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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???

Where I live we don't have many stray cats, most that are roaming the streets are from people in the neighboring houses. The biggest danger to them is being run over by traffic. However we are getting wolves nowadays that wander around and are mostly coming from Germany or further into Europe. Birds hitting a window is something we know too, even in the cities. Around my village it are often doves or sparrows. In the house we are living now it hasn't happened but in our old house it did.

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..........

So true, when I want to print an album or something for a special occasion I always ask my hubby to check it and almost always he finds something!

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.

All will be reveal on the 16th!

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.

July 16 it is!

I did it manually and soon you will be too!

I'll mark my calendar too, for July 16.

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.

There they are - the July 4th gnomes! Glad to hear you're getting better Michele. I've heard about lots of pneumonia going around lately. Kinda scary.

Not much. Mostly in formatting when checking on the Amazon platform.

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.

Lovely cards and in your own unique style!

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!

I have also read about the cat predation of birds. It's really quite sad people still let cats out to run freely. You don't see people letting their dogs out to run freely. Bird window strikes is another bird killer. It's amazing we have any birds left with those two strikes against them. I have Acopian Bird Savers (strings hanging outside in front of the window) on the windows I've have bird strikes and have had only 1 strike (pigeon) in the 5 yrs they have been up. Just yesterday I saw it work in action. the young magpies were in the yard all day and one flew straight at the window and then did it mid air halt right before the strings and went straight up to the roof. (NOTE: if you want more info google Acopian Bird Savers or check out https://www.birdsavers.com/ I used velcro to attach the ones I made (they give instructions if you want to make your own) to my vinyl window frames so I could take them off if I needed to change the parachute cord.

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

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! 😉

Cool photo you took with your phone, better than I can take. You must have a body of water close by, as typically they like marshes, with cattails, sedges and bulrushes, nesting close to the ground. I'd be concerned for their safety from the ferel cats you feed.. They flock with the grackles during migration.

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.

Works great for the rest of us!

Thanks for the answer. I only have your books in the Kindle version so no problem with "laying flat". But IMO, this is not a book that would work well in Kindle. For this type of book I like to have both pages side by side laying flat in front of me. A thicker book doesn't work well for me. Many years ago I got 2 books from Creating Keepsakes (Creative Sketches and Creative Sketches Vol 2) both around 160 pages. Neither would lay flat so I took them to an office supply store, had them cut off the binding and they bound both them in the same spiral binding. I still have them. Lays flat! I did the same thing with another book of sketches (Layout Blueprints) that is a little over 100 pages.