Wednesday 22 October 2008

My computer spent a week in hospital!!!


At last I have my beloved computer back! Thank you Anton! Boy, so much for one day...anyway, I am most grateful as it had a 'malicious' virus as Anton so aptly put it, so needed to be completely formatted, which was a mighty big job, considering that everything for all 3 profiles (my son & daughter share my computer....uuugh!), had to be saved & then retrieved & reloaded. The day my poor computer got very ill was my first day with my house-guest so I 'spose it was probably the best time for it to be out of action as there was little opportunity for me to concentrate on my blogging or scrap-booking. As a result I am feeling strangely out-of-touch & feverishly tidying The Zone and my travel tool tote and supplies bag in order to feel 'in control' again. I'm 'on the go' on a new layout at the moment & have a lovely BIG pile of new photos beckoning me from an A4 brown envelope...

Today I spent the morning 'scrapping & chatting' with my good friend. My layout is taking shape and I hope to get it finished tomorrow. I'm so into white Bazzill at the moment. There was a time when I thought I would never use it but I 'spose that's how fashion goes. White, Black, Browns & Creams are definitely my faves at the moment & Bazzill definitely rules FOREVA. I can't imagine using anything else but it just seems to be getting harder and harder to source in South Africa, which is very sad. Apparently the distributer here has very high minimum orders and, as most of the Scrap-booking stores here are tiny by comparison to the ones I see advertised in overseas magazines, it's obviously difficult for them to buy in such a large amount of stock at any one time.

What is a lot more prolific here these days is Colourmates. My first reaction was NO but I have had to resort to it out of desperation at times and these days it seems to have improved in quality. Initially it had NO texture, just flat...blah...now it is coming in with added texture so is very similar to 'the real thing' - BAZZILL BASICS CARDSTOCK - so certain Colourmates are acceptable enough. A newcomer for us here is Colourcore-dinations and this is SPLENDID. Thick, full of texture and with a contrasting core so wonderful for tearing as the other colour magically appears and there is subsequently no need to ink your edges. Amazing! Even more amazing is the fact that it is the same price as Bazzill & Colourmates!! The added colour core make it the best value product, so I'll convert to Colour Core-dinations where possible but Bazzill still wins hands down for it's glorious colour spectrum.

New products for me are my Creative Memories pens. I got the thin and the thick ones and the colours are beautiful and the quality outstanding as usual. They make wonderful tools and I have a couple of their punches and their corner rounder, definitely the best I've found. I recently purchased their Circle Cutting tools which are amazing. The simplest I've found so far & I read in the latest issue of Creating Keepsakes that they are Ali Edwards faves too, so there you go! I was waiting for the kids in the toyshop the other day & browsing when I came across some very interesting POP PENS. These are like glitter-glue, in that you squeeze them out through a thin nozzled end. I bought three sets, the brights, the classic colours & the metallics. They have no glitter in them but they are liquid so take a while to dry, but they come out raised and dry like that, so it is a 3D effect. C.O.O.L!!! Can't wait to do some doodling...

My parcel arrived midweek last week. Online shopping...aaah...not much more fun to be had than browsing your favourite products at home. Slowly but surely I have built up a database, over the course of the year, of Online Scrapbooking Stores in South Africa. I think, behind the scenes, that they are probably all pretty small businesses, and not all of them can be found just by 'googling' so at some stage I plan on posting a list of them right here on my blog, as they are definitely worth a go! I have ordered at least once from all of them, and have had no disasters. Everything is almost always significantly cheaper than actual stores, for obvious reasons, and I find that often they have unusual products not available from my local stores. Often, especially if you are a first-time shopper, you find a little surprise or two added in to your parcel, which I think is a lovely touch. I always opt for normal post, which is the most cost-effective method, and wait about 5 working days for my goodies to arrive. By then my memory is getting a little hazy which aids my anticipation & I just love the sight of my 'pizza box' at the gate!! If you haven't tried online shopping yet I can highly recommend it!!! Seriously tho', it is actually better value so makes good sense too...

No comments: