MEMORY KEEPING 101– Artisan, Scrapbooking, but Digital
Digital Photo Gifts and Photobooks
You know the names – Snapfish, Shutterfly, Mixbook, SmugMug, etc. etc. etc. You go there. You drop your photos into a template. Maybe you can edit some, maybe you can’t. You can make gifts with photos, like blankets, coffee mugs, calendars and ornaments. You can also make bound photobooks.
Ever try to contact their customer service? I have chatted online. Either you’re talking to someone with a name five miles long that you can’t pronounce or it’s a bot. Doesn’t matter. They can’t help you, because if it is a real problem they don’t have a script for it. So they elevate your problem and good luck with that. I’m still waiting for my email from my elevated customer service call concerning a Christmas Card order a few years ago.
Quit that!! You can do all of that and more on Forever. Highest quality images, best quality products, quick turnaround and amazing selection. Here’s the difference. Those other guys are the big box store. Forever is me. Now I’m not doing all the work, but you have me so you never have to chat with a bot. I have Forever, so whatever it is that you want to do with your photos, I can get it done.
Since the main focus of my business is custom scrapbooking, I don’t spend much time trying to transform Snapfish customers into Forever customers. In fact, if you’re already memory keeping, then good for you. That’s what I want. I’m happy to tell you why I believe Forever is a better way to go, and I would love for you to buy these services from me instead of them, but my real target is people who just have a mess and want me to fix it. I would love it, if next time you go to print photos or make a calendar/coffee mug/photobook/blanket, you gave Forever a try, but what I want most is for you to keep on memory keeping.
And Then There Was Artisan
I’ll be honest with you. I don’t do all that photo gifting stuff for my own purposes. Perhaps that’s because I don’t have kids, grandkids or pets, but I think the real reason is because I’m a scrapbooker. I want my photos and memorabilia in an album, not on my coffee mug.
Because I’m a scrapbooker, I’m used to starting with a blank page, so all those photobook templates frustrate the heck out of me – even Forever photobook templates. I tried. I really tried and I ran, not walked, back to my traditional scrapbooks.
Then I discovered Artisan! With Artisan I can start with a blank page. Oh, they have all the templates in the world, if you want them. In fact, the training videos assume you want to use templates and teach from that standpoint, so my learning curve was pretty steep. However, after a few sessions, I skipped to the part where they just told me what the various buttons did, without telling me how they worked with templates. I haven’t looked back.
I still prefer traditional scrapbooking. Perhaps you know my husband and I own a real estate photography company. I sit at a computer all day long managing photos – downloading, uploading, receiving and delivering. When my real estate photography day is over, I would prefer to move to the scrapbooking table and do things manually. Don’t get me wrong, I will do digital photobooks, for my clients, for gifts and occasionally just for myself, but it’s just not my first love.
If like me, you just want to keep doing traditional scrapbooks, then you should at least allow Forever to print your photos. Here’s why they are the best:
Taking It to the Next Level
If digital scrapbooking is your thing, then before I go, I should tell you about Pixels 2 Pages. It’s an online community of digital scrapbookers. These people are serious about it. They even have retreats where they get together with their computers, either virtually or in person, to scrapbook. You can try it out for free for a month.
Online communities are not my thing, but they might be yours. I have met some of these people in person and they speak a language I don’t even understand. I think it’s easy to learn, but again, I’m primarily a traditional scrapbooker. I’d rather talk about the latest Border Maker or Punch, but, as I said, that’s me. I just wanted you to know it was there if you wanted it.
That’s all for today! We’ll visit the Metroplex tomorrow and go to NYC on Wednesday, but on Thursday, we’ll get back to Memory Keeping 101.
It all started Friday morning when the photos arrived from the editors. I don’t want to go back there, but suffice to say, it did not go well and Saturday morning I was still chasing various shots. Granted, this sort of thing very rarely happens and everyone is granted the opportunity to make a mistake, but we had several humans making several mistakes all on the same day. How lucky can you get?
And speaking of being human, I had planned to crock pot a meal on Friday, which did not happen, so while I was madly emailing and texting on Saturday morning to solve all the problems, I loaded up my crockpot. As a start, I added the orzo at the beginning, rather than holding it until the last 30 minutes. So what do you do at that point? It had already sucked up much of my liquids and I wasn’t going to waste food, so I just cranked it up.
Then it was back upstairs to do battle with the editors and when I came down a little later, the crockpot had decided it wasn’t in the mood to cook. Thankfully, with a little technological encouragement – unplug/plug, off/on, try another setting – it decided it would cook my meal.
And speaking of On and Off – Bill had expressed a desire to go to a nursery and start shopping for spring planting. Between Snowmaggedon and the recent Ice Storm, we barely have anything alive in our beds. So, I totally understood the need, but visiting the nursery when the temperature is hovering between the high 40’s and low 50’s didn’t sound like much fun. He agreed it was probably too chilly, so I touched base with my bestie and planned on connecting for lunch.
But then he decided he wanted to run some other errands, which sounded OK. Except that he lollygagged around so long that my bestie finished up her dance lesson. That was not such a big deal, because we all just met for lunch, at Ephesus Bistro & Grill in Rowlett.
My second visit by the way. Ephesus is a great little local place to get Mediterranean food. The hummus has great chunks of chickpea in it, so you know it’s fresh. Bill and I shared a Beef Kabob and she had Chicken Roulade. Both were great. The only thing I warn against is the falafel. When I got it, the inside of the ball was not as done as I like – but that’s me. I prefer the patties over the balls for that reason.
