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I went a lot less "razzle dazzle" for this one. I made the framed one back in 2016. Unfortunately, I didn't save it in layers and only had about an hour to change it up for this year. I managed to find the original stars and stripes and background in my files ~ probably downloaded from a free wallpaper site. Added a few solid papers with a bit of texture and the stars scatter (from Janet Kemp at PS). The fonts are Amaldemo (a free version of Amal) and Arista 2.0 Alternate Light (a system font).

I don't have anything exciting to post. Currently making the most of the great outdoors, cycling, kayaking, gardening, horsing around with my girls, taking photos and plodding my way through creating 2023 calendars, and general greeting cards. I have created some of Carole's date stamps. This one I particularly like. I create the template, in psp format. All I have to do is change the text, as it's already centered, etc and change the colours.

Lab 6-11 Rainbow Striped Paper (The border, with mitered corners - dont look too close, I missed on two corners) Diamond Shape Paper (the blue one) Spider Web (on the tissue paper) I'm looking forward to the vector workshop. it took me some time to get the spider web happening. Once I was following the tutorial properly I got it done. I couldnt fit it in well to the layout so I put it on the tissue paper (remember the decorated toilet paper of the 70-80's). The diamond paper; I was trying out different percentage (for size) and forgot to hide a layer and it made the cross lines appear. I liked the look. I also textured it with Effects>Texture Effects>Texture. And used the magic wand to select the diamonds and inner beveled them to give more dimension to the sparse (read: boring) layout. The spiders camer from Creative Fabrica. The photo with the quote was from Facebook and I thought it was funny. I really liked the Rainbow Striped Paper tutorial, although it is hard on the eyes.

It has been a long trip, IMHO. Can I say about it "trip"?

Back in the Labs until the Vector Workshop - I"m really looking forward to that! This is Lab 11 Mod 1. Requirements: Books on a shelf; pencil shavings (I made mine into a picture tube because I couldn't decide what to do with pencil shavings except put thin in the wastebasket!!! Circle Doodle - this was fun and I made several and think I might play with that again. One I put under the Cass folded flower and one I put under the Raggedy Ann Doll. The font is one of my favorites, Ballpark from CF.

I was experimenting with Adobe Express AI and created the raindrop background. The flowers are my own photos, the wood texture is from Filter Forge. I used a blend mode for the light aqua color on the background. I thought that the bright colors of the flowers sort of clashed with the background, but by accident, the first one added turned the aqua color. I sort of liked it, so I just left it. From the Adobe background, I created a pattern and added it to the font, Centaury Display which I also beveled. The masks are my own.

And you will have homeworks to practice too!

Just finished the wedding card for our neighbours that is based on one of the Quick Pages in Carole's recent workshop. They marry at the end of this week so it's timely. I have put the development stages on a template (from Marissa Lerin of Digital Scrapbook) to show from the original template supplied with the workshop to the finished card (the left hand image). I created a monogram of their initials and made a pattern for an overlay and added a lace effect texture for the background. Lightened up a few things here and there and dotted a bit of heart confetti. Voila! Typefaces 'Maria & John' = The Billion and 'Quick Pages' = Trebuchet MS Since doing the workshop I have been inspired to look at templates differently. Digital Scrapbook has a heap of them.

Ann, I saw Snow Leopards a few years back in a wildlife park in Hertfordshire, UK. It has charity status for endangered species I think. You can get quite close to them. I took this photo.

B = Birthday. Today is my birthday and we’re grilling out. I would add a pic, but I’m all comfy. I got nail polish that dries in one minute from my daughter, and I can’t wait to see if it works!

I've been playing around a lot, and did a few that I think are nice. Just finished the Wood Working class, and enjoyed it.

I am in too. The nodes for sure and how to grab hold, for example in the last lab I did (6-11), I was to "hold" the control key, THEN go to the node and I was doing the opposite which didnt do what it was supposed to do. So I guess first and foremost, I must listen to directions and follow them correctly. If I didnt have a tutorial I wouldnt know where to start with vectors, so that's also something I want to know. And in that, I dont know when you need to right click and go to such and such in the drop down menu and then go to another one. Suzy said it, there is lots in the menus and it's overwhelming. I have watched all the Vector classes but realize I work best in a workshop setting, so this will be good for me. Then I'll go back over the Vector Masterclasses afterwards.

