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Day 6 ~ heading towards the finish line! Inside of card reads, "You reached the stars. Now spread your wings and fly!"

Hi, today I was able to finish the third card in peace. @ Carole: Email is on the way. The "doctor-doctor" Scrap is already older and unfortunately without Tou's and names, only "CD". The heart with EKG is from Pixabay- OpenClipart-Vectors

Extra card 6. I chose a paper by Jessica Dunn from Digital Scrapbook called Cornflowers & Cows striped paper. The photograph was taken many years ago in San Francisco's Chinatown. The font is Chinthia White from Creative Fabrica. Jeni

Card 5 extra. Background used is from Annette Marie from Digital Scrapbook. Font is Cambria, it comes already installed. Seals are local entities, they can be a nuisance sleeping beside the road near beaches. We have to be careful they don't wander. Jeni

The extra card for Card 4. We have a beautiful lighthouse on the south coast, about a half hour away and we often see sea lions either on the beach, or come up to the dunes in front of the lighthouse to sleep the day away. I have almost fallen over them, they hide in the long tussocks. I have used Lemon Milk and Liorah BT for this card. The quote is by Rumi. The ribbon is from Janet Kemp at Digital Scrapbook and I did alter the colour to fit. Jeni

@Doska St. A kindred spirit ~ I'm a font-a-holic, too! @Jeni Simpson I use the Image Information to keep track of what I do.

Yes Ann, It's amazing when you see wild animals in your domestic situation isn't it. I used to live on my own in a mobile home and one night I felt the wall gently moving. It wasn't scary as I could tell it wasn't human intervention but it was a deer that had wandered down from nearby woods and was rubbing its back on the edge of the mobile home. Maybe it had an itch or it was a territory thing putting its smells there. I don't know.

And it's so obvious, what they are doing. You'd think drug dealers would want to be more inconspicuous. and now having home-pick up service. I had a manager once who, on her days off, worked at her friends "farm". Then we hired someone and she recognized the manager as the "drug lady" in the area (where you could go buy drugs). We never told her we knew, we let her go on telling us she worked at the "farm" on such and such day. Was hard not to look at my co-worker and not laugh.

I live in a good old neighborhood. A few years ago we are pretty sure a house a few doors down was being used to sell drugs but nothing bad ever happened. There is no way anyone would have as many short time visitors as there was there. I know it was reported to the police and the visits finally stopped so I guess they had a little "talk" with the owner.

This week was all about saying goodbye to our car. As some of you know I can't drive anymore due to my eye condition and now my husband quits driving too. For him it was a tough decision and we had a lot of difficult conversations about it but I'm so glad he does quit. The last couple of years we had some near miss accidents and I was in constant fear that one of these days it would turn out to be a serious accident! Our car was already a rather old one, so we were glad the garage that does the maintenance was interested and bought it. On Wednesday afternoon we brought the car and went home on foot; it's only 15 minutes at the most. Now we have the whole summer to get used to the fact that we have to use bike, bus or train. In the Netherlands that is not a problem, we live 5 minutes from the train station and in 8 minutes we are in the city that has all the amenities like a hospital that our village doesn't have. I had to make a photo of our trusted companion of the last 8 years; it is parked on the parking spot behind our house.

Lab 12 Mod 7. Requirements: embossed metal element - upper right corner; diamonds 3 - background paper; zigzag stitch - tent and tree at bottom left of journal paper. This was my 2nd attempt at doing this module. I was going to do a layout of one of the national parks Joe & Laurie visited on our 2021 trip, and I may do that later. For this one, I used my template designed for the beach kit.

🤗 Thank you Jeni. I am a big FONT fan😍, I have in 19 years 4000 fonts collected. But I'm still always on the lookout for new fonts in different styles. Of course, I also have to remove some that I have duplicated or never used.😊Your font i used for a birthday card for a family member now.

Thank you very much Jeni, I thought "romantically" in your scrap description was a description, not a font name, sorry. and your newest card are very elegant. I have a scrap from Chinatown too in my DS-Gallery.

@Dee Morris and @Jeni Simpson I'm determined to complete the workshop this time. The thread remains open so there is no time limit. Don't hesitate to share what you finish.

I so agree with you, Dee. If I don't manage to get everything done, I can still complete the cards anyway.

These cards are just amazing! As usual, when I sign up for a workshop I immediately get a heavy workload. But I did get three cards so far. I can't believe what I have learned in just these three projects!