After a morning of dancing and a big lunch, Deb was ready to go home and take a nap. Bill and I headed out to do our errands, but somehow ended up at Covington’s Nursery. It wasn’t quite as chilly as I thought it was going to be, but chilly enough. I think it should be nice and warm when I hang out at the nursery.
We try to shop at Covington’s whenever we can afford to, but they are a little proud of their merchandise. They are without a doubt the most knowledgeable in the area, so we do buy a lot there and we always go to them first for advice.
Sunday was not much better. After I did my greeting job at church, I did get a few pages of scrapbooking done. We also went out and bought each other the Valentine’s Gifts of our choices. We hit another nursery – less expensive, but also less stock and not much in the advice department. After that we hit Red Lobster for dinner.
Yawn, yawn and yawn! Come back next week for more travel, more memory keeping and another weekend report!
I’m old fashioned. I think the price of something should be a definite thing, but it’s gotten a lot more complicated than that. Whether you’re shopping online or at the grocery store or the local department store, there’s the price that’s marked, the price that’s advertised and the price you can get it for. Unfortunately, though I love everything Forever has to offer, I hate the way they do their pricing. Younger people might understand it all better, but I get confused.
The Welcome Coupon
Joining Forever is free. I send you a link: https://www.forever.com/ambassador/jane-sadek/. You fill in a few details and you’re in – all the wonders of Forever at your finger tips. But it’s better than that. To thank you for signing up, Forever gives you a $20 Welcome Coupon. They’ll send you an email to thank you for joining, but don’t delete it, because there’s a code there you’ll need to redeem your $20. With just a few minor exceptions, it can be used for anything.
The Forever Club
Remember Layaway? That’s an old selling strategy where a store will put your purchase in their storeroom and you pay for it over time. You’ll still see it every once in awhile, but these days most people just charge it. Back in the day, we weren’t so free with our credit cards, so the stores would help you buy their merchandise. I have a beautiful silver service my favorite aunt paid for piece by piece year by year with layaway. It’s one of my favorite treasures.
The Forever Club is like layaway in reverse – like a savings account. You go ahead and put a little aside for a few months and suddenly you have enough to get video streaming, a terabyte of storage, the big Forever box or whatever else you’d like to get, without putting a burden on your credit card. And unlike the bank, where they’ll charge you service fees for holding your money, the Forever Club is free and your Club dollars never expire. That’s a nice tool to have when you are planning a digital project.
5% Off Everything and Stacking
But there’s more! When you belong to the Club, you get a 5% discount on everything. So even if you don’t want to save up for a big purchase – I never have – belonging to the Club is worth it. You may only put in $25, but you’re going to get $26.25 worth of merchandise. Your shopping cart will just have that 5% taken off every time, whether you’re scoring a Deal of the Day for Digital Scrapbooking Art or getting photos printed or buying more storage.
Stacking is a thing at Forever. You know how you get a coupon from some companies and the rules for using it are so restrictive it’s almost impossible to use. Well, you can use your Welcome Coupon and your 5% Club discount together on virtually everything and then stack them with other deals I will talk about later.
Free Storage
And, like the vegetable cutter at the state fair, that’s not all. Every three months you belong to the Club you get free storage. The amount you get is based on the level of membership you buy. And this isn’t one of those Clubs you get into, but can’t get out. You don’t have to go through a bunch of hoops or spend hours on the line waiting for a customer service rep. You go into your account and cancel it yourself. I know, because I start and stop all the time, but I always be sure to stay in for 3 months to get my free storage.
When I am working on digital projects, I know I am going to be spending dollars with Forever. Like I said, the Forever dollars can be used on everything and they never expire. Why wouldn’t I want a 5% discount. So, when I start the project, I join the Club at the lowest level, $25 and I be sure my membership goes for at least 3 months. During that period of time, whatever I am doing from buying storage and printing photos, to creating print projects or even buying up digital art, I get that 5% off and I am also earning half a GB of storage. Believe me, the way I eat up storage, I’ll take every half a GB I can get.
But some people are more aggressive. They want it all and they want a lot of it – a TB of storage, video streaming, several Forever boxes – you can quickly stack up thousands of dollars. For the sake of this post, let’s say they’ve set a budget of $7500 for their project and they want to get it all within a 3 month period. They’d join the Club at the $2500 level for 3 months, but they’d end up with $7875 to spend and 50 GB of free storage. Yep, that’s a good deal.
The Deals Page
For me, the deals page is the good news and the bad news. The good news is that there is always a deal. You will never pay what Forever lists as their full price. However, the problem is that the deals are always changing. If you asked me today what you’d spend on any given project, I can tell you the full price and what it would be if you bought it now, but I can’t tell you what the price will be if you buy it later. It might be better, it might be worse. I try to help people get the best deals, but there is no published schedule of deals to come.
Most of the deals are just a percentage off the list price – usually ranging from 10% to 50%, but keep an eye out, because crazy things can happen. They also come up with specials that you can only get with the Club, which is a nice bonus. You can get free tickets to online events, membership to the Digital Scrapbookers Group (Pixels 2 Pages) and even deals on shipping.
There’s also the Deal of the Day, which is usually something for digital scrapbooking, but sometimes they throw us a curve ball, so it wouldn’t hurt to check it everyday. I look anytime I go on the website
Then there are the bundles. Perhaps you can get free storage if you buy video streaming, for instance, but they put all kinds of things together. They also get more creative, but the more creative they get, the more complicated they also get. During the madness of Black Friday, you could get $100 and $200 gift certificates with a bonus coupon which would give you amazing discounts off various things, but while the gift certificate would not expire, the coupon had to be used by the end of December and it had rules about what you could stack it with. More good news/bad news in my opinion.
