Spook-Tacular Halloween Scrapbooking Inspiration Templates and A Free Ghost Template for the Love for Layout Templates Train

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

In our usual fashion, we've got today's blog full, full, full of fabulousness and we're super excited you're here.

Well, someone flipped the switch and I'm afraid fall has begun in Belgium. Boo! The cooler temperatures don't really bother me that much. It's the GREY. Triple ugh to all of the grey and wind we get here, lately. Last year, we lived in what I called the perpetual storm. Rain, grey and wind from November through June and I'm barely exaggerating, here.

A friend of mine posted how she's trying to think of the positive things about winter. I have to stretch! Hehehe...We got a wood burning stove just a few short years ago and I do love it. There's always hot water and it's fabulous to cook on. Everything I make on there seems to taste better. Even cakes! I know, right? I love cozying up the place with candles in the evening and snuggling up with a blanket. I recently bought a few awesome pieces of cold weather clothes from Rag Wear. They are mega warm, organic cotton, made in Europe and super comfy. It ends there for me! Hehehe...

How about you? What do you love about fall? Pumpkin spice? The changing leaves? Halloween? Let me know in the comments. 

I like Halloween. It's not really a thing here in Belgium, though. I do have huge ambitions to decorate my enormous picture window, again. I've got several blogs about my various windows. My favorite was the pirate set up. I think I'll go with that one since it's been a few years. The blog I linked you up with is full of decor ideas and tutorials for you.

If you like scrapbooking your Halloween adventures, then I've got ya set. I just designed these 7 templates for you and your memory keeping creations. My team did a great job decking them out and one of them is your free template today for the Love for Layout Templates train. You may have noticed that the train is shrinking. Boo! Us designers are feeling the punch. No one is making money any more so we gotta get out there and get real jobs. Hehehe...As long as I can find the time between food adventures, writing books, gardening ... I'll keep designing for you.

I've put the new templates in my Kreative Design Studio shop at Design Bundles. You may purchase them separate or as part of the big Halloween Bundle. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Keep scrolling for the free template and more free designs.

Check out the next stop, go back to the ones you missed and post your pretty pages in our group and the train group.

Enjoy the layout love from the team.

These patterns feel textural, no?

I had asked in the group which template you liked best and the cat won hands down.

This is a fabulous template to show off multiple photos and a great background.

I cannot decide what I like best on Theresa's page. I'm going to go for Dex's adorable face, then the colors. This is such a fun page. She even added text. I love it. How about you?

Simply add pics to the template and you've scrapped.

Go with an opacity change up for the ghosts. What a great idea!

Check out my shop for autumn designs. I've got a sale going on until the end of the month.

Here's a look at the papers from the bundle. These are from last year. Make sure you don't already have the kit from GingerScraps. There are 36 papers in total, including textured solids.

I've put together a pack of Commercial Use friendly designs to coordinate with the papers for the shop at Design Bundles.

Grab the bundle while it's on sale and support The Cherry. If you're short on cash, head over and heart the product and others you love. Thanks so much!

Click here to download today's FREE TEMPLATE.

Design some festive decor for your house...

or suit up for Halloween!

Get inspired!

If you helped us unlock the freebies, thanks! Here's your portion of the Catalonia Collection. Make sure you answer the question about what you like about fall either here or in the group to unlock next week's pack of coordinating, free digital designs.

Below, is last week's portion. Did ya miss it? Scroll back and grab it.

This is what the collection looks like in its entirety.

There's no fun chicken designs, today. I promise to come back with more from that, next week. If you want to see what designs you've missed from this really fun, farmhouse style collection I've started building, scroll on back. Here's a little look.

Come on back for next week's freebies, join us in our scrap-a-licious group, consider signing up for the newsletter (now worries, I don't send out that many), help unlock the free stuff and as always, have a blast scrapping and crafting with The Cherry.

 

Welcome to Our Coop Farmhouse Style Chicken Design Freebie, Chicken Treat Ideas and Autumn Watercolor designs

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

Have ya come back for more free chicken designs or the next pack of freebies from my book, The Walking Stick? Maybe you're here for more chicken tips? Either way, I'm thrilled you are. I have more designs and ideas on how to use them from Chai Eighteen Designs, too.

This is today's new freebie from the collection. Keep scrolling for the link.

See what you missed?! Scroll back and grab the freebies.

I get most of my designs these days from Design Bundles, Plus. Check'm out for free for a month!

This is one of my favorites. Scroll back and grab the second freebie.

This was the first free chicken design. Sassy!

We had a chicken get hit by a car. So, this would be great for around our home.

Here'a picture of our girls from a while ago. See! We still had a lawn with these girls. Our current chickens ripped out our entire backyard this winter. Ugh! It is slowly growing back and I will reiterate that is has never happen before. I thought I'd stick with the chicken topic and give ya some ideas for special treats that the girls love.

