I have a daughter turning five this month. My nephew is halfway into his sixth year of life. You can imagine that I am up to my elbows in all of the toys of today’s culture, most of them being electronic, requiring batteries, or somehow involving a computer. I don’t mind a bit, either. I am just as fascinated as the kids.

The whole family started buying remote control cars and planes for my nephew as soon as he was born. He has amassed quite an impressive collection. He does not come to our house as often as we go there, quite simply because my daughter is obsessed with her cousin’s RC car collection. He is a patient tutor, too, so my daughter knows more than I ever did about the ins and outs of this hobby.

A lot of people, especially adults, take the RC Car hobby very seriously. I found an entire blog dedicated to RC car tips and tricks and the whole thing is written in laymen’s terms, which is a good thing for me, because I am not as naturally inclined to dreaming up adequate fixes for the issues we often encounter.

I love the articles. There are often pictures, the tips are easy to comprehend and follow, and the tricks are sometimes clever to the point of making me say AHA out loud. Take this article on using first-aid-gauze as a pre-filter or this one about using a paperclip as a drive pin. Good, solid nuggets of info. It functions as a great introduction to RC cars for beginners

If you are a RC enthusiast, you really should check out this blog.

I’ve written before about how I love niche social networking sites. There are social networking sites for crafters, horse lovers, college students, religious groups and just about anything else you can think of. It seems to me a more interesting way to go than just joining a catch-all social networking site.

Well pet lovers, there is a site for you, too!

Take a look at AnAmigo.com. It’s a community where you can actually make a custom profile for their pet and connect with other pet enthusiasts in the United States. Membership is free and signing up is quick and easy. I did it in about a minute and then the system sent me a confirmation e-mail. At that point I was able to go in and complete a profile. I was prompted to choose a profile style for myself, a dog, a cat, or a horse. I made a profile for my Maltese, Echo. Bless her little heart. When I have more time I will put up a profile for Chloe, the cat queen of the house.

You can add pictures, swap stories, comment, keep a blog, trade tips, and sit back and have fun connecting with other animal lovers. The site is super easy to use and family friendly. The folks at AnAmigo had a launch party at the Sundance Film Festival and celebs like Jack Black and Felicity Huffman stopped by. Cool.

AnAmigo, get it? Animal Amigo – Animal Friend.

I have been interested for a long time in the concept of home brewing beer. I have several friends who do it. Some produce excellent beer. Others should just pack it in and choose a new hobby. I was given a bunch of home brew supplies recently via my local Freecycle group and now I am going to give it a try. I have a few more supplies I need to acquire first.

It’s the era of the internet, so there is no need for me to trek about looking for local stores that sell Beer making equipment. Sites like Monster Brew have everything I need available online. And, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times – I love being able to shop from the comfort of my bedroom while wearing only my underwear.

Sometimes I just happily stumble across a web site that’s fun to look at and also has cool elements. I’m having a blast right now with the menu buttons across the top of the Piano Man, Inc web site. Not only do they look like piano keys, they play notes when you click on them. They are even accurate, though the minor notes aren’t clickable. I know. I am easily assumed, but I really find this to be an ingenious way to design a web site that is all about selling pianos and organs.

It makes me wish I had been the one to think up that design. Very cool, indeed.

The Piano Man is a Boston area business that also does tuning, repairs, lessons, moving, cleaning, and other services related to pianos and organs. When you need to have services specific to your keyboard instrument, you absolutely need to make sure you are working with professionals who know their stuff. When we moved our family piano down here to Florida from my dad’s house up north, we hired a specialty piano company up there and down here to handle the loading and unloading of the piano. We also had someone come and tune the piano after the move. You have to know what you are doing or you can damage the instrument.

My nephew is already taking lessons and I am hoping that Gigi will be ready for lessons soon, too. She is actually allowed to practice on our church organ. My sister and I took lessons on the very piano we had moved down from dad’s and that now sites in my sister’s home. I was never terribly talented when it came to the piano, but my sister was a musical genius. Perhaps her son will take after her. Who knows, maybe my daughter will even take after my sister and not end up with fumble fingers. I enjoyed playing the piano when I was growing up, I just never advanced as far as my sister did.

Sing us a song, youre the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, were all in the mood for a melody
And youve got us feelin alright
–Billy Joel

Since I mentioned earlier today that I am putting together digital scrapbook pages in order to order calendars for my parents, I wanted to also give everyone the link I am using to order the calendars, since the calendars are free. Yep, free. What could be better than a free photo calendar? I’m doing the photos for the wall calendars, since you can use one picture for each month – plus a cover, which I forgot that I still need to design!

So, here is my link for the free photo calendar. I am ordering one tonight and my sister is order another. They should round out our gift lists quite well.

Here is one page. It would be a lot of trouble to post all 12 months, plus it might just annoy all of you anyway?

I never was much of a scrapbooker, mostly because I hated to see so much wasted space on a page in my photo album. So, I usually just put the pictures on the pages and added some pretty embellishments. I think I got through my daughter’s 7th month before I stopped. Things just got too hectic – and they have yet to calm down.

My sister suggested that we have calendars made for our parents with the kids’ pictures on the different months, but I thought straight pictures would be too ordinary. So, I started playing around in Photoshop, because I really am very good with Photoshop. ? Somehow I came across some digital scrapbooking freebies and I realized I was wasting my time doing my won graphics when there are thousands of high resolution, print quality frames and templates and embellishments out on the web for free.

So, I have been feverishly collecting things I like from various sites. I will eventually burn a disk for my own future use. It occurred to me that it might be nice to share with my readers one or two cool freebies I have found each week? Would you like that?

Here is my first. It’s Gina Maria’s Gingerbread Alphabet. Click the image for a link to her blog.

