3 for 1

Hi, everyone,

Another quick post. I have 3 cards inspired by this week's OWH sketch to share. (Boy, wouldn't it be nice if I could make 3 cards for every sketch!)

Card 1: An Encouraging Card for OWH

The first card is doing double duty since it also meets the encouragement theme in last Wednesday's Midweek Throwdown. I was pretty true to the sketch. (Shocking, I know!) My only change was putting the larger rectangle on the bottom.

Paper: We R Memory Keepers Down the Boardwalk; heat embossed sentiment in Distress Ink Black Soot; hand-drawn "stitching"; stash metallic "flowers"

Three points worth noting:

• I stamped the sentiments in reverse order as they appear on the card -- using ghost images to go from light to darker to darkest.
• In addition to heat embossing the last "smile", I heat embossed that rectangle's edges.
• The color of the metallic flowers are much closer to the vertical strip's color than they appear. (Honest, they are!)

Card 2: A Birthday Card for Dad

I made similar decisions (ghosted and embossed sentiments, the placement of the larger rectangle on the bottom) to create this sketch-inspired birthday card for my dad. One additional change was using the vertical strip to create a candle. Another change was triple matting the last sentiment for some extra pizazz. :)

Card Base and Patterned Paper: DCWV Natural collection; cardstock from stash pile; heat embossing with Distress Ink

Card 3: An Any Hero Card

Aside from rotating the sketch for my pre-written Any Hero note, this card is actually true to the sketch! The paper selection came easily, as did the sentiment. But, I really struggled with what to do with the top portion of the darker blue rectangle. That "space" seemed lots bigger and emptier when the sketch was rotated.

We R Memory Keepers Red, White & Blue; Stamper's Best sentiment in Distress Ink stash Vintage Photo; stash: cardstock and ribbon

Parting Thoughts

I keep thinking this is going to be the week when things slow down at work. (Busy is good, crazy's a whole other matter!) So, I'm really glad I was able to get these 3 cards made and posted in time for the two OWH challenges. :)

As always, thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Go World! Go Team USA!!!

K-Cup Poinsettia Ornament

If you are looking for K-Cup crafts, then you’ve come to the right place.  I am a coffee-aholic and K-cups just seem to pile up.  Do I toss them in the trash?  Not on your life.  I use them to create all sorts of things.  It’s July already and in less than 6 months Christmas will be here, so it’s not too early to create some easy and pretty much free ornaments for your tree, using, yes K-Cups.

You will need:

One K-Cup, washed with filter removed

Ruler

Pencil

Small pointed scissors

Red spray paint for plastic

Scraps of yellow and red felt

Several yellow size E seed beads

Tacky Craft glue

Six inches gold cord

1/8” hole punch

1.     Remove the top lip of the K-cup with the scissors.

2.     Using the ruler, measure 3/4” increments making hash marks with the pencil around the top of the K-cup.

3.     Use the pencil marks as a guide and cut slits almost to the base of the K-Cup. You will have seven sections. Bend each section down with your fingers.

4.     Cut the edges at an angle and cut a curved shape near the base on both sides of each section.  See photo. 

5.     Work in a well-ventilated area or outside to spray paint both sides of the prepared K-cup with red spray paint.  Let dry completely.

6.     Cut a circle of yellow felt to fit on the interior of the poinsettia and attach with some tacky glue.  Dot some more glue in the center and add some yellow seed beads.  Let dry.

7.     Cut another circle of felt from the red piece and glue to the back of the poinsettia and let dry.  Punch a hole in the top of one of the petals and loop a length of gold cord for hanging. 

Scotch Quick-Drying Tacky Glue, 4-oz - Glue & Adhesives

The Amazon Interview Process

This is the crude stuff about how my interview at Amazon went, I did not want to bore my dear friends with it, but then I thought may be someone would find it useful. So this will be one among that few that's just there in my blog but not for my readers to read. This is for that tech crazy job aspiring people who would really find this useful as I found many such blogs useful for my preparations.

Amazon’s interview process is sure one of the toughest to crack, especially since they come with a very specific list of skills. Amazon’s interview process is intended to analyse one on the basis of a set of data points and the cumulative of all data points are taken to find the final result. It must also be noted that if one candidate fails to satisfy the company’s requirement even on one data point he or she will be eliminated instantly.

