It has been quiet here

IT HAS been somewhat quiet over here due to being busy in work and being away. More on that again. Part of that involved me going to Washington DC for a conference where I had a ball and in the meantime here's one or two photographs from the weekend. What a beautiful city.

I've also been doing a bit of messing about on photoshop, trying to upskill. Though at times I am a bit guilty going that bit further on the post processing than I should, I am learning and enjoying it. I don't like to do too much, usually just brightening and a little colour balance, no more than I would do in a darkroom while printing. But I have also trying a little experimenting with burning in to varying (laughing at that) degrees of success. Eh I can't say the same about my panoramas :( There doesn't seem to be many successes. But I keep trying.

Some of these varying degrees of success are down to the splendid screen on my Mac, how things look here are not how they look on my PC in work. Still it is all a learning curve and nothing at all that isn't repairable.

Over the last couple of weeks I have also bought a lot of stuff, course I did some spending while in the States, nothing too major but involving an ipod for the Young Wan who is delighted and part of the noise that saw her banned to her bedroom in the last post. Before heading to the States I bought a reflector on ebay, more moo cards (I will blog about that in the next day or two and the excellent customer service) and some Blurb books.

I have been toying with getting a Blurb book since I saw them promoted on Flickr. Making a book is easy, it can be time-consuming but easy. You download a programme to your computer and with a little fiddling and some fun layout your own book. It is quite easy to use, the programme tells you when images are too small, you can layout pics across pages, have whatever colour background you want, add text; the programme really is cool.

I was talking to Elly one night when she mentioned about getting her wedding pics done and how to get them done and I mentioned the books and only recently saw that she did order them and they look wonderful. I took photographs at my brother's wedding many years ago and I was thinking recently how better the pics would have looked in such a splendid book. Anyway as it was it looked good.

The books I ordered are gorgeous, I did one for a pal featuring herself and her near two-year-old, one for me :) and one for pals in Galway. My Galway pal was somewhat suspicious when I texted her a couple of times asking about the spelling of one her kid's name and even if I give you a quick glimpse she will still have no clue that I did the book as she doesn't swing by here ;)

I was going to post it down to her but I think I will save it until I can give to her face to face because I am proud of it and want to see her reaction for myself. I have many plans for more of these books, they are a joy to behold and if you have been thinking about making one, do; and if you don't know what I am talking about, check them out for yourself. I'll post pics of the books tomorrow.

Yet another Moo card use post - Moofobs

SINCE I received my freebie Moo cards and then my ordered and purchased Moo cards like many others I have been wondering about all the other uses for these cute wee things.

These thoughts included ordering them for friends with pics relevant to them and their details, Christmas cards, change of address cards when I saw via Damien's blog what Meg did with hers in the form of cool fridge magnets, not to mention the cool pics she took also of the process.

Then it came to me, laminated key fobs... Moofobs

So here's the step-by-step on how to make your own laminated Moo key fob. Sorry the pics are not as artistic as Meg's but hey.

You will need a laminating pouch (available from stationary shops), a laminating machine or an iron, tinfoil (if you are using the iron option) and key rings (the actual plain rings), some books for pressing, scissors and thats it.



If you are lucky enough to have a laminating machine in work, you are in luck for perfect little key fobs. Open up the laminating pouch and add your Moo cards.



Now if you don't have a laminator, don't worry. It turned that the one I wanted to use was broken so I thought, well I might try an iron - that could work. So I did. For those of you who will be able to machine laminate them do and skip to the appropriate step ahead.



Lie up the moo cards in the laminating pouch which has been placed on top of tin foil. Then place another sheet of foil over the pouch, to protect your iron and cards.



Iron with a hot setting, being careful not to spend too much time on any one spot. You can go back over parts which haven't taken.



Once you have ironed the sheet and they are laminated. Place a couple of heavy books on top to flatten the sheet. Two of mine didn't take as well as I would have liked but those that did look great.



Then cut them out.



Then admire them for ages and insist on showing your pal them over and over again. 'Did you see this one?' God I am sad.



Then get your hole puncher, line up the Moo card and punch a hole for your keyring.







Viola, you have a Moofob. And here's my first one in action in my handbag.



I am also going to adapt Meg's idea and use these as fridge magnets. Most of my friends have kids who love fridge magnets, being laminated they will stay lovely and clean and washable.

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More Moo freebies

HOT on the tail of ordering my free Moo cards, I was captivated by the sexy design and ordered more, which arrived within a week. While the second batch have some cropping issues, they could very well be my own fault.

Despite that I love them and have been posting them (via snail mail) to all my pals who, ahem, already have my contact details, but not on the back of a gorgeous picture (ha no praise like self-praise). I have also been thinking about other uses for these lovely cards, like the moomagnet (thanks Damien) which is also being discussed here in the Flickr Moo group, or alternative Christmas pressies for pals, using maybe a pic special to them and their contact details. There's lots of things I can do with them.

Moo are now offering more packs of 10 free in a deal with skype but they are not the cool picture cards more business cards, they still look nice though. I'll not do it and let someone else get something cool in the post. Go to this site and the promo code is freebie.







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Two parcels in one day

I CAME home the other night and there was a delivery notice from An Post and I thought excellent it is my Moo cards! So off I headed to the sorting office the next morning with not one but two delivery notices as another had arrived.

When I got to the office there was a queue of people all waiting to receive lovely parcels, then I noticed this grafitti.


Hello welcome. I hope you get something nice in your parcel! Me too, it's exciting!

And it's true, I think we all love getting parcels.

Only it wasn't my Moo cards, even though others here in Ireland such as Des have received theirs :( Instead it was a cool package from an old pal Mr Gary who sent me the latest and last (sadly) edition of Small Axe comic as well as some music. Cheers, it was delightfully received. We should all send more parcels, the only people I know who do are Tawdrey and Mr G. Actually one of the groups I belong to in Flickr all sending other members fun parcels, I might sign up to send and receive one!




And there was a second package, oh what joy, maybe this was my Moo cards. But it wasn't it was a broadband router from Eircom for one of the other flats in the house. So because I had already signed for it before realising it wasn't for me I had to bring it into work where I have forgotten it tonight, uh oh.

Someone told me that I should go into it, whatever that means, and put in a pin which means I can hack into their broadband. While it is tempting because I want broadband but do not wish to commit to it while in this flat as in my head it commits me to this flat, I just couldn't do that.

Besides I have no idea what he was talking about or how indeed I could do it. I normally stumble through and find my way somehow.

But as I said I couldn't and wouldn't do it anyway. I will remember to bring it home tomorrow night and I might offer him half his monthly charge to piggy back his account. Has anyone ever done something this before, do people go for it?

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