videos

Have You Seen It?!

Just for Fun

I have been a video-uploading fiend lately! (And I still have several videos that need editing and a list of more I want to film.) So the “it” I’m talking about is my YouTube channel.

Over the last week I’ve far exceeded my once-a-week upload habit by putting up a total of five videos:

Whew!

Now, that pace is probably not something I can keep up with weekly, it was just a good week for videos. Still, I do want to increase how often I’m uploading, so I’ll probably be shooting for twice a week by the end of the month.

Adventure! Mixed Media Journal

Adventure! Mixed Media Journal

A couple of the videos were design-team related, including the mixed media journal pictured above. That one’s actually part of an audition for a new team, but I’m pretty pleased with the project on it’s own whether I get the spot or not!

Sympathy Card using BoBunny papers

Sympathy Card using BoBunny papers

The Imagine Crafts team participated in a blog hop with BoBunny and while I’m not an official video-producer for IC, since this was an extra project for the month I figured I’d give it a whirl.

I’ve been on a bit of a card kick, lately, and I see no point in just keeping them around here, so if you’d like a handmade card to just show up in your mailbox one day, email me your address by using that little “Contact Me” link up at the top of the page (or just email me at jenn{at}scrapsoflife{dot}com)!

Of course, if you saw last week’s posts, they each had their own video links, but the Rose Festival video was a little sneaky-sneak on my part. We made it to several of the events this year and I took hours of footage that I managed to then condense into a mere 38 minutes and 47 seconds. I definitely need to work on my camera handling in random event settings, but practice makes perfect, right?

What I’d like to know is what you want to see videos of? Are you enjoying the View from the Countertop videos and want to see more kitchen footage? Would you like to see more crafty tutorials like the card and journal above? Or would you like to see more local events and general life stuff like the Rose Festival and the Pup-date? While I have some of all of them on my list to film, letting me know what you want to see helps me prioritize!

Also, I’m always on the hunt for new YouTubers to watch–who are you loving these days? Some of my favorites include MyFroggyStuff for their doll-craft tutorials, Sandy Allnock for her cards and COPIC videos, and both Pretty Shiny Sparkly and The Michalaks for general life/vlogging stuff. I check out my Subscriptions link each day to see if any of the channels I follow have updated and I get a little thrill when there’s a new video up from one of my current favs.

So check out the links above and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already so you don’t miss an update! Not all videos have posts to tie back to, after all!

Until next time,

~Jenn

12 Days of Blogmas: Holiday Songs

Just for Fun

It’s time for Christmas music!!! Settle in with some cocoa and enjoy some of my favorites!

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When I was younger, a friend of Mom’s gave us a set of cassettes (yes, cassettes) with classic crooners caroling. So some of my favorites are oldies that don’t get nearly enough play on the radio.

Direct link for the feed readers: Christmas in Killearney, Bing Crosby

Direct link for the feed readers: The Holly and the Ivy, King’s College Cambridge

And then there’s this combination of a carol I care little for (Little Drummer Boy) much improved by a counterpoint (Peace on Earth)

Direct link for the feed readers: Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth, Bing Crosby and David Bowie

The story goes that David Bowie wasn’t a big fan of Little Drummer Boy, either, and pretty much refused to sing it with Bing. Instead, he and a couple of others wrote Peace on Earth just to keep the show going as planned.

Back in middle school we’d put on join band and chorus concerts for winter and spring performances and one of my favorite pieces to play was Pat a Pan.

Direct link for the feed readers: Pat a Pan, Julie Andrews

Of all the classic carols, though, Carol of the Bells has to be my all-time favorite.

Direct link for the feed readers: Carol of the Bells, Mormon Tabernacle Choir

So I managed to get more than halfway through this list without mentioning Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and that was tough. I could fill this list with three of their albums and have plenty of songs left over. Two of my favorites are Old City Bar (never fails to bring a tear to my eye) and Christmas Canon Rock (an edited version of which we used in our wedding).

Direct link for the feed readers: Old City Bar, Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Direct link for the feed readers: Christmas Canon Rock, Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Did anyone else’s parents love the PBS pledge drive programming during the holidays? Mom was a big fan of Peter, Paul, and Mary and so when they’d play their holiday concert it was required watching in our house. What I liked most about it was not the Christmas songs, but the Hannukah songs, many of which were written by Peter and Paul.

Direct link for the feed readers: Light One Candle, Peter, Paul and Mary

And, finally, this PP&M song that always struck me as a but on the mystical side for my Baptist upbringing, but it was so pretty to listen to and is one of my favorites to sing in the car.

Direct link for the feed readers: Cherry Tree Carol, Peter, Paul and Mary

The 12 Days of Blogmas is a link-up hosted by The Coastie Couple and The Petite Mrs. Check out either of their blogs to see what everyone else has to say on today’s topic!

The 12 Days of Blogmas is a link-up hosted by The Coastie Couple and The Petite Mrs. Check out either of their blogs to see what everyone else has to say on today’s topic!

30 Questions on a Little Bit of Everything (video)

Just for Fun

Week after week I keep saving these video prompts, fully intending to do more that let them collect virtual dust in feedly’s “Saved for Later” folder. How many videos have I posted? Oh, right, none.