An Overview of Amazon's Interview process

Amazon looks for the following in any candidate

• Programming skills
• Problem solving skills
• Knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms
• Problem identification skills

Amazon’s recruitment/placement process is divided mainly into two parts

• The preliminary test
• The technical interviews ( 3 – 4  interviews in the span of a day)

The preliminary test contains both technical and aptitude based questions and it also includes two programming questions that have to be coded in an environment provided by amazon. The primary aim of the programing questions are not to test your ability to produce outputs but the focus is on finding the better answer or the faster easier logic.

The interviews purely focuses on ones ability to solve problems and the depth of ones knowledge in the field of data structures and algorithms. The more important thing is that one should be able to code on paper as they will ask for complete working programs and they wont provide you a compiler to test it on. Further care should be taken when coding for the edge cases as all edge cases will be explicitly tested on your code by them.

The Aptitude / Technical Test

If ones dream of getting into Amazon must come true then it is mandatory that this round be cleared and clearing this is not very easy.

They ask around 20 wildly assorted questions spanning everything in computer science fundamentals and a few from aptitude section as well. One could always expect a few output questions from c and cpp. The only trick is to be through with the fundamentals. The list of questions and their topics I remember will be listed at the end.

Programming Questions

The more crucial part of the preliminary test is the coding section where you will be asked to code  two rather simple programs ( simple in reference to other programs that usually appear for coding contests or online coding tests) within a time span of 45 mins. Though Amazon as such does not explicitly specifies any restrictions with respect to the time and memory conception of the code, they do evaluate by hand the optimality and efficiency of the code to decide whom they should let in to the interviews.

Getting an output is not the primary criteria for getting a safe passage into the interviews. Do take extra care to make sure that a better solution is provided for each problem being asked. One more thing that should be kept in mind is that though the environment accepts your program if it provides the correct output for the provided test case it may not get you to the next round. Make it a point to construct your own test cases and test your code on that too. These should guarantee you a safe passage to the next round.

Again the question that I was asked and I remember will be provided at the end of the so called long prose.

PS: By the way don’t think about copying, they do use dif on  the codes.

The Interviews

I did have to go through a sum total of about 6 hours of interview process before I was selected and it was divided into 3 sessions. First a 45 minutes interview that tested me on problem solving, next was an another 1 and a half hour interview on Data structures and lastly a 3 hour 15 min interview on more advanced and tricky use of data structures, algorithms and problem solving.

The first interview included a warm welcome and two very straight forward questions, It only included a basic understanding of data structures and some very crucial logic to get past this one

The second one was a HR interview and a technical interview rolled into one. The HR questions asked were pretty basic and included questions like, what is your achievements and why amazon so on and so forth. The one thing to be sure about is that you should know your resume back and forth. They have asked me everything that was there on that piece of paper. Again all questions I remember will be appended to the document.

The third interview was the toughest one of all, it was a gruelling three hour process and some tough questions. There were two programming questions again one was really tough and the next was relatively easier which was then followed by lots of direct questions on data structures, more like rapid fire back to back questions round.

Every time they do ask if we have questions and its appreciated that one asks them questions and they do like being asked questions about the company and how work happens in Amazon.

Tips and Tricks

·      Learn to be able to deduce logic for solving a problem and then convert the logic into code. Do follow the distinction between the two. This helps achieve a generic approach to solving adhoc problems. I suggest using of flowcharts to deduce this logic as it helps convert complex logic to code very easily.( It aided me in coming out of the final interview in flying colours).

·       Try programming puzzles in sites like codechef and do participate in coding contests. This helps in developing an appetite  and aptitude for solving programing puzzles.

·         Do study data structures and algorithms very well, they are absolutely necessary for Amazon and do practise such that you be able to identify immediately what databases serves best when used to solve a particular problem.

