Thursday, April 22, 2010

Miscellany

Hey there, everybody!

Let me start by sayin'... ain't no stitchy pics here! :) I've had another week that has kept me away from my stitchy seat (in some respects "self imposed"... but I'll tell you about that in a little bit) except for a couple of nights, so no progress worth a pic! Next time (I hope!)!!

I have been very lax in blog reading and commenting the past couple weeks, and for that I apologize!! But, I was able to get a few read today at lunch, and look what I found on Cari's blog!!??!! My first EVER award!!! :) It made me so happy!! Thank you SO SO SO much, Cari!!!

The rules are that I'm supposed to list 10 things that make me happy, then pass it along to 10 folks. Here goes the fulfillment of the 1st portion (note that these are not necessarily in order of importance - except the first one. The first one is definitely first.):

1) My sweet baby Leah (I'm sure none of you are suprised by that!!)
2) LOST (Here's hoping my level of sadness when the show ends {only 4 hours left!!!} does NOT correlate to the level of happiness it brings me)
3) Reading a good book - curled up under a blanket on a rainy day, or sitting outside on a lovely evening
4) Taking pictures, and playing with them in PhotoShop
5) Playing games - card games, board games, any kind of game (except games involving balls)
6) Stitching (duh)
7) Quilt fabric (can't really say "quilting" since I pretty much only dream of doing that) - esp. jelly rolls, layer cakes, honey buns, turnovers, etc., etc., etc.
8) Gardening
9) Decorating/ looking at design blogs and books (and mags)
10) Sleep. I looove me some sleep!!

Now the second part of this award is to give it to 10 other people... but I can't choose between all the blogs I follow. So, I'm not going to pass it along. (Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!!) Just know this: If you are on my blog-roll, reading your blog makes me happy. Really! Your blogs give me so much inspiration, motivation, entertainment, enjoyment... and the relationships that have developed with some of you electronically enrich my life so much, I can't even tell you!! So!

Okay, on to the reason for my stitching inattentiveness (I'll try to keep this brief, but you know me!!)... I've been sucked into a vortex. Or maybe it's a black hole... whatever it is, I am very excited about this, and can't wait to truly get started with it!! What is it? Digital scrapbooking!!

I visited my BFF (Ili) last Saturday and asked how her scrapbooks were coming along. She said "Girrl!! I went digital!!" I was like "Whaaat?? Oh no you di'n'!!" And she was like... okay, sorry, I'll spare you. :) Long story short, she introduced me to a website called artscow.com. She had completed and had printed several photo books from them, and they looked really really good! So, I got myself all set up and started Sunday evening. It was VERY cool! Pretty easy to use, and much faster than traditional (paper) scrapbooking. I used to spend 2-3hrs per page when I was kickin' it old skool. With this site, I spent @ 10 hrs and had 15 pages complete. I was so excited when I saved my project Monday night! Then the problems started... I won't go into it all here, but suffice to say I won't be using artscow.com. 10 hrs of work completely down the drain (due to issues on their end) and the response of their customer service department was pretty much "sorry 'bout your luck!"

So! Despite that frustration it was a wonderful thing! I loved doing it so much that I am now looking into and will probably purchase the Creative Memories Storybook Creator software. It isn't nearly as expensive as I thought it was, and it looks like it is a very powerful tool! It'll be good to get through the thousands of pictures I have sitting on my PC, on CDs and on my memory card! Who knows? Maybe I'll even share some of my pages in future posts!

To make up for not having a stitchy pic this week, I thought I'd share a couple of flower pics from my garden...




Well, folks! I'm going to sign off, get caught up on blog reading and commenting, then continue on with my Digital scrapbooking research... if any of you have success stories or horror stories to share, I'd love to hear them!!!
Thanks so much for reading!!!

Stitch a$$ to all and to all a good night!!
Robin

7 comments:

Siobhán said...

I love that 'oh no you di'n!". ROFLOL I used to be an obsessed scrapper. I even had some pages published in Memory Makers. Once I marooned myself on an island that is seeminly devoid of anything craft related, I stopped. I talked to my friends, all of whom are still scrap addicts, this past summer about getting into digital. I would like to but the cost still seems pretty high, and again I am faced with the problems of printing it out and getting stuff shipped to me, etc. So for now, I think about it. Good luck with yours--I'll be interested to see how things work out for you, etc.

Congrats on the award!

Unknown said...

Love the pictures of your garden - your photographys is very artsy!

I used to be an avid scrapbooker - I just loved spending time creating each page with love. How frustrating to have lost all your work! I still have way to much scrapbook stuff to justify going digital - maybe one day.

Enjoy your weekend! Hope you get some stitching time in.

Sherry :o) said...

Robin,
Your blog entries always crack me up - I've only been blogging/reading since the beginning of the year and reading your entries truly make me feel like I know you and you must absolutely be a fun person to hang with! What beautiful Lily of the Valley - you can almost smell it! Wish I could, they are some of my favs. I am posting pics of my bleeding hearts this weekend...another fav! Congrats on your award - I feel lucky as I am on your roll...need to check out a couple other ones on your roll too! Have a good weekend and good luck with the scrapping! Sherry H.

Melio said...

OMG! I absolutely adore that first photo. They're both gorgeous, but that first one needs to be blown up and framed. Your stuff cracks me up! I enjoyed the list too ;)

Ern said...

So THIS is what you've been doing in your spare time, LOL! I love your updates and yes, great pics!! <3

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri ~ Boog) said...

Great pics of your flowers - you just keep gettin' better and better!

I scarpbooked for a while - haven't done it in quite a long time.... A digital program that doesn't lose your stuff is a good thing!

Congrats on the award!!!

The French Bear said...

Awesome photos!!!! I have a scrapbook thingy on my computer, I like it but I think I am ready for a more advanced one. Not that I am good at it, I just need more selection!!!!
Hugs,
Margaret B