Evalicious Layout | Insta Moment

This past Saturday was {inter}National Scrapbook Day and I spent a lot of the day scrapbooking and doing Project Life!  I enjoyed it a lot.  I feel like the Dos Equis commercials… “I don’t always scrapbook on NSD, but when I do it’s Evalicious and Lily Bee.”  Hee hee!  I decided to scrap a page about my lunch meetup with my new scrapbooking friend Pearl.  That’s sort of celebrating National Scrapbook Day! :)

I made this layout for the Evalicious blog inspiration post.  It came together pretty quickly using mostly goodies from the new Escape collection!

For this layout, I first spread a very thin layer of gesso onto my background kraft cardstock using a foam brush.  The thin layer allowed it to dry very quickly.  Then I layered some upcycled silver star cellophane (cut from a bag) on top of my gesso to create even more texture and interest. 

Did you know that you can use Evalicious packaging on your layouts?  I upcycled a small glassine bag that was part of some stamp packaging and used it as a pocket on the right side to hold my shipping tag.  I stamped the photo quote stamp from the Hello Photo Stamp Set with silver ink onto the tag and then slipped it into the pocket.  I also stamped onto the glassine and used a pen to outline more definition.  For this layout, I used a bunch of Evalicious stamps to layer and I just love the look! :)



I used one of the new Escape Large Tags for journaling.



One of the things I love to do to create layering and texture is to staple a tab onto a photo.  I also used the hello photo stamp and fussy-cut it.  Then I outlined the shape with an orange Sharpie pen, because I used light gray and the color didn’t pop out enough.  I adhered it to the layout using foam adhesive to make it more dimensional.



And of course, I couldn’t complete an Evalicious layout without using a badge button!

SUPPLIES I USED:

InLinkz.com

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Instagram Printing Adventures

As you know, I print most of my photos at home.  I do this because it’s very convenient.  When I want to scrapbook or do Project Life, I don’t want to have to think about whether I had sent a photo to get printed or not.  All my photos are in my Lightroom catalog and it’s easy to just go in and print what I need.  My printer at home is the Canon Pixma MG5320 and I adore the quality of prints I get on it.  (The new model that’s out now is the Canon Pixma MG6320.)  Almost all the photos you see on my scrapbook pages and Project Life are printed at home.  Except for those that were printed at Persnickety Prints.

Photos printed at home this weekend.

Photos printed at Persnickety Prints.

I love printing at home and I love printing at Persnickety. 

Then a few weeks ago, I got an email from Costco Photo Center telling me that they now print Instagram photos.  I was excited because our local Costco does a pretty good job.  I used them a bit in 2011 for my Project Life.  And you can just log in to Costco Photo Center online and log in to your Instagram account and it will retrieve all your Instagram photos.  So I did that.  Then I went to order the photos and guess what?  They don’t print square photos.  So all the square Instagram photos got cropped to 4x6, which means some major parts of the photo got cropped off.  I thought to myself… Surely this is a mistake on my part?  Maybe I don’t know how to order these online?  Why would they offer Instagram printing if they can’t offer a square photo?  So I went online to get live chat help with the Costco Photo Center.  Here’s how it went.

So until Costco decides to get serious about REALLY printing square photos, I won’t be using them for Instagram!  So I told this story to my Facebook friends and a couple of them said Walgreens now prints Instagram photos, square ones even!  So I downloaded the Walgreens app to my iPhone and was able to choose immediately which photos to print.  I was able to use a coupon inside the app to get a discount.  And the photos were ready to pick up in an hour.

I went that same day after work and picked up my Instagram prints at Walgreens.

I found out that if you don’t choose which print finish you want inside the Walgreens app on the iPhone, the default finish is luster.  I didn’t see any options inside the app to choose glossy.  This is what the luster finish surface looks like.

And because of the bleed allowance issue, the edges of your Instagram print will be somewhat unevenly cut off.  That’s fine if your Instagram photos don’t have frames.  But if you have a frame around it, some parts will be cut off and it looks stupid.

The Walgreens 4x4 Instagram prints cost 39 cents each to print (regular price without coupons), which is significantly more than printing a regular 4x6 photo for 19 cents. 

The prints are on regular photo paper and are thin compared to the Instagram Polaroids that I got printed at Persnickety Prints.  Those were 45 cents each but were on matte or glossy heavy cardstock. 

My conclusion for now?  I still LOVE printing at home and the instant gratification of immediately holding the photos in my hands and heading off to my craft studio to scrapbook.  My home printer prints such high quality photos that there are only a couple of circumstances in which I feel it would be worth sending the photos out to print somewhere else.  First is if I’m doing a big project and have to print off a big batch of photos.  I would print the regular 4x6s at Costco.  Second is if I want the high-quality thick awesome paper from Persnickety Prints.  Perhaps Costco will eventually be able to print real square Instagram photos.  For now, it is a joke.

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Burgers, Beach, and French Jazz

Last Sunday Todd and I drove up to Laguna Beach and Aliso Viejo in Orange County to enjoy the sights and to attend the Paris Combo concert at the Soka Performing Art Center.  Todd has been a fan of Paris Combo for several years now, after discovering them on XM Radio.  They are a jazz group from France and they rarely ever tour the US.  So when Todd heard they were coming to The OC, he got tickets immediately.

We drove up early to have lunch at Umami Burger.  We had never been and always wanted to!  It was located in a shopping center at Laguna Beach.

We ordered Diet Cokes and Todd was pretty dismayed to find out that these $2.00 Cokes were only 8 ozs and no refills.  That’s not a good deal!

We ordered some tempura onion rings and thin fries.

They come with four different dipping sauces:  House Ketchup, Diablo Sauce, Jalapeno Ranch, and Garlic Aioli.

Todd got the Manly Burger without cheese.

I got the Truffle Burger.

For the price, these burgers were actually smaller than you would expect.  That’s ok though, it’s not like we need to eat that much.  They were really delicious and juicy!  By default, they cook them medium-rare at Umami Burger, so if you want different you have to tell them.  I got mine medium.

After lunch, we walked around on the oceanfront walkway in Laguna Beach.  It was an overcast day but still beautiful at the coast.

Time for a selfie!

Nice Sunday for a beach outing.

Some people climbed the rocks to get to that piece of rock further out.  When the waves recess, you can walk across that lower part that connects the rocks.

The walkways and stairs onto the beach at Laguna Beach are so awesome.  They are lined with pretty plants too.  I bet the city spends quite a bit to maintain it.  So pretty.

Check out the view of the ocean behind us.  Amazing!

After walking for about 20 minutes and getting down to the beach, we crossed the street to a gas station, where Todd was able to right the wrong of the small Coke at lunch by getting a big Pepsi.

Then it was time to drive over to Aliso Viejo to Soka University for the concert.  The performing arts center was inside Founders Hall.  The surrounding fountains were beautiful!

The concert was really awesome.  They played straight for 90 minutes without intermission.
 

I was not as familiar with the music as Todd, and neither of us could understand the French singing.  They did speak some English announcing each song and what it was about.  They also had a sense of humor and that came across quite well. 

Todd was so excited that he finally got to see Paris Combo!  And we had a great time spending a few hours in The OC, eating burgers, strolling along the ocean, and listening to great music.

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