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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.

I did a blueprint of this well-known local college. The photo is by Brian Lee. The font is Copperplate Gothic.

It started its career as a library.

I love this Julie. I have 7 of the box style brownies and one brick style (plus the bigger and tiny accordion type ones - there seems to be a lot of "brownie" styles). I'm going to see if that kit is still available, I like to get anything camera related. This is a fabulous picture of these two ladies and it's super sharp for a photo of that era.

This is a very well preserved photo that old! I find that black/white or brownish photos keep their color nuances and sharpness much better then the older colored photos that fade out over time. I have a couple of those taken by my dad when he just started to use color film, that are now beyond repair!

Ann, this one turned incredible. Thank you Carole for putting this one in the blog, it has been a viewing pleasure to see what everyone is doing with it.

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.

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.

The snowy ice looks like marble. These are "bugs" I dont mind. When I worked at this one farm and lived in a converted barn (tiny barn, the bottom floor was z-brick and sand in some parts, still we loved it. Anyway, each spring we'd have a beetle invasion...in the barn (lids were mandatory on all pots and pans while cooking! We have lady bugs and little green and blue iridescent beetles, they were so pretty. Ladybugs are pretty but pack a punch when a cat tries to eat them (foamy kitty mouth).

Doing the March TUT/TECH Challenge I made this of my Foxy dog.

It's' called CuratedTeamFavsPhotogKit. She has quite a few camera/photography related products and regular sales.

Was this someone's home originally?

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".

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

it looks like water could have gotten spilled on the top of it, adds nice texture. At least you can make a duplicate and erase the clouds on the duplicate layout. I love shift-D.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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'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.

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

This turned out really well.

I made also a blueprint

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.

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 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.

It's not always easy to explain in English either, especially if I'm using the wrong terminology or I dont know the right terminology to be asking or explaining about.

this is one thing I remember you telling a couple years ago and it has stayed in my mind. Such good advice. May I ask, you use the Vectors as long as you can until the moment you need to add any effects to it, like a shadow or bevel or some other effect that prompts us to change the Vector to a raster? (and keeping the vectors as hidden files as always?)

It is going to be discontinued and no longer supported in October 2026 aka no longer available in the MS Office 365 suite of programs (they need to lower the price if they get rid of a program IMO). They are recommending that any important files be converted to another format. Apparently CorelDraw can open the .pub files Publisher creates. As for replacement programs, I see that Canva is the most recommended. Other programs recommended include CorelDraw, InDesign and Affinity Publisher.

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.

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.

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!

I had a little time to play around and I wanted to try the tutorial from the blog. a pumpkin isnt quite the right subject but it was handy, so, be assured you all can build yourself a pumpkin now. I have other things in mind that I want to try though. And once it's nicer out (we are in the midst of big dump of snow) I will take some pictures of the house. It's faster than trying to find them in my files. Thanks for pointing this one out Carole. I'll review that masterclass and see what other gems are in it.

Actually I find it not depressing because empty can my you just succeeded (like an empty bucket of ice cream that you succeeded in eating!)

My husband is much the same. Luckily he is patient (when we are out walking and I've taken my camera) when I stop for 10 minutes to photography a leaf or crack in the sidewalk or something like that. My husband used to take pictures when we hiked, probably more for something to do while waiting for me. Now the camera is just useful for him to take pictures of stuff he will sell (he likes to build computers and sell them - or tinker with fixing stuff). It's a strange contrast between how we each measure our hobbies. Mine costs me money as my goal is the feeling I get when I create something without the need to profit from it. His goal is fixing something broken or building something and selling it making his hobby pay for itself. To me, that's just work. I should add that he loves the feeling of fixing something broken. and the fact that at least he has a hobby at all.

I never get tire of old family photos. the older the better. I have always found them interesting. Strangely, I love looking at them but never use them. I'm a weirdo.

I want to have all three, but I have only Affinity Photo yet.