The Joy of Scrapbooking...Digitally!

I love the idea of scrapbooking but don't like the idea of having a billion bins of tiny little pieces of "stuff" to store. I know I could spend a fortune on papers, tools and such so I have never taken up the hobby. That is until now. I found digital scrapbooking. The idea is the same. You add papers and elements to a "page" and fit your pictures in. The only difference is that you are doing this all from your computer in graphic editing software.

The layout above was made using Ronna Penner's Express Yourself kit at www.scrapadelic.com . I also used template 6 but there is no credit page included with the file. If you know who the designer is, email me. I'd love to give them credit!

There are several different softwares that you can use such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro an the free Gimp software. You can search for digital scrapbooking kits on the net. There are some really talented artists out there. Be sure to search blogs for digital scrapbooking artists as well. They often hide their freebies there. Here are a few links that I like.

http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/

http://www.scrapartist.com/

http://www.elementalscraps.com/

http://www.shabbyprincess.com/

http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/

It is wise to purchase an external hard drive to store all of these downloads and NOT to have satellite internet. :) When you are finished with enough pages for a book, you can upload them to a photo site like http://www.snapfish.com/ and have them print them into a bound book.

Satellite Internet

As I've posted earlier, I love perusing the internet for information. I also happen to live on a small piece of land really close to town but just far enough that for the last 7 years there wasn't a cable company to service my house. For a few years I dealt with dial up. It wasn't that big of a deal. My kids were small, my husband probably thought www meant world wrestling something or other and I mainly used the internet for the occassional search and to check emails.
Now I have 3 websites, 6 or so Squidoo.com lenses, 2 MySpace pages and 3 blogs. I love digital scrapbooking. My kids are all at the age of downloading music and uploading pictures to MySpace and my husband LOVES ordering from Jegs.com, finding contract work through several bidding sites and chatting on mud racing forums. So a few years ago I found out about Hughesnet.com which used to be Direcway satellite internet. I was extatic! We could all be online and doing our own thing. Then I found out about Fair Access Policies. Oh Boy! Here's how it works. If you download/upload more MB's than what is listed in your plan each day, they cut off your internet for a short period of time. Do you know how totally annoying that is?! Kids were downloading music and all of the sudden I was locked out. What a bummer! I lived with it for a while , banned the kids from their beloved music and time passed. It got OLD real quick.
Then I found out about WildBlue.com from AT&T. I figured AT&T-big company-monthly instead of daily Fair Access Policy and the next thing I knew they were at my house installing a new dish. Keep in mind that all along I am calling every cable company in the book to see if they will install cable internet at my house. Each time it was a "No".
Recently I have discovered digital scrapbooking. Heard of it? That's my next topic so read on. So Wednesday evening I found an awesome site with some digiscrap freebies. I started downloading thinking it wouldn't affect my monthly MB's all that much. Oh boy! Was I wrong! Thursday as I peruse the internet I get dial up flashbacks. The kids are all on a pc and hubby is on his laptop. I couldn't get on any site to save my life. I had enough! I called around 1 more time. Comcast- "No ma'am. We don't service your area." Brighthouse- "Yes." "What?" I say. He said, "Yes ma'am. It shows here in the system that you are eligible for service." "No way!" I say. You just couldn't imagine the rush after 7 years of no's and dial up and satellite. I WAS getting cable internet! I am soooo excited! They were out here Friday. They weren't very happy about the line they had to run underground from the road up to the house but they are coming tomorrow to install it.
If you're thinking about getting satellite and do have the choice to get cable internet, don't! I could just imagine if I had a hobby of downloading movies.

Calling all Dale Earnhardt Fans!

CMT aired "Dale The Movie" last night on their cable channel. If you didn't get to see it, they are showing it again tonight at 8pm/7pm central.
My husband is a HUGE Earnhardt fan. We have a curio cabinet and acrylic display of all Dale & Dale Jr. memorabilia. Our game room in the garage is red & black, covered in the numbers 3 & 8. We have been to many Daytona races, went to the pits, bought fan packages and all and he's traveled to others on the east coast. The day Dale died was a sad, sad day in our house. Since my husband's father passed away, Dale had been a hero and inspiration to him. The Intimidator was a well known name in our house. Of course, we had to watch this.
I actually learned a lot from the movie. I didn't realize what a close relationship Dale & Richard Childress had or the bitter-sweet relationship between Dale & Darryl Waltrip. I was a little disappointed not to see Michael Waltrip telling his stories but I'm sure there was a reason behind it. And the way Jr. was portrayed as a kid dyeing for his father's affection & approval was new to me as well. I learned a lot about Earnhardt last night. I laughed a little, was ad from the memories and proud to be a fan as well. It's definitely a must see for every Nascar fan.

Countdown to Christmas

Would you believe there are only 111 days until Christmas?! Have you started your shopping yet? I must admit, I haven't even thought of making a list yet.
Last Christmas I was browsing the internet and found this awesome site. www.GottaDeal.com They have all kinds of coupon codes and some of the best frugal shopping forums around. Users post the deals that they find around the net. Unlike some of these deal sites that just have a few people posting deals, GottaDeal.com has thousands! Last year I was able to purchase Victoria's Secret PJ's, slippers and such for some family members and some bras for myself at around $3 each at another site because of glitches in shopping cart systems that were posted on GottaDeal.
They also have an awesome posting of Black Friday Deals as they come out. Check it out!

Do You Squidoo?

So I found Squidoo.com a short while ago on one of my "internet marathons". It's a really interesting place. Squidoo is basically a place to write about what you know well. This is called your lens. Along with information on your particular topic, you can add in these cool things called modules. There are different types of modules that let you do anything to your Squidoo page from adding a guestbook to adding products from stores that make you money when someone purchases them. You can also have Plexo modules which let readers vote for their favorite topic, link, item, etc.. that you have listed and they can add their own too. Readers can rate your lens as well. You can lensroll other lenses (which is basically linking with them) that are of similar interest to your readers.

I have to admit it. I'm addicted! I made my 6th lens this morning. I have a lens for Baby Gifts, Dream Sewing Spaces, Freebies & Deals, Florida Destinations other than Disney, Mud Racing and now Baby's 1st Birthday. It's a great site for networking but also for having fun if you like writing.

So...as I was editing my lenses the other day, I saw a little ad on my Squidoo page. It was for a site called Zlio.com. Hear of it? It looks pretty new but also very cool. I think it will be a big hit. Zlio.com is like a huge shopping mall. They have lots of companies that want their products sold so they pay you to do it. Zlio.com lets you make a store for free. You can make any kind of store like my baby gifts store. It is extremely easy to set up. It just takes a few steps...HONEST! You can then add products to your store by basically clicking your mouse a few times. There are 1000's of products to choose from by places like Cooking.com , PacSun, PetMeds, Barnes & Noble & Baby Phat. And guess what...it's all free!!!! I love it! I might just make another store. You know, you can have up to 20 Zlio.com stores.