In a previous blog, I shared all kinds of plants that most chickens don't like. So, they might be safe in your yard scape. Maybe! Hehehe... All chickens are different, though. No promises! I did tell ya to consider wrapping a wire border around your newly planted plants and see how they react. The other great thing about the wire cage is the girls can't dig and scratch around your new plant and you can reuse them.

We save a ton of garbage by feeding the parts of food we don't eat to the girls or we use it as compost.

Chickens love any kind of squash and most veggies. Cucumbers are ideal for getting them some extra water, too. A great idea for hot summers. You can give them the entire thing. Just cut a big part out to get them started and let them work or pick at the cucumber. It's great for their brains and keeps them busy.

I had a pumpkin spoil at the bottom and seeds were all over the yard, somehow. Birds? The next year, I had pumpkin plants all over the yard. How lucky?! I'm sure if I tried to grow them, it would have never worked. This is the second time this happened.

I cut out the good parts and gave the girls the rest. I kept a lot of the seeds and toasted them. I'm an addict to spicy roasted pumpkin seeds. Mmmm...I shared the cut up and prepared pumpkin with some neighbors and put the rest in the freezer.

Of course, most birds love sunflower seeds. If the wild birds don't finish the seeds, I lob off the head of the plant and let the girls pick out the seeds. It sure is a lot easier than trying to get the seeds out myself. Often seeds fall to the ground and grow next year. I have tomatoes growing absolutely everywhere. Even in my indoor plants, because I water my plants with our dirty dish water. More free food!

Sunflowers are mega easy to grow and they are pretty as all get out.

Two people told me that radishes won't grow in such a small pot. WRONG! Hehehe...I grew huge radishes in these shallow pots in just a few weeks. Once, I purchased some radishes from Aldi and the green tops were beyond delicious. I'm yet to find those again and I'm on the hunt to find the seeds for them. If you know what I'm talking about, let me know in the comments.

These greens, to my disappointment, are ouchy! The girls love the tops as do the cabbage butterfly caterpillars. I had to pick dozens off my plants much to the enjoyment of the girls. They got a double treat. The annihilated greens actually grew back! I'm thrilled I gave them a second chance.

You can grow turnips all year long. They'll stay good for most of the year outdoor, in a green house or in a sunny spot in your house. I'm so super thrilled I've got enormous window sills all around the inside of the house. I'm growing stuff in every room.

Here, you can see the girls never mess with the hydrangea. They do dig and scratch at the roots, though. Put large rocks around the roots to help.

Behind Katey is my outside garden. I never have a lot of luck gardening. Darn it! I do keep trying, though. It's a super spot to throw some of their poop mixed with the wood chips from the egg house, grass clippings ... I use it as a compost pile in the winter. So when spring comes around, I'm all set to plant more yummies.

Click here for today's new chicken freebie.

I'm showing off more beautiful designs from Chai Eighteen Designs. Check out how I played.

I designed papers and this tag with the cute bird.

This is what the collection looks like.

I loved these hats, too. I added some text and tweaked the design's color a bit. Then tried to find a font that went with the style of the design.

Save big time by getting the huge collection and design beautiful things. I have more ideas on how to use these designs on last week's blog. I just saw it was 70%, today! Hopefully it still is.

Changing the colors of the designs doesn't have to be difficult. I often just mess with the saturation and levels. I wanted a bit more traditional fall colors for this design. It matches the background pretty well. What luck?! If you'd like a tutorial on how to change up the colors quickly and easily, let me know and I'll put it in a future blog.

Look how gorgeous these pumpkins are. They'll make your crafts sophisticated.

I'm giving away my Catalonia Collection as I design it. It coordinates with a book I'm writing, The Walking Stick. I plan on sharing excerpts of the book, eventually. I thought I was finished with the book, but then thought it was too short. I considered writing a bunch of short stories with the same theme and putting them all in one book. I feel like I can go on forever with the story. 

The characters are likable (so far) hehehe... and it's very realistic and positive, too. I need this! I don't know about you, but as an avid reader, I'm sick to death of dark, creepy, violent, evil books. A feel good book is what I crave. One that might bring a tear to your eye, warm your heart or at least bring a smile to your face. A book where you wish you were one of the characters or you knew someone like that.

Have you ever read a Maeve Binchy book? I just love her books. She's so awesome at character development. I'm nothing like Maeve, but a girl's gotta have goals, right? There were a few of her books that I just didn't want to end! I wanted to live in the neighborhood she was writing about and hug a character that was given a raw deal. Hehehe...If you've never read any of her books, start off with Circle of Friends. It's in my TOP FIVE all time favorite books. It's a page turner!

My team is playing with the collection. Here's a lovely page from Kait. I love what she did with the tiny blue flowers.

This is today's free pack. I'm a big fan of this deep red.

A big shout out to Mary from our group. She unlocked this week's freebie by designing something with the free parts you've downloaded so far. This time it's your turn to help. Pop over to the group and show me a picture or a page of some summer fun you had. If you're from the other part of the world, show us your winter shenanigans. When I get five images, I'll unlock next week's freebie for next week.

