Server Problems for SNR postpone June Issue and Spring into Summer Event.

"Site Unavailable Until Monday Morning

As you can see by the present state of our site, we’re no longer online. Our site is completely inaccessible and will not be available until Monday morning, at the very earliest and the June issue as well as the Spring into Summer Event are now being rescheduled due to this unfortunate turn of events.

In our desire to be proactive and ensure nothing went wrong on the event date, it all spiraled out of control. Ever since our site was hacked a few months ago, it has experienced minor problems here and there. Since anytime we experience traffic of more than 40,000 unique daily visitors to the site, we experience “blips” or “surges” which essentially kicks off people who are 40,000 + 1 in line, and knowing our last event garnered roughly 46,000 visitors we decided it was best to switch to a larger server. Our hosting service advised it would take no longer than 8 hours to transfer all content and then another 4 for the DNS switch. I laugh at that because it was about as far from the truth as you can get. 16 hours later the transfer was still hobbling along. With unforeseen problems leftover from the hacker, the over 12,000 images and 1,300 articles we had to transfer moved at a ridiculously low speed and then eventually just stopped.

At this point, our site is completely shut down and displays a not-so-attractive “down for scheduled maintenance” sign that was certainly not scheduled. To say we’re disappointed would be putting it mildly. With countless man hours and above and beyond efforts made by staff members, the hardest part was telling them we were unable to hold the event as scheduled, but, as we’ve always believed, there’s always a silver lining in every cloud.To that end, we have some major announcements and incredible stuff headed your way.

Over the next two weeks you'll discover and fall in love with all of the amazing changes we're putting into effect and now that we'll soon be on a server with almost unlimited capabilities, we'll now be able to ensure you never have a problem getting to all the scrappy goodness on our site.

We're deeply sorry for any confusion or trouble this may have caused and please know we do not take any of this lightly. As a whole, SNR magazine stands together as a family and we stand by our word and our commitment to the scrapbooking community and this weighs heavily on our hearts, but there's always a silver lining in every cloud and we refuse to see this as anything but a positive. All good things come to those who wait and for your patience, we assure you, it will be worth the wait.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to e-mail us. Fortunately, our e-mail accounts are on a different server so we still have access to you. Thank you for your patience and understanding and have an amazing weekend." ~ SNR

I will keep you all informed and updated. The event is to be rescheduled as far as I know.

Teaching a Class, Creating, and playing with the kids

Don't tell me OMGosh it has been over a week since my last post... bad blogger bad! Well I have quite a bit to tell you about so please go grab a nice drink, sit back and relax I hope you enjoy this informative, hopefully inspirational and hilarious video in my post.

Fist and foremost... Inka Dinka Do! Everyone, get ready to get your hands dirty. Come play with me and Clearsnap! We will enjoy creating a layout with some distressing and inking techniques with a touch of a stamping. You will not want to miss this!

I am announcing to you all that I am going to be teaching a class on Clearsnap products at Scrapbook News and Review's Spring into Summer Event this Saturday!!! I am so EXCITED! This will be my first ever online class to teach and above all things it is about an ink company!!! I am one of seven SNR staffers that are teaching each of the classes below. I we have been sharing tid bits of our classes with each other and OMGosh... so excited to be a part of this event! Note mine is at 5:00 EST on Saturday.

You are INVITED!!!

Class Event Hours (EST):

1:00 Cosmo Cricket
2:00 Lizzie Anne Designs
3:00 Teresa Collins
4:00 Prism
5:00 Clearsnap - Taught by ME!!!
6:00 Magenta
7:00 Prima
8:00 Crate Paper

EST - 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.
CST - 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
MST - 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
PST - 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Hawaii - 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Second - Here is my newest layout for The Scrappiest Blog. I loved Liz's sketch this week it got me thinking about these cute photos of my son and his first Science fair. I am so proud of him and this wonderful project. He selected the topic, tested all ten toys and typed up his report. All of that from a first grader. He did all the coloring on the board I just assembled it.

Will A Magnet Help Clean My Room?

By the way the conclusion is: "A magnet will not help me clean because most of my toys are plastic and wood." His words not mine. I had some fun getting more along the cartoon style of paper and elements on this layout. A bit out of my box but I enjoyed it.

