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I tried out the blueprint technique with a local photo from Beacon, NY, of the Howland Cultural Center. It is quite spectacular in person. I'll also show the color photo.

Polish Reality taken by JK, alpha-Carole, no anybody's template, dunno who created creatures on the train. Just one photo and letters and no need more IMHO.

I made also a blueprint

Susan, if not in summer, then Black Friday for sure. I would also like to encourage anybody ready to purchase -- right now-- to contact Affinity customer service by email and tell them about this group trying to learn Affinity, and how sad you are not to be able to play in the reindeer games and could they pretty please offer you all three at the super sale price, 50% off? They are the old Serif Page Plus, and a nicer bunch of folks you would ever meet. Just try it whenever you are ready to buy it.

F is for Flag. My father was a veteran, serving in the US Navy for 4 years including time spent in the Korean War. His ship, the USS Montague, was part of a mission to evacuate an Army corps from Hungnam. Ironically, many years later when he went to a reunion for his ship, he met an Army colonel that he rescued during that evacuation. Dad was one of the sailors that took the small boats from the ship to land to pick up the men. His was the last trip and the colonel had to detonate the munitions on the beach. The munitions blew up before Dad's small boat with the few men was far enough away from shore and it capsized. All were able to get back on it and make it back to the Montague. This rescue mission was in December 1950 and the waters of the Sea of Japan were freezing cold. The Army colonel and Dad became life long friends at that Navy reunion. The Army colonel was career Army and had achieved that rank many years after Korea. He also attended every one of the Montague reunions while his health allowed. When Dad passed away in 2016, he had military rites including the 21 gun salute and an US flag on his coffin. I was given both the flag and the shells. They are proudly displayed in my living room.

These are good ideas. Now, I need to get some time to play.

F is for FLOWER This orchid was a supermarket buy in the spring last year. Except for a short, 2-week rest, it has bloomed continuously. A bargain at $10!

Oops, guess I'll revise that to MY cats... 😉

Gold elements challenge. I turned a stem of green ivy leaves to gold, and an insect which I extracted from a photo.I thought using the Shiny scarab beetle was appropriate for this challenge. Besideds the Shiny, other scarab beetles have metallic green or bronze hues. They are a very diverse species. In the top left image, you can see how this scarab spent the night, in a state of torpor. The layout is my own, which I created for this challenge. Again I used snowy, icy photos using the blend mode for the background paper.

Okay folks, I was feeling silly and playful when I thought of what I would use for the Letter F. Once this thought got into my head, I couldn't think of another possibility. If you live with animals, you know this to be true!

I like the tradition in the States that veterans can get such military rites! In my country that isn't done and only very few people have been buried with military honors.

I have visited Monschau many years ago but the castle hasn't changed at all, at least from this viewpoint and the blueprint does it justice!

This turned out really well.

Maybe you can use a floorplan of a house, or a street map and if you feel fancy a drawing of some sort of machinery, a Farris wheel etc. It depends on what you can find.

You did a wonderful job, I particlarily like the background paper, with the subtle elements overlayed. I can remember giving it a try after the masterclass, quite some time ago. I found that you can not use just any image. Here you chose the perfect image obtaining sharp defined strokes.

The Campus is the perfect place to learn more about photo editing, various techniques, or PSP in general. This challenge will allow you to practice some of those techniques or use some tools. This time, the Tut/Tech Challenge will be to create a gold element from scratch. Check your stash. What element do you have? Which one do you want to turn to gold (like the Midas touch!)? Check this blog article for detailed instructions.

We recently had a bit of discourse about old photos and the frequent use of cameras. This photo that I have in my files comes from the early 1900s. It is not of anyone in my family, but the family of a friend. They are using Brownie box cameras, but I don't know which edition they are. I just love the pic! Taken in my hometown. Almost all elements come from Katie Pertiet photography kit which was on sale for $1.99 US.

For the F, I used this bronze figurine, a present from my son and daughter in law. We received it 3 years ago at our 50th wedding anniversary. We have it on display on a shelf in our partly open closet. In Dutch we would describe it as a "bronzen beeldje" and the "-je" is the diminutive of the noun "beeld".

Don't know what kinda cats you've had, but mine sure were! 😆

That is quite a military tradition in your family! In the Netherlands are a lot of war cemeteries and some are only for Americans and they always have small flags next to the graves. There are cemeteries that are mixed and have Americans, Canadians and British soldiers even with some Gurkhas as well and there the flags of the different nations are on display but not always next to each grave. Most of the French have been brought back to France over the years.

Very nice!

