Moving...yet again!

First off, I have to apologize. This so isn't fair to anybody.

This blog will be moving yet again. It won't be changing names or changing content like before, just moving.

I finally bit the bullet and bought out PixiemamaDesigns.com. But shhh! That's a secret.

On late Sunday night/early Monday morning my store, Scrappity-Doo-Dah, completely went down. Disappeared off the face of the Internet. I only noticed it around 9AM Monday morning when I went to check the forums and make my "normal" rounds in my creative team forum.

It had me worried, I have to be honest. It's normal for a website/store to go down every once in a while due to either hiccups in my internet or hiccups in their host's server. But after the last couple weeks that I and my store owners/community of designers at SDD had, I was worried.

Sometime around mid-day April 29th, SDD went down. Shortly after, about 30 minutes to an hour later, my friends Tiff and Jaya noticed that several other stores were down also, including My Life and Scrap, Scrap Orchard, Digi Scrap Addicts, Inspiration-Lane, Scrapable, Designs in Digital, Divine Digital, and many others. These are well-known names, so many customers noticed also. Posts started coming up at DigiShopTalk (the hub where many of us designers go for networking/business-related things, and practically the whole digital scrapbooking community goes to talk about digital scrapbooking, find products to fit their needs, find freebies, post their layouts, so on and so forth...) asking where the sites were.

After a couple of hours, store owners started questioning what was going on because they still couldn't get a hold of their webhost. They all used the same one, UCWebhost. They were not answering phone calls, support tickets, emails, or anything. There was just silence.

Now keep in mind what I mentioned in a previous post - April 30th-May 2nd this year was the biggest shopping weekend of the year not only for digital scrapbookers but also paper scrapbookers, as it was National Scrapbook Day. It was of extremely high importance that the stores be up those three days.

There was a lot of concern that Thursday, because a lot of us at SDD wanted to put out our specials (I had two grab bags, a personal use one for scrapbooking layouts, and a build your own where you could get any of my products for a certain price) early. Me, I was frantic. I was all like "No this can't happen! First my EHD goes down with my finished templates that I worked for three days on to get finished and I CAN'T GET TO THEM! And now all of SDD goes down! Why do you hate meeee?!?!" Yes, I was actually like this.

Let me explain something - to me, this is my job. This is not just a hobby. To some others it may not seem that way, because I don't make a lot of money off it. I knew this going in, and I made Heath aware of it also. But this is literally one of the only things I've succeeded in so far in life. I've made a ton of fabulous friends, and I'm good at it. I have such a low self-esteem problem that when I get an email from a customer or a blog post from another designer that I've given products to, that says "She is just so fabulous and talented, I love her, you must go check her out," it's like you just told me that I won Mother of the Year. That wonderful.

Well sometime Friday everything finally came back up, but we had very little answers about it all. Some people vowed then and there to move to another host, but they didn't immediately take action on it.

Then this happens, two weeks later. It was a nightmare.

SDD was down a total of 5 days I believe. That 5 days we lost out on so many sales it's not even funny. Yvonne, the store owner, was almost crying to me on Yahoo. I felt so bad for her. It wasn't just that the store was down, it was the fact that there was 2-3 days with no communication and she was afraid all the designers and customers would leave. When there was communication it was obviously all lies and just really poor damage control.

It was during that time that I went researching for new hosts to try to help Yvonne out. Instead of doing that (because it was more difficult than it seems) I ended up finding a good deal on a company that had very good reviews and was totally in my price range. I figured up what I had in my Paypal from the week after NSD (which was my biggest sales week, go figure lol) and when I put just a couple extra dollars with it, about $5 actually, I had enough to pay for a domain and one month of hosting. So Heath and I discussed it and I bit the bullet on it.

I make enough in sales each month that I should be able to pay for it on a monthly basis very easily. I didn't have the money to pay in advance and anyway, after what's happened lately I worry about signing a contract. So month-to-month is better for me, although it does cost a bit more. But I feel much better paying a couple dollars more a month knowing that if something happens, I can bolt out of there as soon as I get the chance. Now I just have to hope that nothing happens.

