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Here's my page for the Random Challenge "Numbers". Photos are mine, the blankets I made as each was born, and the little girls had fun being babies again like their new cousin. Apparently there is an unhappy baby! lol. Not a spelling mistake his last name really is Kidd! Hence the tongue in cheek! ? Oh how fast they grow! The papers I made from the Mask WS lessons, those were a lot of fun! I couldn't stop playing around with the new knowledge! The leaf /petals from the recent vector Class, the number brads I created from inspiration from @SueThomas beautiful and so neatly done Robin LO. Fonts used are Hello Honey from Fontspace and Schadow BT already on my computer ??, picture tube was a freebie from PSP with one of the versions. Cheers for now...

Here is the Postage Stamp sheet with the cut-out. These stamps can become addictive.

Here is day 7. I used the extra template from Day 1. I tried the sand writing. I am not happy with my results but I have completed it several times. I'll work more on it later.

This is a page I started back in June, when I saw the first Ambush bug of the season. It's still a work in progress. I thought I'd post it anyway. It had recently merged. At the time of shooting the Ambush bug, little did I know that there was also a male mosquito in the frame, until I downloaded the photo onto the computer. (Macro shot) . Did you know that only the females feed on blood, requiring the protein to produce eggs. The males feed strictly on pollen, which is what this one is doing. Humans are generally a host of the females as a last resort. Most mosquitoes feed on other animals like birds, and my horses. If you want to cut down on the mosquitoes around you, dispose of all water collecting objects. I change the water in the birds baths twice a day, to prevent any larvae from developing. They are more active at night because the sun dehydrates and kills them, that is why they select shady wet areas. As for the Ambush bugs, I find them adorable prehistoric looking creatures. The top pic is a handsome male, and the bottom pic is a beautiful female. I used the original photo for the background paper. Edited. I've posted an uncompressed layout on Facebook, for those that are interested.

Day 7: I don't know why, but I struggled a bit with this one. Half the time I make things hard for myself I think.

Here is the postage stamp sheet.

Played some more with postage stamps today. This is a lot of fun. I have 2 more label sheets and will post them in a few minutes.

In case the label isn't legible in the layout , due to compression.

I have really enjoyed putting these pages together especially as the visual memories are so good of the holiday and the gorgeous scenery. The difficulty was in selecting the photos as I took so many. I may tweek some more but these are how I have left it at the moment. I've tried to be consistent across the 3 DPSs by using the same background image; that of a distressed wall snapped from the holiday and stretched across the pages. Since joining in the various projects on Scrapbook Campus I tend to see things a lot more than I did before that are worthy of photographing specifically for backgrounds.

I, too had cataract surgery last October and then the other eye this year. I asked him if he could make me either near sighted or far sighted at the same time. He said no and he could also not fix an astigmatism. That was the first time I ever heard that I had such a thing, To make a long story short I go for what is a last visit next month. I so want new glasses but had to wait for the last visit with the surgeon. Keep your finger crossed that it will be the last visit with him!

And to think that I have arthrosis in both hands and the first OP for that was when I was 45! My hobbies have always required good use of hands and eyes, so I had to say goodbye to lacemaking, embroidery and papercrafts to name a few. But when one door closes another one will be opened eventually. In my case the computer was that door and that allowed me to use my photos and that's why you find me here and it saved me from being bored!

Here's what I came up with for the numbered items. Couldn't think of anything else and wanted to do something. I grew up in a really small town, moved to the big city for many years, then came back 11 years ago to a small town. I love it. Trouble is, everywhere is growing so fast and it changes the nature of the place. I think I should live in a cabin deep in the woods away from developments. The frame at top is from Melo Vrijhof at DS, the phrase strips from Cassel, the background image from online somewhere. The font in red is Boring Showers. Made the little numbered squares.

Pages 3 and 4. Again, Marisa Lerrin for the rv stickers on the road and the rv button or brad. The seal for the state of Nebraska was taken from a web page of state symbols. The ribbon I made with one of Cassel's scripts. The peony I extracted from one of the pics Laurie and I took.

