Just a few days before the trip and I have a list of last minute stuff. Since it’s just the girls and I there’s nobody else to rely on but me, myself, and I in terms of what to bring… or what makes it to the car. I have to remember to bring the important stuff and not be like our California trip where I left my camera on the kitchen counter. AURGH!!! That was the worst photographic trip ever!! Also, even though a drive to hubby’s family in Mississippi is a lot longer than our we’ll be passing through a few countries so I need to remember to have with us our passports (ALL of them, we have two each since as a military dependent we have to have a regular passport and another one – a no pay they call it – where the UK Visa is stamped — weird I know) and other documentations. BUT, in between all the prepping I managed to relax a bit while the Jove was napping and created this.

I’ve been eye-balling this digital kit by Quirky Twerp, The Retrospect 365 set (paper, elements, and tags) at The DigiChick and I found the perfect sketch to use it on: Sweet Sketch Sunday. If you like Webster’s Page or Prima you’ll LOVE this kit. So so so pretty and the colors are just so vibrant!! I felt a bit guilty when creating this card because a lot of gorgeous images were covered in the process. The below is just the paper!

Here I just want to show you how my card (and I do this for a lot of my work) looks from the side. I am not heavy on the glue. I use different size dimensionals and even when I use adhesive (ATG 1/4″) I’d only glue the bottom (or top or side, depends) part to give the card a more 3D effect. For example on the tag. The flower above it I used the ATG just on the bottom and one dimensional, close to the tag. I like to center my dimensionals if possible for two reasons, to not be too visible from the side and to also give it a more airy look — like nothing’s holding the paper on.

I did a few things on this card. I sprayed the tag and base with Tattered Angels ink. I tied two bows through one hole on the tag. The seam binding, Martha Stewart, I scrunched on the spot again. Then I rolled some twine (Etsy) around the tag and tied a big bow. I also didn’t cut the loose ends too short for a more “fun” feel. The little lace is Melissa Francis and the button’s from PTI. I did a lot of trimming. My hand went numb a bit but all’s good. Layered here, layered there — followed the sketch I did — and voila.

Here’s the sketch. I promise it looks just like it!!! For the base I did that flower pattern paper for the dark top portion. The tag is the light portion of the base. Then for the scallops, well if you look at the card there’s a line on the right side. That’s my divider line and instead of scallops I left it as is. For the center it’s obvious and I actually do have a strip of scallop paper, look to the left of the butterfly. The green strip.

I love sketches because they give me a starting point and after that I can move it around as I see fit. The stamp sets I used are Ever After from WPlus9 and Vintage Frame from Waltzingmouse.

Have a great one. I am super super sleepy right now. I’ll prob. edit a lot of stuff after I get up and have some coffee {::SMILES}. Been up late the last few finishing a few things up.

The next time I post it’ll probably be from Germany. Until then!

I’ve also been doing last minute prepping before my “big” drive to the mainland. I cannot wait!! The driving I can do without but oh the adventure and the new things to see along the way!!! I got M’s absence paperwork submitted (it’s really strict here to take your kidlet out right at the start of the semester), got the car kit, got our paperwork together, got the house sitters for our two dogs and four chickens, and tomorrow we’re going junk food shopping. I gotta have my beef jerky. I  kind of wish I have an American car… or a car with a cup holder. Ya know a lot of cars here have either a small or no cup holder? It’s not illegal to eat, drink and drive but it’s more strict than in the US. Kind of like this case.

The other night I made a card too. It’s another sketch from Waltzing Mouse and it was challenging for me! But, after all’s done I like the end result. It’s kind of fun and still based on the sketch (squint if you can’t see it, ha!).

I got another Tim Holtz embossing folder and the other day the craft store on base had a 50% off sale and I bought a few Tattered Angels glitter mist and did some spraying.

Except for the Waltzingmouse sentiment  (L’il Buddies) and the round circles (COMING SOON at the WM shop!!) on the tag everything you see came from two digital kits that I got from Sweet Shoppe Designs: My Wish for Him by Kristin Cronin-Barrow and Family Time by Penny Springman. These two kits are full of awesome goodies. Great for hybrid projects AND a lot of digital scrapbooks!!! Doesn’t my new little Samsung laser printer print beautifully? Love that thing!!

For more visual and feel I added some twine and Making Memories pom-poms ribbon. Oh, sewing again and now I wish I have a machine with more stitches!!

Ok, have a great one!

WordPress. Oh I so love thee. Granted there are a couple others I’d love to get my hands on they’re not free. So for now WP is it for me. Now, keep in mind that if you do not have the installed version of WP the WP portion of this post will be useless to you. But if you do have WP, the www.wordpress.org version, then you might find this handy. Now, while I’ll link the different plug-in to the developer’s site, you can install all the ones here from inside WP’s plug-in page. Just login to your Admin page, go to the Plug-In, click Add New, and type in the names of the plug-ins and install.

1. My most favorite WP app is WPTouch. It helps my blog look pretty on mobile browsers. If you have a mobile/cell phone with Internet go to my blog via it and you should see something like this

   

and when you click on a post, it’ll look like this



See how pretty it looks? You don’t have to zoom in/out or squint. If you keep scrolling you’ll see the comments and different ways to share the post. I only have the free version.

2. Next is the WP-DBManager. If you own your own blog it’s always a great idea to back it up every so often. This little tool is a handy dandy thing to have inside your WP blog!!
3. Askismet. This is a MUST have! I probably should list this as a number one because without it I’d probably have a lot of spam comments. But with this little thing I probably get a handful a year. They’re the “better” kinds where the comments would relate to the post. But, they’d be in my moderation folder anyways since I have my WP set to moderate for every new email addy. Once your addy has been approved your comments will automatically show up. No need for those captcha things (which I hate).
4. Category Page. If you look up to my menus you’ll see the Digi Tut menu button. If you click on it you’ll see a list of all my video tuts. I didn’t type all that in there. The plug-in does it automatically for me. I just have to insert a little code in there and each time I add a post with the category of “digital tutorial” it’ll add a link to the post on that Digi Tut page. Nice, huh? It’s a neat tool to organize!!!
5. Smart-YouTube. I use this for my YouTube videos. I like the look and it gives me the option to show the video in regular, high res, or high dev. This was the only thing available when high res came about and I’ve loved it since.

There are many other useful ones but I’ll leave you with five for now.

Android. I’ve only had this for almost two weeks but the geek in me is so embracing it. It’s sooooooooooooo nice to have the Internet on the go again!!! The £25/mo (100 minutes, 500 text, and 1GB bandwidth) is totally worth it even though I hardly get a phone call on it. In the US we used to have 450 shared minutes. Then AT&T decided to upgrade everything, including cost (nice, huh?), to I think 600 and by the time we left the US we had over 5,000 roll-0ver minutes. Savitri doesn’t talk on the phone. Actually Savitri doesn’t pick up the phone unless she’s expecting a call or it’s hubby. You all are just better off catching me via email or IM. I only use the phone to get my message across and that’s it. Here in the UK we use Skype for International calls and we have our home phone line which is free on weekends. Also, incoming calls are free here whether it’s your home or mobile phone (which I LOVE cause I shouldn’t have to pay if somebody needs me, right?). So 100 minutes is plenty! I do text but maybe 100 of them/mo. As much as I like reading my emails and such on the phone I don’t quite like typing on it. I am a slow texter!! Unless I have to or I’m totally bored (like waiting at M’s gymnastics) I’d reply on the phone. If not I’d wait until I get home. So, here are some of my favorite apps…

1. MyBookDroid. I JUST found this today and it’s AWESOME!! I love to read and I am an Agatha Christie book collector – just the Bantam series. When we’re out and about I’d see these books but then I wouldn’t know which one I have already. This little book database system will definitely be a huge help. I am so a member of GoodReads and this app syncs up to it. I love how I can just scan the bar codes of the books, just so slick. My only complain is the uploading to GoodReads. It doesn’t upload it according to categories. Just whether or you you’ve read, want to, etc. Oh well, guess I have to log in to GoodReads and update my stuff.
2. Kindle. I love that Amazon decided to release the software to read Kindle books on the computer/mobile. Now I don’t have to haul my laptop to the bathroom!! One day I’ll have a real Kindle — maybe soon {::SMILE}.
3. FXCamera. It’s a really fun camera app that can make the photo look like a Polaroid and others (the Polaroid is what I got it for though). I love it although I wish it zooms! It’s not as fun as iPhone’s Swankolab I think (reminds me of my darkroom days, ha!) but hey, we’re in the world of digital so we can skip the developing and just get to the end result, right?
4. imo.im. It pretty much covers all the chat app I use, including Skype. There’s not a lot of chat app where Skype really works and this one, so far, is still going. Too bad it doesn’t do voice!!
5. FeedSquares. It’s a pretty RSS reader that syncs up with my Google Reader. I really love it. It helps me keep up with what you all do. The only bad thing is that if you have a butt load of unread post it’ll freeze. One blog I had 28 unread posts and that didn’t make FeedSquares happy.

