Sue Thomas

Last night I created this birthday ecard. After discovering the May tut/tech challenge this morning, I decided to use it to advertise a fictitious event. There are so many different tag designs which can be used in so many ways to help showcase photos. The one with the threaded ribbon I copied from a magazine. I created my own version of a ticket design, which I saw somewhere or other. I jot down on paper designs that I see on the telly, or in a magazine, or online ads creating then as when needed. The pinned tag design will be familiar to you. I frequently use many other techniques in my pages, putting emphasis on small realistic details.

Many, many thanks Cristina. I suppose being minimalistic, with some fine details, could be my signature.

The Horned Larks arrive much earlier, like the Meadow larks, they fill the air with their beautiful songs. They sing from the top of their voices perched on fence posts, and are quite tolerant of being photographed at fairly close range. We have Meadow Larks in the UK too.

I do like the broken frame effect. A great page. Try making the black button smaller, to be in proportion and place it on the young man's T shirt, as a Halloween pin.

I like this challenge, it's not a lot unlike the scavenger hunt, or bingo challenge, which are my favourite challenges. I'm not accustomed to using buttons in my pages. Nor do I have any button scripts, hence I made my own. I don't have the folded corner, or folded paper scripts either. The paper was folded, but when opened out, you still have the fold. The knotted ribbon, is one of Carole's scripts. The frame is my own, made especially for the photo.

I have always steered clear from using pre made frames, including the psp frames. I create a one of a kind frame for each photo. All to often I see frames that are not of equal proportions, or if they have been rotated, the shadowing is wrong. The majority of my frames are used only once. Personally I enjoy creating unique frames. Carole now has a frame script, for convenience and time. Also she has 2 frame materclasses.

The Kestrel is common across Canada too. I have many shots of them They are our smallest falcon. They often hover in one spot while hunting, the Merlin ambushes, at high speed. The Merlin in my photo, is either a female, or an immature ( one of last year's clutch). The one in your page is a male. Both feed mainly on insects, but will take rodents, and birds.

I'm the same. My goal is always to draw the the eye to my photos, with minimum elements and embellishments. I'm not a fussy, frilly, clutter sort of person, never have been, which also reflects in my pages. That doesn't mean I don't like pages that are busy, it's just not me.

Thank you for the comment Susan. I hope it may give you some ideas and inspiration.

Experimenting with new styles of labels. I used a photo for the background along with overlays. and blend modes. This layout isn't a template but one I created myself. April palette challenge.

April Palette Challenge. Created the little flowers for the background paper (pattern, flood fill). Background paper overlays, blend modes, and colours, using several layers. Replicating colours from the photos. Some of the first things I learnt to create were the eyelets and stitching, when I first joined the campus. Due to adding noise, and textures some colours have have changed slightly. Some flower pics I have taken on one of my trips home.

Day 6. As you can see I didn't use the template. I used a photo from last year, as I'm yet to get a shot of one this year. I thought I saw one on Wednesday, and then this morning I saw one at the top of our drive. It's a bit early for them yet. Slats script. Text on a path using my own vector arrows. Cassel's bead tube around the word Squirrel, and the dingbat corner elements. The label is mine, the gold element is also a font.

I use the straighten tool to find out the angle of anything, the angle used will be in the tool bar.

On the contrary hares aren't mad in March. It's the courting behaviour of mating hares. As mad as a March hare is a British idiomatic phrase. There weren't enough hours in the day yesterday, hence combining yesterday's and today's text techniques on one page. Here are 3 of my 5 resident hares. After a wonderful display of the Northern lights last night, and early hours of this morning, the hares were very entertaining long after they were meant to retire for the day. Drastically resizing really does degrade my photos.

Here is the tag , as I can see it isn't legible in the above page, due to being resized. Yearling male Antelope

Day 3. It's always a treat when any four legged animal comes to visit. Carole used the word adorable to describe my Red squirrel, so I decided to use it in this page. As I do adore these majestic animals. The Antelope are frequent visitors. Males and females are segregated. Here we have some adult males with yearling males, not to far away were the pregnant females and yearling females. I don't use the selection tool to wrap text. It's ideal for quickly typing journaling, but it has far to many limitations for my liking, and for the word art/text that I like to create. Again, I didn't use any outside recourses.

That was an unexpected super quick response! ? Thank you ever so much, I appreciate your comment. The photos I take of everything nature, inspires me to create as natural as possible pages. I'm not one for bright colours, or frill. My pages are also very minimal. You have certainly captured the essence of Spring in your page. Well done!

Beautiful, and ever so entertaining to watch these rodents go about their daily lives. I didn't use any outside sources, not even a script to create the round brad. The papers are also my own. I did use one of Carole's corner punches.

Day 1 A pack of coyotes I have been observing this winter. On this day all five were out, and had their eye on either an old or ill white tail deer, it was skin and bones with it's ears flat. I watched while they slowly manoeuvred the deer into the trees. They keep the herd of over 200 deer healthy. Hunting in the park is forbidden. Here are two of them, I blended 2 photos together. All my own work including the holly and berries picture tube element. I filled the title with pine cones, as there are lots of conifer trees in the pack.

For this one I applied textures, which I actually prefer to the other ones. The textures give depth and substance,

My first attempt at creating a shadow box. I should be able to incorporate these in next year's Xmas cards. At a later date I may go back to tweaking the shadowing.

Easter ecard, a page which doesn't have at least one of my photos in it doesn't sit to well with me. Nuttall's kit rabbits.

I created my own egg shaped offset cutout to be in keeping with the Easter theme of the card. Before the rainbow font: "HOP INTO A"

We have the cuckoo in the UK too. I miss their very distinctive call. Also cuckoo spit, which has nothing to do with the cuckoo bird, but liquid excreted by nymph of the spittlebug

To answer your question Susan, yes they are Native to North America. I'm surprised you have never seen one, being around horses. They used to be called the Buffalobird. They are a smallish blackbird. Related to the Grackle and the Baltimore Oriole. All being members of the Backbird family.