Last but not least... Now that my kids are out of school we do a little bit of school work every day. Reading, writing and Crafts... of course... LOL you all thought I was going to say arithmetic. I mean ... look who is the teacher! LOL! This also is one of the reasons for lack of time to post. Okay, so anyway, Wednesday is our craft day and last Tuesday I found on clearance for One yes ONE dollar, these adorable little paper bag puppets. I bought them among many other crafts for a buck and the kids made these puppets for their craft day. Now my Hubby was out of town all last week so we turned it into a project for Father's Day. My oldest , Tristan, wrote up a story all by himself and him and my youngest, Trinity, drew the set and created the title pages. Now they made these puppets, the story and the setting all by them selves. All I did was tape up the houses and grass. I hope you enjoy our puppet show. I thought is was really cute when they performed it for Daddy on Father's Day afternoon.



I hope you all enjoyed today's post and that you have a wonderful rest of the week. Don't forget to come on Saturday for my class at www.scrapbooknewsandreview.com. Please, come it would be great support to have familiar faces in the crowd. I would love to know if you could make it!

The Scrap Corner...

Ok so a while a go... in February I joined a challenge to create an organized scrap room. I only had one wall and a corner to utilize in our Master bedroom. Since then, as most of us do, I have acquired more then the little corner can handle. So Yesterday before my hubby left he informed me he would like it if he came home and his room was his again. So... off to move the scrap corner.

I have decided to take our small sectional couch (more like a love seat) and put it back into our room for a reading corner. This will free up an area in our computer/gaming room for the scrap stuff. Well, I just finished getting all the furniture out here and I have to say I am pretty proud of my rearranging. ;) Though it is kind of cramped in this room now at least I have the computer at my fingertips while I scrap...hehe. I can watch the kids play outside through the windows from in here and I can hang out with the Hubby at night while he gets his game on. Wooo Hoo that means more scrap time for me!!!

I have to keep it picked up more now though due to the fact that it is a public room. So when guests come over they get to see all my scrappy goodness and I don't want them to see how my "creative mind" works... best in a mess...LOL!

Hello, my name is Grace and I am a Craftaholic!

Oh my I am! I have to thank my friend, Maggi over at www.katamommydamacy.blogspot.com for putting together a wonderful Monday blogging tradition. She has found such a great group of gals that are craftaholics and has invited me to become one. To read the interview just click on this link and have fun learning a bit more about me. Also check out all the other Craftaholics on her blog. It has been great getting to know everyone of them. I hope you all have a wonderful day! Thanks so much again Maggi, I had a blast!

Here are a few more of my craft endeavors. The first one is one of about 30 paintings I did back in 2000. It has been a while since I have picked up a brush to paint an oil. The second one is a close up of some ribbon embroidery I thought myself to do for my wedding gown. My mother made the gown I embroidered it.


I

I have been busy!

I have not forgotten you all my life just has exploded lately. Busy, busy, busy me. So I have focused my creativity elsewhere this week and surprisingly enjoyed a week off from scrapping... WAIT DON"T LEAVE!!!! Now before you leave my blog because I said words that you can't imagine would com from my mouth... my projects are scrap related.

First off, I have to let you all know how honored that Scrapbook News and Review let me design the front cover to the May 2009 issue. I had such a blast working on this that I asked if I can do it again next month. So I spent hours in Microsoft word designing this front cover. I am really happy with it and even more impressed with myself for using a word processing program to put it together instead of a graphic one.

The artwork on the front cover is by two of our talented staff members, Irene Tan and Pamela Maas and the sketch is by Debbie Gaydos.

The other projects I have been working on is a photography challenge I am a part of. I have decided to practice and hone my photography skills by joining this challenge and working on it every week. The camera is probably the most important tool of a scrapbooker. Think about it. The camera is where our craft begins. Am I right?

This past week's assignment was to take a self portrait. here are a few of the ones I shot of myself. Got to love that ten second timer option on my camera. LOL. I can only imagine what the people on Main St. thought of me the other day. I was running back and forth between my lamp post and my car, where the camera was propped up on the open window sill of the passenger door. I need a tripod!

Three of these are the original shots and the last one has been edited due to the color in the third.



































































My question for you is how well do you know your camera? Have you tried to take self portraits?

Thanks for looking.