After reading the latest blog post about using a split page, I downloaded one of the templates, and came up with this. Organza ribbon, (used Carole's bow script), paper bow. Banner from the masterclass. I was fortunate enough yesterday to witness these two 5-6 week old ground squirrels emerge from their undergound nursery for the very first time. They were so tiny, one would fit comfortably in the palm of my hand. Unfortunately, that wasn't likey to happen.

Here is another layout that I finally finished last week. I don't remember what I had in mind for the page when I started, but it was probably different from what it is now. Credits: Background paper - Playtime Princess_D4ED_hearts paper 8, an old freebie by Pauline Thompson / Dream4Ever. Cassel: DateStamp#8 -- Hanging Photos Script Font: Lazy Ride Script

For the Bingo I went with the 5th vertical row: Snowflake, Paperclip, License plate, Ticket, Glitter gel. I already had created a California license plate for my photo album and only had to change the text on it. A have several paperclips done before and of course the ticket was done with my own script (I had never thought that I would use that so much). Snowflake and glitter gel were done with tutorials, but for the glitter gel I used a preset shape instead of drawing it by hand; I'm terrible at drawing! As a starting point for the layout I used the template Lab 14-02.

Thank you, Doska for your comments. I'm glad to help with naming that font, no apology is required. I'm trying to remember what fonts I use, and I might have to name layers using font names. I have a few fonts with names ending in 'free for personal'. Your Chinatown scrap is great, Doska, you used an unusual 'frame' for your photograph, I love it.

Thank you, Michelle. It looks like I have now completed all of mine. Phew!

Hi Doska, it is a favourite script font of mine, Romantically Free for personal, and is by Mais Fontes. It is available free at cufonfonts.com.

Lab 12 Mod 6. Requirements: Mandala - back of the pictures; paint streaks 2 (Not happy with this) behind the gold butterfly; Gold Texture the frame on the background layer. I used Cass Circle Pictures for the pictures and then resized it for this layout (hid the original background layer).

It's sad that we cant even feel safe in our own homes. When I lived in another province, there was a lot of home invasions happening, mostly to elderly and some elderly were beaten and some were beaten so badly they passed away from the injuries. I was in my late 30's and even I felt scared to be alone in my own home, or to answer the door bell. In some of the invasions, they just busted the door in and went in demanding money. Does it seem that in current times it's somewhat worse because we have to be tolerant of so many things. In British Columbia (where I lived before), they recently made all drugs legal (I think the federal govt did that there as a test to see if it would make fewer drug addicts and crime because of the addiction). Now the BC govt is asking this new law to repealed because the situation got worse not better. It's like adding fire to fire to put it out. Corrie, that's a scary situation to be in. people on drugs are so unpredictable. Just last week in Edmonton a young 16 yr boy was walking their dog with his mother and a homeless man they've seen many times, jumped out of the bush and stabbed the young boy in the neck, he passed away at the scene. They think he had some kind of drug related "episode", thankfully he has been deemed fit for trial. It makes you want to go live far away from people. The older I get the more I am aware of situations like that and how helpless I probably am to do anything about it.

When we moved here to our newish (less than 10 years old) condo 6 years ago, my family was concerned because it was situated next door to city low-income housing which is a sprawling, low rise apartment complex. Beyond that is another fairly new condo development. So, the population is fairly dense, even though there are horse farms just across the main road. Everything is lit up like daylight all night long and behind is an active rail line and industrial workings. Meanwhile, the county constructed what they dubbed the Rail Trail for walkers that stretches for miles and part of which is just the other side of our parking lot. We were getting too many casual visitors from it, so the Association put up a high fence behind our dumpsters which blocked the hikers access to us. But, meanwhile, though you could describe our population as truly eclectic from retirees to college students and all colors of the rainbow there had never been any serious police action here until recently. My unit is far in the back and the activity was way out towards the road and I came to find out that 3 young men, living together, had a dispute and two were shot, one killed and one escaped, though injured but he was later caught. He died later in the hospital. I was rather shocked that this happened in MY complex, not next door! I still feel pretty safe here though I still keep my car locked and door locked (most of the time) but I'm more aware this is a city environment, not rural as I was previously. I also just found out that if there is any trouble, it's at the other condo complex, far beyond the "projects" next door. There are always lots of dog walkers, baby-carriage pushers and roller skaters going past my unit. I do like all the activity, and it doesn't seem to deter the flock of Canada Geese and Black Vultures from visiting me and all my songbirds and squirrels coming for food I put out. Meanwhile, I've accumulated a crew of semi-feral cats who come twice a day for meals. Their number varies, though I count 6 or 7 now. My two indoor cats are rather appalled! 😉

She like dsriving?;)

Fiona, I went out on my front porch last evening to pick up empty cat food bowls and surprised a white-tail doe who was visiting! My daughter had come by to plant my patio container earlier and I think the doe got a bite of the newly planted flowers. I didn't have a camera handy.

