Nailing It the First Time

I had noticed recently that my nails have become quite dry.  I also noticed that I've developed lots of vertical ridges.  Ugh!  I'd heard once that ridges on your fingernails can indicate certain health problems.  Of course, being the hypochondriac that I am, I had to do a little research to check it out and discovered that, generally speaking, vertical ridges are pretty common and quite a typical development as we age.  Don't you just LOVE all the benefits of aging?  It's when you start noticing horizontal ridges on your fingernails that you might want to point them out to your doctor.

I also did a little poking around to see what products might be out there to help with nail conditioning.  I settled on two different products.  The first was from Bert's Bees, a long-time favorite brand of mine.  It's Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream.  I rub it into and around my nails each morning.  It's quite light and absorbs quickly into the area.  The second product is Solar Oil from Creative Nail Design.  That's a little heavier duty so I apply that to the base of each nail at bedtime and then rub it on each nail and around the nail area and then work any excess down on my hands.  It's part of my nighttime routine at the sink, after brushing my teeth and cleaning my face.  By the time I go upstairs to crawl into bed, it's pretty much absorbed into the skin.

Boy, have these products made a difference.  My nails no longer are dry-looking at all.  Any hangnails I used to develop are no longer in evidence, either.  Too bad it can't take care of misshapen, arthritic fingers but, hey....you can't have everything, eh?

On a fun note, several years ago Avon used to sell peel-off fingernail polish.  I loved the stuff.  I'm hopeless when it comes to applying fingernail polish out of a bottle.  Sadly, Avon discontinued selling it so I was back to muddling along with bottled polish.  But lately I discovered that peel-off polish is making a comeback.

These are some nails from Sally Hansen.  You get a variety of sizes for each hand and you also get an instruction sheet, fingernail file and little wooden stick to use on your cuticles and to use when applying the nail polish.  It's basically peel and stick on.  You remove them with simple nail polish remover.  When I was at the drugstore the other day, I saw all kinds of fun designs.  I have another set with flowers and little rhinestones just waiting for another week.  Whee!

Enjoy!

So What's a Pandora Bracelet?

After my Friday post, several of you asked what a "Pandora" bracelet was.  So I thought I'd do a blog post about my bracelet to show you.  It's so much easier to explain something with pictures.  Pandora is a company that makes jewelry.  I first heard about their bracelets from a knitter who raved about how nice they were for knitters because the beads didn't catch on your knitting as you worked on your handicrafts.

There are different styles of bracelets but the one I like is the one that has a braided thread on the ends.  The beads are also threaded on the inside and to get each one onto the bracelet, you have to twist them onto the threading until they slide over that part and onto the flexible chain.  That way, they don't fall off the end when it is unclasped.

There are many different "beads"  or "charms" that you can buy.  The idea is that you can gradually add to your collection, like you do with a charm bracelet and fill up the bracelet over time.  I like to choose beads that represent different things in my life.  The beads above represent my faith, my sister-in-law, Rose, and my love of knitting (a ball of yarn with needles in it).

The little girl bead represents my daughter, I think my hubby gave me the heart bead for one Valentine's Day, and the little bird represents my enjoyment of using Twitter.

The suitcase represents all the traveling we've done in the military and just in general, our love of traveling.  The cat reminds me of our four cats that graced our home until they crossed that "Rainbow Bridge."

The sweater stands for the sweaters and other garments that I like to knit and the ribbon stands for being a breast cancer survivor.  The bead to the left is a "spacer" bead.  These beads can be placed at different points in your bracelet and then keep your other beads in "sections" around your bracelet until you have enough beads that they don't slide around.

Besides silver beads, you can buy gold beads or a combination of silver beads with gold trim.  They also sell colorful blown glass beads that go on these bracelets.  At one point I had a bunch of the glass beads on my bracelet but they were just too bulky for me so I took them off.

Here's a link to a shop that sells Pandora beads and charms.  It will give you a good idea of the many different beads available and how you can use them to design unique bracelets.

There you have it!  That's what a Pandora bracelet is.

Learning a New Language

I am trying to learn some Bahasa Indonesia in preparation for visiting our son and family.  "Trying" is the operative word.  My goodness, I used to be quite good at learning languages but this one has me flummoxed.  I learned Spanish in high school.  Became fairly fluent in German while stationed in Germany.  Actually became pretty fluent in French while we lived in Morocco.  But I've never attempted a language like this one.

