DigiScrapStation Blog

Thursday Template 4/30

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Today’s template is a toughie. I tried to make a layout with it and it just would not come. Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that hubby is in there, next room over busy with the broom attacking dust and cobwebs. It really makes me nervous when he does that. Who knows what he will break. So, come on you ladies show me how it is done and do one for me!

Wednesday’ s Words

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | Wednesdays Word | 1 Comment

Spring is here! And April is almost over. For today’s word art I made for you all a little plaque to put on your layouts about Spring.

Monday Musings April 27

Monday, April 27th, 2009 | Monday Musings | 1 Comment

Today is going to be a little more of an informative post instead of a muse. But, I thought I would share this with you all.

I opened myself up to a can of worms the other day. There was this post at DST about how the stores take care of customer invoices and there was concern over privacy issues. At DSS every invoice is copied to all designers so they can see how the sales are doing, what is being sold and how their products are selling. They use this information to help determine what to work on next and how to set their sales and prices. Well, these invoices only had the name of the customer on them as the rest of the information was taken out several months ago.

The store’s privacy statement at the time did not say anything about this. All it promised was customer information was not going to be sold or used to harass customers—well here is what it said exactly:

Your information is safe with us. We will never use information collected here to harass you, nor will we ever sell this information. If you wish to subscribe to our newsletter, you will be able to unsubscribe very easily.

But, it seems some people were unhappy with the sharing of what was being sold to whom. They felt that what they purchased was nobody’s business and the least amount of people to see it the better. It looked like it was some designers who were the ones most upset since they were the ones to purchase commercial use products and did not want it spread around just exactly what they purchased. I could understand that. Digi-scrap designers have to be very competitive and figure out unique and interesting things to produce in order to sell anything anymore.

So, I stripped the name of the customer out of the invoices that are copied to the designers. The only thing now on those invoices is the order number and the products sold. I also changed the privacy statement and added the following:

Store designers receive a copy of all Order Confirmation emails strictly for the purposes of tracking their own personal sales and the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. These order confirmation emails only contain the list of products purchased, and do NOT have the customer’s name, email or any other personal information on them.

Of course, that is not good enough for some, but that is as far as I am willing to go. The designers at DSS find this information that is shared with them in a timely manner to be most helpful. They do not have to guess how that coupon sale went, or how that discount sale went. They can see immediately. Then, if their sales are lagging towards the end of the month, they will know in time perhaps to have a sale or work a little harder to send out ads and postings on blogs.

Customers do need to know that no financial information is on the store web site. Customers are taken off the site to PayPal to pay for their purchases and nothing is brought back to the store web site but the fact that the purchase was paid for.

I am working on getting a SSL for the site. Well actually I already have one, but on some browsers it brings up a warning that the website is certified by an unknown authority. I have talked to the hosts about this and asked that they fix that, but it has not been fixed yet. They have really taken up a lot of my time trying to get that all worked out.

Please feel free to contact me using the store contact link if you have any questions regarding your privacy and the information

Friday Freebie 4/24

Friday, April 24th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Don’t forget today is Friday $2 Express in the store!

Today’s Freebie comes from Gail Cook–she is giving you all two Quick pages from two of her kits that are in the store. The Quick Pages are made by Shannon Webb (Shannon’s blog is at http://www.simply-digiscrap.blogspot.com/)

Wednesday’s Words April 15

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This is it–the deadline for mailing your tax returns without racking up any penalties is today!

So I thought today we would look at some things said about taxes.

Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.
F. J. Raymond

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep. ~Will Rogers

I’m proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money. ~Arthur Godfrey

Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income-tax form than it does to make the income. ~Alfred E. Neuman

So I am going to post a layout that I did after spending all Saturday figuring the taxes for the business, I used my kit, Double Entry to make it.

Tuesday’s Tutorials April 14

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Tax day is almost here–do you all have your tax returns done?

OK–today’s tutorial is about that technique called, “Out of Bounds” I just love how it makes the layout look so dimensional. I found several tutorials on it, so I am posting all the links.

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/outofbounds_ew.shtml

http://scrapbookideas.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/out-of-bounds-tutorial-for-digi-scrapbooking/

http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=188

Here are two layouts I found in our gallery that use this technique. Why don’t you click on them and go leave these ladies some love.

