Diary of our trip to New York...

Day 1

• Leave the house at 4:30 a.m. and head to the airport
• Arrive in New York and get settled into our hotel
  
• Walk around times square to get the lay of the land.
• Dinner at Connolly's Pub. Called Lacey and said "Hi honey, I am in New York City drinking a Harp's beer in an Irish Pub!" She got a kick out of that since we have both been to New York and Ireland together.
  

Day 2

• Breakfast at the deli next door to the hotel
  
• Ground zero, Wall Street, Battery Park, Bowling Green, Washington Monument, Trinity Church, St Paul's Church
• Drinks at Delmonico's
• Dinner at Indian Taj in Greenwich Village
• After dinner drinks at the Comedy Cellar

Day 3

• Breakfast at Connolly's pub
  
• We planned to go to Central Park and the Met. But our day was totally diverted when we ended up with passes to The Martha Stewart Show. The show included Lynn Redgrave (simple supper), gardening expert Barbara Damrosch (vegetable cold frame) Anne Kreamer, (going gray)
  
• The bus got totally gridlocked in the Halloween traffic so we hopped off and experienced the subway so we could get back in time for our play
• Appetizers and drinks at Connolly's Pub. (ok...we really like this pub!!!)
  
• See Wicked at The Gershwin Theater

Day 4

• Two hour Circle Line boat cruise
• Breakfast was a hot dog at the pier
  
• Walked from the pier to Macy's and shopped in and around Macy's
• Walked back to Times Square stopping at Connolly's Pub...again...
• Dinner at Keen's

Day 5

• Up at 5:00 am for The Today Show
• Breakfast at this little grill across the street from Rockefeller Square
  
• The cab picks us up at 9:30 am to catch our plane for Syracuse
• Check into our hotel at Syracuse and take a walk around the campus
• Meet up with Kris and have dinner at the Hotel

Day 6

• Breakfast at Cosmos
• Shopping and Imax movie at Armory Square
• Take the bus to the Carrousel Mall for a little shopping and dinner
• Back at the hotel we rent the movie "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry"
  

Day 7

• Breakfast at Cosmos...again...
  
• After meeting Kris' parents we go back to our room to rest before the basketball game
• Rent the movie "No Reservations" while we are resting
  
• We go to the Syracuse University first Exhibition Basketball. Kris plays great and they win 80 to 71
• After the game we have a cocktail at the hotel bar
• Dinner at Ricos Restaurant

Day 8

• Up at 3:30 a.m. (did I mention that was a.m.???)
• Breakfast at the Airport
  
• We head back to California

Let's talk font organizing...

Many digi scrappers are total font freaks. I mean how many fonts does one need? Well frankly we need ALOT. And since we need a lot of fonts we need a way to organize them. For the last few years I used a free program called The Font Thing. It was a great program with a great price. But unfortunately the program hasn't been updated and it does not recognize the new Open Type of fonts. I embarked on a search to find a current program that would replace The Font Thing and I came upon Main Type by High-Logic. At first I was dismayed by the $49 cost. But in thinking it over, I realized that I spend many, many hours in my digi scrapping hobby and $49 is just a drop in the bucket in the total scheme of things. (Think $$$ for Photoshop, Actions, Kits, Classes, etc.) So I decided to purchase it and spent the whole weekend organizing my fonts. Taking Stacey's Typography class over at Digital Scrapbooking Artisian Guild certainly helped me get in the mindset of how to organize my fonts to enhance my titles and journaling of my layouts. I was in total shock as to how many "groups" I ended up having. No longer am I just separating between Serif, Sans Serif and Decorative. To give you an idea...here is a list of my font groups:

