Visual Designs by Chris

Chris Durnan

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Tuesdays Wishlist Giveaways – COMMENT HERE

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All right folks posts here for your entry for the wishlist giveaways for Tuesdays. Scroll to yesterdays post for information.

Comment below to be entered and post your all time favorite file of mine or list the software you use when cutting files or both.

I will be reworking packages of files and want to include the important ones and retire the old ones. Others may also see your comments here and add to their wishlists.

Don’t forget to post on my blog comments under this post, my facebook page and my forum.

Don’t forget to stop by and enter again tomorrow.

Sales start this weekend.

Can’t wait!
Enjoy!
Chris

To get quick fun updates of things going on, you can join my facebook page.

My files in the store can be located here. Thank you for stopping by!

*You have to login to the store and create/add to wishlist to be entered in this giveaway.

Here we go… wishlist giveaways…

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Cleanup those lists. I am so ready to give away some files from the wishlists.
Sales will start this week. So let’s give some files away first.
You have Monday to clean them up. 
Starting, Tuesday I will draw a name from either the comments on the fb thread, forum thread, or my blog comments and send you five files on your wishlist.
I have to admit this will be my most missed part of the store. Being able to giveaway files from a wishlist.
Alot of files will be not be reloaded anywhere and most universal will load to the KNKUSA store. 🙂 so search through mine high and low and see what you want.
Details… 
✔You have to comment each day on the post of the day to be entered in that day’s drawing.
There will be a post here on the blog that will feed to facebook and will feed to the forum. You can post at any of those spots (blog, facebook, forum) and on all of those spots each day to be entered. So enter at each spot.

You can also post every day! Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. Just don’t forget to get your entries in. Sometime in the afternoon I will start to draw names and pick some winners. 
✔You will be sent 5 of your files on the wishlist of my choosing. So make sure you have cleaned them up and it isn’t a file you already have.

If it is a file you already have and was still on your wishlist, it will not be replaceable. please make sure your lists are cleaned up and ready.

✔  Thursday will be the last day of giveaways and then sales begin.

Can’t wait to see what everyone picks!

Enjoy!
Chris

My Aunt Elise’s new adventures.

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My Aunt Elise’s first post on Bologna Brain. I love her straightforward from the heart writings. What you are reading is her heart out there for everyone to soak up into their own lives.

It is hard for me to believe I have only been with her a handful of times in my life because of the distance between our homes. Through facebook I get to enjoy her love of life on a daily basis. I love every moment of it.  Thankful she recently made it through a huge multi-car accident to continue sharing her heart with those around her.

Here is the link:

http://www.bolognabrain.com/2013/08/10/through-the-eyes-of-our-elders/

I hope you enjoy the read and there will be more to come I am sure. If you like it or it makes you think, please leave her some positive feedback. Those who know me know that I love to encourage those around me. Thank you to those who help me on my never ending journey of encouragement to others.

If you have a post or project you want to share, please post here in the comments. I’d love to see.

Love my life ~Enjoy!
Chris

extra coupon Code…

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I have posted the coupon code for QMC members in the forum.
A way for you to add to the sales that will be happening at the end of the month.
So the coupon code can be an additional percentage off.

Also, it can be used up to 5 times per logged in customer.

If you have been a QMC member in the past, please email me and I will send you the code as well.

As a thank you for supporting my family and me.

Enjoy!
Chris

To get quick fun updates of things going on, you can join my facebook page.

My files in the store can be located here. Thank you for stopping by!

Exciting new adventures – forum possibilities

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Our forum members still want a home. I totally agree.  I can offer a vanilla forum on the new site. Anyone want to help build this comfortable home for our members to share, chat, and challenge each other?  The forum I have checked out would be a vanilla forum. If you have any experience and would like to help out, please email me so I can have someone to turn to and help with moderating.

These are just ideas to get moving on for September 1st. Enjoy! Chris

To get quick fun updates of things going on, you can join my facebook page.

My files in the store can be located here. Thank you for stopping by!

Growth and Change… VDBC announcement

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Growth and Change…

It has come time  for me to let the VDBC store go. I have been hanging on to it mostly out of nostalgia and the phenomenal people that I have met through out the years. It is time to grow and change.

I will be closing the VDBC store down August 31st. Between now and then the many designers at VDBC will be having sales and offerings and letting you know where they are going and some are choosing to take their own path in life and not re-offer their files in a new place for the forseeable future. ( I never say never.) So if you want those designs better to snap them up quick.

I, myself, will be continuing this blog as my journal and from time to time offering a “flash file sale.”

Some of my files can be found at the KNKUSA store, but I will admit all of those in the VDBC store will not be moving to KNKUSA. So if you find something you like or want or have a wishlist in the store full.
Now is the time to grab what you can. Watch for sales coming out over the next month.

