Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Print vs. E-zine?

I'm not a fan of e-zines. I've never liked them. I like e-books. I like magazines. But an e-zine? Not so much. The digital scrapping world has both print and e-zines. The print ones come out on time. The e-zines? When you see them, you see them.

Why is it that a group of friends with limited experience think they can create a successful magazine when large publishing houses approach the task with caution, and frequently fail anyway? Many magazines have a limited lifespan to begin with, as they are riding the crest of a popularity wave that soon ebbs away.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Sanctuary

I have been packing up the rest of the house to prep it for showing, but I have not yet done much with my studio. In the face of so much chaos, I've got to have something that I can call a sanctuary. I need my studio to stay my studio. Really. I'll do the bare minimum to make it look presentable, but I need to be able to use it for as long as possible. It is where I go when I need to de-stress and I need to de-stress on demand these days.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

When is Medieval?

A lady was asking for a medieval alphabet for a layout. I dug out my references on medieval calligraphy and snickered. Some of the fonts being offered could be called medieval. Some could not. But I need to establish when the medieval period was. In the UK, many historians believe that the medieval period started with the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and ended with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, which ended the Wars of the Roses, and started the time of the Tudors.

The medieval era started in 1066 and ended in 1485. The renaissance began with the Tudors. Tudors lasted from 1485 to 1603.

Thus endeth my history lesson.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Blown Out Details

An area in a photograph that is 'blown out' is an area that is overexposed. If there is a person indoors standing near a window, if the person is exposed correctly, often the window is overexposed, or 'blown out'. Shiny metals, like chrome on a motorcycle will blow out. The sky will blow out. Instead of having color, it's white. Bright, gleaming white that can shed a glow onto other areas of the photo. It's really distracting and I try to avoid it.

When I first started with photography, I was trained that overexposure was worse than underexposure. When I had something that was dark, the details were still there and I could make it lighter and recapture the details. Something that had gone so bright as to turn white had no details. Hah! That was true only for film. It took a long time to get the folks who wrote digital image manipulation applications to start trying to recover white and almost white areas to get back the details.

There is a feature in CS3 camera Raw, that is called 'Recovery' and it can take an image with blown out areas and make those areas look better.

Here is an area of a photo before I used Recovery.


And here is the photo after I adjusted it using Recovery.


The careful observer will note that there is more detail in the wrinkles to the left side of the photo, but there is also still some degree of overexposure. I wasn't willing to recover to the point where there was no overexposure left at all. The amount I used works when you look at the whole photo. Since I don't have a release, you don't get to see the person.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Moving On

Put me out of her misery. Please! The Drahma Queen spent time and effort to send me a message spelling out how much she hates me. She is spending her energy actually wishing that bad things happen to me. She's young. At some point, she will either get tired of flouncing around claiming the center of every stage simply because she lost a baby, or someone will slap her in the face with a wet mop. I vote for the mop, but fatigue will probably win.

Horrible things happen. Horrible things have happened to me. I don't claim center stage because of it. 2003 is a year of my life I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And that's enough about that.

I've got to move my worktable away from the window so the new window can go in. That means that I need to clear off my worktable, to move it and the table by itself is heavy. Time to go get book boxes out of my truck and cart them into the house. I've got tape and plenty of markers.

Do I want to pack up my stuff? No. Will I? Yes. I've heard from others that I should not allow the movers to pack my scrapbook paper. They will not pack it flat.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Warnings Not Needed

I posted a request to the person who put up the photo of her dead baby to put some kind of a warning on it. The forum administrators responded and put up a little warning on the title of the thread where the photo was included. The creator of the layout was offended and wants to respectively (sic) withdraw. She also sent me a private message saying that I 'needed to work on my issues' and that she saw nothing wrong with posting a photo of her baby. She's been scrapping about it for years and has never before been asked to put up a "warning" about it. I sent a message in response. I asked her where she posts her layouts, so I can stop looking through those galleries. That's how much I do not want a repeat experience.

I've been scrapping for about three years. I've looked through a lot of galleries, magazines, books and so on. That includes books about alternative scrapping, pushing boundaries and books on scrapping difficult emotions. I never saw a photo like that. Editors are not willing to risk losing a potential sale.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Scrapping Personal Stuff

I was looking through the entries for a scrapping competition and had to stop for a bit. The challenge was to scrap what you love. One of the contestants scrapped a photo of her baby boy. Born on September 20, at 13 ounces. There he was wrapped in a blanket, with a little hat on his teeny little head. No oxygen, no IV, no nothing. At 13 ounces. His color was... very bad. Did I really want to see a picture of her baby boy? No, I did not. To say it ruined my day might be taking it too far, but it certainly put a damper on my morning.

There are some things you can scrap, and you probably should scrap. You might not want to share them with the rest of the world. And if you do, you might want to put up a warning so the rest of the world does not trip over it, unaware.

Monday, October 12, 2009

An Interview


People are always doing interviews of Big Names in the scrapbooking world. They always ask the SAME questions. Yawn. (Except for the interviews for Digiscrap Addicts.) Here's what they would get should they choose to interview me.

A little about me.

My name is Jean and I'm married to a man I call 'My Sweet Prince' which makes all my friends laugh when I answer the phone at a crop. We are planning a move to Florida because he's been transferred to a larger place with more potential for promotions. My friends think I'm uber-organized, but I'm just too lazy to look for things. Sweet Prince and I have no kids, but he has a 21 year old son in the USMC.

