Small Update and Spam Alert (make some money)!

So I haven’t updated my blog in a while.  I have been in a bit of a creative funk and have fallen way behind on my Temperature Scarf CAL and my Let’s Do 52 photo project.  The good news is I’ve begun plugging away at the scarf again, and I should have some updated photos for you soon!

But today I want to go in a completely different direction.  At the risk of sounding like the spam-bots that comment on my blog posts, and also like one of those bullshit blogs that makes wild promises, I want to share a secret with you.  Bare with me, and give it a read.

For about 2 years now, I have been doing online surveys for Brand Institute.  I do make money, but you will NOT earn hundreds of dollars, and this is NOT a work from home opportunity.  But it IS a good way to get a little extra spending money in your Paypal account.

When I signed up a couple years ago, at the time I was a Pharmacy Technician and this site was exclusively for medical professionals.  But they have branched out and anyone can sign up.  Now, apparently medical professionals make more money per survey, and I’m not sure what kind/the frequency of surveys non professionals get, as all of my surveys have been geared toward drug naming, based on my profession.  I get about 1-3 surveys a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, at $15/survey.  Like I said, a decent way to make a little extra cash, but NOT an income.  I call it my “splurging money” as I typically save it up to spend online.

Here is my Paypal summary for the last year:

The redacted ones are just personal Paypal transactions that include people’s names, so obviously I removed that.

So you can see in the last year I made $255 from Brand Institute.  Not bad!  Sometimes I went a month without completing any surveys, but some months I got 3!  For being broke-ass, I consider this a score.

Now let me explain how it works from my end.  I get invitations in my email to participate in a study.  I click the link and it takes me to a page where I agree to basically not discuss the information contained in the survey (drug companies, ya kno?)  And then I complete the survey, which, depending on the activity level of my busy toddler or my free time, takes up to 15 minutes.  Once completed, I get another email saying the survey completion is confirmed.  And now, something to keep in mind, I receive payment notice sometimes up to a month later.  Payment is not instant!  Brand Institute has to go through each of the surveys and confirm them for completion and accuracy, and this takes time.  But if you are concerned, you can keep track of all the surveys you have done, and their status on your Brand Institute home page.  I have been paid for every single survey I’ve done, except for the last few that are still pending payment:

Also, as I was just looking around on my survey homepage, I just noticed that I have completed 30 surveys, but have been invited to 56!  Think of how much more money I could have made, dammit!  Why didn’t I do all of them?  Well, there is a time limit to get them done, and quite a few times I have put off doing 3-4 surveys sitting in my email inbox, only to click and find out they already got the number of people they needed.  So you gotta be quick, because quotas fills up fast!  Seriously, I’ve lost out on like $60 in one sitting.  *facepalm*

Alright, so you’re interested, but why am I only telling you this now?  Well, I wasn’t able to before.  Only a few close people to me knew I was doing these surveys.  But Brand Institute has now asked  it’s current participants to spread the word and recruit more panel members.  What in it for me?  Well, yes, I get a sign up bonus, not gunna lie.  And you can too when you recruit people as well!  Oh, and you don’t have to have Paypal either!

If you have ANY questions at all, leave a comment and I will do whatever I can to answer them.  It’s OK to be skeptical, I always am when it comes to anything promising to make me money and sounds too good to be true.  I probably would never have bothered with Brand Institute if I hadn’t received something about it in one of my official pharmacy industry emails years ago.

This is the first thing you will see on their website homepage:

Brand Institute is the world’s premier brand identity consultancy. Our brand agency portfolio of services includes brand strategy/architecture, name development, market research, regulatory and visual identity solutions.

Brand Institute is the parent company of Drug Safety Institute (DSI), a subsidiary comprised of former nomenclature safety experts from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Canada, USAN Council, World Health Organization (WHO), and extensive experience with European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). This skilled and knowledgeable team provides our pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, OTC clients with name safety and marketing research services, providing the most efficient and proven paths to drug name approval.

So, now I leave you to sign up!

This is Our Life – Week 5

“Finding the Light”

I am late posting this week’s assignment because I actually struggled all week trying to find inspiration.  We are lucky to have large windows in a basement apartment, so a lot of natural light comes into the main rooms.  But since the prompt was to “work with what you have”, I wanted to find something a little different that wasn’t staged.

It turns out our hallway (which has no windows) is an excellent place to take photos.  It only has one overhead light, but my theory is that since it is narrow and the walls are all white, the light is reflected at many angles, and ended up making for really well lit pictures. Because the light has a normal bulb in it, the photos did have a yellow cast, but that was easily fixed in Lightroom.  So, because I was so pleased with how they turned out, all of the photos I present to you today are clean edits!  I’m surprised at myself that I didn’t use any filters!

It’s amazing how much joy Adeline can get from floor Froot Loops.  She munched and scattered away, as I snapped away.  And coincidentally, her jammies match!

But then she got bored and curious:

Temperature Scarf CAL – January Wrap-up

The Bernat Temperature Scarf Crochet-Along officially started February 1st, 2013, but I had gone back and recorded/crocheted the temperatures for all of January.

January started out chilly, but not horrible.  A lot of light blue to begin with.  Then we had a very mild week, represented by the two shades of green.  At that point I wondered if I would ever get to use my lowest temp colour, sparkly purple, and despite my fiery hatred for winter, I found myself wishing for colder temperatures.

I ate my words the following week when we had a terrible cold snap.  It was the coldest it had been all winter, and even though I finally got the colours on the scarf, I worried if I would actually have to ADD another colour.  And that sent me into a panic because I specifically picked sparkly colours for the lowest and the highest temperatures, so then my whole scarf would be ruined!  RUINED!

