RAW Freebie

Posted on | December 21, 2008 | 3 Comments

HI!!!! How’s your weekend? It’s great here. I had some yummy Korean yesterday and did a tiny bit of shopping. We went to a William and Sonoma store too to compare pots and pans. That’s our next big purchase. Hubby thinks the All-Clad is more realistic for me. The Le Creuset, however nice and well made it is, is just waaaaaay to heavy for me aka weenie arms. So we’ll see.

Oh, we received our KitchenAid mixer early (if you’ve been wanting one get it NOW for $250 at Amazon for the 600 series!). Yeah!!! What a surprise, on a Saturday too!!!! I think FedEx is on steroids this holiday. We’re not complaining. On the other hand, for the second time we received the wrong washer part. So… another week with dirty clothes. Hubby’s going to call them up tomorrow… not a happy customer call… so hopefully they’ll get their system straight. The second time the rep was the one who placed the order and still, WRONG!

We’re into this kitchen buying kick because we have moving plans. Which means who knows when I’ll get a job when we do. So, while we can afford it we want to get as many items as we can that will last us 20 at least years. We’ve actually been saving up for it but we’re just too huge of a tightwad to spend the money. The KitchenAid for example, we figured that it was summer/fall of 2003 when we first looked into getting one. The pots and pans… oh a year later and the dishes… probably since 2003 too. Yeah yeah, we’re sloooow.

Ok, the freebie… the above photo was a terrible photo and with some Photoshop magic I was able to get it to something presentable like the above. When I take pictures I take them in RAW + JPG format (having two formats take up a lot of space but it’s worth it to me). Not every camera has this feature but if you have an upper level SLR you usually have a RAW option. To edit a RAW file you need a special software. Either use the one that came with the camera or use Adobe Photoshop’s RAW formatting application. To get to M’s printed picture, I got some help from Jack Davis’s free PhotoPresets for Adobe Camera RAW. It is free and all the presets will be listed under “Presets” in the RAW editing window. How do you get to this RAW editor? Well, you right click the .CR2 file and left click “edit in Photoshop CS3/4 and you’ll get to this window. Keep in mind this plug-in is only for CS3 or newer… at least that’s what Davis’s disclaimer is. After I picked a preset, I played around with the setting more until I was happy with the result.

Have fun playing and more later!!!

Blog Candy Winner

Posted on | October 23, 2008 | 1 Comment

And the winner goes too….

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

Timestamp: 2008-10-23 18:10:37 UTC

Kim aka ohradiogirl! Yeah!!! I didn’t use the M generator but instead used the random.org one since somebody’s just too busy for mom and her silly blog. Seriously, M’s been busy (and rottenly spoiled) with her two sets of grandparents.

Here’s what Kim posted:

kim/ohradiogirl posted the following on October 10, 2008 at 10:02 pm.

Okay … I’m pretty simplistic in the kitchen. But just this morning I was thinking how much I like my spatula. Nothing fancy – black and plastic.

Thanks for the opportunity for the wonderful blog candy.

Congrats, Kim! Email me your snail mail and I’ll have the package sent out to you ASAP.

Now, a lot of you posted your rice cooker. I have one but I have to quickly unplug it after it’s done. I can’t leave it on to make the rice warm, even if it’s for a few minutes. Any brand suggestion and where to buy one where you can leave it on to warm mode?

Thanks again everybody for playing!

Blog Candy!!

Posted on | October 9, 2008 | 74 Comments

Ok, here it is, the blog candy that I promised!! Click on the links below to see close-up pics of some of the items. Let me see… I have some:

- 3 Amy Butler paper
- 3 12×12 cardstock paper red, blue, and tan
- 6 8.5×11 SU cardstock kiwi, chocolate chip, and kraft (my current fave)
- SU stamps
- 1 acrylic stamps
- 1 wood mount stamp
- 1 Cards Magazine (my card is published in this magazine!)
- Ribbons
- Acrylic stamp mount
- Groovy Guava ink pad, this is new but M ripped the plastic open.
- Scrapbooking glue
- 3 PaperTrey Ink pattern paper
- Button and eyelets

To play, all you have to do is post a comment on this post and share with me your best kitchen gadget. My best one is a can opener. Ha, yeah, kind of lame. I do wish I have a Kitchen Aid mixer {::SMILES}.

Please post your comment by midnight CST, October 16th, and the winner will be randomly chosen by Miss M. This blog candy is only for U.S./Canadian residents. Thanks!!

October Calendar and Free Fonts

Posted on | October 2, 2008 | 6 Comments

This is what I used for my desktop. There are many more. Oh so nice on many and I could have done without on some. Each has a little blurb from each artist.

Then if you go to their fonts section, you’ll see all sorts of cool free fonts that you can download.

Corina also has some free election buttons. They’re all super cute and you can download them for free. They’re only for the web aka not high res. quality. I think I’ll sport one, just so that people can be reminded to vote.

Ok, I’ll post some crafty stuff tomorrow. I ended up finishing my ATCs for a swap that’s due this Friday. I got them, 22 of them, mailed out today. Wuih!! No more big commitments from me between now and the end of the year. Just the usual teams I’m in and all the fun challenges out there to get my hands into {::SMILES}.

Tons of Challenges and Prizes

Posted on | September 21, 2008 | 1 Comment

Snowflake ornament This is a sticky for this week, scroll down for latest post! I have a challenge for you! $15 GC!!! Keep reading!

Challenges and prizes at theDigiChick. Come on over!!! 20% off sale too this weekend and oh, the digi and hybrid challenges are very fun!! I am going to hurry and finish my painting so that I can play!

Ok, aren’t the ornaments awesome? Check out the Christmas ornament challenge and download the instructions to try it out. There’s a pumpkin one too!!! If you click on each of the challenges, you might find freebies like templates mini kits, etc. So check each one out.

I know that I should have posted this Friday BUT, if you decide to play along with me (creating any paper/digital/hybrid craft using any product) this week and try ANY of the challenges available at the TDC please comment and link to your work for a chance to win $15 gift certificate to any place where I can purchase a GC online and can be emailed to you or easily mailed e.g. any online digi store, your favorite stamp company, Amazon.com, Starbucks, iTunes, etc. If you’re the winner let me know which GC you’d like (please make sure that they have a GC purchase option for the amount and delivery method). If you’re overseas I hope the site is in English {::SMILES}.

Summary:

Prize: $15 GC (see note above)
Deadline: Sunday, September 28th by midnight CST
Challenge: Choose any of the challenges from any at TDC and submit a digital, traditional or hybrid scrapbook, card, or any other paper craft/altered piece. Besides the scrapbook, your submission needs to be a physical 3D item. I will not accept a card design/e-card – you got to print it out and be mail ready {::SMILES}
Linking: Please link directly to your work for example http://yourblog.blogspot.com/yoursubmission and NOT http://yourblog.blogspot.com.
Material: You can use any material, no need to be something from TDC but feel free to browse and explore the store. They have awesome designers!
Misc: Feel free to combine challenges, maybe a TDC with a SCS color challenge.

Ask if you have any question!