Skip to content

Morning Inspiration

  • by

 
6.6HostaBudw 

A favorite photo from last June in our backyard which is now covered with snow!
  

I’ve been thinking about Photo a Day again, and having mixed feelings about it. I get overwhelmed by the number of photos, and although I got off to a great start in 2009, I wasn’t able to keep up with the recording/scrapping part of the deal. I have the photos, but after June, they never got posted or put up on my Photo a Day blog. In November, I started using Shuttercal, and I do like that alternative. Finally I decided I’d do a favorite photo a week, since I was pretty sure I’d take a few photos every week. Over the weekend I downloaded a “freebie” from Designer Digitals by Katrina Kennedy. I took a great online course with her through Get It Scrapped last spring. It’s a 17 page booklet with over 400 ideas for photos, and great suggestions for how to keep track of your photos. I decided I’ll give it another go after all. You need to register at Designer Digitals to access the book, but they send links each week for free digital templates, brushes, etc. so registering is a good thing. I’ve also purchased quite a few templates from them as well.

Project 365 and Shuttercal

  • by

Photojojo sent me an email this weekend about Shuttercal.com. It’s a free site where you can upload your daily photos to a calendar. Then, if you wish, you can have each month’s photos printed in a cool square format.

Productimage-picture-shoebox-90

I signed up, and it’s very easy to use. One thing I like is photos don’t need to be resized before uploading. I have a Photo a Day blog (on the sidebar) which sadly needs much updating. I started working on in early in September but didn’t get back to it. So why move to Shuttercal? I wanted to try it out because I think I’d love having the photos printed next year. (If I decided to take this one again.) And it’s renewed motivation to get the daily photos processed.

Five Favorites

  • by

One option in today's prompt from Shimelle was to post some links to favorite sites on the internet. I use Bloglines to subscribe to a long list of blogs that I enjoy. Some days there are lots of posts to read; some days I only skim the blogs; other days there isn't as much action. I get a lot (if not most) of my inspiration from blogs now. It's cut down on the number of idea books I buy, and I'm seriously thinking about letting a couple magazine subscriptions go.

My first favorite is a site I learned from Jessica Sprague during a class on her site. (A list of great class sites might be next.) It's vi.sualize.us. This is where I save and tag all the cards, photographs, and scrapbook pages I see on the internet that I love or where there is a detail, perhaps, that I'd like to use on a card or a scrapbook page. The tags work really well, so if I'm looking for a birthday card idea, I search "birthday" and all the birthday cards I've saved show up. As I've added to my pages I've gotten better at the tagging. I think I have over 200 pages of ideas. Some day I'll clean some of them out, but it hasn't gotten overwhelming yet.

The next two sites are blogs hosted by card makers who I really admire. Debbie Olsen's cards are exquisite and the details are wonderful. She also posts tutorials on coloring with Copic markers which I am trying to learn how to use effectively. Nicole Heady is one of the owners of Papertrey Ink, my very favorite source for stamps, paper, ribbon, and buttons. Nicole has a superb sense of style, and I love almost all of her creations.

The last two sites are photography sites. I've been following The Shutter Sisters for well over a year now. Now only is the photography inspiring, so is the writing. It's also a good source for information. Words to Shoot By is a new site for me, but I love the idea of taking one word and finding images to fit it. I also love the way they use triptychs to showcase the photos. I'm off to check out some links posted by my classmates.