Perhaps it's the fact that the other languages I've tackled all had some words in them that were similar to English words.  After all, many of our words have their roots in the Romance languages and certainly in German.  The vocabulary wasn't coming at me totally out of the blue, so to speak.  When in doubt, I could sometimes guess based on visual clues or oral clues.  However, when it comes to Bahasa Indonesia, there isn't anything in it that is remotely familiar.

I have, however, found a wonderful resource for studying the language.  Learning Indonesian is a website that has online lessons that you can listen to on your computer or download and listen to in the form of podcasts.  The lessons are short and they aren't overwhelming.

The website is also linked to another website called "Quizlet" which lets you print up flash cards for each lesson.  You don't have to prepare these flash cards yourself.  The folks at Learning Indonesian have already done the work for you.  How great is that?  I've explored around the Quizlet site a bit and it is a great resource for many different fields of study.  For example, I just took a quick quiz on state capitals (failed miserably).  No matter what you are studying, this website has flash card sets that will help you.  

I've got awhile before I plan to head over to Jakarta so I'm hoping that I'll have a few words learned by then. In the meantime, Sampai Nanti!

Creating Avatars with Storybook Creator

I promised you yesterday that I'd be posting how to make your own customized avatars.  I'm sure that you can do these with just about most any photo editing program but I happen to use a Creative Memories scrapbooking program called Storybook Creator to do most of my avatar creating.  I've put up a mosaic of some recent avatars that I created to give you an idea of some of the things you can do.


Here's what I do.

1.  Go to Storybook Creator and click on "Create a New Project."

2.  In the window that pops up, scroll down and choose on the left-hand side the words "Custom Size" under Local Printer.

3.  It will then ask you to select a template.  Your only choice will be one that is called "Blank."  Choose that one and click the "Next" button.


4.  A small window will pop up labeled Custom Page Size.  "Units" should be defaulted to "inches."  Under that, I want you to enter "3" for width and "3" for height.  Leave everything else just the way it was when the window popped up.  Click on "OK."

5.  At the next pop-up window, you can add photos but I usually just do it when I'm actually working on my project so I click on the "Next" button.


6.  The next pop-up window is going to ask you to name your project.  Go ahead and name it whatever you want and then click on the "Create" button.  Oh, yes.  This window will also show you where it is going to save this project.  Usually this is wherever you usually save the scrapbooking projects that you create but you don't really have to worry about it because you are going to be doing a different type of "save" later and you can choose where you want the avatar at that point.


7.  Now you are in your work screen.  I'm assuming at this point that you are familiar with working with Storybook Creator.  If not, there are excellent tutorials on the Creative Memories website .  Incidentally, the basic Storybook Creator software is available as a free download and if you go to the above website, you can find the link to the download.  Anyway, back to what I was saying.  In the work screen, you can now access all of your digital scrapbooking packages that you have loaded into Storybook Creator, including all the papers and embellishments.  For example, if you look at the top row of the pictures above, at the one that says "Booklassie", that one was created solely with digital elements that I had loaded into Storybook Creator.  I simply chose a paper background, added some embellishments, inserted some text boxes and that was it.  If you want to use any photographs, just click on the Photos tab on the right side of the work area and then click on the "Get Photos" option.  Then once you've imported photos over to Storybook Creator, you can place them into your avatar project as you wish, adding text boxes if you desire (and there are quite a few examples of that in the avatars displayed above).

8.  When you have your avatar finished, click on the "Home" tab at the top of your screen and then click on the "Save" icon and click on "save" again in the drop down menu.  This will save your avatar to your regular spot where your scrapbook projects are saved.   I like to do this so that I can go back at any time and open it back up to rework it in Storybook Creator if I want to.  But you aren't done yet.  You still need to save it as a .jpg file.  So now click once more on the "Save" icon and now click on "save pages as" from the drop down menu.  A window will pop up and here is where you will be choosing what folder you want to save this .jpg file into.  Also be sure that the "file type" says JPG File.  Resolution should have defaulted to 300 dpi for "best quality" with a page size of 3 x 3 inches.  It also should show that you are saving 1 page and the quality should be set on "Best."   Once you've got this set, click on "Save."


