Photos

I think a penny pincher's best friend is a digital camera.  Take a picture and if it is not right delete the picture.  If it is close to right edit the picture.  No more buying film, taking pictures, hoping they are going to turn out, sending them off to be developed and being disappointed only 15 or so of them are usable.  Now you have to do something with them!  

My newest obsession is digital scrapbooking.  I have always looked longingly at the rows and rows of beautiful scrapbooking paper, scissors, pens, embellishments and doo-dads.  But the penny pincher in me just didn't allow me to take the plunge.  I was worried about getting the most bang for my buck.  What if I cut wrong?  Wasted paper? What if I tore the picture when making a circle cut?  I would have to have that picture reprinted wasting more time and money. What if I messed up my journaling with my poor spelling?  I do not like my handwriting so I wouldn't have one of those elegant or kitchy pages.   It just was not worth it to me.  

Jump forward to last August when I was able to convince my hubby to sit down and show me a few editing techniques using Adobe Photoshop.  After a bit of struggling and a few stomped feet (mine) I was able to figure out the bare bones of the program.  Looking for what to do with my newly cropped and enhanced photos I went on line to find a cheap way to have the prints printed.  At the time my Wal*Mart was offering prints for $.24 each.  I was on the hunt to see if I could pinch a penny or two with an online company.  I discovered Shutterfly (there are others out there) and the photo books that they had available.  I was happy to find that you could upload your photos and they would be printed and bound in a hard bound book.  I loved that they had templates that you just dragged, dropped your photos and you had a page completed.

So there you have it.  A great way to save the expenses of film pictures, the expense and frustration (to me) of traditional scrapbooking and pinch yet another penny.