My 2008 Halloween Costume
I’m a scrapbooking layout! I’m at the Scrappers Gallery Halloween Bash, so this is definitely in keeping with the crowd.
The “frame” is made from a Harry & David box. The Flowers were scavenged from a spring floral arrangement I’ve had about 10 years; I wanted to soften the transition between the paper and my face, and the flowers did the trick. RIP, spring floral display.
The chipboard lettes were brown and beige, so I painted them with Prang metallic markers ( I love these!).
The only thing I didn’t get done was cover the outside of the box. I’d also wanted to attach a ribbon to the back so I could tie it to my head. Oh, well…Close enough!
Happy Holloween, everyone!
Help save Pushing Daisies from cancelation!
Click thumbnail.
This is the design I made for a postcard to send to ABC, part of a grassroots campaign to keep the show on the air.
See this thread at ABC’s forum for the show. And be sure to check out the Watch with Kristen blog about it on E! Online.
Feel free to use the largest image as your graphic for printing your own postcard from Amazing Mail or at home as the graphic on your own postcard to ABC! It is cropped to fit on a 4.25×6″ postcard perfectly.
People are flooding ABC with Daisies love November 3-12. They’re sending everything from pies*, daisies, daisy seeds, postcards and letters. The goal is to send something for EACH day of that week, 5 mailings total.
I’m sending mine out October 31-November 11 since I’m in the Midwest.
Here’s where to send them:
ABC, Inc.
500 S. Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521-4551
* think Hostess Fruit Pie for ease of shipping, unless you want to order a pie from a local Burbank-area bakery!
Birthday amoeba?
I was just browsing eBay for the phrase handmade scrapbook embellishments. The first ones I found appear to be your standard, mass-produced and imported dollar store fare to me, not handmade as I was thinking (as in Art Fire or Etsy kind of handmade).
Take this item, for example. It wasn’t OOAK, but it was interesting. The silver objects, now those I can understand. They’re a wrapped package, a balloon and a birthday cake. I get that. But what the heck is that white and yellow, polka-dotted thing?
An amoeba?
It’s everything you need for your protozoa party!
Update after the jump… (Read on …)
Finally tried Twitter
I’ve heard people talk about Twitter for the past year or so, but never gave it a whirl. Normally, I love trying out new applications that warrant a nod on the tech blogs and other sites I read. I’m a geek, you know? What held me back was the thought that Twitter is just a frivolous, mini newsfeed designed to let people tell their friends what they are eating for lunch, what color socks they’re wearing, and other ultimately unimportant details of their daily lives.
Well, I finally gave it a chance, and I like what I see. Yes, there is a lot of clutter out there in the Twitterverse, there’s no doubt about that. However, there’s also a lot of interesting, useful stuff. Used in conjunction with third-party developers, bloggers can twitter the link to their latest blog posts.
I am far more likely to pop over and read a blog post if I see a twitter about it. I do use RSS feeds via Google Reader, but my reading list has become so bloated, it’s overwhelming. I really need to shave that down and, at the least, reorganize it into daily reads, weekly reads. Twitter helps me cut through the clutter. Of course, if you look at the opposite end of the equasion, you can see that Twitter gives bloggers and other content providers an advantage when it comes to visibility.
For that reason alone, I would use Twitter, both as a blogger and a reader. It’s also interesting to me as a marketing nerd since it is a popular way for marketers to feel the pulse of consumers and to disperse content to them in bite-sized portions. I like hearing what other people find interesting online, too, and many people use Twitter to post links to videos, news stories, and other online content.
I’m incorporating this blog into my Twitter feed now, using Twitterfeed for now. It uses my site’s RSS feed, checking for a new feed every hour, and posts a Twitter when it finds one. I will probably incorporate a WordPress plugin which automatically sends a Twitter whenever I post a blog entry. That way, it’s not dependent on a third-party site.
I’m pretty judicious when it comes to who I will follow on Twitter, though, because I know it could quickly become like my reading list at Google Reader!
