Jen Caputo

ahhhhh.......

It was Friday... Adam was out of town... and I could no longer hold myself back... see Amazon had it with $100 instant rebate... and I'm a prime member (so I get free two day shipping...) .. and well... it became irresistible...

Joining my vast collection of lenses, please help me welcome the newest member of my family.

Isn't he gorgeous?

In case you need more than just a picture to recognize this beauty, it's the Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS Lens (Yes, I already have the f4....  but come on.. this one is sooooo much better!)  This is my first IS (Image Stabilization) Lens and I cannot believe it!  Check out this picture I just (at 10:15 at night) took of Mr. Meowmers.

No flash, no tripod. Just me and my new lens...  at 10:15 at night!!! Can you believe it?? 

With the camera in Aperture Priority mode I had an F-Stop of f/2.8, a shutter speed of .4 sec (seriously - hand-held!!), ISO of 400, and a focal length of 153mm.  I cannot believe I caught this kind of picture with that shutter speed... Wow!  I'm so in love :)

Sigh.... 

On a completely different note, you know what I don't love?  1 ply toilet paper.  Adam and I were at Sam's Club the other day and I was in need of toilet paper.  Well what do you know, as soon as we walk in there's a big display of toilet paper on sale.  Awesome. In the cart it went.  Not until I got home and had the pleasure of using it, did I realize what I bought...  Good thing I have 35 rolls of it!!!!

New Torn and Curled Products

I apologize in advance for this total advertisment of a post!  Adam left me home alone this weekend so I got lots of stuff done!

First off is new curled edges! As I've been doing a lot of tearing lately I thought I could work up some different edges. I used a distressing tool on a few of these to really rough up the edges and give them a different look.

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18467&cat=0&page=1

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18467&cat=0&page=1

And then there's these torn out shapes, they come in PSD and Tiff format so you just need to pop your papers in and clip to the template layer and you have your own torn shape with any papers!

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18466&cat=0&page=1

Here's an up close look at the tears

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18466&cat=0&page=1

Sample layout by April Rieff  (she enlarged the template quite a bit and says it looks great - they are normally only about 3.5")

And lastly, some torn out holes, these are also about 3.5". 

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18465&cat=0&page=1

And a close up preview

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18465&cat=0&page=1

Sample Layout by Tiff Brady

Sample Layout by Me

How cute is Adam?  Credits here.

And two more layouts I got done this weekend.

Credits here

Credits here

So.. do you like artsy magazines? I just put a TON up on ebay, still trying to clean out my stash.  There's tons of Stampington publications, jewelry mags, rubber stamping mags, etc.  All for dirt cheap. Go see if there's anything you like!  http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZtradmbQQhtZ-1

Ohhhh - and I decided to extend that coupon for one more day but that's it. It expires tonight at midnight EST.  MEM235 good for 35% off everything.  Hurry!!!

35% off Sale!

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=23

This is it, my big let's get ready for summer sale!!! So if you've been holding out waiting to buy something now is the time!  Go shop!

Ok not that the first ad wasn't big enough but did you hear about this?!?!?!

I can't begin to tell you how awesome it is to be a darer, see how the ad says "even more surprises", well they are huge, and awesome, and trust me... you want to be a darer!!!!  So go apply!!!

Speaking of the dares. Here's the page I did for this weeks.

Credits are here.

If you end up shopping my sale this weekend you should definitely pick up those torn out curled templates.  I just LOVE the way they look on pages... and if you buy the 3 pack with the sale you are getting one heck of a bargain!!!

Weekend Recap

Adam went to a bachelor party in Michigan this weekend so I was home alone. I took full advantage of the alone time though and got all kinds of stuff done.