The Questions

Preliminary

MCQ:

1. Given a rectangle of given size what is the minimum no of squares needed to exactly cover the rectangle.
2.  Identify a given algorithm.
3. Given several pipelines their time costs and the delay in starting each pipeline what is the time taken to execute a certain no of instructions that are depended on each other.
4. What is the maximum number of processors that can run using 11 resources such that deadlock will not occur.
5. Which of the following happens ( deadlock and starvation), deduce for the given code.
6. Several output questions.
7. One question to identify the suitable characteristics of a network to be used under specified circumstances.
8. A question for speed distance and time.

Sorry that’s all I can recall.

The two programming questions are

1. Given that amazon wants to recruit only one from a group of n equally qualified candidates, they have decided to make them all stand in a row and them ask the ones standing at odd places to go home, repeatedly till one exists. Given n by standing at what position shall ensure a sure recruitment by Amazon.
2. Given a linked list containing a sequence of characters, reorganise the string such that all the vowels appear first and the consonants next and they be sorted in the order they appeared.

Interview Round 1

1. Given that amazon wants to recruit only one from a group of n equally qualified candidates, they have decided to make them all stand in a row and them ask the ones standing at odd places to go home, repeatedly till one exists. Given n by standing at what position shall ensure a sure recruitment by Amazon. Assume that the list given is  a linked list and all that you will have is the pointer to the start of the linked list.
2. Print the elements in a n x m matrix diagonally and from bottom to top

Egs   for  a simple 3x3 matrix filled with number 1 - 9 print  7 , 4 8, 1 5 9, 2 6, 3                                                                                         

Interview Round 2

1. Given a stack add the following feature without changing any of the characteristics of the stack. getminelement() with unit complexity, O(1).
2. Everything in the resume round.
3. What are my best achievements and why I consider it my best achievement?
4. What are my weaknesses and when and how has it affected my productivity?
5. What are my projects and explain in detail what I did?
6. Explain how I managed my team and concentrated my teams effort to achieve our aim.

Interview Round 3

1. Given that the input is a binary tree connect all the elements in the same level or depth using links.
2. Given the stack what additional modification can you bring to the stack such that you are able to check the presence of an element in the stack.
3.  Direct questions on Hashing( predominantly )and other data structures.

I just wanted them to ask

I just wanted them to ask,

Not bother and bask,

I just wanted them to care,

That is only obvious and fare.

I asked not for a sonnet and a song,

Nor for pretty things to sing along.

All I asked for was love,

And none is what I got till now.

I asked not was cages of gold,

But the tight grip of your hold.

I want not the glitter of your smile,

But for you to be not apart a mile.

I asked not for divine embellishments,

But for wet trace of your rosy armaments.

The love is dead, that I know,

But life that is mine is being lost in snow.

In white and in black you tread,

In things you say are far important than the bread.

Care, do you really?

Love, hope you could see fairly.

Such is the loss that I dearly know,

That it is so much for me to let go.

Love me, care for me I beg,

It won’t cost you an arm or a leg.

I just wanted them to ask,

Not bother and bask,

I just wanted them to care,

That is only obvious and fare.

This is for D, who was pestering me lot to make a poem happen! So here it is , I fulfilled my promise :D

OWH Sketch #130

Hi everyone,

The card below is for last Sunday's OWH sketch. Better late than never. :)

Paper: We R Memory Keepers Red, White & Blue, Bazzill watermelon, silvery stash paper; star punches; rhinestones

Since I was designing for the front of a pre-written Any Hero card, I rotated the sketch to make a horizontal card. Other than that, I was pretty true to the sketch.

•  For the top banner, I cut out 2-inch circles, that were then cut in half, since I didn't half quite the right sized scallop tool.
• I punched stars through the red and blue patterned paper and placed watermelon cardstock underneath to form the bottom stars. 
• Then I added a punched out silver star on top of the punched out star in the center. 
• Finally, rhinestones were added to all 5 stars as a common, unifying element.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend and happy scrappin'!

Binder Pencil Pouch from Duct Tape and a storage bag

Back to school is almost upon us.  You could buy one of those ready-made pencil pouches that fit in a binder—or you could use some duct tape (there are tons of prints and colors) and a regular old storage bag to make a stylish personalized one of a kind.  Easy enough for kids but parents will want to get in on the fun too!