So like I said, the blog will be moving but none of the content or anything will change. The design will, because it's a different type of blog, and the address will also, but everything else will stay the same. I just can't see having my design blog on my domain but having my personal blog still stuck on a Blogger account. It's so restricted. Until then, I'll stay here and post like I normally do, because it probably won't be coming until the next couple of weeks, if not longer. First and foremost I have to focus on moving all my designing stuff over because I want that all done by June 1st.

You can see the domain by the link I provided up there. As long as the Coming Soon sign is still up, nothing is up yet lol.

I'll let you know when the blog will move over.

A few CT layouts

Ahh yesterday was a good day.

After I made my blog post I did a little more editing to the blog. I think I finally have all the things done with it that I can do. My jewelry-making stuff is all still on my dead EHD, but I hope to add some new stuff soon, because I'll be doing more hopefully this week.

After I did that, I realized that I really needed to clean off the computer a little. So I cleaned out the temp files and ran a Disk Cleanup, then I went ahead and burned some old kits to CDs so I could get them off the computer. While I was at that, I burned some of the latest photos to CDs so I could give to my aunt and mom.

I was finally all done with that around 2pm. I sat down and started doing some jewelry-making. I figured out how to make some wire-wrapped beaded hoop earrings. I hope to maybe make up a tutorial for here soon. I don't claim to know a lot about jewelry-making, but I'm learning slowly! After I did that I got busy making my mom's Mother's Day gift. I wish I had taken pictures and I was going to, but she came to get them before I got the chance. I think she really liked them. I used glass pearls in a deep cobalt blue, a light blue, and off-white. I also used some mixed natural colored beads for the necklace, and I graduated the sizes of some of the pearls. The necklace was a two-strand, the bracelet was single medium sized pearls in alternating colors using links, and I made her some simple pearl earrings and a wire-wrapped pearl ring. I had her try it on and it fit perfectly, which is an accomplishment for me because I haven't yet made a ring that actually fits me lol.

After that was done I decided I wanted to do some shopping. I still had my money from NSD weekend from the shop, so I figured I would treat myself for Mother's Day. I went back to Captivated Visions shop and picked up her Travelogue Date Stamps and her collab kit with Michelle Batton, From Boy To Man. This morning I woke up to a payment from the store again, so I went back and I purchased Flerg's CU Grab Bag from ScrapbookGraphics.com for some of my designing, and I also went over to SunshineStudioScraps.com to pick up their May Grab Bag. I've told myself I don't want to spend anymore, but we'll see how that goes when the rest of the Monday and the Tuesday sales go up lol.

After I got done shopping, I decided I wanted to do some scrapbooking. I got two layouts done.



Template by ChrissyW. All elements are from InspiredbyDominic Design's Domimetric, except for screws attaching shelf and date stamp, which are by Captivated Visions.



Template is unknown but it was a free download from ScrapMatters.com. Elements are from Captivated Visions and Michelle Batton from their collab "From Boy To Man. I just love this collab! Date stamp is also by Captivated Visions, and swirly word art was made using InspiredbyDominic Designs "The Middle Path" vol. 2 I think.

Well I need to be wrapping this up but I'll be back soon again. I find posting on this blog very therapeutic, like a diary lol. I hope to be back soon with more layouts and more fun stuff.

Happy Mother's Day!

Just wanted to stop by and wish you all a Happy Mother's Day.

Made with Everyday Bliss by Captivated Visions. She was so very gracious to gift me a $10 GC on NSD and I had so much fun shopping in her store, she has beautiful stuff. In fact, I had a problem checking out and I had to email her and the email didn't get to her, and when I emailed her back again, she fixed the order, apologized for the inconvenience many times even though it wasn't her fault, and gave me another coupon to get more beautiful stuff in her store. I'm definitely a repeat customer!

Isaac and I went outside yesterday to get some fresh air and have a little fun. He had a ton of fun - me not so much. Apparently with the slightly unseasonable cold weather that blew in this weekend, also blew in something that I'm extremely allergic to. I can barely breathe and my chest feels like it's going to cave in. Last night when I laid in bed all I wanted was my blanket and some Vicks. Unfortunately we didn't have any. In fact we really don't have anything. We have a few of the knock-off daytime pills so I might take one of those in a bit, but I'm hesitant because a few times I've taken them they've made me drowsy. And a nap with this child is just not possible - I'm terrified of what I'd wake up to.