Lots of cleaning, product designing, and tv show catching up. I was watching Heroes until 24 started in January so I was way way behind.  Sci Fi had a marathon of all 21 episodes on yesterday so I had it on in the background all day and am all caught up! Of course now I'll have to miss the season finale tomorrow as the 24 season finale is tomorrow too (my Tivo doesn't have a dual tuner - boo)

I have to leave to go downtown in about an hour as we are going to see Arcade Fire at the Chicago Theatre. I love the venue because there are assigned seats (I'm getting too old to fight the crowds standing up for 4 hours..heheh) but unfortunately, they are crazy about cameras there.  They will literally dive across aisles of people and escort you out of the theatre if they see a camera which totally sucks because I love love love concert photography.  Oh well.

Oh, I don't think I've mentioned it but I've decided to totally dissolve Caputo's Kits, which if you don't know, is where I sold bookmaking supplies and kits.  Everything that's left is 30% off.  Unfortunately my hosting company decided to upgrade the database the day I put the sale up so all the categories are broken, the only way to see all the products is to use the "All Products" link.  You should go check it out and see if there's anything you are interested in!  Click here.

Lemme show you my new products and then I'm outta here!  I spent 1/2 the day Friday ripping out sections of papers and packaging them up in easy digital template formats.  These torn out sections are awesome for revealing journaling or other hidden items, even just pretty papers!  (If you are reading this section, here is a secret coupon code for you which will take 15 percent off your order: iwasreading) The templates already are shadowed (but of course you can delete the shadow layer and add your own shadows if you desire).  I have three sets of five templates which can be combined for a multi-tear look.  If you buy all three you get a nice discount (a buy 2  get the third free type of deal!)

 

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18314&cat=0&page=1

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18314&cat=0&page=1

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18315&cat=0&page=1

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18315&cat=0&page=1

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18316&cat=0&page=1

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18316&cat=0&page=1

http://www.scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18317&cat=0&page=1

And a couple pages to share

Credits here.

Credits here.

All Things New

This is a post about all kinds of New things. 

1. New Sketches
2. New Laptop
3. New Friends

New Sketches

First up is the new sketches!  This collection features all kinds of fun extras such as bent photos, paper folds, negative strips and more! 

http://scrapbookgraphics.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18196&cat=0&page=1

and check out all the amazing layouts my CT has done with these!

You can grab the new sketches here!

This is the layout I did with one of them.

I used Lisa Whitney's Chalked Full of Fun and Audrey Neal's Daily Birdy Font (my new favorite font!!!)

New Laptop

Guess what showed up yesterday?  Yeah I'm sure you'll never figure it out! My new laptop is here and it is blazing fast!  Photoshop opens up in about 2 seconds!  I'm so in love with this thing right now, I suggest everyone go get themselves a new laptop... it's an instant pick-me-up!

New Friends

The other cool thing that happened yesterday was that my apartment complex had their semi-annual wine tasting party!  We always go but we usually just sit around by ourselves and don't really mingle.  Last night however, we struck up a few conversations with some beer lovers, one of the girls was even a member of the Chicago Beer Society (of which Adam and I have been members for 3 or 4 years). We talked with our new friends throughout the whole tasting and then afterwards, we all walked over to a local bar for a few more drinks and some arcade bowling!  Adam and I were so excited to have met some new beer loving friends that live in the suburbs. Most of our beer friends live in the city so if we choose to stay out here on a Friday night (which we often do because we don't want to fight traffic), we just hang out by ourselves.  Now we have friends to hang out with and go to cool beer restaurants with on Friday nights!!!  Yay to new friends!!!!

Happy Mother's Day! (and a freebie)

Hey mom, happy Mother's day!!!  I love you so much. 

Mom, click here to read what I wrote and also to read all the nice things people said about you. 

If you aren't my mom and you are reading this, go click on that link and write something nice about my beautiful mom!

Someone on DST was looking for a music kit and I never reloaded my kits up into SBG as I've decided I'm just not a kit designer... but, if you are looking for a music kit and you happen to like this one, it's all yours, free of charge!

