I didn’t scrap a thing over the weekend but I did finally update my desktop. I decided after much thought about how to keep track of deadlines and important dates each month that the place that I’d see the reminders most often is this screen. I also figure I’m in photoshop enough that it’s not too hard to change it if something comes up mid-month. For the most part though it’s for the type of dates that I’ll know before the month even begins and the same with the major to-do’s or deadlines. Plus it’s always fun to have something inspiring every time I boot up the computer. So here’s the October one…

And you may notice I have a class listed at DeBoer Cafe on the 28th. I’ll be sending out emails to a few people who stopped by our booth at the craft show with more information but I thought it would be fun to do a calendar class for the first one. It’s a great introduction into digital scrapbooking with all the calendar templates available that make it so much easier and the timing should be perfect to give people almost 2 months to complete the calendars to give as gifts for Christmas. SO, if you’re in the area and interested in the class let me know and I’ll get you more information. AND, if you’re reading this and you have one of those great calendar templates I’d LOVE to compile a little list of links for people to go to during or after the class to purchase the calendar kit of their choice. I hope to create some basic calendar grids to have available free to the class but I’d like to offer as many options as I can. I have a few in mind already but I know there are lots more out there so feel free to post any links in the comments here or email me. :)

Kay, gotta do some sewing again tonight. Picked up some corduroy fabric on sale today and I’m dying to try it as lining for some new bags. I’ve also been working on some crocheted flowers – back a little later with some pics – but those will be showing up on some of the new designs as well. Keep an eye on the boutique site for some new bags tonight or tomorrow. :)

Personally I don’t think my music taste is wierd at all but I know others have said so. Mainly I just have a very eclectic taste for music. I enjoy listening to just about any type of music. With the exception I guess of classical and most rap. Other than that I can appreciate all sorts. I’ve been to concerts that range from Yanni to Fuel with some Reba McEntire, NSync, Sarah McLachlan, BonJovi, Josh Groban, John Mayer and many others thrown in. I would hate to be limited to just one style of music. So not only did I have to include an image for this post (see wierdness #1) but I also thought it would be fun to add some audio back up so if you click on my blog-pod on the right (over there —->) you’ll hear just a sampling of my musical wierdness. Enjoy! :)

I CAN NOT iron without steam. I had gotten a new iron when I started sewing (because sewing is almost more about getting everything ironed perfectly than it is about sewing the seams) and the iron I bought had a faulty steam trigger. It would get stuck and you’d have to push it and push it (or at least that was my way of fixing it) until it got unstuck. It was the most frustrating thing for me because I can’t live without that steam button. Just having the iron on a steam setting is not good enough. Oh no. I have to push the button. The beauty of the iron I replaced the piece of junk one with is that it has this ‘extended steam burst’ setting. You don’t know how excited I was to try that out. I mean I was ridiculously excited to have this feature in an iron. I burn my fingers constantly with the steam but I won’t give it up. I just can’t. I love love love a tightly pressed seam. Included in this little wierdism is the need to iron even my jeans. I don’t iron my pajamas or underwear so the level of wierdness stops at jeans. But hey, at least I acknowledge this as a wierdness, right?

And, I’m using this post for wierdness #2 which will also explain why I will be splitting up my wierdness list into separate posts. I really really don’t like posting on my blog without some sort of picture or image to include with the post. I do not know how to even explain why. I just can’t. You will RARELY see a post on my blog without a photo or LO in it. Which also probably explains why I sometimes go days without posting here. I may have plenty to say but if I don’t have a picture to go with it I’ll wait until I have SOMETHING visual to include. Crazy I know. Again, I’m acknowledging the wierdness of it by including it in this list. SO, I’ll need to find some sort of images to illustrate my remaining three wierdisms. Which by the way I prefer to think of as ‘quirks’ rather than wierdnesses. ;)

Kay, so please tell me I’m not the only one who can’t live without the steam button on their iron and can’t post to their blog without images. Come on, there must be a few other ‘quirky’ people out there like me.

yup, I do. :) Took 3 days of limited time on the computer but I did it. I created a page just for fun. :) You can find all the credit info here.

I am LOVING my new organizational system. I even figured out a way to use it to keep track of what I’ve used in the LOs I’m working on for a credits list. That’s always such a struggle for me. I think I spend just as much time after the LO figuring out where I got everything from as I do creating the LO itself. Not anymore. :) For anyone interested, this is the system I’ve come up with that seems to be working well for me.

I added a top level category for scrapbook pages. Eventually I plan to have sub-categories for my different albums: the neats, AAM, travel, etc. to keep all my full-size printable LOs in and then also a sub-category called web-files to tag the web-size versions of the LOs as well. But for now I added two categories/tags in that section for ‘in progress’ LOs. For me 2 tags should be enough because I typically try to finish a page before moving on to the next and rarely if ever have I had more than 2 pages in an unfinished state at the same time. So as I drag items over into Photoshop to use in a LO I tag it with the ‘in progress 1′ tag. Then when I’m finished with the LO I just click on that ‘in progress 1′ category and I can see all of the items that I used on the page. If I can’t get the credit info from just the file name I’ve found that if you right click on an image there’s an option to ‘go to file’ where it takes you to the folder that it’s from and then I have the designer info, kit, etc all right there. Voila! :) Gotta love it. HUGE time-saver for me. Plus I know I used items on this LO that I never would’ve came across in my old organization system. I LOVE mixing elements from all different designers so for me this is heaven. If you haven’t tried this software yet you really should. There’s a 30 day free trial and I think there’s actually a discount in the trial to buy it for $35 instead of the regular $39. SOOO worth every penny from what i can tell already in the 5 or 6 days I’ve been using it. :)

OH, in other happy news. I got my hair cut and colored yesterday and I love it! I was trying to grow the top layers and the bangs out like Sandra Bullocks hair in the Lake House. Remember this post? Well, I am NOT cut out for having long bangs OR long layers on top. Just looks lifeless and boring on me. I think my hair is too fine, or too thin, or something like that. So I had Kelly cut me some short piecey bangs (like what I had in this post) and shorter layers through the top (also like in that photo) but the overall length is still getting longer and I can STILL pull it up in pig-tails if I want to. Which I kinda like to do lately. Makes me feel younger and more creative. Crazy huh? LOL Anyway, no pictures to show of the new do but I’m sure I’ll get plenty next weekend in Chicago. :)

Kay, I’ve been trying to catch up on emails before getting to work this morning. Still having major issues with my hotmail so if anyone has emailed in the past couple of weeks and not heard back from me please email again. I’m considering changing my main email to my charter address but I think I’m more limited there on the size of files I can receive. I have the upgraded hotmail account so it’s so frustrating that I can’t seem to use it without having to manually check that junkmail folder every day for fear of missing something important. And if you know me at all you know my memory is not one of my strong points so missing a day or two happens far too often, especially with more limited time on the computer lately.

And, I’ve been tagged twice to post 5 wierd things about me so I promise to post again (hopefully later today) with my answers. Thinking about actually splitting it into 5 separate posts thinking that might get me blogging more often and my wierdisms are probably worthy of a post each. ;)

Happy Friday to ya!