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This is my Week Five: I bought this Phalaenopsis (Moth Orchid) from the supermarket in June, 2023, when it was in full bloom but had gone on sale for half price. The care instructions said to put three ice cubes on the pot, below the leaves, each week. I happened to have Miracle Grow orchid fertilizer from previous attempts so this time I made up a solution and froze it in ice cube trays. (I had resisted using ice in the past, thinking the orchids are tropical and would not appreciate ice.) Well, it flourished and now it is putting out its third set of blooming stems, still going strong after 7 months! It's the best result I've ever had trying to keep one of these plants alive. I've resisted attempting to repot it, fearful I would ruin the spell. Font is Showcard Gothic

P52 Week Three Font is Pastel Orange Regular (Creative Fabrica). My aunt had this pattern; Royal Albert - Petit Point China.

P52 Week Two Font is Shizuko (Creative Fabrica) This is a very textured cup (physically textured) with some dragons on it. It's pretty cool, but hard to really show from this angle.

Almost the end of January. This is Lab 11 Mod 11. Requirements: cross pattern - the background paper; cutout edge - I made a strip which I am not showing in this layout, but I made the shape as a paint brush and used the Vector Shape script around a round colored paper in white; paper clip 3 - one of those thick ones that is hard to open - I used the Change to Target tool to make it a copper color. The font is Arial Black. I see that we are going to have the Built-A-Kit Workshop again. YAY!!

And day 7.

And finally Day 6.

This is what I'm currently working on: Carole's Pencil Sketch2 script. Having a lot of fun! I did the four cats and then combined them with papers and embellishments from the ID-Circle of Life Kit. I have a total of 5 images; one for each cat and then the composite layout. All the backgrounds are from the kit. I also included a folded edge on the lower left sketch of Mommy in the composite. EDIT: Didn't care for the layout so I revised it a bit.

Week 4. I've started puzzling again. A little bit every day, sometimes I skip a day. The hardest part is now coming.

Beautifully done Mary, you are an inspiration with the Labs. That clip looks real! I think I know them as "bulldog" clips and you are right, the bigger ones are hard to open.

Week 4 was a week of storm damage and the arrival of the first snowdrops. I chose a photo of the snowdrops because it was a happier image.

P52 Week One I am finally on board. I used Arial for this card. Two scripts were used: Custom Playing Cards and the new Counting Cards. Both very versatile scripts by the way. I love having the the choice of Vector format for the lettering on the Counting Cards Script - thank you Carole for thinking of the user and giving so much versatility to us. The Custom playing card script is very cool. It makes mask for the photo, but you have the option to turn off the mask and put the photo between the bottom and 'suit' layer...but dont be like me and forget to use the magic wand and clip off the extra photo bits or you wont get that round card corner from the bottom layer. the second photo I add is how I will choose which card to do for each week. It's all going to be the same photo and deck (isnt that the weirdest looking deck of cards?) so maybe I'll only post the turned over card every once in a while. the little Magnet I made is from this round (what I thought was a) deck of cards, only about 2 inches in diameter. It's called 5 Crowns and has and extra suit. I thought they were cute and were a complete deck. well, there is no Aces or 2's so I'll have to make up something. And I changed the color as the clubs were green. I needed a way to show an off-white playing card in the forum which is white so I chose to use the Counting Cards script and place in on a background. It's fun getting back to PSP. I will still be behind, but I'm going to catch up after this coming busy week.

My pickleball trip was sooo much fun! Everyone was so kind and helpful with Judy. She told me she wasn't going the night before we were to leave. I had to call her best friend to talk her in to going. She said she would go but she wasn't playing pickleball. I said, "OK", but the first time we went to the courts, she jumped right in to play and played everyday. Everyone loved her instantly. She was cheerfully greeted everywhere and received numerous hugs. Her partner for the clinic was great and they won the silver medal at the end of the clinic. We went with a group of 10 and played games every afternoon and evening...so much fun! There was another group from Massachusetts and the loved joining us for games. We made wonderful friends! This layout is of one of our group who had a "Truth or Dare" . She chose "Dare" and was asked to smile as big and wide as she could and hold it for 2 minutes. We now know 2 minutes is too long and tortuous. Her cheeks were sore the next day.

