To Give and Receive

With the year almost over, I wanted to reflect and give thanks to all of the good deeds that have come my way.

Credits:
Vinnie Pearce Thank You Freebie Nos. 1 and 2
Ribbon Paislee Press Ecologie
Scraplist from Vinnie Pearce

Life’s Little Things

These are my adorable nephews and niece. Seeing them happy always puts a smile on my face.

Background paper: Paislee Press Lark Khaki
Strip: Vintage Dreams
Font: Honey Script
Pink Flower: Paint the Moon Sakura Kit
Stars: Maria Ferguson Manila Dreams

Sunday at Seaport

Credits: Background paper by TaylorMade Designs Alternative; Paper by Andrea Victoria Wish Flower Designs; Paper by Paislee Press Southern Comfort; Flowers from Weeds & Wildflowers; Embellishment by PiggyScrap Designs

Firefighters Battle I-805 Brushfire

Photo Credit: Misty Phillips

We had just got out of a late meeting when I returned to my desk and saw this outside our office window. A brush fire had broke out on I-805 and the smoke started to fill the sky. We gathered around the window in shock but were relieved when we saw the firefighters arrive.

Since the fire was just off the freeway, employees that usually take the I-805 southbound, left the office because we knew that the brush fire would effect traffic. As I got onto the onramp, the rubbernecking had already began. Speeds were less than 10 mph and drivers were noticeably pulling out their camera phones to take a snap. Fortunately, traffic let up after Clairemont Mesa boulevard and I was able to get home at a decent hour.

Today’s event reminded me of the firestorm last year. Our home was threatened by the Harris fire and the city issued a voluntary evacuation for our area (see photo below). Instead of driving to Qualcomm, we flew out of San Diego to Scottsdale, Arizona. Having been through previous fire seasons, we knew that the air quality would be poor and polluted in San Diego. I honestly hope that history doesn’t repeat itself any time soon.

It’s interesting to note that during last year’s firestorm our relatives and friends were scattered all over San Diego. We couldn’t use our cell phones to contact each other so we had to find another means of communication. Interestingly enough, every one of our family members and friends were connected on Myspace. To update our family and friends, we used my Myspace account to send bulletins to everyone ensuring our safety.

When we arrived in Arizona, we kept a close eye on the news and found a blog called Wildifires 2007 by SignOnSanDiego.com. The blog kept us up to date on the status of the fires and had links to evacuation centers. Several posts received comments and questions by subscribers and everyone pulled together to share information on where to find help and shelter.

Social media helped us communicate with our family, friends, and neighbors when our cell phones were down. Note: We obviously couldn’t call anyone at home because everyone had evacuated.

Photo Credit: SignonSanDiego.com

Pure Bliss

One page of a wedding album that I’m working on for my best friend. I love this quick page kit by Paislee Press and Taylor Made. Click here for a larger view.

Precious Moments

MeiMei_edited-1, originally uploaded by islandblossom.

My latest layout featuring my beautiful neice. Elements are a part of my Designer Digitals haul on Thursday. :]

Credits:
Pear Crisps by Mindy Terasawa
Little Bird Brains by Pattie Knox
Festival by Shabby Princess

Top 3 Sites I love

A list of sites that I love to visit…

1. Polyvore.com: Polyvore is a free, web-based tool for creating collages and scrapbooks. It is also a vibrant community of creative and stylish people.

Below is an outfit created by Phoebe Juliet. What’s also great about Polyvore creations is that they link you directly to the e-commerce site so if you like the outfit featured in the collage, you can buy it.

By Morana…I love the flowy blouse *swoons*

2. Hostess {with the Mostess}™: I love love love this site. I’m a big fan of throwing get togethers at the house, cooking for friends and family, and decorating! If I had the opportunity to go back in time I probably would have majored in interior or graphic design. I love love design.

Anyway, they always blog about the cutest things and they have great ideas for parties, baby showers, weddings and more!

3. How Fast They Grow: This site provides stylish & adorable 12×12 page templates, plus a patent-pending digital scrapbooking technology that enables you to upload your photos to their website, drag-n-drop the photos into the template designs of your choice, and type your own custom text & page titles – so you’re essentially scrapbooking online!

Hope you enjoy them too!

Thrifty Thursday at DesignerDigitals

It’s Thrifty Thursdays at DesignerDigitals (DD)! This week they have 188 items all marked 30% off. They have 21 pages of must have brushes, kits, paper packs, and embellishments. They have everything you need to finish that layout you’ve been thinking about.

Here’s a snapshot of all the cute stuff I just bought…

Photos Turned Pro

It seems like I’m upgrading a lot of things lately, like upgrading my Canon S5 IS to a brand spanking new Nikon D40.

This time I upgraded my online photo management site.

I made the decision to upgrade after I got my dslr. I knew I was going to be shooting 8 MP photos like a madwoman and needed to find a place to store them online. I do have an account on Photobucket (PB) but my Pro Serviceexpired. So I thought to myself, do I stick with Photobucket (member since 2004) or do I move on? And do I go Pro?

I did go Pro but I did so with Flickr. They just have a really great interface that works great for me and I love all of the groups that they have on there. For a dlsr enthusiast, it’s easy to find and connect with other photographers. I even found one here in San Diego and one of the members contacted me about the free admission day to the Japanese Garden at Balboa Park. How cool is that?

Overall, I’m satisfied. I’ll still keep my account at PB just for the hell of it. Besides, playing with something new is always fun. Btw, here’s an interesting review that compared both sites.

Here’s my account.

OpenID– One Login | Multiple Sites

If you’re like me and you’re a digital scrapbooker, you don’t shop at one site and you don’t post your layouts on one site. In fact, this morning I was all over the place. I finished two layouts and uploaded them to 3 different galleries (DSP, OScraps, ScrapGirls) including my Flickr and Myspace account–that’s 5 sites total.

The Problem With Multiple Identities
It took me 30 minutes to upload my layout. What happened was the fact that I kept forgetting my password to sites that I didn’t visit often! So not only did I have to fill out the “forgot password” form, wait for the activation email, then click on the activation URL–I also had to go back in and upload the layout with the description and details.

Why Scrapbookers Should Get OpenID

From Wikipedia…

OpenID is a shared identity service, which allows Internet users to log on to many different web sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site. OpenID is a decentralized, free and open standard that lets users control the amount of personal information they provide.

Simply put, OpenID is one login for multiple sites.

I currently use Clickpass for my Ma.gnolia account and Disqus account and it makes going from one site to the other super convenient! Who knows, maybe if my favorite scrapbooking sites do incorporate OpenID, I might burn a hole through my pocket!

To read more about where you can get your OpenID and a list of providers, click here.