You Need Me
This is why you need me. While Jenga is a game where you pull out blocks, Forever is a game where you have to stack the deals to get the best price. I wish it were easier, but the days of easy seem to be over.
There’s another reason you need me. I have a 5% discount in my pocket that only I can give you. It’s only good for certain products, but if you are buying something which qualifies we take off all the other coupons, discounts and deals, and then I take 5% off the top. Let’s say you were buying that TB of storage. With my pocket discount I could take hundreds of dollars off the bottom line.
When You Fall in Love
If you become a member of Forever, which is always free to join, you might have a little period of adjustment, but at some point you are going to fall in love. Maybe it will be the joy of owning your own piece of the cloud or taking boxes of photos digital or maybe it will be the first photobook you print, but at some point, you’ll say, I’m so glad I did this. That’s when you start sharing.
Now, in this social media heavy world, sharing usually means putting a post on your channel and your reward is clicks, likes and comments. You get more with Forever. If you share my page and the person you shared it with joins Forever, they’ll get that $20 Welcome Coupon and you’ll get a $20 Thank You Coupon. There’s no limit! Share away! You don’t even have to involve me. Just go to your Forever account, hit the share button in the upper right hand corner and you’ll get a link to text or email. Done!
The Ambassador Opportunity
While we are talking about saving, I have to tell you about one more opportunity. You can become an Ambassador for $119 annually. Instead of just getting 5% off with the Club, you can also get at least 20% paid back to you for everything you buy. This is not for everyone. You’ll need to spend at least $600 to breakeven on this deal, if you’re just buying in for the discount.
My business is photos and memory keeping, so being an Ambassador just makes sense. I have people with Forever Club memberships who yield me a few dollars every month. I have other clients who pay big purchases out over a year’s time and I get a few dollars every month from them. Sometimes I make a big sale and get a huge commission. But most importantly, whatever I buy, I get 20% back and there are no minimums and I don’t hold any inventory.
If you’re a serious memory keeper, it might make sense for you or if you are looking for a business opportunity you can have fun with, look no further. Let’s talk about how it would work in your life.
Never Ever Pay Full Price
I know, that’s a lot of information, but I wanted to put it all in one place, if for no other reason than to remind myself of all the ways I can save money or save you money on your digital memory keeping. Wanna know more. Keep reading my Thursday posts or just give me a call.
The week linking January to February was lost to the weather. It was supposed to be one networking event after another, but it turned into a very productive buttocks-in-chair week, instead. Every day on my calendar has events marked off and the notation ‘weather.” It was great for catching up on a number of things I really don’t like to do, but by Friday I was so glad to have a Zoom call to get on. By the afternoon, the weather had broken and the big melt was on. I took advantage of the break and jumped into my car, running one errand after another.
East Hampton Sandwich Company
On Saturday, I had a lunch date with my friend, Lisa. Our friendship dates from 2006, when I returned to Dallas from the California sojourn. I met Lisa at Northwest Bible Church Women’s Ministry and we just clicked. She was a great support while Mr. Bill was in Iraq and she’s continued to be a good friend until this day, even though our lives have gone in different directions, we make the effort to meet for lunch every couple of months.
Lisa lives just a couple of blocks off Snider Plaza and I’m over here in Heath, so we sort of take turns wandering to one another’s neck of the woods or connect at NorthPark, which is one of my favorite places on earth. It was time to meet somewhere near her, so she suggested the Snider Plaza East Hampton Sandwich Company.
We camped out at one of their tables and caught up on all the news. I had a burger with sweet potato fries, which was delicious and she had the Green Goddess Gluten-Free Wrap. She brought me a housewarming gift to celebrate our new sunroom and bought my lunch, because she said she wouldn’t be in town for my birthday. (She spoils me rotten.) The atmosphere at East Hampton is very laid back and no one seemed to mind us becoming a fixture. So, I drug out my latest scrapbook for her to peruse. My albums don’t seem finished until Deb and Lisa see them!
Penne Pomodoro
Most of my Saturdays are spent with my bestie, but Deb had a dance lesson and had another errand or two to run, so we weren’t connecting until after lunch. When Deb texted, Lisa and I were still chatting, so Deb came and joined us.
East Hampton had been great for grabbing a sammie with a friend, but it had one serious fault – no adult beverages. Deb was starving after her dance lesson, but it was time to move on. So, we vacated the space we’d been filling at East Hampton and crossed the street to Penne Pomodoro.
I am very fortunate in my friends. Deb and Lisa are both fixtures in my life and very dear to me. We’ve been sharing lives for a long time. While they haven’t spent a lot of time around each other, they both know all about each other from me and they’ve both been there for me through some pretty serious times. We all just picked up like we’d just seen each other the weekend before.
Deb chose to be healthy and eat a salad, while we bonded over wine. Like East Hampton, Penne Pomodoro was laid back about us taking up their table on a Saturday afternoon, so Deb and I ordered a second round. What a blessing those girls are to me.
Shopping Therapy
What’s a girls’ day without a little shopping therapy? Lisa led us through some of her favorite stores. First, stop was Logos, a great Christian book store that’s been around ever since I can remember. They’ve moved around the center a few times, it seems, but I know the spot they are in is new to them. Lisa is a regular and the owner greeted her by name. Lisa introduced us and I noticed when we left, she called Deb and me by name as she bid us farewell.
Logos does have books, lots of them, but it is also an extraordinary haven for gifts. I saw dozens of things I’d love to give or get. Since Valentine’s is coming soon, I picked up a card for my sweetheart and found something else for him I couldn’t resist, but I can’t tell you, because he does read my posts.
