What are you working on in August (2023)?

[Lynda DiGregor]

16 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

That's so sweet!  Contrats on the house.

 

Thanks...pretty exciting. We've been in the same house in Crystal Lake for 34 years. Time to get rid of stairs and be closer to our son.

[Sue Thomas]

14 hours ago, Suzy said:

This is beautiful, Sue. The edge border frame brushes are gorgeous. I wonder if they’re intuitive or if you are super-skilled at using them, and I’d be wondering if I bought the wrong ones because I couldn’t get mine to look like that!  
 

Mary, that cat is perfection! I LOVE it! Is that another CF Spark? If so, it is a winner! 

Thank you Suzzy.  I have all of Carole's  corner and  border punches, which I've  been using for years.  I believe there is a video on how to use them.  Saying that I've never had a problem using them.  What issues do you encounter when using them?  Perhaps I can help you achieve what you are looking for.  I use the brush and the eraser tools,  depending on the  effect I want. 

[Suzy]

14 minutes ago, Sue Thomas said:

Thank you Suzzy.  I have all of Carole's  corner and  border punches, which I've  been using for years.  I believe there is a video on how to use them.  Saying that I've never had a problem using them.  What issues do you encounter when using them?  Perhaps I can help you achieve what you are looking for.  I use the brush and the eraser tools,  depending on the  effect I want. 

They just look fakey-fake and overdone when I use them, but when you show them they literally look like die-cut paper you have painstakingly glued to the background. I also don’t have your artistic eye for placing them. When one should choose to do a curved corner VS when to do a sharp 90 degree corner, for example. I think what I appreciate most is that I already know your have the full array of these, so 6, 7, 8, maybe 9 choices? You always seem to choose the exact perfect one for each LO. So while you can help me use them and I can watch a video, it doesn’t allow for just knowing what choice will just look right. (And yes, I could sample them all, but I don’t want to spend my life choosing a fancy border!). I also only have 2 of them. One is the squares because jagged edges are not welcome on my LOs, and I forget what the other one is. And before you get too puffed up with the compliments, ? I also like the layouts with the ragged and torn edge papers…almost the opposite of these fancy borders…..another skill where it looks complete fake and contrived when I do it and other people’s look just perfect. ?

[Michele]

@Suzy You're probably being too hard on yourself. I understand that as I agonize over almost every detail of my projects. I've had a tough time with the border punches, but the more I use them, the easier it gets. When you have time, just play with them. That will give you more confidence as you'll be learning while you play.

[Michele]

Most of the elements are from a template by AnnieC included in the March 2021 ALFLT Blog Train. There was a lot of improvising to fit it into FB's new pic size. I had the opportunity to add a paper fold I made in the Creative Scrap tutorials; it helped balance the l/o. The font is About Loving from CF. Hope my cousins liked the card.

 

[Michele]

Here's a card I made for an old friend. I used a mini kit from Gina Jones at PS. The musical element is a nod to how we met years ago...Concerts at Jones Beach Theatre. The font is Blaster and it's in my system fonts.

 

[Michele]

Back to my gaming group now. I've had the illustration for years so I don't remember where it came from; I used a mask to frame it. In order to balance it out, one of Cassel's corner punches came in handy. The font is 11S01 Black Tuesday Offset; I got it free from somewhere about ten years ago. I didn't have a system for saving information about the fonts, etc. back then. I'm doing a better job now. lol

 

[Ann Seeber]

50 minutes ago, Michele said:

Back to my gaming group now. I've had the illustration for years so I don't remember where it came from; I used a mask to frame it. In order to balance it out, one of Cassel's corner punches came in handy. The font is 11S01 Black Tuesday Offset; I got it free from somewhere about ten years ago. I didn't have a system for saving information about the fonts, etc. back then. I'm doing a better job now. lol

 

@Michele This is a change of pace for your Divas! Nice to see they can "let down their hair" on vacation! ?

[Sue Thomas]

3 hours ago, Michele said:

@Suzy You're probably being too hard on yourself. I understand that as I agonize over almost every detail of my projects. I've had a tough time with the border punches, but the more I use them, the easier it gets. When you have time, just play with them. That will give you more confidence as you'll be learning while you play.

