All things digi!

Let's see, so many things I want to mention.....

* First, for anyone who is looking to find out more about this digital-scrapping thing (or for anyone who wants proof to show their family members that their time with this hobby is time well-spent), check out this article that CNN published about this new phenomenon.

* Second, my beloved and supportive husband made an impromptu stop at Borders for me last night so we could pick up Digital Scrapbooking 4. It's so pretty. Don't you just feel like you could sit on your sofa with a cup of coffee and flip through this magazine all day? Do you think my kids will let me do that? They don't need baths today do they? Oh well. Slowly but surely I'll have enough time to flip through the whole thing.

* Third, you'll notice I added a few more links to my list of blogs I read. How did I get sucked into the digi community? I swore I was just gonna go off on my own once I learned how to do this. I was gonna just post my LO's to my private group of friends and that's it. But it's addicting. There are so many ideas and great designs floating around that I find myself peeking in to galleries, messageboards and blogs. If you're into music, you browse musician's sites. If you're into debate...well, you join a Yahoo news board. If you're into scrapping, you browse blogs. So I've added Robin Carlton, Sara Carling, and Shabby Princess. All three are designers that I love so I've been enjoying their blogs enough to stop in regularly.

* With mention of Shabby Princess, I give a public nod to her generous heart. She offers beautiful freebies on her site shabbyprincess.com and I know that many people use one of her free kits for their first digital LO ever (I did!) Her most recent post talks about how people have taken advantage of that generosity and have been stealing the kits she sells (obvious wrong) as well as her bandwidth by illegally sharing her free kits. Many people don't realize why it would be wrong to share free kits. A super quick explanation: Designers give freebies for two main reasons - as a prize or exclusive for people who participate in various challenges or as a little treat to draw in more customers. It benefits them to have people visit their site. Numbers are very important when starting a business. Knowing how many people visit your site and how many people download your product are all important to getting their business off the ground. Numbers help them get spots at consignment boutiques, help them get advertisers, help them to know what kind of web package they need to purchase to host their site and their products. Which brings me to the other reason...when people file-share these free kits, it steals the bandwidth of the designer's site. Do you have any idea how steep the fees are when they go over that bandwidth? Immense. Some are financial penalties (out of pocket for the designer) or their site gets shut down for the remainder of the month all together. That is a HUGE loss to their business. We're not talking a billion dollar music industry here. We're talking independent designers making $0-$7 per kit. Those kind of setbacks can make a large pock mark on their budget. So please everyone - help the designers out and obtain their products the honest way. Visit their site directly, download the freebies properly, pay attention to their terms of use (it comes with every kit, just open it up and take a peek once in awhile), and PAY for their kits that they are selling. For God's sakes, its an average of $6 and you can use it limitless times. It's worth the price for the amount of time these ladies put into their designs. And if you don't believe me, try designing a patterned paper yourself. It's no easy task. Believe me, I've tried. LOL!

* Ok and now for my extra exciting news...the news that had me awake at 6am checking online - I've been accepted to Gina Miller's creative team! "What's the big deal?" you say. You think because she and I have been friends for 3 years that I should've been confident I'd be given one of the spots. Nooooo, no no no. Our friendship is not like that. Since Gina began designing and I began scrapping, I've respected her art and her need to make a name and a business for herself. I asked for the occasional tutorial but never for any special treatment - I don't ask to get her stuff for free and I didn't ask for or expect special consideration because of our friendship. And she's not capable of being bought anyway. I know because I sent her a pair of Dolce & Gabbana glasses and she kept them and then told me to get lost. (Ha ha. Just kidding. Neither of those things are true - I've sent her nothing more than a yearly Christmas card. But I did threaten to withhold this year's card if I didn't make the team. He he he, just kidding again.) So anyway, I applied like anyone else. She wouldn't tell me if I'd made the team and made me wait like everyone else (that bish). And so this morning, after Kyla's early-morning bottle...I could not go back to sleep. I waited up for the announcement and YAY! I got the news I'd been hoping for! I am thrilled for the opportunity. I had been wanting to join a CT just for some experience, some inspiration and to really get a lot of my LO's accomplished. But what's better than being on just any CT but to be on the CT of someone who I truly do consider to be one of the best in the business. I love her creations, I love working with her stuff, and I'm so excited to get the opportunity to represent her in the online digi-scrapping community. Thanks again G! And congrats to the other new members of the CT - Debbie, Jennifer, Kristin and Terra! You are all such talented women and I am honored to be among you! (I'll add your blogs to my blog list as I find them) = D

By the by - if anyone is interested in seeing Gina's products, they are for sale here at The Digi Chick.

Ok, that's enough of all that. Both girls are still sleeping. I think I'll get some coffee, light my "Christmas Wish" tart and get to work on an article I need to have in to the Life Editor at C6M. Enjoy your Monday!