All Caps-Decorative

All Caps-San Serif

All Caps-Serif

Alpha Dings

Alpha dings-baby and children

Alpha dings-beach_summer

Alpha Dings-floral

Alpha Dings-hearts

Alpha Dings-school

Bar Codes

Brush

Caligraphy

Chunky-Decorative

Chunky-Sans Serif

Chunky-Serif

ClickArt Handwritten Fonts

Clogged

Decorative-Double Lined

Decorative-Flourish-Curlicues

Decorative-Fun

Decorative-Journaling

Decorative-Mix and Match

Dingbats

Dross

Grunge

Handwritten

Handwritten-Pea fonts

Historical-Gothic-Oldstyle

Holiday-Christmas

Holiday-Easter

Holiday-Halloween

Holiday-patriotic

Holiday-StPatricksDay

Holiday-Thanksgiving

Holiday-Winter

Keyboard

Outline fonts

Sans Serif

Sci-Fi and alien

Script

Serif

Shapes

Stencil

Stitching Fonts

Stylish-Streamlined and Elegant

Typewriter Styles

My final category is called ZZ-Foundries. In here I have copies of CK Fonts, 2 Peas Fonts, PC Fonts, Blue Vinyl Fonts, etc.

Just knowing that all my fonts are organized and easy to be found when I need them just makes me smile. I can't wait to see if this organization makes a difference in my scrapbooking!

It was 1970 something....

Last March (2007) I was walking along in San Antonio, Texas and snapped a picture of 1977 etched in the stone walkway. I was married in 1977 and this December will be my 30th anniversary. How cool is that?? My mind is already thinking of how I can use this photo in my digital scrapping.


Yesterday I made a bookmark for Week One: Celebrating Your Uniqueness at Scrapbookgraphics. I used a background paper by ON Designs and brushes that Michelle Godin shared for the week one quirky challenge. There is my photo blended into the upper corner and I listed popular movies from 1977. Some other popular movies from 1977 are:

• Rocky
• Smokey and the Bandit
• A Star is Born
• King Kong
• The Deep
• Silver Streak
• The Enforcer
• Colse Encounters of the Third Kind
• In Search of Noah's Ark

Here are some other popular things from 1977.

Popular Songs

1."You Don't Have to Be a Star" ... Marilyn McCoo
and Billy Davis Jr.
2."You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" ... Leo Sayer
3."I Wish" ... Stevie Wonder
4."Car Wash" ... Rose Royce
5."Torn Between Two Lovers" ... Mary MacGregor
6."Blinded By the Light" ... Manfred Mann's Earth Band
7."New Kid in Town" ... Eagles
8."Love Theme from 'A Star is Born'" ... Barbra Streisand
9."Rich Girl" ... Daryl Hall and John Oates
10."Dancing Queen" ... ABBA

Most Popular Television Shows

1. Laverne & Shirley (ABC)
2. Happy Days (ABC)
3. Three's Company (ABC)
4. 60 Minutes (CBS)
5. Charlie's Angels (ABC)
6. All in the Family (CBS)
7. Little House on the Prairie (NBC)
8. Alice (CBS)
9. M*A*S*H (CBS)
10. One Day at a Time (CBS)

Most Popular Books

Fiction:
1. "The Silmarillion" by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. "The Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough
3. "Illusions" by Richard Bach
4. "The Honourable Schoolboy" by John Le Carre
5. "Oliver's Story" by Erich Segal

Nonfiction
1. "Roots" by Alex Haley
2. "Looking Out for #1" by Robert Ringer
3. "All Things Wise and Wonderful" by James Herriot
4. "Your Erroneous Zones" by Dr. Wayne Dyer
5. "The Book of Lists" by David Wallechinsky

Academy Awards

Best Picture: "Annie Hall"
Best Director: Woody Allen ... "Annie Hall""
Best Actor: Richard Dreyfuss ... "The Goodbye Girl"
Best Actress:Diane Keaton ... "Annie Hall"

Grammy Awards

Record of the Year: "Hotel California" ... The Eagles
Best Song: "You Light Up My Life" ... Joe Brooks
Best Album: "Rumours" ... Fleetwood Mac
Male Vocalist: James Taylor ... "Handy Man
Female Vocalist: Barbra Streisand ... "Love theme from 'A Star Is Born' (Evergreen)"

It has been so much fun walking down memory lane today. If you are in the mood to walk down memory lane too check out History Central.com

September is here and it is soccer season...