Across the way, we wandered into the Christy M Boutique and I made the mistake of admiring a necklace. It was a mistake, because Lisa was soon handing me a bag, saying Happy Birthday. I told you she spoils me!
Our final stop, before heading over to Lisa’s was Suzanne Roberts. Like Logos, it made me want to buy a little of everything. It’s gifts and home décor, featuring a lot of MacKensie Phillips merchandise. I somehow managed to get out without buying anything.
Then we walked over to Lisa’s. Deb had never seen her home and Lisa had a photo album she wanted to show me. She was a little concerned it might not be photo-safe, but her mother-in-law had been a good little Memory Keeper. The photos were in a Webway album. Webway was the company which became Creative Memories, so I knew her mother-in-law’s hard work would be safe for generations to come.
All good things must come to an end and it was time to head back to Heath. It had been a lovely day. Sunday was uneventful. I went to church, did some scrapbooking and read some. Come back next week. On Wednesday we’ll be in NYC. Thursday is Memory Keeping 101. And of course, Fridays have The Weekend Report.
Forever has two free online events coming soon and you’ll want to know about them. If you don’t already belong to Forever now is a good time to join. It doesn’t cost a penny and there’s no obligation, but you will get a $20 off welcome coupon for your first purchase and you can enjoy these seminars live and/or at your leisure. Just be sure to use my link, https://www.forever.com/ambassador/jane-sadek or you might end up with a stranger as your Ambassador!! Once you belong, hover over the “Products” link in the top bar and choose “Forever Events” from the menu.
Family History Virtual Event
If you’re the Family Historian building your family tree one ancestor at a time, I applaud you! You might be interested to know Forever could be you best tool ever. That’s why you’ll want to participate in this event. After a welcome from our Founder, one of our Ambassadors, who is an expert on genealogical exploration, is going to talk about how she’s used Forever to collect and share her documentation. Then another Ambassador will talk about her experience with Forever Family Research. Yep, Forever has a whole division devoted to helping you with your research and you’re gonna love hearing about it. There’s more, but that should be enough to reel you in. Sign up here!
If you’re not the Family Historian – I’m certainly not – you’re still going to learn lots from this event. During the Family History session, they’ll go step-by-step through the digitization process and though they’ll be talking about genealogical materials specifically, most of those materials are the same ones you have: photos, video, slides, negatives, movies, audio and memorabilia. Then, while you may never dig into your ancestry, you have to admit those family tree people do discover some interesting things and learning how they do it might just inspire you to get busy on your limb, because someday you may have the leaves someone needs for their tree. Sign up here!
Family Historians and Non-Historians both will benefit from the balance of the program. The first session after a short break is “Using Forever.” This company was founded to make memory keeping easier. With us you don’t have to have a series of services and apps to do what you need to do. This session will walk you through the perfect integration of your memory keeping tools.
Perhaps the best part of memory keeping is sharing, so after learning how to use Forever, you’ll drill down into all the various ways you can share with “Auto Print” and “Design and Print.” Want to make a photobook in minutes? AUTO PRINT! You’ll go wild! And other print options will also be discussed. Then they’ll talk about the Friends & Family program for sharing and how you can keep your legacy alive long after you’re not here to do it.
Forever’s Family History Virtual Event will be February 25, starting at 11 AM,CST. Want more info, click here.
Milestones Virtual Event– PETS
Several times a year Forever has Milestones Virtual Events. Much like the Family History event in February, Milestones walks you through ways to use your Forever account and products to capture your memories and share them for generations to come. Past Milestone events have focused on everything from babies to weddings and lots of other things in between. March 11, the subject will be Pets.
The information shared during the event is good, even if you aren’t a pet lover, but pet lovers will enjoy it, even if they aren’t memory keepers!! It will be full of ways to capture and save memories of your pets, as well as how to use Forever in the process. You can sisgn up here.
More Information Than You Can Shake a Stick At
Online Events are just one of the ways Forever supports you in your memory keeping. On virtually every page of their site there are links to videos, FAQs and other content to help you with whatever you are doing. You’ll find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. They have a blog. With your Forever Club Membership, you can even be on a quarterly call with the founder to find out what’s going on. If digital scrapbooking is your thing, there’s the Pixels2Pages community. It really is almost endless. And yet, I was preserving memories seconds after I signed up, so it is also very intuitive.
So, that’s the memory keeping scoop for this week. Of course I will be sharing the weekend report tomorrow and next week I’ll be sharing more from the trip to NYC. Don’t miss it!!
So last weekend was my husband’s birthday. It was sort of a milestone for him and he decided to live large! In fact, he started looking forward to it a day early, when usually he does his best to ignore it. So, Thursday afternoon he pulled out one of the good bottles of wine and enjoyed smoking his hookah in our sunroom.
Friday Night Date
The celebration, which started on Thursday, kept going on Friday night. You have to know that Friday nights are pretty quiet around here, usually. We don’t like to fight the big crowds, but we researched several Dallas restaurants, trying to find something new. We finally gave it up and went to Fire and Fable, something in Rockwall I’d tried out for coffee the week before. I found out they had a bar and stayed open 10 to 10, so we gave it a shot.
Warning it’s a little confusing. They bill themselves as a bookshop bistro, but when you walk in, the first thing you see is a pastry counter. In truth, the ladies at the counter were a tad bit more interested in whatever they were doing than they were about seeing if we were taken care of. We told them we were going to the bar, but then decided maybe we’d prefer to eat, but having already talked to us, they weren’t going to give us their attention again.
