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I have been playing with layouts for the last week or so. The going has been rather slow, but since there is no rush, I continue to tinker and adjust until it's time to let them go! The eclipse layout uses photos from a photographer who was mentioned on the radio as having spectacular pictures online. So I checked, grabbed a few and tried the Grid layout, which was not a great success. Each time I've tried it, the pix just don't snap to grid readily. So I leave it, out of frustration. The photog is Steve Biro. The actual blacking out of the sun in its totality was amazing, of course, but we then had a new "light" shining on us suddenly which threw us right off! It turns out it was one of the planets that was illuminated. Wish I had a photo of that! The other layout is based on a United Church decommissioning that took place on Sunday last (14th). Another small rural church has closed (near my home town). I attended to show my respects, took some pix, and observed the loss the folks there were experiencing. It was very sad. The Catholic church, not far away and the one I attended as a child, is experiencing a spurt of new attendance and the danger of closure has passed, yet again.

Cats...I have had many. These are a few:

More dogs:

I created these layouts for the Alphabet Book challenge. Mac belonged to my parents when I was born so he was my first pet.

I have another one from Storkow (say: "shtorkoh") , fonts are Bebas Kai and Brixton. Pls click image as there is no border yet again . And again this is 6x8 inches waiting to be migrated onto an 8x10 bg to match the preceding pages.

Hi all, Well then I'll start: As a child, cats and dogs followed me. But we couldn't keep pets in my family. So my husband gave me a dog right at the start of our marriage because we had to have a weekend marriage for three months because of his professional training. I was so homesick that he didn't want to leave me alone. After our dog, who had to be put down in 1990 when he was 17, I got a tomcat by "accident"; a previous owner had already called him "Peterli" to whom he had been given, but didn't get along with her existing tomcat. The artist who drew a very nice poster to display for him was a fellow singer from my gospel choir who was sitting next to me. At first I just wanted the beautiful drawing, but I immediately got the cat. He was with us for 13 years and we trained him to use a harness so that we could take him on vacation trips. Then he became very ill, had surgery, it went on for another 2 years, then the cat cancer broke out again and the area could no longer be operated on. We then got the second black and white tomcat from our cat protection association, my husband named him “Cicero”. Unfortunately our sick Peterli didn't like that and ran away. 14 days later I was able to catch him again nearby, emaciated. It was with a heavy heart that we had him euthanized at home in the hot August of 2005. Cicero, who we called "Rambo" because of his impetuous nature, was also used to being on a leash and went on vacation with us (usually on farms in Bavaria, Allgäu or Black Forest). Unfortunately, he only lived to be 2 years old. In 2007, in another hot April, we found him dead on a road embankment near us after a long search. Now my husband no longer wants pets because he finds it difficult to cope with the death of a pet again. I would like to have both again, also because of the exercise. But I don't want to surprise my husband and I respect his attitude

Week 15 - Ran across this photograph of a hunting Osprey on Bored Panda. The photographer is Chen Chengguang from Vietnam. He specializes in artistic shots of birds. The Osprey, like the Bald Eagle, hunts fish.

I've got a lot of older layouts about my dogs throughout my life! I've had 4 dogs. One from the age of 9 to about 23. It was another 22 years before I got another dog. Less than 2 years later, I got a 2nd dog and had them for quite awhile. After they passed, I waited 18 months before getting my current dog. She will be my last. I found training a dog in my 60's was not as easy as training a dog in my 40's!!! Here are 2 layouts about them.

WOW! Love this Ann.

Oh, Sue, seeing how they trust you is so sweet! Those photos are a gem! ❣️

Thanks so much for sharing, so inspiring! 💗💗💗 Love it.

Every Wednesday a group of women pickleball players meet after playing pickleball and have lunch together. After that we play table games...usually something different each week. Overall, it is the group that traveled to a pickleball clinic in January and we have a trip planned for March, 2025. Now you know why there are pickleballs in a layout for table games.

