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Just finished Day 6 a little while ago. I used the extra Template from Day 6. Photos are mine, and Mom volunteered to wear the hat for a few minutes. Background papers are from Digital Scrapbooking (Jessica Dunn).

The history of European places (like Wales) is so deep and rich, and l-o-n-g compared to North America. The house (and life) you described during your childhood sounds so wonderful and magical. When I was a kid, I disappeared for hours on end (in the summers) and feel very privileged to have had that kind of upbringing. I have always assumed that "bats in the belfry" referred to the real thing. I didn't realize the UK is rabies-free! That's a great thing. And yes, shame on Hollywood and Disney and others who malign nature's creatures.

I'm so busy catching up with the scripting course that I recycle a layout that I did about coffee. It is from november 2020 and I was in my first year here in the Campus. I was building my stock and wasn't a diamond member yet, so the papers came from Pixelscrapper (digitalscrapbook.com as it is called nowadays) and the bow is a freebie by Carole. The photos are mine, as always.

I was also a "free range" child, but growing up in Brooklyn, NY was quite different than your wonderful country upbringings.

I bought the new Punches in the store earlier. I simply had to have them and try them out. What photos shall I showcase tonight I thought. Anyway, this is what I came up with, using one of the new brushes, as a label. I also used one of Carole's corner punches on the strip. Instead of putting a frame a round the photos I embossed the background paper around them for a change. Of all the Blisters the Epicauta sp. is my favourite, and I call them velvety greys, not only do they look velvety, they feel ever so velvety to the touch, as does the tan blister. The velevety grey's legs also reminds me of the parts of a Meccano set. Julie, we had the same idea, I too used a photo of one of the Blister Beetles on a Goldenrod plant. It's one of the Blisters favourite flowers. And one of the last flowers to bloom here.

I am humbled by this whole group and the experiences I have here. Do you think Carole knows just how special this place is. I think back to how lucky I felt when I opened the Corel email and saw the bootcamp...just as I was about to give up on learning PSP. I never imagined all the other things I would be learning from everyone here, such interesting lives you all lead and such cool places you all go. I was out photographing today and I had a bee (fuzzy one, with beautiful colors) almost the whole time. I heard myself apologizing to it on occassion when i got it it's way. Thank you for the information about the hummingbirds. I was going to ask you how to entice them back to the yard. Love how you worded that last sentence, about Mother nature. You are quite right about next spring. I will be out there looking at the possibilities and I will start earlier too. And like you, when I'm in the photo "zone" I can be at it for hours. Summer is short so I'm trying to prioritize the flower photos now while they are out. Soon it will be winter and that will be time to go back into the photo studio and to learn the other stuff I want to be learning.

I wont quit. I think I was having one of those days when everything is a challenge (read: nothing goes right) and I was tired. I watched the video and felt way better and today I feel more positive about it. Thank you for the boost. I do understand "try and except", it's in every day life. If I try something and it doesnt work, go to plan B. I got frustrated when i was trying to use the files I shouldnt have been using. And Mireille has loaded me up with some things to try and now I'm looking forward to getting back in. I find I need to have a good chunk of time when I'm doing scripting lessons and the last few days have only given me little bits of time here and there. I really appreciate your post to me here. I need to hear that, and I need to somtimes be strongly nudged. Your first sentence is what made it for me. I read it and thought, no, I am not going to quit. I'm glad you said it the way you did.

I wanted to get in here early on this month's projects. This is a simple one, an ode to one of my favourite months. The quote comes from a poem called "September" by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885). She was friends with Emily Dickinson and Harriet Beecher Stowe. If you wish to read the whole poem, just google her. It's quite lovely. As a child (and teen), we had to learn "memory work", usually poems or passages from Shakespeare (in high school). Those things are deeply embedded and don't fade away. Every year, as I pass the corn fields or the orchards near me, the poem leaps into my mind. Even when I was a "big city girl" for many years, I would recite it. The background has a texture of wet autumn leaves applied, and I used it again for the font on the title. The image is from online with added borders. The label is from DS, colour adjusted.

Finally finished! I decided to use my grandson's pictures from his stay at a river fish farm in Vietnam. I didn't have a lot of pictures, but I made some fish using Filter Forge filter "Aquaria." The water picture is AI from Adobe Express. The map is from a photo that David sent me when he sent the fish farm picture. The font is a grunge font called "sailor 1 grunge." I couldn't divide it in half because I placed the map in the middle. Papers are mine; two columns are a gradient.

I was too. When we lived on a lake my mom would blow this conch (shell) and we'd hear it from 1/2 way down the lake and head home. Often it would be faster to get in the lake and swim back. In another town, we'd get on our bikes and be gone exploring most of the day. I wonder what made us head back home. the only place they did keep an eye on us was when we lived right across the street from a very wide fast moving river (drownings every year). We weren't supposed to go to the river bank (which was about 30 feet from the end of the front of our house) and well, that's just what we did and we got in some serious trouble if we got caught.

@Sue Thomas It was the same for me.... different time. Now they debate the practice and we're known as "free range children." Actually, I brought up my daughters that way, also. We're talking back in the '60s. If parents kept the children under their thumbs they were labeled "helicopter parents." ?

You have the neats tools at your disposal.