(I admit, I'm obsessed with my cat! I rescued her when she was just 1 lb. We've come a long way) My idea came after seeing her sitting in my car night after night -- the photo is NOT mine - but this cat looks just like Adira!! Amazingly, my car looks just like this car! I got a lot of images from Creative Fabrica and the background from Vecteezy (attribution to: <a href="https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/road-background">Road Background Vectors by Vecteezy</a>)

I have seen another deer today in the strangest of places. My friends and I passed through the very peaceful and massive, historic Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey as part of a country walk and some deer were paying their respects as well (or eating the flowers and shrubs). At this point we were in the American Military graves area. Didn't see any groundhogs!

Day 5. I'll finish the whole workshop if it kills me! 😁

We moved into a brand new house on the wrong side of town (unknown to us at the time). Very quickly we found out across the street and two houses down was a drug house (rental). One weekend we saw over 100 people come and go and even had drug deals going down right outside our front door. It was getting worse and worse and we figured it was only time before we would be broken into. So we put the house up for sale and bought one in a better part of town. People were coming to look at the other house right when the police came to bust the house and the utility company came to shut off the gas and electricity. The potential buyers took one look at what was going down and didn't even get out of the car. Worse was my friend here in Edmonton (who've now just moved to Scotland), lived in a high end townhouse (2 level) condo complex. The city decided to buy a unit and house a homeless person in it (for free, or rather on the tax payers money). This homeless person quickly turned the unit into a chop shop for stolen bicycles, stolen goods as well as being a drug supplier to the street people that flocked to the unit. The tenant would freely past his key fob out to any street person and there was no end of people coming and going from the unit often over 20 people in the unit. All the residents had something stolen from the underground parking and storage lockers. the residents feared taking their garbage to the dumpster as there was often very sketchy, scary people coming there to buy drugs. Many complaints and letters to the city later, and a smashed bottle over someone's head, the city is finally taking it to court, as it's very hard to evict someone, even if they are engaging in criminal activity. The residents were told to take pictures for the court case. It's been very stressful and scary for the residents as these street people are very unpredictable. It's sad for the original owners who are the victims. I sure hope they are able to bring charges to the people that did this.

Just playing around. I started with a PSP kaleidoscope picture from a lavender Iris flower on blue sky background. I changed the background to green and I added a bunch of fairies from a couple of bundles from C F.

Well, I've been working on my wild cat calendar for June so I thought I'd show it off as it has been created in May. I'll post it full size on Facebook so it can be printed @ 8.5 x 11 inches. I used a cass template from last year's calendar workshop. Introducing the critically endangered beautiful little Andean Mountain Cat from South America. The fonts are Wakanda for the June title and Britannia Bold for the rest. I love his little white moustache!

I think you are twins...I have a hard time telling you apart...🤣 You both have a hat on and you both wear glasses, totally twins!

Once again, the Mountain Laurel is having a bountiful year. Template 221 by Lady 22.

Week 21 Hawthorn flowers photographed at the start of the week. I walked past the tree again yesterday and all the flowers had been dislodged by the heavy rain of the last few days so I was glad to have caught this image when I did.

Lab 12 Mod 5; requirements: 1. create a paper with random dots - the frame paper around the picture (I created several and chose this one to display); 2. create a pattern of triangles facing in opposite directions (#7) - I used the pattern for a paper, and a ribbon and used Cassel's script for Bow 12; 3. embossed paper - I had quite a time creating the butterfly pattern for the embossing to display it the way I like - but it gave me an idea of how to create patterns for embossing that are not round. I placed the picture in a mask I created when I was fooling around with various transparencies of frames; and I used that sparkled butterfly that I used in the last module.

I have no photos of this week, very unusual for me! We have had bad weather with lots of rain and we had to make some alterations in the house that were waiting until I was back from California and had slept off the jetlag. Therefore I decided today to make a photo from my workspace where I do all my scrapping; I already had decided to have that idea as a backup for when there really wasn't anything else going on.

Week Twenty One - a face only a mother could love 😉 My buddy Ed Frampton sent this as a joke, but I couldn't resist putting it up on the showcase.

Week twenty one. Finally the seeders are going flat out in our area.