If you are a QMC Member of have been in the past, please email me for a special discount coupon to add to any of my sale prices. 🙂 I offer this to those who have helped me support my family as I have traveled on this adventure.

I can’t help but reminisce. When I started designing cutter files, I had a teeny tiny baby at home with me. I was going to be a stay at home Mom and just be awesome. I found myself chatting about machines that cut paper into little teeny things. My first machine was a craft robo. I still have it. I was excited that I cut teeny tiny purses and paper projects.  I found that editing those files and offering them on my blog every day just made me soooo happy. So I kept at it and ended up selling at Paperthreads. Then I decided after a few years it was time to go out on my own. and so I did. I sold on my own in the store at VDBC for quite some time. And then a few joined me. It was nice to have some co-designers. And it sure has brought me some awesome friendships.

If you want to be updated every once in a while when I have something new and astonishing, well mostly astonishing to my rambling self,  or a file created, please make sure you are registered at my yahoo group or on this mailchimp list. Who knows where this crazy life will lead me.

Thank you again to everyone who has helped me support my family and just been an awesome group of people to socialize and chat with. It has been wonderful. I love my life.

As always… Enjoy!
Chris

UPDATE** Thank you for the outpouring of personal emails I have been getting. Yes if I can get a forum up and it is manageable when all the rest of the store and forum are slimmed down I would gladly keep a forum at the VDBC domain for our caring and wonderful members. So keep up on the news and up to date. Join my Yahoo group and/or the mailchimp. {{{hugs to everyone}}} thank you.

To get quick fun updates of things going on, you can join my facebook page.

My files in the store can be located here. Thank you for stopping by!

Gluten free cruising on Royal Carribean

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Zuki and I. My son cried after the last meal and gave her about 5 hugs. He said Someday. 
Someday. I may see her again . She and Monicia were awesome. 

But this post is about Gluten. Oh the dreaded word that makes many waitstaff cringe cringe cringe … and my fear of a cruise and not really eating for 7 days or just eating green leafs. 
I will say one of my concerns was my gluten free diet. I was pleasantly surprised and almost shocked at the help in getting tasteful foods. Even to the excited anticipation of french toast room service that is gluten free.
If you are cruising Royal Carribean, they say they handle gluten free, but this could be any level of “handle” which I am completely accustomed to and packed gfree snack bars and had plans of unseasoned salmon and salads. I am the one with the allergy so I never take that out on my waiters, family and friends. If there iis no food. It is okay. I will find something somehow. I knew it would be covered. So I was good to go either way. Boy was I pleasantly surprised.
The first night I sat at a fine dining restaurant on board at our appointed time. The menus came out and I paused. Went to take a peek and wow there was options clearly marked as gluten free. Within the starters and main course menu. Yeah! And they were prime rib and salmon and baked feta cheese salads. Just yum and at dessert there was also a few options to choose from.
At the end of the first meal, the head waiter came over introduced himself and we chatted for quite some time about my gluten allergy and my MIL’s need for no salt. Every night before we left the table we were given the next days menu and we could choose then or some time that night and call it in. So fantastic. Really at first I was like how will I decide the night before? I just did. The menu changed nightly and it was super easy to do.
I, also, talked to the head waiter about how I would navigate the offshore experience. At 8 a.m., I received a gluten free sandwich from room service. And on the second day it was accompanied with gluten free french toast. Wow. My guys and  I enjoyed it every morning before meeting everyone for breakfast. Then when at breakfast I would grab some simple items I knew safe. I had to fight for my banana tho in the a.m. very bizarre to travel to these countries that had so many bananas and fingerlings and not purchase them there. They were unbelieveably yummy. I began to pray for a fruit encounters while on our excursions that wasn’t a cocktail. So yum.
A little info about taking food off the boat, it is entirely dependent on permission from the port. According to what I was told. If there was permission granted then I would get a sandwich. RC sent requests ahead to the port and handled all of that. And I didn’t have to worry.
The bread on the boat was so yummy if anyone ever finds out the RC secret I would love it. I have never had such pleasing gluten free bread. So yum. I had two sandwiches a day to take on shore and couldn’t eat them all. I was heartbroken to have to throw the extras away before getting off the boat.
All in all the food was excellent. The only meal I was not fond of was a try at a pasta meal. I know better. Any gluten free person knows that gfree pasta is a beast when serving it right. I was feeling on top of the world, but by the time I had sauce brought for the pasta it was cold and therefor concrete. So avoid the pasta and your gluten free palette will be so pleased.
However before that pasta was a baked feta and tomato salad. I am salvating thinking about it. It was one of my favs from the trip.
Every night I sat down to a plate with three or four types of breads waiting for me. It was heartbreaking to leave them to the trash when I could only eat so much. And I had to watch the roving hands of my son as he tried to sneak the best ones. Which I was also glad to share.
I highly recommend from first hand experience the Jewel of the Sea and their handling of gfree diet.
Enjoy!
Chris

at the Circle Double D .. animal moments

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Just some random pics of the going on’s here. Weekends and evenings are play time with our animals. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Hubby is fine tuning my paint horse Fleet.  I love this horse. He pushes my buttons sometimes, but mostly he is just a big kid hanging out with me. We have had him for years. Love to watch my hubby ride.

