trimmingthesails

High and low ...

"Not bad for a low-tech relic", observed Himself, turning it over in his hands from which I hastily removed the topless felt-tip. "Not bad at all. Re-purposed. Though you'd be much better off with a PDA, of course. You'll wish you'd let me get you one for Christmas." An electronic Personal Data Assistant? I thought. Battery chargers, leads, endless 'have-you-seen-that-special-pointy-tool-for-my-PDA?". I don't think so.
"Actually, I don't think think it's technically repurposed, since it's still a diary", I mused.
"Upcycled!" exclaimed Himself, waving it in the air while I quietly slid the half-full coffee cup out of the way. He was clearly wishing to give my efforts a little more status than 'recycled'.
"I'm not sure Kelly Rae Roberts would agree with you", I replied. "I've just dismantled her 2010 original, interleaved it with the pages of an 85p diary from the Pound Shop, and whizzed it through my Bind-It-All. In my defence, her new one doesn't ship to the UK".

"What are the blank sheets for inbetween each diary page? And the pockets?" Himself asked. I reached out and gently halted his fingers from their energetic riffling of the contents.
"Notes, things to do, blog-post ideas, plans, a record of my days: a single place to capture all the things I'm thinking about so I don't have to carry them around mentally".
"Yes, but you're going to carry this around", he said, balancing it dubiously in the palm of his hand. I caught it deftly just as it toppled in the direction of the floor. "Wouldn't it be easier to just have it all in your head?"
"Haven't you heard of things weighing on your mind?" I asked mock-sternly.
Himself looked at me in his best Winnie-the-Pooh fashion. "I don't think programmers have those", he said, meekly. "It's all carefree cloud-computing where I am." The phrase head-in-the ... hovered in the air, but didn't quite make it. "Well, it's very nice", Himself concluded. "And there's even a place for your pen."
I thought I detected a whiff of 'How quaint", but let it go. I was just at the top of the stairs when the words floated up: "By the way, have you seen that special pointy tool for my PDA?"
Between you and me, I don't think I'll be wishing any time soon ... :).

Serendipity times a googleplex

Googleplex? No, not another Internet product, but a number that looks like this:  10googol, i.e. 10^{(10^{100})}. I know, I was amazed too (-ish: I'm a linguist) when I actually, err, googled it.  For decades, it's been our family's shortcut for expressing anything huge. I've got a googleplex-worth of homework tonight. You want more bits for your computer? That'll be a googleplex worth of room-tidying and dish-washing, then. But it's what sprang to mind when my Etsy purchase dropped onto the doormat yesterday. No, actually, I lie: that bit came later. First I had the pleasure of undoing the prettily stitched envelope, catching the glorious handful of free tags, stickers and sparkly bits inside, unwrapping the gift paper and stripey string, before shaking out gently the lovely vintage food-related contents ...

Now there's already a googleplex of kindness in the wrapping of this, but the serendipitous part took my breath away. For at the weekend we'd been reminiscing here with my parents, trying to piece together the origins of my youngest brother's family nickname, now lost in the mists of time it seemed. Mum thought it was a contraction of the name of a favourite cartoon character of his, Dad added his hunch that it was from a children's comic or magazine, I had a dim and hazy memory that it was something to do with eating - but none of us could remember any more. As I sifted through Julie's lovely bits, I suddenly saw it right there in front of me!

I ran down stairs - Hey! Look! Their faces beamed with pleasure and satisfaction - yes, that was it! I think I'm going to be googling "How to make a bookmark in time for Christmas", and one brother will be happily tripping down Memory Lane.

Thank-you for all your thoughtful suggestions on December page designs - it is helping me come to a decision. In the meantime, hoping you too have a googleplex of something nice or a lovely piece of serendipity (or both together) in your day. And thank-you, Julie! Times a googleplex, of course :)

It was SOS ...

 ... at the weekend. Sorry to be so histrionic. Having learnt that putting on your reading glasses with a needle in the same hand isn't clever, and that working in bare feet with a precariously-balanced paper guillotine on the desk above is off the Silly Scale, I'm not quite out of drama-queen mode. Deep breath. So, that was S for successfully painting the wooden magnets masquerading as draft-pieces (befogged? see here), and O for organising some pretty paper scraps and ribbons ...

Even Gladys looked Surpised when they were finished ...  


She didn't seem to mind either that they weren't perfectly straight or even, and is clearly taking a leaf out of my crafting friend Karen's book, whose motto is ... but I'll leave her to tell you that herself in the title of her very first post, over here. We've been nagging gently persuading her to begin a blog and despite her assertion that she didn't know when she'd be back to post again, there's a couple of pretty things on there already. If you'd like to welcome her and her many creative talents (you ain't seen nuthin' yet) to the crafting blogosphere, please do pop over and say 'hi'!

Sorry to cut and run -  it's time for another Soothing Ointment Session, along with some Sighing Over Stupidity ... :).

  

Just a clutch of simple things ...

Sharing today some of my favourite recent posts on all things simple ...

1 Simple techno-tidying: Katie The Scrapbook Lady's Round Up Time and Monthly Tasks. The latter is a great reminder of how to be a good photo-and-blog-housekeeper. Just need to do it now!

