Thursday, September 27, 2012

A Finished Project or Two





The other day I showed you some fabric I was working with. Here's the finished project. Sheila figured it out - a table runner. Some time ago (ahem) I won a jelly roll (fabric strips) from French General. These are from the Maison de Garance colleciton. The warm reds and browns are so pretty, although they are not the colours I usually gravitate to. With the leftovers I cut out an apple wedge shape and made a basket of apples to sit on the buffet cabinet. They won't attract fruit flies.
 

You may notice the new header. That marks a huge accomplishment for me. Not creating the header, although that's taxing enough. But the reason I discovered I was way over on my picture limit for Blogger/WebPicasa was because I could no longer change my header. 

Since then, at the beginning of June, I've been deleting and re-sizing photos. The work is not nearly done, but I've deleted enough to allow me to redo the header. 

Several of you suggested I pay Google the $5 monthly fee they charge for more storage. Being stubborn and frugal, and realizing that if when photos are re-sized they cost nothing to upload, I decided to take the time to go that route. My photos are stored on my computer, not online. I do not want to pay $5 per month ad infinitum et ultra to upload photos. I try to keep ongoing costs to the minimum. So, although there are blank spots a-plenty in the blog archives, I'll keep puttering away at it. 

If you want to avoid going over your storage amount, just resize your photos.

Here's what Google says:

Free storage limits

Photos up to 800 x 800 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards your free storage.

Automatic resizing

All photos uploaded over the free size limit will count towards your 1 GB of free storage. When you reach your storage limit, any new photos you upload to Picasa Web larger than the free size limit will be automatically resized to 800 pixels (on their longest edge).
Note: If you reach your storage limit when uploading from the Picasa desktop software, you'll only be able upload at free storage sizes. Larger uploads will not be automatically resized to the free storage limit.
 

And a few baby photos just for fun. Little Misses A and S bring a lot of joy into our lives. Little Miss A's parents are going on away for a couple of weeks, leaving her behind. I'll have her on the weekends, beginning tomorrow morning. Tea parties (aka pouring water all over everything), Ball Kick - Nana, visits to the park, and lots of cuddles and books will be the order of the day.

Back to the photos - I'm curious about how many bloggers do pay Google to be able to upload photos to blogs. Do you or don't you?

17 comments:

  1. Your new header is great! Good for you for figuring things out. I still don't understand how to resize photos. Most of my photos are under 800 pixels on the longest side yet I am very close to being out of space. I love the apples. So clever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful new header! I had no idea how much work that it represented. Good going. No, I think you know that I would never pay for photo storage. I feel about it exactly as you do. In fact, I have been deleting old header photos that are above the size limit and so have gained back several percentage points. That feels good and since I'd never use them again, it's no problem at all.

    The granddaughters are so cute. I know that you'll have a lot of fun being with Little Miss A for the weekends. She'll keep you on your toes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh no! I didn't even tell you how lovely the runner is. As you might imagine, I love those colors and it's a neat way to work up a runner. I must look into getting a jelly roll. Love the quilting, too. How did you back it? The apples are brilliant!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The apples and the runner are very pretty! LOL, I like the idea of not attracting fruit flies! And bravo to resizing your photos so that you don't have to shell out a constant $5 per month. That is really quite a steep charge! I've been very careful about file size since the very beginning, and have used less than 2%. About two years ago, I started using links to my flickr site, so that further minimizes the need for picas storage.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the runner and the apples!!! And your header! No, I do not pay Google! I must be close to my limit...... is it easy to check? I do resize most of my photos for the web...but not always. Thanks for the heads up! And the girls are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your apples are delightful and I think the runner is very colourful. Did you sew through the strip and the batting all at once? Your apples are going to be loved by those delightful little girls I'm sure.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love the fabric apples, would you share the pattern? No, I do not pay Google. I resize my photos to 72 dpi and 800 pixels on the longest size, then I save them to the web, which makes them smaller again. When I upload them onto the blog I use the xlarge size. I do not use Picasa because of the storage problem. Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You're so talented -- the apples are charming.
    I can't imagine going to any extra work at all, so I'm happy to pay Google -- for now at least, at the still-reasonable cost, and while I'm working full-time.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I pay...but it was only pittance ($5 annually) when I signed on. I've heard that is no longer the case. Hmmm. We'll see.

    Love the runner...and the cute apples! And the sweet girlies, of course!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lorrie, I love the new header. I'm trying to pluck up courage to go into the new 'design' section to alter mine. Like you I store photos on my computer and wouldnt want to pay for storage.
    Such a pretty runner.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The runner is beautiful and the apples are adorable. You are so talented and creative!
    When I first heard about the photo storage issue, many bloggers were wondering whether to pay or not. Some started new blogs to skirt the issue. When my time came I opted to pay. I wasn't aware of all the tricks for saving storage space. I still don't know how to resize pictures. Would you consider sharing that little secret?

    ReplyDelete
  12. So much to comment on here Lorrie. I love the colours in your quilted runner. it will look so colourful on a table. The apples are devine. A few years back I was sent a notice by picassa that I had run out of room for pictures and so I just deleted them from picassa thinking that would give me more space but it backfired on me and I lost all the photos that I had posted to my blog. I swallowed that bitter pill and uninstalled picassa from my computer. I never asked picassa to look after my photos in the first place. I don't give that kind of control to anyone. Since then I use live writer to write my blog and I have not had a problem since. I am loving the photos of everyone's grandchildren. In the early spring I will be sharing some of my own. Can't wait. Valerie

    ReplyDelete
  13. Those are great fall projects! I do not use blogger. I do pay Wordpress for my custom background upgrade on my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Just love your new header and the runner and apples. What a lot of work you've put into the photos but you've learned a lot. I hope I never reach my limit. I'm sure larger size photos are crisper and the only reason I would prefer them is when I go to print my blog.

    My niece makes colorful balls similar to your apples for her sons to toss around in the house. They love them. Easy on the furniture, etc,

    ReplyDelete
  15. Good for you on figuring our how the photo thing works with google. I don't understand all the pixel stuff with the photos so I do pay the five dollars. I don't want to start deleting in case I decide to choose to do a blogger book with some of the more sentimental posts. You new header is beautiful. I found blogger quite uncooperative with ths size this last time, but it finally came out the right size.

    ReplyDelete
  16. So far I haven't had to pay. I started resizing awhile back and usually go to 1000px on the long side. I may need to go smaller yet. Thanks for all the info. And another thumb sucking picture, so cute!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I pay for Google storage after using up my free 1GB but it is so cheap. The next increase is not until after 20 GB.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comment. I read and value each one, cherishing the connections we can make although far apart. Usually, I visit your blog in return, although if you ask a question I try to contact you directly.

A Wander Through my Mind

  Nothing is so beautiful as Spring -  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Gerard Manley Hopkins When I opened my bedroom...