My kids have outgrown soccer but here is a little soccer ball I extracted from one of the photos I had. Click on the picture to download the png file.

Must have utility...

In addition to your graphic or scrapping program, what is your must have utility. Mine would be Unziplify.

From their site: "Unziplify provides an easy one-click method of extracting an entire folder full of ZIP, RAR, and ACE files. Simply right-click on a folder or drive in Windows Explorer and select 'unziplify'. Every archive found in that folder will be extracted at once. It's the most painless way to extract archives yet!"

I have to say that they are right. I use unziplify everyday. I put all my downloads in one folder. Then I right click on the folder and chose "Unziplify" and voilà everything is unzipped. Unziplify has options so you can set the default configuration to your liking. I have each zip file unzip to its own file. This does cause a file within a file situation sometimes but I just manually fix those. You can also chose to unzip to a single subfolder or to the archive folder if you want.

The BEST part of waking up is Folger's in your cup! oops...got carried away there...The BEST part of Unziplify is that it is free! Yep, you read that right. I have been using this little program for a few years and have had no problems with the download or the program. So if you are finding that unzipping your downloads is a pain, I definitely recommend Unziplify!

Reality #27

Between summer and family events I have gotten behind in the Reality challenge over at ScrapBook Graphics. It is my intention to catch up on the ones I am missing so they will probably be appearing on my blog in random order.

Jenn's challenge for #27 was:
So my challenge to you this week is to document a layout with some type of "stream of consciousness" included. It could be a series of pictures or some journaling....nothing too earth-shattering, just something that you are going through (or in my case, something my son is going through). It could even be a series of elements or papers....

Credits can be found here.

The nature of the layout came because I've been trying to put together a memory board for my dad's memorial service. I am so bummed that I don't even have a picture of our last Christmas together. This led to a stream of negative thoughts about why it is other peoples fault that I often don't have pictures. Doing the layout was therapeutic for my bad attitude!

In Loving Memory...

Credits:

Word art by Tina Chambers at DSP
Background and mat from Remember When Kit by Jean from the CSE Yahoo group
Tag with hinge is from J. Baechtold's Remembering Father kit from Scrappers Guide

This is a poem I wrote when I was in High School...

A Special Someone

You are always there,
When I need a helping hand.
It's nice to know you care
and that you understand.

You never say a lot,
But what you say is true,
There is a special spot
In my heart for you.

I couldn't have got along,
Without the help from you,
You've taught me right from wrong,
and what is best to do.

At times I've made you mad,
But I've learnt from my mistakes,
I am proud to call you dad,
Because you've got what it takes.

Recipe Card Template #2

Credits for the Shrimp Scampi Recipe card:
Folded stitched ribbon from Altered Twill and Lace by Sylvie of Sausan Designs, Stitching from Michelle Shefveland's Mission Possible kit from March 2007 Scrappers Guide, Staple my own, Papers and tabs made in FotoFusion. Photo by me. Fonts are Pea Jenn and LD Letterpress.

I was supposed to post this before I went on vacation but alas.....time ran out.

So here it is belated but with the best of wishes to my fellow scrapping buddies.

Happy cooking and scrapping!

Grand Junction Colorado

We had a fabulous time on our three week trip to Colorado. Basically we had a week of driving time, a week in Grand Junction and a week in Salida. The first week in Colorado was in Grand Junction for the United four Wheel Drive Association 2007 Convention.

This is the "Beast" that took us on our journey. It is a Renegade Motor Home on a Peterbilt Chassis. Behind it we pulled our 79 CJ7 Jeep.

Utah Canyonlands taken at a rest stop on our way to Colorado.

