Pump Up Your Life with Scrapbook Pages of Certainty
October 31, 2007
If you can voice enthusiastically that scrapbooking is your passion, could you say the same thing about how you feel towards yourself?
Yes, can you tell others without turning all red in the face that you are passionate about yourself and about who you are?
Are you thinking what a Weird remark to make to others? Could anyone ever be passionate about themselves?
But why not?
Do you really want to wait a lifetime for that someone to tell you that they’re passionate about you, while you can’t say the same thing about yourself?
As scrapbookers, you might deliberately or unknowingly be consumed with the business of scrapbooking your kids’ or your loved ones’ lives. And all these time neglecting to do pages on yourself.
Has too much time lapsed since you last sat down and scrapbooked about you?
Do you find yourself brushing the task away with a mere, “Nay, what’s there to scrapbook about me? It’s more interesting to scrapbook about others.”
Do you really think so? Perhaps just think again.
A Resolution Worth Keeping
October 30, 2007
New Years Resolutions: Making them is a tradition -keeping of them is usually optional. That’s unfortunate, because some of the pledges we make in those moments before the calendar changes are wonderful things to aspire to - spending more time with our children, exercising regularly, stopping a bad habit like smoking - or considering chocolate one of the main food groups. Yet, this is the one time of the year that it’s condoned - almost expected - that we don’t follow through on our promises.
But what if we did follow through? What if we could make a resolution that changed our lives for the better? What if we made a tiny adjustment in our perspective and it allowed us to be happier, feel freer, and enjoy a more mindful existence?
Well, get ready to make a commitment - it’s as easy as embracing the idea of simplicity. Yes, simplicity.
The start of the New Year is the perfect time to make some changes. Resolve to get back to basics. I’m not advocating a cabin in the woods with no heat or electricity, just a small step to the left of the consumer frenzy. Where do you start? Right at home in your own headspace - by making a conscious decision that your time and daily experiences are more important than money and stuff.
Scrapbook Photos — Getting Adventurous With Your Layouts
October 29, 2007
When you have selected the photos for your scrapbook, you’ll need to decide how best to lay them out on the pages. Don’t feel obliged to follow any principles that don’t suit your own design. There are no specific rules stating that all photographs or mementos must be placed in chronological order. It is completely up you to decide in what order you wish to place your items and embellishments.
Choosing Your Layout
You can place your photos in a formal chronological order if you want. You can also group them into formal or informal categories according to similar colors, events, activities, individuals or families. Photographs can also be placed into random or abstract arrangements, or collages.
Each style has its own place in scrapbooking. For instance, a chronological order might be useful for an anniversary scrapbook. Pictures and mementos of the couple’s years together could be placed from the first day they met through the wedding day to the present day with each time period on a different page.
On the other hand, a scrapbook for a parent might just have a collage of photos and drawings to create a sense of the character of their family and their lives together.
Catherine Daly reviews Antidotes for an Alibi
October 28, 2007
Amy King Antidotes for an Alibi BlazeVox Books ISBN 0-9759227-5-0 2005
These poems read to me like poetry versions of flash fiction. Now, I like flash fiction very much, but I like the more fabulistic kind. Amy King is writing the fabulistic kind of flash fiction — I want to say, “the good kind” — in poetry. What does this mean? Well, when lineated, the line breaks in the poems point to the jumps in the narrative. When not, the poems still take the same little leaps that poems take. I guess I’m struggling with the new sentence this morning. I am not seeing “torsion” as I understand it, nor am I looking for it — I am just saying that these poems have little leaps in them that flash fiction of a similar type does not. For example, this poem, “Evening In,” is a story of screening a particular kind of call:
Evening In
Mother phoned the premature death of father to me. A machine shuffled her words. I played back the story of my childhood and grieved.
Top 20 New Years Quotations
October 27, 2007
Scrapbook Photographs — How A Picture Can Be Worth A Thousand Words
October 27, 2007
For many people, photos are at the heart of their scrapbooks — and for a very good reason. We all treasure photgraphs of friends and loved ones, and many of us carry some with us wherever we go in a wallet or locket or keep photos on our desk at work. And if disaster were to strike and you had to evacuate your house, many people say they would save their photo albums before any other possessions!
So most scrapbooks will contain photographs. Even the most disinterested reader of your scrapbook will look at them. A picture really is worth a thousand words. Therefore, it is important to choose photographs that are of good quality and clearly illustrate your scrapbook theme.
