Up-to-Date Challenge 2021

[Sue Thomas]

Jnet, I love the colours of the background papers.   Particularly  the cover page.  I see you have a moth featured in one of the photos.  Perfect!

[Sue Thomas]

I'm not a fan, at all, of Halloween. But this is my contribution. So many people are far more terrified of creepy crawlies like spiders or mice than they are of Zombies', and horror movies. Played around with vectors this evening. Word art.   Used several tools, warp mesh for the LIKE ME words.  The pen tool for the  letter K, and text on a curve for the  words it is.

[Ann Seeber]

Here are my November and December. The turkeys and fence decorating November are Picture Tubes. The blonde holding Magic in her strawberry cap is my daughter, Debbie. Her birthday is slotted in on Dec. 28 and she'll be turning 60 this year.. my now I feel old!

 

As I mentioned on the Facebook page, the technique I use to display one photo in several adjoining frames is to place the same photo into each of the masks and use the pick tool to carefully align them. If there's as easier way I'd be delighted to hear it!

 

Also, moving forward, if anyone prints your own calendar, which I might do, what size and quality of paper do you use? I tried on some Epson Premium Presentation Paper MATTE 44 lb. which is 8" x 10" but the print always came up short, cutting off the bottom. I have an Epsom Workforce Pro printer and most of my printing comes out dark, especially people's faces. Any suggestions?

 

Everyone's pages are awesome! I've been basically trying to use up all the baby photos flowing from No. Cal. before the holidays hit and the next influx of photos begins. lol

[James Durrant]

ANN Sorry to hear you are having problems printing your calendar. The pages you show on the Forum do not look dark so this points to the problem being when the page is sent to the printer.

 

Can you print a test page of colours ? You may find one on the Epson web site or on the CD supplied with the printer.

 

You say that the bottom of the page is missing which again points to a printer set-up problem.

 

Are you using the printer drivers supplied with the printer on a CD or just a general windows printer driver. (The windows general printer driver will print documents ok but not photos).

 

I have just received a new Canon printer to replace a worn out Laser printer so have to install all the new drivers for that today !

[Jnet Allard]

Thanks Sue, my last pages being completed I haven't used the Twirl, but I definitely will.

 

Ann, here's what I do to display a photo in multiple adjacent frames, duplicate it and place it in the next mask group. Bravo for your last pages!

[Euka]

I am well and truly behind with my calendars - also waiting on some photos from family members.  The first campus challenge I did was with the 2018 calendar and I really enjoyed it and so did the family and I have been requested to make them each year since. This year I have been asked if it is possible to make calendars specific to various family members rather than the same one for all and I am still waiting on photos to be sent through.  So I have lots of bits of calendars at the moment!! (and still tweaking!)

 

As always I am in awe of the creativity of those here and just love the photos and the stories they tell.  Everyone has the  same months but oh so different interpretations!! just beautiful to see so much inspiration. Thank you.

 

Like Marie-Claire I have tried to use one photo behind the different masks and I am still experimenting and hoping it works soon!

[Sue Thomas]

Ann and James.  In my  very first post of this challenge, I    gave a tip for printing,  don't make your pages to dark, as  when you go to print, they will always print darker.   You could use the brightness contrast on you jpegs,  or go  back and  on a new layer flood fill white and change the  opacity of the background paper etc.  There are other ways, here are two suggestions.

[Ann Seeber]

Jnet: That is the way I do it for one photo behind multiple masks. It works for me.

 

James: Thank you for taking the time to address my print problem. I may just punt the whole job to my daughter in CA. She's a professional architect and also a professional in fine arts so I'm sure has access to better printing than I have, or at least knows more, in any case.

 

Sue: I just saw your post. I've had the dark effect before with photos of people. I rarely print anyway, just this calendar seems to call for it. As I said to James, I think I'll let my daughter take on the chore..it's for their family, anyway.

 

And I love your Orb Spider.. (I have a soft spot for spiders, myself). I haven't seen one here in the city but used to get one every year just outside my back door at my previous abode in the country. I'd carefully open the door so as not to destroy it's web.

[Corrie Kinkel]

I figuered out with the help from PSP that if I resize my page I must do it not by Pixel Resize but use Bicubic instead and now everything is visible! This are the pages that I have done sofar. I'm not completely happy with how I have put the names of the days on the calendar . I will tweak that and put those days on the other month as well. But first the coverpage.

[Sharon Cope Carriere]

Raymond I did go back and check all the dates on my original. Thank you! I have corrected my copies of the ones that had errors.

 

Corrie your pages are lovely such a beautiful array of plants.