So, we walked through the next bit, which is actually bookshopish and found ourselves in a line, but we weren’t sure what we were waiting for. Chatting up the group ahead of us, we found out they’d just been called to their table, and we were in the right place to put our name on the list. They were seated and after a bit of a wait, the hostess asked us what we wanted.
She put us on the list for a table, but then found us a place to sit in the bar. We ordered drinks and an appetizer. Then we sat back to enjoy the show. All the cool kids were there being cool, so it was quiet entertaining. The service was slow, but I can only imagine what kind of chaos going on back in the kitchen, because the place was jamming.
Our appetizer was fried artichoke hearts and I cannot heartily endorse them, but in spite of that, I think you should go check it out – just maybe not on a Friday evening. We managed to wrench our check from the waiter and get it paid. Then we escaped out the back door. The hostess texted us our table was ready, just about the time we got home.
Saturday Night Date
You know it’s a big weekend if we go out twice!! Bill joined my bestie and I on our Saturday afternoon adventure, which happened to be a movie. We saw A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks. It was really heartwarming, but you have to sit through a lot of sadness to get to the good part. All three of us gave it a thumbs up!
But that’s not all. On a walk around The Harbor earlier in the week, I suggested to Bill the new Sear Steakhouse might be a good place to celebrate his birthday. He allowed that it might be, but he hadn’t worn his glasses and couldn’t see the menu posted outside the restaurant. He checked out their website once he got home, which didn’t have pricing and decided it would not be a good place to go.
Well, Deb decided to take him to 360° for a drink. 360° is the circular bar outside Sear Steakhouse – perfect for a sunset drink, since it overlooks Lake Ray Hubbard, but it worked fine for a drink (or two) in the dark, too. I must say we thoroughly enjoyed our time there and after a look at the menu (he had his glasses) we decided we could even afford to eat there!
Sunday Night Date
Nah! We didn’t go out again. After church, we both went to our offices to catch up on things which needed our attention. When dinner rolled around, however, Mr. Bill did cook up some falafel sandwiches and it was very good.
It was a really good weekend and we had a lot of fun. Thanks for dropping by. I hope you’ll come to visit again next week.
TRAVEL HERE: NETWORKING, NOT WORKING & OTHER DISTRACTIONS
A Friday for Networking
Friday morning I had a 1:1 scheduled with a great local business owner and she suggested we meet at a great local business. My meeting was with Candace Barnes of Noble Barnes and she’s the reason I was a Fable and Fire when they opened at 10.
Let’s start with Candace. I first ran into her at RASBA – Rockwall Area Small Business Alliance, a networking group for local entrepreneurs. We have a great Chamber, but us small guys can get lost in the shuffle, so there was a need for something on a smaller scale. It was started by Sarah Naylor , who is not only an amazing asset to our community, but also one of our top clients at Spot On Images. When she started the group, I had a standing commitment at the same time, but I put RASBA on my wish list, not just because she was our client, but because I heard such good things about the “speed networking” format they were using.
Well, they were right about RASBA! Since it’s in my neighborhood, I saw several people I already knew, but I also met a handful of new folks, one of them being Candace. I set up an appointment with her and then I ran into her at least twice at other networking events before we had our 1:1 – events like RWIB (Rockwall Women in Business) and RCAN (Royse City Area Networking).
So, Friday morning, I’m standing outside waiting for Fable and Fire to open. I wasn’t really paying much attention to a pair of women standing nearby, who were also waiting, until I saw Candace drive up in the Noble Barnes pick-up truck. One of the women said, “Oh Noble Barnes is such a cool company.” She proceeded to tell the story of Candace’s son who started a lawn business at 14, so he could buy a car and turned it into a company with 10+ full time employees, who will handle your lawn, your home or your pets for you.
I gotta tell you, I’d love it if someone said, “Oh, Spot On Images is such a cool company,” and proceed to tell about the ex-Realtors® who liked taking photos of new listings better than they did selling them and started a real estate photography company from scratch, which is now one of the top photography companies in the area. The story is true and most real estate agents know about us, but a couple of housewives meeting for coffee? Not so much.
The meeting with Candace went great. We have many points in common. I recommend Noble Barnes whole-heartedly. So, if you’re in the area and need help with most anything, give them a call!
Next up was the monthly Wine Women and Wealth Meeting of Kaufman County, sponsored by my friend, Susan Bennett White. Sorry gentlemen, this one is for the ladies. Lunch is free, as is the mini-financial seminar and business spotlight. It’s been a great resource of leads for my Memory Keeping business and I really enjoy it, every month.
A Saturday for Not Working
Friday afternoon I dropped off a big Memory Keeping project I’d been working on and found myself in a break between customer projects. I drug out the personal project I’d been working on and got things set up to crop throughout the weekend.
Saturday morning I got busy on the album until it was time to go to lunch with my bestie, after which she graciously agreed to do cemetery duty with me. For lunch we went to Mi Cocina in Watters Creek, mostly because we both needed a margarita or two. Then it was on to Pecan Grove, because Mom’s birthday was a couple of days away and I really don’t want Ruth haunting me. We chose a red plumish bouquet with peonies at Hobby Lobby and it looked great.
Then for a little shopping therapy. We didn’t score any major bargains, but we both found things that we couldn’t leave at the outlet mall. Back home, i dug back into my album.
A Sad Sunday
My pastor is leaving. I’ve mentioned this, but it still breaks my heart. I’m happy he and his wife are excited and challenged by their new ministry, but selfishly, I wanted them right here at my church. I was greeting Sunday, which kept me out of Sunday School and rendered me late for the worship service, but it also probably kept me from sobbing through the morning.
