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Ralph and I played in a pickleball tournament with no skill levels and no age groups, meaning we played all players regardless of their skill level or age. Ralph is almost 20 years my junior and we played a 20 year old and a 16 year old. I was by far the oldest player. We won the bronze medal. Template: MFish, You Did It 04.

I have combined two recent workshops: the Vector workshop and the latest Twine Time, to produce a birthday card for my niece. I made the Picture Tube frame first as part of the workshop. Where the chain tube appeared underneath the lettering of Zuki I made selections of those parts, promoted to new layers and moved to above the 'ZUKI' text layer. (I suppose I could have made all those selections in one go, in shift and promoted as one layer but I didn't think to try in time). For the purple background I added Noise to the outside to contrast with the inside plain purple. Happy Birthday text is created on a vector path.

Nathan's Dairy Bar...a favorite and much visited place. CD digital scrapbooking template 339 (Chantahlia Design).

This plant volunteered in my yard. Blue is my favorite color so you know I love this one. I learned so much making this layout. Bees have pouches on their legs to store pollen. The pollen of the Chicory plant is white. This flower is actually is many flowes...each petal is a flower.Chicory opens with the sunrise and closes around noon. Template 239 by Lady 22.

Time to get back to the labs - also I have the final layout to do for the Alphabet Challenge from 2022. Those blue water drops are there only because it is required for this lab module. But I guess they are ok. The fish going in opposite directions on the background paper are also required. I made 2 fringe mats and used this one cause I like it better. The other one I'm not showing because the fringe is large - kind of reminds me of the fleece pieces that were fringed - something the fabric shops were promoting several years ago. I might put a baby blanket pattern on it and use it for a baby layout sometime in the future. I used some elements from Pixel Scrapper and my own elements created in a previous lab for the cluster on the mat. Used one of the labels made in the vector workshop from last year for the title tag. The brad is from Pixel Scrapper also and probably Jessica Dunn.

What about old-fashioned handy work after all the talk on Copilot, Spark, AI etc...... I wanted to make something were the text touches the frame and creates a kind of bounding box were you can put a photo, a paper. first I made a template with the Dutch text of happy birthday and the spaces in between are mask layers, so I can use it again with different photos and colors for a totally different result. Then I made a card out of it for my cousin who adores butterflies. I'm going to experiment a bit more with this technique, I like it

I have also made some Seahorses with copilot, you all can copy the prompts and try yourselve, everytime another picture , Prompt -- a dream landscape made of wire in the aquarium. Algae zone, mussel bank, mud bottom. Seahorse, wire art, --

I created this Gnome for @Michele with Bing Copilot Designer

My passion for perennials in the garden has faded (just going with what I already have), but I am finding tropical plants to be something fun. We have a garden centre not far from here that has been around for many years and specializes in cacti, succulents, and tropicals. Picked up this one (photo) which is just so eye-catching. It's a member of the turmeric/ginger family and therefore very tender in our climate. It will have to come indoors. I also have two orchids which require very little of me. I tried (and tried) to work some picture tube around part of the frame, but I just don't have the hang of drawing the lines yet, and have a limited choice of tubes. The pen tool lines look too irregular and jerky, even when I try to adjust the nodes. I CAN, however, do the interlacing part. More practice is necessary. Sigh, it's always something....

I found this song from Jonny Cash - you are my Sunshine I created the background in Bing with the prompt from the song, it comes out great, lyrics found in internet, fonts are Hellena Script and Handwriting

Trying out Bing Copilot's Designer mode, I created a birthday card for my grandson-in-law, Corey, who is married to Jackie, my zookeeper granddaughter. Corey is into horticulture in a big way. His gift to the attendees at their wedding was a small succulent in a pot to take home. Sticking with Anja's gnome theme, my efforts created this. Prompt -- A steampunk gnome in cheerful colors, his eyes hidden under his pointed cap, wishes Corey, 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY', the sun shines and there is an abundance of plants and flowers, signed Love, Nanny.

I played a bit with this prompt on Copilot Designer A gnome in cheerful colors, his eyes hidden under his pointed cap, wishes Michele, 'GET WELL SOON', beautiful flowers on a green meadow enliven the background, the sun shines in the cloudless sky , I used the german prompt, I added for the second one - Traumlandschaft in Stein - Pietra Dura Technik at the beginning of the prompt,

Playing with make ropes and strings

I found these photos on Facebook that were posted by Social Island Farm. I do love the black dirt fields of Pine Island/Goshen, NY. This is announcing a festival for this weekend. I used Carole's Hanging Photos script. The font is Cambria with a stroke. The background is part of one of the photos enlarged to full size and with 57% reduced opacity.

