the dog ate my homework,or something like that..
23 March 2009
Remember when you were in school and you needed to come up with a really good excuse about why you didn't have your homework ready to hand in? Well, that's how I feel about this blog post today.
I really wanted to have that colour layout done and ready to post this morning, but the Gods were against me. Unlike other more organized people I know who scrapbook, I do not print out my photos on a monthly basis, and this time it's gone and bit me in the ass, because when I went to print out my photo for the layout, I discovered I had no more printer ink left to print out my photo. Crap! Now, if I were the organized type, I would have had a nice little pile of photos to browse through for just such a disaster/emergency, but I'm not, and I don't. The reason I don't have photos at the ready ( and haven't gotten anything printed out in a long while) is b/c there's a glitch somewhere on my computer that won't let me upload my photos online to Costco or where-ever else I've tried. It's very frustrating, but have I done anything about it? Nooooo. I get through the whole process of choosing them, because it takes forever to find the files and upload, I'm finally ready to hit the 'send' button, and it tells me they cannot process my order because of an error. Then I yell & curse at the computer for a few seconds, sit there frustrated, get distracted with another website, and finally just get up, walk away and forget about it. ( thanks to that ADD brain of mine- scary.) I know you'll just tell me to take a burned copy of the pics in myself, but I'm lazy like that. I can't seem to get it done, because I need to edit the pics beforehand, and so on.. a vicious circle.
So here I find myself with thousands upon thousands of photos on my hard drive, and nothing printed out. It's not an organized way to scrapbook, and something I'd promised myself I'd work on this year. This was one of my resolutions in the New year after losing a year's worth + of photos when my external hard drive crashed last summer. So,do NOT take it from me folks. Back up your pics, please. Externals aren't supposed to crash, but mine just made a weird noise one day, and that was the end of that. I really need to look at my folders at the end of every month, and make a point of taking them in to be printed. Warts and all. I'd be very curious to know how you all deal with the problems of having so many photos? Do you get them all printed or print at home? I need a better solution. Help!
In lieu of the darned orange/teal layout, I made this very fast( seriously 10 minute) page with a photo of my boys that I adore. I had an extra one kicking around, and it's been scrapped before on a page I did here 3 years ago when I was asked to be a GGG at 2 peas. I had this photo printed out big and framed for my boys' room, and I have never tired of it. It makes me smile everytime I see it. it captures them so well.
Other stuff...
If you have a few seconds to spare today, please go and check out the newly revamped American Crafts blog . The fabulously sweet & perky Kelly Purkey is the hostess with the most-est there, and honestly, the blog is rocking with new layouts and ideas. I'm lovin' it. Have I mentioned that I LOVE AC? LOVE!! It's just the coolest scrappy stuff out there, in my books.
This week is Craft Fair week, and yours truly should have a layout up there today. ;p There's also some fun challenges happening, and one going on right now where you can win a Thickers prize pack for just doing a layout with Thickers. Easy-peasy right, since you'd use them anyways?
And I had totally forgotten that my blog-iversary has come and gone ( the test post doesn't really count, right?) so I'll be having a give-away soon in honour of that. Check back here in the next few days- I have lotsa goodies to celebrate 1 year of quasi blogging... ;p
Happy Monday to you all!
xoxo
17 comments:
Oh Melanie...where's the photo of you from my tag? hee hee!
Love that 10 minute LO, Mel. Your designs are timeless and photos so stunning. I could look at your LOs all day. *sigh* :)
Thanks for the warning about backing up the back-up drive. I think we have our stuff backed up on two external drives. Must ask dh.
Oh that's my favorite colour combo. Grey and orange, so yummy together. Love your page in its entirety!
My tip : As soon as I download photos from camera to PC, I do a few things.
1. I move them in the proper folders (in my case it's by year then month and finally by theme.)
2. I select the ones I want to print by copying them in a folder called "Print".
3. When I have some free time in front of the PC, I play with the photos in the folder "Print" - eg. crop, red eyes, colours, etc.
4. When that folder has 20 or more photos that I feel are ready to be printed, I log onto Costco and process them.
5. When I pick up the phtoos, I immediately group them by theme if there are many or group them together for a page. If I want to scrapbook together 2-4 photos, I will sometimes put them in a ziploc bag along with the papers I want to use. I love that part of the process.