It was a long weekend around here. I could hear booms every night since Friday. Monday night there were actually some fireworks in the sky from some of those booms. Then last night was the firework show put on by the annual festival. I live about a mile north of the fairgrounds where the festival is held. When we first moved into this house in 1964, we could see the fireworks from the living room window. There is a street that runs perpendicular to my street almost even with my driveway. One of the houses on the west side of the street has a tree in the front yard. It was small in 1964, it is much bigger now! So my direct view is sort of blocked but I can see the fireworks through the trees. So as the years have gone by when I go outside to see them, I have to move my position to the east to get a clear view (if I want to take photos). One year I used my neighbor's driveway since they weren't home. I can get a pretty good view by standing about half way between the 2 driveways at the edge of the road which is what I did last night. Before those fireworks started, I could hear lots of others. There were some to the north of me (back of my house), to the west of me and to the southeast of me. It was quite noisy for awhile since the 3 not festival fireworks were going off at the same time. Those were also not constant. They would set off a few then it would be a few minutes before the next few went up. Thankfully, Peyton does not mind the noise. I've been lucky with all 3 of my Havanese dogs over the years not having a problem with them. My first Havanese, Pepper, would sit outside with me during the fireworks!

Striking image and beautifully balanced picture. You are very clever.

So funny. Thank you for explaining how you made this. I love the little spider perched on the top as well.

D = Dad Jokes: It took me two hours to grill a chicken the other day, and it still didn’t tell me why it crossed the road. ?

Wow, Suzy, I didn't know how ignorant I was of daffodils until I read your newsletter. They are a welcome sight in the Spring but are quickly overpowered by subsequent flowers demanding attention. On our property in Warwick, NY, I watched for the sharp, yellow flowering of the forsythia to announce that Spring is Here! Yellow is the color of Spring! Very interesting newsletter, even for me who is not a daffodil enthusiast. I may have to work on that... ?

Yay! I’m first to post! This is one class I really want to start and really want to finish, too. I’m having trouble using those handles to make a smooth curve. It seems I grab one and make the crimp I’m trying to fix even worse! I think I’m probably move it too far in, or out too far, or to the side too far, and only need to nudge it a bit, but maybe the class will show me exactly what to do. the other thing is that there are a LOT of little buttons with indecipherable icons on them on the vector palette (the vector dashboard), and I would dearly like to know what those icons supposedly represent because they totally miss the mark. The edit icon looks like a fish, or a half eaten fish, maybe? But why!?

So, have a wonderful birthday Susy, enjoy the day as much as you can and of course the grilling event ☺️!

Thought I would have fun with the theme today. I applied the mosaic weave effect to a plain background. The font is *TINTIN*; my Windows File Explorer is being finicky tonight so I can't search for it to tell you where I got it. Ron Payne posted a link on the FB page to a cool batch of seamless glitter patterns from CF. I used one for the text; it came along just at the right time! I found the flapper girls years ago by, I think, Mallory Carlson.

On my recent trip to the States I have visited Sedona and the Red Rocks in Arizona. While the rest of my family wanted to do part of a trail up Bell Rock I stayed behind. I walked around a little bit lower where the terrain was a bit better for me and I was taking photos of all sorts of wonderful flowers. I spotted something blue on the ground and went to investigate; it was a Bluebird but when I came nearer he flew away and sat in a tree. In the end I managed to take a couple of photos and made this layout with them. I used some of the latest freebies from Carole because I haven't had the time to play with them. I used: Hanging Photo Grid, but I changed it a bit because I only had 3 photos Date stamp 13 Days, again changed it for my needs Bow 22, a double bow and I was lucky to win that script when I was on my trip. I made a ribbon with a bluebird silhouette and one without and used those for the bow. Background consists of different layers with blendmodes of color and luminance to get a nice blue color Fonts are Bauhause and Arial

Here's a project I've been working on the last few days as a remembrance of a friend that passed away last week from a malignant brain tumor at the age of 43. He and I are part of this rather large Facebook group that were fans of pop culture and started with Game of Thrones. We're all devastated at the loss of Ray. We knew he was not in the best of shape, suffering total blindness, but the end came quicker than we anticipated. We had been recording book readings for him as a way to stay in touch. I gathered all the photos my friends were sharing on their individual posts for his friends and family (we call it our Fandom Family). I used the cass-hanging photos script because I had 12 photos to showcase. The background is from a photo of a chalk drawing one of our group did at a convention in Europe. I had two photos of Ray, alone, and tried out the new Corel engraving-brown script on them. After trying the saturation layer effect I was quite impressed. I'll let you see the originals, also. I spoke to Ray on the phone a few years ago, before he got ill, as he was looking into moving to my area. R.I.P. Ray Fiore, you'll be sorely missed. ? EDIT: Forgot to mention, the font is Cabin Sketch.