You will need:

One gallon sized slider style storage bag

Duct tape in desired print or color

Plastic cutting mat-- optional (helps with cutting the duct tape)

Ruler, marker, scissors

Three-hole punch or regular hole punch

1.     Measure and cut 3 inches off the bottom edge of the storage bag.  Discard the cut off piece.

2.     Measure and cut 5 pieces of duct tape to 10 ½” each.

Cutting duct tape is easy to measure on a plastic cutting mat

3.     Starting at the upper edge attach a 10 ½” piece of duct tape over the plastic of the bag and across. Press to adhere.  Repeat with three more pieces of duct tape overlapping just a bit where the edges meet to cover the bag. Overlap the bottom edge of the final piece and press to the opposite side.

4.     Turn over to cover the other side.  Cut 4 pieces of duct tape to 12” each.  Start as you did on the first side except fold the extra length on each side (about ½” on each side) to the back. (Already covered side) 

5.     When you have completely covered the bag, you will need to reinforce the sides and bottom edge.  To do this cut 2 pieces of duct tape 7 ¾” each.  Press half the tape on one side covering any uneven edges and turn the excess to the opposite side.  Repeat on the other end.  For the bottom, cut another piece of duct tape 10 ½” and attach part to one side and fold the rest to the other side. (Bottom reinforced)

6.     Use a three-hole punch to make holes for the loose-leaf binder along the bottom edge.  If you do not have a three-hole punch, use a piece of loose-leaf paper to trace where the holes should be and punch with a regular hole punch.

Duck Brand Color Duck Tape Black, 1.88" x 20 yd., 1/pk.

CAS-ual Christmas Cards

Hi, everyone,

First of all, a huge thanks to everybody who took part in the OWH's Midweek Throwdown color wheel challenge. Your cards were fabulous. It was just great seeing the different color combinations. Who knows what Jan will have in store for us tomorrow?

CFC62: Back in Black

This week's Cas-ual Fridays Challenge is to make a card with a black base. For some reason, Christmas popped in my head. Shortly after, Glistening Boughs and A Seussian Christmas were born. :)

The bases for both cards are Bazzill black cardstock. Also, heat embossing was used on each. Oh, and the little star punch I picked up while shopping with a dear friend at Hobby Lobby last weekend was a must for both cards!

Card 1: Glistening Boughs

Bazzill cardstock; heat embossing with metallic powders; gel pen; mini hole and star punches

• Because of the texture of the cardstock, the embossing was not as uniform as I had hoped. So, I embossed the gold tree twice. I decided to keep the silver trees a little "barer" -- so to speak -- using a silver gel pen to fill in each tree just a bit more.
• A 3D glue dot was used to adhere the star.
• Next, I added the circles in the corners to add a little interest and repeat the gold color.
• Then, I added the gold border lines to frame the card and ground the trees. 
• Helpful Hint: Dryer sheets aren't just for static clean anymore. A great tip from Spotted Canary is to rub a card base with a dryer sheet to prevent embossing powder from sticking where it's not suppose to stick!  :)

Finally, credit where credit's due. The inspiration for this card was a Pizazz It! Card Club creation. Such fond, bittersweet memories...  

Card 2: A Seussian Christmas

You all know how it is when you come up with a card that you just love -- really LOVE. Well, A Seussian Christmas is one of those cards for me. I just adore this card!

Papers: Bazzill, American Crafts Christmas collection; heat embossing with clear powder; star and hole punches

The idea for this card was a twist on a card I made for my dad a couple of years ago.

• Because of the black background, I decided to use the quirkier colors in the AC pack (a reddish brown for the trunk, lime green for the branches.)
• The star and ornaments are from the cream color in the pack. To add a little shimmer, I heat embossed cream cardstock using clear powder and then punched out the shapes.
• To pop the tree and draw even more attention to the star and ornaments, I matted the tree's base paper on a piece of the cream cardstock.
• Since the tree was angled left, I angled the star and cream-matted paper to the right.

Parting Thoughts

Hoping to get to this week's Sunday sketch challenge later this week. Last week seems to have been just a brief respite in the crazy pace at work. Busy is good, but just a little less busy would be even better -- at least as far as my creative juices go. :)

Thanks for visiting and happy scrappin'!