South Carolina is my home state...born and raised there. The University of South Carolina has seldom done well in sports but our women's basketball team has done very well. They won the national championship for the third time in 2024 and they are undefeated in the 2024 season. Needless to say, this season was outstanding for our fams. Dawn Staley is the coach and she does not refer to spectators as fans...they are fams...and the atmosphere feels like family. 2024 was a big year for women's basketball everywhere. The women's games were drew more spectators than the men's games (National Championship) and tickets for the women's games demanded and received a higher price. All of this is huge for women's sports!

Wow! they are gorgeous!

I choose some photos of the Blue Mountain Rige: with a Cassel Template and a Cassel paper cass-MultiPhotoFrame3-6x6.pspimage (Template) cass-GradientStripes-Beach-02.jpg (border)

Week 15 At last I managed to get a half way decent photo of a goldfinch – two of them waiting for me to stop peering at them so that they can get on with eating the Niger seeds.

I have no photos of pets because we never had one. When I grew up I lived in postwar Rotterdam and in the new apartment building where we lived it was forbidden to have animals (cats and dogs mostly). Once I had a hamster but that wasn't a great succes either. Later when I was married my husband wanted to have an aquarium with some fish and we had that for a couple of years. One summer we went for a holiday and couldn't find someone to feed the fish. So we dropped them in the little pond we had in the garden fully convinced they would not survive in the "wild"! To the delight of the children they survived and had made babies! They stayed there and we had many offspring over the years until the one day a grey heron had discovered there was a nice meal to be had in our garden. Both of our children are allergic to cats and dogs and nobody had ever heard of a labradoodle in those days. Luckily my daughter has overcome her allergies and there are 2 dogs in her family which my granddaughters love very much. I enjoy them when I visit there and it was quite funny when I visited last year the dogs suddenly realized that I had come and they went a bit crazy to great me and begged for a cuddle and a treat. I think they will do something similar when I arrive on Tuesday! I haven't time to search for some photos or supplies for this theme but wanted to tell my story anyway.

I was out feeding the birds and using the Merlin app on my phone to record birdsong which the app identifies. I have a new "lifer" bird- the Yellow-Rumped Warbler (Myrtle variety). Here are the details for my layout: Template-cass-corner-slip in background paper=PSBT First title font=Agency Photo=Cornell Labs Merlin Bird ID 2nd title font=Brave Hearted + Curlz MT Paint splash=treed-Have A Nice Day Journal Card sketch-cass-pencil sketch 2 Bird info: Harpswell Heritage Land Trust-Maine-Nature Notes Date stamp-cass #4 Since the text is reduced I'll post it separately, also.

Sue, in addition to what you teach us about the natural world, I love your frames. You turned me on to the transparent frames in PSP Picture frames. Thank you. Guess that's what started me on developing multiple transparent frames of various opacity.

Over the course of this past winter, and previous winters I have taken no end of photos of the delighful Chickadees at the National Parks where I snowshoe, and hike. The background photo is one of last year's apple blossoms. When I hear them I get out the seed, many will come and take food from my hand. They have become accustomed to me. I can only take photos of them feeding using my mobile photo, which pretty much basic, and takes crappy pics. My camera is to cumbersome to use one handed.

Slowly the native migratory birds are returning. THis one is a white throated Sparrow. I'd say that all native sparrows are considered song birds. I haven't done a proper frame in quite a while. Colours used came from the photo. One of last night's little projects.

You are catching all my lapses! 😉

💗Oh thank you so much @Michele! So sweet of you!! I'd thought my googling was pretty solid, but I sure did not find it... so this is really great. I am hoping to use it on a poster for a friend and her flower arrangement classes. Can't wait to look at it up close. 💗

I was playing with screenshots from an Explore live cam. Today's rainy sunrise and a pretty one from another day. Used the blend mode to come up with this. The Text is the freeby from C F It is called Pastels but has that drippy look.