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I couldn't resist. This is my favorite of the AI pictures I did of that Caboose Lake photo. Used Cass' Shaped Text script on the Bahira text, which I had duplicated and inner bevelled. I added shadows to all.

Wasn't his spectacular voice a revelation when all we knew was a "hayseed character" from TV?

Oh, Susan. I love Christmas music anytime, any place. My young grandchild and I would listen to 2 of our favorite tapes (at that time it was tapes - I've since gotten a car with a CD player and play those same songs on CD now.) It was Jim Nabors and Nat King Cole who were our favorites. and we would put it on when we went for a drive or when we went to and from Church. Such happy times!

I don't have out side decorations except for the pumpkins I put out as soon as they are available cheap before Halloween. Unless the squirrels decide to decorate them for me I leave them up until after Thanksgiving. I usually set them on my covered porch after that and when we get a pretty good snow, I take them out into the yard and break them open so the squirrels can eat the seeds and sometime quite a bit of the flesh too. I don't put up my inside Christmas deco up until after Thanksgiving and they come down right after the new year. That time frame started when we worked at some places that we had to set up for, (and sometime work at) Christmas parties & clean up from the next day. That week after Christmas was our time to enjoy our own deco.

I just couldn't resist this one! She is in the news cycle all this month in this part of the world (Toronto area), with her first concert happening on Thursday night past. She is doing six sold-out performances for 50K happy fans each night. Ticket prices are unbelievable, some as high as thousands of Can dollars. I am not a Swiftie, but I can appreciate her many talents (including her financial acumen) and the coverage about her is better to hear about than other things going on. I just played with it and had fun! Lots of blending and masks.

Daniel, I went ahead and upgraded the 2023 version received in the Humble Bundle, then added the Vision FX as a plugin to it. I have been having a ball with it as you can see from my postings in this thread. Go ahead and bite the bullet and have some fun!

The weather this week is a repetition of the weeks before, foggy and gray! The best place to take a photo where you can see this, is the railway crossing in our small station. I have to cross the tracks almost daily because the shops, pool, library are all on the opposite side from where we live. The only color in this photo comes from the trees that still have their leaves.

There is always a solution if something doesn't go as wished. Great you could finish your calendar!

Over here we have a radio station that from December 1st is non-stop playing Christmas music and I like it when it starts but when it is almost the 24th or 25th I can't listen to it any longer.

Actually, I like the music...further proof of weirdness. I will listen to it anytime I'm creating or doing photography (in studio). Also, when we used to camp in the summer, my hubby would turn on the Christmas music for me because that's what we listened too when we were driving. He actually hates Christmas, but tolerates it and encourages me to put up decorations and lights. I think aliens abducted him and I'm actually living with an alien (who loves Christmas).

Absolutely beautiful layout Julie.

You are NOT a weirdo about the decorations coming down. I too find it tiresome by the 24th, or maybe even the 23rd! By then I've heard more repetitive Christmas music than I can tolerate for weeks on end everywhere I go.

I had to try my hand at that Adamski effect. This is a sunset beach scene from Unsplash (Alvin Mecenau), and one that I put through motion blur and radial blur several times, then put it in Vision FX through PSP 2023 Ultimate - not sure if it is exactly the Adamski effect, but this is my result (I put my silhoutte on the finished project since I had removed the original lady.

I was too late d/l the cover, so changed the July version to a cover version. Deleted the dates and month layer.Turned the mask and added year and title. 🙂 And now back to my Cricut 😉

Another photo that popped up in my online activity. This is a new one to me. It looks like a fungus but it isn't. Also called corpse flower, the plant lives underground for 51 weeks a year and then pushes up into flower for one week. Grows in most of North America, except the southwest. Used an overlay of film strips and some blending. The frame is from DS (Marisa?). Everything in there from my ever-growing stash. Just as with fonts, I have to stop acquiring stuff! Could never use all I have already.

