Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy new year!!

Happy new year!

I'm sorry this post is so over due.
I was on a work trip in Paris for about 10 days, a week before Christmas and when I'm back, everything just seem to be in a "daze"... jetlag, Christmas season, clearing annual leave etc.

Also, I started a "journey" on making macarons.
The lack of success is so frustrating that I wasn't spending much time on scrapbooking except for my 365-project (which I just sent out to print at Photobook... no more Shutterfly!).

So one thing at a time...

Winter in Paris...



And unsuccessful macarons...

I can write a long blog post about this but I will save it for the time when I'm finally successful.
I used to say "it's not about the destination but the journey", but after 10 batches of failed macarons, I'm not so sure anymore. LOL!
(But I guess if these 10 batches gets me to 95% success rate in future, it's not so bad afterall!)

Shuttefly has bombed me with lots of discount codes this season and I was tempted to give it a try again.
But it drove me crazy with its "scrapbooker-unfriendly" interface.
First I have to remove the "vivid colour enhancement, which is not so bad because it's just 1 click for all 60 pages.
Then, I have to remove the "auto-crop" one page at a time. C'mon, if I uploaded a square, I would want to print it in square, no?
Then comes the layout, it used to let me set 1 page as full-bleed and then ask if I want the rest of the pages to be changed as well. Not this time. So I had to do it page by page again.
And then the final straw came... the first page cannot be set as a full bleed no matter how I tried. It has to be one of the default layout specific for the first page.
That's it. I closed the page and opened my Photobook application.

It has a new year promotion of 30%, free shipping for S$60 and above and it takes less than 3 weeks to reach me. I do whatever I want on the application, save the book and then make a "proof" which I can then send online for processing. Uploading of the proof was much faster and payment process is the same as most online carts.

It's a full 8-inch page (i.e. the book is slightly bigger than 8") and the colours are a little darker than Shutterfly and not as vibrant. But the ease of making the book wins.
I don't know how other scrapbookers manage to survive the new Shutterfly interface (it wasn't like that 2 years back!) and I'm really interested to find out...

And lastly, here's the latest template for you. Have fun!!

Click on preview to download.
  

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for #64. The pictures are beautiful. The cookie look like snickerdoodles to me. Our Macaroons are mounds with coconut and so sweet. The still looks tasty to me. Maybe your one of your ingredients is not as fresh as it should be. Good luck and happy new year.

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  2. Luv the cluster frames THANK YOU ;~}

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  3. Thanks for another GREAT template!

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  4. Wonderful template! Thank you for sharing so generously.

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  5. thanks very much for the template. good luck with your next batch of macarons!

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