The elders and the congregation had cooked up a surprise farewell party. They still have a week left, but there’s a business meeting after church and so that’s how we managed to make this a surprise. It was a touching event and I got to participate by presenting them with a digital photo album I’d made with photos another lady had been taking, ever since we found out they were leaving.
I worked on my personal album before and after church. I finished up (except for the cleaning up around 8:30. Then I watched a little TV with the hubby before heading to bed.
And that was the weekend. I was a little late with this weekend report today. It was a busy week and writing my post got lost in the shuffle – but here I am. Come back next week. We’ll have adventures in NYC, adventures in Memory Keeping and the next weekend report.
MEMORY KEEPING 101 – STORING AND CURATING YOUR PHOTOS ON FOREVER
Why Forever?
Back in November I introduced you to Forever Storage and the reasons I think it is best way to store your photos online. If you would like to review that post, click here, but here’s a chart that spells it out.
Perhaps the best part of a Forever account is that you buy your storage rather than rent it. Think about the difference in a landlord and a tenant. With other storage systems, your photos are merely tenants on someone else’s property. The landlord makes the rules. The landlord has a right to enter the property. The landlord is responsible for maintenance and you’re screwed if they don’t do it. If the landlord changes the rules, you either have to live with it or you’re stuck with the new rules. The list goes on.
At Forever, you own the property your photos are stored on. You make the rules about your photos. No one can go in there without your permission. No one can change the rules without your permission. You can do as much or as little as you like with your photos. It’s yours.
When you’re renting space for your photos, if you don’t make your rent payment, you lose access to your photos and what’s more, they don’t even have a plan for you to pass on your space, even if you want to. At Forever, you buy your space, so it belongs to you and whoever comes along after you.
Fully Customized Organization
I’ve used a lot of different online storage products in my life and while they will give you all the space in the world for a small monthly fee, your options for setting up your library are always limited. When I first started using Forever, I didn’t even know how to appreciate the flexibility I was given. It took me a while to create a system that worked for me, because it’s not just a matter of fill in the blanks.
It didn’t take long for me to get the hang of it and now I love it. Forever keeps a library of everything you upload to the site and with a few query words you can get to exactly what you want, You also get to set up whatever albums you want and then nest albums under there to as many levels as you want. Each album you access quickly tells you how many photos are in that album and how many nested albums you have within that album.
Within any album, you get to chose the order you want them in and if none of the automatic choices work, you can create your own.
As you set up your albums and nested albums, you can create a name for them and then you can fully describe what the album is about and if you want, put a date or date range on it.
Tagging is a breeze, but that’s only the beginning of the ways you can identify your photos with Forever.
Most online photo storage picks up information from your metadata and you’re stuck with whatever is there. Not with Forever. You have total control.
Just because it was Conger-7 wherever you got it from doesn’t mean it has to stay that. If the date taken is really just the date you uploaded it, you can change it to the real date.
Want that photo to be in other albums? That’s easy and it doesn’t take up more of your storage to do that.
And the description? None of that 25 words or 100 character stuff. Tell the whole story. Don’t want to key it in, fine, go to the app and use voice to tell the story. You’re not going to run out of space.
Sharing
While Forever will stay out of your storage and diligently protect it from others who shouldn’t be in there, it’s got all kinds of ways to share your images when you want to do so. You can share a single shot or an entire album or even your whole account. You can also set a level of sharing for the top level of each album. You might have some items you want to stay private, just for you. Friends and Family could have their own level of access to other albums. Then you could even have public items you opened up to whoever wanted to see them, so it’s great for all kinds of applications like teams, schools or other groups.
There are other ways to give the people you want access to your files. You can collaborate with others in you albums and decide what level of collaboration you want them to have. You can set up a manager and allow them to act as you if you want. You can also designate who you want to have access and control of your files and which files after you. Try that with icloud!
Auto Uploading
Have you ever wished that every photo you took on your phone or added to Facebook could be captured permanently somewhere so you never have to worry about losing them? Forever can do that. Or you can do one or the other of them. Up to you!
So What’s the Bad News?
If you’ve been using a free service or have been paying $1.99 per month for 100 gigabytes of storage, the bad news at Forever is sticker shock. The first time you hear how much 100 GB of storage costs at Forever it is going to be a difficult pill to swallow.
I must be honest with you. While I love Forever storage, I have to admit I don’t like all the rigmarole it takes to figure out how much you have to pay. On the day in November I wrote this post, with all the various deals and discounts available, you could get 100 GB of storage for $387.98 or something close to that (according to how you stacked the deals). However, the retail price for 100 GB of storage is $1000. I think that’s crazy, but someone smarter than me dreamed up this pricing and if you’ve ever shopped at Macy’s or Kohl’s, it will seem familiar. (This dress is $400, but today with a coupon you can get it for $19.99.)
So, while $387.98 is a lot, it’s really not fair to compare it with the $1.99 a month at Google, for instance. Google can rent that space for that price, because they owe you nothing in the way of privacy or security. They also know they will be able to make money off your photos with data mining and advertising. If they lose all your pictures, that’s OK. They can compress your photos anytime they want, so they will take up less space. If they want to delete your photos, all they have to do is send you an email and if you miss it, that’s tough. They also have your permission to use it for whatever else they want to.
On the other hand – all you will ever pay for your Forever storage is $387.98. After 16 years, when you’ve paid Google that much (if they don’t raise the price, which they most likely will) you’ll still have to go on paying something every month and if your kids take over the account, then they will have to keep paying as will your grandkids, great grandkids or whoever of your decedents is still around – if Google is still around. Remember VCRs? Which reminds me, that you Forever account will be upgraded for free to whatever formats come around after .jpg or whatever has disappeared.
Chances are at this point I have confused you more than I have helped you, so give me a call and lets review this. Whenever you decide you want to purchase your storage, I will research the deals at the time and make sure you get the best of them.
Come back next week and we’ll dig beyond mere storage and see what else Forever has to offer.
TRAVEL HERE: BLUE MESA, CHUCK, ALFREDO’S & FERAH’S
Polka Dot Dinner at Blue Mesa
Rolling it back to Thursday, I have to tell you about Polka Dot Powerhouse. If you need an international women’s group in your networking mix, here you go. Yes, you can connect with women all over the US, as well as the rest of the world. I joined to get to know some Rockwall women better, but the Networking Gods intervened and now, twice month I travel over to the Stonebridge Area to connect with some of the coolest women you can imagine. Second Thursday is at Blue Mesa Granite Park and fourth Monday to Kelly’s Craft Tavern Stonebriar. Let me know and I’ll get you in.
Getting to Granite Park for dinner is quite a commitment for me. I wake up so early that I’m powering down by about 7, but for my Dots, I crawl in the car around 5 PM and drive to the other side of the world for the 6:30 meeting. I can usually make it in an hour, but since I have to go over the dreaded I-30 bridge, I must add half an hour, just in case.
Totally worth it! I’ll leave it at that, but it’s not all business. These women are fun and business is not the focus, but the result. The theme is, build the relationships and the business will come, and they’re serious about it. I do a lot of networking and they ALL say you should build relationships, but nobody does it better than the Dots. So join me for a lunch or a dinner and find out what I mean.
Chuck
So, I don’t watch a lot of TV and when I do I usually hate it, but I love Chuck! Computer nerd working at the local big box electronics store inadvertently becomes a CIA asset when his brain is downloaded with a program called the Intersect. That’s the plotline, but it doesn’t begin to describe the fun you are about to have when you start watching it. There’s violence, but it’s obviously make-believe and they use tranq guns more often than live ammo. See, Chuck doesn’t believe in killing people. It’s sexy, but nothing you’d be afraid of your four year old watching. They do cuss, but it’s the light stuff for effect, not the shock treatment you get on most modern TV. So your four year old has already heard all of it.
Anyway, I won’t wear you down with more, but that was my Friday night, my Saturday night and the cliff hanger was so good, I watched an episode after church on Sunday. I have to slow down though. There’s only one season left and I have no idea what I am going to do without it. I don’t think there’s any other good clean fun designed for adults.
Alfredo’s
I wish it were not so, but the restaurant my car most frequently goes to is Alfredo’s in Forney. That’s where FANG (Forney Area Networking Group) meets every Tuesday. It’s the one networking meeting I try to make every week, because this is my gang. It’s really more like visiting family than it is going to a networking meeting, but over the years, I have gotten some darned good business from it.
It’s also where my friend Susan Bennett-White has her WWW (Wine, Women and Wealth) meeting. It’s a monthly financial seminar for women with great networking and the opportunity for spotlighting your business. I admit, I go for the networking. I am married to Mr. Finance, but the WWW tips are always good and I’ve racked up some good leads.
So, why in the world would I go there on a Saturday morning, right? Well, a lead I got at the November WWW suggested we meet there for breakfast and she’s so excited about Forever, I would have met her on the moon if she’d suggested it.
What a morning! First, I missed a turn on the way there and was forced to wander around the backroads between Heath and Forney – but I was only a few minutes late. Then my laptop totally failed me. For reasons unknown and totally unrelated to the Alfredo’s location, because not it won’t go online anywhere, now. Then she had her granddaughter with her, which in most cases would have been totally fine, but with no visual aids to assist me, I was going head to head with whatever the granddaughter was playing on her tablet, her complaint about the restroom being in use, her ginormous breakfast order and the side of sausage which was delivered later. Still, Forever won the day and I have a new client.
Finally, Ferah’s!
So, after a week with six networking meetings, five 1:1 meetings and a failing laptop, it was time to play. When I left Alfredo’s, I headed to meet my bestie at Ferah Tex-Med Kitchen. And no, that’s not a typo, Ferah’s fuses Mediterranean dishes with Texican favorites for something that will both surprise and delight you.
The first thing I ordered was a Sauvignon Blanc. Then we shared the Chef’s Sampler Platter with Falafel, Fried Goat Cheese, Crab Cake, Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Dates, Hummus and Pita Bread. How do you say delicious in TexMed? I’m not sure, but I am sure you’ll love it.
Instead of dessert, we chose shopping therapy. A little Ulta’s for some of life’s necessities, like a new mascara I didn’t really need, but the tube was so cute. Enough Chico’s to confirm we love their outlet store and DSW. I told myself I didn’t really need any shoes and I didn’t until I strolled through the clearance racks.
Now, if you love DSW, I don’t have to tell you about the clearance racks. I don’t even look at shoes which aren’t on clearance, but I have another filter. The shoes are tagged by colors indicating from 20-60% off. The percentage of the colors change week by week instead of having to re-tag them. Whatever colors are 50-60% off, those are the only ones I will seriously consider and they better be really good for me to even be interested.
I’m hard on shoes and my feet are getting more picky about what they will wear, so those off-brands you’ve never heard of, they don’t get much of a look either, but JLo’s and Jessica Simpson’s? I couldn’t name any of their tunes, but I love their shoes. JLo was really styling this time, as was Jessica and Adirenne Vittadini, she had a stunner, too.
