pI hope you and your family have a wonderful Happy Thanksgiving!!/p
pEnjoy and be safe if you go out for Black Friday / Thursday./p

top 4 frames – 16x20s from adoramapix

the only place so far that i’d ordered 16x20s from was costco and i have not order any for a while as i wasn’t so happy with the last batch. they were a lot darker than the originals for some reason. yep, i was quite turned off.

so, adorama’s last promotion that ended on 8/23 was all 16x20s were half off, making them about $4.60 each. i said why not as i have been meaning to make some enlargements of a few photos. james’ account also had a $10 credit for signing up a year ago. i was up until midnight of the 22nd (yeah, i’m a procrastinator…LOL) reading up on the best format, size, dpi, etc for the size i wanted to get. i ran each of the images through totally rad’s lux photoshop action, saved them in tif’s and sent them off with both my toes and fingers crossed that they would look okay once printed. total paid including shipping and applying the credit was $15 and some cents.

the prints showed up on saturday, via priority mail and i tore into it as soon as i got home from the dealership, which is another story.

i braced myself and took them out of the package with only myself looking at them. they blew me away!!! the paper was thick and the prints look so much better than i’d anticipated which is always always a good thing!! i showed it to my family and they all exclaimed about how nice it looked. i uploaded them in a 2000 x 3008, 300 dpi format. they had to be cropped a bit to fit the 16×20 frame. when that happened, the dpi went down on all to 120 – 150 so i was really preparing myself for the not so good prints. let me just say, they still look fabulous!! i guess i don’t know much about the dpi stuff but i’m just so glad!

the frames cost me a whole lot more, let’s just say. if anyone know of another way to mount, frame, etc photos cheaper, i’m all ears!!

adoramapix is totally recommended and i’m waiting for their next sale to get more prints.

talking about prints, i really want to get the canon pro9000 photo printer as my ip5000 can’t do prints anymore, not even 4×6′s. i ordered from adorama 6 packs of the 50 canon photo paper pro II 4x6s and 30 of the 13×19 canon photo paper pro platinum that i’m itching to print on but i need a printer first. LOL i paid $13.32 for all the 4×6′s and $32.85 for the 13x19s which is a steal considering the quality of the photo papers. i have tried the regular photo paper plus from canon and i wasn’t that impressed.

so, hopefully i’ll get my printer soon…one of these days.

james was sick most of this weekend and today was the day he felt a lot better. thankgoodness! this weekend was also beautiful, weather wise, so we went walking. alex is always wanting to go out walking. all the time. LOL

i have been trying to go on a healthier diet to hopefully shed some of these weight. i’m not sure if it’s working but i feel a lot better without the daily portion of rice and meat. i’m thinking even if i don’t lose any weight, i’m not feeling so weight down as before so it’s good enough. it’s been a month since i cut out the rice and meat and i’m hoping to keep this going. we’ll see…i’m always on and off these kinds of things.

i’m so bad!!! i lagged off so many days! *sigh* most of the time my days are the same and i don’t have anything to photograph but i don’t remember until it’s too late. i felt really bad when i don’t blog a photo. let me try again.

i got in on the blurb groupon deal months back and bought 3 of them. i sent off jaelynn’s 8.5 x 11 and alex’s 12×12 last weekend to print. i was so very surprised when i got a shipping notification from blurb on thursday and they delivered them today!! ^^

i ripped them open so fast since i was just so excited!! they were shrink wrapped and look fantastic! i promptly looked through them and fell in love! i chose the image wrap option with premium papers on both. having only ordered from shutterfly and mypublisher, blurb is definitely the better one yet. now, i have to admit i did not know what i was doing when i ordered from shutterfly a few years ago. i do believe i did not save my images correctly, ie: 300 dpi. i will try them again one of these days. mypublisher was good too but not by choice. with the groupon deal, i was able to choose more premium options and i think those made a difference. you can really tell the “premium” from the regular papers. the covers are sturdy and very nice!