I checked the file and still don't know how/what I did, but definitely not correct. So, I redid the lesson with the same graphic, and here is the new one.

Thank you all of you for your encouragement. I have been concerned that I wouldn't be able to apply myself timewise but like a lot of things, where there's a will, there's a way! I get into a project and it consumes my time. My brother visited recently and he berated me for not using my DSLR camera like I used to. It's so easy to snap away with a mobile phone. Maybe I can add the camera use to my objectives for this project. Thanks again for the tips. I did start collecting images for this project last month but didn't keep up the momentum due to commitments but maybe, rather than being put off, it can be the best endeavour to take one picture a week. Thanks again all. By way of contribution, here's one of my first ones then. Happy Year.

This took me hours to do (with lots of breaks and blank stares). I tried a bunch of things including masks, but I just didn't have it in me. Being sick has given me brain fog in addition to exhaustion, and the oppressive heat isn't helping. The little girl and the sunflower are from CF. The fonts are akaDylan Plain and Alegreya SC Black. It's weird how the orange rectangles look uneven when sized down to 600. Neil Diamond wrote the song, Sunflower. Glen Campbell released it in 1977, but Neil didn't release it until 2018.

Song Challenge July 2024 Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden. Fonts are arial(s). I used a texture(woven basket) on the desaturated green photo mat and around the whole layout (with an inner bevel). A gradient on the background and then sunburst effect (whew, that was a hard one to figure out) which added a brighter "sun spot" and some rays a bokeh or two, and also desaturated. The rays might not show up in the small image. I'll post on FB later. This is not a great shot. It was not long after we moved here and it was downpouring with rain and sunny at the same time. It's always bizarre to see that. That is my neighbours house, I was shooting out a window. Oh, and I wanted all the shadows to mimic the gradient sun and the sun in the photo, that was a real headscratcher for me. So please let me know where I might've gone wrong with the shadows on the frames, text etc.

Anja, I tried it using your prompt and chose this one -- weee! This is fun!

I really enjoy these song challenges. So many to choose from that inspire different ideas for the layout. Then I don't have to worry about a shortage of my own pix. The pic of Bob Marley is from online, maybe Pixabay. I made the reggae colours with a small canvas with three colours, blurred the results, and and then masked it for a messy background splash. Then added text on a torn piece of paper. Film mask from Katie Pertiet. Font at bottom is 1942 Report. Some background elements thrown in too.

The title font is Bauhaus, the art is all from a search by Google Images for the title "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash - 1972. The sheet music was treated to the cass-curved image script. This song has a calypso feel to the back beat that has always made me smile.

Still Playing with strings. The plaid is from FF, and I followed the string tutorial in Scrap Tutorials and then used to directionaltube script to make the string into a tube. I used the vector tube script on the border of the flower and on the middle circle. I also applied the etchedglass script to a black layer and merged the glass over the original layer. I never bothered with making strings before our last Master Class. However, now I have found that they are fun to make with all sorts of colors and patterns. This particular string would fit in my Build a Kit 2.

week 28 Cheeky handsome male Baltimore Oriole. They are such little amusing characters. My week almost always starts on a Friday. I'm a day early.

A little late but here it is. I was really surprised to look up and find this girl so close and willing to come closer! Fonts: Arial, Alphebet Soup Tilt BT (Curiousity), Sloppy Hand (wild and wonderful)

I have worked with the lessons separately, but I will post here just one file that includes all the 3 other techniques (Text on a Path - Vector Tube Script - Cut a Vector Object) Text on a Path - I also added the "Text on a Circle" technique. I used Instant Effect Pen & Ink for the photo and Layer Styles Outer Glow. Vector Tube Script - I used cass-Pearls Tube. Cut a Vector Object—I drew a rectangle frame and cut it into 3 parts. I wanted to try something different so that I could choose a different color for every section of the frame. I cut the vector object in the original layer and duplicated it three times, deleting the unnecessary vector parts in each layer. Then, just ran the script as shown in the video. As always, this is a great workshop!

I tried out Copilot/Dal-E for my song: "I can see clearly now..." by Johnny Nash. I did one in the manner of Van Gogh and another in Impasto style. This is lots of fun but be careful of eyeballs and text. They can get weird!

This is the one from Anja's description (You are my sunshine)

@Anja Pelzer Wow! I played around with that Bing Copilot. I started with your take and ended up with just typing boy and girl walking in a meadow beside a bubbling stream with mountains in he distance.

try this one - Optic Illusione in stone, Pietra Dura Technique,You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make me happy when skies are gray You'll never know dear, how much I love you Please don't take my sunshine away neo-impressionism expressionist style oil painting, smooth post-impressionist impasto acrylic painted stones, thick layers of colourful textured stones and rocks-

yes I did, here is the prompt - - You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make me happy when skies are gray You'll never know dear, how much I love you Please don't take my sunshine away neo-impressionism expressionist style oil painting, smooth post-impressionist impasto acrylic painting, thick layers of colourful textured paint -- there are 4 pictures , this is one of them.