I'd like to see some of this in action. If I took off my glasses and you were 6 feet away from me, you'd look like a blob of color. I have pretty bad eyes. Perfect for picking photography as a hobby ?.

Susan, it is so irritating not be able to see clearly. I have an eye condition that makes me see the vertical lines all wobbly and never straight. Not only in a photo but in real life like a door-post. I had an eye operation on each eye, not to remedy this, but only to stop the proces doing that. As an eye OP is a tricky OP it inevitably leaves a little scar and have side effects too. It is a costly affair as well because I almost every year need new lenses! It is 7 years ago now and I got more or less used to it; my brain knows that door-posts are straight and I "see" them as straight now. But this trick doesn't work for objects that are new to me and those are wobbly until my brain learns that they are suppoost to be straight. It causes headaches...but without the OPs I would become very partially sighted, so I don't complain '(at least not to much!)

That’s interesting , Sue. Robin goes back and forth when I look at it. A few seconds, maybe 3-5 seconds it’s a cutout always a cutout first, then for 5 seconds it's puffy, then a cutout again, just back and forth.. It finally ends up being puffy, 8 look away for a minute or two and like magic! it's a cutout again. ? Progressive lenses….. I go through about 25 pairs of glasses a year. Those cheap blue light magnifiers. Just random things break them, really, except the following which happen kind of a lot. getting into a car, I hit the ones sitting on top of my head (I do this a LOT). I bend over to pull a weed, they fall off and I step on them. (or more likely cannot find them at all in the flowers because they flip and land 5 feet away). I lower my head and lose them on a bike ride and the rider behind me rolls over them. Or a car. I clean them with the edge of my tee shirt and the lens ends up in one hand and the frame in the other. I can’t afford anything better than the magnifying readers I get at QVC where I buy in bulk. I have an appointment later this year to see if I need a prescription, but fingers crossed I don’t or I’ll have to wear a sports band at all times or wear the with a little chain neckless around my neck instead of as a headband. .

Screen shot, of enlarged cutout. I think it may be how the eye perceives it. Look at the curl on the R, and then the rest of the word.

After some thought when I was outside, I came up with this for the Random challenge. I created round beads for the numbers, and a label specifically with a place to put the numbered beads. After looking at Julie's cut out page, I decided to do a cutout for the word Robin. Scalloped edge is always effective, and simple to do. I wanted the labels to be together. I thought to pin them, tape them, thread sting though them to keep them together, and thought no, it might look to busy. Any suggestions would be great, but for now I'll leave the labels as they are. This random challenge was ideal for creating a page on the cycle of the Robin, as I said I was going to do, after doing the Oriole page. Only the Wrens are left to showcase in a similar fashion. Once the Robins have fledged, like many of the Blackbirds, and some other birds, they spend several days on the ground, before taking to the trees. They are able to fly short distances, but when on the ground they aren't to far from low cover, to dash to when they feel under threat. Within 10-13 days they go from hatchlings to fledglings. I have documented that process too.

I know, right?

Thank you! I have mentioned you in a comment on facebook, along with some photos off the camera. I've cropped them using PSP.

Another idea from the aquarium that Ann showed. For aquariums there are, I think plastic plants and other embellishments that a least are made to be in water.

ugh, I hate getting used to new glasses. My eyes get so tired. When I first got progressive lenses my head was moving all over the place trying to find the right focus point to look through. Even after 10 yrs of progressive lenses, I still cant tell if the photo I took is blurry or in focus. I'm about to delete it and I move my head a bit and it's clear. I need AI in my glasses. Some things look wonky to me when I first look at them. Like my eyes and my brain arent communicating and it just looks odd and I dont know why...at first.

AND here is my final Travel Tale open book page. I used the template from the Day 7-Extra. There was one oddity buried in the template: the small white strips on the right-hand page turned out to be layers that ran all the way to the bottom of the page and beyond! The top had the strip and so did the bottom which was off the canvas. This was true for both white strips. I replaced them with copies of the others that I flood filled with white and deleted the original layers. I used earth tones from the photos and Crumpled and Blinds textures. The photo stamp is from Marisa Lerin. I did the cutout lettering on the large tortoise photo on the left. This started as a double page, but I cropped it which made it much more workable with my computer. The title font is Birdy.