The first jeep run we went on was called The 21 Road Run in Hunter Canyon. The rock formations on the trail were absolutely fabulous.

Here we are lined up on the Montrose run in Calamity Canyon.

This was a mild albeit muddy run on the Grand Mesa/Long Slough. It is a 10,500 foot mesa with a beautiful view. The run is a beautiful trail full of mud holes and beautiful wild flowers.

Here is the jeep after going through the worse mud hole. Fortunately we were able to find a car wash in town!

This is the view at the top of the mesa. This gave me a great chance to practice the photo stitch feature of my new camera. After reaching the top we came down a different road than we went up. It was full of swithc backs and the view on each turn was quite impressive.

On the Battlement Mesa run we certainly did not expect to run into these beautiful friendly horses. This is our last day in Grand Junction. Tomorrow we head for Salida, Colorado for the All-4-Fun week of jeeping.

Recipe Card Template #3

Credits for the Crockpot Recipe card:
Shabby Princess and Sara C. Dinner Party Kit
Fonts are: Beauty School Dropout, CK Holiday Spirit, Eye Catching

It's a slap happy Saturday and another template to share. You may be wondering how I went from template #1 to template #3. That is a good question for which I don't have a good answer. So, suffice it to say, template #2 will be posted when I get back from vacation in August.

Do you like recipe swaps? Sue (javamama) has started a Recipe Rounds on her blog. It sounds like a fun way to collect some new recipes. I will be checking it out when I get back. In the meanwhile, I want everyone to get busy cooking and creating recipe cards. If you post a recipe card, please link me up. I would love to see it.

Texture...

I almost stepped on this little fellow when I was watering. Isn't he cute? (the frame is one of the supplies that comes in the FotoFusion software) When I saw this photo, I immediately thought *texture*. Isn't it funny how digital scrappers see texture where ever we go?

Here are some photos I took in Disneyland. While other people are taking pictures of their cute kids and family, I am checking out the wood work as we are meandering through the waiting lines...


Textures are so versatile. They can add depth and interest to your scrapbook layouts. How they are used will depend on what program you are using. I use them in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and FotoFusion. Here is a two page layout about textures I made in Paint Shop Pro.

Credits: Torn Memories kit by Lauren Bavin of www.digitalscrapbookplace.com; leaf is from Cottage Arts

Recipe Card Template #1

Happy Saturday blogging buddies!

Instead of sharing a recipe card with you today, I thought I would share a template instead. I made a template from my Coriander Lemon Scallops recipe card. I have never made templates so it is very basic. I made one for FotoFusion, Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. I've also included separate png files for those who use other programs. The PSP file *should* work in version 9 and up. (Earlier versions are available upon request.)

The zip file includes all the various files. Just click on the preview to download it. If you have any problems with any of the files please let me know.

Credits for Coriander Lemon Scallops recipe card can be found here.

Happy cooking and scrapping!

Christmas in July...

I have a new little toy for our trip to Colorado this summer. I really did not intend to get another camera. I wanted a bit better zoom for two reasons. First, my family hates their pictures taken and I thought if I had more zoom I could sneak pictures in more often. Second, we are going camping/jeeping in Colorado and I wanted some more zoom for the fabulous scenery we will be seeing. I started out "trying" to be frugal and thought I would go on Ebay and find me the Tele-converter lens for my Canon G-2 camera. It is sort of an older camera and I figured that I could find a great deal. After doing some research I discovered that I needed the lens adapter as well as the converter and it was going to cost around $100. I was just about to place a bid when Randy wandered in to see what I was up to. After some discussion we were curious as to what a new camera with a better zoom would cost. That led us to researching Canon sites...camera review sites...Ebay...Amazon... I won't bore you with all the nitty gritty of our research but, three hours later I was buying...

Power Shot S3 IS
Digital Camera
6.0 Mega Pixels
12x Optical Zoom

Cost of Camera.....$300.65
Cost of Accessory Kit.....$53.95
Cost of Memory Card.....$32.99
Cost of Precious Memories.....Priceless

Recipes...