2 Simple blogging: Rachel's Small Notebook guide called (what else?) Simple Blogging.

3 Simple thinking: ever heard of 'thin slicing' and scrapbooking? Stimulate your neurons here.

4 Simple dressing over at Be More With Less: 33 garments only for 3 months? Well, this might save some time!

5 Simple balance: loved the section "Practical Evidence of An Unbalanced Life" in Lessons from the Balance Beam of Life. I can see a really useful scrapbook or journalling page based around my own list, to keep me alert and aware!

The photo? Just a quick snap from up the road, and no photoshopping in sight. As February opens to greet us, I think the blog-header is ready for a makeover ... :)

Simply and virtually delicious ...

Currently high in the fashionable food stakes, a cupcake is something I haven't actually eaten for a long time. For the crafters among us, you can sew 'em, knit 'em and even crochet them, apparently. Should you want to do something as mundane as actually eat one, they come in chocolate, raspberry, coffee, honey and even beetroot flavours! So I was very touched to receive this cupcake present, from Jo and Eleanor, whose blogs I enjoy on a regular basis - the first for her stories and photos about her life which are either thoughtful, amusing, or often both, and the second for her amazing ability with a needle and thread, and sheer willingness to try her hand at anything. Here it is: The Cherry on Top award ...

 So thank-you you both, very much, Jo and Eleanor, and I am delighted to accept. Some conditions come with it, which need the recipient to:

• thank the person who gave it (done!)
• post it with pride on your blog (done!)
• list three things you love about yourself (eeek!)
• tag five other people for the award (a pleasure)
• post a picture you love (one jumps to mind straightaway)

Mmm, three things I love about myself ... I value others deeply, I have a sardonic, internal jester who mocks me kindly when I try to take myself too seriously, and I care about the difference between it's and its. Will that do?

And as the next recipients of the Cherry on the Top Award, I'd like to nominate the following. (There are others I would happily have added, but they have already been cupcaked!)

Julie, who writes with an elegant and quirky style on a wide variety of things, as well as scrapbooking, does the loveliest sketches/paintings, and has an Etsy shop here.

Giselle, whose scrapbooking pages in the clean and simple mould are also infused with lovely detail and colour.

Amanda, for her amazing range of skills - not merely a scrapper, but an art journaller and stitcher too. Scroll down to the 31st August, and go 'ooh' and 'aah'.

Karen, whose lovely photographs and papercrafting are a pleasure to look at, and whose 'reflections' often set me off on a train of thought of my own.

Hannah, because at the tender age of sixteen, she is already a great scrapbooker. I love the way she combines her digital experimenting with such open glimpses into her life and experiences as a young adult.

Thank-you to you all, for you all enrich my life in different ways. :)

Next, a picture I love. Taken over ten years ago of my DD, when she was about the same age as Hannah above, and just after her GCSE results, it never fails to fill me with the excitement and joy of new possibilities in life ...

 

Wishing you all just a happy day, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scheming with colours and teaming with teapots ...

Colours ...

I am a sucker for books about colour, and colour schemes:  from a very old and second-hand Tricia Guild's Country Color to Kevin McCloud's Colour Now, I never tire of them. I'd come across Kuler before,  but I was delighted to discover Colorsuckr - d'you know it? If so, please feel free to skip to the final section! If you don't, here's what it does - it allows you to click on any image from the web, and it will give you a list of the colours in it, and those shades/tints which go with it. Here, in best Blue Peter style, is one I did earlier:

You'll see that below each colour, it gives the hex code, the websafe code and - the one needed if you use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements - the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) values. Clicking on the little red word Show, displays a set of further possible colour schemes, based around that shade or tint.

Why might you want it?
You may be:

• putting together fabrics or wools for a project
• doing an ATC or an art journalling page
• making a card, or some digital scrapbooking paper
• designing a .pdf
• changing the look of your blog
• assembling a kit of some kind, or items to sell in an Etsy store

How do I get it?
If you use Firefox as a browser ...
1 Click here and download it. (If you get a message telling you that your computer won't let you, look along to the end of the line and click the button which says "Allow").
2 When it reinstalls Firefox, you'll find that when you right click on any web image, it will bring up a box and the final item at the bottom says: "Extract Image Colours".

3 Click on this, and it will bring up a palette of colours as shown in the first image above.
4 Save this as a screenshot to your desktop (Mac: Cmd+Shift+3. PC: Ctrl+Shift+3).
5 You can then save it directly in a folder, or open it with Photoshop/Elements, crop it and save it as a jpg.
6 If you're doing any subsequent work in Photoshop/Elements, open up the file and drag it onto the file your working on - then you can sample the colours easily and quickly with the Eyedropper Tool.

If you use a browser which isn't Firefox ...
1 Go directly to the Colorsuckr site here and you'll get a screen which looks like this:

2 In the box, enter the URL for any image you wish to see a colour palette for, and click 'Get colours', the image will be imported, and if you click on it, your colour palette will be displayed. Here's a different image, with its colour palette:

Here's what I did with it ...
The lovely palette above inspired me to create this: 

It's the Chocolate Teapot Award (About As Much Use As ...). I've been wanting to make one of these for a long time. I can see it having lots of uses. Not for people, you understand; but for instructions, bumpf, notices, organisational burble and things which make you want to say "Oh, for goodness' sake!". If you pop back on Wednesday, I will be revealing my very first award holder :) . . . Happy Monday!
(PS I'm over here, at It's a Creative World today, doing things with envelopes.)