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This all started with me wanting to show that moon and branches photo of mine through a window. It grabbed me and took me along for the ride for the rest of it. The room, ghost, pumpkin, cups, and bird were modified from Creative Fabrica downloads. The sprites or whatever they are were made with various paint brushed such as smoke etc. I have been playing with this off and on all day and had a blast..

A couple of projects from the Grunge Class - good, fun class, thanks Carole!

Our (Canadian) Thanksgiving is coming next Monday. To keep things easy but to satisfy the urge to "make" something, I did a card for friends/family I won't see. Just really simple.

I have wanted to make a button for a long time and today I finally succeeded. It's not a very big one. And not too sharp either. But I enjoyed making it. I used the Eye Candy 5 impact glass plugin for this. The scrap kit is new. I got it this week. And is from Susan. It is named 'leaves of autumn".

I had a great deal of difficulty understanding the Canadians when I first moved here. Especially when they spoke, as they leave out letters. They don't' say Toronto, but Torono. Under the bonnet is the engine of the car. I'd often say, he's tinkering under the bonnet. In other words working on the engine. When the settlers arrived in Johnson in 1621, they came from all over Europe, with the intentions of starting a fresh. They wanted to leave behind the turbulent history, of inter country fighting dating back hundred and hundreds of years. Border wars etc. They adopted the English Language, as their primary language, but Greek and Latin makes up a great deal of the English Language. So, they decided to change many of the words. Changing a letter or omitting a letter in a word. Such as Tyre (tire) Colour (color). It didn’t stop there, they would change words like bonnet and boot, to hood and trunk. That is why we have (old) English and American English. North America has done it’s best to eradicate everything related to the settlers native countries. They believed that a continent like North America would be untouchable by invading countries. It was true. North Americans have led sheltered lives. Since WW2, the US has instigated over 200 wars in European and Asian Countries. Including dropping 2 atomic bombs. Russia has been involved in a total of 4 wars by invitation of the respective invaded countries. How the US has changed since those first settlers, they wanted a peaceful new life. My mother lost 2 of her eldest brothers to WW2, and a cousin, my dad lost an uncle. Today I say to myself, what did they die for. Hollywood has portrayed the US as the heroes of WW2. Not true, Russia was the primary army that defeated Hitler and the Nazi. With the highest mortality numbers. I can remember to this day, how my gran spoke kindly and fondly about the Russians. As they were allies of GB and the US. I knew the second the house speaker of the Canadian parliament, introduced a Ukrainian Canadian officer who fought against the Russians in WW2, that he was a SS Nazi of the worst kind. It worries me, that if the neocons of the US government, and governments around the collective western countries aren’t reined in, I fear for what is in store for the future of generations to come. I've gone off on a tangent here. It can be deleted if inappropriate.

Love this, especially the plaid. You are on a roll with layouts. I will be working on Monday. Long weekends are my least favorite weekends because they are the opposite for me, they are short. We have an extended Friday shift to have a shorter Monday shift. Which is just means less weekend for me. But I am thankful I have a job and will remember to be thankful on Monday.

quote: they came from all over Europe, with the intentions of starting a fresh. They wanted to leave behind the turbulent history, of inter country fighting dating back hundred and hundreds of years. Border wars etc.: But they left for a country where there were also many problems between black and white north and south. Until now. That is an interesting subject you mentioned. Another hobby of mine is Genealogy. We can go back to 1700 and sometimes a bit in the 1600. What strikes me is that old English and old Dutch are very similar as if they have the same background. Spelling was free at that time that's why everyone had their own way of writing, but then also its own development. As far as the wars are concerned, it was very simulated by the Romans. In their view, the more problems they had, the better because then they would cooperate less and rebel. The Romans were the second to last world power in Nebuchadnezzar's famous dream. for those who enjoy reading the Bible can be found in the first chapters of the Bible book of Daniel. All those world powers had the same goal; namely improving the world through war and thus creating a better world. (This is their statement, not mine) At the cost of many human lives. Until now.

September sketch I just made windows out of the sketch Nevada mountains Moon, Sycamore Eagle, Forte Sea on Lake Michigan

Fun with clip art! The background is from years ago so I don't know where it came from, but I'm sure it was free. The gnomes are from CF (I love gnomes and d/l them all). The bee is by AnnieC from a Scrap Designers blog train a few years ago. The fonts are a duo called Bee Kind, also from CF.

Happy October! I love Halloween, and wild cats. Here's my October Wild Cat Calendar featuring Sushi, the Fishing Cat. There's a full-size version on our Facebook page that you can print @ 11" x 8.5". I do one for my refrigerator door. LAYOUT DETAILS: Info from: SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL ZOO Fishing cat | Smithsonian's National Zoo 2023 Calendar Template from Cassel Fish and Halloween Witch illustration - Pngtree Title font under photo and journaling- Agency Fishing Cat photo of the recent rescue, Sushi, from The Wild Cat Sanctuary in Sandstone, MN I find it hard to read the journaling on the reduced-size version here so I'm posting it separately: "The Fishing Cat is one of the largest of the small cats. This robust, deep‐chested cat has a body length up to 45 inches and stands over 16 inches at shoulder height. The adult male weighs up to 31 pounds. As their name suggests, they swim, dive and fish for food. Their body is ideally designed for under water movement and their toes are partially webbed. These cats "fish" at the edge of bodies of water. They appear to scoop their prey from the depths of the water and have also been observed playing with fish in shallow water. Fishing cats are native to southern Asia. Their conservation status is listed as VULNERABLE, mainly because of habitat loss due to encroaching civilization."

