There is 3 minutes of Saturday left now. I have been to work, and of course I come home too wired to sleep! Mike, who has been studying the intricacies of paediatric resucitation and the formulas for the drugs required is now soundly asleep. Yep that is what i call bed time reading! I have been reading voraciously lately. I had planned to make a list of each book i had read on my blog so I could make recommendations and perhaps to remind myself... but I just took half a dozen back and I am not sure what I read... they were all good I think. I am just no good at routine or regular stuff.
My last blog with my word art freebie I managed to publish in my old blog, the one that I replaced with this one. Maybe i better put a link in it to explain my extreme ditziness. I have copied it and pasted it now. Of course that was the first freebie i have ever had picked up by digifree blogspot so I was quite excited... and it was in the wrong blog. I won't develop a following like this.
Having been short of work for the past month, things have picked up. I did 5 shifts last week for my agency and now have 3 booked for the coming week. One even has 2 hours at public holiday rates which is unspeakably good. Of course I didnt get offered the night before which would have been mind bogglingly good with 7 hrs of public holiday. Ahh well, I wont complain. Just glad to have work and means we can save a bit for our NZ trip. It did completely wipe out my plan to take the kids down to the waterfront Monday night to watch the fireworks. Mike doesnt seem keen to do it alone.
Anyways, this was just a little note to say good day and good night.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
The Earth Moved
Well our big news yesterday was that we had an earthquake. 4.6 on the Richter scale. Just enough to make the whole house shake a bit. It lasted for a few seconds. The kids all came running in asking what it was. The dog barked and barked. She didnt like it at all. Coming from NZ we recognised it as an earthquake, having felt a few, but I was surprised to feel one here, as I didnt think Australia was prone to earthquakes. I checked the news this morning and they confirmed it was an earthquake, but not a major one. It was a bit eclipsed by the news that Collingwood had beaten Essendon at the AFL really.So where did the week go? It is now Saturday and my last post was Sunday. The truth of the matter is called 5 night shifts. Yep 5 in a row. I have not really done much apart from sleep and work for the whole week. And now this afternoon I am going to work again! It does seem a lot doesn't it? But the agency work has been a bit unreliable lately so I am trying to take whatever they offer. Plus our other big news is that Mike and I have booked to go to NZ for 6 days in April. We wanted to go to Sarah's graduation but have been dithering (as we do). Finally I got online and booked the airfares so we are committed now. We are planning on fitting in a quick trip down to Gisborne to see Mike's parents while we are over, so it is going to be a busy few days. Michael (my son) has said he will come up to Auckland and catch up so we will see him and his twin sister Elizabeth. Can't wait! I have my new camera.. been off to my photography course so I feel ready to take Lots of photos. I better not say that too loud or they won't come visit.
I have been quite busy with some scrapbooking... I mean I do fit in a little bit of hobby time even when I am too tired for anything else. So you saw my desktop? 49 downloads! I was kind of stoked. Today I whipped up a QP with the same kit to celebrate..... Sara has been busy while I have been asleep and she has released her Spring is in the Air kit. Not only that, it is available at her new shop! Ok.. here is the ad that i was supposed to put up on 1 March... only a little late.
So if you go check out Sara's blog, you can have a look at it, and pick up a freebie. How cool is that? And tomorrow if you check back here, there should be a freebie here too!Sara's blog And you really should check out the new store, because there are some beautiful kits there and the prices are amazing. Scrap that Idea
Just lately i have been playing with long columns of text on my pages. It seems to be my 'thing'. So today i made a wee freebie for you. It's called Watch your children grow. Click on the link to go to 4shared to download.
Here it goes in a page I made of Caitlin.
Of course you can't read it properly so I guess you will have to take the risk and download it... tomorrow you can have the qp of Waiting to bloom to match!So.. have I caught you up on the important stuff that is happening for us. 1. work.. 2. mike started his uni course... daunting 3. collingwood beat essendon (i have to put that in because Ben thinks its important) 4. earthquake. 5. trip to NZ. yep.. that is the majors. Be happy, i will get back to you tomorrow. And i will show you some of our photos from the course....
Saturday, February 28, 2009
So its sunday... we are off out soon to do our photography course at Melbourne Uni. Thank God we bought a GPS to tell us where that is. However before we head out I wanted to grab a moment to pop up the links and the picture for my FREEBIE. I have never had one before so i am mega excited. This is my desktop.