Scrappers Gallery Zanesville and small businesses in general
Scrappers Gallery, the locally-owned store where love to crop with friends, has opened a sister store in Zanesville, Ohio! My friends Mary-Jo and Jen spent several hours at the store on Saturday, enjoying the grand opening celebration. Mary-Jo and I played with our respective projects while Jen just hung out with us and talked. We laughed a lot…And I mean a lot. It was a great day with friends.
While the new sister store just opened, the owners are gearing up to downsize the original store in Heath. The hard economic times have really hit retail, especially special interest/hobby type stores. The owners decided to be proactive and change things up a bit.
They decided to scale back their store in Heath, going from a 4-unit rental space to a single storefront, while at the same time opening the similarly-sized store in Zanesville. It will take some getting used to, but I know we’d all rather deal with a little less space and product than no space at all because the store’s had to close. Mary, the store’s owner, said that, across the country, 75 scrapbooking stores close every month. 75! None of us want to see Rick and Mary’s business become a casualty of this economy.
Anyway, it’s not like they’re downsizing to a shoebox. Each store still has seating for 12, and they still have the best assortment of unusual patterned papers and embellishments in town. And they still have a lot of solid colors to choose from in cardstock, too. They have albums, refills pages, adhesives, tools, and other items. They know their stuff and will special order items they don’t carry so people can have just the right touch for their projects. No, you probably won’t get the item for about a week, but hey. I can deal with that when it comes to the majority of my purchases.
Speaking of special orders, I made one on Saturday. My Christmas present this year is a Cricut Expressions automatic diecutting machine. It’s basically like a printer, only it cuts out shapes and letters with a blade instead of printing the shapes. I’d been hoping to get one and planned on getting it from Scrappers Gallery. I knew this would mean paying more than I could get it for online or from a mass *cough*wal* merchandiser *cough*mart*. But that’s okay. More on that later.
The cool thing is, Mary told me they’d decided to drop their regular prices on the Cricut line of products. They’d knocked a sizeable chunk off the product’s price, plus I also had a 20% off coupon good for that day only. Between the price drop and that coupon, the item cost less than I could have gotten it for on Amazon!
It was a win-win. I paid much less than I’d expected, and they made a sale. Happiness all around!
I love a good bargain like anyone. But my mind has been turning toward home — my home town with its businesses and the families that own them. Howie and I are trying to move more toward the adage “buy local, but buy less”. What I mean is, I would rather buy the majority of my “stuff” from local merchants, even if it means I pay more for some things. I will make up for the cost by buying less stuff. There’s nothing we really need, so why go out and blow money on a bunch of “bargains” to hoard when I don’t really need them? Why not hold on to that money and get some things I *really* want or need, but get them locally?
Anyway, buying locally from small businesses provides some intangible benefits for me as a customer. In the case of Scrappers Gallery, I receive personal service from people who know my name and know my scrapbooking style and the kinds of things I like. They provide a friendly atmosphere for me and my friends to gather and scrapbook together. Their store is a meeting place, a community center. They are good people. That means something, and I want to support that.
The same goes for Cord Camera, a chain local to our part of the country. The people at the Heath store have been there for years, and they know their stuff. They get to know their customers and can effectively advise them on purchases because of that. If there’s a problem with something I buy, I know I will not have a hassle when it comes to returning or exchanging it. I also receive free prints each month for a year when I buy my camera from them. And again, they’re good people.
Do I buy everything locally, from independent businesses? No. We still buy online and from big stores. We do try to find items from the little guys first, though. And if we see a truly phenomenal clearance deal on something, we’re not going to pay 75% more just to get the item from a mom & pop. There’s a balance to everything. We’re still finding it, and I think we’re doing pretty well.
I just want to encourage my readers to support their towns’ little guys, too. Remember, those business owners have families just like yours and they’re doing everything they can to stay open.
And more lights
I got some with the DSLR, too. I can’t wait to see them - hope they came out!
More lights
Woooow, even the ceiling…
