…Isn’t that everyone’s secret fear, when they’re trying to save a precious voice mail from a departed friend? You listen to it, over and over, play it for your friends, eventually getting the knack for what buttons to press in which order. When you decide to get serious about preserving this audio equivalent of pure gold… Suddenly the pressure is on and you realize just how close you are to erasing it forever. You can easily transfer this message to your Voice Library with a phone, cell phone, or a digital recorder.

No matter what equipment you use, always - but ALWAYS - check your equipment first. If you are trying to save a voice message, or any other audio, create a test message first. This allows you to check your sound quality, make adjustments, and if you delete it - no biggie.

 · A lot of cell phones have a voice recorder built in, but you can’t use it while checking your messages or making a call. If you use one cell to record another, test how close phone 1 needs to be to phone 2. Should you use the speaker phone option? And where exactly is the speaker?

 · Headset microphones may give you stellar audio when you’re talking in to them, but might not work so well when recording from a phone. Test your recording volume, and placement next to your audio source.

 · Digital recorders run from basic to sophisticated; one might make a regular room sound like an auditorium covered in tinfoil, another might allow you to focus on a very specific area for perfect sound. You can make an inexpensive recorder create a better recording by adjusting the controls, or trying a few tricks to reduce background noise and echo. One trick is to create a mini sound booth. Take a large box, open side up, and drape a heavy blanket in it, so that the inside walls of the box are covered in fabric. Place your recorder next to your phone (or whatever you’re trying to record) in the box and run a test. Compare this recording with one created outside of the box.

 · Compare voice mail added to your Voice Library through your phone, cell phone, and MP3 upload. Use the method that results in the best sound to save your original, valuable message.

A second major benefit of testing your recording equipment is familiarity. Sometimes the battery dies, other times you’ve left the pause button on the whole time, or the volume is too low or too high.

With this little bit of prep work, you’ll be better prepared to spend more time enjoying your recording, instead of worrying about it.

Share your love & desire with the gift of your voice - any time, any place! This Valentine’s Day, create a Valentine worthy of your love with The Voice Library.

Create a unique and personal Valentine with a passionate pledge of your love: record yourself reciting your favorite poem, tell the story of how you first set eyes on her, or when you first touched his hand.

Let your Valentine know that you’ve made a special memory just for them by sharing your Listener codes with a kiss.

Now, any time your sweetheart wants to hear you say those words - during the busy work day, when you’re traveling, or just because - they can simply pick up their phone or hop online to log in to your Voice Library, where they can hear that love in an instant!

Do it now!

Most of us have heard about a grandparent or great grandparent who made do with materials at hand, instead of running off to the store any time they needed something. Onion skins and vegetable ends saved for a soup stock, a pile of shirts saved for a rag rug, glass food jars with metal lids for storing screws or buttons. I save fabric scraps and old clothes for costumes or dolls, and old socks get stuffed inside each other and tied in a knot for a dog toy. I never really thought of these sorts of things as crafting, until I started seeing the current revival, initially under the guise of recycling and repurposing. A garish tie from the 70s becomes a doll or a wallet, wool sweaters are purposely shrunk and felted for hats or mittens, new life and function is brought to a cast off. In some circles, the definition of craft is a hot topic of debate - at what point does craft become art? Is it thrift, or is it function? When you can buy all the materials at a single store to recreate a craft that your mother made from stuff lying around, can you still use the word “craft” to describe it?

When I was growing up, I thought quilting was the dumbest, most boring craft of all. A bunch of squares, whoop-de-do diamonds, all flowers and printed cotton in crayola browns and mind numbing pastels. And then, someone looked at these same designs - watered down from an age when new clothes were a luxury and every shirt went from parent to child, down the row of siblings, until it was beyond mending and even the baby couldn’t fit in it - and took the craft to the next level. I’ve seen beautiful quilts depicting the seasons with a million stitches in a hundred different colored scraps, portraits showcasing both the subject and the art of assemblage, ready to hang on a gallery wall. And I’ve seen quilts come back to the bed, made from t-shirts or salvaged cloth that isn’t big enough for a full quilt or a skirt. And now there’s instructions on how to convert a skirt in to a pillow. Some of it seems so obvious, while others are brilliant AND functional.