Until today, that is (or, well, technically a combination of Monday and Tuesday for filming, editing, and uploading… yes, this is the edited version. I’ll work on my brevity for future videos).

(Direct link for the feed readers: ScrapsOfLife 30 Questions)

And, yes, I totally skipped 2 of the questions (via Mama’s Losin’ It!), though not on purpose. So I’ll answer them here:

5. What is one thing you do that you hate to admit?

Do you mean bad habit-wise? Again, I’m pretty honest with my faults, so “hate to admit” doesn’t really bring anything to mind.

6. Do you really brush your teeth in the morning and at night? Be honest.

In the morning, absolutely! I hate the feeling of morning mouth, yech! At night, though, that’s a little hit or miss. I try to remember but, no, I can’t even say it’s most of the time.

And thank goodness I decided to go ahead and film this Monday night after work for today’s post! Not only did I have to retrain myself how to use Premier Pro (I found a much better tutorial video this time, though, from Trice Designs), first I had to remember which program I downloaded last year to convert the videos from my recorder.

Yes, my laptop has a webcam, but I’m not a fan of how it records (allow me a bit of vanity, here, the lighting and everything always looks so weird on the webcam, though I’m sure it has just as much to do with the amber light in my office at the moment). So I set up my JVC video camera and used that. Only JVC uses a proprietary format that pretty much no one but JVC thinks is neat, so conversions have to happen. When we started doing the Gingerbread Diaries updates I could use the video as-is, but I realized it was cutting off part of the frame. I knew I’d downloaded something to fix that, but couldn’t remember the name for the life of me.

So I spent a good little bit opening random programs from the “All Programs” list trying to find something that was vaguely familiar. Of course the company started with a W, so it was the next to last folder I opened. But I found it and even remembered how to use it.

All that to say: yay, I did a video for you guys! Hope you found it entertaining and I’m looking forward to doing more (shorter!) videos in the future!

45 | Sign a Song

64 Arts

You know how when you go to buy a blue car and you suddenly start seeing blue cars every-freaking-where? It’s not that there are suddenly more blue cars on the road, you’re just noticing them more. You’re tuned in. Aware.

That tends to be the case for a lot of things, but then sometimes the universe is kind enough to pepper whatever circles you travel in with a little more of the things you need. As was the case when this gem showed up in my RSS feed last week:

Direct link for the feed readers: ASL Gotye’s “Somebody I Used to Know”

Isn’t that awesome?!

And if you click through to some of the other videos, there are plenty by the interpreter in the video, Azora Telford (there’s a great interview about creating the video over at Planet DeafQueer), and others that are just phenomenal. They’re also a great example of the non-fingerspelling side of sign language. Knowing the alphabet is one step, but fingerspelling everything would take a long time to get anywhere, so single and combination signs have been devised to make communication easier, though it’s truly a lot to learn!

For an idea of the types of signs that are out there, you can see video demonstrations over at the ASL Pro Dictionary. Some signs are fairly intuitive–like those that point to a part of the body or, like in the video above, the sign for “know” that pantomimes the tapping of the head (you’ve probably used a similar gesture when you’re talking to someone and can’t quite remember whatever it is you’re trying to think of)–while others might take a little more thinking to really grok. (Check out the sign for Xerox, for instance). Of course, if you’d like to learn ASL in a more formal way, there are courses available online at ASL University (including some free lessons if you just want to check them out). I’m not affiliated with any of these sites, I’m just offering them in case anyone wants to dig a little deeper on their own.

Just in Time for Christmas

Everyday Adventures

So, back in September I’d posted a picture of a sweet little wrapping job I’d done on a small gift box. Remember?

A request was placed that I show you how it was done and it’s been on my to-do list ever since. I apologize for the delay, but I hope you’ll agree that this is just the perfect time of year for this sort of thing, what with all the gift giving going on.

(Direct link for the feed readers: Rose-Wrap Tissue-Wrapped Gift Wrapping Tutorial)

Now there is a little bit of math involved, but that’s only so you know how wide your tissue paper needs to be in order to have the petal-ish bits be not too short or not too long (though you can always fix the long with a few snips).

I promise it’s simple:

[Width of the box (along the top) + Height of the box (along the side)] x 3 = Width of your tissue paper

See, simple! Theoretically you could wrap any box like this as long as you could get tissue paper wide enough. (As far as length’s concerned, you just want it to be fairly long–enough to go around the entire package 3-4 times.)

So, for the video my gift box was about 3 1/2 inches wide and 1 inch tall (3.5+1=4.5) and so 3 times that was 13 1/2 inches (4.5 x 3=13.5). I rounded up to be on the safe side and trimmed my tissue paper to 14 inches (and since the paper was folded in half, you see me measuring only 7 inches in the video).

I promise, that’s all of the technical know-how, the rest is squishing and scrunching and playing with paper!

This “rose” came out looking less rose-ish than my first one, but it still gets the point across, so don’t worry about getting a perfect flower look, just do your best and I’m sure the giftee will love it!