Saturday, January 31, 2009

One click at a time

I am slowly gaining proficiency at Photoshop. Today, I pounded how to use the rounded rectangle tool into my head. I also took notes that guide me through the process and will help me use the tool again.

I've found that not only do I need to take note of the steps involved, I need to take notes of what is actually happening on the screen and where, so I know if I've hit the right button. If all I have is text, my text needs to describe what is happening very clearly. If I'm not digiscrapping frequently, I forget things. I go back to my notes when I pick it up again and all is well. If I didn't take notes, I'm stuck.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

AHA!!!

It has only now occurred to me that I can create and print out digital layouts for the 7 gypsies spinner! I'm such a slow thinker at times!

See, I was thinking about the crop that I'll be going to on Friday. I will be doing the digital thing, as I prefer not to have to pack tons and tons for a crop. but I wanted to work on my spinner pages. I finally put two and two together and realized that I could create digital pages! Silly me. Silly, silly me!

I'd also seen the Prima Hybrid pages and been drooling over a few of those. Now I've got a reason to go get them!

One of the things that I love about shopping for digital goodies is that I don't wait for shipping. I just download them immediately, no waiting.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Not a Secret

I have ADHD for which I take meds. They are not working right now and I didn't realize it until I walked away from a half-made bed, for no particular reason. Ahem.

That's why I haven't been able to get anything done lately. I called my doc for an appointment and we will discuss treatment options later this week.

For now, I just have to work harder to do the same things that I didn't have to work that hard to do before. It isn't because it's actual hard work, just that it is hard to keep doing the work. More often than not, I take a break and return, I don't complete the job in one swoop. But I return again and again until I have finished.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I Claim a Do-Over!

Last night, I was working on a layout for my spinner, a 4 x 6 one, and I could not get anything to come out right. I put eyelets in the wrong place, I stuck things down before dealing with the background, I couldn't get the paper to tear correctly... I would touch something and it wouldn't work right. I smashed my way through the layout and went to bed.

This morning, I got out the file, re-printed the photo and I'm starting over. I will use different paper that tears better, I'm not going to put the eyelet in the wrong place and I'll take care of the background before I glue anything down. I'm positive this layout will turn out much better.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Updating Blogs

I found a website (not going to share it) that has a lot of really cute backgrounds that you can use on your blog. These are free but you get an ad stuck in the top left corner of your blog. Well, you do if you can't read and understand the code. I edited it out.

I looked around and spotted some code to change the font of my blog on that site. I thought it looked too long and complicated, so I copied it to a plain text reader and looked at it. Woo-hoo! Right after the code to change the font was code that would cause you to send a message to a counting website and raise his 'hit count'. That hit count is how he gets paid for the ads that he has on his own site. If you didn't know any better, you'd copy and paste the whole thing, instead of just the font change.

By including the code on your site, you are allowing hits on your site to be counted as if they were hits on HIS site. So he is getting paid a lot more than he should be. Opening your blog to read it counts as a hit.

Is this legal? Probably not. If the ad company that is paying him based on the number of hits on his website knew that he was boosting his hit count in this manner, he'd lose a lot of bucks. He might even be taken to court. A lot of the hits that he is getting paid for are hits where no ad is showing.

There are also instructions on how to make your own background. Those really are free and there is no extra code included. I'll try them out and post my own version, someday.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Ticking Along

Sometimes, all it takes is a crop to jump start me again. I did a digital crop last night and while I only got three pages done, I did manage to go through a lot of the Disney photos from our most recent trip. That lifted a great weight off my shoulders and I feel like I made good progress. For all my fussing about not getting much done at home, I got three layouts done for my 7 Gypsies spinner, too.

Today, I'm working on a class kit that I got on sale and I'm waiting for ink to dry before I assemble parts of it. It's not going quickly, but I'm don't expect it to.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Fighting to Finish

Anything! I just can't sit down to work on anything in my studio. I'm being pulled to take care of this, or run to do that and I haven't had the time I crave to sit down and work on the project that is in front of me!

My trip to the eye doctor didn't help, either. I didn't need my annual check-up, I had an infection and am now on an antibiotic. :-(

This morning, my goal is to burn a CD with some pictures in it of my DSS and his fiancee, so I can send it to him as part of a care package. I need to do laundry and I've got a cropping date for 1:00, but that's for a class, I won't be working on a project of my own. At least I'll be playing with paper.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Not Working on Anything

We took another trip to Disney and I have not been home to work on anything. I've got about 350 photos to sort through. I did purchase a few more Ztampf items when she had her sale, but I haven't been able to look through them in depth and get them tagged so I can find them easily. No review of Ztampf items. I love everything she does.

And my laptop turned into a brick. If you can't fire it up and use it because of a virus, it isn't a laptop, it's a brick. When I did fire it up, I was running scans and doing the uninstall-reinstall dance. Finally, I got the virus completely removed and I have a laptop again. I am rejoicing.

How did I get a virus? I clicked on the "Next Blog" link here on Blogspot. I got sent to a Blog that wanted to sell me music, I believe, and without me doing anything else, I got handed a virus. I didn't open any attachments, try to download music or do any of the usual things that gives you malware. I just clicked on "Next Blog." To make things worse, because I closed my browser immediately and started the reboot, uninstall-reinstall dance, I don't have it in history to report it as a problem to Blogspot. Grrrrr...