Hey there! It’s Megan and I’ve taken Miss Mint hostage again so I could write on her blog! ;)

This is important stuff, people… so listen up!

What would you do if your hard drive (HD) crashed today? Have you backed up your precious photos, layouts, and scrap supplies to at least one other source? I cannot tell you how important it is to back up your stuff. I have come across far too many friends, including my own sister-in-law, who have had their HDs crash.

Most scrappers back up to at least two different sources. I backup to an external hard drive (EHD) that hooks up to my laptop. I once came across a scrapper who only stored stuff on her EHD (and nothing on her HD on her laptop) and thought that was considered “back up”… nope, sorry, if you don’t have your stuff at least one other place, it is NOT backed up. Needless to say, her EHD died and she lost everything.

I also back up to an online backup service called Mozy (an option for those with high speed internet connections). It is only $5 a month and it automatically detects new stuff I’ve added to my laptop’s HD and will back up anything new when my computer has been idle for 30 minutes. If a backup has not been done for week, Mozy will remind me that it needs to be done! The wonderful thing about using an online service is that if something were to happen at home where my laptop and EHD are stored (fire, flood, etc.) I would still have my stuff stored somewhere else safe. The initial upload is a long process since upload rates are much slower than saving to an EHD, but I let Mozy run in the background for two weeks while I was doing other things on my computer. I only had 40 GB of pics, layouts, and supplies but if you have more it could take you up to a month (possibly more) to upload everything. It is slow, but it really doesn’t require any effort on your part.

Other options are to back up to DVD or CD periodically. I opted out on this one because I think it’s a hassle and decided the online service was a good backup option for me. However this may be a good media for you if you have a slow internet connection or if you don’t mind doing the work needed to burn CDs/DVDs.

If your HD crashes and you have not backed up your files, there are some recovery services available, but I’ve heard that they can cost $1800 or more to retrieve your files, and there are no guarantees to how much they’ll get back for you. You can always buy new scrap supplies, but you can never replace your photos.

So get cracking and back those files up!

Thank You Card
By: Joscie Cutchens

Aloha Minty Fans, it’s Joscie again! Today’s project is a quick card! A great thing about making digital/hybrid cards is you can print up multiples to have on hand. Today’s card was designed as a Thank You card for some of the sweet ladies in my life.

I created this card with Miss Mint’s Jingle Bell Rock Paper, Elegant Valentine’s Elements, Freestyle Sticker Alpha, and the Foxy Lady Kit. I printed up four copies on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of Stampin’ Up! Shimmery cardstock. I trimmed them down and rounded the corners.

I cut out an extra flower/button element and layered it to the card with a pop dot. I cut a small slit in the card front with an xacto knife along two edges of the label so I could add some velvet ribbon. I threaded the ribbon through and tied a knot.

I cut a 5.5 x 8.5 piece of Kraft Cardstock and folded in half. I mounted the card front to the card using pop dots. Then I added a few dots of Black Diamond Stickles around the flower and Icicle stickles around the edge of the card front.

I hope you’ll make some cards to send out and brighten someone’s day!
Aloha, Joscie.

Note: The title of this post has virtually nothing to do with it’s content. It is about animals….but no crackers, no soup, and no Anne Murray. Sorry to disappoint.

So I just realized it’s been a little while since I popped in with a personal post. Did you miss me? You didn’t even notice, did you. Shame on you little miss digital scrapbooker, shame on you. You can always tell when I’m blogging after midnight because my internal filter starts to fade with every hour that passes. It’s 1:30 am so I take no responsibility for the content of this post. Heaven help us if I ever were to blog at 4am. I should try it sometime just to see what happens.

So what did you guys do today?  I went shopping again. Urgh. Why do I torture myself? WHY?! WHY?!! Shopping used to be so much fun and now it totally sucks. I took so many items into the change room that Mr. M fell asleep in the change room area ’man chair’ while he was waiting. And guess how many items I bought? ZERO. That’s right, a big fat goose egg people. And that’s not because I’m picky (Mom), it’s because not a single pair of pants/capris/jeans would get over my big giant freakishly huge fat ass…which by the way, is not fat – but apparently, by today’s messed up super itty bitty witty nitty fashion standards is very very fat. Everything is either super, ultra, ‘hope you shaved’ low rise or crazy pleated high rise Mom jeans. Where are all the REAL pants!!!!? ARGH! Please tell me I’m not the only one with this problem. On the bright side, I got new running shoes…yey.

So enough about my ass - back to the animals, which is why I came here in the first place. Last night I tossed two used Bounce dryer sheets on the dog’s bed to see if it would freshen it up a bit. He fell asleep right on top of both sheets and now he smells DELICIOUS. I used to blog about the animals a lot and I haven’t in a while. I take any chance I get to take pictures (mostly of them) to practice my photographic skills so I wanted to share some recent pics!

Awwww, Abby’s so cute in her little pet carrier. She loves to sleep in there but as soon as she leaves, Chase somehow manages to squeeze himself in there. He has a very large cage and full run of the house but still insists on squeezing in there when she’s not. How uncomfortable does he look? LOL.

Abby fell asleep in this positiion, which I thought was hilarious because she’s sitting like a person..well more like a man, after a football game and a few beers.

The silly dog walked right into the camera and I somehow managed to get it in focus before he moved. Love this shot!

Abby was sitting on my desk and I snapped a few pictures. I think this one is so funny because I think she looks like she’s posing for a cat portrait. Under her paw is my ‘to do’ list. No, that’s my book of PC stuff (ideas, drawings etc.)

This is Chase giving me the Elvis lip. LOL. He must have just started growling at something before I snapped this picture. He thinks he’s vicious.

