A Crop Away

I'm heading down to Florida to spend a week with family. I have two Basic Gray Chocolate Chipboard albums and I pulled paper and embellishments from my Club Scrap stash. (Body and Soul) I've selected stamps, ribbons and what not. Since we are driving a small car and not my truck, I'm limited for space. I will keep it down to my crop tote, my tool bag and the small Tonic trimmer.

The luxury of the trip will be that I'm taking a compact 4x6 photo printer, so we can print photos while we are there. During the week, I'll create pages and populate them with pictures taken during the week. Go me! MIL can create pages and populate them with whatever photos she wants.

I'll be cropping with my MIL, who has some tools and supplies, but I'm not at all sure just what she's got. Thank goodness, I long ago created a packing list for crops. All I have to do is follow my list and I know I won't forget anything.

My World View

I'm participating in a photography 'Summer Camp' activity, where we are given a subject and about a week to go out and take photos. Then we post our photos on the forum. This week's challenge was clouds. Most of the photos are of blue sky and puffy, white clouds, usually with a bit of scenery in the background at the edges. It's summer, nobody wants to drag out a camera when it's raining. However, my photos were of a vivid sunset.



It's not your average mental image when the word 'clouds' is brought up. But it's closer to what I thought of when I thought about what clouds I wanted to take a picture of.

Sizing and Shopping

I got a set of templates from Birgit Kerr at Scrapbook Graphics to create folds in pieces of paper. I'd thought that they were all 12 x 12 templates. They are not. They will work as photo mattes, or as an additional layer on a layout. What I wanted was a set of 12 x 12 templates and I didn't get that.

I am annoyed at myself because the graphic for that set of templates clearly shows them at the correct size and scale. I was provided information that accurately described what I was buying and I didn't pay attention to it.

Other than that, I'm quite pleased with them. They are lots of fun and I'll be able to use them to add interest and complexity to my layouts, without too much fuss. Her instructions are simple and the files were neatly organized when I unzipped them. But I'm still shopping for a set of 12 x 12 folded paper templates.

When All Else Fails

I organize. I have no Mojo. I haven't really scrapped for a while. I've been shopping for kits that I think I'll use when I find my mojo again. While the mojo is missing, I can organize. I'm working in Bridge, tagging files and making sure that everything I own is filed correctly and not dropped into the wrong folders.

It will make my life easier because I'll be able to find my files quickly and I'll have a better idea of what I own. In the physical world, it's the same as having everything stored where you can scan through things quickly and find stuff. And also like the physical world, I'm finding things that I'd forgotten I had.

Collaboration Kits

OK, I admit it, I like Flergs. I also like MGL Scraps. I've got a link to Monica's CT (Creative Team) Blog over on the left. Flergs' blog isn't quite my thing, but she does have a lot of fun stuff on there. Anyway, they did a collab kit called What Dreams May Come which was mentioned in the MGL CT blog and I thought it looked like a lot of fun.

Why is it that collab kits get a little confuzzled in the zipping? There are elements divided into parts a, b and c. Inside part b is part a from Monica. Inside part c is part b from Monica. OK, I can sort of understand that. But inside the zip file for shadowed elements I find Monica's elements b again. They are in the kit twice.

Do I really care? No. The kit is pretty cute and I'm hoping to be able to do some fun things with it.

They Come, They Go

I was looking through the gallery of a major scrapping site hoping for some inspiration. Found it! Checked the credits, I've got a designer name and the name of a kit. I did a quick search. A year ago, she was designing kits for sale. Today she is not. Like many digital designers, she got started and then she stopped. Her kits are unavailable.

This is another of the problems with digital. Many of the designers and webstores are not in it for the long term. A few friends get together and put up a webstore. Something happens, be it a baby or a spat, or just the demands of life, and there is no more site. Putting a lot of effort into putting up a website is very different from being effective at putting up a website. Putting together kits that sell is a skill that not everyone has. Not kit after kit, month after month.

I'm hoping that the designer I failed to find tonight had a happy attack of life and moved on to different challenges.

Not Even if it Were Free!

On the OScraps shopping site, there is a blinking ad at the bottom of EVERY SINGLE PAGE ON THE ENTIRE WEBSITE!!!! Yes, I'm shouting. I hate blinking ads that much. The ad is for a bunch of papers, in assorted colors. It would be a decent bargain if I didn't already know a lot about creating my own papers. I'm not at all interested.

I really hate that ad. It makes me not want to shop that website, and there are some good things at OScraps. I'd been waiting for the ad to go away before I spent any money there, but I just had to have an element set from Holliewood Studios. I also wanted a few templates for curled corners. There was no blinking ad in the payment section. Whew! I thought I was done with it.

When I went to open the page for each download, there it was! Hello? Why is there an ad for anything on a download page? I've seen it many times before and I didn't want it. I'm not suddenly going to go back and add that piece of annoyance to my order at this point!

I hate that ad so much that unless there is a miracle and the ad goes away, I won't shop at OScraps again.