love the combination of the fuchsia, the purple and the blue colors. The papers are well chosen and combine very well. The element pack is big and there are lots of different elements, enough to use different things on one page. If you like cluster style, but suck at it, you can get help with the different ready made clusters in the kit! Lots of elements come in non shadowed and shadowed version. I prefere to make my own drop shadows, but the shadowing in this kit is well done. I especcially love the paisly’s and the crochet flowers. I was really in love with the alpha, but I didn’t use it, because the letters T and S (which I needed) were not finished as they should have been! So I hope they will fix this pretty soon. ***edit: the alpha was fixed already before going into the store***

 

This is the page I made with the kit! I wanted to take a picture from myself with my baby girl, so I ended up making these foolish but supercute snapshots!!! So I see you could make any page with it, but they would be more girly/female pages, because of the colors.

A view inside digistores

Well girls it has been a day, I was reading on DST when somebody posted there about a question how you would feel as a costumer if your personal info was being shared. The original thread can be found here. I will take a little of this text and will express my concerns about this as well.

Many scrap stores (definitely not all though lol) send order confirmations through a yahoo group for the designers…mostly these groups are closed and private and my own store sends confirmations through just such a group

My reply was this:

Does this really happen????
Like all my details are send over a yahoo group after I made a purchase? With my adres and all details of payment and such?
I’m a bit surprised to read my info has been send over yahoo groups.
Thats freaky, Allthough I think if people want to, they can dig deep enough to find all my details for sure!
As a store owner isnt it their resposibility to keep the buyers info safely and send out a saleslist themselves weekly, even without names and such, only how much is sold of what. Like a balance sleeve or something, I’m really surprised to read this and I truly think this will infect my way of shopping in digi land. Allthough damage have allready been done.

I’m still standing by my reply. It is a storeowners responsibility to have these information hold safe. I really feel it is unfair and unftting and a breach of privacy to share my shopping sprees on yahoo. Nobody needs to know what I’ve been buying besides the designer I buy from and myself.

I have emailed several of my favorite stores to see if they handled this method and since i’m a woman of lists I kept track in the replies in this topic to see if storeowners would out themselves or where willing to explain how their store works. Since i’ve been doing webdesign, mod coding, worked with zen cart and with amember I know how mods work and have some understanding of SSl and such, thankfully i’m not a tech dummy and I know from experience that yahoo isnt 100% safe. I also know a Zen cart or X cart can crash, but well thats with all technology. When you sign up to a digi shop, there is always fine print. I hope that store owners that do share information over yahoo will add this to their store, some people do not want to have their privacy breeched. And yes, there’s lots of personal info on everyone to be found on the internet, but do we really have to make it that easy for everyone? I say no!

Here’s a list of stores that are considered safe, working with yahoo without personal info or working with yahoo ginving out personal info. I know this post may cause drama or angry faces, slower buisness or what so ever, and to the store owners that are not on the list and want to be added to either category just leave an honest repy on how your store works, either here or at DST, an email is welcome as well if you do not wish to reply here. You have a right to know what happens with your order info!

 

Stores that do not share personal info over yahoo groups:
3Scrapateers
A Cherry on Top
After 5 Designs
Been There Scrapped That
Brownie Scraps
DesignerDigitals
Designs2Create
Designs in Digital
Digital Candy
Digital Freebies
Digital Paper Hearts
Digital Scrapbook Pages | Digitals
Digital Scrapbooking Place
Digital Scrap Boutique
DigiScrapping.Net
DigiScrapStation
Digi Printables
Digi Web Studio
Divine Digital
Eidiou
Elemental Scraps
Faith Sisters
Gotta Pixel
Haven Designz DigiScraps
Inspiration Lane
Just Digi Layouts
KaloDesigns
MyLifeandScrap
MyScrapShop
NDISB
Nut House Scraps
Nuts4Digi
Oscraps
Pickleberrypop
PlainDigitalWrapper
PolkaDotPotato
Pretty Scrappy
Rachael’s Scrap Store
Scrapable
ScrapBird
Scrapbook Bytes
Scrapbook Elements
ScrapbookGraphics
ScrapDebris
ScrapDish
Scrapitty-Doo-Dah
ScrapKitten
ScrapMatters
Scrap N Tag
Scrap Orchard
Scrap Outside the Box
Scrappetizing
ScrappinFreestyle
Scrappin Digi Kreations
ScrapWow
Shabby Pickle
Stone Accents Studio
Sunflower Scrap
Sunshine Studio Scraps
Sweet Shoppe Designs
The Digichick
The Lilypad
WoolSweaterStreet

Stores that do share all info over yahoo:
At this moment I’m happy to say that all store owners contacted so far or had been standing here have changed their method to a safer and private method.

***Note if your favorite stores are not in this list, it could be they did not reply (yet) It does not mean that they are on a bad list or something. If you are uncertain, contact the store owner to ask them what their policy is on this matter.