Download hereNote: The zip file is good. If you download it and it says it is corrupt, delete the file, empty your recycling bin, and download it again.  E-mailing me won't help because the problem is on your end somewhere, it probably timed out before it finished downloading.  Thanks!!!!

arrggggg

how much do you love it when you've been working on a blog post for about 45 minutes and all of a sudden Internet Explorer decides to crash...  totally ruins the mood doesn't it...

alright, i'm gonna try to buck up and act like I'm writing this stuff for the first time :P

Adorama is having a big sale on larger prints. 11x14's are only $1.99! I got a bunch of them last time they had them on sale and I love the size! Perfect for decorating my cube.  So last night I made a bunch of collages from my recent vacation pics using Nancy Comelab's clusters and Lisa Whitney's papers (which are on sale this weekend because of Scrap Artist's birthday bash!)

So they should be here early next week and then I'll be able to spruce up my cube at work!

Eek!! Did I tell you I ordered my new laptop?!?!  Well I did, on Thursday!!  I'm so excited for it to get here, I'm gonna be blazing through photoshop, scrapping in 1/2 the time (right?)... hehe  So yeah, I got the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T7200 (2.00GHz/667MHz) Dual Core, 2 GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM, 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel, NVIDIA® Quadro FX 350M 512MB Turbocache, OpenGL Graphics Card, 160GB Hard Drive, 8X DVD+/-RW drive, 9 Cell Primary Battery, all on Dell Precision M65 model which is certified by Adobe to rock at running photoshop speedy!!!!!

Few more things before I go. Round 2 Queen of the Crop layouts are out and they are STUNNING!  Go vote!! Not only are you supporting your friends and fellow scrappers but you are supporting their charities and getting an awesome swag bag as a thank you (different from week 1).  So go find your favorite and vote!!!

I was browsing SBG this morning and found two new products that are totally WOW-ing me. LOVE THESE!  First up are these amazing postage frames from Meredith, don't they rock?!?!

And then there's these rockin' buttons by Jessica Bolton, have you ever seen buttons so cool?!?!!

Don't forget to vote!

Oh wait, one more thing!!!

Scrapbooks etc. is kicking off a really exciting venture this year: ScrapPink! which is a campaign to get local stores to host crops and donate part of the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen foundation.  They wanted to come up with a way we could all be directly involved in this effort, so they've come up with a few contests.

One is to design a ScrapPink t-shirt that event attendees will be able to purchase and wear to the show.

The other is to design a card, page, or album kit. The winning kit designs will be featured in the October issue of Scrapbooks etc. and the photos and directions for the projects will be sent to all the stores participating in ScrapPink so their attendees can create their versions of your designs.

These both sound like awesome opportunities for digi designers!!

It's a great cause, a great event, and a great chance for you to be published and win $250 in product from all the ScrapPink sponsors. So again, check out the ScrapPink Web site to learn more and get involved!

Breakfast with the girls!!!

Do you know what you're looking at right here?  A picture of me and Shawna Clingerman of course, but do you know what else?  If you guessed a Tracie Radtke angle you would be correct!!!!  For those of you not familiar with Tracie, she is an incredible scrapper and photographer and she is often teased that she can't hold the camera straight. Who can blame her, things always look more interesting from an angle! (by the way, I used my Concave Bend action and my new pins on this pic).

We met up at Clarke's for breakfast and then just kinda wondered around Lincoln Park until we all had to run for our afternoon plans. These girls are all so much fun and it was so cool to be surrounded by ladies I admire so much.

In the big picture it goes: Jill, Shawna, Me, Tracie. 
Credits: Sketch Template, Collection #17 by Me, papers by Nancie Rowe Janitz from her Spring Medley collection.

I got a few new products done this weekend as well, two of which I've already referenced in this post!

New double page sketches for when you've got lots of photos to scrap! One of which I used to scrap my breakfast with the girls page.

I made some stick pins for the new template collection and thought I would sell some individually too. I love how they look like they are stuck right up out of the page!

And lastly, some templates to make it look like you ripped out the center of you page.  I made one for my dare layout last week and really liked the look so I made some more!