But, since this is Canada, and only here can it go from -28C wind chills to 13C within one week.  We had everything from snow squalls, high winds, thunderstorms, rain, and something called “ice fog” in the last week of January.  I was outside on my patio 3 times one evening in only a tank top and I wasn’t cold!  So I was able to introduce a new colour to the scarf – the yellow!

The dark green had been the highest temperatures so far, and this time there was even a gradual change in colour.  Right from light blue (0 – -5C) up to yellow (13C – 19C).

I’m still really pleased with the scarf.  I got all the ends weaved in so far (Note to self: weave in ends as you go along, there is nothing worse than weaving in a billion ends at once) and the edge is looking pretty.  I still may or may not go with a border.  Probably not, because let’s face it, after a year of working on one project, I’m not going to want to do ANYTHING else to it.  Done will be done.

There’s still time to join in!  The crochet-along only just begun, you can catch up!  Find the official information here and follow along.

If you want to know the yarn/stitches/temperatures I’m using, check out my first post here.

This is Our Life – Week 4

“A Different Perspective”

This week’s challenge was to find a new point of view for taking photos.  So I took the camera with me when Cupcake and I were playing in her room one day and tried to find new angles.  I snapped a few other really cute photos besides the ones shown here, but I am still trying to learn how to photograph an active toddler without blur.  Even in some of these, the blur is still there, but I just couldn’t pass up sharing these photos.

The above photo is actually a clean edit.  I know, you’ve noticed by now that I love my filters.  And I do.  To me, I feel more artistic as a photographer if I am able to add a little more feeling with a preset.  Until I get better at my SOOC (straight out of camera) shots, I’ll probably choose filters more often than not.  But the one above just struck me after touching it up.  I loved the bold colours, and the slight bokeh.

And finally, Cupcake knows how to lure the cat… play with HIS toys.

This is Our Life – Week 3

“This makes me wish I could freeze time”

 

Cupcake has this 5-key piano toy that she loves to rock out on.  It’s one of those “grow with me” toys, that is height and position adjustable, depending on age.  We picked it up before she was born, and she has played with it ever since she could.  I love watching her go to town on the keys, and the joy she seems to get from performing for us.

Having this piano is like trying to freeze time in itself.  I remember her being so tiny, laying underneath and playing with the dangling, rattling toys.  I suppose the piano is a little young for her now, but it’s been one toy she has never gotten bored with, and to me is a reminder of how small she used to be, and still is.

Time for Another Crochet-Along!

New year – new CAL!  I know what you’re thinking.  You’re saying “But you didn’t even finish the CAL from last year!”  And you would be right.  I still have a pile of unfinished afghan pieces tucked away somewhere.  I learned a lot about myself during that CAL.  Like how I’m just not cut out to make afghans (don’t even ask about the one I started making for Cupcake’s big girl bed…). But, this one is different!

A scarf!  A completely attainable, small scale scarf!  But not just any scarf.  A scarf with meaning, with purpose.  You see, in order to make this scarf, you must track the temperature daily.  Either in your own town, or some special location of your choosing.  I chose to stick with the city I live in now, although a special part of my heart still lies in the country.

Each day, you crochet two rows in the colour you’ve chosen to represent the day’s temperature.  Just think of it as if you were crocheting in colours based on The Weather Network‘s own maps, but of course you can use whatever colours you want!

Their suggested yarn for this project happened to be Bernat Satin, and it just so happens that I already had 5 colours from that line, and 2 from the Red Heart equivalent, Soft Touch.  I only needed to pick up 3 more colours to complete my chosen temperature ranges. My thermomete

The yarns I’m using, in order from top to bottom:

Bernat Satin Sparkle – Ruby
Red Heart Soft Touch – Hot Pink
Bernat Satin – Tangerine
Red Heart Soft Touch – Lemon
Bernat Satin – Foliage
Bernat Satin – Soft Fern
Bernat Satin – Lagoon
Bernat Satin – Teal (I think, lost the label)
Bernat Satin – Star Dust
Bernat Satin Sparkle – Amethyst

I decided to go with 6 degree intervals for a couple reasons.  Initially I wanted to go with 5, but 6 helps cut down on the number of colours I need.  But also it’s still a nice small window so I won’t end up with the same colour for miles.  Canada’s weather tends to fluctuate A LOT (we just had double digit temperatures in the middle of January), so I think I will get a lot of different colours in there, but also see temperature averages.  I chose the Satin Sparkle yarns for the highest and lowest temperatures, so you can easily see the hottest and coldest days.  I also decided to go with the “feels like” temperatures when I can, as we are prone to wind chills and humidex which will be more accurate, but also allow me to use those sparkle yarns.

So I’ll stop yammering on here, but let you know about one more decision I made for my scarf.  I decided to do the moss stitch instead of go with their pattern, and I really LOVE how it’s looking so far.

Oh yeah, the CAL starts February 1st, 2013, but I went back and started my scarf from January 1st.  Here is what I have so far:

I love, love, love it so far.  I hate that it’s going to take a whole year to make, but I also can’t wait until I can get into those warmer colours!

Hurry up and join in!  You can find all of the official info here.

Follow me on Pinterest for more crochet ideas!

This is Our Life – Week 2

The theme for week 2 of This is Our Life is “This Makes me Laugh”.

I don’t know why, but the way Cupcake eats a “bapple” (and how she says “bapple”) both make me laugh every time.  Her teeny tiny little bite marks all over the apple are just so cute.  She asks for an apple nearly everyday, I think she just likes nibbling away at them, in her own time.  I’m constantly picking them up, washing them off, and handing them back to her.  It’s great that it pretty much takes all day for her to eat one, because I can watch her eat one all day.

I got a chance to use my good camera, and I also finally learned how to use Lightroom 4, so these are the result of my first couple of stabs at the program.  Not too shabby, I think!

Check out PTM and start your own 52 week album!