Bon Scrapatit Designs: GETTIN’ JAGGY WITH IT AND OTHER ASSORTED TALES …

Hi y'all!!!

How is EVERYONE??? It's been TOOOOOO quiet around here! ANYBODY HOME??? *wink* I’ve been MISSING YOU horribly!

I have SO much to share and wish to do it as briefly as possible for the sake of ALL of us here in SCRAPLAND!!! HA, HA!
Firstly, I left y'all with my going to be working DILIGENTLY on goodies for an upcoming surprise at DSO! Well, there ARE lots of goodies, but sadly, none of them from me! I shall explain ...

Some of you may remember back towards the beginning of the year when I had mentioned to you that I was seeing "jaggies" on everything and to PLEASE let me know if you saw any after downloading my files. Y'all assured me that everything was fine. I have continued to design amidst the annoying little jagged edges! LOL!

DSO prides itself in an AWESOME quality assurance department that checks ALL designs before uploading them to the store for sale. I agree with this WHOLEHEARTEDLY as in my days as an Administrative Assistant at 3Scrapateers (2005-2007), I was trained to do this as well, which in turn led to my desire to design now that I understood how things were done, what was expected via Industry Standards,etc. This step assures YOU, the consumer, in receiving TOP-QUALITY product without having to go through the process of unzipping files, perhaps, MONTHS later only to find stray pixels, "jaggies", improper resolution, and so on. God knows I myself have spent OODLES of money on product I CANNOT use and have become MUCH more selective in the process, which is a GOOD thing for y’all as well as my pocketbook!

As I was beginning to work on creating some things for the Second Annual DSO PU Grab Bags, I was struggling and becoming frustrated with the FACT that EVERYTHING I was looking at had "jaggies", which are TABOO in TOP QUALITY digital designs and as it SHOULD be! When I say EVERYTHING had "jaggies", I am not exaggerating. Kim B's CU goodies are amongst THE BEST around SCRAPLAND and I was even seeing "jaggies" on her stuff!!! I kid you not, I EVEN awoke from a dream of “jaggies”!!! EEEEEEKS! So, now, I am sure that you understand my frustration in HOW in the world am I going to be able to create product when I cannot tell on my side if it is good or not??? I did NOT wish to have to rely on QA to be MY eyes on a regular basis as that would certainly NOT be fair to them with other designer's products to check as well. I found myself VERY quickly in a "Catch-22" and spent several days thinking it through and decided that BEFORE putting the QA team to work and stressing myself with deadlines that THIS would be the RIGHT time to gracefully resign from DSO.

Ms. Bunny and Ms. Kim both spent some time helping me to sort through my troubles and much of it came down to adjusting settings for the performance of my computer, which allowed me to see smooth edges using the Windows Viewer, but still seeing slight "jaggies" in Photoshop. By this time, I realize that it is FAR too late for me to get anything ready, uploaded and quality-checked before the deadline! ACK! Bottom line is that at this point I shall need to upgrade my graphics card as I now work on a HD large screen monitor and my computer’s stock card is just not powerful enough to give me the crispness I need to see SMOOTH lines in Photoshop the way I used to! It will be a couple of months until I am able to purchase one. *sigh*

I know y'all know that I've been struggling for some time and I've finally come to the conclusion and heard the message LOUD and CLEAR, that I am not to even think about selling until I am prepared and AHEAD of the game! It seems that every time "I" think the timing is right, something or THINGS are hurled into my path that are MORE important to deal with at the time, in turn, putting me "behinder" as I like to say! LOL! Yes, I still have my humor intact and that will ALWAYS, God willing, be a MAJOR part of my life which keeps me on an even keel, at peace with myself and the rest of the world! He, he ...
SO, I am going to focus working here on my blog once again and shall just be creating some FREEBIES for y'all until my life SLOWS down on the home front and time allows me to get serious about creating enough scrapkits to warrant opening a store front! I shall still look forward to participating in Kim’s monthly color challenges too! I am ALWAYS inspired and challenged by her selections!

