Please, be Aware when Booking Through Hotwire

I decided to share this bad experience, so the same thing does not happen to you. I just had a terrible experience booking a hotel through Hotwire.

I have been booking through Hotwire car rental for several years and never had a problem regarding the description of what I am paying for. That is, the bill you pay has everything spelled out.

It turns out that the same clear business does not happen when you are booking a hotel. I wanted to book a hotel close to the rest of my husband's family in Colorado. Well... got the daily rate, taxes information, and whatever fees. I liked the price, and decided to book. After confirming, one of the "info" things "tells" me that I will have to pay $20 more for every night I spend at the hotel. This is after you confirm and cannot cancel your reservation. Called customer support and it was worthless. (Only tells me that it part of the small print in the agreement.)

So, I hope this never happens to you. Be aware when you are booking through them, at least hotels.

Dress for a Wedding Is Done

Yeah.... the dress is done!!!! The wedding is going to be this Saturday. I pretty much only worked on the dress and the jacket this week, because of the software that i am developing for my other blog.

I am happy with the results. I did a lot of hand work because of the fitting. The pattern had instructions for sewing the lining by machine, but I decided that I wanted to close the whole dress before putting the lining. Oh well...

Here is what it looks like:


The jacket is made of lace, so you can still see the dress through. Here is a picture of the back:


The only seams in the jacket are at the shoulders and the sleeves. There are no side seams (I altered the pattern for that). The edge of the lace had to be all matched, so it looks like the fabric was like that.

Here is a picture of the dress (what is inside the jacket :-)


And here is a picture of the collar in the back of the jacket.


What do you think?

Gingerbread House

Wow!!! This week was full of activities at my children's school. They had lots of fun before the winter break.

One of the activities in one my children's class was to make a gingerbread house. The children had a blast! The idea was to have one parent there to help the child, and make them connect while having fun building something together. See how a child can get frustrated, when things start to get troublesome. For instance, several roof fell, while the child was building the house. It was very interesting to see.

The teacher prepared Royal Icing. I am sure it was a lot of work. She used 6 pounds of powdered sugar! The rest was bought by the room Moms. They sure did a great job with the selection.

Of course, I was there! I would not miss it. I love to do things with my children, and I love to show them that i am very interested in their activities and school. The result is here. I just loved. Take a look.

This is the front of the house. A big snow man is guarding the door.

One of the sides. The yummy window. And all the M&M's on the roof.


Well, the window is another candy: a life saver. He wanted the candy LOL.
This is the last side. Yet another window. No coconut for the snow: he does not like coconut.

It was a very interesting experience, and I loved every second of it. I think he did an amazing job!

Dress for a Wedding

It has been a long time since I posted some of the stuff I'm working on... The thing is I've been working very hard on the software for my other blog. There is always things that need improvement, and I am up for the job.

Well, I am also working, as usual, on other things. One of them is the dress to my brother-in-law's wedding. It has been a LONG time since I've been to a wedding. So, it is very exciting to dress-up.

I chose to make a dress that is kind of a mix of 3 patterns. Yes, you hear this right: if you cannot make your mind, just use all of them LOL.


One of the patterns is the Butterick 4732. I just love the flow of the dress. But straps just don't look good on me. There is when the other pattern comes to play.


I love the simple lines of the dress in the Butterick 5389. No straps: good for me!!! May be I can alter the bottom of the dress and make it more flowing.... Still need to think about, as the dress in 5389 looks like that will make me slimmer (hey, anything to make me slimmer is good LOL)


I really like the idea of something to cover up a little more. That is, not only a dress, but a "coat" to go over. For that, I chose to use a lace fabric. I have not sewn too many laces in my life, but I've have the idea that the pattern should not have lots of details, as the lace is already playing the detail portion of the cloth. So, after a lot of looking around, I've found this Vogue 2771 pattern. I think it will fit.


Finally, the fabric. I wanted a neutral color, but not white or black. Besides, I think grey will look ok on me. Here is a more detailed picture of the lace fabric.


I am excited to make this dress. What do you think?

Gimp 2.6.3 on Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10

I could finally install Gimp 2.6.3 on Intrepid!!!!!

All started when I was doing the Christmas Layout. (Kind of the story behind the making of the Christmas Layout- not always only Scrapbook related issues....)

Intrepid comes with Gimp 2.6.1, and that is great! However, during the layout making, I was using a template. To use the "elements" in the template in Gimp, you need to do the alpha to selection, choose the other layer, invert the selection and cut. It always worked in the versions of Gimp previous to 2.6.1 . Well, it was not working any more in Gimp 2.6.1

So, I decided to install Gimp 2.6.3, and check if the newest version was going to solve my problem. It only got me other problems: The problem of installing Gimp from the source code!

I was running into lots of problems (started with complaints on BABL).... Solved that one. Than run into the GTK2.0+ (I think that it was what was called). Asked hubby. I got the answer I did not wanted to hear: " Yeah... I read that it was a nightmare to install Gimp from source code).

I wanted to do my layout so badly!!! His answer was definitely not going to stop me :-) Googled a lot, but nothing really helped. I had to make lots of guesses. After a few hours.... : I installed!!!! Yeah!!! I felt so good!

The only problem was that after ALL the effort, Gimp 2.6.3 did not do the alpha-to-selection- invert - cut the "right" way. Oh well... Too much for all the installation effort (LOL).

But, fortunately, I figured out a solution!!!! And that was the way the Christmas Layout was done.

Thanks for "listening". Questions?

Christmas Layout

I just posted this layout in the Scrapbooks Gone Digital Gallery.


Told you I love Christmas! LOL
The pictures were taken sometime ago. I used a template (also available on the site) to organize the layout. It was so much fun to do it.

What do you think?

Another one with the Enchanted Kit

For this layout, I used the Enchanted Kit from Raspberry Road Designs. What a lovely kit!



I used the bronze button from the kit to make the frame. To show the lamp hanging, I used the vine. Then, looking again at the elements available in the kit, I just had to add the owl on top of the lamp. (It is hard to see online, because I have to reduce the picture so much... But the elements are there.)

The picture was taken in Maui sometime ago (2003). It is never late to Scrapbook your children!

You got try this kit: It is beautiful !!!

Thanks for looking.