This challenge has had great success in the past so we can continue to have it on a regular basis, don’t you think? Just like those “some assembly required” kits that you can buy for a shelf, a chair, or a picnic table, I am including a 3600×3600 pixels canvas with some shapes. You HAVE to use the shapes in the size and proportions they are. You can move them, rotate them, flip them, and rearrange the layering if you want but you cannot resize them or replace them. You need to use ALL the pieces but you can add more if you want. So it is like all the pieces to build a DIY shelf: you cannot change the size of the pieces but you can use them creatively. Obviously, you will want to recolor them or replace them with papers, photos, etc. We just need to be able to recognize the initial shapes. Here is a preview of the shapes involved. The leaves should stay as is (you can only rotate and color them). Remember that you CANNOT replace them. They are NOT placeholders. Click here to download the layered template. Post your projects in the gallery.

I'm also not a fan but my cousin's daughter/granddaughter are huge fans. Allison and Caroline flew to Los Angles (from Orlando) to see her in August 2023. Then in June of 2024, Allison, her husband (Dennis), son (Luke) and Caroline saw her in Lyon, France. They did make a vacation out of that trip going to Chamonix and then some time in the Swiss Alps as well (they had been in Paris and Nice the summer before). Then apparently Allison and Caroline saw her again in Miami last month. I just can't see spending that kind of money on any concert. But if it makes them happy...

I have other things to do but they are things I don't really want to do, so....I'm playing with PSP! Major procrastinator here. At the Windsor (Ontario) and Detroit (Michigan) border which is the Detroit River, there has been both a bridge and a tunnel for nearly 100 years. The Ambassador Bridge until quite recently was owned by an private citizen who made lots of money over the decades with his toll booths, gas pumps, and duty-free shops. That bridge was completed in 1929 and took two years to build. In 2015, the new bridge plans began. They decided to call it the Gordie Howe (for a famous hockey player from Detroit). Its progress has been well documented online and it has been amazing to watch as they brought the two spans (Canada side and US) together in the middle. But it has taken so long that I began to worry I might never live to see it or use it! (It's about 1/2 hr or so from where I live.) The bottom right photo taken in Windsor by a photographer (Mark Hewer) shows the view of the bridge from a main artery road in that city, posted on FB. There are fabulous views of both bridges now when you visit Windsor, especially at the riverfront. I used a Cass Template (from Lab 12-11) b/c the photo spots were so nicely framed and ready. The background has several layers of papers all blended. The pix come from online.

Listening to him singing Back Home in Indiana at the Indianapolis 500 every year was such a treat. It just isn't the same these days.

I love the old Christmas music best. the ones you mentioned and Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Vince Guaraldi (Charlie Brown - one my all time favorites) and so many more. My parents has the Time-Life Album set. It is a special memory I have when my mom would play them for me.

The background photo and the the St Clare statue with tree are mine.

I'm not a fan of her, but this is a stunning layout! She has been to the Netherlands this year on het Eras tour and the Swift mania was gigantic.

me too. Although I'm adopted, my dad's heritage is Scottish.

I learn so much new things here in the Campus and it isn't always about scrapping either. Never heard of this plant/flower and nature never ceases to amaze me!

Eindelijk na een lang absent weer iets gefreubeld. De foto's zijn van freepik. Ik ben niet zo n goede fotograaf.

You can download the files anywhere you want. I keep my original files on separate drives to save space.

The Snowberry bush, is a low growing native bush. The flowers are quite insignificantly tiny, yet produce an abundance of food for pollinators. The berries start out black, then turn to white, to sustain small creatures throughout the winter months. The Snowberry Sphynx moth caterpillars feed on the leaves. Photo taken on Wednesday.

This picture reminds me of a visit to Scotland many years ago now. In Scotland as well as in England there are so many castles and a lot are still inhabited, some even by descendants of the family that build the castle in the first place. Others are now owned by the National Trust, some are restored and they are open to the public. Some are even free to visit and for others you have to pay an entrance fee. I would love to go back there and take photos.

@Donna Sillia OK - bought the RasterToMask Script. Saved my MultiLayerMask and converted it to a mask with that script and saved the script. Called the script forward into a layout and this is what I came up with using the mask from the saved masks.

I wish I could move to Scotland!

Susan, it's good to break the rules occasionally, right? 😂

I just picked this one to comment on, but all calendar layouts are beautiful, Susan! You put a lot of work into it, and it paid off. The dark ton of the pages just fit the photos perfectly.

Beautiful layout, Julie. The detail of the poppy flower and the red element over the soldier is very touching.