If it would help you at all,  don't  adjust  the size, use them as stated.I  use the  guides, and zoom right in to get them precisely aligned.  Like Michele, I  like to get every detail right.I have also done templates of all of them. I agree with you Michele, the more you use them the easier it gets. You have to be constantly repetitive to master most  tools in PSP to become proficient.  So don't  give up Suzzy, as those punches are an invaluable asset to any project.

[Sue Thomas]

3 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

@Michele This is a change of pace for your Divas! Nice to see they can "let down their hair" on vacation! ?

Michele, Although every page you create is uniquely different, your style resinates through.  Whether it's a greeting card, scrapbook page  a Diva page, or whatever.  You can turn your hand to creating anything.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Sue Thomas

[Michele]

46 minutes ago, Sue Thomas said:

Michele, Although every page you create is uniquely different, your style resinates through.  Whether it's a greeting card, scrapbook page  a Diva page, or whatever.  You can turn your hand to creating anything.

Thank you so much, @Sue Thomas. I try to challenge myself as I am not intuitively creative. I get so much inspiration from everyone here. 

[Mary Solaas]

Before I go to the Travel Challenge Workshop, I finished my work with Lab 11 Mod 6. Stitched Shape, Double Scallop Rectangle (I really wanted to make one as a circle, but wasn't able to manage it), surfboard (I did 3).  All done.  I used the title from one of the Vector Workshop layouts, the sun sticker from another lab.  The background water paper was one I made in my Chattanooga album.  The picture was taken by Laurie.

[Susan Ewart]

45 minutes ago, Mary Solaas said:

Before I go to the Travel Challenge Workshop, I finished my work with Lab 11 Mod 6. Stitched Shape, Double Scallop Rectangle (I really wanted to make one as a circle, but wasn't able to manage it), surfboard (I did 3).  All done.  I used the title from one of the Vector Workshop layouts, the sun sticker from another lab.  The background water paper was one I made in my Chattanooga album.  The picture was taken by Laurie.

Wow! that double scallop is really nice.

[Suzy]

Ditto. That double scallop is really nice, and so are the wonky stitched circles! I might have to go to that Lab and see if I can do these, too! ( along with scripting and Travel Tales, LoL! Good th8ng the weather is so hideous here! ) The water paper is also really, really nice. I remember that from Chattanooga, but now it looks like ocean water. ?

[Suzy]

Michele, I do not think it’s your fault on the font info. The font designers, e.g. shareware, and stores didn’t make it as easy as it is now to keep track. That is a loverly design and so is the ones with your cousins…nice job on that fold!

Sue and Michele, I’ll pull the edges out and get working. I think I have some photos they would go well with in my Travel Takes book.

 

 

[Jenifer Lyn]

@Michele  Lovely layouts! The Fabulous Diva's is just too cute!
@Mary Solaas  That is such a sweet layout! Your elements are beautiful!
A piece that will be cherished for years to come!

[Michele]

15 hours ago, Mary Solaas said:

Before I go to the Travel Challenge Workshop, I finished my work with Lab 11 Mod 6. Stitched Shape, Double Scallop Rectangle (I really wanted to make one as a circle, but wasn't able to manage it), surfboard (I did 3).  All done.  I used the title from one of the Vector Workshop layouts, the sun sticker from another lab.  The background water paper was one I made in my Chattanooga album.  The picture was taken by Laurie.

I love this entire page, @Mary Solaas. The little surfboards are a great touch! I've been going through the Creative Scrap tuts and next on my list are the labs.

[Anne Lamp]

I made this one for the Aug do it yourself challenge.Whew, it was hard to use all those layers.  I was tempted to skip a couple of them, but then it would not have been right for this challenge because it says to use all of them.  One problem I had was with that many layers going ( I guess I should have reduced the picture file sizes before using them) I wound up with such a large project that my PSP 21 program was taking forever to do anything . Even when I just clicked on (file save as or resize image etc. it was taking so long I though it was frozen.  When I was about to give up on saving it as jpg so I could post it, I finally just left the program run while I did some chores and when I came back later I was able to save it.   Yes, Penny is my nickname and Tom is my hubby of 54 years.

[Sue Thomas]

A drizzly  day today, after sorting through some photos, I decided to showcase some of them.  I'll do the same with the Robins and Wrens.   The birds will become mature adults, when they grow their breeding plumage next year.  The juvenile is just starting the moult, they always start  with the head feathers. This year I had 3 pairs of Orioles,  that raised 5 young ones.  As you know I feed home made blueberry jam, and put out other berries which are going off. 