Well, you live and learn. He looks like the beavers we have here in the UK that they are trying to re-establish in our waterways as their numbers were dwindling. I think they have a more rubbery tail though. He looks a bit naughty. I will look up "punxsutawney phil". (My husband's name is Phil so should be funny!)

No, not at all. It's more like this:

I found a little tree frog in my raspberry bushes and thought it would be a fun show-and-tell item for the little girl I nannied. I captured it in a small bowl and used plastic wrap (with a few holes punched in) to keep it contained. I put the bowl on the counter for the next morning's trip to the girl's house. The whole afternoon the frog chirped. And chirped. And chirped. So I put the bowl in the car. The next morning, I got into the car to drive to the girl's house, only to discover that the frog was no longer in the bowl. It had gotten thru the plastic wrap and escaped. In my car. I searched the whole car but did not spot it. For the next two weeks I drove with my pants legs tucked into my socks so the hopper wouldn't surprise me crawling up my leg. And for two weeks I left all four car doors open in the hopes it would find its way free. It must have gotten out as I found no frog or smelled any remnants of it.

I was struggling to make an intropage for the photos I took from the daily life and things I did at home. After some thought I concluded that there was one item that covers it all: the place where they live! So I used the cass-photocircle template script again, this time with hearts and photos I took in Los Altos plus the seal of the city (thanks to google). The family photos will come on the next photo pages in the album. I wrote a short story about the place, of course in Dutch, but roughly translated it says: "Los Altos is a nice city in Santa Clara County in Silicon Valley and ca 40 mile from San Francisco. Downtown, the compact older part of the city has a lot of nice shops and restaurants to eat outside. Many of the streets have big trees that provide shadow". The background is a photo with reduced opacity of the frontyard of their house.

I should be too embarrassed to say how long it takes me to do a layout I can live with. Then, I should also be ashamed to admit how many times I had to try the interlacing elements technique that Sue T. pointed me back to. I have watched that video several times over the months and still have issues with which layer is top and which is bottom and then where does the darn Promoted Selection go! I'm going to keep using that technique until I get it right and quick! Photo of irises from Unsplash. Adjusted blur & hue. The translucent frame around the single iris is from Natali Designs at Pickleberry Pop. Other stuff is just splatters and paint. Font is FrouFrou. I found out that when you do this interlacing with a frame, you can't add a bevel. But is that just me too?

This is my second intro and it is a much simpler layout because it is all about Yosemite national park. It has a photo with reduced opacity as a background and I used cass-Multi frames collage freebie (as many of you have done) with another photo. Made a datestamp with cass-Datestamp 9 and an engraved rock (also a cass script). The flower is extracted from a photo; it is a California Dogwood and they were in flower throughout the valley in the park. I think I will use it on some of the photos in the album as well. The font of the title is Algerian and the rest is Bahnschrift. The idea for the title comes from a poster about the park which I bought when we were in San Luis Obispo. By chance we happened to come by an art gallery where they had posters of all the national parks. The old posters were, many years ago, made by an artist who gave before his death a young artist, named Thomas, the rights to design new poster. The only condition was that he had to do them in the same style and they are now printed and available in a limited and numbered edition. I don't have the font that he used on the poster but something similar that kept the idea. My son-in-law bought another one of a different park. The gallery packed mine rolled up in a tube and it came home with me where it has been laying under some books to get it straight again. We will frame it next week.

I'm working on the intropages for a photo album of my recent trip. I have 3 "chapters" for my album and each one has a scrapbook page introducing the topic of that part. Here is the 1st one about the road trip we took. The dimensions of the layout are specific for the kind of printed album I choose. For this page I used the cass-Photo circle template script that I bought recently and I choose squares and how many I needed. This is a great script I will write a review in the store! Then I used the cass-label1 script with different colors to write the places where we went and the photos were taken. I have a US highway sign as a template that I can adapt. I had already made a californian numberplate with the screws , so I just had to write the date on it. The tire tracks are done with cass-Tire Track 1 -brush; I used a color with a texture and later a grungy brush on them as well. The background is made of a google map with some overlays and blendmodes. The blue sky is an overlay I have in my stash and the car and road sign are by DiHiller (blogtrain june 2023) and the little wooden cabin is by Marissa Lerin. I'm happy to get slowly back into scrapping!

It's been two years since Annie Tobin left us. As she would say: "Thanks for takin' a peek!" (The colorful background and alpha are her own designs. The frame is a cass-decorative stitches frame) ❤️

Using the cass-Multi-Framed Photos layout to scrap my granddaughter, Jackie and her husband, Corey, on their recent vacation to Granada in the Caribbean.