9.  At this point, you can close Storybook Creator.  Now you are going to be resizing your project down to an avatar size with the help of this handy website.  Go here and right at the center of your screen you will see the words "Upload a picture from your computer."  Click on the Browse button and go to the folder where your avatar project is located.  Select your avatar image (I do this in Vista by clicking on it and telling it to "open.") and then you should see the link show up in the little box.  Now click on Upload.  Your picture should show up in a new window.


 10.  Scroll down slightly and you'll see some choices of sizes.  Pick the size that you want your avatar to be.  Most web forums seem to prefer avatars that are 100 x 100.  Now click on an area of your picture and drag your mouse to highlight the area that you want to be the avatar.  Since you have already created the entire image to be an avatar and it's in a square shape, you should be able to just click on the top left corner and drag your mouse down to the bottom right corner and get pretty much the entire image selected.  Now scroll down and just below where you picked the avatar size, you see the word "Save."  Click on Save.

11.  Your avatar has now been created and is shown in the small avatar size.  At this point, click on the words "Open in new window"  which are right under your avatar.  In the new window, right-click on the image and choose "Save image as" and then choose where you want to save your newly created avatar on your computer.


That's it.  You've got an avatar that you can upload wherever you want to use an avatar.  Have fun creating your own unique images!

Project 365 - May 29, 2010  (Day 2)

Describing yarn that I'm listing for sale on Ravelry.  Can't decide if I'm going to use the proceeds toward another spinning wheel or an iPad.

Working with Commercial Digital Kits in Storybook Creator Plus

As much as I like Creative Memories products, their digital offerings haven't always been as appealing to me as I would like, although I must say that they are getting much better.  Therefore, when I recently  discovered that I could purchase digital scrapbooking kits from commercial designers and then load them into my Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus 3.0 software, I was delighted.

Most of the time, I have not encountered any problems.  I HAVE discovered one little fly in the ointment, though, that I finally figured out how to work around.  Now let me just say right up front that I'm not a Creative Memories consultant.  I'm just a long time user of Creative Memories products.  Nor am I particularly computer savvy.  I use the computer a lot but the Commander (a techno-wiz) has spoiled me rotten. If I have a computer problem, I just have to bat my baby blues at him and he comes right to my rescue.  This can be a good thing and a bad thing; good in that I never get into computer glitches (except for the occasional hardware failure) that the Commander can't get me out of and bad in that I get lazy and don't make myself learn how to do these things for myself.

Anyway, the occasional annoyance that I've found with adding commercial digital kits to Storybook Creator is that sometimes designers group elements together into one "page", instead of making them individual elements.  For example, in the photo above, this designer put the entire alphabet set into one .png.  Now maybe there is an easy way to get each letter apart and saved individually but I haven't figured it out.  So here is the work-around solution that I came up with.

I first create a new project in Storybook Creator and make it a blank 12 x 12 page.  Then I open up the designer package that I want to work with.  Looking at the right side of the SC screen, I click on "Embellishments" and scroll down until I find the set of embellishments that I want to separate.  In this case it was an alphabet set.  I dragged that set over to my blank page.

Now at this point, you have several options, depending on the actual graphic.   For quite a few alphabet sets, sets of brads, sets of frames, etc., I was able to follow the procedure below:

1.  "Select" the whole set of elements on your blank page.

2.  Click on "Cut and Fill" on the Home Ribbon.  Then click on "Wand."

3.  Click with the Magic Wand on an individual element within the set of elements on your page (adjusting the color sensitivity and intensity sensitivity of the Magic Wand, as needed). 

4.  Once the moving dots have selected it to your satisfaction, then click on "Copy the selected Area."  You should see that particular individual element now pop up in your Elements panel on the left of your screen.

5.  Now click anywhere on your working page where you haven't already been working to "select" all of the elements again, and repeat steps #2 through 4.  Do this step each time that you've finished copying an element until you have made a copy of each element individually.

6.  Now you need to go to your Elements ribbon at the left of the screen.  Click on the right of one of the elements you just copied.  You'll see a drop-down arrow.  Click on that arrow and then choose "Save as Content."

7.   In the photo above, it shows the window that will pop up.  You want to choose what package you want to save that element in.  In my Content Manager, I've created a folder called Blog Packages and in that I've created individual User Content Packages for each commercial digital kit that I've purchased.  So when I want to save elements I've created from a set of elements from one of these kits, I "save" each one to the designer's content package that the set originally came from.  I choose "embellishment" as the "type".  Then I type in a name for the element I'm saving (it can be any name you want, such as "UpperA") and click on Save.  I don't mess around with any other settings on that window, such as size or pixels.  It automatically defaults to save it as a .png file, which is what I want.  Repeat this step for each element you've copied.