Also in good news...Heath was asked yesterday to become the new assistant manager. Now we're trying not to get our hopes up because of previous letdowns. But I have to say, this time it looks like it's actually going to happen. Their current assistant manager - well I won't give details, but he was doing some unsavory things apparently. He wasn't fired, but yesterday he informed the district manager that today (Sunday) would be his last day. He said he was "tired of Love's". My guess is that he's found a new job and they want him to start immediately, but I'm only guessing on that. Heath's boss says that if he decides Monday he wants to continue working, that Heath is to send him home and have him call her or the district manager. As of Monday, Heath should be the new assistant manager. We're not throwing a party yet, but it just feels like this time, it's actually going to happen.

My plan for today is to pull out my jewelry and make some things for my mother and grandmother for Mother's Day. I plan to make my mom a full set - necklace, earrings, bracelet, and a wrapped ring. That's the plan anyway, we'll see how that goes. I also plan to try to do some scrapping - probably no working for me except advertising the last day of my sale. I wish I could scrap on my laptop, curled up under a blanket and watch TV, but Photoshop on my laptop is acting up again. I think my laptop must not have enough space to run it or something. I tried to install Photoshop Elements 6 instead, but the laptop won't load that disc. It loads just fine on the desktop, but won't load on the laptop, so my guess is that the CD drive went out on it. I rarely use CDs for anything but I haven't had any success loading any CDs on it lately. I am so looking forward to a new laptop. I'm trying to convince Heath that with his first bonus (if he makes assistant manager, it's coming up in June) he should get my laptop instead of getting a new desktop. I don't think he's going for it, because he found a new desktop tower that he wants that's like, super high tech (to me anyway). You can even plug in something to watch TV on your computer with picture-in-picture. The thought of me watching TV on my computer while scrapping is kind of weird - but I think something I could get used to very quickly lol.

I mentioned before that Isaac and I went outside yesterday to get some fresh air - while I didn't have too much fun because I was freezing cold, with a runny and raw nose, I did get the chance to take some pictures. I wanted some cute pictures of Isaac for Mother's Day, to make that card above. Typical kid - when I asked for a little attention and a smile, he had to start acting goofy.









But eventually, when you're patient enough, you get something super sweet.



Don't let the cute face fool you. See that look? It means "I may be cute Mom, but I'm inherently naughty."

Today I'm finishing up some things on the blog here - there's not too much to finish up, just a few odds and ends. My EHD is still not up and running, so some things will not be able to be done until I can get that back because 99% of the stuff I have is on that.

That's all for me today, I need to get started if I want to get all those things done today, so again Happy Mother's Day to all of you and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Just my luck...

I have insanely bad luck. Everybody who knows me knows that about me as well. It's hard to miss, because I complain about it. A lot.

Every week it seems like something goes wrong. Back in November I think it was, the washer went haywire. The next week, the dryer went haywire. Back when we got our taxes we were getting all caught up on bills, and then our car breaks down. There went that idea. Then just a couple of weeks ago, as I was sitting down finishing up a kit, my glasses just snap right in half. I wasn't even touching them, it just seems like gravity did it or something. The funny thing is is that as we were headed to get them fixed, we got a huge bolt in our tire and went totally flat. The eye doctor that I go to was closed and we barely made it to my grandma's before we ruined the tire. That weekend we had to buy a new tire because ours was ruined and I had to end up taping my glasses until Monday.

That's just how my luck is, and that is an every day occurrence. Every day something goes wrong to totally ruin my day. Either the house is a mess, my computer is protesting me, Isaac is being a terror, or the cats are fighting and/or destroying the once-clean house.

So...I wasn't entirely surprised when one day last week I woke up and decided to start catching up on some work that should have been done weeks ago, and my EHD wouldn't read. It had been doing this for a while. You plug it in, and it just lies there but it doesn't read on your computer. Like a kid who is spacing out in class - you can yell at it all you want, but it just doesn't respond. This particular Thursday it was being an extra large pain in the butt, because I just needed something to go right - I wasn't in the greatest mood. It was literally four days after I had to have my glasses taped all weekend just so I could see what I was working on, and I was still getting used to my new glasses (that weren't taped and all uneven). It was Heath's last day of work before 3 days off and I was just ready to get that day over with. So I screamed and I yelled and I got ticked off at Heath (who didn't do anything at that point, mind you) because he wasn't helping quick enough. And long story short, we got a little too forceful with the non-responding EHD and with a couple of wiggles, the little USB port inside it completely snapped off.

