Thursday, August 6, 2009

Random Giles Junk


First and foremost, Ann Taylor Loft has a 30% off total purchase coupon out yesterday through Sunday, if you don’t have one and need one send me your email address and I will hook a sister up. I scooted in yesterday, and I purchased some cute boot cut white jeans, and a purple ruffle shirt. The pants were already on clearance for 9.99 so I picked up those suckers for just 6.79 with my coupon! They were originally $59, and they are super cute! The jeans and top are so cute, I put them on last night while we ran around for a bit, and it’s possible I am wearing them to work today… don’t judge.

We leave for the beach Sunday, though I have not started packing, I have made lists on things to buy, things to remember to pack, etc. I did wash all the bathing suits and towels a few days ago, but it was kind of pointless as we go to the pool so much I have to do that all again…It will get done though….

And now onto the part of my post in which I talk about my digital scrapbook obsession….

I have been attempting to work on my scrapbooks again. You may remember I finally got on board with digital scrapbooking in Aprilish... I am telling you, if you have not looked into digital yet you are really missing out….Amazing. I use the creative memories program… not the free one, but the one you have to buy. I purchased it with the memory manager, which is a program to help organize your photos. Anyways, my little bundle came with a bunch of free digital papers, embellishments, etc, and CM sells tons of other digital kits as well. I have not yet purchased any other kits though as there are free kits all over the web….There are even tons of blogs devoted to digital scrapbooking… on these people post their layouts, and will post freebies for you to download… I have even found a blog in which they post a bunch of freebies they have found each day, and they share the links….I also signed up for a free newsletter that I get daily that always has a freebie of the day…Last night I discovered a website with free fonts you can download to your computer and use for scrapbooking etc. It’s called dafont.com… gazillions of super cool free fonts….Yes I have been going download crazy….But hey, think of all the money I am saving… The kits that you CAN buy are very reasonable. Lot’s of good stuff still super cheap. I just prefer free =)

You can also digital scrapbook with Photoshop and Photoshop element programs… I have no idea how to do that…but I have Photoshop elements so I may attempt to figure it out just for giggles.

So why do I like digital over the classic way? Many reasons…For one, once your figure out how to download the stuff, etc it’s quicker to make pages. You can play around with your pages until you are happy with them, change colors in the blink of an eye, edit your pictures while they are on the page…It’s also a million times cheaper…Like I have said, everything I have been using is totally free….Once I download a piece of paper and a sticker I can use it over and over again…. Do you know the prices of paper and stickers in the stores??? Pretty paper can run as high as 2.99 or as cheap as maybe .59 if you hit a good sale… Stickers can be ungodly, and once you stick them, kiss it goodbye. I don’t have to worry about organizing everything and trying to remember where all my crap is, as it’s all in special organized files on the computer now. If I go to a crop I just have to take my lap top now, I don’t have to drag along my huge rolling scrapbook totes and spend half the time hunting for something…
One thing I wasn’t buying at first was the look of digital… I wasn’t sure it would look as nice…Now that I have done it, I think my pages look better… My albums aren’t bulky, because I have more freedom to change things around in the blink of an eye my pages look more "put together". You can also add shadows, and texture to make it look more "real".
Finding digital has been a hobby saver for me. I have been scrapbooking since 2002, and everyone told me once I had kids I wouldn’t be "caught up" and "current" with my albums. I thought they were crazy….I had Laura, and I still managed to stay up to date… Then I had Rachel and it got a little harder…Then Emily shocked us all, and now that I chase around two toddlers and a baby who is close to walking. Yeah scrapbooking became something of the past… I was sooooo freaking far behind…. I did do small albums for the grandmothers, but other then that I had hardly done a thing… It was too hard to find time, and scrapbooking is something that takes a crap load of time…I was bummed because I think it is really important to take document all the memories… I know it sounds sappy, but if your going to go to the trouble to take pictures at least do something with them… I mean who doesn’t love looking at photo albums? Now I can do a page here and there at night or at nap time without creating a mess and worry about my kids getting into my stuff…I am determined to get semi caught up again, and now I know it’s possible…

As far as printing, I upload my saved pages to Costco.com, and then pick them up in the store. You can still get these done in 1 hour. The prices are still good, 12 x 12 cost 2.99. Another cool thing about digital is you can make any size you want. With creative memories you can do the standard scrapbook sizes (12x12, 8x8) or if you want to make birthday cards then you can do a custom size… I have done cute digital birthday cards for the girls, and plan on making Christmas cards this way as well.

Photobucket

No comments: