I support their move. It’s hard on us though. Just bit me. I knew about it ahead too. But it’s a truth universally acknowledged, show people how bad something could be, and they will finally believe it.
I do applaud their blackout on January 18, 2012.
Every Category in this blog system is applied to this post, therefore, and every TAG … it’s just not reasonable to list every tag, so I’ve used ‘Everything’ and ‘Nothing’ as my TAGS.
It’s already mid-October! This month has flown, my husband out-of-town A LOT & only daughter too sick to help most of the last 2 weeks, everyone but me got it, it hit her the worst. It’s been busy, tough, the sort of time that you just want to shut your eyes, and when you open them, it’s over. Sigh.
I’m needing something, something good to read, good to build, good to make.
Books: I want to keep going with the Jim Butcher “Dresden Files” series. I had book one Storm Front this summer. I asked my hubby to pick up the next 2 or 3 books, but he only finally did so last weekend, and couldn’t find any in the stores he tried.
I could order them, but they wouldn’t arrive until yesterday at the earliest if I used my B&N membership. I probably could have just gotten them from Amazon, maybe. I know recently that getting books delivered cheaply and in reasonable time is nigh impossible.
Get books from online delivered to you that you aren’t anxious to devour. That’s about the only rule I know. I messed up on that one for two books recently, Lee Child The Affair and John Sandford Shock Wave. Pre-order “free member express shipping” from B&N.
So my “pre-oder” is in for long enough time for it to seem to mean something. Nothing at all though. Books available everywhere on Tuesdays. THEY DIDN’T start sending it until the next day. Then it didn’t arrive until Friday.
That is NOT express shipping on a pre-order. Maybe THEY think it is, but I don’t care what they think about it, it’s what I, the CUSTOMER thinks about it. My membership is up at the end of this month. Just might go to Amazon for books from now on, Costco, used books stores still as well. Maybe I’ll use Albris more. Who knows.
So that whole time I could have been reading those books in my B&N app on my tablet. I don’t like the books I LOVE reading in that format. I’m not desperate enough for that. I really have a hard time considering never turning a real page in a real book again. All NEW books are digital … no, can’t do that. Can’t go there.
As for building, LEGO fits the bill. I do have the Winter Toy Shop and Winter Village Post Office on there way, or on their way soon. That will complete my Christmas under the tree scene for this year, minus a train. I hope LEGO keeps up with this theme for quite awhile.
As for making something. That’s crafting something with paper, ink, etc.I’m trying to wrap my head around doing an art journal, making the actual journal first. I do have some parchment cardstock cut for such a thing with a few tab pages (I hand cut all that stuff.) I need to construct a cover, I have coils for my Bind-It-All that I can use. I have grunge paper, some chipboard covers, not necessarily the right size, but the grunge stuff is OK cause I’d cut it to size, it’s big.
I have to make those decisions and get it done. So the big one is, do I ink the edges of some of the pages, all of the pages, some of the sections, …. or not. I think I will. Then if I want that different, other things: ink, paint, paper will cover it as needed per page later.
That will be my 1st true art journal. For doodling, and way more than that. I want to really get my style down, get my artsy stuff out of my soul, but for that I need to get some extra things eventually. (I’ll have this when I’m in a crafty mood, or when I’m needing to craft and feeling stuck. Always something to be able to do, start a new page or work on an old one. Cool.)
Ah, I know what I need, vellum. Good thick vellum to go between pages. Darn, I’m out of that. Need to get to a store.
Writing things out makes them clearer, sometimes helps you decide a lot. Today, this sure has. 
I’m finally in my “new” craft/computer room!
It needs to have the drywall finished, then the kind of desk/counters/cabinets that I want on two sides, but for now I do have my red Bergsbo cabinet (IKEA) which wholes a whole lot of my stash for scrapbooking, plus I have an old glass desk I’m using for a computer space, it’s too big for in here to keep using it though. I need compact design, my room is small.
I have my old kitchen table for a scrapping table still. It sits behind the door, takes up 3/4 of the length of that wall, and the width hits in the molding area for the door. That will be exchanged for more compact cabinetry/counters etc. as well.
We moved the DSL connection to my space as well. It’s so much nicer now, no longer in the bedroom, taking up dresser space, cords all over the place! Now they are in the corner of my room, next to my desk, the devices sitting on a shelf we installed, plugged in below, all the cords at the end of the shelf out of the way (eventually they’ll all be managed better.)
I have a jack for DirecTV use in the future. I want to have my new desktop computer built sooner than later, and that will (I hope) have a decent large HD monitor which will double as TV, or have that PLUS a smaller monitor, or same or I don’t know what.
Really interesting to me would be a PS3 in here with the coming Sony PlayStation 23″ 3D HDTV that has that wonderful split screen game viewing feature (each 3D player sees a full screen with their 3D glasses) when looking at the monitor.
Actually I have really wanted a 3D capable monitor, just hadn’t always mentioned it when talking about what I want in my computer room. FWIW, the PS TV is super duper up my alley.
Anyhow, I have a lot of stuff to put away still. I got exausted after moving everything and wiring and stuff yesterday, then putting furniture in place today, putting some stuff away, I was toasted not too far past Noon.
I hope I can get everything else done tomorrow. If I can, then I have the June and July calendars to make for my kitchen scrapbook calendar (we’ve not had June thus far!) and then get presents and stuff ready for my baby’s 4th birthday. 
Every once in awhile I start listening to my podcasts I subscribe to. Actually just one program … Paperclipping Round Table, from http://www.paperclipping.com/roundtable/
I use Juice to keep them updated, but have actually been using Windows Media Player to play them, and in order for them to show up looking good I have to change the titles and the number for the file, artist, etc. Something uniform and nice looking (especially since this stuff scrobbles to Last.fm and I don’t mind that, just want it to look decent, be somewhat uniform with anyone else that also has that showing up there, which is the case. I hadn’t really paid attention to who else has listens to “paperclipping” but today I did and refit some of my future files to listen to.
I’m very far behind in listening to the weekly podcasts, so every so often I chunk out some. I’m now on #34 which is from August 31, 2010. I have all the ones from then on fixed up like “PRT 000: Title” with “Paperclipping” as artist and the weblink to the actual site for the podcast as the album.
Lots of that info is in the view of the podcasts in Juice, but not when I look at it in Windows Media Player. So I hand fix this junk in Windows 7 file properties (using the folders, at the bottom the info is editable if the file is highlighted in the folder.) I have to have the files in Juice still, going back and forth to get the information right. After I get them all done I move them from My Received Podcasts folder to another part of my drive so that they won’t clog up the Juice folder, and just get the newer ones there then, moving them out when I get to it (several at a time usually.) Because I didn’t do that in the beginning WMP doesn’t have any info about me having listened to most of them. (I guess I skipped some too, not sure exactly.) When I used them as this or that then changed the name then moved them … new files to WMP instead of updated. So now I fully edit the information then move them to the other folder manually and wait for WMP to get the information right in the files (takes some time usually) before listening to a particular file.
Maybe WMP does work with Juice better, but since I’m so behind, and I like to keep what I like until I delete something, I don’t want to give Juice ability to keep forever, just let me have them where I’ll use and re-use them if I so choose.
I have an account with http://cropchocolate.com … have since September 2010. I just placed my 5th order with them today. It’s a neat site. One deal at a time, when you are logged in, you can buy the thing or put it in your “la carte” for the future. Most items have a 45 day la carte ability. Some are special deals with quicker times attached to them.
Until recently US orders over $60.00 shipped free, but they made some changes on February 15, and now most orders under $60.00 are 7.99 to ship and over that amount are 4.99 to ship, with additional $ applied to oversize orders (12×12 albums, cutters, etc.)
I like getting things there because since it’s one-at-a-time I can add it to my la carte without full commitment, decide later whether to keep it there or not. There are also “swap” items available, you can swap something in your la carte for something in someone elses. There is a message board to aide with swaps (so you can list things you want, or see what someone else wants and what is available for swapping, often someone is willing to give up something to you for nothing, which is nice. I haven’t ever had to swap, but have gotten a handfuls of things given to me (not “given” just given to my la carte, then I have to purchase it later. Every ‘swap’ item has a time of days left in la carte, your la carte, or their la carte, when it’s swapped, the time stays with it. For instance, I wanted a certain pack of paper, had missed it when it was offered, so I looked in the swap threads and finally found someone with it listed as swappable for something, I PM’d them saying I’d love that pack of paper but didn’t have anything to swap, and they gladly sent the item to me. In a PM all I have to do is click ‘accept’ to have the item transferred to my la carte. Giving stuff to someone else is the same, create a PM to them and add the item easy click and select, then send. The person will either accept or reject the item. If they accept, it’s magically out of your la carte. You also can delete things from your la carte, but it’s nice to make them available to other people if you can.
I have stuff sitting around that I got from cropchocolate the last two times. I need to get it into my stash, but things are such a mess down there (in the basement area where my scrapbooking stuff is.) During the Winter that space is cold, and things get dumped there, children move stuff around, throw toys hither and everywhere, so my scrapspace is needing fixed up, their stuff picked up and moved out of there, etc. I’m not there during the Winter usually. Spring is early this year. It’s too warm in the house, very nice and cool down there. But the mess is too much for INTP me to want to deal with, and I have piles of stuff waiting to be introduced into my stash, and now more on the way soon.
I want to get things scrapbooked, actually complete PAGES, get PHOTOS printed and scrapped. I’ve done lots of things, just hardly any pages. I’m still hung up on what books to use, what format, ecelctic, chronological, theme, or what. I just don’t know. I do know I want to make baby books for my 4 children. I have had things for that, but 3 of them are matching albums from CM and I hate their pages now. I never did anything with the baby books. I want full 12×12, not the CM pages. Anyhow, I have 3 of them, but 4 children. Might as well just buy other albums or make them myself, individual for each.
My husband called Provo Craft at their activation number in Design Studio listed on the “activate by phone” page. For some reason, she helped him get it activated when previous calls didn’t, nor did any help she or others offered to get it to “activate by internet” work … always outcome of “Error Code 3:” which means it’s already activated by another computer in their server. No matter that they “said” they cleared it and it’ll work, it never did. Others said nothing they could do unless we called. When called a couple of time it was run-around like, and they couldn’t do anything.
It wasn’t that we tried every day. I tried via email and via website support form fill-out with follow-up emails several months. Multiple times I initiated a new round of “please help me” and after awhile I did have 3 different people respond via email that they had cleared it and I should be able to “activate via internet” though never could I.
So getting it done yesterday was only because I got on the bandwagon again to get it done. I suppose it could have been done via the phone eons ago, but it just is something that went against us, it just didn’t work out the times we tried. So it’s done now. I guess my laptop will die or need to be OS reinstalled or something, rendering me with the problem again. FWIW
I have yet to hook my laptop up to my Cricut Expression, but just knowing it SHOULD work is enough for now. I opened a few files in Design Studio, and also tagged most of my cartridges that I own as “My Cartridges”, that’s it.
I have bad Fall Allergies the last few years, and this year is the worst of them all. I expect next year to be worse. And the year after that. So anyhow, I just don’t feel like doing much. Taking Benadryl & Sudafed (classic, not PE) & Advil round the clock.
CKC-Charlotte is over. It was good, but something I’m not sure about repeating exactly.
I found the first class OK, wasn’t crowded. Daughter and I each had empty spots on the side, with us sitting next to each other. It was warm in the room, but not overly warm since it wasn’t a room full of people.
The next class was warmer, much fuller than the first class, double class-room too. Besides being warm I was feeling OK, which made it tolerable.
That was it for the day, except for doing some looking in the Vendor Faire (no buying until Saturday.)
On Saturday we got there just in time for our class, and had a hard time getting two seats together, like we needed. There were about 3 seats available, and three people, but no seats together. I had to make a class helper help me get people to move so we could sit down. I was about to just say forget it, get our kits and leave.
We got seated somehow anyways, to my detriment. I’d have loved to just “do the kit” myself. It was extremely hot in that filled-up to the brim class. The seats we had were towards the back a couple of rows forward. The women in the back were chatting constantly, the teacher of the class had no microphone. We couldn’t hear her very well. We could hear them too well.
Not too far into the class the teacher talked about Zip Dry glue, and anyone who had some got it out. That included me. I glued down the first page to the acrylic page and prompty put the glue away. It made me very, very sick. It’s very stinky, horrible. It was so hot in there already and it seemed there were more than a few using it behind me. Me quitting using it made little difference.
Anyhow, I was fighting a migraine coming in that morning, and with everything from stress to heat to stinky glue, noise, stress … I got very ill and fought just standing up and leaving. Instead I muddled through the project and messed a few things up but not too many (paper cut too small or something like that, glue on edges of paper instead of center) and just plain didn’t do certain parts of the project for each page.
First off there was less room than there should have been. The people on either side of my daughter were disgruntled to some degree and didn’t move their stuff into their own space, so I was fighting a migraine, suddenly very sick feeling migraine, and fighting for space to just plain open my ruler on my cricut personal cutter so I could cut the right size. I couldn’t keep direction on top of the pile, I had to root around for everything, plus help my daughter know what to do, cut things, etc.
All in all it was a nightmare, and it was the class I was so looking forward to.
I liked the project still, still do, and would love to do more Button Farm projects. I didn’t really need to be there to do anything. I didn’t learn anything, it was simply “follow directions” and I’d have done better sitting at home with the kit for sure.
If I hadn’t been sick then I’d have enjoyed the class more. If we’d gotten there earlier (we tried!) then we’d have been set up closer to the front maybe. But all in all Zip Dry Glue is not my friend. Who’s friend is it? You need great ventilation in the room when using it. How about 20 people using it at the same time, probably more people than that???
It was enough to have made me sick probably. With or Without Migraine help. I’m sensitive to chemicals. I just didn’t think ahead at how bad it would be with multiple bottles of that stuff in use in a stuffy room.
We went to the Vendor Faire after that Saturday class. I felt miserable and never felt better until much later, after we were gone from there. I bought some things, nothing small. I wanted some things I could do stuff with, ended up with a 7Gypsies 4×6 printer tray in black. Vinyl 12×24 sheets in several colors, a pack of 12×24 different colors of cardstock. A Cricut Cartridge, Robotz. A Pioneer 12×12 album (Warren Kimble flag graphic design). 2 Clear Stamp sets from Tattered Angels.
The cardstock and vinyl were from cardstockonline.net … and I wanted to get a bunch more paper in 12×12 size, but with my headache I couldn’t figure out what to do, what it all meant, whereas it was simple to get the pack of 12×24 paper, special size, special price. The vinyl was priced per piece, easy peasy.
So I came home with good things, but nothing good to work with outright. I mean, no small (ha ha! 12×12) paper to cut up or use for anything. I wanted some good white paper. A lot of it. Other colors. Patterned paper. Just so much you can do with a Migraine sometimes.
I guess I need to find another Vendor Faire somewhere else to make-up for my pathetic buying at CKC-Charlotte.
Also I guess I’d like to get some kits from The Button Farm … but her website is terrible. I wasn’t into shelling out $52 for a bigger Recipe Album kit, or other things … I mean I had only so much and I wanted to get product to use, not just one project, though maybe I should have … she had a cute “cat” mini book, also a gorgeous “Christmas” book. Printer Trays with paper and embellishment kits. But I got a plain tray and that’s that. No special paper, just the special sized paper to use with my Cricut from cardstockonline.net. (Their site is merged with Couture Cardstock & I find it just as not what I want to shop as my trouble was at the Vendor Faire with a migraine…)
We are in Charlotte for CKC now. Left mid-morning and arrived early afternoon. We are staying a few miles from the convention in order to have the services of the hotel of choice that we like.
I have everything we need for the classes we are going to. We found the extra brown inks we needed at Archiver’s, in the Inkadinkado line (newer inks recently on the market, apparently.)
We have two classes tomorrow, and one on Saturday. Looking forward to it all, though a bit anxious about it since I’ve never been to an event like this, never has my daughter who is attending with me. I’ve been to other things, but not to anything large scale like this in years. Never to a “craft” oriented event, in other words. Major part of that all is my Introvert status. I’m iffy when getting into unfamiliar territory, even if I WANT to be there. FWIW
List is things I need thus far:
I have found most of the things I need to bring in August to CKC. Ink is troublesome so far. I did buy some ink, but don’t know if it’s right or good enough for the event. I mean, most things are just “pigment” inks at Michael’s, and the one’s that are the Dye I’m looking for aren’t in Brown of any kind.
The thing about it is for sure, it has to be quick drying to use in a class that’s an hour long. Right? Right. Pigment won’t be right then.
I did buy a big (EK Success) Inkadinkado Black Ink dye ink pad … I just tested it, OK crisp really black lovely fast fast fast drying.
I also bought a giant (Ranger) Archival Ink Sepia ink pad … it’s brown, of some kind, so I need to find a darker one, anyhow, it dries very fast on regular types of paper. OK but it’s not dark nor is it light, it’s really in-between, and I guess it could stand in as light brown if it must, but not dark … no way.
This list is things I need thus far:
I got some of the above on Amazon.com. I looked for “brown” and “black” ink but I couldn’t find the right things. I have also looked in a Michaels (one I don’t usually go to, still need to go to the 2 I usually go to) and couldn’t find any. I mean regular ink, dye ink. Not expensive, just regular, easy to clean up and fast dry. You’d thing it would be easy enough. No. It’s too complicated to figure out which ink this or that in a store. Most end up being waterproof (not really regular dye then) or Pigment ink. Anyhow, I’ll just forget all that and get anything solvent and make sure to have plenty of wetwipes and stamp cleaner with me. But it’ll come down to this: still needing different shades of brown, light and dark, will be troublesome. I don’t have “BLACK” in the list above. Don’t know why, as I need that too. All my stamp stuff is either old or pigment.
The portable trimmer I have decided on is a Cricut product, $9.99 at Michaels. It’ll go nice with my Cricut/Gypsy stuff. I can get the glue dots at Michaels too. The roll of foam tape there also, or Target, I think.
I also want to get refills for my Xyron 3/8″ tape runner.
My Crop-A-Dial arrived yesterday via UPS. I love it. I wanted to use it right away to set some eyelets, and my eyelets are all missing. I don’t know where they are. I have gone nuts a few times looking for them, feverishly even. Anyhow it punched holes really well. Love that.