It was actually probably pretty funny. That was the last thing we had expected to happen. Who expects a USB port to just pop off? It was probably extra funny when we looked inside the tiny hole and found the port literally rattling around inside the inner workings.

Just. My. Luck.

Now let me tell you, that EHD has my whole life on it and I have no backups. No, not the greatest idea since EHDs are more likely to fail than flash drives or computer hard drives. I have no idea why that is, but the digi-scrap and design community has seen more EHD failure than - well, I have no witty comment, because it's way too early in the morning. But in my defense, signing up for an online backup service was one of the things that had to go out the window back at tax time when the car went down, and we just don't have the money normally to afford it. Maybe soon, but right now, no. (I know that there's one out there that is only $5/month and I definitely make that in sales at Scrappity-Doo-Dah - I should check that out huh?)

Flash forward to a week later...(inter)National Scrapbooking Day. The single biggest sales weekend for pretty much any designer. The single most fabulous day for any digital scrapbooker. 40 and 50% sales pop up at almost every store. You can get really, really fabulous deals for not a lot of money. There are games, designers are giving away free stuff left and right, and husbands are fainting everywhere when they see the credit card bills and bank statements.

And just my luck, my EHD breaks the week before this joyous occasion. I cried.

Now really, I was upset for nothing. It's not like my money was stored on my EHD. But my new products for (i)NSD were. So one week before (i)NSD and all my products (except for one which was luckily on the SDD server already) for release that weekend are locked on that stupid drive. Not to mention, all my digital kits from other designers and every single one of my pictures. I couldn't design, I couldn't scrap, all I could do was shop.

Bad, bad thing. If I'm not designing or scrapping, I'm usually shopping. And if I don't have designing or scrapping to keep me occupied, I'm shopping all day.

I do have some good things to report however. My dad graciously gave me money to shop with and I didn't break the bank. In fact thanks to about $1 left of that money and payday yesterday at SDD, I still have money left. (However, methinks that instead of shopping this week which I did plenty of this weekend, I will sign up for a subscription to Mozy online backup.) The money allowed me to buy some CU items in order to design with, and buy some kits to scrap with. I found photos online at my old Webshots account, plus found some that were on a different drive, so I could scrap.

The best news? It looks like I'm going to get my EHD back today, thanks to Yvonne for suggesting that I just take out the regular drive inside and install it as a slave drive on my desktop computer. Also thanks to Heath's mad computer skills. See mom? All those hours Heath spent taking crap apart as a teen is making his wife one happy woman. It's a win win.

I was able to do a little scrapping while my EHD was down, but this weekend I was so busy shopping my brains out with dad's money that I didn't get much else done. I did do a little designing in between then though, so I could make some of that money back. Although I didn't even make half of it back, but oh well.

Here are the pages I did:

Template by unknown designer, it was a free download. Elements and papers by RK Designs from Zoo Baby and Zoo Baby 2 available at Designs In Digital.



Layout is all my own design. Elements and paper are from Lucky Island by Vonnie's Digiworld available this month at MissTiina.com.



Template by ChrissyW available at Elemental Scraps. Elements and Paper from Little Engineer by Spinky Dink Scraps available at Gotta Pixel.

When I saw that kit by Spinky Dink Scraps, I just knew I had to have it for those pictures. I still have a few more to do, but I'm waiting until I have my pictures back because it's a pain to have to copy and paste pictures from a Webshots screenshot into Photoshop, crop them, and end up resizing them because they're too small. Hopefully they will turn out okay when I print them.

I hope this week to get more time to scrap, maybe tomorrow or something if I get my pictures back today. I have quite a few pictures to catch up on scrapping.

I hope to be back later this week with a few more things to share. I'm taking a break from P365 because of the hard drive thing. I'm just non-motivational lately lol. Heath is off for the next three days off so it's a possibility we may go out for photos. Until next time!