Why did I start scrapping?

I was planning our wedding and wandered into Recollections. They had a wedding album for a class on display that I really wanted to do. The class was on my wedding day. But an employee helped me pick out the paper and get started anyway. Thanks Beth! As much as I love paper, I'm a bit of a geek. After two years of paper scrapping, I dipped a toe into the digital world and I love it too. I'll probably always do some things with paper, but most of the things I buy are digital kits.

How many hours a week do I spend scrapping?

I don't really know. I do a mix of paper scrapping and digital scrapping, but I rarely do hybrid projects. I might finish two layouts in a week, I might finish two layouts in a day. Mostly it depends on the pictures that I've got. Lately, I've been working on paper things other than 12x12 layouts. Minibooks, cards and stuff like that.

What is my favorite product?

It would be a tossup between my Tonic trimmers, my Wacom tablet, my ATG gun, and my All My Memories tote. I use them all a lot. Oh! My favorite thing for scrapping, like brads, flowers or a particular digital kit? I don't have a favorite. I have things that I dislike, but no favorites.

What do I listen to when scrapping?

I listen to a lot of different stuff, from bagpipes, to 80's rock, classical, showtunes or country. But most of the time it's country. Or just the music in my head.

Top 10 in life.

1. My Sweet Prince
2. My friends
3. My family
4. My health
5. Everything else is just stuff.

Pet Peeves

1. "Now Voldy's gone moldy, so let's have some fun!"

Did I mention that I've got an odd sense of humor?

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Urgent?

I don't ever understand the urgency in looking for a digital scrapbooking kit. Urgent is for things like ambulance trips to the hospital, or broken pipes creating floods. Urgent scrapbooking? That's like an urgent need for embroidered pillowcases. It is a luxury. When is a luxury ever urgent?

When I look more closely at the requests for urgent assistance, I find that the person requesting the help has scheduled themselves into a corner. They have volunteered/decided to do something with a deadline and they don't really have enough time to do the job. I learned the hard way not to volunteer or decide to do something with a short time line. If I have no choice, I'll do the best I can. If I have a choice, I give myself more time.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Five Paper Trimmers!?!

I was talking with a friend last night and I invited her over to my house for some scrapping. I said she could borrow some of my stuff, I had plenty. She was talking about her paper trimmer and that she liked a rotary one. I've got five different paper trimmers in my house. Five!


The first two are my favorites, the tonics. One travels, the other stays at home. That's why I have two. Really. If I have to cut a lot of chipboard, I need to adjust the tension of the cutting arm, it will become loose. I keep the right sized wrench in my scrapping tote.


The next is my large, rotary trimmer. It was a gift from hubby and I wasn't sure of what I needed, other than I needed something with a larger cutting platform. Given that information, he got the largest trimmer he could find in the store. I don't use it very often, but it works great on things like bookboard.


This is the trimmer that I learned scrapbooking with. I used this one a lot. I thought it was just fine until I learned how to use the Tonic trimmers. Then I went back to it and was amazed at the difference.


I call this one the 'useless' trimmer. It has a very tiny blade and the plastic guide will flex and move as you try to use it. I ended up with wobbly cuts and I couldn't correct them, because the trimmer can't cut a fine shred of paper off of an edge. It just doesn't work well for me.

but if you come to my house and you forget your trimmer, don't worry, I've got something that you can borrow.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Outgrowing Storage

I keep my stamps from Rosie's Roadshow in a 5.5 x 5.5 x 3 box. They used to all fit, if I was careful how I put them in. They no longer fit. I've even got a stamp on order that won't have a home when it arrives. Time to find a different storage system for those stamps.

I had them out today playing with making a card for sending out to let folks know that we have moved. Then, after I'd done some stamping, I had to get out the watercolors and play a bit. I have five different sets of watercolors. It's a lot like coloring, only better.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Keeping Busy

I'm doing a bunch of greeting cards right now. I need to be working in paper and seeing my results. I do like paper. Even though I've gone digital, I still have a huge stash of paper and every so often, I use it. But since I'm just working from some patterns that I already have and not creating anything new, I'm not going to post pictures of these cards. They aren't anything terrific and special. But I have made about 15 cards in three days, which is incredible for me. I don't make a zillion copies of a single card usually. I make different cards each time.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Moving Soon

Wonderful Hubby got transferred to Jacksonville, Florida, so we will be moving there as soon as I can get this house sold. He'll be down first and I will follow.

Hubby's company is paying for the move, so we will have professional packers, I don't have to pack objects or lift heavy objects. But I just realized something. I can get as much digital stuff as I want and it won't matter a bit. A full EHD is no different in weight or size from an empty one.

I have an on-line back up service, Backblaze, so even if disaster happens, I'm good. I love their flaming laptop video.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

The Chocolate Chipboard Book!

The album is done!!! I took a lot of photos of it and here they are! I used a Basic Gray chocolate chipboard album and the paper and most of the embellishments are from Club Scrap's Body and Soul kit.

The front cover.


The first two pages.


Pages three and four.


The fifth and sixth pages.



Seven and eight. Nothing special on the front of the interactive. I might put another photo there, but the printed paper is also nice.



Nine and ten.



Eleven and twelve. I took the tag out of the pocket to show it off. I like that tag a lot.



Thirteen and fourteen.



Fifteen and sixteen.



Seventeen and eighteen.


The back cover.