My new passion has been in creating 4x6 recipe cards of my family recipes. For Christmas last year, I printed two sets from York Photo and put them in cute recipe books for my kids. I really liked how they turned out so I bought a recipe book for myself and re-printed all my cards as well as cards I have also received from various recipe exchanges. Here is my latest card. Shrimp Scampi. The recipe came from a little cookbook called Glorious Garlic by Charlene A. Braida. Of course I made some modifications, so I made the card so I would remember what I did! Being tired I used a bag of Trader Joe's frozen uncooked shrimp and simply served it on top of Trader Joe's Spinach Salad with Cranberries, Pecans. Blue Cheese & Raspberry Vinaigrette. (A strange combination but it was quite tasty.) If you like recipe's you can click on the thumbnail to download a full resolution card for printing.

Credits:

Papers and tabs made in FotoFusion; Staple my own; Folded stitched ribbon from Altered Twill and Lace by Sylvie of Sausan Designs from Scrapbookgraphics; Stitching from Michelle Shefveland's Mission Possible kit from March 2007 Scrappers Guide.

This is the pocket page recipe book I got for my son. It is really cute and is decorated with little metal utensil set. I took out the cards that came with the book and inserted the cards that I made and printed. I gave my son the cards so he can write new recipes on them and add them to the book.






This is the one I got for my daughter. I found these at a Hallmark store at the mall. I printed so many recipes, I needed additional inserts. I found them available at C. R. Gibson online. So when purchasing the inserts for them I found a cute recipe book for me too:)




This is the one I got for me. These wonderful pocket page recipe books can be found at C. R. Gibson. I like them because they are smaller than a binder (they are 8x9) and hold a lot of 4x6 recipes.





Happy cooking and scrapping!

Canay

Jersey Boys - June

We had a girls night out on Tuesday. It was the second time I got to see the Jersey Boys. It was a new cast and just as wonderful as the first one! Lots of credits on this one. They can be seen at my Scrapbookgraphics gallery right HERE

Stop...

This weeks one little word challenge is to scrap the word STOP.

Credits
Traci Murphy drop shadows.
Photoblast Actions.
Papers and elements made by me.
Fonts are LD Remington Streamline and Not to Shabby Plain.

Wheresoever you go...

I discovered a new blog called One Little Word. It looks like a fun blog with word challenges and tips for scrapping. The first word challenge is the word "Go". This is layout I did using a quote from Confucius. Emily is graduating from High School and heading to the University of Washington. I thought this quote was perfect to create an 8x10 layout that I will frame and give to her as a gift. Credits for the papers and elements cand be found Here.

SNL 26 Graduation

These are the things I made to contribute to this month's SNL at Digital Scrapbooking Place (DSP).

National Scrapbook Day

National scrapbook day shared its day with Cinco de Mayo on Saturday, May 5th. I didn't pull an all nighter this year but I checked out the happenings at Creating Keepsakes, a couple of chats at Digital Scrapbook Place, and I found all the butterflies at Jen Wilson Designs so I got her cool kit. I also used the day to start organizing my *paper* scrap booking supplies. In honor of Cinco de Mayo we ordered take out from El Guadalajara. DH and I shared Chille Rellenos and Carnitas and DS had his traditional Carnitas Chimichanga. All in all it was a delightful National Scrapbook Day!


I did get one layout done. Ali Edwards first challenge at CK was to take five minutes and take photos of everyday beautiful things. I ran around taking photos and quickly uploaded them into the computer. Later that evening I posted the same layout for DSP's multiple photo layout. Credits can be seen at DSP or at Jen Wilson's site. The layout is also posted at CK since that is the site Ali was hosting her challenge at.

Reality #15

I sort of cheated for Reality #15

I did this layout last November for Jen Wilson's Meaning contest. But, My Sanctuary was just perfect for this weeks reality so I decided to let it serve double duty! Credits can be seen at Jen's site or at SBB.