Hey, all you hair bow making moms and grandmas. I have a great idea for Christmas gifts. Take a look at these cute shirts that state:

• Mommy Makes My Bows
• Bow Making Mom
• Bow Making Grandma
• Grandma Makes My Bows

Take your pick. They all make a statement and answer that question you get asked every single time you take your little angel out in public wearing those cute boutique bows you have been making for her.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Christmas is one of my absolutely favorite says all year, right after Easter. Well, they actually might be tied.

So, are you starting to wrap up your Christmas presents yet? If so, let me urge to not go with the boring store-bought bows. Make your own. They are simple and inexpensive.

Here is a link for direction on how to tie a perfect puffy Christmas bows. I also have all kinds of other bow instructions on my Girly Things website.

‘Tis the Season…, to make Christmas Tree hair clippies for the girls in your life. Or, for yourself.

I’ve got free hair bow instructions over on my Girly Things website.  There are countless step-by-step instructions for bows and other girly accessories. And, in the spirit of Christmas, I am featuring the Christmas Tree Clippie instructions right now. It’s a very easy design and if you want to jazz it up, you can decorate it with little stick on crystals for ornaments. Kudos to Michelle Cooper, who submitted the photos and the step-by-steps.

Who doesn’t love the sprinkler of fairy dust? Tinkerbell dominated at the Halloween festivals I attended with my daughter. Disney Fairies have become all the rage, with a line of dolls, fashion clothing, books, movies, and a website.

Make a Tinkerbell hair clippie for the little girl in your life. These instructions were provided by Crystal Shaw and can be found on the Girly Things website.

Thanksgiving is a mere 4 days away. Less than that, if you count the fact that it is almost Monday anyway. And what do most people put on their Thanksgiving tables? Yes, a lovely turkey. Well, that and pumpkin pie, dressing, gravey, yams, and a host of other items. It’s making my hungry just to think about it.

You still have plenty of time to make these cute Thanksgiving Turkey Hair Clippies. The step by step instructions were donated by Michelle Cooper and can be found on the Girly Things website.

I wanted to give a quick mention about my e-mail group for hair bow makers. We have over 1000 members, many of who are active. Since the focus is the free exchange of information for crafting and, in particular, making hair bows we keep spammy auction listings off the group postings and make a point of just talking about ideas and techniques. If you have any question at all about making hair bows, you will absolutely find your answer from another member on the list.

Check us out: Girly Things Group

The motto of my Girly Things free hair bow instructions site is “why pay for what should be free”?

Why indeed?

I had my daughter back in 2003 and having longed for a baby girl all my life, I immediately jumped right into the world of boutique clothing, beaded bracelets, Battenberg lace, and adorable hair bows. The thing was, I was a little unsure as to how to do things like curl korker ribbon and tie a hair bow “just so”.

My initial reaction was the same as most people in my situation: hit the search engines and see what kind of instructions I could find. Sure there would be just tons of free information out there, right? I mean, look at the knitting sites and sewing sites and even sites on wood turning. Most of the information on those kids of hobbies is usually shared freely.

Not so with Hair bows. A small cottage industry had popped up on the internet. People had written out step-by-step instructions for making hair bows and paired them up with great photos. The thing is, most of these in formation packets which are typically sold as PDF files were REALLY expensive — some of them prohibitively so.

So, in 2005 I started stringing together all of the knowledge I had in my head about bow making. I put up my Girly Things website and hopes people would find me. That proved easier said than done. Several of the instruction sellers were tops in the craft of SEO as well! I had a hard time not being buried in the search engines. Eventually, though, people started finding my site and even contributing instructions!

And, oh how the site has grown! Check it out yourself. There are countless step-by-step instructions for bos and other girly accessories. And, in the spirit of Christmas, I am featuring the Christmas Tree Clippie instructions right now.

When I was growing up in the suburbs of Washington, DC my family did a lot of camping, fishing, hiking and general outdoorsy stuff. The Northern Virginia area on down into the Blue Ridge Parkway region is absolutely lovely any time of year and you’d be a fool not to take advantage of the activities afforded to you.

We did a lot of shopping at one particular chain of outdoor gear stores. The chain is facing a lot of trouble, as I hear it, and closing locations in the DC area. I’m in Florida now anyway, and the specialty stores in the area cater more to the outdoor activities one would engage in here…, so not much in the way of super warm jackets or sleeping bags.

My dad has a place he built on the banks of the Shenandoah River and my best bet when I am buying him gifts is still to buy outdoor gear. Thankfully, I can order things like North Face jackets and gloves online at retailers such as Rocky Mountain Trail. They carry absolutely everything someone who enjoys the outdoors would needs, and the best part is that since they are located in Colorado they understand the gear you need in cold weather.

I love taking pictures. For the most part, I take digital pictures and I have become quit good at sprucing them up in Photoshop. There are a lot of nifty things you can do with a digital picture. Sometimes, instead of just using standard photo editing software I will find a tool that makes certain effects simpler.

One of my favorite tools is the Morpheus Photo-Morpher. I have used it countless times to morph one photo into another, sometimes a series of several photos. My favorite thing to do with the software is take pictures of Gigi over time and show how much she has changed. Or, in some cases how much she really hasn’t changed at all over time.

Here is one of my favorite morphs. I took a picture of Gigi from her first birthday and one from her third birthday and I morphed one to the next. Although she appeared to change SO much over those two years, the animated gif here shows you how she’s really just the same kid

I morphed a picture of me into a picture I took of this week’s jack-o-lantern, but it was honestly horrifying, so I will spare you the shock. E-mail me if you really want to see it.

Oh, and you can get your own copy of the software at Zoombli.com

Article sponsored by Zoombli