Story Time Workshop - 2024

[Susan Ewart]

On 7/25/2024 at 2:31 AM, Daniel Hess said:

@Cassel I try to be very careful when resizing.  A LOT of my photos are very old and were scanned many years ago when storage was very expensive and in short supply.  I cut a lot of corners by resizing down, "proportionally" in 99 percent of the cases, and moving the compression slider down towards the lower quality side.  So like you said in your article, sometimes I even have made myself cringe a little bit.  Huge case in point...I did the yearbooks for my high school in Spain for every year it was in existence and posted them online.  Folks from all era's sent me either the yearbook (or a zerox copy in the case of most of the pre 1970 books) and I pretty much wore out a flatbed scanner working on that project.  This was back when we were using dial up modems so storage wasn't the only issue...page loading time was also important.  Each page was originally HUGE after being scanned then I killed quality trying to optimize for loading times and storage.  You can see those pages at www.toroscope.com which is my yearbook site.  I remember the standard I set was 600 width  and 765 height (pixels) and the real crime was moving the quality slide down to keep the images in the 25 to 70 KByte range.  My personal photos when I scanned from my parent's photo albums back in those early days were much the same.  As you said, sizing down is easy with a lot of forgiveness possible but it's very hard sometimes to size up.

I graduated the same year as your little brother (1983)

[Susan Ewart]

20 hours ago, Minka Glasier said:

I had time to play this morning while electricians were here ... fixing of all things ... the pool!  LOL  The alternating color title I found so much easier than the two papers one, which I WILL play with again later.  I'm glad to have a pool this year as it seems every beach for miles around me has had shark sightings and closures.  Some of those sharks even have drones following their journey.  I saw JAWS once many years ago!  That's enough to convince me to stay in the pool!  We have always had sharks out to sea, but as our waters warm in the Northeast, it seems the sharks are acclimating, too.  It is their home, so I guess I will let them have it.  We have had whales, too, deliberately attacking boats ... one close to here that threw the two men aboard into the water.  Yikes.  Scary.  They were fine, but the boat I bet wasn't.  Yup, POOL sounds like a great idea! 

Jaws has ruined me for ocean swimming (I lived on the Westcoast in British Columbia, Canada).  That's scary to have Great Whites where you are.

[Susan Ewart]

17 hours ago, Gerry Landreth said:

Day 3

I was more of an annoying child than a mischievous one. Having a younger sister was a perfect foil.

The picture is from Pinterest. Our station wagon setup was not even close to that elaborate. Ours was a large Igloo cooler and a grocery bag of paper plates and plastic utensils.  

@Cassel The Universal Birthday Party was a way to get everyone together for my mom. I knew that the number of opportunities for gathering was dwindling. Although her decline made it difficult to do it again, she had good memories of it, which was what I had hoped.

Ditto for my family...my brother (2 yrs older) was the cheeky little devil.  To this day I hate being poked and soon as someone knows that, they can't help but do it...even grown adult husbands!  

[Susan Ewart]

14 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

I never was a very naughty child and as mischief is concerned I can't remember much else as ringing the bell at someone's house and running away before they could open the door. I think almost everybody has done this. But in highschool my friend and I had a narrow escape and were almost caught. Yesterday I was away on a daytrip, so I'm running a bit behind and I'm still working on this week's challenge too. This layout has a background paper called Periodic System by Melo Vrijhof, just as the erlenmeyer and test tube. I made the extra "periodic" tile because I saw it on line and it fits to my theme. The atom is from kissping and the chemistry element I found on Freepik. Title font is School & College Outline.

I have mentioned I have the same problem as others with the wrapped text in 2023!. I think that maybe I have found a solution. This time I made the selection for the wrapped text, typed my text and before I did anything else I duplicated the text and converted the duplicate to raster, which to my surprise indeed worked. Next thing was hide the vector layer and last deselected. I could resize to 600 for posting. Tomorrow when I do day 4 I'll try this again. But I wanted to mention this here already for others to test my theory.

I'll try this way, it's what I'm actually doing but soon as I go back to the original (to fix a spelling mistake) it goes to one line and especially when I duplicate the original goes to one line right away.  Did you leave the selection selected before duplicating?

[Susan Ewart]

4 hours ago, Michele said:

I wish Corel would fix the issues!

Me too. I wish they'd spend less time making their uber fabulous resource hungry AI better and just make what used to work...work!  The more AI stuff a program has the more power it needs to run properly.  And the more money I have to spend on upgrades to my computer.

[Susan Ewart]

2 hours ago, Michele said:

Since Cassel went with Christmas for Day 2, I went with Hanukkah. We always had a big family get-together on the first night until my mother retired to Florida. December brought a plethora of presents for me...Hanukkah, my birthday, and Christmas. The rest of the year...nothing!

I found some beautiful papers and elements by Maria Lerin from Digital Scrapbook/Pixel Scrapper. I also had some things in my stash. The font for the tag is Malgun Gothic, and for the story is Mandala Handmade. 

