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Wednesday I'm leaving for 3 weeks to the USA to visit my daughter, son in law and the grandkids. I'm going for the first time to the Bay area of San Francisco where they are living now. We will certainly visit the city and see the Golden Gate bridge. My journey will give me great photo opportunities, at least I hope so, which will result in new layouts. Also we are going for a long weekend to see the Grand Canyon, I'm very exited! In preparation I made this tag in the State colors of California with a illustration of the bridge found on cleanping. It has place to put a date and then it will go on a layout. The coming weeks I won't be scrapping but once a while I will come here in the campus and on facebook to see what everybody is doing. See you all in June!!!

Out my patio door I saw what looked like the back end of a gray squirrel with two tails. She appeared to be burrowing under my concrete patio. I opened the slider and tossed out a few peanuts in the shell. She popped out with her baby! So sweet! ? The title font is Oswald Stencil. The tree is a stamp.

Many years ago voles invaded my lawn. There were tunnels everywhere. One of my cats was a hunter and I told him if he caught a vole, he could have it. Well, he caught one and was very proud of himself. A friend noticed he had a vole, chased him down and took it from him...not fair...he was told he could have it. The vole was in my friend's hands and raised his head to see where he was. He promptly bit her, jumped down and ran away. So much for rescuing him...no appreciation on his part.

Thank you for writing how you did this. I love all rodents, and am most excited that a red squirrel has picked our shed to have her babies. I made one of my feeders be able to accomodate the squirrels in the winter so they had a roof over their head while munching at the diner. We do have to go into the shed but she is way at the end, it's 25 feet long (only 4 feet wide) and she comes out and watches. She chittered the first time, after that she just comes out and watches then goes to where ever she has her nest/den/home. Sue, I am sure you are a nature-whisperer, the animals are probably saying, I saw "Sue" today, arent I lucky. Kidding aside, you live in an amazing area and you make amazing art.

Corrie, I'm delighted to read that these tiny, secretive creatures are growing on you.

Back to the topic of favorite purchase... Awhile back I had bought the Multi-Tool Script then promptly forgot I had it. When I made a page in OneNote for all of the scripts and their descriptions, I took time last week to add the graphic so at a glance I could see what the script does. Because Bow #2 and Bow #10 doesn't tell me a whole lot! LOL I saw I had the Multi-Tool script. So this weekend when scrapping with a template with lots of layers, I decided to try it. When I scrap I usually turn any of the template layers off (hide them) after I've added my stuff then go through and delete them one by one at the end. So with over 20 hidden layers I figured I'd give the script a go.... Loved it! Best of all even though it has four tools (delete empty layers, delete hidden layers, re-number the layers in order, unlink all the layers), I was able to say no to the 3 tools I didn't want to use. I can't see me using the renumbering or unlinking tools at all. Delete empty layers is a maybe but I usually end up deleting empty layers as soon as I notice them. For me, the tool scripts have been the most useful but I can see using some of the Element scripts for the next build-a-kit workshop ? I have played with a few of those. I did like the Custom Kit Buttons script once I got it to work. Wouldn't work in PSP2021 but worked just fine in X8. I did have an odd result using raster-to-mask on the template I was using. It was not masking the circle template element but making the mask layer solid black. So I looked at the template again and specifically the circle. It appeared to be very close to the edge of the canvas. Turns out it was actually off the caanvas by a small amount. I moved the circle away from the edge and ran the script again and it worked perfectly! So now I know that if something is on the edge of the canvas, move it a little if I want to use raster-to-mask. For my layout, after doing the merge-group-rename on that mask layer, I was able to move the photo into the original spot on the template.

The script you mentioned I used in the page below. It's a page from 2015. I haven't used it in ages. It was one of the very first scripts I bought. I tend to use the rotate command, which is located in the centre of any image. You will also find the technique in Carole's book called Tips and Tricks for PSP

Goede reis Corrie !

Of all the photos I took over several days, the one used on the tag is my favourite. The eye contact I had with this beauty, with an eye either side of the tiniest flower stem, for me was emotionally powerful. Sometimes I have experiences with nature which overwhelm me. If you know what I'm trying to say. It's difficult to put into words.

Remember when your PSP reverted to saving as X8 and you thought it could be from using a script. that happened to me tonight (2023). the last time I used PSP I was using the pinwheel script. Tonight I started a layout and was saving and I checked the options and it was on X8 only. I am paranoid because of the past issues, so I check it almost every time I save. This is the first time for 2023 doing this, but also the first time using a script in 2023.

I so agree!!