Monday Musings April 13

Sunday, April 12th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Today’s musing is from Belanna of Belanna at Odds

Look at her newest products:

Here is her muse:

Through the looking glass

I read Alice in Wonderland as a child and it was a wonderful tale of adventure. I studied Alice in Wonderland as part of my English Lit course in my late teens and through it learned to understand the structure of metaphor and allegory - somehow I expected that to destroy the magic of the story, but luckily it didn’t. I read it again a few years ago and what struck me was that as an adult, I have a deeper appreciation of both the innocent joy of the adventure, and at the same time the capacity to draw insight from the metaphors that Lewis Carrol wove into the fabric of the tale - and I still love it!

This came back to me with a bang today as I was playing with my digital camera - well I say mine, but I actually bought it as a Christmas pressie for my other half a couple of years ago, and while he lovese it, he’s still quite happy to let me ‘borrow’ it on occasion lol! Anyway, I was playing with the camera - playing because I certainly don’t regard myself as a photographer by any stretch of the imagination - when it occurred to me that the camera has become my personal version of the ‘Looking Glass’.

I mean, we live in a particularly beautiful part of the world - Vancouver Island off the sunshine west coast of Canada - and I never thought I’d ever grow to take that for granted. And yet, through the eye of the camera I’m learning to love the world around me all over again. It’s almost as if the camera forces me to actually ‘focus’ on what I’m seeing, if you’ll pardon the pun.

I am by nature a ‘big picture’ person, I love the sweeping vistas but I often miss the small stuff. My other half is very much the opposite, and I suppose that’s part of why we complement each other so well. But lately I’m noticing more of the detail because the camera is opening my eyes to things that have always been right under my nose.

I’m seeing intricate tracework in rocks, gloriously colour-washed petals, a never-ending spectrum of greens from deepest darkest forest to palest aqua, and the muted greys and blues of our peaceful patch of the ocean. And it’s as if I’ve stepped through the Looking Glass and found myself in a familiar and yet ever so subtly different version of the world. I remember Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory talking about images you can taste, and now I finally understand - there is such a freshness and intensity to what I’m seeing, a richness of colour that is almost tangible.

As a designer I find that both exciting and challenging - with so much inspiration around me, the difficulty lies in picking what to work with, and then doing it justice! But on a deeper, personal level, I’m finding that it brings me a joy and contentment I never suspected were possible. With all the turbulence in my life at the moment (something I suspect a lot of people are experiencing with the world the way it is!) it’s as if I’ve discovered an oasis of peace and tranquility on my doorstep – and it waits for me through the eye of my camera.

Now if only I could find the time to scrap some of it!

Friday Freebies April 10

Friday, April 10th, 2009 | Friday Freebies | No Comments

Don’t forget today is Friday Express at DigiScrapStation.

Our designers have loaded the express up with gorgeous goodies for you at $2 each.

Today’s Freebie comes from Kathy’s Scraps. If you will look back two days, I put a quote in the post for Wednesday’s Words and told you all to make some word art out of it. Well, Kathy did and is sharing it with you all. Isn’t that nice of her?

Here is a preview of it:

This freebie was created with Easter Blessings from Kathy’s Scraps found at the DSS store. Click on the image to go to the store.

Thursday’s Template 4/09

Thursday, April 9th, 2009 | Thursdays Templates | 2 Comments

Today’s template is one of a series by me, Scrappy Cats. It has four layers with all four layers being transparent png’s I did not make a layer for the bottom which should be just a solid background paper. Here is a layout I did using the template. You can see what I mean by the bottom background paper.

If you will just layer the template and then clip a paper onto each layer you will get these results– it makes it look like you spent a lot of time getting that woven effect along the top and bottom. I used my kit, Heartie Vintage for this layout. The photo is from our trip last week to Louisiana. The azaleas were gorgeous!

Here is the preview for the template:

Wednesday Words 4/08

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This is Easter week and I bet some of you are still scrambling to get those Easter outfits ready for the kids. I remember those days of new clothes, new shoes and the like. As a kid it was totally awesome to get to have a new dress when it happened. We did not always get a new dress or shoes, but some Easters we did.

I hope you all get lots of photos of your children at Easter and the Easter egg hunts. For me the most memorable Easter with my daughters was when we rode in my brother-in-law’s new car to the Easter Egg hunt and my youngest daughter threw up on the way. Yep, fancy car and throw up really don’t go good together. But, he was a saint. He was not at all concerned about the car, but was worried about my daughter.

Anyway, the words I want to lay on you all this Wednesday are about Easter and would make a great word art for someone to make for us.

Awake, thou wintry earth -

Fling off thy sadness!

Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth

Your ancient gladness!

~Thomas Blackburn, “An Easter Hymn”

I can just picture this layout with flowers and a glorious sunrise. Who is going to make it for me?