Snowflake Frame K-Cup Ornament

It's July and the perfect time to start your Christmas crafting.  Start saving those K-cups and by the time Christmas rolls around you will have enough to decorate the whole tree.  So let's get crafting

K-Cup style with Christmas up-style K-Cup crafts. Grab the kids and some glue and get crafting.

You will need:

White K-Cup cleaned with filter removed

Snowflake paper punch

1/8” hole punch

Tiny hole punch

Ruler, scissors, pencil

Tacky glue

Crystal sparkle dimensional fabric pant

6 inches gold thread for hanging

Silver, gold or pearl beads

Scrap of white felt

1.     Cut the top off of the K-cup.

2.      Remove the top lip of the K-cup with the scissors.

3.     Using the ruler, measure 3/4” increments making hash marks with the pencil around the top of the K-cup.

4.     Use the pencil marks as a guide and cut slits almost to the base of the K-Cup.  Bend each section down with your fingers.

5.      Use the snowflake paper punch bottom side up so you can place it properly.  Center and punch out a snowflake on each section.  Continue by making holes with the 1/8” and tiny punches on each segment.  Cut the edges at an angle to slightly round. (See photo)  You can save the punched plastic snowflakes in an envelope and include as confetti with your Christmas cards!

6.     After you have punched each section, line each one with a bead of Crystal sparkle dimensional fabric paint and let dry.

7.     Snip off the raised area so that it will be flat in the middle.  This is where you will add your photo.  Print out a photo on your computer or use a school photo. Trim the photo to fit the center of the snowflake and attach with a bit of tacky glue. Glue some mini faux pearls around the photo for added bling.  Cut a circle of white felt to fit the back and adhere with a bit of tack glue. Attach a piece of gold thread through a punched hole in one of the segments for hanging.

Save the punched snowflakes as confetti to add to cards and letters

Keurig Elite Coffee Brewer

Recycled CD and/or Duct Tape Puzzle Earrings

Old CD’s make the best craft material, especially for earrings.  They are lightweight and flashy.  This time go one better and use any colorful duct tape for the back.  Then, you choose whether your earrings will show the glitz and shine of the CD or the Color and pattern of the Duct Tape.

You will need:

Old CD’s

Small scrap puzzle piece (raid your kid’s toy bin)

Wood burning tool

Any color or pattern Duct tape

Fine point sharpie marker

Scissors

Jump rings, two for each earring, one larger than the other

Fish hook ear wires

Needle nosed pliers, one or two pairs

Piece of glass from an old picture frame

Note:  Since this project uses a high heat wood-burning tool I do not recommend it for use with children. Cut out your shape slowly and work on a scrap piece of glass.

1.     Choose a puzzle piece.  Attach a strip of duct tape to the non-shiny side of the CD.  Use the sharpie marker to trace around the puzzle piece on the applied duct tape.  Trace again for a total of two puzzle shapes.

2.     While you are tracing, plug in your wood-burning tool and allow it to heat up. Be careful when you are using the tool since the tip is extremely hot.

3.     Working on a piece of glass placed on your work surface, begin to trace around the traced design with the wood-burning tool.  Work slowly. When you have completely traced the design, pop out the motif.  If you have traced around it completely it should pop out easily.  If some of the CD residue builds up on the tip, wipe it off on a piece of heavy cardboard. Carefully use the tip of the wood burner tool to poke a hole in the top center of the CD earring.  Repeat this step for the other earring. Trim any tiny fuzzy pieces around the edges with scissors.

4.     Use the needle nosed pliers to twist open rather than pull apart the larger of the two jump rings.  Thread through the hole you made in the top of the earring.  Twist it back closed.  Open the smaller jump ring in the same way and add to the larger jump ring, but before you close it add a fishhook ear wire. Make sure the ear wire is facing in the direction you would like your earring --colorful duct tape side or shiny CD side. Twist closed.  Repeat for the other earring. (While you may use only one needle nosed pliers, you may find it helpful to use two pairs twisting each pair in opposite directions to open and close the jump rings.)

 Dremel 114-1550 Versatip Tool Kit Multipurpose Tool for Woodburning