Here is one layout I finally managed to finish. Again, I used a Scrapping with Liz template (SwL_AroundtheWorldTemplate3). Also, from her, the SwL_LettheAdventureBegin cutout. The background is a blend of a photo of the internet (Effects>Art Media Effects>Colored Pencil) on top of a vintage paper. Border stitch is an old freebie from Kristin Aagard (KAagard_July17CCM_BorderStitches_5) From Cassel: Photo mat (Lab13-06 - punched paper) -- Custom Coin Script -- Date Stamp8 Script - Text Overlay (Lab5-09) Font: Futura XBLKIT BT EXTRA BLACK ITALIC. EDIT: Also included the polka dot pattern.

Ik heb de stenen muur gemaakt. Maar met graffiti erop. Ik veranderde de achtergrondkleuren naar zwart en wit met tint en verzadiging. Na het technische proces heb ik er een portret op geplaatst. Heb het in het lagenpalet op vermenigvuldigen gezet zodat de stenen muur er doorheen kwam. En het werkje was af.

The first thing I like to post is my new Wild Cat calendar for the month. It features the Snow Leopard, the gentle giant of Central Asia. These calendar templates are very large, measuring 4200 x 3245 px. I've been using PSPs print function and get nice 11x8.5" prints on my desktop Epson. I have put a full size jpg in the Files section of our Facebook group: Scrapbooking with PaintShop Pro. The leopard photos are from Unsplash. Here's a copy of the journaling which is rather small in this version: Known throughout the world for its beautiful fur and elusive behavior, the endangered snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is found in the rugged mountains of Central Asia. The gentle snow leopard is not known to be aggressive toward humans. They are perfectly adapted to the cold, barren landscape of their high-altitude home, but human threats have created an uncertain future for the cats. Despite a range of over 1.2 million miles, scientist estimate that there may only be between 4,000 and 7,000 snow leopards left in the wild. EDIT: Unhappy with the background and lower image, I made some changes.

I too have registered for this workshop. I’m also going to put in my two penn’orth. Whether you are schooling/training a young horse, or training a border collie for sheep dog trails, the key for success is to be consistent and repetitive, until a particular discipline has been mastered. When I was in school I was taught by learning everything parrot fashion, which paid off. I suspect Carole will be using the techniques used in her masterclasses, with possibly a different approach to some techniques. I’ve said it many times before to many newbies, learn one technique at a time, until it is mastered, and not dive in to try and learn everything at once. That just creates an overwhelming confusing feeling. Using vectors isn’t any different. In my experience it's best to zoom in to have a good view of the handles, and to not to move to quickly, when using them.

Very nice Mary, maybe I should do more of the Labs but I mostly doesn't have time enough to do all the things I want. At the moment I'm enjoying the very nice and warm weather we have, which means more hours outside and less behind the computer. Like you I'm looking forward to the Vectors Workshop and I think it will be a challenge...

I am registered too , nice to see you all here

LOve it!!!

I'll be there - looking forward to it.

I registered. Been waiting for this one. Those darn nodes.....! Practice will help.

Thanks! I got it via Messenger.

Ann I will post the large version on FB right now and see if I can messenge it to you directly too. And going forward you have my permission to post anything of mine on your feed. And I can send the you the full sized one as well. I did have to use the AI ro resize this image as with a lot of FB images, it was very small.

This is STUNNING!

Ann! you have a new picture. You look fabulous. I too think I might look into more daffodils and even flower shows. they look to be interesting.

Good catch. I guess it was scheduled for July 9th.

Wow Suzy, what a wonderul and informative newsletter. Yes, I read it all. I can see all your touches in there and you've done a fantastic job, very professional. I did not know anything about daffodils. I loved that one called Cape Point with the peachy centre. But was most surprised young Owen's Gay Tabor double. At first I thought, cool, what kind of flower is that? Read further on I found all the shapes and sizes daffodils come is astounding. I am growing flowers (to photograph) this year. It's a first for me, I usually cant grow anything (except thyme, rosemary and parsley), mainly because I seem to forget about them and they die, something about needing water...so needy. I am excited at finally seeing some flower heads blooming after 6-8 weeks. I bought the cheapest ones this years as I fully expected to kill them all but some have survive, despite me, so next year i can get some more expensive ones. they will be my photo subjects when they grow up. BTW, I love the photography of the daffs in the newsletter and really enjoyed your presidents message. he has a nice writing style.