As I speculated, I did change my final Open Book Page 5 & 6, by swapping the pages. I also rearranged the Ripley's Aquarium page by centering the top label and the bottom Stingray date stamp. Plus, I moved some of the stamps around to put the stingray photos near that date stamp. I also enlarged the postcard and the leather tag.

I thought I'd have more time when i got older and I seem to have less time. go figure.

I'm getting on track now and this one counts for day 6 because I made a postcard with a little story. I used the Extra template of day 4 as a starting point but I changed it (as always) for my photos. The Grand Canyon is thrilling and the photos don't do it justice. My photos were a bit hazy because when we started out it wasn't clear, but I'm becoming a fan of the new Haze removal tool! However it should be used with care not to overdo the effect. Later in the day it became more sunny and my photos are ok from there on. I'm going to make a day 2 as well. I included a separate image of the postcard for better viewing here. On the big layout I smudged the text a bit, my cards always became smudged when they arrived. One more advantage of using email of facebook, whatsapp etc.

This is page 5 - visiting Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto. I incorporated the stamps to showcase the many photos I was given. Thanks to Gerry for the inspiration! I used the cass-Scattered Photos script but had to re-arrange everything anyway, but it gave me a start. The background is another photo from the aquarium but with a layer effect of Luminance (Legacy) which allowed the colors of the scatter to stand out.I will now do page 6 and incorporate it with this one into another Open Book layout.

You explained it perfectly, in only one sentence. You are awesome!

Day6 postcard. I have made a crumpled version as my postcard got messed up in the post. I suppose I should have warped the text to match the crumple. The font used is Harabara Hand. I used a white fill with a large stroke to try to give a scratchy look.

Day 5. The thief has been apprehended, and the jewels safely returned. Good work gumshoes! And thus ends another chapter of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. All of the pictures came from Pixabay. The Carmen and Tigress images came from DeviantArt. Red, white, and blue are the official colors of Australia. However, green and gold are the adopted colors for their sports teams.

I have another OPEN BOOK for you. This is page 3 and 4 of the Toronto trip my daughter and granddaughter took last week. This time they visited the zoo (of course, because Jackie is also a zookeeper. Can we call it a "busman's holiday?") I already posted page 3 earlier but now I changed it.

Day 4. Plot twist!

Day 3: During the time my grandson was in Southeast Asia, he played rugby with the Bangkok University rugby team and with a team of his friends who played a tournament in Laos and Vietnam. The pictures are some of the ones that he texted me. I used some elements from a Marisa Lering kit featuring sports. The background papers are my own. The rugby ball pattern was made with cass seamless script which I love. I made the passport and the visa stamps. I liked Anne's idea of making it a book. I am way behind since for the last two days I have been dealing with printer problems.

Day 2

I definitely am late in getting out of the "start gate"! I know this isn't a race, but it has felt like that for me. I am really not sure, but I have the trip that Joe, Laurie and I took back in 2021 in the RV to visit family in the north and west of us. It was a great trip, I found that I can't take the heights and I am definitely a mountain girl more so than the beach. Oh, Well! I take it easy and am able to do some things. This album will be longer than usual since we had so many places we were going and I am definitely going to do more journaling. I usually journal whenever I take a trip. It does help when designing the album. All the elements and papers are mine. The 2 elements at the lower left corner and the upper right corner came from Marisa Lerrin at Pixel Scrapper. The font is Britannic Bold.

15 years ago one of the girls on a scrapbooking forum I was a member of was getting married. I was a good friend of hers and was invited to the wedding. Another member was a bridesmaid and yet another was the photographer. I took another girl as my "plus one". I don't remember who started it but someone suggested we make "stick people" of other members so that they could attend the wedding. A photo of each person was sent to one of us and they were attached to fudgsicle sticks and showed up at the wedding reception! The bride loved it and we had fun with it. 12 of the forum members sent photos, some were of the whole family and others were just the individual. By the end of the evening, some of them were being used as hand held fans since it was a late August wedding!