here are a few photos (jaelynn’s book was made using paislee press’ off to press templates and alex’s was made using kitty designs’ inspire me sketches 4 and whimsical sketches 3):

now, my oldest is demanding that i make her another photobook ASAP as her old 8×8 (shutterfly) one is not nice at all. okay, so it was years ago and i think the design leaves much to be desire but still… she wants one with her name on the front cover, not on the spine. it also needs to be big like alex’s. she was actually crying during this rant. i felt so bad so i said i’ll work on hers in the next few days. geesh…kids! LOL

It’s been a month or so and here are my favorite Apps so far:

Feedjuice – excellent for following your favorite reads/blogs

HD dolphin browser – the stock browser is great too but I love this one. There are add ons just like Firefox to make your web browsing more enjoyable.

Facebook pink – I tried the regular fb app and wasn’t impressed. I saw this one a month later and decided to pay $1.5 for it. It is wonderful and I love the pink color. Also it is for a good cause. I admit I enjoy going on fb pink more than the website. Lol

Angry birds – a very entertaining game! Also beautiful graphics!

WordPress – super useful when you have a few minutes between something and just want to jumpstart your blog post.

Appbrain – manage and sync all your Apps. And if you switch phones, you will have a list of all your Apps and can re-install them easily.

Quick battery – displays your current battery life. Very helpful!

Gtasks – just another app that you can add to-do lists, such as shopping. I put my notes in this app as I think of them so I won’t forget.

Watchdog lite – android is all about running different apps simultaneously so this comes in very handy. Kill the apps you don’t want running to save battery juice.

Dropbox – drop files here that you want to be able.to access anywhere, ie: your home PC, laptop, and phone. This way you do not need to transfer files back and forth. Is that easy or what?

Calendar snooze – this app makes your calendar really rock! It lets you customize ringtones, snooze frequencies, etc. Really cool.

Amazon - lets you scan barcodes to check on Amazon.com. very cool!

Target – same thing as the Amazon app. Since I shop mainly at these two places, I love the apps.

360Camera – choose an effect and snap! there are some cool effects here! There’s a paid app but there’s a free option.

fxCamera – same concept as 360camera. i especially love the polaroid option.

That’s my list for now. These apps have my phone acting like a mini-netbook. I totally love that it seems to simplify a lot of things I am already doing but doing it much more efficiently.

If you have some recommendations for android, I’ll love to hear it.

Ahh…as always I hate to see the weekends end. I really enjoy my time home. I did not finish the autograph book though. One of the main reason being that I don’t have a workspace. You know how paper scrapping just need tons of space (or at least I do)?

Since I don’t really have any space to put a desk or money to buy a new one, I had the hubby put my daughter’s small desk in the bedroom for me. I bought the desk for her but she’s not using it at all so here I’m doing something else with it. It’s not big, it’s a kids’ desk but it fits perfect at the end corner of our bedroom. I wanted to make it feel more “homely” so I spent some time re-arranging things and putting up a few pictures so it’ll feel more like a “work space”.

I think it’s getting there but I can always hang more pictures! I just love pictures! Anyway, I’ll take a photo once I feel it’s “ready”.

I did scrapped a bit these past two days, not much but I did something.

credits: jen caputo scallops
tracie stroud pocketful of sunshine
amy martin bugga template

credits: t for me designs quick click minikit
sarah gleason bugga template

credits: amy martin / sarah gleason frogger template
studio taran sugar n spice and everything nice kit

shrek – the whole collection is out on blu ray today. i pre-ordered them for the girls for christmas – it comes out to about $10 per blu ray. we all love shrek here – from the swap to far-far-away and forever after. 3 was pretty forgettable but i love everything else. plus this collection comes with a bonus “donkey’s christmas shrektacula”. i can’t wait to watch these!

also weeks ago, i managed to score the austin powers collection at barnes and noble for $11.37 shipped! fantastic right? i know the austin powers (mike myers ala shrek) humor is not for everyone but i do enjoy it here and there. plus for less than $4 each makes it even sweeter.

we’re all set for a bunch of laughs on christmas morning!