And just incase you were wondering, yes I am working on some new products. I know it’s been a slow summer at PC but it’s not for good reason. Lots of excitement coming in the next few months. I can promise that you will want to stay tuned ;)

Cheers!

If you haven’t completed a page for ages, feel no excitement about starting one or just don’t know what to do with your recent photos, you might be suffering from scrapper’s block. Ingrid (ingridfasquelle) here with few suggestions for curing this nasty ailment targeting unsuspecting scrapbookers from around the world!

The biggest reason why most people suffer from scrapper’s block is because they are overwhelmed. All too often, people spend too long mulling over a particular page, assignment or task and just get burnt out. When it happens to you, don’t panic! Remember that, luckily, this condition is only TEMPORARY! It happens to the best of us and there are some simple things you can do to help you to get through yours!

- Be gentle on yourself! Remember that scrapbooking is only a hobby, not a race or a competition and that every page does not have to be a masterpiece! Don’t feel intimidated by layouts created by your scrapping idols. Everybody can improve, just have fun! ;)

- Step away from the computer. Yes, I know, it’s often difficult to resist the urge to scrap but once you have your mind relaxed and stop trying so hard, your ideas should start to flow freely!

- Keep your photos and supplies organized. When you exactly know where to find your pictures, your elements and papers, you are
more likely to have fresh ideas and less likely to get frustrated looking for your things!

- Scrapbook with other people. You can get ideas from fellow scrappers when you simply don’t know where to start. Keep involved in the PC community even if it’s just posting comments on other people’s layouts. Have a look at various challenges and inspiration to jumpstart your creativity!

- Try something new. Forget the pictures and pages that are causing you so much frustration and learn a new technique, practice your scrapbooking skills, try your hand at hybrid or just read articles or surf the web for ideas and inspiration.

- Stay informed. about the latest trends and products in scrapbooking. Buy a new kit or paper pack! There are lots of great ones in our PC store!

- Give templates a try. PC’s Snap in a Scrap Templates are a great place to start. Just add some papers and your photos and then have fun embellishing.

- Start scraplifting. Scraplifting is a great way to kick your mojo back in gear. Surf the gallery and pick a page that inspires you and get to work. Remember to give credit to the original poster, of course! ;)

Phew…. What a list! I’m pretty sure that one of these tips will help you cure your scrapper’s block in no time and when that happens, I wish you..

HAPPY SCRAPPIN’!

Prayer Book
By: Joscie Cutchens

Aloha Minty Fans, it’s Joscie checking in again from Hawaii! You may remember from my last post that I sometimes have a hard time remembering things. This project was a quick one to create a little prayer journal. I like to have a little something to remind me of prayers close to my heart. Sometimes it’s a prayer for people who are having a difficult time, sometimes it’s a gratitude item to give thanks, really any prayers I want to remember.

I created the title for my little book by typing “prayers of my” in the 1942 Report font and adding the Written Word 2 “heart”. I placed it in the middle of the bottom of the page from the Jingle Bell Rock Paper Pack. I resized it to 8” x 8” and I printed it on Matte Photo Paper and set it aside to dry. I then fed the same paper into the printer, print side up and printed another Jingle bell rock patterned paper so I’d have both sides printed. I continued to print pages with the Grade Skool Graph Paper. I cut the pages into 2”x 4” strips and set aside. I took a few scraps of a Heidi Swapp polka dot transparency and trimmed it to 2” x 4”. I placed the pages in order and bound them with a bind it all. You could use a hole punch and a ring or any other binding system. You could also use this same idea and make any number of other mini books or notebooks.

I hope you’re inspired to make something and you share it in our gallery!

Until next time, Aloha! Joscie.

What makes a great layout? The perfect papers, the right words, amazing embellishments? Well, it helps…but what it’s really all about is your pictures. Mint Chick Kirstie is here to share some of her favorite post-processing tips. Take it away Kirstie!

Hi Mint Fans, Kirstie here to show you how to make your photos a little brighter and a little sharper using Photoshop Elements, but the same technique applies to all Photoshop users. Let’s get started.

Once you open your photo in Photoshop the first thing we’re going to do is defog it to take that soft edge off and make it look sharper by enhancing the edges of the image. To do this we go to filter>sharpen>unsharp mask and an option box will appear. Start with the radius levels first as this determines how far the sharpness will go from the edge. If you have a lot of detail a low number will be best. Then select the Amount % which I usually find is between 50-100% on most photos. Lastly is the threshold. I mostly leave this at 0 so that it sharpens all the pixels on the image. If you only want the edges sharpened then increase the number a bit. Remember that every image is different and will require different levels so play around with these levels to suit your photo.

The next step I take in processing my photo is to brighten it a bit if it seems to be underexposed. The first step is to duplicate the photo, layer>duplicate. Then we change the blending mode of the layer to screen. Now it’s time to play with the opacity level to suit your photo. If the opacity is set at 100% and your photo is still too dark then you can duplicate the layer and play with the opacity levels again. The more you do this though, the more your photos will start to look grainy. Once the photo is to your liking merge the layers and save it. When I save I always save as a new jpg file and NEVER save over my original photo just in case I need to go back to it for some reason.

If you still feel that your photo is lacking a little oomph then try popping the colour a bit.

Duplicate your photo, layer>duplicate layer and we’ll work with the duplicate layer. Apply a gaussian blur, filter>blur>gaussian blur. You can play with the levels to suit you but I like to set mine at 7.0. You then need to change the blending layer from normal to overlay and adjust the opacity levels to your liking. Once you have the photo to your liking merge the layers and save as a new jpg file.

You can play with this so much and get so many different effects. The different layer blending modes can make a big difference too.

Have fun and don’t be afraid to play around – just be sure to ‘play’ on a duplicate copy ;)