Still playing with stuff from Vector workshop - Mickey at the Beach

J:ust playing around. Had fun.

Week 28 - Some fluffy looking Thistle...

So, I have the Title and the Table of Contents

Debbie, Laurey and I took a trip to New Paltz, in Ulster County, NY, to explore our roots. Here's a photo of a book that was available in the Historic Huguenot Street Gift Shop. We have been doing this kind of exploring a lot lately and this was our first chance to bring Debbie along on one of our trips.

The light blue one looks like it could be a directional tube. If you want, I can make a demonstration during the Q&A this Sunday about how to create those.

I am a bit late to join in with this but as I go walking a little bit I thought that I would photograph fields (various...wherever I am) throughout the year. One objective being to get a bit of variety somehow. I am not sure how to present them yet but just thought I's join in and can see some lovely images from you already.

Soak up the sun By Sheryl Crow

I have a nice photo of a sunset over a lake and found a song that goes with it with the word Sun in the title and the lyrics. We had another rainy Sunday, so no problem to spend some time at the pc. Because I wanted to concentrate on the sunset in the photo I used a rectangular mask (by Jessica Dunn). I used 3 different papers with blendmodes until I got something that I liked and that somewhat matched the colors in my photo. I used a journalcard but changed the top deco and in honor of todays masterclass made a rope frame. The drawing of the boat comes from Jessica Dunn as well. Fonts are Alustia for the title and Bremlin for the text of the lyrics.

I'm trying to make myself do something every day. Here's today's try. Can you guess what year I graduated?

This is "Willow Poppy". I created a layout about the baby shower which was titled, "Willow Poppy". Her "real" name is Matilda Jean, AKA Tilly. She had a pretty tough start in life but is now home with Mom and Dad and learning to enjoy life.

Got distracted with Carole's new slipped-in freebie and had a nice new photo of Logan & Jonah so I worked this up using a Marisa Lerin kit called Wandering Road. The title is an alpha from Sheila Reid Alpha Mix. I had to create my own punctuation.

Along a street I always pass on my way to do the grocery shopping, our local authority has decided to sow a wildflower mixture instead of the normal grass seeds. This was done so the weekly mowing could be skipped to cut back the costs. This is done on many spots in my village and this year, thanks to the abundant rain the flowers are doing fantastic. It is a wild meadow on a very small scale. This week was no exception qua rain and I had no photos to share at all, so this evening I went on foot and took a lot of photos including this one. It is Birdsfoot trefoil and afterwards I used a setting of studiolight get all the attention on the flowers

@Ann Seeber Thanks. I wasn't sure about the giraffes. It was so hot that day and I wasn't feeling well that week, but it was my daughter's and my staycation and I bullied through. But we didn't get to the aquarium or any further in the zoo. I bet I could do a whole alphabet from that zoo. But that will have to wait - too many sticks in the fire. That Aquarium alphabet that Carole gave us is so neat - I though about my pics from the Chattanooga Aquarium, but haven't gotten that far yet. And here it is the middle of July!!!!! I also have been looking at the P52 thread and gotten a few of my pics from the different weeks - both Canon camera and the phone camera. I might be able to come up with the 25 or so weeks that have passed. My - time does fly (think of Susan Ewart and her Time kit).

This looks great, Mary! If you have pix from the Aquarium side you could use them for this month's challenge. I do see one small typo - giraffes needs an "e" before the "s," otherwise, great job! I've been reading about Africa and the audiobook pronounces zebra as if it rhymes with Debra. I understand that is the British version.

Finally - Z is for Zoo. This is almost the completion for the 2022 Alphabet Challenge. My theme was alphabet soup since it was random choice for each letter. @Ann Seeber I'd appreciate your proofreading skills on this one.

I can't thank you enough, Anja. It was so thoughtful of you and I love him! ❤️

@Anja Pelzer So how did you figure out a prompt for something this elaborate??? It is gorgeous!!

Welcome, Fiona. I've been using Carole's script: cass-countingcards1-weeks. It will run a year's worth of P52 card layers, and you get to choose the font and font color. Be aware the font is just outlined, though you can change that later if you wish.

I love this. I have been creating these to. I want to create more with generic sentiments (happy birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year etc). It's fun to decide which "counter"(the enclosed space in a letter such as; p, a, b, e, q etc) space to add or subtract when you select the top and bottom portions with the magic wand. That butterfly and the flowers works so well with your template/mask.