Day 7...In addition to the two in the layout, their Father came to help...or check on them They were very thorough and did a great job. Another neighbor who owns a tractor plowed our driveway and, of course, the dog was a big help! I have wonderful neighbors!

Day 6...two of the children on our street came to shovel our sidewalk. They are 7 and 9. I'm pretty sure this was the first time they had shoveled snow. It was very much appreciated.

I take it Valentine. I used Cassel's HeartChainB picture tube to make the heart behind the lovers. The font is Young Love ES from AZ Fonts. The new word is KNIT.

this is my day 6 template

I have a gas stove so the broiler is on the bottom. It came with a broiler pan with two layers a slotted one and a drip pan under it. I make sure after I have put the steaks on a plate to take the pan to the sink and use the sprayer to rinse the " good stuff " off the top into the pan below. Then I empty the water with all those good seasonings into a pot to make some Au Jus to use with the steaks or put away for later. I guess because the steaks are pretty lean there isn't a lot of fat in it. Of course with today's prices I don't do many steaks anymore.

I use to bake a lot and also cook. Now I seldom bake but do all the cooking. I have a very thin blade knife I got from my parents. It was a give away at a gas station if you purchased a certain amount of gas...lots of years ago. It is the last piece of that set. It is perfect for slicing cake and I guard it, making sure no one walks off with it. It rusts easily so I make sure to dry it immediately after washing it.

My husband has done a lot of research into his and mine family history, for almost 20 years he had his own website. But now it is almost impossible to find new data. In WWII a lot is destroyed and over the years a lot of books that in the old days were kept in the churches went missing as well. He got as far back as possible ( somewhere in 1600) and a branch of both our families came from Germany and France.

Being adopted I find all your ancestry stories to be fascinating. Thank you for sharing them so openly. Ann, I didn't even notice until I read your post about you putting the two halves together.

I started cooking out of necessity at a fairly young age. I am now pretty old and have a gazillion kitchen gadgets, but maybe my favorite and most used these days is my instant-read thermometer! After years of leaving food to cook 'just a little longer to be safe', I can now know when it's done to perfection! It would be my first kitchen accessory recommendation for any new cook!

The Campus is the perfect place to learn more about photo editing, various techniques, or PSP in general. This challenge will allow you to practice some of those techniques or use some tools. This time, the Tut/Tech Challenge will be to create the folded edge effect that was demonstrated during the last Master Class, Bordermania 2. That class is still available for free when you log in. This particular technique is illustrated at the 24th minute of the video so you can fast forward until that point. Show us what you learned.

I don't know if I can help you, because of me being in Europe. I always try to find a glossy-matt paper. In essence that paper is matt so you can write on it, but it has some shine on the paper that let your photos/layouts look way better then on matt paper. I sometimes have difficulties in finding it when I have used up the ones I had. Good luck, a new printer deserves good paper!

What a creative idea to use a deck of cards with your teacups, so like you!!!! It will be a pleasure to see one each week and now you are set up it won't take much time to do a layout.

@Susan Ewart - BEAUTIFUL. MY FOLKS HAD A BLUE AND GOLD SET LIKE THAT WITH THE RAISED TEXTURE. Only one of my grandchildren loves to set a beautiful table so she was given all of my beautiful china things and my silver, as I don't do that any more.

Count me in too. I love a party....there's always masks at a party isn't there?

And Day 5.

Down to the wire with these, but here are Days 3 and 4.

My dad was not raised attending church. His mother was Catholic, his father never went to church and wouldn't allow the kids to attend the Catholic church. So all of the 13 kids that got married usually joined the religion/church their spouse attended. For dad, it was Methodist. For several others, it was the Catholic church. Grandma never forgot her upbringing and when she attended weddings of grandchildren that were in a Catholic church, she kneeled when it was appropriate to do so. The family is split pretty even between Catholic and Protestant. I told an uncle about what I found and he said that in the last couple of years when he converted to Catholicism from Church of Christ he had to know his baptismal date. So he checked with the church he attended the whole time he was married previously. He was also in his 20's. Mom and Dad had gotten married in Mom's church about 4 months before he joined.

