Hmmm . . . Should I Take My Camera to the Crop?

My friend, Margo Walker, is a Creative Memories consultant.  She holds quarterly scrapbooking crops, and the last two have been at the Clarion Inn on West Kellogg.  I usually pay the fee for a 10' table which gives me lots of room to work.  Well . . . I have been known to spread out onto someone else's table if they leave early!

I am thinking very seriously about taking my Kodak Slice camera and tripod to the crop this weekend.  I have been wanting to photograph some of the pages I have been putting together for our 8 X 8 dog album.  I just haven't had room to set up my tripod and camera because I have been working on other things here at home.  I will share the pictures I take on my blog next week.  I hope to have some pics of other friends pages, too.

If you would like me to show off scrapbook pages you are especially proud of, just email them to me or upload them to Shutterfly or WalGreens and share them to me.

If you are in the market for a new camera, Sams Club has several cameras to choose from.  Check one of them out by clicking the link below.  This Nikon Coolpix L810 is equipped with a 26x optical zoom lens which would be great for taking photos at a distance.  They also have tripods to choose from.  You might want to check out the Manfrotto Compact Series Tripod Kit below.

Happy Scrapbooking!

Still Gathering Tools for the Crop

I'm thinkin' I had better take my Picture Mate Zoom to the crop this weekend.

One thing I like to do on my scrapbook layouts is to include smaller versions of some of my photos.  I bought the Zoom (made by Epson) a few years back, and it has been a great little printer for printing smaller photos.  It is fairly lightweight and very compact, so it will fit in a small cranny in my car.  It uses any 4" X 6" photo paper, but the directions say it is best to use Epson paper.  It also has a print cartridge that needs to be replaced now and then.  However, I have found that I get many more photos from a cartridge than what the directions say you can get.

I taught a scrapbooking class at Scrapbook Garden one time.  It was a birthday party, and in the class the kids made a little mini album.  I took pictures of the kids working, put the SD card from the camera in the Picture Mate, and printed the pics off for the kids to take home with them.  So the kids all got to go home with a small keepsake of the fun they had.

Some models come with a USB cable so that you can print right from your computer.  If you interested in a similar product, Epson now has newer, fancier models to choose from.

 Happy scrapbooking, everyone!

Two-day Scrapbooking Crop

I am getting very excited about a two-day scrapbooking crop coming up this weekend.  I need to get going on planning out what I want to work on.  My "work in progress" at the moment is an 8 X 8 album for my husband containing pics of our dogs over the years.

You'd think planning out a small page like that would be easier than planning a 12 X 12 size . . . NOT!  It must have something to do with the fact that I am so anal about making sure it looks right.  Well . . . MY idea of what it should look like!  Hee, hee!  I figure I'd better like what I end up with because years from now I don't want to have to look at a page and think, "I wish I'd done . . ."  That is pretty much my philosophy on any page I do, no matter what the size.

So . . . what am I doing to get ready for a fun time with other scrapbookers?
1.  Going through my photo boxes to gather more photos to scrap
2.  Looking at picture files on my PC and my laptop to gather more photos
3.  Ordering any pictures I need copies or reprints for
4.  Writing the name, place, and date on the backs of my photos
5.  Making sure I have enough supplies and scrapbook paper
     (My scrapbooking buddies would laugh at this.  I never use even a fourth of what I take with me!)
6.  Thinking about what tools I'll take:  my Cricut machine, my Quickutz tool, my Big Shot
7.  Deciding whether to take my copier and my scanner.
8.  Making sure I have digital copies of my pics on my laptop in case I need to resize and reorder.

I wonder if I've forgotten anything.  Oh well, if I have I only live about 20 to 25 miles from our meeting site.  I'll just go home and get it if I need it!

Time to take my hubby to a doctor's appointment!  Happy scrapping, everyone!

Back to Writing on My Bog

Wow what a hectic couple of months!  Has it really been almost two months since I posted?  Time sure flies when you're having fun!  Well . . . we haven't really been having THAT much fun.

Since my last post, many things have happened in the life of the Brown family!  After getting the results on Ron's tests, he had open heart surgery on May 23.  The plan was to do one by-pass on a 70% blockage and to go ahead and replace his aortic valve with a mechanical one.

Once inside, the doctor found that he would need a double by-pass because there was a branching off and both branches were clogged.  The aortic valve was worse than they thought, but they were able to replace that just fine.  Because the top and bottom chambers of Ron's heart weren't "talking" to each other, a temporary pacemaker was put in during surgery with a permanent one going in to his upper left chest on the next Tuesday.  The bottom part of his heart was not beating fast enough.  Ron came home on June 1.

Things were going fairly well until early in the morning on Friday, June 28, when Ron developed a fever of 102.  So . . .  back to the hospital.  In the ER they found he had developed pneumonia so they sent us home with prescriptions for antibiotics and told Ron to take Tylenol for the fever.  They also took blood to do some tests.

To make a long story shorter, we were back at the hospital on Sunday afternoon because the fever was back, and one of Ron's harvest sites in his upper thigh had become red and hard.  From the time we left the house until the time we finally got seen by a doctor in the ER, Ron's reddened site and swelled to at least three times what it was when we left the house.  The red area was at that point halfway to his thigh!

Thus . . . more blood tests, another stay in the hospital with intravenous antibiotics, a wound vac placed on Ron's thigh, and home on Thursday the 28th but not before a trip to a couple more doctor's offices for wound vac supplies and intravenous antibiotic supplies (with a lesson on how to use the antibiotics at home).

Since Ron has been home this time we have been back and forth to doctor's offices a couple times a week between our twice daily intravenous antibiotic applications which we are doing ourselves at home!

Ron is doing much better now.  The wound is shrinking, is no longer red and swollen, and is not painful for him to do a little walking.  We are walking first thing in the morning before it gets too warm.  He is getting stronger every day, and we even took in a movie yesterday . . . The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel . . . a great movie for people our age!

Ron's daughter and her two girls are in town visiting which is a nice distraction for Ron.  We have enjoyed having them come visit as it makes the days go faster for both of us.  We will be celebrating one of their birthdays today . . .her sweet sixteen!  Now you are all caught up with our lives to this point.

Lord willing I plan to write posts for this blog two to three times a week from here on.  Here's hoping your life has been less eventful than ours has been the last two months!

Happy Scrapbooking!