 

Wow Michele, that text on a path around the candle is awesome.  I laughed at giving your brother your second L in you name.  My mom's last name was Sears, which people would of course ask...THE "Sears" and we'd say, yes, we are the poor relatives (compared to Sears at the time, now they are gone in Canada).  

[Ann Seeber]

I did Lesson 3 - Mischief, using the QP this time as I thought it was very pretty. I used cass-Gradient dimension-Alphas for the title with a pattern I made from the sunflowers to colorize the letters. My text wrapping worked perfectly, no problems, knock wood! The font is Bell MT. 

[Ann Seeber]

15 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

I can't remember much else as ringing the bell at someone's house and running away before they could open the door.

Corrie- that reminded me of a situation I had here at my condo. Some little girls from next door came over and rang my doorbell and ran away. I looked at my porch security camera and saw them run so I walked out on my patio and there they were. The littlest one bragged that she had rung my bell and I said, I know, I took your picture when you did it with my porch camera. They shrieked and ran home! 😆

[Ann Seeber]

15 hours ago, Cassel said:

Can you try again? I had the wrong name on the updated file!

Got it! Thanks. See the results in the Lesson 3-Mischief I just posted! 😁

Edited July 26 by Ann Seeber

[Michele]

1 hour ago, Susan Ewart said:

Wow Michele, that text on a path around the candle is awesome.  I laughed at giving your brother your second L in you name.  My mom's last name was Sears, which people would of course ask...THE "Sears" and we'd say, yes, we are the poor relatives (compared to Sears at the time, now they are gone in Canada).  

While I would love to take credit for the text on a path, it was one of the elements I got made by Maris Lerin.

[Daniel Hess]

A Day late but took some extra time with the day 4 entry; trying to practice some of the "lessons" LOL.  No real stories spelled out.  I also played A LOT of baseball in my youth but although there are a lot of photos in my parent's photo albums, I somehow never actually scanned any of those.  I'll be going back to IOWA for a wedding next month and if I get to spend some time in the old house, I might peek into all those albums and see about taking some more memories out of them.  That's my granddaughter (who is now going on 17 years old) with the fishing pole, the first time she went out in the boat with me.

Edited July 26 by Daniel Hess

[Corrie Kinkel]

5 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

I'll try this way, it's what I'm actually doing but soon as I go back to the original (to fix a spelling mistake) it goes to one line and especially when I duplicate the original goes to one line right away.  Did you leave the selection selected before duplicating?

Yes I did. Normally I do: make selection - type my text - deselect - duplicate - change to raster and at that point it goes to one line .

So now I did: make selection - type text - duplicate - change to raster - hide vector - deselect. To my utmost surprise it worked. Later this evening I will try if I can go back to the hidden vector text to change maybe a typo, or just alter a word. I sincerely hope it will still works. I'll let you know, but firstly I'm going to watch the opening of the Summer Olympics on the telly. 

[Dan Greenwood]

Day 5 - My signature "dish" is pizzelles. I used Carole's cookie alphabet for the title.

Edited July 26 by Dan Greenwood

[Anja Pelzer]

here is day 4, I did not make the Title, because I loved the wordart from the kit more

[Gerry Landreth]

Day 4

Momma was the sports star in the family. She's the one in the center of the front row.

My sister tried to follow in the tradition but failed miserably. She swung at a pitch and almost hit the pitcher with the bat that flew out of her hand. That was her last game.

Edited July 26 by Gerry Landreth

[Corrie Kinkel]

8 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

I'll try this way, it's what I'm actually doing but soon as I go back to the original (to fix a spelling mistake) it goes to one line and especially when I duplicate the original goes to one line right away.  Did you leave the selection selected before duplicating?

I'm sorry in the end it didn't work when I tried to correct a typo that I had specially made because I wanted to test it. We have to hope that Corel will fix it!

[Corrie Kinkel]

For day 4 I used the template from day 3; for day 3 I used the extra template for the diamond members. For a long time sports didn't play a big role in my life, my whole family had no interest in sports at all. Most of them, including my parents didn't have a car in those days and we all lived in Rotterdam, so we walked, used a bike or a ride on the tram. Maybe that is why I like to walk and I still use my bike almost every day, just to go get the groceries, go to the pool etc. I started swimming every week almost 25 years ago when there started aquafit and fiftyfit classes in our pool and I intend to keep doing that as long as I can. With a friend I go for a walk each week, although the weather is not playing along this year. 

For this page I made the title with 2 papers as was explained on day 3, where I didn't use that technique. The papers are from Wintermorning by DB Magnolia and the rest of the embellishments come from my stash. The title font is Bauhaus and the text is Bahnschrift.

[Linda J Walker]

6 hours ago, Dan Greenwood said:

Day 5 - My signature "dish" is pizzelles. I used Carole's cookie alphabet for the title.