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.

DAY 2 - LEFT HAND MAP PAGE - 3 Photos: Ripley's Aquarium Canada; The Pink Floyd Exhibition at the Canada Day Fair; my 2 travelers showcasing the Toronto harbor with the CN Center. (There are two different shots like this; the other has the city skyscrapers out the CN 360 windows. I suspect the backgrounds were changed but the women remained the same! ? ) This map was treated to a soft light layer effect. I snagged the Ripley logo and used multiply to place it on of our photos. I used various metallic gradients on the photo frames. I used Cassel's Datestamp 13. I'll probably be adding more elements later in the class as I recall we get to create some that are appropriate to the trip.

Day 1. I got a bad case of "scrapbookers block."

Lesson 1 Travel Tale:: When I went to Germany in 2011 on one if my annual visits to Mom, I was asked by my Red Hat friends and members to take our red hat along for the trip. My task was to to place the hat in various spots and take lots of pictures. So, I did and Mom, the hat and I had lots of fun finding interesting places the hat would approve of. So, stay tuned for the Red Hat's Travel tales. I used Google Map for this. The drop shadows for the countries did not want to play nice, so I gave up on those.

I have decided to do my Travel Tale on 3 trips during the Summer of 2023. Trip 1: Virginia Beach, Virginia; trip 2: Ashboro, North Carolina to the NC Zoo; trip 3: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to the National Senior Games. The location pin with the heart is where I live.

Day 1. In 2017 we went with friends to Innsbruck in Austria with our dogs. Poncho and his brother Pacco, who lives with our friends with another dog, were 1 year old at the time.

Here is my take on the DIY. I should have called this Pink Power (or rather...Magenta Power in my book). I went outside one morning and this stem was all wrapped up in spiders nest. It looked like it was holding it together. I've learned these are Cosmos. I grew some in pots which turned out to be a good thing. Then i can move them around for photos. I have some in my tiny flower bed too. Please dont think I actually know how to grow flowers. This is a first for me. I put a lot of stuff in the flower bed. The packages all said to THIN THEM OUT, when the seeds come up. I thought NO WAY, what if I thin them out and ones left dont survive. Well, it looks like a jungle, the little LBJs (little brown birds) love it. I also tried growing sunflower. the package said 6-7 feet tall...mine is reaching about 9 feet and still no flower. It's a mutant. Here's the details on the supplies Font: I love Myself (Creative Fabrica) Paper for Scallop strip: DiHiller PSSep20 Paper 6 Paper for bottom straight strip: Espy Background 2C (Espinoza Paper for top strip: cpjess-campout wood paid paper 08 All papers from Digital Scrapbook Photos: mine PSP techniques/tools etc: graidents, bevels, texture (from Effects>Texture Effects>Texture and Texture from the Materials Palette), lowered opacity. I like the DIY challenges. They are hard but it's nice to come up with a plan and make it different than everyone else's (that's quite hard when there is a lot of layouts).

There are many insects in Our Fractal Garden now. I show only two ones. Shots taken by my cooworker in OFG.

Ik ken een beetje Engels, maar zo nu en dat ik een woord van twee oversla. Hier is mijn bijdrage aan het thema van de maand. Deze heeft mij een paar uren bezorgd. Te veel items naar mijn zin. Ik hou van rustige en serene beelden. De naam van het lettertype is: Morgen, ik heb de foto vorig jaar zelf gemaakt. met mijn mobiel, nu is het dit jaar te regenachtig. IK ZIE GRAAG HET POLLEN OP DE BLOEM.

What a cool technique with the white overtop and reduced.

These pieces were definitely a challenge for me. I like my layouts spare and uncluttered usually. I combined some pieces and doubled up on others. The central circle is white reduced to 10% opacity over the background photo. The top border is the scallop clipped to a lace ribbon. The red borders are strips filled with a red pattern called 5Geometry. I filled the beads with a gradient. The top flower is named AHA-hygge, from my stash. This is my grandson Brad and his girl, Livia back in July at an event.