Daily Art - Feeling the love!

It's Valentine's Day.  Here's my love, photo edition!

Love is....my heart

Love is....Deuce "Bag", the smug, furry one

 Love is....family

Love is....cousins

Love is....creation

Love is....free!

Whether or not you celebrate Valentine's Day with a special somebody, or think it's the worst kind of Hallmark holiday, your love isn't just about a relationship, or just one day.  Go out and spread the love!

Daily Review - Groovebook (plus a free one for you!)

 

I suspect that Shark Tank is one of those shows that a lot of people watch but don't usually talk about.  I love it, personally.  There's always that moment of "that's brilliant, why didn't I think of that", or the eye-rolling at Mr. Wonderful's royalty based deals.  Recently, the owners of the Groovebook app were featured.  I'd actually heard of Groovebook before they showed on Shark Tank, but their appearance inspired me (and I'm sure many others based on how slow their servers were the weekend after the show aired) to give it a try. 

For those of you that haven't seen it, Groovebook is an app for printing pictures off your phone.  If you're anything like me, you have hundreds that may or may not get uploaded to Facebook/Instagram but then just sit in your phone memory.  For $2.99/month (incl. S+H), as a subscription service, you can upload 100 photos a month to Groovebook, and they send you a printed book with those photos.  The photos are 4x6 and perforated so that you can pull some out to give to friends and family, pull out to put in a scrapbook, or frame.  I just got my first book and I love it!  I just uploaded the photos for my second book (which was quick seeing as I think their servers recovered from the post-Shark Tank rush) and I'm already excited to receive it.  On the show, they did make a deal with Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary, so I'm curious to see what happens next, but I really hope they hold on to this original model.

The photo paper feels a little thinner than prints you might order from other services, but at $0.03 a print, they're a great value (compared to the $0.10 or $0.12 you might pay elsewhere).  I also love that each photo has the time and date stamped right above the perforation.  The app itself is pretty easy to use.  I like the advanced photo option where you can pick how many of each image you want in the book.  There's a little "ticker" at the top of the screen to let you know how many photos you have left.  Once you've selected them all, you simply upload to the service and a couple weeks later your book arrives.  I also like that you can order additional copies for others, which is great if you're being harassed by family members for new photos of the little ones!

I did notice that there was a coupon code (JACOBS87) for a free Groovebook in the back of mine, so I wanted to share it with you all.  Overall, this is definitely one I'd recommend to anybody looking for an easy, and inexpensive, way to get those photos off your phone and into your hands.  With a free coupon code, there's no excuse not to try it!


DISCLAIMER:  I received no compensation for this review.  I just think it's a neat product and wanted to share because I like you guys!

Daily Craft - Birthday invites in a rush!

Has to believe that Owen is turning 1 next week.  People say that the time goes fast, and it's true.  Seems like yesterday he was a sweet little newborn, and now he's a fully mobile little dude with a huge personality.  We're keeping his birthday pretty low key and I was dithering back and forth for the longest time about whether to just send an evite (seeing as we're trying to keep things simple), or mail invitations (seeing as it's his first birthday).  In the end, I realized that we'd need to mail an invitation to Owen's great-grandmother at the very least, and the grandparents as a whole would probably like a proper invite.  Of course, I decided upon all this pretty last minute, which meant ordering and waiting for invitations to arrive probably wouldn't work.  Instead, I came up with a simple to make, but super cute (in my humble opinion at least) concept.

I designed a 4x6 card (using the My Memories Suite software, although any photo software could work).  I then got the photos printed at Walgreens, which generally isn't my photo printer of choice, but they conveniently offer 1-hour service and in-store pick-up.  The rest was some very easy construction.

Materials
- 12"x12" cardstock
- 4"x6" photos
- washi tape.

Steps
 - Cut the cardstock sheet in half to make two 6"x12" strips.
- Score the cardstock approx 2" from one end.
- Stick the photo onto the cardstock, up against the score line.
- Score on the other side of the photo.
- Fold both flaps over the photo, then
secure the flap and the sides with washi tape.
- Address and put on stamp.
- You're done.