The version I have to giveaway has a nice clear space behind the frame so you can put your own photo in it. This is a super easy project. Download the files from 4shared and unzip them. There are two sizes. widescreen and narrow screen. Pick which one you need. Open up the file in Elements or which ever program. Duplicate the background layer. Put your photo under the top layer. You just move it in the window. You probably have to shrink it to fit, hold on to the shift key as you do it so it doesnt distort. When everything is the way you want it. You can write some text on the top if you want. Or otherwise. Go flatten image. You now have a jpeg. Save it to somewhere. then in your control panel you can select this file as your desktop. Let me know if i am clear as mud.
http://www.4shared.com/file/89963456/3e602e39/march_desktop.html
So that is the link. I think it is a zip file so it shouldnt be difficult to open.
Hope it all works for you.
The version I have to giveaway has a nice clear space behind the frame so you can put your own photo in it. This is a super easy project. Download the files from 4shared and unzip them. There are two sizes. widescreen and narrow screen. Pick which one you need. Open up the file in Elements or which ever program. Duplicate the background layer. Put your photo under the top layer. You just move it in the window. You probably have to shrink it to fit, hold on to the shift key as you do it so it doesnt distort. When everything is the way you want it. You can write some text on the top if you want. Or otherwise. Go flatten image. You now have a jpeg. Save it to somewhere. then in your control panel you can select this file as your desktop. Let me know if i am clear as mud.http://www.4shared.com/file/89963456/3e602e39/march_desktop.html
So that is the link. I think it is a zip file so it shouldnt be difficult to open.
Hope it all works for you.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Saturday
It really has to be a simple title because I have just had a few wines while we watched a movie. Its a sad thing when you realise that you are a little worse for wear before 7pm. We got Taken on box office as they give us a free movie a month and we thought we should remember to use them. I have to admit that I really enjoyed it. I dont think it got rave reviews but it was certainly gripping for us. Have finished the Sara Donati book.... gosh that was a nice read. Chicky book definitely but i enjoy those. Now i have started Vanished by Karen Robards. So far so good. But there is a lot on, with new stuff due out from my CTs so i have been very busy scrapbooking. Now i have Never offered a freebie. But I am very much hoping that in the next day or two to have a March desktop for you. I am pretty thrilled with it. For us it features Greg, because he insisted that as his birthday is in March, he was entitled to be on the desktop.
There is lots of other things going on, exciting things afoot, but of course as usual if i tell you i have to kill you. I am not certain how I could achieve that over the internet of course, so i better be keeping my secrets. However keep checking back in and we will see what turns up.
I did wonder if anyone else had an interest in learning how to do digital scrapbooking? I was thinking i might put some links up to resources and freebies to help anyone interested to get started. First things first. You will need a program. This is unavoidable. I am currently using Adobe CS3, although if you have thousands to spend CS4 is out. However I started with Elements and I loved it. It is really nice to use and is very simple. I probably moved up to CS because I wanted to create text paths so if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need to worry. There is a free program called GIMP. I know little about this except it is free and that ppl do use it. PSP is another option. All these programs have free trials which you can download for usually 30 days, so it is a good way to give it a try. Buying the previous release is often a lot cheaper than the newest version and the upgrade can still save you money.
The next thing to think about is storage. Because this is a memory hungry hobby. The thing I did wrong at the start was to organise my stuff badly, and even now I have a reasonable mess where there is lots of stuff from who knows where. When I started digital scrapbooking I had no intention of putting my pages on the net so I never thought of the importance of keeping track of who made what. Wrong. Start right and it keeps it simple. I am now using ACDSee to organise my scrapbooking gear so that i can keyword search. You can also use ACDSee to organise your photos once again with keyword search. If you start organising it makes life easier. My biggest first mistake was to put all my downloaded papers into a directory called papers. That makes it impossible to work out where you got them from. Just leave them in their kits with the designer info with them so that when you make your magnificent layout you can put the credits up with it. I also make a notepad file with a list of what i used and give it the same file name and keep it in the same directory. It just keeps things simple.
Scrapbooking kits come in zip or rar files. I use a program called win rar to unzip the files. Unzipped files are all put into a back up file because if i use the lot i will need these. Obviously everything you have needs to be backed up so if disaster strikes you have it all in another place. I personally swear by external hard drives and they are getting so cheap. I have a gorgeous little portable EHD which cost me less than $100 and has all my backups on it.
Ok so we have a program. Storage is organised. What next?
So here are some links that I have found useful
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/digital.asp
two peas has lots of free kits, galleries to look through, kits to buy and a section with tutorials.
http://www.shabbyprincess.com/
I am a big fan of the Shabby Princess stuff. Once again, tutorials, free kits, and more.. galleries, blog, shop. Lots of great stuff. Their free kits are absolutely gorgeous.
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/Scrapping101/basics.shtml
Once again more freebies, more tutorials.
www.dafont.com.