As many know we received some kittens to help us with our growing packrat/rabbit/mouse problem which leads to rattlesnakes. So we were given three kittens. all supposedly males. So before we left on our cruise I told the hubby when we get back we are going to have to take that one to the vet. the right side of him is weird and sticking out. Well when we got back we pulled up in the drive and I said. “Yeah. It appears our Male Cat is gonna have kittens.”  :/ always interesting here.

So my son. In case you can’t tell. is uber happy about these kittens. He is reading the Warrior series and they just play right into his reading and drawing. I am happy because there are like 30 books in the series and so I will have a little time before we hunt for another one that is in his reading range.

Oh I think they are cute to! I just love animals. 

The best part about having the cats running around outside. As they are not in our house and live in various places around our house. FLOWERS. I have FLOWERS again. This is Pennzoils favorite place to sleep and wait for a bird to come up to the flower pots. The birds have poked a hole in the edge of the screen porch at the bottom. So I left it there for the cat to come in and out under the rod iron. and now the little mice and things don’t come in either. yeah! Love flowers.

I hope you liked the pics.
Enjoy!
Chris

To get quick fun updates of things going on, you can join my facebook page.

My files in the store can be located here. Thank you for stopping by!

Cruising by the Numbers

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Our boat docked in St. Lucia while we took a tour. 
10 days
10 family members
6 nights of family dinners
6 hours of tours
5 ports
5 nights of room service choco chip cookies and milk
2 phenomenal fine dining servers
1 snorkel encounter with Sea turtles
2 nights of serious Uno with Papa, my nieces and son
1 birthday celebration
1 volcano visit that we drove right up into
1 sea urchin sting
1 waterfall
1 gluten free diet
1 salt free diet
1 awesome head waiter
1cruise boat
Dancing
Swimming
Snorkeling
Beaches
Beatlemania
So so so much fun
Unmeasureable fun, laughter and good times.
We are back from our awesome summer trip (which was in June, but I am just finding the time to organize pictures and my thoughts.) I will breakdown our trip a little bit more in a few posts. But the short details are .. we flew out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Cruised the Carribean on Royal Carribean, Jewel of the Seas. And just had an awesome time! Thank you to my in-laws for such a wonderful time. It was awesome.
My son one night was rambling exhausted from the fun of the day and said “one day I am going to take my kids on a trip like this” . And he promptly fell asleep.
My hubby and I soaked up and enjoyed every minute.
More to come…. But for now. Love my life.
Enjoy!
Chris

Memories of Nuns & Books

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I found this old post never got published. so posting it. It must have been from last year some time.
It is more of a journaling post for me. 🙂
Enjoy!
Chris

We are working away on Wolf scout electives and one was to cover a book. My son thought this a little bizarre. I had to tell him about Mom’s “back in the day” story. I said yes we used to have to wrap all of our books. If we didn’t, we were in serious trouble with the Nuns. (Yes I attended catholic school in elementary. Lots of stories there. Haha. Hey now….. Stopping saying that explains alot!!!! Back to the book story.) My son is pondering I can tell as we pick the appropriate book to cover for the elective. He finds one and says. What kinda books did.you read that you had to cover? I said.. well they were school books. We took them home every day and did homework and worked.on them during the day..  Like a book for history, one for math, one for…. He interrupts.. “what you had your own book and you took them home and had to bring them back every day???? ” I had to ponder this. My son goes to a school district that really appears to not have text books. I know there are probably some in classes. I wonder if the amount of copies we get home wouldnt it be better spent on a workbook that is my sons where when assessment tests come up we could look back through it.  Maybe when he gets into a higher grade there will be textbooks again. It just lead me to ponder the difference in schooling over time. And while we chatted we finished covering the book for his wolf elective and marked it off in his book for Scouts. “Tight corners” and getting to redecorate the book was always fun. Not getting in trouble with the Nuns was a good thing to. And turning in the book at the end of the year to get new textbooks the next. I noticed today that his book went to school with our brown paper bag cover. He hadnt taken it off. And had decorated it with his own drawings. Kinda cool. Have a wonderful day! Enjoy! Chris