And, WHAT else has come my way to keep me from my passion of creating digital scrapbooking designs for y'all to preserve your MOST precious and priceless memories with??? The VERY things that provide us with those memories, family events! WOO HOO!

I was informed by my number two son, Mark, father of my DARLING grandson, Kaleb that he and Jessica are getting married ... within the month! Uhm, okay, YAY, uhm ... ONE month??? So, after the initial SHOCK of getting a wedding together, myself together and HOW am I going to design at such a time as this ... I QUICKLY came to the decision that it is NOT the proper time for me to attempt opening a store front and that my focus NEEDS to be on my family.
I actually babysat Kaleb for the VERY first time this past Tuesday and it was a JOYOUS day and, hopefully, a day of bonding for he and I. As I only see him every 6-8 weeks and he is only 17-months-old, I figured it would be difficult for him to be left in a fairly unfamiliar environment with a Grandma he "really" does not know. Mark and Jess live in a SWEET little apartment built just for them in the basement of her parent's home, which I think is WONDERFUL as at least Kaleb has regular contact with one set of grandparents. I know that is becoming more and more rare today so I embrace the fact that he is blessed to know his grandparents, although, that shall soon be changing as Mark is enlisting in the Navy as soon as he and Jess say "I do"!

I will keep y'all up-to-date as things progress. I have been asked to be the "wedding photographer" and feel TOTALLY inadequate for such a memorable event, SO, I have been fortunate enough to recruit my oldest son to be the videographer and one of Robert's younger sisters to be a second still photographer working along side of me! WOOT, got most all of that figured out and now my oldest daughter and I are looking at songs for the Mother-Son dance in which Mark has requested that his sister, April, sing!

Of course y'all JUST have to know that any of my children getting married means that I get the honor of seeing ALL six of them together! It has been just a tad over ONE year since they were all together for Travis and Joan's wedding. Oh, OH, OOOOOH ... and then, I've just received the news that April and her fiance', Ethan have set their wedding date for February 20th of next year! WOOT! Road trip!

Speaking of road trip, I best get myself to bed for a few hours of slumber before we have to arise and prepare for our trek to Yosemite. I had hoped to include a little something for y’all tonight, however, I had the pleasure of playing DJ for Robert and his sister Corinne after dinner! Y’all would’ve had a good chuckle watching me running back-and-forth between the kitchen and my office, taking their next request while cleaning the kitchen! Shhhhh … I’m not telling them my secret as they thought it just AMAZING how I’d no sooner be given an artist and a song title and I had it playing for them!!! Ya just gotta LOVE the “search” feature on just about anything! He, he …. *wink* Anyhoo, they both just fell asleep about 20 minutes ago so I snuck in here real quick to finish this up and hit the PUBLISH button. Oh yes, I am using Windows Live Writer for the VERY first time and look forward to seeing how it works for y’all and for me! Weeeeeee!

One more thing before I say good night. In light of the aforementioned topic of TOP-QUALITY CU products, in the event that you’ve not already heard, Kim and Bunny have opened a BRAND new store that shall be selling nothing BUT quality checked CU goodies and I’ve already signed up and made my first purchase. I am sure I will do some more shopping when we return from Yosemite as I’ve just spied another one of my favorite CU designers there as well. You just have go check it out for yourself. All of the designers are having GREAT sales and Kim is selling a SPECIAL grand-opening CU grab bag for ONLY $1.50! Click on the image below to be transported to the Digi Scrap Vault where you can check out the designers AND their sales! WOOT!

And while you’re clicking, please take a peek over at the DSO forum for a NEW challenge posted by Dawn and I! I can’t wait to work on something to put into the DSO gallery myself as I REALLY need to be working on my *Days Gone By*!!! Oh, and just WAIT until you see Dawn’s LOVELY posting bonus! You haven’t FAR to look! (Look down, LOOK down) ROFL! Click on the image below to be transported to the DSO forum where you can read ALL of the SWEET details! Oh dear, I am DROOLING here! Did I mention that blue IS my favorite color! *smile* Oh my, my, my … that IS yummy!