Daily Fuss

Loser Wardrobe Challenge Part II

In Loser Wardrobe Challenge Part I I layed out a plan to clean out my closet and generate fundage for a brand new wardrobe. The specifics - here's the plan as I listed it back in August: 

Step 1 - Clean out closets and make eBay pile. Oh how I do love eBay. Step 2 - Stop eating. Just kidding. Hit the gym. Step 3 - List my eBay goodies. Step 4 - Enlist the help of my cousins-stylists, choose stores and make hair appointments. Step 5 - Makeover/Shopping day is November 7th.

Here's the progress: 1 - Closets are clean and eBay piles are everywhere. 2 - I have stopped eating and hit the gym with my fists as I walk past it. 3 - Have listed 50 of the roughly 100 items I vowed to purge. 4 - I am focusing on Anthropologie and J Crew for chain stores and boutique shopping to round out the new look. I desperately need a new Burberry trench, but really can't justify that much of a splurge at the moment. 5 - February 17th is the new November 7th.

It feels good already, but I won't be realizing the vast expanse of space in my closet until I start shipping my precious belongings next week.

It's funny how tied to "stuff" we can be. I've had this closet, jam packed with gorgeous things that don't fit, staring at me every day since I became pregnant in July 2008. I have touched about ten items since that time and my closet is petrified into a museum of who I once was.

As I piled, photographed and listed each of these things I could remember when I bought it, why I wanted it, what I planned to do with it and how I looked at the time. I couldn't trust my intial desire to hold on to each. Is it more cost-effective to keep it? Am I really ever going to wear it again? Do I even like it? I had to make a rule that it was all going to go and stick to my guns.

It's addictive - the urge to purge. I'm less than two days into this closet-emptying exercise and I already feel lighter. Now, if I can just keep from filling it back up again.

It's a new year. Are you in the mood to clean house and start the year fresh? Post to comments and share your fuss with us!

What the Fuss? Tiny Prints

I can't help myself. I am so pleased with my holiday cards this year, I just must share.

One thing you must know about me is that I prefer to make everything myself. I laid our hardwood floors and tiled our bathrooms with my bare hands. To better understand why, read this. I can play musical instruments. I'm a jeweler. I even made my own ridiculously intricate wedding invitations. To peruse the broader spectrum of projects that amuse me read this.

Given that backdrop, please try to imagine how difficult it was for me to pull the trigger on holiday cards from Tiny Prints. However, I absolutely do not have time to cut, print, mount, punch and fold 100 holiday cards. So, I decided to have them printed.

Actually, I didn't have time last year either, and I bought these William Arthur cards. With personalization, my order came to $325. They were elegant and lovely, but my goal was to spend considerably less this year.

We've received several friends' baby announcements, holiday cards and party invitations from Tiny Prints - all adorable - so I decided to give it a shot. Lei and Lue sat for me last week as I took a thousand photos. I uploaded some choice shots to the Tiny Prints site, chose a layout and got after it. I checked out Minted.com as well, but felt that Tiny Prints had far better choices for layouts.

I had the most festive card created within twenty minutes. I love it! Lei is laughing her ass off in a Santa hat. Lue, on the other hand, is looking rather glum.

Admittedly, these cards are not free, but they are professionally printed on quality card stock and look exactly like my proof.

For 100 cards and matching envelopes, I paid $189. Worth every penny in my opinion.

For those of you who like the super-cute, one-page, photo cards that you can get at the pharmacy or grocery store, Tiny Prints has those too for as low as $0.69 with over 200 layouts and styles from which to choose.

In the interest of full disclosure, the cards were delivered last week and I loved them so much that I joined the Tiny Prints program and placed an ad on my blog. Save up to 20% on any order by using the code CYBERSALE. Enjoy!

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

Do you send holiday cards, or just skip it? What do you do with cards you receive? Please post a comment and share your fuss with us.

What the Fuss? Family Photographs

Let's face it, your friends may be flickr savvy, but chances are good that Grandma Suzie and Uncle Charlie are not inclined to sign up for various online photo-sharing services just because they own a PC - no matter how badly you want them to see your shots of last week's trip to the shore. Shutterfly offers a happy medium with Shutterfly Share.

Within a few minutes, you can create a slick little website, upload pictures, video and other info and send it off to friends and family who can access your masterpiece without ever even having to join Shutterfly. Amazing.

Users do have the option to create a Shutterfly profile and become "members" of your site, but I skipped sending my people that piece of the invitation. I knew my family wouldn't want to join and my friends probably can't handle another online community website.

If you take even half as many pictures of your squad as I do, then this site beats the heck out of lugging a huge photo album to the family picnic.

Another way to avoid the giant album problem is to create a photo book on Shutterfly or a similar site. I would have tried Shutterfly, but Walgreens.com had a deal (half off the everyday albums).  So I went with it in the interest of frugality, and then promptly went nuts with the number of pages, but we'll get to that in a second. In the end, I realized that if I had used Shutterfly to create my photo book, I could have loaded the digital version to my Shutterfly Share Site. Ahh hindsight.

As for the Walgreens photo book, I cannot complain. The interface is cool and user-friendly. There are a decent number of design options for page design based on the number of photos you want on each page and whether you wish to include any text.

I made an 8x11 book for Leighton, commemorating her first three months on the planet, and narrated in such a way that I believe she will want me to read it to her until the pages disintegrate. I made the same book for the grandparents, but in a smaller size that would fit in a purse. It was a smashing success with the grandmas.

With Shutterfly, you can take an existing book and convert it to a different size. If you can also perform that task with the Walgreens interface, I could'nt figure out how and it wasn't for lack of trying. I had to recreate the smaller book from scratch and it ticked me off. My book was an even 48 pages. Ahh hindsight.

Prices start at $9.99 for the Everyday album and $29.99 for the 8x11, custom cover version.  Those prices include a limited number of pages and there is a per-page once the threshold is reached. My 48-page, custom volume was $57.85. The Everyday version of the same book was $17.00 with a half-off coupon code. All of it, including my nearly $60 book was worth it, in the end. It's great quality and shipped the next day. I'm already one month into stockpiling photos for Vol. 2 - Leighton Elizabeth Months 3-6.

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.