Suzy, Thank you. The template is a psp file, The text are on their own layers, which means I can select it, to change the wording, colour and size, font etc as the offset, centre etc is all pre set. As for the horse dung, I'm sure they must have a dung pile somewhere. Ask if you can help yourself to it. If you were to ask me, I'd say help yourself, just take what you want. I'm going to suggest you take old dung from the bottom of the pile, which has had a chance to decompose, as fresh dung isn't good for the garden. Also you will have a multitube of weeds to pick out down the road, as the dung will be full of unwanted seeds.

Over here in the Netherlands we also have construction holidays, called Bouwvak vakantie. It depends in which part of the country your in, but i's mostly week 30/34 ?

That's cool too!

Really cool Michele!

Happy Birthday, Suzy! (heart from kit: PS-May 16 Marisa Lerin)

Sue, great job on the sta,ps….since you aren’t using the script, you *could* vary the text. Merry Christmas, for example . (Of course, I bet you say Happy Christmas, but you get the idea.). And I have a question you can answer…. I’m currently thinking about how to get some horse manure for my garden. I know where the horses live, but the properties are walled and gated off. Would it be too weird for me to put a note in their mailboxes and offer to clean out stalls if I got to keep the manure? Susan, those Labs are terrific! The rainbow stripe is eye popping, but I love that style so much! So when my corners don’t line up, I take the opposite corner where they *do* line up and copy, paste and mirror it, then zoom way in, microscopically, and place the corner where it goes, leaving absolutely no seam. (It is a trial and error, but can be done if you need it perfect). It sometimes doesn't work in perfect quarters, but in your paper’s case, I believe it will work. That Kleenex is hilarious! I’m doing some YouTube videos on drawing flowers to make my own patterns. Doodling, not really drawing. One of the videos is 48 minutes long!!! The artist is Asian, and the music is a bedtime lullaby. I don’t mind telling you I can last ALMOST 5 minutes before my eyes start closing! (So it will take me nine or 10 sessions, unless I put it at 2 x speed, but then it goes too fast for me to keep up.) This lead me to a book called “How to Draw Modern Florals”, where my complete lack of drawing talent has become obvious, but the book is awesome. My Newsletter was published in June - if you want to see https://dafflibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Ledger-34-2-2023-June-IDS.pdf

Try again. It was there but I had forgotten to click "publish".

Happy birthday, Suzy!

A = Aluminium foil to protect delicate grill food like vegetables, fruits, fish. @Corrie i had to laugh because I thought too to write "Yummy" for the Y, you took me over ?

Z = Zalm (Salmon) I cheat a bit = Dutch ?

X = X-Grill Portable Charcoal BBQ Grill

We went to the NC Zoo to celebrate our friend, Judy's, birthday. An amazing day from beginning to end. We were really looking forward to the Zoofari, an open-air truck ride to see animals in their natural habitat...up close and personal. All photos are mine. The text reads, " We visited the North Carolina Zoo to celebrate Judy’s birthday. The NC Zoo is the largest natural habitat zoo in the world. We were looking forward to going on the Zoofari. It was to be the big event of the day…we could hardly wait. As soon as we arrived at the zoo, we asked the first zoo volunteer we found how to find the Zoofari so we could purchase tickets. (They do not sell advanced tickets.) We were told that the Zoofari was closed. We were so disappointed…all our big plans and dreams…gone. Putting aside our disappointment, we began to visit and view the wetlands exhibit and were enjoying the cypress knees, alligators and such. We were taking pictures and talking about similar experiences in my childhood and we began to build a fun day. Suddenly, the zoo volunteer who had told us the Zoofari was closed appeared to tell us the Zoofari was open! The Zoo had changed the schedule. Johnny had come looking for us and also had several other volunteers looking for “3 ladies walking around”. He didn’t even use the word, “old”. Now this is customer service! Searching for 3 strangers while not knowing where they had wandered off to…just to brighten their day. Thank you, Johnny! We immediately went to purchase our tickets and had a wonderful Zoofari experience!" I used a template from Day 6, Journaling Challenge, August of 2022.