Leaderboard

I revised an old pic I had made for Fab Divas for today's U.S. holiday. I'm still not up to starting anything from scratch. (I was in the hospital with double pneumonia. I'm home now, but it's going to take a while to regain my stamina.) The gnomes are from Design Bundles; I think you all know about my love of gnomes. The font is Patriot from Fontspace. I have no idea where I got the background.

And do you know what else is on July 16th? Amazon Prime Day! That is pure coincidence as I didn't know about it!

Julie, your seahorses are surely almost mythical and this beast is also, though more on the horror side, than sweet fantasy. GAIASIA was a giant, predatory salamander from the time before the dinosaurs roamed and the earth was one big soup with one continent. Hoping the text is readable in reduced form, I took a Quick Page and turned it into a layered layout using promoted selections. I had a blank brad template and added the dragonfly art to replace a ship under sail which would indicate human habitation. Information from Wikipedia.

I've only ever had goldfish in my life, and those when I was a kid. It broke my heart then to flush them away when they were found floating on the top. I preferred cats; they seemed to last longer. Seahorses, now, are absolutely fascinating to me. Sometimes I forget they're real and think of them like I do unicorns. Sadly, they are also endangered. (What isn't anymore?) Just a simple layout to showcase a photo (Daniel Clode) from Unsplash. Most elements from Katie Pertiet Designs.

This week no photos of flowers or plants in the rain/sun, but of the yearly fair in the middle of the village. I wanted to go and take photos in the evening too because of all the lights that come with a fair, but that didn't happen. We had company and we were invited somewhere else for dinner. When I could have gone it was pouring with rain!

Isn't that amazing to see?

Michele all the best and take good care of yourself; double pneumonia is not something to take lightly! We are here and love to see your work when you are up to it again.

Fascinating! Somehow, it makes me think of Debbie's first baby, Magic, who was born underwater in a hot tub! 😁 Northern California mothers were into weird techniques. 😉

Seahorse reproduction fascinates me. The females deposit their eggs into a pouch on the males' stomachs. The eggs are then fertilized in the pouch. A few weeks later the males give birth.

For me he's in the category of "so ugly he's cute."

I just realized I spelled the state wrong! Good grief!

Marking that date on my calendar! Congrats again.

Just to let everyone know, the pre-sale will start on July 9th, but I would like to TRY to get to #1 on Amazon, even if only for one day! To help out, I would ask anyone who wants to get the book to order it ONLY ON RELEASE DATE, which is July 16th! The more sales/day will give more chances to reach #1. Sales during pre-sale counts, but would be spread over more days, so hold off until July 16th!

I'm still stuck on vectors which I find fascinating. My latest little creature is an owl. The patterns are from FF, the feathers around the face are a'dozi feather brushes. Feathers on body, chest and wings are from feathers from CF made into patterns. Eyes and feet are from Canva.

What you are doing is incredible. we humans created the feral cat populations so we should also take care of them. And you are doing just that. I don't know of feral ones in my area, mine are all neighbour hood cats with collars or I know who owns them. So I tend to put my donation dollars to disadvantaged animals in need. It's hard to educate people that cats are not wild animals who need to roam. Nor, do I get into discussions with people like that anymore. Unless it's only to say, your cat will likely die a horrible death at the mouth of a coyote or tires of a car, can you live with that? It sounds cruel but you can't talk to people who don't want to change, and I dont need that kind of drama anymore. Thank goodness for you and animal groups that take on educating people.

I just discovered something. I was working in the vector workshop again and making elements. I made a leaf which I may show later, it is where I discovered something. When you create a vector shape and are using more than one shape, that vector shape when you bring it into a new layout has all the elements that made it up actually separate. I had made a shield in the previous vector workshop that used 2 elements to make it. When I use it, I can make each element a different color as shown in this screenshot. How neat is that???

I have marked my calendar too, but it is always a bit difficult to know when to start due to the time difference and I suspect that I need to go to the American Amazon site and not to the Dutch one that comes up first when I go to Amazon. If I'll be buying the book depends on how much it will cost having it send to me in Europe. Of course I can have it delivered to my daughter's but it will be in 2025 before I will be visiting there. Dilemmas..........

Fascinating and something I vaguely remember to have read somewhere, but this video makes it real and I won't forget it for sure.

Julie this are gorgeous creatures with their colors, most of the time when you see them in an aquarium they are greyish.

And I bet you had looked at the layout (as you were doing it) lots of times and read it, but your eyes just fixed the spelling before it told the brain. I've done that when it took someone else's eyes to see my mistake. funny how you keep reading it the same over and over, even when it's wrong.

OMG! That's so cool. I'll have to start early in case the world is ordering at once.

And that is why we always save our projects in pspimage format. I can't tell you how many times I don't see my errors until I've actually posted the project.

Oh Michele, I'm sorry to here about your illness. I hope you take it easy and get better soon. The campus gnomes (us!) will be here when you are fit to go. Hugs to you...around your shins...just like a good gnome would do!