Wow, great work, Donna!

That's what I'm worried about. That it wont feel like Christmas and I'll regret it. I agree, it's so much work to put out and the same amount to put back. That's why I like to get it out early, so it feels like all the energy is worth it.

My husband was never happy when he had to climb on the ladder and did it only when absolutely necessary. I had to be home as well in case something went wrong and to hand him stuff he needed so he didn't had to climb up and down. I could give him what he wanted from the first floor window because we have a flat roof. Since we have solar panels there is a company coming to check on those and they remove the leaves when needed, but there are gutter guards. The only gutter that must be cleared is the one on the shed and that isn't very high up, it is single story. Besides that we now have moved the garden chair cushions inside and the chairs are in the shed. The table stays outside during the winter and I put some baskets or pots with for instance cyclamen on them to watch from the living; our winters are mostly mild with not much or no snow. It is a nice spot to have some X-mas decorations as well, but that is for december. Not all the leaves are already from the trees or shrubs therefore we have to sweep the path and the patio regularly.

Daughter Laurey came over yesterday and hauled the Cat Cabin from my front porch to the dumpster to remove the old straw so we could refill it for the winter. My little feral colony has grown from 2 black cats (Batman & a youngster (gender unknown, which I dubbed Robin) with the addition of 4 black half-grown kittens, for a total of 6 black cats! The littles are slowly becoming brave enough to approach the porch when I go out to feed everyone. Our temps have not been overly cold with occasional mornings under freezing, but these kids seem quite hardy. I try to feed them enough to build them up for cold weather. Here's a shot from my porch cam that shows the whole crew eating. That's Batman on the doormat, supervising. 😉

Week 44 - Sun Nov 10 - Mendocino (CA) Halloween - Photo by (Grandma) Debbie Lennox | Family= Dad, Will; Mom, Lucy; Magic, Age 4; Raja, Age 1. Font=Witch Mystery

Week 45 Fuchsias in bloom at the start of November! It has been so mild here in England that these flowers have kept on going. I usually lose them with the first frosts in October – last year it was on the 3rd. Amazing to still have the colour in the garden.

Me neither, at least no longer, but I understand the technical bit of this process. Our camera became out dated, we had one that needed an actual roll of film. And it was heavy with all the different lenses. But when I buy a new cell phone I always go with the one that has the best camera. It is becoming amazing what you can do with your phone nowadays and for me that has to be enough; besides that I always have it with me!

That's quite technical for a non-camera person like me, but interesting to read. I really admire macro photography. But don't have the equipment to do it.

It might be Fly agaric. It has hallucinogenic qualities and can be poisonous, but rarely deadly, to humans. The image is used a lot in fairy tales.

In order for me to take macro photos, whether they are insects, frost, leaves, lichen, or anything else I use what is called a conversion lens. It's a small round lens which I attach to the camera. It is the Raynox 1.50 or 2.50 macro lens. Not all cameras support a conversion lens. Mine being a Panasinic FZ300 bridge camera does. As for the camera settings I use AFS/AFF mode. Setting is aperture. F4, which is the sweet spot for my camera. ISO 100. 2 second timer on stills. Aspect ratio 4.3. I can increase each image 4 fold, without loosing quality. When taking macro photos I concerntrate on the depth of focus. Making sure that that camera isn't in the slightest bit tilted. As I don't use a photo stacker program.

Please, can you explain the camera settings for this pic?

Neither do we in the UK. I will have to wait for the temps to really drop, before taking frost and snowflake shots.

Lovely depth of field achieved in this shot.

Seeing as I didn't take the frost photo one day this week, here is a shot I took last night. First quarter, waxing crescent moon.

Week forty five. Well it's that time of year again, winter is moving in. We are already getting frosty nights, giving way to bright sunny relevantly warm days. Shooting hoar frost at this time of year doesn't give the best results, so this photo was taken last January when the temps plummet to 30 below and colder.

Here's mine for Week 43 - an original watercolor by my daughter, Debbie Lennox, titled "End of Summer at the Mendo Zendo" (that is the new name for Big River Farm that actually started life as a Buddhist retreat, complete with gong.) It is now an Airbnb and art gallery.