I am very lucky that my ancestry is mostly French and French catholic churches were very detailed for records. Most church records that have not been destroyed in fires for example, have been microfilmed or compiled. I have one branch that goes back 15 generations, and around the time Champlain came to North America, around 1608. And then, some books have also ancestry further in Europe.

I would love to have my family tree done, but the records for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe are close to impossible for me to find. I can only go back as far as my grandparents who came to the U.S. as children at the turn of the last century. Too bad I'm not a celebrity or Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. could do the work for me on Finding My Roots! 🙂 One of these days, I'll invest some time and money to see if I can trace my roots.

When I was in College, I got into genealogy and there was a big library of compiled parish records of most of the Quebec province, and some outside. I had notebooks of notes to transcribe. We didn't have computers back then, to access all the information that is now easily available.

Today I did my monthly volunteer work for the county (but miles away) family history centre in the library. I was reminded of a day when a woman from Texas came here (to Ontario) looking for family info. It just so happens that I had written about her ancestor's hotel built in my home town in 1900 and I was able to show her what I had and to take her and her husband for a drive to show them what was left to see (the foundation outline only). That was back in July 2022, and we had a lot of fun with the materials she brought along which included some very old photos. In the pic, I'm at left, she's in the middle, and another volunteer is right. Just a lot of elements and blending and playing going on.

Week four and the start of the Tulip season! 🌷 Tulips are now widely available in the shops and I bought a bunch. It will take 3 or 4 months before they will be in bloom outdoors; the ones we can buy now are grown in glasshouses. The start of the season is always on Tulipday, which is the 3rd Saturday of January and is celebrated in Amsterdam on a square in the city center. There is a huge display of tulips and when the official opening is over, people can come and pick a bunch of tulips for free. I have never been there because it is not where I live. I'll buy them in a shop, but it always gives you the feeling that Spring isn't that far away!

This was one of the dingbats in today 2/26/24 free font on Creative Fabrica. " House-Plants-29702631" I used one of them and put it on a wood background and did the cut out the way Cassel showed us how to do in the recent workshop. I thought it turned out pretty so I am posting it.

I take it: pets. 😺 Here are my Ferals with better photos. I call the young male Thunderbolt and the adult is Mommy. I used a new kit from Gingerscraps called The Circle of Life based on The Lion King. The new word is: Valentine.

"I take it" Children. NEW WORD -- Pets. (dogs, cats, fish, mice -------)

I don't have a slow cooker, but I'm glad you were happy with your results.

Interestingly, just this weekend, we tried a new recipe for chicken breasts. It was soooooo easy (5 minutes prep). It is to cook those breasts in the slow cooker. NO LIQUID added, yet, it generated almost a cup of its own juice and the meat was so tender.

I had to Google rolling pin rings, but now that I've seen how they work, it makes perfect sense to me. If you want to cook chicken breasts but are concerned that they will dry out, try this. Bread (I like to use Panko crumbs) and par fry them to get the desired color on the breading. Put them in a baking dish, add chicken broth, and bake at 400F for about 30 to 45 mins. When they're all done, the broth will have been absorbed and the chicken will be nice and moist. Since I don't usually like white meat because it's too dry for my taste, I was glad when my sister taught me this method.

I take it 🙂 I started without a template, wow, to fill it when you don't have an idea how to fill it.............was difficult. I started with the photo and then mats, looked in my stash for spring elements and found a freebie form Carole too. The result is maybe not as nice as earlier projects, but it's ok. Used blend mode, texture effects/blinds. The new word is children 🙂

WEEK FOUR - Celebrating our frigid, snowy weather; a nice closeup from the Hudson Valley in Pictures gallery by Cindy Plumb Bishop on 01-20-24. I changed my font from Wide Latin to Showcard Gothic.

That's cool. I would have love to see what the whole set looks like. They (T-cups) are little pieces of art, I can afford. However, I now have way too many so I must say goodbye to some of them this year.