I can vouch for voles biting, they can give quite the nip. I have catch and release mouse/vole traps. Those that I catch, I take way out into the field to the stone pile, to release them. I have the meadow Voles, the most common are the Red-backed voles. There are 5 species in North America. Voles are also referred to as field mice. To have been invaded by them, they must have peaked. Females are able to give birth to a litter every 3 weeks. They have population cycles, peaking and crashing ever 2 to 5 years. When they crash, it has an effect on the population of those that feed on them, like owls and foxes.

Susan, as always there are several ways of doing anything in PSP. The technique I used is just one way, and relevantly quick to do, with a nice result. I have to go Danielson Park to see and photograph Red Squirrels. I think a created a page, and posted one of the Park's squirrels. You'll have a lot of fun observing the squirrel family, and the young growing up into adults. I hope you get the opportunity to to take some cool shots. Many thanks for your kind words on my work.

3 weeks will simply fly by, as I know you will have a wonderful, memorable time. A new city and places to investigate, and document with lots of photos to take. What an adventure you are going to have. Have a safe, uneventful flight. Already, I'm making notes and putting aside items for my trip home for Xmas. I'm hoping to be out in the kayak by the time you come back. At the moment there is still some ice on the lake. However you added the bridge, you did a grand job. When the time comes to use the tag in a page, may I suggest you add a slight texture, to give it some body. Again, we both had the same idea, as I added a vole to my tag. I used the selection tool, feather a few times, copied and paste, added a blend mode.

Sue I have seen more of your photos and layouts about this adorable voles and I like them all, but every new layout you do, makes me love them more. I have said it before but the nature where you live is stunning!

LOL!that reminds me of the time when Windows first came out….I wanted to learn to type. My husband could type, but not I. So I painted all the keys on the keyboard black! Turns out my husband could type, but he looked to see where to place his fingers. Oops! So neither of us could type on my new keyboard. I thought he was going to kill me, because back then, a keyboard was kind of expensive!

There is never a shortage of anything to photograph when it comes to Nature. I absolutely adore these tiny creatures. As per usual to get the best shots, I have to lay down on the ground for long periods of time motionless, waiting for them to emerge. I have over a hundred pics to choose from. Some have even run over me. I quite literally have hundreds of them this year. This year is a year when they have peaked. Anyway, I started this page last night. Finishing it off this evening with a tag. Layout, papers, everything is my own work. Including the photos.

I created a tag from a rectangle and a triangle for one of my Chattanooga layouts. So I guess it qualifies to display here. (I did change the spelling of Aquarium).

Beautifully done! if you look at the photo and you don't know it's a mini version, you think it's all real. I like the little things on the bottom shelf. Really great! But I may have found you another project Carole, I wouldn't want you to get bored when your green room is finished. This is a bird hotel in Amsterdam, according to the commentary accompanying the photo. I saw the photo pass by on fb and immediately thought of you.

So, here is my next Chattanooga Trip layout. The font is Academy Engraved LET and I filled the open areas with a pattern taken from the water of one of the pictures. The anchor element came from NicePng and the lifesaver element came from pixel scrapper - Jessica Dunn (One of my favorite designers).

Absolutely, Rene. It's why I left it to the "experts" and, now that our business has a professionally done site I'm much happier.

I also used NoteTab when learning to code webpages but I did get the paid version. I did several websites 25 years ago and did the coding from scratch. I haven't had those websites for years but I am thankful for the classes I took on learning HTML coding and CSS coding. I can actually look at the coding of a page and see where/why they are issues. Sadly I no longer have the program since I've had multiple computers since then. I never thought to move it to the next computer since I wasn't using it... But coding of webpages is so far advanced of what it was in the 90's.

I am not very good at scattering which is why I purchased the scatterbrush script. After experimenting, I created a star scatter to use on the glitter papers that I made in my kit. The original image was 500 by 500 px, made seamless with Effects and put on a new raster layer above the glitter paper. I added the pattern and changed the blend mode to dodge. The script was just what I was looking for to make scatters.

I wonder why it does it at all. I have my compatibility set to x8-2021. it drives me nuts if a program up and changes a setting on it's own without telling me first. I have learned to save often too. Sometimes though, you are in the zone and an hour goes by and then PSP does something weird and you are praying it unsticks itself. After that it's save, save, save. It's deflating to lose all the work you have done up to that point. yesterday I was trying something and it was taking too long and there was a cancel button the action it was doing, so I clicked it and then I got windows pop up that PSP has stopped working, shutting down the program. ARGh! I had just luckily saved a few minutes before, but still if I hadnt I'd have being quite deflated.