So here is my challenge for you this week. Now it does sort of go a bit beyond our everyday reality......but it was something that spoke to me this week. So I challenge you to show me your SAFE place. A place where you feel comfort, maybe rejuvenated, or just helps you refocus. It can be your bedroom, the corner of your basement with your scrap stuff, a chair on your patio, or a even just a spot on a bench under the tree in a park. A place where you feel peace, where your ideas can flow and where you can just be you!!

Reality #14

Thankfully I had this nice little victory just in time for our Reality Challenge for week 14. Credits can be seen Here.

Here is what the challenge is for this week......scrap a little "victory" moment. Doesn't have to be winning $1,000 or losing 50 lbs.....I'm thinking about something little (but still quite important!!) that happened this week that gives you a sense of winning!! It could be going to the gym today, picking the Lean Cuisine instead of the Pizza Hut for dinner last night, a conversation with your spouse/child where you feel that you made your point well and they listened, held back on buying those sweet sandals at Target as you have 10 perfectly fine pair at home.....etc.

Maxtor® Personal Storage 3200 External USB 2.0 Hard Drive, 320GB

I had a wonderful weekend moving all my digi files from my "E" drive, my "C" drive, and my CD disks to my new external hard drive. I have over 60 gigabytes of stuff so I still have plenty of room for any new goodies I may acquire. Maybe I'll move some of my older photos over also. One thing I am extremely grateful for is that I was able to relocate all my key words and categories in IMatch, the image managment program I use. Now when I find a goodie I want to use, instead of having to find the right drive or CD that it is on, everything is in the same place. This should make my scrapping time much more effecient. And just to be on the safe side...I purchased a separate identical drive and made a duplicate. I've noticed the drives are on sale. Maybe because Seagate acquired Maxtor they are being discounted. Anyway a mere $99.99 at Circuit City or $119.99 at Office Depot.

It was sort of interesting that my hubby was totally all for me buying the two drives. Sort of makes me wonder...what does he want?????

Summer Fun

Some of you may remember that last summer I participated in the mentor program at Digi Scrap Designer and created a kit called Summer Fun. When my computer crashed I thought I had lost my Mentor files. The other day I was moving all my digi stuff over to my new external hard drive and I found an unlabelled disk. Happy days...all my Mentor files had been burned to the CD. Silly me to not label the CD. I think it is because I read that I shouldn't use a sharpie. I could not find the pen that was safe to write on CD's with so I try to make CD labels. But ya know...sometimes time is short and I probably thought I would make the label later! Anyway...what good is a kit doing on an unlabelled CD??? It definately wants to be shared!! You can download the zip files by clicking on the thumbnails. I shared the flower swirl and the frayed mattes last summer but I am including them here also for anyone who might have missed them.

I had so much fun creating these, I hope you enjoy them. Drop me a line and let me know if you use them. I would love to see your layouts.

**Sorry Link will expire 6/30/09**

Reality #13

Jenn's challenge for this week:
So I've really been thinking about different challenges we could do - trying to find something that perfectly relates to our everyday life. I have come up with lots of ideas for the weeks to come, but the one that is foremost on my mind this week is procrastinating. I do it without even recognizing it....of course it drives me (and everybody else around me) crazy. LOL...maybe I'm rationalizing here, but I almost don't even consider it procrastinating...i call it eternally optimistic!! I have this unrealistic (some would call it) outlook on how long something will take to get done and then never get to tackling it...because I truly believe that I will just finish it tomorrow!! I mean, there are things that go MONTHs on my to do list. So tell me what's on your list that you keep putting off - saying that tomorrow you will do it. Or maybe something you are dreading. And for added fun, DO IT!! Finish it!! Complete the Task!! Check it off!! Boy does it feel good to get those things done.

Procrastination, what's that?????

