The Sewing Mom

My nephew is busy planning his wedding and reception. I’m wondering if he and his fiance have thought about placing the disposable cameras on the tables at the reception. I’ve seen this at other weddings and it allows the guests to take photos during the reception, shots that the professional photographer wouldn’t get. If they do decide to use those cameras, they could probably talk his mom, my sister, into scrapbooking all the developed pictures for them into a nice book.

Have you ever been to a wedding reception or other event that had the guests taking pictures? I like the idea a lot, but as a guest, wouldn’t it be nice to get to see the pictures after they’re developed? Usually only the hosts get to see the final result. If my nephew and his fiance go this route, I’m going to ask them make the wedding photography available for the guests to view.

A recent press release talks about a service that allows viewing of all those event photos.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LIFE’S BEST PHOTOS HIDDEN FROM VIEW, UNTIL NOW
Freeing Wedding Photos From The Dustbin Of History

CHICAGO, Illinois — November 26, 2007 — We’ve all been to a wedding reception, grabbed a disposable camera at our table, and captured a moment we know the bride and groom will appreciate. Perhaps it was a bouquet toss, a laugh, or the joyous reunion of family and friends who’ve come together to celebrate a marriage. But what happens to all those moments afterwards? They disappear into albums and shoeboxes, seen only by the newlyweds. In time, the wedding is defined by the formal poses snapped by a hired photographer – and all of those great candid moments are forgotten.

It’s been like this ever since the advent of disposable wedding cameras. Even with the advent of social networking and web 2.0 interactivity, no one has come up with a simple and practical solution that allows wedding guests to revisit a wedding and view the moments they’ve photographed. Few newlyweds are up to the arduous task of scanning the negatives from their disposable cameras, let alone creating a way to share those digitized photos with their many guests. iTheeSnap.com, provider of complete wedding camera solutions, has the answer.

iTheeSnap.com has been listening to customer requests and adding features that improve and simplify candid wedding photography. With the launch of web albums, iTheeSnap.com now automatically scans, uploads and creates a secure web album that allows full photo-sharing access for wedding attendees. Say recent iTheeSnap.com customers, “Our guests really appreciated the preprinted cards pointing to the website and their handiwork! While iTheeSnap.com’s service saved us a lot of time and money, the pictures really speak for themselves!” Guests now have the opportunity to view, download, print and comment on their favorite photos, reliving the moments that would otherwise be forgotten. Available today at iTheeSnap.com, web albums unlock life’s best photos simply and beautifully.

Founded in 2007, iTheeSnap.com brings innovation and ease-of-use to the disposable wedding photography market, including online ordering of premium FujiFilm® cameras, film development, negatives, prints, photo DVD, free shipping and online photo sharing. More information and demo web albums, are available at www.itheesnap.com.

Press Contact:
Ditmar Schnetz, President
iTheeSnap.com
(224) 595- 8480
ditmar@itheesnap.com
www.iTheeSnap.com

Technorati Tags: wedding photography

Oh my gosh, I didn’t think putting out all the decorations would be this challenging!  When you live in the same house for a few years or more, you simply pull out the boxes of decorations and put them out where they belong.  Move to a new house and it’s like starting from scratch. 

I don’t want to go out and buy all new decorations so I’m working with what I have.  This house just has a totally different layout and things just don’t look the same.  I do think we’ve finished the tree, I even found our Santa that goes up on top and my husband just now put him up where he belongs.  It’s all the room decor that I’m struggling with.  I know it will all come together eventually, I just hate seeing my family room in such disarray!

Maybe it’s time for a bloody mary and I can drink and rethink the decor! 

When we bought this house one of our requirements was that it have a 3 car garage. We came from having a house with a basement and a shed, both of which were used for storage. This house has an attic, but with the Texas heat, there are a lot of things we can’t store up there. The 3 car garage would allow us space to store the mowers and yard equipment that we kept in our shed previously.