I can never understand the logic in anyone flapping and running around hysterically at any creature. The most sensible thing to do is to stand motionless. That goes for bats too. I grew up in a 600yr old vicarage turned farmhouse. The stone walls were 3ft deep, with a spiral stone staircase. We had bats in the attic, which would occasionally fly through an open bedroom window at night. They are the Pipistrelle bats. Of course you have heard of the saying bats in the belfry. It's very true, and most churches and chapels at home are occupied with bats. Since I was a child their numbers have diminished greatly, and they are now protected in the UK If you have them in your attics, you have to live with them. Also, the UK is one of the very countries in the world that is rabies free. It doesn't stop me handling them out here without gloves. I agree they are very much misunderstood creatures. Hollywood and Disney has a lot to answer, for the way they portray many creatures in their productions. I had a wonderful up bringing on a Welsh hill farm. I would go out in the morning, and wouldn't be seen until tea time. I was allowed the freedom to be a child, and if I wasn't in by tea time, there was a row. Great times, and some many happy memories, surrounded by animals.

Susan, I have a plug in called GMIC that makes all kinds of different effects on your papers. I used some of those papers as backgrounds.

Changed Postcard by adding border around it.

The theme for September is COFFEE, which is a pretty popular drink for many people. There are different ways to make coffee, but it can also be associated with gathering and other little treats to eat. Do you have a story about coffee? Share that story, with or without photos. Let's go! Post your project in the gallery.

so many wonderful places and photos from all the travels I love to see them all here is my last day , playing with the cutout- tutorial

I read that one so many years ago and loved it. It probably deserves a read now since it's been so long.

OMG! When I was a kid free roaming in our small town, my Dad would do his loud whistle with a knuckle in his mouth to call me home. If I didn't hear, someone in town did and let me know to get going! I know I had it good when/where I grew up.

Thank you and I'm very glad you didn't really thought of giving up. Although I understand very well the need for having a couple of hours to spent on a new lesson to grab the full meaning of those new concepts. I'm struggling myself with that too and I don't have to go to work anymore, but my beloved hubby takes a chunk of my time and I have other weekly appointments with a friend to go walking and swimming (one has to keep fit).

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? lol

A great page, I love the colours you chose. Did you use an overlay on the background paper it's beautiful?

Eight O'Clock Coffee A brand of coffee my parents drank long ago. I Googled it and the company is over 100 years old.

I watched some of those episodes as well. Great work she was doing, and very moving sometimes. I've never had a fear of bats or reptiles, only 8-legged arachnids, but I have overcome that for the most part. I still do the web-dance if I happen to pass through one!

Years ago I was at a friend's cottage in a popular lake area of Central Ontario. A bat got in and everyone went crazy trying to KILL it with tennis racquets. I was running around trying to stop them. I said just open the doors and windows and it will find its way out! I have never forgotten that.

Hello everyone, thought I would share something that I created today.. Tomorrow is my dad's birthday, he has been gone sixteen years.

What a beautiful creature, look a the expression on it's face, and those eyes, melt the heart. I Love bats, I had many as pets when I was a child, as we had an old disused barn when they used to hang out. Also we had bats in the attic of the house. They are protected in the UK. They are mammals, and not even remotely related to rodents. They are in a class of their own. Chiroptera, which in Greek means hand hanging. The framing is perfect, it draws the eye to the bat.

Creating a magazine cover is another way I like to showcase my photos, and I enjoy creating them. They are quick and easy to create, as they don't require shadows, textures. Whilst getting all the information that a scrapbook page will contain. Title, date, location and so on. They are flat pages. Although the toads are amphibians, I still added them to the cover. The snakes are reptiles of the suborder Serpentes. The Plains Spadefoot toad are small, this one was an inch and a quarter, as I measured it. The other one wasn't much bigger at 2 inches. I love everything about snakes. This on I picked up to take a portrait shot, looking around for a non busy background.

ȕHere is my Postcard. Bella sent it to Natasha and here is what she wrote with a little help from me: Dear Natasha, Many greetings from the beautiful city of Würzburg. See you soon. Bella

Well Susan, I'm rendered speechless, as I am totally overwhelmed by your comments, and others on here and on Facebook on my work. We have an appreciation for the art of photography, and displaying those images, giving them pride of place in layouts. We all have different styles in our presentations, yet in those photos and layouts our passions resonate through. I must give credit to Carole, because without the campus we wouldn't be able to achieve our goals, to the high standard that we do. Or the close knit international family that we have become. Next Spring and Summer you will be looking at your garden and it's occupants ( the world of insects and other creatures) in a whole new light. I loose all track of time when I'm outside crawling around on the ground. I'm going to suggest you put out a hummingbird feeder in early Spring. Hopefully, you'll have visitors passing through. Then again, in late July for the ones stopping off, en route South. The solitary bees , have pollen brushes either on their legs or abdomen, depending on their species. Bumbles have pollen baskets on their legs. You are sure to have fun observing the leaf cutters too. I will look forward to seeing photos of your visitors. You'll have 2 photographic studios, one indoors and the one Mother nature has provided.

They are so cute and adorable. Here's one for you. Pic posted on a friend's FB page.

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.

Ann, Font. I often use swashes from fonts to create my own. Often copying raster's/png's that I see. I used 2 fonts for this one.

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...

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.

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.

Would this layout count? I will do another one, more in keeping with your specs, using numbered labels.

I've been doing a lot of the Creative Scrap tutorials lately. For the vast majority, I've been following the Detailed Handout so I can listen to music while I'm doing them. For this one, I had to watch the video. As great as the handouts are, sometimes I just need Carole's voice to get the technique into my head. ?