8.  Once you've finished saving all of your copied elements into your content package of choice, I go back to my Element Ribbon once more and click on the right of each element once more and this time I choose "delete."  I do this for each one until I end up with a blank page, ready for me to work with the next set of graphics that I want to separate.  It's tedious, but it works  and once you've done this, you don't have to repeat it again because these elements are now saved permanently as individual embellishments in your designer kit within Storybook Creator.

Now suppose you have a set of graphics that you just can't get the Magic Wand to select properly?  In the case of the alphabet set at the left, I just couldn't get the wand to give me a good copy of the whole element.  So I ended up following the same procedures I outlined above EXCEPT that I used the Shape feature in the "Cut and Fill" section of my Home Ribbon.

I looked through the "Geometric" shapes and found "Ellipse."  I choose this and then manipulated it until it was the same size and shape as the individual oval within the set that I wanted to save.  Then I just placed my shaded ellipse over the element and followed steps 4-8 above.  The only difference is that as I'm ready to go on to the next letter, for example, I "select" the entire page and then click on "Shapes" and the oval shape that I already worked on to get to just the right size will show up on my page and then I just have to move it over the next letter or number that I want to copy.  There is no need to resize the Ellipse each time.

You can see my newly saved individual elements are now showing up in the Embellishments Panel on the "Content" side of my screen.

There you have it.....my technique to make individual elements out of those pesky grouped graphics.  There might be an easier way out there but this one works for me and it certainly makes time fly.  Plus I can guarantee you that you will become much more comfortable working with Storybook Creator Plus as you do all of this.  Good luck!

In Defense of the Christmas Newsletter

Well, I'm done with the annual Christmas newsletter. The cards have all been addressed and stuffed and are in the mail. That's always a chore that I'm happy to see to completion because the whole shebang has a tendency to take over our dining room table and my free time until it's done.

I used to try to write a handwritten note in each card in addition to including our newsletter but have finally decided, in the interest of expediency and my sanity, that the newsletter is enough. My mother would groan at this since she always insisted that you had to write "the note" but I'm breaking free from that expectation. "I'm not writing the note, Ma!"

Speaking of my mom, it was always a BIG production at our house when I was growing up as my mother would try to get the Christmas cards out on time. Inevitably, they'd make it into the mail by Easter. It's because she had to write in every card, you see. First Mom would agonize over writing her newsletter. She wanted to make sure that no one was left out in the mentions no matter how insignificant a part they had played in our year. Then she'd want to make sure that her grammar was "spot-on." Once I could type, she'd keep me busy for weeks typing up the rewrites. When the time finally came to address the cards, we'd all gather at the dining room table and form an assembly line. Whoever had the neatest handwriting would address the envelopes. Mom would reread her notes and then pass the card to the newsletter folder and stuffer . That person would neatly fold the newsletter and place it inside the card. It was then passed on to the envelope addresser who put the card into the envelope, licked the back flap and sealed it. Finally it was handed to the stamp licker who licked the stamp and placed it neatly in the upper right-hand corner and then gave it a good pop with their fist. No one wanted to be the lickers but since there were only four of us, two always got stuck with those tasks and usually ended up green around the gills because Mom typically sent out 200 - 300 cards every year. God bless the Post Office for inventing peel-off stamps.
Despite my early memories of the family newsletter, I've been sending out my own Christmas newsletters ever since I left home. I like doing them and it has become fun for me to see how I can come up with different and creative ways to get out the news to family and friends. This year, in addition to our newsletter, I made up two photo collages using my Storybook Creator photo editing software and sent them off with the cards. I think it's always fun to see how other folks have changed over the year.....to see how their kids have grown up. I don't care whether the photos are xeroxed onto a newsletter or actual photos. I just enjoy them either way.

I know that there are people who deplore getting Christmas newsletters. Let me just say that I am not one of them. I love opening up a Christmas card and seeing a newsletter tucked inside full of all sorts of events that have taken place in folks' lives over the past year. For many, that's the only contact I have with you each year, simply because you've moved out of the area or live too far away to visit and your lives are too busy to write or call on a regular basis. This is my chance to stay connected with you. It is so disappointing to open a card from a friend or relative who lives far away and only see a signature. I'd almost rather not get a card at all.