It really was that simple and total cost of about $4 to make 15 invitations (not including postage).  If you wanted to, this leaves a ton of space for a personal message, which means it could work great for holiday cards.  The options for cardstock are endless too! 

I actually have a great giveaway coming soon from my sponsor, My Memories, who have fantastic digital scrapbooking software.  I have used it for invitations, holiday cards, photo collages, and it's currently housing the epic work-in-progress "first year" scrapbook for Owen.  Stay tuned...  :)

Daily Ramblings - 32 weeks

Stormy skies when leaving Olive Garden after dinner last night.
Love it when it's moody.  ;)

I quite enjoyed this weekend - did a bunch more sewing, massage, pedicure, enjoyed some good food with family, and scored some deals at Target.  Yes, I think I've pampered myself more, since realizing I can no longer cut my own toenails, than I ever have before.  

This morning, I had my 32 week check-up.  Everything is looking good, and it says something when you spend more time discussing cell phone ringers during your visit than you do any concerns that the doctor has (i.e. there were none).  The number of weeks I have to go is in single digits, which seems so strange.  I feel like we have a ton of stuff to do, but also feeling quite calm about it all - perhaps because I'm not entirely sure where to start!

- Our crib and dresser should be working their way to our house soon so we can get those built, then work on decorating the walls in the nursery.
- I made my tentative list of things for the hospital bag, so plan to start putting it together in the next week or two.
- We secured a daycare spot on Friday, which is a huge relief in itself as it's good to know we have somebody we like lined up to look after #weebabyjacobs (yes, my unborn has an unnecessary hashtag in all Facebook references thanks to a friend of ours...who knew it would catch on?)
- Speaking of names, baby's still nameless for now.  I believe it's driving husband's grandmother crazy that we haven't picked a name yet, and she seems more anxious about it than we are!  We've narrowed it down though, so making progress. 



In the meantime, while I actually DID remember to grab my camera this morning to take some photos of what I've been sewing, I didn't have a chance to get the pics off the camera.  I'll get organized eventually, I swear!  :)

Daily Ramblings - So neglectful!

I really do feel like I've been horribly neglectful of my blog readers recently.  2012 has proven to be positive in many ways, but it certainly hasn't given me an over-abundance of time.  It's times like these that I'm glad I decided not to set myself a ton of new year resolutions - I blinked and it's March, and I've done a lot but strangely feel like I've not accomplished enough!

A quick rundown of the highlights from last week.  I finally started posting some new jewelry items in my shop.  For example, I found these donut beads a while back and immediately knew I wanted to present them with cord.  I really like how they turned out, and each bead is so unique!  I also changed the backgrounds for my jewelry photography.  The plain white wasn't highlighting the pieces in the way I wanted to show them, so found a really cool pack of metallic scrapbooking papers to use instead.  I also got another order of beads and findings from Artbeads.com, which I hope to start working with soon.  I see stitch markers being available some time in the future.


I missed Foto Friday again, but I've still been keeping up with my photography project. Here's a couple of my personal favorites from last week.

From the brilliant (if not slightly deranged) mind of my co-worker, Randy. 
He makes amazing rock sculptures, which I just had to photograph and share!

A photo from a poetry book I had at my parents' house. 
I think the illustrations are beautiful and hope to pass this down to my own kids some day.

Then, this weekend, I did an engagement photo shoot for some friends of mine - Marcy & Kent. Marcy rides horses, so we decided to go with a horse themed shoot, and spent the afternoon at Sullivan Canyon - one of L.A.'s little secret spots with beautiful trails to walk and check out the houses of the rich and (potentially) famous.  Then it was off to Santa Monica to catch the last few minutes of sunlight before the sun set on the horizon. We were lucky to have such a beautiful SoCal day. If anything, there may have been a little TOO much sun on occasion, if that's even possible! You can check out the entire set of photos here.


I have so many things that I want to get started on, and I'll find the time at some point (I hope). How has your 2012 been so far? Don't forget to take time to breathe!