Mary Solaas

Does any of this have to do with the history ?  Last year I had trouble with one file I had and it was one I had done of lot of undoing and redoing.  It's the only time I've had trouble with saving and the PSP just seeming to hang up and not want to do anything.  I did not stop to see what the size of the file was.  But the 600px size of that file was accepted in the forum.

My thoughts this morning: can you make a square circle?  So I started with a vector square, duplicated it (so I could show the transformation), and on the duplicate I used the nodes as symetric and made a circle - in a different fill color so that it could be seen; saved it as a pspimage, then as a png, and then as a jpg so I could show it here.

@Susan Ewart this was so much fun - easier than Spark.  Here are 2 more I just got through playing with (although they are not Christmas.

Playing around in Creative Fabrica.  Yes, I did order 2 more years as I have come to like it.  Never tried the ShapeCloud before, and did today  this is the result.

@Ann Seeber   @Susan Ewart No, the one trip I was on where I could have gone into Yellowstone, it was rain/snow that spring and Laurie was experiencing trouble with the altitude, so we skipped it.  However, my mother had been there and had pictures that I have seen, but I don't know where her photo book that has them is.  I had wanted to include her picture of Old Faithful in this layout, but couldn't find that photo book.  I'm going to do Z is for Zoo and do pictures of the Memphis Zoo.  I understand that one of your granddaughters works in the zoo in California.

Almost done with 2022 Alphabet Workshop - Y is for Yellowstone.

Thank you, Carole for all the goodies on the countdown.  My favorites were the puzzles and the savings for the store!

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

And - Merry Christmas and Happy Hanakah to all the members

I found mine.  My daughter-in-law, Pam, took me to the Germantown Christmas Party (Santa for the kids) and after it was over, Santa let me sit on his lap.  Here's the photo.  

It's always fun solving puzzles! Of any kind!  Even the ones presented in the script studying!  And don't forget trying to figure out how someone came up with that - texture! element! paper! template!

5 hours ago, Michele said:

2:27 ~ I used to do jigsaws every day, but I stopped several years ago. The best thing to do is to click on borders. Once those are done, it's much easier to figure out the rest of the pieces.

WOW Michele! That's generally the way I attack a jigsaw puzzle too, but the cookies got in the way as they were the main focus in this puzzle. I've really slowed down.

I was playing around yesterday with that multiple transparent frames which I made into several masks.  This is two of the cat pictures I came up with - one is of the CF Spark cat I asked for and one is of my nephew's cat.

I didnt take a snapshot of it, but my time was 16 minutes!  

Cassel - the book you are giving to your son-in-law is precious.  

 I have made 3 layout books now - all 8X8 standard from Shutterfly.  Quality is good with the standard and the journaling shows up with the 8X8 standard format.  My almost 50 page book of the travel challenge i just completed came out ok, but I learned that there is a special way you have to handle the double pages for printing when you are not ordering the flat book.  I've shown it to my daughter and my granddaughter, whose critique I respect, and they are happy with it.  the best one I made was of the chattanooga trip my daughter and I took last year.  That one was made with layouts on a single page (not double page) although I created the single pages with the idea of 2 pages facing each other - and I got them printed that way.  The first book I had printed was a hit with one of my other granddaughters - as she was one who was on that trip.  that one was of the first travel challenges I made with you.  All in all, I'm happy with printing layouts and when there is a sale, it is definitely worth it.  

Wasn't sure if I would do something for this, but I got to playing this morning with that BAS Globe that was offered somewhere here last Christmas or the Christmas before.  I made it a mask and then came up with this.  Working with the magic wand wasn't cooperating at first, not sure why, but I extracted the shape of the placque and then filled it with a color similar to the placque background; used Arial Bold for the text and then effects>cutout with a fill color of yellow, and this is what I came up with (also changed the background color from red since it wouldn't go with this picture.  The picture is of the manger scene at our church.

I'm back on the Alphabet Soup (from a challenge or workshop in 2022!).  I'm down to X.

20 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

Where in NJ, Mary? I was born in St. Mary's Hospital in Hoboken, though my parents lived in Weehauken. Then we moved to Rutherford, which was on the rail line and convenient for my Dad to get to work. 

I was born in a hospital in Newark NJ, though we lived in Union City at the time.  We then moved to Hillside, NJ and my brother was born when we lived there.  We then moved to Elizabeth NJ where I went to Blessed Sacrament Grade School for the 1st 3 years.  We moved to St Louis MO in the spring of 1942, but I had only completed the 1st 2 months of 3rd grade as I had contracted a kidney disease and my mother kept me home until we moved.

54 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

I got the impression he thought it was a comical name. He probably heard it used in NYC when he worked as a runner on Wall Street or on the railroad where he worked for 40 years, ending up as a chief night dispatcher for the Erie out of Hoboken, NJ

Since I was born in NJ and lived the first 8 years there, maybe I heard my mother use it.  At any rate, I do remember that word being used in my hearing.

On 12/6/2023 at 4:25 PM, Ann Seeber said:

My Dad, born in 1892, called it a Bumbershoot! 😉 I know that "brolly" is used in Great Britain, Canada and Australia but not here in the States, usually.

I remember the word "Bumbershoot" but I'm not sure where I heard it - maybe when I was living in the UP?  Is it a "Yankee" word? 

Back to transparent frames.  I tried out the Adjustment layers and added texture effects.  Can't colorize them though.  So back to my original transparent frames made with the selection tool and opacity changes.  I can colorize them as well as texturize them.  I even put Lucy's paws outside the 2 inner frames.  I find that you can save the adjustment layers and slip in any picture, so you can save it and reuse it. In my  original transparent frames, I also inner beveled them

@Sue Thomas Thanks; I see what you mean by the Adjustment Layers - adjusting the brightness and contrast creates a transparent frame around the photo.  Am I right?  I haven't looked at that Master Class yet, but looking at your pictures demonstrating the Adjustment Layer technique, that is what I am seeing.

This one is a mask saved with the frames in various opacity of white.

I also made the 3 transparent frames into a mask and this is the result.  I'm just having too much fun.  I really need to get back on the Alphabet Soup album as I only have 3 layouts to go before I get it ready to print.

1 minute ago, Suzy said:

Mary,  Beautiful!

How did you line up all those lines & squares?  I do this and the lines both vertical and horizontal show distinct edges.

I guess you are referring to the square mask I made from the top of the November calendar.  I worked with the group as a whole to change the vertical to a square.

1 hour ago, Sue Thomas said:

I'm sorry, but I'm at a loss.  The only other thing I can think of  is creating and using a frame or frames in a mask, where the opacity of those frames will be sporadic throughout the mask. Or using a vector shape to create a frame, using from vector shape, go to the photo layer promote to a new layer, and  change the brightness and contrast of that layer.  You now have me baffled!

Well, the next thing I did this morning was to take the top of the November Calendar and copy it and change the copy to a square and then use it as a mask and this is what I came up with.

It may have been the mask used in November that I saw (dreamed I saw) with the varying opacity of each frame.  I will try that since I downloaded November and December.