I learned how to make pizzelles at a young age, using the cast iron pizzelle iron that my grandfather brought from Italy. In my family, pizzelles HAD to be anise flavored! Anything else was not a pizzelle! I still only make them with anise....anything else just doesn't seem right 😉

 

[Cassel]

@Anja Pelzer Are those pictures of you? How cute! That Good Friends title does look great. That is a good choice.

@Michele when people ask if Carole spells with one or two L's, I say I am not an angel, so I have only one L (in French L is pronounced the same as "wing") so that joke does not work in English! I like your "explanation"! It is great that you found some Hanukkah-related supplies. It might seem "ordinary" for you, but I am always interested in hearing of other's traditions.

@Susan Ewart We feel like our lives are "boring", but even if everyone's story is "ordinary", it is also very different and that is the beauty of those. We don't have to have extreme events to talk about, but I am sure that if we were sitting together, we would still tell all kinds of stories. That is what I did, for two years, in the Remember when? series on the blog. Everyone's story can trigger another memory. Let's put those down on paper!  I love that "simple story" of mini-golf!

@Ann Seeber I guess your story of mischief at work brings me some memories of tricks we have played at work too. Maybe I should do a layout! I guess we don't stop having fun when we grow up!

@Daniel HessAlthough it is nice to have photos, sometimes, the stories are quite enough. That is the important part in this workshop!

@Dan Greenwood That iron still works after 40 years!? Talk about quality! I guess it was a good investment!

@Gerry LandrethThat is a great use of the selective coloring on a photo!

@Corrie Kinkel I never saw a tennis court used as an ice rink, but thinking of it, it is brilliant!

Looking forward to reading more stories tomorrow and Sunday!

[Daniel Hess]

Day 5.

[Michele]

8 hours ago, Gerry Landreth said:

Day 4

Momma was the sports star in the family. She's the one in the center of the front row.

My sister tried to follow in the tradition but failed miserably. She swung at a pitch and almost hit the pitcher with the bat that flew out of her hand. That was her last game.

Having just your mother colorized is a great way to highlight your mom.

[Susan Ewart]

Day 3  

At this rate I should be done the workshop in about 2 weeks.  😁

I found on the web pictures of the color Easy Bake Oven I had and extracted it.  Also I found a pan and extracted it and a cake that had the right highlight, extracted it and put it in the cake pan.  Even found old advertising.  tried to be fancy with shadows (and failed).  the top cake pan I did lighter and bigger because it's sitting on top of the bottom pans.  The Easy-Bake Oven shadow I took a wild guess.  I am looking forward to doing the shadows workshop and trying the shadow on the oven again.  

[Michele]

Day 3 and I'll be right there with you for the next two weeks, @Susan Ewart. 😀 I'm also looking forward to the shadows workshop. I'm never satisfied with how I use them.

I used Ask Why for the title font and StylePro for the story. I found "my boss" on DS/PS and the plants and office background on VectorStock. I made gradients for the background and scalloped layers and used the same gradients for the title. 

Thinking of all the mischief we got up to there made me smile all night. We worked hard and we played hard.

 

[Minka Glasier]

Like yesterday, I have a jammed packed day today ... so did today's early.  I can't begin to even tell you how great a place the Lion Country Safari was.  The animals get to roam free (except for the lions of course.)  There's a reason they call him the KING.  LOL  They had rhino's, giraffes, monkeys (on an island) and so so so much more.  If you didn't feel like you took it all in - you can just turn in again and drive through a second time.  Beware though, it takes a couple of hours to drive through the first time!  After you are done there is another entire park to enter, walk through, and maybe get something to eat. That's where you will find the birds, amusements and  more.   Being a birder that was a must see for me.  I have to tell you the Lorikeets are so much fun, I didn't ever want to leave.  You can pay a nominal fee and get some food for them ... and once they see that food cup in your hand - they are all over you.  Such Fun!

[Ann Seeber]

42 minutes ago, Minka Glasier said:

Like yesterday, I have a jammed packed day today ... so did today's early.  I can't begin to even tell you how great a place the Lion Country Safari was.  The animals get to roam free (except for the lions of course.)  There's a reason they call him the KING.  LOL  They had rhino's, giraffes, monkeys (on an island) and so so so much more.  If you didn't feel like you took it all in - you can just turn in again and drive through a second time.  Beware though, it takes a couple of hours to drive through the first time!  After you are done there is another entire park to enter, walk through, and maybe get something to eat. That's where you will find the birds, amusements and  more.   Being a birder that was a must see for me.  I have to tell you the Lorikeets are so much fun, I didn't ever want to leave.  You can pay a nominal fee and get some food for them ... and once they see that food cup in your hand - they are all over you.  Such Fun!

So glad you got to enjoy one of these safaris. We did one last year and didn't roll up our windows! The rhinos were not allowed out to roam free. I also had a lorakeet experience at a different park. Very colorful little birds! 

 

Edited July 27 by Ann Seeber