It's all little steps done at different times so it doesn't feel overwhelming.
Good luck!
Oh my, you remind me of me :). None of your photos printed. Sitting down to order prints and getting lost on another website, lol! I haven't backed up in a few months. I'd better get on it.
p.s. I ADORE that DYL layout in your sidebar. How perfect it is!
p.p.s. Love the photo/LO of your boys. Aren't the silly happy ones just the best?
Look at them!!! They are too cute and so young in there. Has it already been 3 years that you were GGG? Wow, it goes too fast. Great looking LO too.
As far as being organized with my pictures, I'm not the best but I'm not too too bad either. I never have any pictures printed in advance BUT I do have (usually) a spare of every color ink that my printer needs... So, usually, I can print whatever pic I want even if it's 1am! LOL
And, I'm pretty good at burning my pictures on a DVD every month. I just burn all of them on there, no matter what if they were good, bad or I wanted to play with them or not. I figure that I'll do whatever is needed on them if I decide to use them. LOL
Your LO over at the AC blog is so wonderful!
You and AC products make THE perfect pair :)
Love that layout! 10 minutes?! Are you serious?! I only wish I could do something that fast! LOL!
Love your layout on the AC blog too!
you rock my world all the time.
this is so gorgeous!
love that photo and how great that you have it in the boys' rooms.
i too struggle with the whole printing thing.
it is always an issue for me.
10 minutes & such an amazing page!! i love it...you're really SO good. i love that photo too, pure happiness, you can see it :)
btw, loved your photo of the little spring flowers peeking thru the snow....yay for spring!
Love that layout...10 mins...get out! If only I stopped 'blog surfing' I could do so many more pages!!
Funny you should post about photo organisation/printing...Nicole and I had a simailar conversation yesterday. We have so many photos it s slowing our iPhoto. Any ideas out there we would love to hear them!
And yes Mel...my brother does look a lot like my son :)
Hi Mel, yes Di and I did have this exact conversation yesterday - arggh - it is so frustrating - the external hardrive, the backing up, but to what? And how exactly are you supposed to find a photo from 4 years ago when you have thousands and thousands of photos backed up who knows where. I thought about backing up by the year on individual flash drives/memory sticks/USB drives but the photo shop man said that was a dumb idea. Anyway, no answers here. BUT, go get some photos printed. I edit mine first, throw 30 or so on a flash drive/memory stick, run to the photo shop, who says they'll be ready in 20min, grab a coffee while I wait, pick them up and I'm home with photos within the hour. Ready to scrap. Sorry. v.long post!
oh mel, you are a crack up!
As I load mine on to my computer I delete and edit them straight away or maybe within a couple of days. Then once a week I burn the newest ones, take them to Kmart to be printed for my standard album and chose a couple that I might scrap and have them done half size or smaller or even full size. Once I'm home they go straight int he album and the scrapping ones in my scrap drawer ready to go. Hope that helps.
Oh, did you get my email with my pic for you?
Hi Mel - I have the same printing dilemma, but sadly I can't run down the the closest 1 hour photo shop - its 4 hours away!! I do like the idea of Juliescrapbook's - having that print folder in within each month, as I AM good at organising them by their date (probably because I have it set up to download like that!)...I even gave myself a new years resolution to print monthly!!!
ouaouhhhh just simple and so beautiful, i love!!!
I like that layout with your boys, but I DO NOT believe you that it took only ten minutes! Ive seen you fiddle with a sticker for 20 minutes!
Yes Jess, you *have* seen me be really anal about actually glueing stuff, but I swear, this page really only took me 10 minutes, start to finish! I already had the orange cardstock on my table, ( from the colour combo I was originaly supposed to do) and the grey as well, which was a scrap from last layout. I added the AC paper after the 1st look, b/c I wanted a fall-ish pp and it matched. I didn't second guess myself on this one, and that's my downfall 99% of the time, trying way too many combos!
Hee hee. I was here to give you a hard time about taking only 10 minutes... But Jessica beat me to it. ;)
Love this layout. Into my copy, er, lift folder.
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