So I'm begging you all.....do that Christmas letter this year. It doesn't have to be handwritten. Typed up on the computer and printed off and copied is fine. The important thing is that it contains news of what you've been up to. And if you want to email it to people instead of mailing it, that's fine, too. Either way, you're moving beyond the cursory and sharing a part of yourself this Christmas season. And if your letters are late and don't make it out until Easter? Hey, you'll just be increasing my joy this Easter season.

Making Scents of It All

In my typical OCD way of doing things, I have discovered the joys of collecting and trying out new scents. It's almost as much fun as collecting beautiful yarns from new Indie dyers. Almost, but not quite. Believe it or not, there are Indie perfumers out there as well.....folks who have forged their own path of sniffiedom. Not merely content to join the ranks of Bath and Body devotees or willing to lay down the big bucks for watered down smells from big name fragrance companies, these folks have put their noses on the line (so to speak) and come out with their own fragrances, usually in the form of body oils and sometimes, soaps.

Going up on their websites and reading the descriptions of their different perfumes is infinitely entertaining. YOU try to figure out what the smell of a "newly-opened grave" smells like. I'm not sure if I want to know, quite frankly. "Freshly-baked apple pie" is more my style or "sun-warmed peaches on a summer's day." Those are pretty tame. But some of these talented and imaginative folks have come up with scents that mimic types of wood, leather, tobacco, smoke, breezes, laundry (both fresh and dirty), every flower imaginable, spices galore, and the list goes on.

It's a hoot to read the descriptions of these scents. It's even more fun to read the names that the scent designers label their scents. Here are some of the names of the scents I have purchased lately: Brain Bleach, Gingerbread Crackhouse, Eye of the Moon, Over the Rhine, Stingy Jack, etc. Those are some of the tamer ones. Some are funny, some are purely descriptive, like "Pumpkin Pie", and some are downright wierd. But they are all names for scents that you have to smell to believe. And here's the challenging part ---- a scent will smell different on individual people because we all have different body chemistry. And there is one smell when you first apply it wet, another as it dries on you, and then a lingering smell after the initial dry-down. There is also a "throw", which means (I think) how far folks can smell you coming when you have it on. If you're wearing something that smells like a smoking, newly-opened grave, you might not want to "throw" too far.

Since you aren't sure how a particular smell will smell on you, it's wise to buy different scents in a sample size, which most of the vendors are happy to sell you. These little vials have a surprising amount of perfume oil. It doesn't take much of it for you to figure out if the scent is going to work for you or not. Since there are so many to choose from, you need to come up with a storage system. Thanks to other bloggers and scents forums, I discovered that a handy holder is a plain old cartridge case that you can pick up at any outdoor sports shop. They are perfect for the sample sizes you order.

Once you start acquiring a fair amount of samples and actual bottles of perfume oil, then you need a way to keep track of what you have, what scents you like, and why. I made up a simple little chart where I can plug in perfumes sorted by vendor/designer. I list the scents that each perfume consists of, how much I have of it, and whether or not I liked it. Over time, I hope to see a pattern emerge that will help me identify the types of scents that I know won't do well on me. I already know that I don't do well with certain scents like roses, gardenias, and some exotic spices. They tend to give me a headache or a stuffy nose. But put me near certain foodie smells like apple pie, caramel, butterscotch, coffee and I'm in heaven!

Once you get hooked on discovering new scents, you will find that there are all sorts of products and collections to hold your interest. There are chapsticks, solid stick perfumes, whipped body butters, sugar scrubs, body washes, and soaps. There are limited edition collections that come out throughout the year. There are seasonal collections that appear like the wonderful autumn scents that are out right now. I can decide if I want to smell like a cappuccino, a buttercream frosted caramel cake, or a spiced apple cider. I could have smelled like a floozy but I didn't like how that one smelled so I traded it off to someone else. If you want to discuss scents with others who are equally obsessed, there are forums at most of the "sniffie" vendors I've listed on this blog.

So, my friends, if you're brave enough to try something a little out of the ordinary, click on any of the Sniffie links I've put on the blog over on the right and order some samples. Dare to march to the drumbeat of a different perfumer! Gotta go now and eat supper. Mystery book club meeting tonight. I'm off to wash my hands with some Krakatoa soap and then it's time to chow down.