Miscellaneous Musings

Gosh! What happened to the month of July?!?

August will be here in just a few days, and, along with it, the beginning of school! If you're in Arkansas, remember that August 4 and 5 are "tax free" days in Arkansas. Be sure and check the details, as not everything is tax free.

If you live in Northwest Arkansas, you're probably familiar with the annual "Best of Northwest Arkansas" contest. If you're voting in the contest, we would like to ask you to vote for "Croppin' Train Scrapbook Retreat" for the "Best Weekend Get-Away" in the "Entertaiment" section. There is a complete ballot included in the Sunday paper, or you can enter online at nwaonline.com/best. Voting closes tomorrow, July 30.

Our final Croppin' Train Express event of the summer will be Saturday, August 4, at the Benton County Public Works building (formerly the Health Dept)on Hwy 102 in Bentonville. We will throw the doors open at 9:00 a.m. The building is air conditioned, so we can all enjoy a comfortable day of scrapbooking. We still have some empty seats, so if you need more details about this event, please contact us by phone (479-531-8518) or email (croppintrain@aol.com).

If you've read the July 9 posting, you'll see where Dora undertook the enormous task of organizing YEARS worth of digital photos - congratulations! I wanted to add a suggestion for those of you that are considering the same type of task. Because I've had 2 external hard drives crash, and lost everything that was on one of them, I don't like to keep all of my pictures in one place. I started buying 8GB and 16GB thumbdrives when they're on sale (like now!). I put all my pictures for one year on a separate thumbdrive. Most years, I can get by with an 8GB, but, if we had a wedding, a big vacation, or something else very special, I'll use a 16GB. For the older years, I've tried to at least create a subfolder for each month, and file the pictures accordingly. A couple years ago, though, I started creating both monthly and specific folders. I have specific folders for each person's birthday and one for each holiday. I haven't yet gone to the detail that Dora has, with reviewing what I've printed, scrapbooked, etc., but that is a great idea and one that I definitely need to do.

Has anyone NOT been on PINTEREST yet? I fear I could live there some days! There are some really great ideas with links to specific websites, blogs, etc. The "photography" category has terrific ideas for individual and family poses, clothes to wear, backgrounds, etc. Type "scrapbook" in the search box, and you'll see all kinds of layout ideas. As always, the "DIY and Crafts" category is chock-full of ideas for every crafter and every occasion.

Hope you enjoy your last few days of July, and are ready for school bells, books and bus traffic. :)

Pat