How to fix/add light to your photos

I often have problems with the lighting in my photos. Most of the times when I take the photo, it’s evening/night and there’s no daylight and when on a holiday when I do take a photo in daytime, we all know how frequent the sun is in this part of the world! So let’s say I *always* have dull light in my photos and I finally found the elixir to my problems – Windows Live Photo Gallery. All I do these days is take a photo in artificial light (a.k.a bulb!) and then “auto-adjust” it in the Photo Gallery. To show you a comparison, first is the original photo and then is the photo after adding light.

If you would like to use this feature, all you’ve to do is:

1. Install Windows Live Photo Gallery.
2. Open WLPG.
3. Double-click on the photo that you would like to adjust. It will open up in a full window.
4. Click on the “Fix” menu option at the top of this window. This brings some options on the right sidebar.
5. Click on “Auto-adjust” on the right sidebar.
6. Lo and Behold! You’ve a perfect photo ready to be uploaded to your blog/gallery!

Ben Franklin craft store ROCKS!

Today my DH took me to a Ben Franklin craft store (how sweet is he!!) close to my house and I was awestruck at the products that they carry! They'd almost everything that I could think of. So many times when I see projects online I've to drop them because M's and J's don't carry half of those products and I don't want to pay shipping for online orders; but now I've Ben Franklin's!!

It had some wonderful wood and chipboard products. Among wood ones there were clipboards and several small cabinets with drawers and there was this mini-dresser to keep on your real dresser that you could paint. It was awesome! Then there was a set of mini-clipboards (chipboard) set that was so cute!

Can you believe it that they had ALL the different stickles?!?! And Brilliant dew drops and Versa color ink spots and memories ink spots?!?! It's a paradise for a paper-crafter!!

If you've one near you and haven't visited one yet - WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! :-D

Sentiments/Word stamps

Does anyone feel lost in the world of sentiment/word stamps? I do. With the ever increasing number of stamp companies, there's a deluge of choices. The stamp companies are growing just like the disk meter on your Gmail account! So I decided to list down all the various sentiments/word stamp sets that I know, how complete they are and what's their effect on the wallet. It would be a lot of help if you know some stamp set and I haven't listed it here.

Hope this survey would be helpful to all those out there who're trying to decide which sentiment set to pick! Your suggestions and comments are most welcome.

Sentiments Sets

1. Mixed Messages by Papertrey Ink (PTI)
2. Many Sentiments by Flourishes
3. All Occassions by Little Paper Shop
4. Essential sentiments by My Favorite Things (MFT)
5. Sassy Sayings by My Favorite Things (MFT)
6. Things Hanna Would Say by Hanna Stamps
7. Sketched Sentiments by Lizzie Anne Designs
8. Celebration Sayings by Lizzie Anne Designs
9. Simply Sentiments by Lizzie Anne Designs
10. Ordinary Greetings (Pg 22) by The Angel Company (TAC)
11. Tag Tidbits by TAC
12. Trendy Greetings (Pg 63)by TAC
13. Chicken Scratch by TAC
14. Mini Sentiments by Purple Onion Designs
15. Hand Written by My Sentiments Exactly

Words Sets

1. Paper Tray by Papertrey Ink
2. Flourished Words by Flourishes
3. Just Words II by Lizzie Anne Designs
4. Sentiments I (Pg 44) by Impression Obsession
5. Sentiments II (Pg 44) by Impression Obsession
6. Never Loss 4 Words by Kitchen Sink

Below is a comparison table. To me, for a sentiment stamp set to be complete it should at least have the words Birthday (BD), Anniversary (AN), Congratulations (CO), Thank You (TY), Get Well (GW), Sympathy (SY) and Baby (BB). Or if it's a greetings stamp then it should've appropriate stamps for the above occasions. So the table has one column for each of these. A cell contains "Y" if the set contains that word, otherwise it's empty. Then comes flexibility if it's a word set then flexibility is determined by the accent words like Happy, For, On your, etc. If it's a greetings set then by the presence of more than one greeting for a given occasion. The third column is for price. This column contains:

• $ - if the set costs between $10-$15 (included).
• $$ - for $15-$20 ($15 excluded)
• $$$ - anything greater than $20

The sets are listed in the same order as they are listed above.

Set	BD	AN	CO	TY	GW	SY	BB	Flexible	Price
S1	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$
S2	Y			Y	Y				$
S3	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	$$
S4			Y	Y		Y			$$
S5	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y			Y	$$
S6	Y			Y				Y	$$
S7	Y		Y	Y	Y				$$
S8	Y		Y						$$
S9	Y		Y	Y	Y		Y		$$
S10	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y			$
S11	Y		Y	Y				Y	$
S12	Y	Y		Y	Y				$$
S13	Y			Y					$
S14	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	$$
S15	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y				$$
W1	Y			Y	Y	Y		Y	$
W2	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	$
W3	Y		Y			Y			$$
W4	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$$
W5	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$$
W6	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	$$$

Conclusion:

1. The Sentiments I and II by Impression Obsession seem to be the most complete and versatile word set (and cheap). "Never Loss 4 Words" is also as good just that it's a little expensive.
   