Thanks for hanging with The Cherry.

Happy scrapping!

 

Free Digital Scrapbooking Designs Page Inspiration and Another Fun Free Chicken Design Life is Better with Chickens

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

I've got some more freebies for ya, a fun pic of my angry looking chick and some notes about chicken runs. I'm so thrilled you are here.

Above is a little tease at what's to come with my chicken kit. 

I found a really, really cute pack of elements from Design Bundles for some of these designs.

Isn't it so cute?! I love the color palette, too.

There's Daisy! My son got this funny picture when I had him working in the chicken run. As you can see, it is absolutely nothing special. We only have this little space behind our garage. The long and narrow shape is ideal for a run. We only have four girls because our yard is too small for more. Four chickens will fit fine in this size space, but I let mine out in the backyard most of the time.

I do have a little bit of green net that you can just barely see, all the way in the back so they don't jump on their house/nesting house and then over to our neighbor's whose dogs would shred them to smithereens. The side you can't see is a tall wooden fence and a long, high shrubbery from our neighbor's.

I tried planting some plants in the run, but it isn't going all that great. I still have my raspberry bush that's growing well. It's surrounded by a wire cylinder like the one you see I use for my compost. The ladies keep digging all around the new plants despite my huge rock borders. They even started sitting on the one lavender I had left! Grrr...

This was our first batch of chickens that didn't want to sleep in the house where they nest. Every evening when we came out to check on them, they were huddled up behind our house and perched on our BBQ grill. So, the hubs quickly fashioned that open, wooden contraption with spare wood. There are a few perches in there and they love it. It didn't cost us a penny to make and it went together quickly.

You can see the wood chips and hay, under the clear, plastic roof. That was about 100 Euros to construct. It's rather handy, but I'd like another section of it because it gets mega windy and rainy, here in Belgium. Also at the corner of the roof, is a water container. It's easy to clean and give the girls fresh water when it's right there. Be CAREFUL! We had a lovely drown in a large bucket that we forgot to empty. So tragic! I have a large rim around the container to prevent that from happening, again.

You can see my super cool compost heap. All we did was bend some rigid chicken wire or fencing into a cylindrical form and folded over the places where we cut it. It's about 3 feet in diameter and around 5 feet tall. This is also a super idea I found on the internet.

I can easily scoop out the poop from where they sleep and chuck it in my compost bin and or spread it around the run. I have to clean up the run at least once a week. I simply fill in the holes they dig and rake around until it's all evened out and clean. When it gets rather dry, it turns into lovely compost because we also throw our left overs back in the run and the wood chips and poop from the nesting house.

The cylinder is great for our food scraps, grass clippings and garden left overs, too. We don't have any kind of large space for composting. So, this is really great. I plan on putting a few more of them in the run. What the person did whose idea I stole, was add seeds and soil every few inches of compost. She also added some baby plants that she had too much of and stuck them all around the compost pile, too. This way, the girls can pick at it. Add some sticks and the girls can perch on them while they nibble. It keeps them busy. The woman even had a tree growing on the top of one of her compost bins that she replanted when it was bigger. Cool, eh?!

I've got another pack from the new collection for you. The commenting isn't going all that well and I get sick of coming back and forth looking and counting. Hehehe...I need a lazier way to do this. Ooh! It just dawned on me. I could have it where it only takes a few people to unlock the next freebie by asking a question or making up something fun with what we have so far. I hope I don't forget! It will be easier for all of us.

Keep scrolling for the link for the free pack and chicken freebie.

Click here for the second pack of freebies from the Catalonia Collection.

Hilary designed a nice page for us. I love this salmon shade! It looks neat with the blue.

Click here for the new free chicken design.

This image is linked up to the product at Design Bundles.

I'm not sure why I didn't mention where I got the design for the other freebies. I'll do better, next time. Of course, it is from Design Bundles. I have a shop there and because I do quite some promotion for them, I get a free Plus Membership, though not a gold one any more. Hmmm...I will admit, I don't make any money affiliating for them or from the shop. It used to be a lot better, but now it's like a few bucks a year. 

This image is linked up to the product at Design Bundles.

If you are here only for the freebies, then you'll love bombarding Design Bundles freebie section. You can find the link in the side bar, near the top.

Last week I showed off JoCee Designs new endeavor, Chai Eighteen Designs. I recently saw she's got a freebie in her group. Pop over and grab it and say hello to the other fans. Go back to last week's blog and find more of her designs as well as how to get more free stuff from CED.

Thanks for popping in. Enjoy the free goodies and help us unlock the next free pack. I'll be asking that you use the two packs you've got so far to make a fun cluster. As soon as someone makes a GOOD cluster to share with us in the group, I'll unlock the third free pack and give another instruction. Make sure ya tag me! Thanks for your help!

Happy scrapping!