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I finally finished my Grand Lake paperbag album last night. I think I was the last one out of the group (of five) to get finished–Oh well. I think it turned out good and so far the feedback I’ve received has all been positive. I am really pleased with the retro papers that I used, they gave the book a real “girly” feel which was fun since it was a “girls weekend away.” We are already talking about trying to do another all girls scrapbook weekend in May sometime! I’m so excited.

I started making my Grand Lake paperbag album with some of K&Company’s vintage papers but then decided to start over and use some retro papers from American Crafts. I liked the vintage papers but thought that since the book was going to be all girls maybe this would be a good opportunity for me to use papers that I don’t normally get to use (since I have a son, and not a daughter). Anyway, so far I am pleased with the book. When I get it done, I’ll post it in the argainbay gallery .

This evening I met up with the girls that I went to Grand Lake with last weekend and we worked on paperbag albums of the trip. None of us got our books done but we each got a good start and had a fun chatting and cropping. We decided that we’ll meet at Lovey’s house next Thursday evening to continue working on our books. The girls have also been encouraging me to host a crop in the argainbay warehouse. We have opened it to the public a couple of times so people from the moms club could come in and shop, but we’ve never held a crop there. So, we decided to host the first crop on Thursday, February 9, 2006 from 6-midnight. I am really excited and hope that it goes well. They want me to do it once a month, but we’ll just have to see how much interest there is.

In an article from The L.A. Times, another business maneuver from Google is announced in which they will purchase DMarc Broadcasting Inc., a company that sells radio ad time. At first glance, this may seem like a strange deal for Google and off-track to their mission. And, one opinion in the article states that “Translating [targeted advertising] to radio may be difficult.”

I think what a lot of people are forgetting is that Google knows A LOT about what people want to know and what they’re looking for! Additionally, with the multiple services that Google offers, they have better user-tracking capabilities than ever before. So not only do they know what users search for, but they also know who those people are…and geographically where they live. This gives them the ability to compile demographic information to the Nth degree. Now, you combine their online demographic database with radio/music demographic information and you get the ability to target radio ads better than ever before!

But wait, there’s more…
As most Internet users remember, on-line advertising used to be very graphical and eye-candy in nature. Now, with PPC advertising, it has become text-based and bland. But, it still works and has been very profitable for Google, Yahoo! and others as well as the users who purchase the advertising. This allows any Dick or Sallie to create an Ad Campaign with little to no up-front cost. Thus, it reaches more users because it is so much more accessible. I think Google has the potential to perform a similar transformation to radio advertising. Rather than having 20 & 30 second ads that require studio production, Google may sell 5 & 10 second slots. These short time slots can be filled with ‘bland’ ads that are generated from “Text To Speech” Engines, based on text defined by the user/purchaser. That makes it automated and accessible to more people, just like PPC. As an example, visit AT&T Labs, copy & paste this text –>visit google dot com for all your advertising needs<– and listen. True, it’s not as “pretty” as typical radio ads, but neither are PPC ads…this gets the point across, simply and easily!

You put these concepts together and you’ve got one major step in transforming radio advertising and making it more accessible and viable for a larger group of businesses! Kudos, Google! I can’t wait until I can purchase my first radio ad created with a Text To Speech engine that will be targeted to my audience!

Well, I just got home from Grand Lake, Colorado . I spent the weekend up there in a magnificent log home that belongs to one of my friends’ parents. There were five of us and we left our kids with our husbands and spent the entire weekend scrapbooking! It was awesome. It was the first time that I have spent the night away from Sam, and I think we both survived quite well. I was able to finish the paper bag album that I started for my brother in November and made an accordian/matchbook album for my husband Cliff. I learned some new techniques and remembered why I prefer to scrapbook smaller albums vs. the traditional 12×12 page. You might think that after a marathon weekend of scrapbooking, I’d be burned out, but actually I’m really motivated to keep scrapping! It is too late tonight and I’m pretty exhausted, so tomorrow night I’ll start again. I already have so many new ideas that I want to start working on……..

Paper Bag Albums

Using paper bags to create unique interactive albums for brag books, cards, and gifts is fun and easy!

Here are step by step directions:

1. Lay two or more lunch bag size paper bags down together alternating the ends.
2. Now, fold the bags in half to create the spine (if you have a sewing machine try sewing a straight line up to help define and hold the book together while working on other parts).
3. Punch holes along the binding of the book where you want to place your eyelets or whatever other binding method you choose.
4. Now you’re ready to decorate and personalize…

Ideas for binding your book

• Ties: you can tie the binding with bits of ribbon or fibers
• Paper: you can create a binding from a coordinating piece of paper and then attach with brads, eyelets, ribbons, fibers etc.
• Lacing: use ribbon or other fibers to lace the binding together in a zig zag pattern through punched holes
• Metal binding clips: these can be found at any office supply store

I like using the metal binding clips for my paper bag albums because they allow me to use more paper bags for a thicker book. I got mine at Office Depot

Use the open end pockets of the bags to hide journaling tags, extra pictures or other memoribilia in your book. What once was the bottom flap of the bag can now be used as a hidden journaling feature. You can use it as a lift the flap type of feature where you hide journaling under it, or open it, cut a slit along the fold line, and insert a tag or other item.

The most important thing is to have fun decorating your new album to fit your theme. These albums make great brag books for grandparents or friends, special memory books for birthdays or any occasion!

Attention—something to note: Paper bags are not acid-free so over time, they will break down much faster than acid-free, lignin-free papers. They are also not as sturdy as a cardstock/board album. You should only use duplicate pictures when making your albums. Precious, one-of-a-kind photos should be scanned and/or copied and then printed so that you can preserve the original photo with archival safe products.

Wow! We have started the new year with a bang! Cliff and I moved all the furniture out of our dining room, pulled up the carpet and padding, removed the base boards and took everything off the walls. We went to Lowe’s and bought some paint (a nice butter color and a sage green) and then we patched all the holes in the walls and painted. It looks great. We are both excited and pleased with how much we got done today. Cliff still needs to move the heat vent and then pull up the carpet padding staples before we/he can start laying down the new wood flooring. He thinks he’ll be able to start putting down the flooring by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. It is a pain having all the dining room stuff in the living room but it will be sooooo worth it to have the dining room finished.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any crafting or scrapping done this weekend. Saturday (New Year’s Eve) I took down all of the Christmas decorations and then that evening, Cliff helped me get the tree down.

Tomorrow will probably be crazy too, but things should start to settle down after that.