I walked out with four pairs. Three of them were legit purchases based on things which fit right into my current wardrobe. This metallic orange number with the rhinestone aglets? No reason and no excuses. They just weren’t going to let me walk away without them. It won’t be long until they tell me what to wear them with, either.
So that’s the weekend. Sunday I went to church and then spent the rest of the day getting caught up with stuff, like this post. Keep coming back. Travel Talk and Memory Keeping 101 will keep coming at you, just like the Weekend Report!
TRAVEL HERE – NCFCA AT DBU, AT MY DESK & TAKING DOWN THE TREE
National Christian Forensics and Communications Association
Once upon a time, before there was a Spot On Images and we lived in Dallas, I used to attend Dallas Christian Writers Guild. Somehow that ended up taking me to Denton for a group of writers I can’t remember the name of. While I was never able to sell my novel, I did make some great friends. One of them, Rachel, invited me to judge at a speech tournament. By then, I’d figured out the market was focused on paranormal young adult fiction and wasn’t interested in a simple romance at a retirement center. I’d also moved to Wylie.
Rachel suggested I give judging a whirl. The tournament was going to be in Wylie at a church almost around the corner from our rental. She had no idea I’d been on the speech team at Bryan Adams High School. NCFCA, to which her children belonged, just needed community judges. She thought I’d be good at it, because she’d observed me critique the works of my fellow writers. I was flattered at the time and agreed to do it.
Now, I’ve got to admit. These kids blew me away. I’d belonged to the National Forensics League back in the late 60/early 70’s. My fondest memories of the time was a trip to a Houston tournament in Jimmy Johnson’s red Impala convertible. After our sponsor threatened our lives if we went to Galveston, we, of course, snuck out and went to Galveston. It was 10 minutes on the beach and we had to head back, but the exhilaration of the outing stays with me, even today.
The home-schooled members of NCFCA are dead serious about their craft, unlike us crazy public school kids, who just wanted a reason to get away from home. Don’t get me wrong, we had some really great people on the speech squad, who would walk away with all the trophies, but most of us were just there for a good time. NCFCA members are all there to compete!
Anyway, I loved the experience and have continued to volunteer every time I can. We moved to Rockwall and I discovered many of the families in the church participated in NCFCA, but that’s really not my primary motivator. I really just love the kids and love the experience of the speech tournaments. If you are the least bit intrigued by it, I think you should follow the link above and give it a try. They have a tournament over in Ft. Worth in March. I’d love to have someone to carpool with.
Last weekend they had a tournament at Dallas Baptist University and even though I was fighting with allergies, I went ahead and judged, because I love it so. I was not disappointed. It took the whole day. I judged four events and the commute was substantial, but I loved it.
Bill was not amused. I left the house at 8am and got home after 9:30 pm. The allergy symptoms I had been fighting were winning the battle and I was miserable, but my faith in the upcoming generation was renewed. I have hope things are going to be better in the world when these guys take over. Come with me in March and let’s help the next generation blossom!
Digital Photobook Project
If you read this blog at all, you know I’m all about scrapbooking and I have a business devoted to it, but I also offer digital solutions. I booked a new digital assignment which needed a quick turnaround, so I was afraid starting it from scratch would take too long. I decided to create the photobook from one of the gorgeous templates Forever has on their site, but that was totally new to me, because I usually create photobooks from scratch in Artisan. As if that weren’t challenging enough, I also decided to use the album planner in the Historian program.
I had assumed there was some sort of integration between the Historian album planner and the photobook templates on the Forever site. What is it they say? “Don’t never assume nothing.” Yes, I found the album planner to be a great tool, but it would have been an even better tool if I could have clicked a few buttons and automatically populated the template.
My other challenge had to do with saving the template in some format which would let me stop somewhere along the way. I knew there had to be a way, because few people can sit down and do a whole album in one sitting. After exhausting all the methods which made sense to me and losing a couple of starts, I had to call customer service for some help. I am happy to report in a few minutes I had talked to someone very knowledgeable who had all the answers I needed. The solution was easy, just not intuitive.
I finished the photobook and got it ready for my client to proof. However, I do have several integration innovations to suggest to Forever. The photobook templates are lovely, the Historian album planner is a great tool and Artisan is an amazing scrapbooking program. However, these three products need to be able to shake one another’s hand. Integration of their products is one of the big jobs at Forever, but Job One is always the security of the online storage. What might seem simple or apparent as a product feature isn’t going to happen until the Forever engineers are 100% certain it won’t compromise the storage. So while I might fuss a little bit, I’m happy Forever does things the way they do.
Taking Down the Tree
Client’s rush order out of the way, the Christmas tree standing in my living room was the next challenge. I usually go to church on Sunday mornings, but this week I was just too puny to do so. Yet, I was also feeling too good to sit on the sofa and vegetate, so I started the job. I gave it a good three hours and got about two thirds of the way through before I ran out of steam.
Then my bestie came over and we indulged in one of our favorite comfort foods, chicken pot pie! Later Bill dragged me to Olive Garden for dinner. He had a plan to maximize his monetary investment while feeding both of us. Good job Bill. We may be eating Olive Garden to go orders and leftovers all week, but you proved just how much food you could get for under $50!
The Christmas tree project was Job One for me on Monday. It’s time to get over the holidays and get back to real life. Come back next week for more adventures of Jane. Wednesday is Travel Talk and we’ll be talking about some Southwest challenges which happened long before the recent meltdown and Thursday we’re talking about what it costs to build a scrapbooking page. Looking forward to chatting with you!
jane sadek 