Journal Spank for February 5th

Oh that Ricë. She is a prolific blogger and I really admire that. There are plenty of things I like about this woman I've never met and one of them is that she has orange hair. I wish I had pink hair. I nearly did once when my hairdresser didn't get that I was joking. But aside from that, one of the other things I like about her is that she provides plenty of prompts for journaling, both serious and light-hearted.

Here's the entry for today: a syringe she conned out of her doctor's receptionist the other day, and a binder clip. I used a drawing pencil to render them but switched to a red brush point Pitt Pen for the page itself. I wish that all these lovely colors came in other points. I like the Fine, Medium, and Broad nibs in addition to the brush points. But do I want to pay $12 for a set of four of each color? And yes, you just know that I'd have to have all four of every single color! It's one of the things we princesses do.


And I had to include this photo of Cody. The other day, Chance bolted through the dog door with his favorite blue bone in his mouth. (This is the second one of these he's had. The first one was totally destroyed. So far, this one is faring better.) After playing tug with Nana, with me, and with Cody, he guarded it for a little while. Then he dropped it on Cody's feet and went back outside. "Guard this for me, dad!"

And Cody did for about an hour.

Journal Nazis, Leave Me Alone!

I've decided that my journal is not a visual journal so much as a journal where I write, sometimes draw, often use color and photos (now that I've got my Polaroid PoGo), and just might once in a while do some art. I've got my 2009 Personal Journal and it's companion to do more arty things in, but I'm not thinking that I HAVE to make art in my journals or to conform to Journal Nazi Theory of Page Layout.

So Journal Nazi comments are not welcome here. If I share, it's going to be because I feel that the page has something to offer or something to say. If you don't like it, then you are welcome not to like it. Okay?

Good. Glad we got that one settled. ;-))

Spanked Again!

Ricë has done it again. She spanked us for Saturday, probably flush with her success yesterday with Spank #4. You've gotta watch her. She cracks me up on a regular basis, therefore I am addicted to her! She is Not Speaking to Me at the moment, however because I posted about the PoGo yesterday and made her want one. I told you that the woman is a riot! ;-))

So, having been challenged to make tabs for my journal. And having noticed the blue sheet you have to load into your PoGo with the pile of little papers it uses which it immediately spits out. I decided to use it for my tabs!

I measured and actually used a ruler to see where to cut it in half and where to score and fold it. I tried it against the little 1 1/2" Xyron, but it was too small. The 2 1/2" Xyron was jusssst right!

So I ran it through there and rolled it with my beloved wooden brayer to make sure that the adhesive was thoroughly adhered.

Then I trimmed it in half with my beloved Tonic paper trimmer, scored and folded it, and punched a 1/4" hole in it because I like to put ribbons on my tabs. I don't like corners that are too sharp either, so I trimmed them off with my beloved Tim Holtz scissors. I cut some pretty ribbon from my stash to decorate them.

Then I noticed all the little pieces of leftover paper that had already been Xyroned and were already the right
size for tabs. They were everywhere on my worktable! The ones that weren't Xyroned were quickly run through the 1 1/2" one (and the cheapest one to use!).

It took no time at all to go from this (see photo on far left).

To this (see photo to immediate left).

To this! See all the tabs and wannabee tabs?

It is all Ricë's fault! The question is, did she do me a favor or did she start a possible new obsession? She was born to be a trouble-maker, don't you think? You should go immediately read her blog and see what trouble she's stirring up now! Then you'll be addicted too and before you know it, you'll be as spanked as I am!

I've Been Spanked!

OK, so not actually spanked in the sense that my bottom is red and sore from someone striking me. What Ricë did was to shake us up, give us a virtual spanking. She told us to stand up, close our eyes, turn around, and then point to something on our worktable and sketch it.

It took me 10 minutes to sketch my cellphone, a couple of hours to charge my new printer so I could print out the photo I took to accompany the sketch in my sketchbook/journal, and several more hours to get through the other intervening events in my life, as nice as they were. Finally, it's the next morning and I'm posting it!

I loved using my new Panasonic Zumix camera that The Sports Fan bought me for Christmas to take it's photo. I propped the phone up on a fat, squishy nail file on my laptop's keyboard and took several photos, trying to get rid of the flash from the flash. So I settled for one that had it in a less obtrusive way. Interestingly old Sony S-145 might have been better at this. The new camera is way better at people pictures than the S-145.

The really cool thing, in my opinion, was finally using my Polaroid PoGo printer to print out the photo. (I blogged about it here. And how cool is this? You can actually get it with a digital camera inside now!) It connects to my laptop and cellphone via Bluetooth and to the Zumix via a cable. I couldn't find the cable and had forgotten and downloaded all the photos to my laptop anyway, so I used the Bluetooth connection to print. It's pretty easy if the printer has its special paper loaded and is charged up and turned on. Just make sure that your laptop's Bluetooth is turned on and that you've previously paired the two devices (that's a Bluetooth thing), select the photo you want to print in Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), right click, and select "to Bluetooth" then the device. it took way longer to type how to do it than it does to actually do it! When the photo pops out, you just peel the stick-um off the back and stick the little 2" x 3" Zink paper (Zero Ink) into your journal.

I just wish my camera had Bluetooth so I could eliminate the cable or downloading to the computer!

Will You Zink?

I just heard about a new printer that has the potential to change the face of journaling. Here's the skinny.

The technology behind the new printer is called Zink or Zero Ink. The printer is the Polaroid Pogo. It's a tiny thing that weighs half a pound and would probably fit into a shirt pocket or a nice little cosmetic bag to protect it from the contents of your handbag and vice versa. (Reminder to self to check out D&B for possible containers although I bet it would fit into a wristlet nicely.) The technology embeds ink crystals into layers of polymer that are activated by varying degrees of heat and pressure inside the printer.

The printer itself will connect to your camera via Bluetooth (for mobile phones) or via a USB cable from your digital camera. There's even a version that has the printer embedded into a digital camera for an all-in-one solution. I'd like to see what that weighs! Half a pound is ultralight for a printer but the opposite for a point & shoot digital camera.

Pricing looks decent. The paper is supposed to retail for $19.95 (MSRP) for 100 sheets. The printer will hold ten sheets at a time and is supposed to MSRP for $99.95. Once demand and supply even out, I'd expect the street price to be about $75 to $80.

I'm sure that there will be many more applications for this technology, but here's what is cool about it for journalers.

It prints 2" x 3" photos from compatible cell phones and digital cameras in full color. The paper has a peel-off, sticky back that will allow you to take a photo of something, print it, slap it onto a journal page, and then discuss it as you like in your journal entry. If you're shopping and you see some really cool graphics on some dishes or a throw pillow, you can use them for the background of your next entry.

For those who like to network, you can take a photo of someone who has just given you their business card, print it out, and slap it on the back of the card for a much better connection the next time you meet or try to think of that person! How many times have you mentally 'seen' the face but couldn't figure out which card it belonged to?

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. See someone driving irratically or driving away from an accident? In a couple of clicks you can hand the evidence to the officer in charge.

The other thing I am wondering is what will happen with the technology once the really creative people start to manipulate it. We could see some really fun ways to use Zink paper.

I just heard about this less than an hour ago and I'm still thinking up great ways to use it. What I'm really wondering is why I just heard about it. A guy named Don Dodge who works for Microsoft (AKA the Evil Empire of Redmond), blogged about it in November of 2005. It's taken forever to get out there in a usable/salable format. Fuji has a similar concept out there that has failed to hit the mainstream.

So much for technology being obsolete before it even hits your desktop.