Created the labels, for the one I used a  font swirl, which  looked rather wispy, like the feathers on the fledgling.  Carole's tatting tubes.  Decorated the frames with  heart fonts, and inner beveled them. The background paper is a photo I took of  leaves on a tree.  The mottled look I   used was  a technique that Carole used in one of the Christmas  masterclasses, and then again in the  border mania  masterclass.  I like to use the stencil technique in the  creative scrap, which creates a similar technique

Edited August 25, 2023 by Sue Thomas

[Jenifer Lyn]

@Anne Lamp  That is such a sweet layout!
You used the pieces wonderfully.
Congratulations on 54 years! What precious love.
Look at those crab! WoW!

@Sue Thomas  That is such a beautiful layout!
I am in love with the way you did the font, so cute!
I have been learning so much from you, thank you!

[Sue Thomas]

1 hour ago, Jenifer Lyn said:

@Anne Lamp  That is such a sweet layout!
You used the pieces wonderfully.
Congratulations on 54 years! What precious love.
Look at those crab! WoW!

@Sue Thomas  That is such a beautiful layout!
I am in love with the way you did the font, so cute!
I have been learning so much from you, thank you!

Thank you, and   a pleasure that  you have learnt something new from me.  I work a lot with vectors,  as I love their versatility,  in comparisons  to rasters.   I used  text on a shape to add the swirl font to the ellipse shape.  I had to adjust the settings to  get the swirls to  touch each others, which can be a bit fiddly, but worth it.  I have  been know to give constructive  criticism,  helpful advice, and tips  which has on  most occasions been gratefully received.  We are all here to be supportive,  helpful and inspirational. There are many tutorials on how to  use text on a path and  using vectors.  You'll find many of those tutorials in the blog. For creating frames, I almost always use the rectangle tools, as the edges always remain crisp and sharp.

[Suzy]

A masterpiece, Sue. Every little detail is just perfect, including the mottled background which I’m glad you shared with us because it sounds revolting just to hear it.   One side effect of using that mottled background is it emphasizes how crisp and sharp those gorgeous photos are.
I love the B in Baltimore, too! Did you have to do anything special to get those Swooshy Rs in Orioles?  I know there is a blog post on how to access the fancy letters, but it all seemed too complicated for me. I probably won’t learn it until the day I want to use it and will come crawling to you begging for help, LOL! 
 

[Sue Thomas]

2 hours ago, Suzy said:

A masterpiece, Sue. Every little detail is just perfect, including the mottled background which I’m glad you shared with us because it sounds revolting just to hear it.   One side effect of using that mottled background is it emphasizes how crisp and sharp those gorgeous photos are.
I love the B in Baltimore, too! Did you have to do anything special to get those Swooshy Rs in Orioles?  I know there is a blog post on how to access the fancy letters, but it all seemed too complicated for me. I probably won’t learn it until the day I want to use it and will come crawling to you begging for help, LOL! 
 

I'm so pleased to read that you  like both the photos and the layout, wait until I post this evening's page. Yesterday morning I was in my element, I counted 23 White butterflies. Crawling on the ground shooting them whilst they were still in a state of torpor, the dew drops on them was a bonus.   It never ceases to amaze me  to see the positions insects spend the night sleeping the night away.

Adding swashes and glyphs are ever so easy. There are several  tutorials on how to do it.  It's a simple case of replacing the letter with a fancy one.  Copy and paste, from  Character map into PSP.

[Sue Thomas]

A simple minimalistic, earth tone colours page.  Word art:  I weaved some of the swashes over and under. I had intended to use the split photo technique on both the photos, but decided to use that technique on the overlap of the one photo.  

[Sue Thomas]

10 minutes ago, Sue Thomas said:

A simple minimalistic, earth tone colours page.  Word art:  I weaved some of the swashes over and under. I had intended to use the split photo technique on both the photos, but decided to use that technique on the overlap of the one photo.  

I've posted both pages on Facebook for those  that are interested in  seeing the large uncompressed layouts. They are best viewed on a computer,  to zoom in to see the exquisite details of the butterflies and  dew drops. The only editing I do  to my photos are to crop and occasionally  add  a little brightness and contrast using PSP.  Not on these though.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Sue Thomas