ten minute tuesday...

hello, I'm back for ten minute tuesdays...finally. It's been a hectic summer but now the kids are back in school things are slowly starting to return to normal. I'm enjoying peaceful days but oh boy - where'd the sun go?!

Anyhoo - creative talk now. Project Life more specifically.

Just before we took our summer holiday I ordered 154 photo's from Photobox. Lots of them were Instagram shots which I ordered on 4"x6", making them 4"x4". Honestly though - what a pain going through and clicking "shrink to fit" on every single one.  For some reason that was the only way I could get it to do it. Ugh.

So, here I am with 154 photo's, destined for my Project Life album. Ha - lots of gaps to fill in too as this is from March to July. Eeek. so where did I start....by buying a new printer! LOL.

I've quickly come to the conclusion that if I'm going to record our lives again, I need a printer.
We used to have a fabulous printer, but it died a death and we replaced it with an amazing printer - but it's an office one, and in all honesty, printing photo's on it really isn't the best. They are ok, but not what I want.

Enter a Canaon Selphy C900.

Wireless. Yeah right. Not in our house.

We work for ourselves, and have a lot of security set up on our network and clearly this little baby doesn't like hanging around for you to type in very long passwords...  Oh the joys. So, I've just plugged it in to my laptop. I'm not upset about it.

So far I love it! But. Warnings.....  

I usually print onto matte paper. The selphy packs are gloss and they are waterproof prints.Great if you have a coffee spill, not so great for my pens. My regular pens don't adhere to them, even my micron pens. Arrgh! I have several sharpies, one has worked. A regular old sharpie with an extra fine tip at one end.  If you don't write on photo's then it won't be an issue for you.

Second issue was Instagram photos. Although the Selphy comes with print size options, and a custom option. It didn't really do for Instagram. I want to be able to print them at various sizes, from 4" to 2".

Back to the drawing board then. Noooooooooo.....

I have had a couple of apps suggested to me to get over this. While they may work for other people I don't want to fiddling about on a tiny phone screen with an app. My eye sight isn't what it used to be you know... LOL. And, more importantly I just don't have the patience. But I do have PSE7. yay. Problem solved!

I do find PSE a bit of a faff most of the time, but this was quick and painless.  I back up all my Instagram and camera shots on our network as a matter of course, so they are all there ready for me to print.

HOW TO.....

• open your instagram image in PSE and select "image" "resize" . I then select the size in inches. As you can see from above image 4", 3.75", 3" and 2" sizes. 
• Do this for all the images you want to print - especially important for the smaller sizes so you have them all selected at once to fit on the sheet. 
• Select "File" "Print multiple images", with PSE7 a new window opens. 
• For multiple images on one sheet make sure you select "contact sheet" print type (dropdown 2)
• Set the number of columns - two should be enough for images 3" and smaller.

There we have it - all ready to print out my Instagram images ready to use.
Project Life album under way.
 I'm not putting myself under pressure to catch up with everything for it. I'll start with the big events and days out and gradually fill in inbetween, but from this week I can start recording things weekly (ish).

Where does the ten minutes come in? errm, well now I have the printing issue out of the way, I can spend ten minutes writing up the cards for the album in my "war on the photo mound".

Please do share with me what you have been up to in your bid to catch up and/or get creative ten minutes at a time.

Thanks for stopping by!
Vicki 

ten minute tuesday....

hello, hello and welcome once again to ten minute tuesday, and a very sunny tuesday it is too! 

Hurrah! 

Do we dare that summer may finally have arrived.  I'm refusing to check the weather forecast for the rest of the week, especially as we had hail followed by glorious sunshine at the weekend. I don't know if I should get my tingers out or not. 

tingers.... toes that think they are fingers. That's what hang off the end of my feet.  I've kept them hidden away from public view for years, but I care not anymore.  Better to display the tingers than have hot feet.  Must be an age thing. Like everything else. 

Right, this week has been super quick and easy. Project Life prep. I still have to order my photos, but I am starting to create some simple 'month' cards. I've used the Studio Calico Clear Months set for this.

Now, I like happy accidents, but these are grid cards, and if I had to get the months lined up. I used some of the Glitz Design washi tape to line up the card with some scrap lined paper. The washi was then just folded over the top as part of the overall design of the card when I'd finished stamping.

I even lined up my stamps on one of the Tim Holtz grid blocks.  Peeling off the month I wanted to highlight, I stamped them in black archival ink (it was close to hand and I have the large pad)

and the missing month was stamped using Adirondack Dye Ink Pad in Citrus

a couple of extra little stamped flourishes and I'm done.  Quick, simple, clean month cards.

Right I'm off to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, or just make the most of the fact the kids are playing out! Yay, peace and quiet...for a while.

Thanks for stopping by and do please let me know if you join me for short creative bursts. 

ten minute tuesdays #6

Hello and welcome to ten minute tuesdays. 

Confession time.  

Not a lot has gone on here on the creative front. We had family gathering and taxi of Mum all weekend for various parties. Then towards the end of last week I got a call asking, or was it telling me, that I needed to go into hospital...erm Monday. Ha!  Nothing like a bit of notice. Could I go the following day for my pre-op checks as well.  In all seriousness with that and all the prep I needed to do there was not a chance for ten minutes.  

So off I went yesterday to get my procedure done under a general anaesthetic.  Nothing major, but man I am wiped out today. 

What I will leave you with is something that did only take me ten minutes - shoving a few images in my Project Life album. Its not getting very far as I'm not too great at remembering to take photo's and then getting them printed off! I will get there though. 

 And it certainly helps when the kids want to do some pictures for me to go in it.

I'm hoping you've had a better week that I have and have found ten minutes to play some where during the last 7 days.  Please do share, I do love a good nose! 

Until next time, happy creating!