I had Philips TL950 fluorescent tubes lighting up the kitchen in my old apartment. 5000°K and a whopping 98 CRI. They're every bit as good as the specs make them look - they render colors beautifully, and are closer to natural daylight than anything else I've seen. (they're not quite as bright as most fluorescent bulbs though - I overdrove them with a "high ballast factor" T8 ballast to compensate. That made them about 40% brighter than they otherwise would have been, bringing them back to typical brightness, although they'll also use 40% more electricity and shorten bulb life somewhat.) These are only available in 2 to 4 foot tubes, so they won't work in your pendants. I've long been suspect about Ott lights - they avoid listing the technical specifications of their bulbs, and they try to sell expensive new fixtures to people who in many cases really just need a different light bulb in their existing lamp fixture. Nor are they clear as to whether their bulbs are proprietary and only work in their lamp fixtures, or likewise if buying one of their fixtures will require use of their bulbs. And BTW, i have no idea what scrapbooking is either.... maybe just as well, since I tend to like things that can be done in the dark....

One of my duties when I worked in the Philadelphia Library was to maintain the clipping file. Every day I read a handful of local papers and clipped articles that might be useful to our patrons or staff. These papers only had a local circulation and were too small to be indexed in any of the major published indexes. This was back in the 70's before we had a computer on every desk and cubby. Retrieving a newspaper or periodical article meant locating the microfiche or microcard and using the appropriate readers. Newspapers in their original form were too fragile for long term storage unless in an archival setting - controlled temperature and humidity, light, dust and pollution free etc. In other words it was a royal P.I.A. - Any clipping that we deemed important was photocopied onto permanent paper - paper that was acid free, lignin free, and tear resistant. The link below has a lot of information of preserving newspapers and at the bottom of the article it has a link to creating archival scrapbooks too. Here is a link that might be useful: clippings

I made snowman ornaments, I cut out a simple snowman shape, used my markers and gel pens to make faces, vests and stitches around the edges. I laid them right sides together, placed a small piece of batting on the outside, stitched, turned and stuck small twigs for arms through the side seams and glued and added a cord hanger. One of the stamping sites stamped on the back side of pop cans, cut them out and slightly curled the edges and made cool butterflies, you could just draw with your markers or stencil them. A friend spray painted vegetable cans, then stenciled on them for small planters, she added a wire handle. I have one with pansies that is really cute. I sometimes use my papers as stationery, I print out letters on them, brightens shutins day or I place a sticker on a plain letter to add a holiday or special event theme. I also use my decorative scissors to trim envelope flaps to add interest. Light switch covers with a few decorative stickers or stenciling can hide the cover and carry out a theme. Also plan to make seed packets with stickers and markers/gel pens and put small curled wire hangers on them then add my own saved seed for stocking stuffers and secret gifts. Gracefulbee.com was starting a new section with ideas for using scrapping tools, etc., too.

I had a post on this earlier, but I found borders that were actual panoramic photos. I think you could make some of them yourself, if your camera will take panoramic shots. But..I bought twenty five of them...ha. There is a neat one that has the "school bus" sign of a school bus across the top. I didn't say that very well, but you can probably figure out what I was trying to say. There were grass ones, hay ones, and clouds...they were very interesting and new to our area. There was one that I liked that was a close up of a tree with frost on it...I'm going to try that one myself (when we get some frost)...and a close up of tree bark...this is the first "new" thing that I had seen for a long time.