Gold Star – Wendy

This month, we'll meet another student of the Campus, and although she has made some scrapbook pages, that she shared in the forum, she also uses her Paintshop Pro for other types of projects.

Can you tell us a bit about you?

I am Wendy, retired and living with my Husband and grown up son on the Isle of Wight, a busy tourist island at the very south of England, full of interesting places to visit, including Osborne House, home of Queen Victoria. My father's ancestors came from the Isle of Wight, and although I was born in Norwich, Norfolk, I married my 1st cousin 35 years ago and moved to the island to live. I love it and wouldn't move back to the mainland now.

I have always been a craft person, right from the time my Mother who was a trained Court Dressmaker, taught me how to sew and knit. I could always be found making dolls clothes when I was young, graduating to my own clothes as I learnt more. I was also good at making things out of card and paper. Used to turn many shoe boxes into cupboards etc for my doll's clothes.

I have done several cross-stitch kits, including a few I designed myself, plus tapestry and tatting, and also made hundreds of greetings cards. I'll try any new technique I see.

I have been a member of the Daisy Trail website since 2010 and mainly use Craft Artist 2 to make my scrapbook pages.  However there are some things that PSP can do so much better, that I often make parts of the pages or embellihments in PSP and then transfer them to CA2. I have made hundreds of pages on Daisy Trail and these are all on my profile there. I don't think you can see my profile unless you are a registered member, but if you searched for my projects using my id, wendyp, you would probably be able to find them.

For the past 4 years I have been making 3D clothing for use in Daz Studio. I give them away for free, and I was amazed at how popular they have become. My son built me a website just for these clothing items. You can see them here - www.wilmapsdigitalcreations.co.uk.

How did you get to work with PSP?

I have been using PSP for many, many years, from when it was a free program. I find it is easy to learn and use. I love the way you can open your own patterns and then use them to fill a selection. In other programs you have to install them before you can use them.

This is very useful for me, as I mainly use PSP to add textures to my 3D clothing items, and when you are using several different patterns on one garment, it saves time. I also use PSP to make the Promo images for my clothes on my website.

I also make a lot of embellishments in PSP for use in my pages. Much better when you need something to match a page you are doing and can't find just what you want in a kit.

How did you get to join the Campus?

I have been a member of the Campus for several years, but I can't remember how I found it, probably using google. I have only just started to join in on the Forum, after buying the Elements Creation Lessons from Cassel, and then becoming a Diamond Member. I love how easy the tutorials are to follow and that you are also provided with a PDF file as well. Cassel makes it all look so easy. I have made several embellishments now since starting these lessons, and learnt so many new techniques.

The forums are good places to ask questions, if you are not sure about something, as Cassel or one of the other members will help if they can.

Can you share some of your work with PSP?

This is the very first page I ever did. I had never done scrapbooking before, as I preferred to make greeting cards. I had a kit called Haberdashery and thought it was appropriate for me as I did a lot of cross-stitching then. I just laid it out in what I hoped was a pleasing layout.

This one I did for the recent Calendar Challenge. I thought it would also make a nice Christmas card. I prefer to work from scratch with my pages but I used the template supplied and added my own little extra bits, until I liked the layout.