I hate to point this out, but cats are not prone to f**ts! 😹

In May, it is so inspiring to go visit the cemeteries with all the flags on display next to the tombstones. The flag holder at Dad's indicates he is a Korean War veteran. Dad, 7 of his brothers and his father all served. Only the youngest son didn't. Dad also lost a brother in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in WWII. Only one grandson served but there have been a lot of great-grandchildren in the family that have served. The granddaughter of one of my closest cousins (so a great-great-granddaughter) is at the US Air Force Academy. Grandpa was Army, 3 sons were as well. Dad and 4 other brothers were Navy. The grandson was a Marine. The great-grandchildren were a mixture of Army and Navy. The great-great-granddaughter is the first in the Air Force. My family is quite proud of the military veterans in the family.

Wow, I buy them too, but they don't like our current house! In the old house I had one for 4 years, sometimes it stopped flowering but after a rest period it started flowering anew. I really should stop buying them 😪

You guessed right. For the Texture Effect to use any texture, unlike the Patterns in the Materials palette, it needs to be saved, and not just open on the workspace.

I was lucky enough to meet Jim (Army colonel) at a subsequent reunion. I listened to the two of them discussing this and if you think you got chills from just reading it, just imagine the feeling I got hearing them relate all the actual details.

I keep buying those little orchids at the supermarket as well. Sometimes they thrive, sometimes I kill them - not on purpose! You're doing great with this one.

I'm sure I'll jump on board with Affinity eventually. Perhaps when they are all 3 on sale in the summer, if they do that again. I would think I'd like to have all three if it's financially possible.

That turned out well. the background paper is nice as I can see some cool designs on the upper right and middle left side. I never thought of that. I could use an technical drawing type background (low opacity).

The various shapes move the eye around the whole layout. Wonderful!

I had a look at the blog post too, and gave it a try. I didn't follow all the directions precisely, but I think it came out OK. This layout used a photo of the actual school which was quite impressive for a tiny village near my hometown. The smaller rural schools had SS (School Section) designations with a number and then the Township name. This was different to do and fun! (The colours faded a bit when I resized the layout.)

I'll wait for you to find your files and hope you show a blueprint with them.

I certainly do. The templates remain as vectors. I don't change any vectors to rasters until I get to the stage of, as you say, adding textures, shadows and the like. Even then I will duplicate the vectors, hiding one of the layers. I almost never reuse a layout, but one never knows. I can remember commenting on how I use vectors with circles or elippse with a similar layout. That was removing backgrounds from around photos.

I agree with you! For me it is always difficult to explain how I do things, especially when I have to do so in English. But in doing it in Dutch and then use a translate app doesn't do justice to my thought process either.

This is such a lovely masterclass and it has more ideas that are worth looking at. I have used those on many occasions and this was the last time I used a blueprint for the AAM-Careers challenge.

I agree, although I can create such layouts, after some thought, I hasten to add. I'm certain that Carole would approach creating such a layout in a different way I than I do. Saying that how I do them works for me. I use techniques I have learnt over the years in the campus. It's good to challenge one self.

Besides you having done this wonderful layout, the idea of a masterclass on doing such layouts would be great!

In all honesty, I appreciate your kind words, from the bottom of my heart. I now have a template which can be modified and used over and over again. I always use vectors for the circles. To maintain smooth clean edges. From vector shape comes in handy to make clean round deletes. It is imperative to make sure that each delete is done in sequence. All in all it wasn't as much of a challenge as I thought it was going to be. Perhaps Carole would consider doing a masterclass on similar layouts down the road. All the rabbits are adorable, especially when wearing their thick winter coats. I would dearly love to entice them to come to me, but I dare not, being at the bottom of the food chain they must remain wild, and not become tame.

Wow! This is SPECTACULAR! Beautifully balanced and super creative Sue! The circles really do make the layout sing. The one in the middle with the masks around it is outstanding and that color drew my eye to it immediately. They look like they want to be picked up and cuddled...(okay, maybe it's ME that wants to do that). Beautiful quote.

My goodness, everyone has been ever so creative, far to many to comment on individually. Awesome! I'm feeling rather proud of myself, after looking at a template for some time, I was wondering how I'd be able to create it myself. Well, after some thought I came up with this. The layout is one of AnnieC. I must say do like many of her layouts, especailly those that include circles. Scraplifting. I have chosen a few that I like that I will be replicating. Rabbits making the most of the heat of the sun, out of the cold wind under the banks along the Lake. Again I used two ice photos for the background papers. I added my own elements.

I have used MS Publisher at work a few times in the past and didn't know it was no longer supported. The Inspiration A to Z was created in InDesign by someone I paid. I no longer can use InDesign (since Adobe messed up the count of "activations") so as I was thinking of making a second similar book, I would have used MS Publisher, but I might use Affinity Publisher when the time comes!

Publisher is the program that the gal from TLP uses to scrap, not Photo. With the 3 programs working together seamlessly, it was a no brainer for me to not buy all three.