One thing we didn’t realize was how short the depth of this garage is. We have a full size van and it takes up every inch of the length of the garage. In order to park both our vehicles in the garage it is going to mean that we need to keep the garage and everything in it completely organized. It’s not that way right now which means the car fits in the garage, but the van sits out in our driveway.

There are currently no shelves or tool cabinets in the garage and I think we’re going to have to put those in if we’re ever going to get both vehicles and the lawn equipment into the garage in an organized manner. Did I mention that our riding mower currently sits outside as well?

Now that we’re having colder temperatures and it’s raining out, I’m sure my husband would really like to have the van in the garage too. It would mean that he wouldn’t have to get wet when he leaves for work in the morning! Maybe after the holidays we can work on this home improvement project.

Technorati Tags: tool cabinets

With the downfall of Google’s PR we are all looking for ways to increase our traffic. I think this is extremely important if, like me, you’re involved with Pay Per Post. PPP”s Real Rank is heavily weighted on site traffic. There are many ways to build traffic and one basic way is to submit your site to directories.

The Sewing Mom was recently added to the Wordpress Blogs Directory which is a free directory. The WP Directory relies on bloggers to get the word out and support the directory. The only thing they ask of bloggers is to write about the Directory and to include a button on their site. My button is located in my footer. You should definitely check it out and submit your blog.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress Blogs Directory

We went out for a while this evening to Old Town McKinney. They were having their “Dickens of a Christmas” festivities this weekend and all of the shops were open plus there were street vendors all around and entertainment. Our daughter was playing her guitar inside one of the art studios, sort of background music for the clients and passerby. Unfortunately, it was very cold and rainy today. The good news for us was that it meant it wasn’t crowded. The bad news was that it was cold and rainy!

After my daughter finished playing we walked around the square visiting some of the shops. Most of them were decorated for the holidays and if it hadn’t been such nasty weather, it would have been beautiful. We ate an early dinner at a little pub and warmed up with some hot apple cider and cocoa. When we left the pub it was snowing! Well, sort of anyway. They had snow machines on the roof of the building and they were blowing fake snow out onto the square. It was really something, my daughter loved it!

Coming from Chicago, we’re used to snow and my daughter loves to play in it. I’ve always thought it would be fun to take her some place that had snow and hills so we could ski. She’s something of a daredevil, so she’d probably be quite good at it, unlike me. We could even combine a ski vacation with a trip to Europe, that would really be something. One place I’d never considered is Bulgaria, they have beautiful chalets and villas in Bansko and Borovets. Holiday Rentals can find a ski apartment in Bansko for your ski holiday and because they book the rentals directly from the owners, it’s a great value compared to paying for a hotel.

I really am looking forward to the day when can take a trip like this.  I can just imagine a nice warm fire burning in that fireplace and smoke curling up out of the chimney.

Plinko is getting into the spirit of the holidays, she was attempting to help my daughter decorate the tree this morning.  I’m telling you, everywhere my daughter goes this little dog follows.  My daughter climbed up on the stepstool to hang decorations and Plinko did her best to follow her, it was very funny.  After having her home all week from school, Plinko is going to be so bored when Monday rolls around and we get back on a regular schedule. 

We have our first Grandbaby to buy for this year and I want to find something very special for her for Christmas. I’m hoping to find something that she will be able to keep always and have it remind her of her Grandparents whenever she sees it.

When my daughter was born I cross-stitched her Christmas stocking for her. Now she is 11 and she still loves it. It has her name on it and it is and always will be special to her. Personalized Gifts for Children become cherished gifts and I think I will do the same for our grandbaby. It’s a little late in the season to begin a cross-stitch project, but I can purchase a stocking and have it personalized and I think it will still be special.   After putting up our tree ornaments I think I’ll also get the baby her 1st personalized ornament with her picture on it.  Her parents would enjoy that.