Any photograph can be used in a scrapbook. Even instant photographs can be used in scrapbooking. Just be careful that the chemicals within the photograph do not spill out on the rest of your scrapbook. Digital pictures can easily be printed right onto lignin-free and acid -free paper.
Always bear in mind that scrapbooking is permanent. For this reason, it is probably better to use copies of your only picture of Great Aunt Betsy rather than risk ruining the original photograph forever. So just scan the picture on your computer scanner and print the image on lignin free and acid free paper.
Digital Camera Batteries
October 26, 2007
Every device needs a driving force to operate, just as every living thing needs a heart to keep it alive! Basically electric power does this job for any kind of devices nowadays. Similarly for any digital camera too, a good battery is necessary in order to ensure an excellent performance from it as long as possible. Being such a crucial task as if searching for a good heart for a human being, perhaps the most tedious thing about digital cameras is the quest for their battery consumption and thereby finding a suitable one for any particular one. Yet a basic overview regarding this so important component of a digital camera makes the ventures of the users somewhat less complicated and makes life easier with a proper selection of the battery!
Leaving aside the ever power thirsty LCD screens and flashes, the digital cameras themselves exhaust batteries much faster than film cameras, due to their state of the art electronic designs and intricate circuitry. Many digital cameras run from AA cells, around 4, and can even drain a set of alkaline cells in less than 1 hour of working! For example, the Kodak DC120 draws about 210mA during start or switch ON, but progresses to around 1.3A with the association of the LCD fully working and can go ahead to about 2.1A while picture taking and after it too.
Getting Started With Radio Control Cars
October 25, 2007
Take note that you need to decide whether you want a radio control nitro or gas car or perhaps one that has an electric engine. You could purchase either one which is ready to run (rtr) or a kit. Now, knowing how much you would want to spend start going shopping for a vehicle that fits your specifications. Like me passion is what drew me to this exciting hobby and there’s a lot you are going to learn before you can “get behind the wheel”.
It is always good start at a nearby hobby store - look for one that specializes in radio control vehicles. Speak to people you’ll find working in the store and chances are that these people are true blue rc hobbyists as well. There is much you can learn from, so pick their brains well. You’ll find these machines to be sleek and powerful, tearing up the terrain in a jiffy and it’s certainly a lot of fun watching them go.
Online Shopping: Tips For Holidays Gift Shopping
October 24, 2007
It is holidays time, and you’ve the money and you want to go out and begin online shopping.
But before you do, here are some tips to manage your online shopping and expenses.
(1) Before going out get organized.
Make a list of all the people that you plan to buy a gift for, and what kind of gift you want to get for each.
(2) Set Limits on how to spend
For each name on your list, decide on how much to spend and the add all up to know the total amount you wish to spend, and stick to it.
(3) Shop early.
Don’t wait until the last minute to start shopping. Many discount and holidays special are available early in the shopping seasons. Ship your gifts on time to avoid paying more at the last minute to get them on time to their destinations.
(4) Use credit card to pay for most of the gifts and the rest pay with cash.
(5) Make the gifts yourself and save money and still make an impact. Instead of spending money to buy a gift, why not spend time and make it yourself? Most people value personal gifts more. For example bake some cookies and use a decorative tin to package it.
Idle Hands Beget The Devils Work
October 23, 2007
As a southern girl, sewing was a rite of passage. You never questioned if you should learn, it was a matter of when. Though I possess the skill, it was rarely put to use. One day, while shopping for a quilt, I went back to my roots.
Searching for a quilt with an ethnic feel, I went to several department stores. I found nothing that appealed to my sense of color, style and culture - nothing that spoke to my soul. So, I gave up, went to an African fabric store, selected fabrics, and made my own.
As a child in rural Alabama, this routine restored memories of the first quilt I ever made. I was nine and in fourth grade. Around this time, my grandmother made a quilt for each of her grandchildren as a Christmas gift. Now, my nephew of nine sleeps on that same quilt. Tattered and re-stitched in several places, it remains a familial favorite.
While making my most recent quilt, I rediscovered that quilting is more than sewing, it’s a bond from generation to generation. Wrapped in my grandmother’s gift, I feel her presence. Hair askew, laughing in her lap, I’m nine again, with all its incumbent joys.