Love the picture of the wee one. and such a pretty Celebration layout.

I heard something on the radio about giant creatures like this that roamed (or swam) long before dinosaurs. Wouldn't want to meet this one or any of those others!

July 16 it is!

I did it manually and soon you will be too!

I wondered about that! Don't feel bad, today I was downloading photos from my cousins FB account and for a certain event, I didn't want to download the photos I had already scrapped. So I was looking at the layouts I had already done and realized that I had the wrong name in the journaling! Thankfully, that layout hasn't been printed in a book for them yet but I had already printed my copy. I changed it and will get it reprinted for me.

Did you make significant changes to the proof copy that I have?

Sounds as if your garden centres are more general purpose than the ones we have. I love to visit them in the winter for something warm to do, but most don't offer much more than plants and garden supplies. It would be great to have a cafe in them! I also usually come home with a new plant! Glad you made it home safely with the larger plant. Here, fish and accessories are available at separate pet supply stores.

I'm so proud of you. I can't wait to get my copy. ❤️

I was poking around to find any layouts I had done for my other Bettas. I found this Quick Page for my guy, Patriot, which is fitting for today, America's Independence Day, July 4.

Donna you did a lot of work on this one, not only the vectors but especially the different patterns to "fill" your owl!

I sent them all on to you Ann. So we here in Ontario would have some clean walkways at the waterfront!😉

Oh, she's a pretty one.

That wee fox had his eye on you!

I made a couple of layouts for friends after they sent me some pix of things going on in their lives. Which tells you not much is going on in mine! 😁

Who would have thought that lions like a foot massage!

That's why, being a cat lover, I'm involved with TNR (Trap/Neuter/Return) to keep the feral population down. We're trying to avoid kill shelters so we set up a sanctuary for those ferals that can't be returned to the neighborhood or domesticated. We do foster all the kittens we rescue. My Brandy One is now in foster as she's too young to be spayed and returned. Meanwhile, I have Brandy Two who showed up for meals and will soon be trapped and sent to foster.

These are screenshots from an Audubon Osprey cam. The background I duplicated and blurred the top one and then erased the part over the Osprey.(I could have done a better job of that) I then used the same circle to cut out the head shots from other screenshots so they would all be the same size and placed them all over the place. Font for name is French Script MT.

oh, such sweet faces. Beautiful shot and great light.

Beautiful shot. We have them here too, one spot where many gather is right by a very busy intersection on the corner of a golf course in a marshy cat tail area. there is no place to stop to photograph them, unless i become a golfer.

My goodness, there must be loads of them, if your crew is only a small one. On average cats will kill over one hundred million birds a year in Canada. Domestic and feral cats aren't native to any ecosystem. Not only on birds but other native wildlife. It has been estimated that cats in Australia kills an average of one million birds per day. About three hundred and seventy seven million per year. Same, for the UK. The numbers are staggering world wide. Although they make wonderful pets for some people, they threaten birds and other wildlife and disrupt ecosystems. Rarely, I will get a stray tom cat from the neighbours, as they will travel long distances. I trap and dispose of them, cruel as that may sound to some. At least numbers are trying to be controlled in your area. It is a controversial issue. Here is a shot of one of my Red winged Blackbird's (male) on a cattail. I haven't noticed any fledgelings yet.

They are very aware of threats and spook at everthing! We have cats and hawks galore and the ferals were here long before I was. There are several very large colonies in the neighborhood. My little crew of 7 or 8 is just a sampling. Here's an overhead porch-cam shot of Brandy on the lower far left trying to stalk birds. She's still too young to neuter and goes around chasing squirrels, birds and bugs but is only successful with bugs, so far! 😉

Week twenty six. Nestling tree swallows waiting for their parents to come with food. I took this shot along with many others of them, even being fed late this afternoon.

I might as well post this for July 7 - Week 26. I saw this little girl near my patio and was impressed with the feather pattern and general attitude. Looked it up and discovered a juvenile female Red-Winged Blackbird. They DO have attitude and I have quite a few here at my feeders. The males clash with the Red-Bellied Woodpecker, who tends to think he alone owns the suet feeder. She stays mostly on the ground.

Works great for the rest of us!

A book store? Are those still around? The only place I see books are at Wal-Mart and they aren't displayed on shelves because they don't have that many. I understand what you are saying but in my opinion, there are some books that are much more useful in a lay flat version whether it is a coil binding or not. Workbooks and instructional books being the genre which is what I consider this book to be. Although I will admit, I will not be purchasing Carole's book because of having been a scrapper for over 25 years. I feel it is geared more towards a beginning scrapper. I think it is a wonderful thing she did and I'm sure many of you will find it to be very useful.

I haven't wrote but just Waiting for the book, I have the one I bought off Amazon I need this new book. I cant even make a card and couldn't do the last class till trying. The Vectors 😞 but I see everyone else can 🙂 happy for them. Really need the new book, I want to write in caps my eye sights got worst is all I care about trying to see it. Cant wait for the New Book though