2. After that we've "Flourished Words", "Mini Sentiments" and "All Occassions".

Stamping/Card Making for beginners II

03/30/08: Updated #1 and #7.
The first part of "Stamping for Beginners" is here. They're not a series. The first part is basically when I'd just started and stumbled upon Gina K's article. Now that I've been doing this for a few months, I thought I would compile a list of things I think a beginner needs. So here it goes:

1. White Card Stock: This is the most essential ingredient. Recently I read on SCS that Beckett Expression #80 (for 80 lb) is a good and reasonably-priced option for this. I finally bought Wasau Exact Index, 140 lb and it seems to be great!
2. Colored Card Stock or a Scrap pack of colored Card Stock: The latter costs $5 at chain craft stores and is a huge assortment of colored card stock of various sizes. For the former, I usually get the DCWV card stock. Last time I got the Fall Stack which has 50 sheets of 8.5" x 11" for $10. This was after sale. There's also DCWV Brights card stock or the Neutrals CS.
3. Paper Trimmer: When I started this hobby, I was of the opinion that why would one absolutely need a paper trimmer - there's always scissors; but I was wrong! A scissor can't achieve what a trimmer can, at least not for people like me. The lines never come out straight and unless you can get nice, clean, straight lines you wouldn't feel happy with your work. You can get a decent one for $10 and by using a 40% off coupon, you need to shell only $6!
4. Prismacolor pencils: These are great for coloring your stamped images. A set of 24 is good for starting, unless you want to invest more. Ebay is a good place to get them.
5. An all-occassion stamp set: If you buy a stamp set instead of individual stamps, get one which has a stamps that can cover all occassions. For example I bought the SU! Just for fun which has a heart that can be used for "romantic" occassions like Valentine, anniversary, etc.; a cupcake that can be used for almost any celebration be it a birthday or anniversary or anything else; a moon and stars stamp that is good for "make a wish" or even baby cards; and so on. Buying a set comes out cheaper than inidividual stamps unless you buy individual stamps from the dollar bins at M's. Also, make sure that these stamp images don't have sentiments with them. That way a given image can only be used for that particular occassion. A cake image is more versatile than a cake image with "Happy Birthday" written all over it.
6. Adhesive: I used my glue stick initially but it doesn't do a very good job. So I then bought the Tombo Mono adhesive.
7. Sentiments or Alphabet stamps: It's good to have these stamps, they make your cards complete. I like the Papertrey's "Mixed Messages" or "Paper Tray" set. Then there is "Flourished Words" by Flourishes and "Tag tidbits" by TAC.
8. Black ink pad: You want to buy an ink pad which can be used in multitude scenarios. Stazon black ink fits that purpose.

Optional accessories available for cheap:

1. Shape scissors: Scallop scissors are very useful. Next in line would be a wave scissors. You can get them 2/$1 on sale.
2. Ribbon: If you want to keep just 1-2 ribbons, buy solid colors. They're easy to coordinate and double-sided. Grosgrain ribbon looks good. Satin too. Get a color that'll coordinate with most colors like white.

I don't think patterned/scrapbook paper is absolutely essential, hence you'll find it missing from my list. Another thing to bear in mind - when you buy things that you're going to keep long-term try not to compromise even if that means you've to wait another month. Gather these supplies slowly and gradually, but each of your choice. Use the 40% coupon for chain craft stores for buying your supplies to avoid a hole in your pocket!

Pop up cards

I am always very fascinated by pop up cards specially the more complicated ones. So I decided to look on the net if I could find some examples and I found this really nice ones: RobertSabuda.com. I'll try them sometime soon.

Stamping for beginners

I read this article "Stamping on a budget" by Gina K on Craft Critique. I think it's very helpful for all those beginners like me in this area. Initially I didn't realize that this could turn out to be a very expensive hobby and has a never-ending list of to-get-items. However, it was consoling to see that Gina could create such creative cards with limited number of items. I wanted to get the Text Prints stack but unfortunately it was not available at my craft store so I got the "Stack 5" by DCWV; it was on 50% sale so I got it for $9.99!! I think that's quite a bargain considering it's 12X12 stack with 180 sheets. At my pace, it'll probably last a lifetime! I got some assorted card stock also but turned out that they were very thin. I didn't like them. So my piece of advice: beware when you buy the card stock, I think it's better buy from the standard brands like DCWV.

One of the best places to get your supplies is Ebay. You can get used/new stamps at ebay for a very reasonable price and same for card stock or patterned paper. If you can combine shipping for all the stuff that you want to buy then you save on shipping too.