Technorati Tags: Personalized Gifts for Children

If you’re looking for a fun game that you can play as a whole family you might want to consider Balderdash.  We got this game years ago when my step-daughter was younger and visiting us.  She picked it out and we had a blast playing it.  Now our own daughter has found it packed away in a box and we played it last night.  Sometimes we get to laughing so hard that we forget who’s turn it is!

The player who’s turn it is is the designated Dasher and reads a word off of a card.  Each player then writes down what they think the word might mean.  It’s a totally made up definition.  The Dasher also writes down the correct definition, then mixes them all up and reads them out loud.  Each player, except for the Dasher, chooses the what they think is the real definition.  Points are then awarded to whoever chooses the real definition.  A player can also receive points for getting other players to think their “fake” definition is the real one. 

It’s a very simple game that kids who are old enough to read can play.  We had a really good time.  I think the funniest word we had last night was Gubermatrix.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure it out. 

Technorati Tags: Balderdash

Did you brave the Black Friday crowds? Not me! We stayed home and spent the morning putting up the Christmas tree. We bought new lights last week, unfortunately we didn’t buy enough. So, after sitting here looking at the tree partially lit and realizing that we needed to buy more lights before we could start putting the decorations on the tree, we decided to head out to the store. We were in no hurry though and the last thing I wanted to do was fight the crowds.

We wound up running a few errands that brought us close to a home center so we opted to buy our lights there. It wasn’t bad at all and I think it was late enough in the day that even the traffic wasn’t too bad. This is not to say that I didn’t do any Christmas shopping today, I did, I just did did my shopping online this morning.

I bought a few things on my daughter’s list and I narrowed down a couple of gift ideas for my hard to shop for mother-in-law. While I was looking for ideas of what to do with all the digital pictures I have, I found an awesome Photo Blanket that I’m thinking of getting for my step-daughter. I’d love to put her new baby’s picture on it, I think she would absolutely love it. There are also photo pillows and photo pillowcases that I could give as gifts. I have the most amazing mother/baby photo that would look really awesome on any of these items and it’s really an easy site to use.

I’m really looking forward to the holidays this year.

Technorati Tags: Photo Blanket, photo pillows, photo pillowcases

Have you decorated for the holidays?  I haven’t even started, although I’ve wanted to for the last several days.  My husband has been out of town so he wasn’t here to put the tree up.  That’s always the first thing to go up before any decorations can go anywhere else.

 Moving into a new house means figuring out where everything will go.  We’ve been discussing the positioning of the tree for weeks and we can’t seem to agree on where it should go.  We at least agree that it will be in the family room, we just can’t decide which end of the family room.  My husband would like to just slightly move furniture and squeeze the tree into a corner.  I am afraid putting it in that particular corner will block the T.V.   I  would like to rearrange the furniture and put the tree in the opposite corner from where my husband wants it.  In the end, I’ll probably have to let him try it his way and then he can decide if he likes it or not.

 I am looking forward to seeing this house all decorated.  Our last house we had to keep the tree in the entry way because our tree is 10 feet tall and that was the only place it would fit.  We bought the tree when we had a house with a family room and a two story ceiling.  The tree looked beautiful in that house.  Since then it’s looked huge.  I think it will be okay now, although we may have trouble putting the tree topper on it.

We did go out last Saturday shopping for a new tree.  We looked at both pre-lit on regular artificial trees.  I can’t get over how expensive they are.   The trees we looked at were all on sale, but even on sale, they were pricey.  I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on a tree.   We decided to use our tree for another year and hopefully we’ll find one at an even bigger discount before the season is over that we can use next year.

So tomorrow our plan is to decorate.  My husband has the day off and it will be a good day to spend together.  My daughter loves decorating the tree, so if he can get it put together and placed in the family room we can get it decorated.  While he’s putting the tree together I can work on decorating the mantel.   Then, while my daughter & I are decorating the tree, he can work on putting the lights outside.  It all sounds so simple, I hope we can get it all done tomorrow and sit back and enjoy it.