There are other apps and widgets that I love. Even though I don’t use my mobile to talk I use it for organizing my life. I use to have a PocketPC and this Droid replaces it. My Droid, I named it Sasha, syncs up to my calendar and emails and those are what’s important for me. It’s got a loud alarm clock too and a UK traffic app cause traffic here can be a killer. I do love the Navigation system. I think Google did a great job there and other things to make my life easy… like currency converter, clothing size converter, and games for M. I didn’t get a smartphone to look cool. I got this phone so that I can have access to all my crap that’s up there in the clouds — cloud computing. Sweetness…

Another post and another Sept. new release: Topiaries. This time it’s from Clear and Simple Stamps! I also want to use this post to say THANK YOU to all you readers. I just checked my stats and I have over 500 readers and almost 250,000 visits since sometimes in January of 2008 (when I added the stats option). Since the blog was actively used in November of 2007 I’ve had 824 posts and 7,494 comments. I am amazed!! I’m not the most regular blogger and I’m not always going around commenting either. So to get any visitor and comment is a big plus for me {::SMILES}. As for myself, I can’t believe I’ve posted 824 times!! Goodness! I’m not a new blogger, I’ve been blogging – of a form of it – for ten years or so but never commit to one for this long until now. Well, I guess that’s a lie. There was one that I committed too, my first one but I’m not ready to share with the world what it was. Only my close friends know (and don’t you all tell!).

So thanks everybody for supporting this blog via your subscriptions, visits, and comments. I truly appreciate it. I know that I’m not that great at replying to each comment but I do read each one and they always make me smile! I haven’t been a good blog visitor either because SOMEBODY keeps wanting to use my keyboard and when she’s sleeping I’d either be doing chores or working on projects. But, she’s only little once and I do want to spend a lot of time with her and also Miss M so I hope you all understand. Maybe after M starts school again I’d feel less selfish if I’m on the computer more — when Jovie’s sleeping of course.

On the card… I LOVE how well these CSS stamps stamp. So crispy clean!! For the card stock I used CSS brown aka Espresso Your Style and baby blue aka Trendsetter Blue. Very pretty together!! For a little bit of accent I added a bit of ribbon, also CSS, and of course a button. For the sentiment I used CSS’s matching brown ink. Perfect!!

I also LOVE the Tim Holtz embossing folder. See how deeply embossed the brown is? This is just another clean and simple design. Sometimes one can be so into buying tools and all sorts of products, been there myself, but in all honestly all you need are some good basic sets and you can make a lot of pretty cards. Oh, don’t forget the twine — it’s my thing now {::SMILE}. Have a great one and THANK YOU again!!

For you to get yourself a WPlus9 Ever After stamp set and for me to get a Chip and PIN (EMV) bank card!!!

Yes, I am going to be like the Western Europeans and a lot of other countries (some Asians too I think… not sure about African countries and E. Europe) and no swipe and sign when using my debit/credit card. Half the time it’s been a stinkin’ hassle keeping our American bank card.

How does one use this chip card? You use a chip card like you’d use your credit/debit card at an ATM station, the machines that don’t swallow your card. Stick it in and enter the PIN. It’s less paper too. There’s no paper to sign and that extra credit card receipt. Also, there’s no international transaction fee. We’re lucky that our bank, USAA (BEST bank ever!!), waives ours (at least for a year) but most don’t. The fee ranges from 1-3%. If you ever overseas, check your statement. You’ll see the charge AND the transaction fee. It adds up!

Weeks ago I made an appointment but I had to cancel. I made another one two weeks ago for today. I know, right? Two weeks to schedule an appointment to open a bank account!! In the US one can just walk in to a branch and 45-minutes later walk out with a bank account. Hopefully tomorrow I can get everything taken care of and in a week or two have a shiny new card that I can use anywhere. We can’t even use a self-service anything now because they don’t take swipe cards. Sucks!

Card details…

First of all I love the color combo. I used sky blue, purely pomegranate, kraft, vanilla, mellow moss, and yellow. I had a lot of fun with this card because I used a lot of my favorite things on here. The best part was that I did a lot of sewing. I think my machine and I are buddies now! What did I do? I cleaned AND loosened it up. I guess that’s what that little knob was for. Before the thread was too tight and that’s why the thread always broke mid-way when I did zig-zags.

I’ve been loving layering my bows too. The base is PTI twill yellow ribbon. After I made the bow I tied another knot and bow, the crumpled seam binding from Etsy, over the twill knot. Then over the two I tied another knot and bow with the baker’s twine. To cover all the layers I added a button. The sentiment came from two different sets: Magical Moments and Funky Flowers.

Here I just want to give you a side view of the flower layers. I used dimensionals on the Gardenia and the leaves I just put a dab of glue on the bottom edge so that the only the edges would stick and not the whole leaves. I like it this way to give the card a more fluffy/3D feel. The rose, kraft paper, I glued on to the card base. It’d be too thick if I used dimensionals on everything.

The pattern paper that I used came from Paislee Press which is available tomorrow at the DigiChick. She’s guest designing and I couldn’t be happier – LOVE her!! I can’t wait to make a scrappy page with the kit!!

Ok, that’s it! I’ll be posting in a little bit too for another Sept. 1 release. Stay tune!!