Journaling: Ya know, I’m not that big of a fan of exercising to begin with. But, I was willing to make the climb up Diamond Head because I was promised an amazing view… Thanks a lot clouds! Humpf!
Credits: Papers - Dianne Rigdon, Hippie Chic; Template, Torn and Curled Paper - Jen Caputo; Weather Doodles - Kate Hadfield; Corner Stitches - Sandra Boddington; Border Stitches - Michelle Coleman; Lauren Grier - Some Might Say - Itty Bitty Alpha; Fonts: Vaguely Repulsive and Journaling Hand

Keep your eyes peeled

I've decided it's time for a new laptop and thanks to Scott Kelby, have chosen the Dell Precision M65 fully loaded.  Thing is, the coupons for the Precision models are few and far between so if any of you happen to see one in the next few weeks can you shoot me a note? I would love ya forever and would shower you in digital goodies I promise!!!!  I'm looking for a 20-30% off coupon if possible.

Here's the features I'm gettin'.

Processor	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T7200 (2.00GHz/667MHz) Dual Core
Operating Systems	Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media
LCDs	15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel
Memory	2 GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM
Internal Keyboard	Internal English Keyboard
Graphics	NVIDIA® Quadro FX 350M 512MB Turbocache, OpenGL
Hard Drives	160GB Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Touchpad Options	Standard Touchpad
AC Adapter	90W, A/C Adapter
Module Bay Devices	8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio Software™ and Cyberlink Power DVD™
Wireless Card	Dell Wireless™ 1390 802.11g Mini-Card
Resource CD	No Resource CD
Batteries	9 Cell Primary Battery
SERVICES & SUPPORT PLANS	3 Year On-site Economy Plan

Let me know if you know of any good deals!!!!!

Wooohoo!!!

I'm so excited, guess who I am having breakfast with Saturday morning????

You probably won't guess, so I'll tell ya!

Shawna Clingerman, Tracie Radtke, and Jill Anderson (jsikardi on the boards)

Are you jealous or what? :P

Weekend Recap

Is Tuesday night (OK technically Wednesday morning) too late for a weekend recap?  hehehe

Probably so I'll keep it quick.

Friday we had to work pretty late so we stayed in.  King Crab legs and Edamame for dinner and we watched the Prestige.  For the most part I liked it but I was a little disappointed in the secret....  oh well.

Saturday we went to Beer School!  It was a thing called Ancient Libations and it was all about beers and meads that had been made from recipes thousands of years old. 

It was in the backyard of this neighborhood liquor store and the weather in Chicago on Saturday was just glorious!!!!!

After Beer School we stopped to have lunch at a Beirgarten!  But, we just happened to arrive at the same time as about 100 other people, there for a pub crawl.  Awesome, i love crowded bars... uh huh...

I'm drinking Victory's Hop Devil

Adam's drinking Two Brother's Caen and Abel

Saturday night we went over to Quinn and Kristen's and played a few rounds of cards.

Sunday I woke up entirely too early...  caught up on a lot of business stuff, scrapped a page, went for a walk, got some Cold Stone Creamery (ok.. I went for the walk to get the ice cream...) and that was about it.

Weekend recap done!  Night night!

It's a very exciting day

... in the digi world. May 1st brings so many fun things but I wanted to share a few of my favorites.

First off, this secret has been way too hard to keep but I'm so excited that it's finally out.  Two absolutely amazing designers came together to start a charity site and the results are nothing short of spectacular.  RUN RUN RUN over to Songbird Ave. where you can pick up this gorgeous kit created by Jan Crowley, Meredith Fenwick, and the Shabby Princess herself, with all the profits benefiting the March of Dimes!

Here's the layout I created with it

In other digi world news, Maya sent us a sneak peak at the Round 1 Queen of the Crop layouts last night and I was absolutely blown away with the creativity displayed in these layouts.  And, you can go peek through them as well!!! Click here to check out the amazing entries! I definitely have more than a few favorites but I wouldn't dare share them here 'cause I'd probably get in trouble... heheh  I beg you to look through them though and check out some of the most unique and gorgeous pages I've ever seen in my life!

I know there were a lot more announcements this morning but those were my faves and I gotta run but I'm sure you'll have no problem spending some money this weekend!!