HP Photo Books-Easy to make but not soak-proof

Written by Elizabeth on July 26, 2008 – 10:00 pm -

Before I left for BlogHer, I made a photo book with my favorite recent photos of my kids so that if anyone I met while I was there asked about my kids, I could whip out my cool photo book and show them off. The lovely ladies at BlueSuitMedia very, VERY generously sent me a $50 Gift card to the supercenter near my house that has an HP Photo center, so I could get started.

My first task was to figure out how to get the photos I wanted onto my camera card so I could take it to the store. I uploaded all the photos that I had, reformatted the card, put it back in the card reader, and transferred the photos I wanted to print back onto the card. Cool, huh? Then when I went to the HP Photo machine, I just stuck the camera card into the machine and there were all my photos!

I had so many choices of sizes, I could crop my photos, take out red eye, and it was so easy. Everything is just touching the screen to select your choices. I started with a photo book, which holds different numbers of photos depending on how many you put on a page, I did one per page.

Now, I was going to take a photo of the photo book to show you how cute it turned out, only I had it in my totebag at BlogHer, and on Saturday afternoon I had a little accident. I had grabbed a bottle of Diet Pepsi during the snack break, took a swig, screwed the top back on (or so I thought) and put the bottle in my bag as we were walking over to a party in the SixApart suite. Just as we were getting to the door, I realized my bag felt wet. See where this is going? The bottle of soda had turned upside down and OPENED in my totebag. Everything was SOAKED. Thank goodness I had my camera over my shoulder and my cell phone in my pocket, so those were not damaged. But the photo book? A goner.

Fortunately, I still have credit left on the HP gift card that BSM sent me, so I can go back and make another one. And this time I’m going to make posters too! Click this link to the BSM free poster offer, and print out a coupon for Buy One Get One Free on 16×20 posters! The coupon is good at CVS stores, Long’s, and Meijer. For as long as I’ve had a digital camera, I’ve done very little printing out of my photos, but now that I know how easy and inexpensive it is to do at an HP Photo center, I’ll be printing out a lot more photos!


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Posted in Photos, Technology | No Comments »

Rock Your School with Box Tops for Education!

Written by Elizabeth on July 25, 2008 – 3:20 pm -

I never noticed the little symbols on the tops of food packages until my oldest went to kindergarten and I got a letter home one day reminding me to save the box tops for education. I went to my pantry and sure enough, there on the top of all the General Mills cereals was this:

Box Tops for Education can be found not only cereals like Cheerios, but also on Chex Mix, Kleenex, Ziploc Storage Containers, Hefty Trash bags, and Betty Crocker mixes and packaged foods. I have a section in my kitchen “junk” drawer just for Box Tops, and it’s become automatic for me to look at the top of a package for that logo before I throw away recycle packaging. So, what do schools DO with all the Box Tops for Education that they collect from our kids?

Schools earn ten cents for each Box Top redeemed, and you can often find specially marked packages with Box Tops that are worth even more than that. Each participating school can earn up to $20,000 a year redeeming Box Tops! That’s a LOT of money for school supplies and programs! And, thanks to the Kimberly-Clark presents Rock Your School sweepstakes, you can enter every day to win a Jordan Pruitt concert at your child’s school plus 100,000 bonus Box Tops! That’s a value of $10,000! Jordan Pruitt is a Radio Disney star who has opened for the Jonas Brothers, the Cheetah Girls, and Vanessa Hudgens. Trust me, your kids’ school wants this concert!

Visit the Rock Your School site, register your school for the sweepstakes, and you can sign up for a daily email reminding you to enter every day. You can enter every day until September 15, 2008. The winners will be chosen on or around September 22nd. In addition to the Grand Prize, you can also win:
First Prize
100 winners will receive 1,000 Bonus Box Tops for their child’s school. That’s $100 for their child’s school.
Second Prize
200 winners will receive Jordan Pruitt’s latest release, Permission To Fly, autographed by Jordan Pruitt herself.

Third Prize
1,000 winners will receive a non-autographed copy of Jordan Pruitt’s latest release, Permission To Fly.

Sweet! So get clipping those Box Tops for Education, get your school earning money for supplies and programs, and enter to win one of the great prizes!


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Posted in MomCentral | 2 Comments »

Review of Shoppers Lotto

Written by Elizabeth on July 14, 2008 – 10:26 pm -

The following is a paid review:

Well, I guess it doesn’t surprise me that someone finally combined shopping online with playing the lottery, with a site called shoppers lotto shop to win. Open only to people age 21 and over, there is no charge to become a member of the site and it requires only simply filling out a short form. You receive one free credit to the site for signing up, and credits can be used immediately or “saved up” for entries.

I looked over the site very carefully and read the rules and regulations as well. That’s where I found that the numbers used in the Shoppers Lotto are taken from the Illinois State Lottery. There are two drawings a month, and each drawing has a “Large” drawing and a “Small” drawing. A Large Prize winner may select one of the following prizes: $1200 gift card, Dell laptop XPS m330 (ARV: $1200) or a 32” widescreen LCD television (ARV: $1200). A Small Prize winner may select exactly one (1) of the following prizes: a $500 gift card, Microsoft Xbox 360 (ARV: $499) or an Apple IPod 160 (ARV: $349).

You can earn more credits to use as entries by shopping with the site’s online vendors, you get 1 credit for every $25 you spend. Vendors include AT&T, Hanes.com, Amazon.com, and KBToys.com. So if you already do a lot of online shopping, and you like playing Lotto-style games, you might like Shoppers Lotto. This was a sponsored post.


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Posted in Websites | 3 Comments »