LOAD week 3

Still hard at work organizing digi stuff but took the time to work through the LOAD assignments for this week.

Homework Assignment: Be a detective in your own scrapbooking. Think about the kinds of pages you’re creating, and the kinds of pages you’d LIKE to create. Since taking Library of Memories(LOM),now known as Finding Photo Freedom (FPF) for the past few years I enjoy scrapbooking SO much more than ever before. I've taken some design classes and found the style I like and for the most part I stick with it. I still like to try different things now and again but know the look I like for my scrapping pages.
Layout Assignment: Create a layout in the way that you “normally” scrapbook, whatever that is. Here is one I whipped out this morning using items from Jessica Sprague.

I am so beautiful, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

Photo Assignment: It’s self-portrait day! I know you hate it – we all do. Find a way to get a photo of yourself—mirror, selftimer, a kid.

Studio Move and ACDSee

"The best laid schemes of mice and men...go oft awry..."
ah! So true.

Seems that it was just a few months ago that I relocated my art studio upstairs and had settled in. This weekend found me moving it back downstairs once again. Its no big deal as to why but it is a change none the less. Here is the UP side...I was able to clear out some things I haven't used and tossed them. That always makes me happy. Also with my recent scrapping projects I was able to clear out tons of those items as well. It is rewarding to see my traditional paper scrapping area getting smaller and using less space! On the other hand (and I DON'T consider this a DOWN side by any means) is my art supplies have grown tenfold! *L* They now occupy about 2/3 of my space.

More UP side:
-I do like being in the main part of the house surrounded by my family and not having to go up and down stairs is a blessing.
-Emi's pen is next to me so its much easier to keep an eye on her, monitor her seizures, and let her in and out.
-Randy set me up with dual screens for my computer which is pure luxury while working on digital projects.
-I can get my easel outside much easier!

So while I may have lost a day to moving things I feel even more organized and ready to go than I did before.

Adding to that is my new software, ACDSee 12. Having completed the Jessica Sprague class on organizing digi supplies and then actually organizing my supplies I was ready to move on to my photos. I am currently plodding my way thru creating categories and rating pix. Then I decided to do something absolutely brilliant and WAY OVERDUE...I am backing up my photos on discs. So far I have 5 dvd's done with 2 more large files to copy. Feeling very accomplished I must say.

What are you doing this weekend for fun? What's your latest organizing project?

Scrapbooking Update

Yes occassionally I blog about my scrapbooking progress here as well as my art. Today is one of those days. You might notice a new "blinkie" on the side bar that looks like this:



My friend Patti and I have been hard at work on our photos and using our LOM system to its utmost. Even if you know nothing about the method you will still understand that in 3 days I:
- emptied 9 storage binders of photos from 1981-2005
- created over 20 more pages for albums
- created one complete album of Randy's adventure in Hokkaido
- staged an additional 20 plus pages for an upcoming class we plan to take the end of this month

- and placed all the remaining photos into categories (4 drawers total; all labelled and organized so yes, I can put my fingers on a particular photo in just a few minutes time!) That means that EVERY UNSCRAPPED printed photo I have in my stash is now living in the sum total of only 4 drawers measuring 4x6x18in. And every one of those has room to spare. Essentially, I am caught up!

That was last week....
This week brings me back to the blinkie. The photos that I mention above are all printed photos. I still have GOBS of digi pictures on my hard drive. I've found I rarely print individual photos these days and only print out complete layouts all ready to place into my albums. That is the general rule and yes there are exceptions. But I digress...

Since the majority of my scrapping and photo keeping is now digital, I invested in ACDSee (an organizational tool) and just completed a class on the program. I've been BUSY adding all my digi supplies to the catalog, adding/organizing/deleting folders and files, etc. I cannot wait to use this system in the near future (hopefully this doesn't confuse you but I have mine set up the same as my LOM system). I still need to work through my photos (Previously used PSE8 to organize them but didn't like that much...LOVE it for editing but organizing.)

I also moved all my scans of my artwork over to ACDSee to organize those as well.
Hopefully I will get all this work done, get a nice workflow going and will be posting here more regularly than I have been recently. Just didn't want you to think I left the planet!