 

Thank you everyone for your tips on printing I am sure they will come in handy as some of my pages have dark colors.

 

To the community as a whole I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing and being a part of this challenge with you all.

[Liese Strupp]

Hi folks,

 

This has been fun, I hope to be able to complete this calendar in time to gift it to family members for Christmas.  The purpose for me is to help my family remember important dates like birthdays and anniversaries.  The calendar will have only the family special dates highlighted and pictures to remind them of who the dates are about.  Since we have no family special days in January, I just created a page with pictures of my neighborhood.  I live near Pikes Peak in Colorado!

[MoniqueN.]

Finally ready :) My family doesn't like it when they are shown on the internet, so I had to cut pieces out or put a tube on their faces.

 

The pictures are made by my husband and myself.

 

It was time consuming, fun, annoying from time to time, bit overall I've learned a lot. Thanks for that, Carole! :)

 

Because I wanted to use much of the techniques we've learned it isn't a very consistent look and feel, but for the very first calender I made it's ok. I hope there will be a calender challenge next year too, I will attend,, that's for sure!

 

 

[Corrie Kinkel]

Sharon, thank you! Monique, your pages look lovely! Now I have the cover page too and comes the proof of the pudding: printing all, sometimes that becomes a struggle. I will print a testpage and look closely if all the little details are on it. On the cover I have placed all the little flowers of the month beside the big photo, so they unite all the pages. Carole thank you for this challenge, all this calendars will make such nice gifts, so hopefully next year another one? See you sunday on the next masterclass.

[Cassel]

OK a bit late, I apologize. I think the forum ate my previous reply again.

 

Jnet, I love your various backgrounds. Their colors always match the photos so it gives a very unified look.

 

Cristina, those photos are lovely. Great choices.

 

Susan C, lovely background too, even with the photo of the horse in the field, it fits perfectly.

 

Raymond, that is interesting how you added the month diagonally for December. The Text tool is also a very powerful tool with so many settings and options that you can get very creative. Adding a texture can be done for a solid color, a gradient or a pattern by checking the box on top of the Texture option in the Materials properties dialog window.

 

Karon, you had a creative option to add lined paper instead of just lines. Very good idea.

 

Marie-Claire, although there is a long way to create a single mask from two or three, but Karon has mentioned one: have your photo placed inside one of the mask groups, then place it how you want it to show; duplicate it and move that layer inside the next Mask group. Just make sure you don't move them (left or right). That way both groups would have the same image, while a different area would show. Does that make sense?

 

Ann A, you are doing a great job and of course, you will always learn something new, with each project, challenge or class.

 

Linda J, hopefully, you will find time to create your own calendar.

 

Ann S, as for printing, I found that if you can get some glossy photo paper, the colors will show much better than if you get some cardstock. If you want to test and use less ink, hide the background layer and print only the photos as a test. It can allow you to compare the result using different papers.

 

Euka, that is quite an order to have different calendars for each family member. But it is a good thing that you are using a template!

 

Corrie, glad you found out a different setting to allow the resizing without losing any line. In the end, don't worry too much since it is the original version that is important.

 

Liese, welcome to the challenge. You will see that using a template is much faster than if you had to do everything from scratch.

 

Monique, it is totally ok to hide one's face when posting online. That is something that many scrapbookers end up doing to keep the privacy of their relatives. In case you are interested, there is a tutorial with different ways to hide faces, HERE.

 

 

 

 

[MoniqueN.]

Thanks, Carole for the "hide faces " link!

[MoniqueN.]

I'm in a flow .......cover also ready

Gonna tweak it a bit , the first 2 is not in line with the other 2

And the text has to align more

[Marie-Claire]

Yes Carole, I understand now how to do it with the masks. Thanks. I will continue now, I still have some work to do to finish my calendar :-)

[Bonnie Ballentine]

Finally! I have completed my calendar. I did enjoy this challenge. Thank you, Carole!

 

There are 3 of us who have become very close. I used this calendar to focus on this friendship.

 

Here is my cover.

[Bonnie Ballentine]

January

 

A pickleball trip to Florida.

[Bonnie Ballentine]

February...my friend's birthday month. Therefore, she is the focus.

[Bonnie Ballentine]

March

 

We called it a hike...on a paved path.

[Bonnie Ballentine]

April

 

Have to have a pickleball page.

[Bonnie Ballentine]

May

 

My friend's birthday month but I used pictures of her raccoon. It is wild but waits for her each night to bring our treats. She would much prefer her raccoon be the focus.

[Bonnie Ballentine]

June

[Bonnie Ballentine]

July

 

A very relaxing day.