I've just sent a picture, embedded in the email, from Windows Live Mail 2012 on Windows 7, without having to use Skydrive.
(basically, once you're preparing the new email, you click on the "insert" tab, and there's option for "photo album" or "single photo").
Don't know how different that is to the Windows 8 version, or if that's any help!
I've not *yet* got Win8, indeed, despite having a Win7 machine here, I still mainly use my old XP machine as everything is setup how I like it. Though I'm gradually migrating things...
I'm getting old! I used to embrace every new thing!
Ian