So why haven’t I made a quilt of my own? Because I don’t need one yet. I have a coverlet that does just fine - my step-grandmother’s mother tatted it in the 50’s. Sometimes it’s displayed on the wall, sometimes on the bed. I store it in a side table that my husband’s great uncle made out of scrap wood. It’s above a lally column in my basement made from a tree trunk. These things will probably outlast me. I hope I can create some sort of homely, useful thing that does its job so well that someone will one day say, “my great aunt made that, at the turn of the century.”

Perhaps craft is, after all is sewn and said, a piece of personal art that touches you across generations.

This is Deidre, sharing my best memory with you this fine Christmas morning.

Years upon years ago, it was my turn for the almost inevitable bout of pink eye that every kid gets at some point. I woke up, probably minutes after my parents went to bed, ready to greet the Christmas bounty… with my eyes stuck shut. I was probably seven at the time, and this temporary blindness was as far from character building as it could possibly be. As I mewled and scratched, my older brother (also up, of course) retrieved my stocking from the mantle and helped me as I examined my loot by touch. I know I never would have reached in to the fun fur and felt - he was a stinker and I had long ago developed a fear of putting my hands anywhere I couldn’t see them. He must have handed me presents, one by one, helping me guess what each object was.

It was a year of Kliban cats - one of my stocking stuffers was a cartoon-a-page book of black and white cartoons with sometimes titillating drawings of ‘boobies and butts’. My brother lay next to me on the orange and black shag carpeting and read the captions aloud, describing the drawings, and holding the book for me as I tried to peer through gummy lashes.

The book is long gone. The image of a naked woman sitting on a chair with a leg outstretched and a long cat covering her leg from hip to heel is so ingrained that I could probably draw it line for line. And my brother, the same kid who shut me in closets and played “stop hitting yourself”, is now a stepfather and step-grandfather with a family that benefits from his depths of kindness, thoughtfulness, and reliability every day.

And only the occasional mild prank.

Happy holidays to you and all of yours.

Exeter Company Giving the Gift of a Voice to Military Families This Christmas

(Exeter, New Hampshire) A New Hampshire company is giving a gift that keeps on giving to military families all over the country this Christmas season. The Voice Library, powered by Remembered Voices, is an online portal where people can record, archive, listen to and share audio clips. The company, based in Exeter, is giving military service members and Blue and Gold Star families the gift of a voice to celebrate Christmas: the Voice Library is giving two-hour/two-year gift accounts to any member of the Blue Star Mothers of America.

“As soon as I heard about The Voice Library, I knew that this would be a wonderful way for families to stay in touch, regardless of time zones,” said Susan Peterson, vice president of the Blue Star Mothers of New Hampshire. “I wish I had access to a service like this when my youngest son was deployed in Iraq and I know I’ll use it like crazy if my older son gets deployed next year.”

The Voice Library is a service that lets families and friends record, archive and share stories, memories and the sound of a loved one’s voice online or by phone. The service facilitates the recording of stories by telephone or online through a computer microphone or headset. Each free account comes with an access code allowing the account holder to share their Voice Library with friends and family, who can listen through any telephone or internet connection 24/7/365.

The Voice Library can be used to:

·         Let the kids share day-to-day stories with a deployed parent, regardless of time zones.

·         Allow active-duty military personnel to leave messages for their spouses or children.

·         Connect with friends at home or abroad safely and securely without the hindrance of time differences and schedules.

With The Voice Library, users can:

·         Archive and access stories and messages whenever you want to hear a loved one’s voice.

·         Share messages with whoever they want through a personalized access code.

“Whether you want to stay in touch with a deployed loved one or a family stationed overseas, this is a great tool to keep families connected,” said Al Brandano, founder of Remembered Voices, the parent company of The Voice Library. “The military gift allows friends and families to record up to two hours of stories and archive those stories for two years. Using their access code, they can share those memories with anyone they want.”

Additional recording and storage time can be purchased to augment a user’s personal Voice Library. To access the gift account and begin recording stories immediately, military service members and Blue and Gold Star families should visit www.rememberedvoices.com and click on the Blue Star icon on the home page. This gift is valid for accounts created before March 30, 2011. For additional information, contact The Voice Library at (603) 583-4880.

About Blue Star Mothers

The Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc. is a non-partisan, non-political support organization for families who have someone serving in the military. The organization works to support the military and our veterans while promoting patriotism.