I have to mention this site because i have used it so often. Once you start trying to make pages you need lots of new fonts. I save all the zip files in a folder (called font zips) so if i change computers or move my scrapbooking or format then i have them there already to reinstall).
Then there are the blogs... zillions of them with lovely little freebies.
http://digifree.blogspot.com/
http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/
http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/
I could go on for ever. But google search is way more efficient. Most of the blogs link to other blogs and other blogs and so on. There are so many templates out there that make it the easiest thing in the world to complete a layout. I forgot to mention scrapgirls. They also have great tutorials, i actually bought a series of video tutorials which were great.
If anyone finds this helpful, feel free to let me know...
So if you are ready to get going why don't you get your program, have a look at some tutorials and this week i will put up the desktop calendar which is one of the easiest things to personalise for yourself.
The only other thing i would say is the same thing we say about all computer stuff. Save. save. save. No point putting in heaps of work to lose it when the computer crashes.
Now.. just checking back.. yes.. i did make a new page to show off.
Just to give you an idea. This layout is made using a free kit from sweetblossom designs. too easy.
There is lots of other things going on, exciting things afoot, but of course as usual if i tell you i have to kill you. I am not certain how I could achieve that over the internet of course, so i better be keeping my secrets. However keep checking back in and we will see what turns up.
I did wonder if anyone else had an interest in learning how to do digital scrapbooking? I was thinking i might put some links up to resources and freebies to help anyone interested to get started. First things first. You will need a program. This is unavoidable. I am currently using Adobe CS3, although if you have thousands to spend CS4 is out. However I started with Elements and I loved it. It is really nice to use and is very simple. I probably moved up to CS because I wanted to create text paths so if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need to worry. There is a free program called GIMP. I know little about this except it is free and that ppl do use it. PSP is another option. All these programs have free trials which you can download for usually 30 days, so it is a good way to give it a try. Buying the previous release is often a lot cheaper than the newest version and the upgrade can still save you money.
The next thing to think about is storage. Because this is a memory hungry hobby. The thing I did wrong at the start was to organise my stuff badly, and even now I have a reasonable mess where there is lots of stuff from who knows where. When I started digital scrapbooking I had no intention of putting my pages on the net so I never thought of the importance of keeping track of who made what. Wrong. Start right and it keeps it simple. I am now using ACDSee to organise my scrapbooking gear so that i can keyword search. You can also use ACDSee to organise your photos once again with keyword search. If you start organising it makes life easier. My biggest first mistake was to put all my downloaded papers into a directory called papers. That makes it impossible to work out where you got them from. Just leave them in their kits with the designer info with them so that when you make your magnificent layout you can put the credits up with it. I also make a notepad file with a list of what i used and give it the same file name and keep it in the same directory. It just keeps things simple.
Scrapbooking kits come in zip or rar files. I use a program called win rar to unzip the files. Unzipped files are all put into a back up file because if i use the lot i will need these. Obviously everything you have needs to be backed up so if disaster strikes you have it all in another place. I personally swear by external hard drives and they are getting so cheap. I have a gorgeous little portable EHD which cost me less than $100 and has all my backups on it.
Ok so we have a program. Storage is organised. What next?
So here are some links that I have found useful
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/digital.asp
two peas has lots of free kits, galleries to look through, kits to buy and a section with tutorials.
http://www.shabbyprincess.com/
I am a big fan of the Shabby Princess stuff. Once again, tutorials, free kits, and more.. galleries, blog, shop. Lots of great stuff. Their free kits are absolutely gorgeous.
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/Scrapping101/basics.shtml
Once again more freebies, more tutorials.
www.dafont.com.
I have to mention this site because i have used it so often. Once you start trying to make pages you need lots of new fonts. I save all the zip files in a folder (called font zips) so if i change computers or move my scrapbooking or format then i have them there already to reinstall).
Then there are the blogs... zillions of them with lovely little freebies.
http://digifree.blogspot.com/
http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/
http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/
I could go on for ever. But google search is way more efficient. Most of the blogs link to other blogs and other blogs and so on. There are so many templates out there that make it the easiest thing in the world to complete a layout. I forgot to mention scrapgirls. They also have great tutorials, i actually bought a series of video tutorials which were great.
If anyone finds this helpful, feel free to let me know...
So if you are ready to get going why don't you get your program, have a look at some tutorials and this week i will put up the desktop calendar which is one of the easiest things to personalise for yourself.
The only other thing i would say is the same thing we say about all computer stuff. Save. save. save. No point putting in heaps of work to lose it when the computer crashes.
Now.. just checking back.. yes.. i did make a new page to show off.
Just to give you an idea. This layout is made using a free kit from sweetblossom designs. too easy.
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