May I just say, it's "cute as a button"? (Which is a colloquial expression meaning pretty darn cute.)

At first I didn't want to contribute to this discussion and viewpoints, but I like to mention something else. A lot of the European countries were under German occupation in WWII and have suffered terribly. If the allied forces had not come to our aid we all would be speaking German today and I like to remind you of the enormous loss of the Jewish people. Of course the result of all this is not what everybody hoped for and of course I know the price the Germans and Russians have paid for it too. But I think the solution today is not that simple. My comment can be deleted too if it's deemed controversial.

I agree and in fact I applaud Sue with her clear-eyed assessment of the "neo-cons." ?

So clever the way you combine your photos with clipart. Impressive and creative.

Here is another one. The sign post was ideal to be placed in the small snow drift., rabbits in close proximity to the white tailed hares prints, same for the deer, as Antelope had passed through the yard earlier that day. With the right photos, they work well with clip art to create a page.

Carefully choosing one of my photos for the background, I then added some clipart to create a card. The prints in the snow are either from the white tailed hares or other resident four legged creatures. Placing the dog where some print are visible. No one would be any the wiser who made those prints.

We spent a great deal of time at the beaches, and National Trust (houses, buildings, gardens coastlines and countryside). I certainly had my money's worth from that membership.

Another one.

This year my little girls requested their very own calendar. Using photos I took when I was home last year, here are a few pages for the calendar.

Today I was visiting a garden center, a very big one and they had already opened their yearly Christmas show. There are always many displays of different winter scenes with little villages, snow scenes etc. Among them were a couple of Halloween scenes that I took photos of. So the background of my layout is my photo with a cobweb overlay, some ghost tubes, the freebie for this theme, and 2 skulls. I didn't change the colors of my photo because I think it came out nicely; the cobweb was white and that was a bit too white so I made it a bit darker with the saturation and lightness.

I'm glad that both Canadian and American Thanksgiving are coming. I need that double dose of gratitude! ??

Thank you, Susan, Carole can do the job without a plugin I suppose. But I'm not that far yet.

I've yet to do one either. This is so cute. I like the shine part on the top. It makes it look rounded and real. Good job.

sorry Corrie, ik zag niet dat je ook had gereageerd.

@Sue Thomas @Julie Magerka I understand that this topic is very relevant to you and you would like to talk about it. We started this with a question from me about an English expression and now we are into the most difficult thing on our minds, The purpose of our lives. Maybe it will depress some people to read this. For that reason, I will not discuss it further here. Not because you're wrong. Receive my love.

Cool and thank you. downloaded!

I don't know. Some .abr files will have large size brushes, others will have lots of individual brushes. Maybe some will have both.

That's what I love about Halloween. It's all about fun! ?

How cute are those little wrap-ups?

F = FOOD with a Halloween theme

I found some ectoplasm.... ?

It just means to get into the inner workings. I was a bit confused cause we have a saying that looks like it but with another meaning. 'Onder hoede' means in Dutch under protecting or monitoring. We have another saying that says = 'under the cap of' which means secretly. Buying under the cap means in Dutch, without taxes. I think that the Dutch 'a look behind the scenes' comes the closest. There are so many words and sayings with hood, cap, and hat. Playing under one hat means = Being in league with others. If we delve into this, we will come across a lot.

That is fantastic!!! You have played "under the hood" and created some filters!!! Way to go!!!

That's one very pretty kitty. Didn't know about it before, so thanks.

Sue your little girls will be very happy with their calendars! Your cards are so sweet and show that clipart can work beautifully with photo backgrounds. For me it's a pity that we have so little snow the last decades. So no snowy photos for me to use unless I can get some from the parents in law of my daughter. Love what you did.

Finally finished my Sketch Challenge. Introducing my new great grandson, Raja Blue Lennox, little brother to Magic. He was born at home on Aug 31, and it took the parents a week to come up with a name. ? I think he weighed in at nearly 9 lbs. Daddy Will introduced him with a musical rendition of the opening to The Lion King, so I went with the theme and used a Lion King poster in the background, mirrored and screened in each of the 9 squares. The mat behind them has a wood grain pattern. The crown brads are from Janet Kemp. The title font is Broadway, treated to a Copper gradient and a Chrome Reflection gradient. The little word art top left is from Marisa Lerin. I tried out PSP's One Step Photo Fix and was impressed with the results. I think it is improved in PSP 2023.