favorite Christmas decoration

I wanted to share my favorite Christmas decoration this year ... floating ornaments.



We hung the ornaments from the ceiling, directly in-line and above our bar, using little screw eyelets & clear thread (found in the sewing section of any store that carries that stuff). If anyone happens to do this in their home as well, please share a picture. I would really LOVE to see it!



Now, answering a few more of your questions:

[ party invites ]

The program I used for Porter's party invitation (Dec. 3 post) is Adobe Photoshop, and it's the same program I use for all of my photo editing (and other creative things) too.

[ bag toppers ]

Also in reference to the Dec. 3 post ... That's just a simple text box in a Word document (or Pages, for those of you Mac users). The font is called Rockwell.

[ printing cards ]

I was asked about printing my hybrid or digital cards. For ME (everyone does their own thing), I am all about having them printed at Costco. I can upload them at costco.com and pick them up in an hour. Easy. And even though I print most of my pictures in a glossy finish (I like the more "crisp" look), I print my cards & invites & things that will be "handled" with a matte finish. If you wanted them to be thicker, you could certainly print them on thicker cardstock at home or at a local copy shop.

[ canadian site ]

Kay asked if she could share a great site in Canada that sells the albums that I use (Oct. 30 post). Absolutely! Go ahead, Kay, and post it here in these comments so all our Canadian friends can check it out. Thanks!

[ stuffing mix ]

For my chicken noodle casserole (May 21 post), I used the Pepperidge Farm "Herbed Seasons" stuffing mix. I'm sure any other kind would be great, too. That's just my preference.

[ e-mail me ]

And old friend from high school posted a comment because she wanted to contact me regarding an upcoming reunion. (Hi Lesley!) So ... If anyone needs to contact me personally, my e-mail is bhiggins@ckmedia.com. I do read every comment that is posted on my blog, but can't possibly respond to it all. I'm sure you understand. : )

[ the layouts-to-do list! ]

Here you go, girls!! It's SUPER simple. A Excel file to keep track of your layouts-to-do. Because I keep family albums, as well as albums for Porter & Claire, I keep track of all of the layouts I want to do in this one file. That way I can see, at a glance, everything.

layoutstodo.xls

This is how I use the running list: I note which album the layout would go in (my chronological books are numbered) or I put a "P" for Porter, a "C" for Claire. The date is the date of the event, or if it's a thematic/non-chronological type of layout, I put the approximate date of where it seems to fit best (ex - "Fall 2007"). The topic - well, it's just obvious what that is. : )

The next few spaces are where I put an "x" if that part of the layout is done ... photos are printed | the pages are done | the journaling is complete. Sometimes I do a bunch of photoshopping for several layouts and get them all printed, so I mark that box, indicating that I have the pictures ready but I still need to complete the page and write the journaling.

I hope this makes sense. I've been using this system for many years and it totally works for me. It's ever-changing, of course. Whenever I think of a fun topic that I want to scrapbook, I immediately add it to my list so I don't have to try to remember it. And of course I keep all of my "obvious-to-scrapbook" topics here, too (birthdays, trips, etc.).