Yep...I know all about procrastination! Credits can be found right HERE

Reality #12

Because it is Fashion Week here at Scrapbookgraphics, my Week 12 challenge for you is to scrap something you wear - whether it be a favorite pair of shoes, your watch, a special ring, or your 2003 Race for the Cure t-shirt (my personal fave!!).....memorialize it!!
Sort of a layout for the Reality challenge as well as a Flylady layout since march was dress to your shoes month! Credits for this layout can be found HERE.

Reality #11

Over the past couple weeks I've heard lots of talk from the various women who inhabit my world, both online and in real life (and even the talk that goes on inside my own head) about guilt or feeling like they aren't doing something well enough. Heck, last weeks' challenge was about what was maybe a bad idea but we did it anyway. Well, I'm wanting to turn it all around now. I want you to scrap about you. What you are proud of. What you do well. What are some hallmarks of your personality that you value. Really, it can go down any path, but at the end of the exercise I would like for you to have something that represents the FABULOUS mom, daughter, sister, wife, and friend that you are TODAY and why you are proud to be you. Hmmm....this should be simple, right? LOL.

Click HERE for credits.

Reality #10

This week I decided to go down a different path....the last nine weeks have been all about the positive side of our everyday lives.....now it's time to get REAL...LOL. So, hopefully you are all like me and have something you do (or don't do) that you know is bad for you (for your kids, etc.)....nothing horrible here.....but something that maybe if you were less lazy, had more free time, etc would do a bit differently. Maybe you coast through a certain stop sign where there are NEVER any other cars or you eat at McDonald's twice in one week or you don't back up your computer files.....and the list goes on. I'm officially calling this challenge the BAD IDEA....But I DO IT Anyway challenge!!

Oooohhhh yes...definately a bad idea! Credits can be found HERE

Reality #9

Alright, the challenge is easy this week.....Show me your backyard!! Whatever you would consider your backyard to be.....ya know opposite your front door!! Don't clean or straighten it...show it in all its splendor.

Credits can be seen here.

Scrapping on a Budget

I know that digi scrapping has become quite the commercial affair but sometimes life gets in the way and we just can't keep buying all the cool stuff we see. I had in mind to start a blog called scrapping on a budget and share freebies that exist around the web. Well two enterprising scrappers have beat me to it. They are doing such a great job I thought I would share their sites with you...

Scrapping With Ikea Goddess
Amy W.'s Scrap-A-Lot

Three products I love...

Today's blog prompt...
Free Advertising!! Are there three products in your life that you just love (favorite scrapping designer? a cleaning product that does what it claims? or your favorite restaurant?)? Tell us about them! (Add links and maybe we'll decide we can't live without them either )

MY COMPUTER
For many of us the first thing that will come to mind is our computers. I have a Dell. It is a Dimension 8200 and may be getting outdated by todays standards but I love it! It is my tool, it is my friend. I use it for business...to organize addresses and to do lists...to communicate with friends and family...in my digital scrapbooking hobby...to find recipes...to research products I am interested in...to get maps to places I am going...to pay my bills...to track investments...

I know I need to look into getting a new computer. But I feel like if it ain't broke don't change it. Yesterday I bought two 300 gb external hard drives. One to hold all my digital scrapbooking supplies, ezines, tutorials, articles etc. and get them off my hard drive. The second external drive????? Back up of the first one!!!!!




MY BIBLE
Today's Light Bible
This is the bible I have been using for my daily Bible Reading.
Although I do get behind and then try to read multiple days readings in one evening (hopefully I am NOT the only person who does that!) This bible is nicely laid out, the print is a readable size and the verses are broken out by the recommended daily schedule.





MY MORNING CUP OF COFFEE


I love my morning cup of coffee but I am not a coffee snob. Some of the latest finds at my house are:




Folger's "The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup!"

Trader Joe's French Roast Cuz I liked the pretty can.

MJB Coffee It was on sale and MJB are my mother's initials

Starbucks Not often but if I am desparate...

Gevalia Coffeemaker The coffee maker was free!