Corrie Kinkel

Thank you Julie and I have downloaded the whole bunch. It will take all my free time this whole weekend to look what is in it! I only opened a couple of the zipfiles and it looks already very promising to say the least. You do your mama proud!😄

I had a ride in a hot air balloon, approximately 10 years ago as a gift for my 65th birthday. It was great to see the area where I live from the air and I even saw some deer grazing on a grass spot in a small forest. It was a fantastic experience and I would love to do so again, but alas it is rather pricy.

Sometimes, depending on the wind and weather conditions we have hot air balloons coming over our house. When we hear the sound of the burner we will have a look where the balloon is. Today was such a day and I went to look at the back on the patio if I could see the balloon which was quite low and just right over our house but already to far to take a photo, so I quickly went to the frontdoor, which was still locked.... I was on time to take a couple of shots, but I had backlight. Luckily there is a little tree and by standing a bit in the shade I could take the photos.

W = Watermills of Kinderdijk - Netherlands

M = Mount Rushmore

A good reminder that I should use the adjustment layers more often; the last time is maybe 2 month ago. I love how you have made the frames and that nice bird is just looking into the camera!

So nice to read how you all do a lot of things in the same manner. Where I live we have a village system for most of the garbage. I have 3 big separate bins; one for garden and kitchen waste that can be composted, one for paper and cardboard and one for rest. There is a pickup scheme when you have to put them a the street curb. Furthermore glass bottles and jars without a deposit have to be taken to big bins that are located in different locations. Plastic packaging, milk and drinks containers/bottles, tin and aluminium cans go all together in a big bag that goes to the same locations but in different bins. All the glass and plastic bottles with a deposit can be disposed of in the supermarkets; since a year all the little drink bottles and tins can be brought there as well and you get your deposit back. Old textile that can't be used for anything else can be disposed of at the same locations where the big bins are. For the rest of textiles there are places where you can bring it and what still is good enough goes into second hand shops for people that can't afford to buy in the regular shops. Of curse we use old towels etc. for dirty jobs and when those are in rags and very filthy they are thrown away. In our old house we had a compost bin and used what came out of it in our garden, but in this house we don't have a garden and on our small patio is no space for a compost bin which wouldn't work anyway because we don't have enough to fill it with.

When I was visiting my family in the States we went to Yosemite National Park, I have mentioned that already quite often. Acces to the park is on a couple of places and one of the roads into the park is through a tunnel. When you are at the end of that tunnel you have the most amazing and iconic view of the valley. There is a parking lot and an area where you can absorb all the beauty before you. That spot is named Tunnel View and when we were there it wasn't crowded, so I and my son in law could take all the photos we wanted as was everybody else. When I think of a tourist spot this came to mind immediately. I was making a background and had something with lighter colors but somehow that didn't work. To let my photos stand out I used the background I had with the blend mode difference. The postcard is the freebie that Carole mentioned in the newsletter and it is in the theme of the month blog. I used a photo to make a postagestamp and I already had a postmark about Yosemite . The hand holding a phone is a free icon, from the site Free Vector Icons and the font is Algerian, which is quite similar to the font on official posters and other souvenirs in the park shop.

I = Izmir - Turkey

B = Berlin

A very good choice, although I hardly go there because of the really enormous tourist crowds nowadays.

Lovely that your background has the photo too, I just noticed that.

Making my own frames is on my ever growing list of ideas that I want to follow and create. There are just not enough hours in a day to do everything that I want or must do. I'm not really a "house wife", if my windows are dirty well it will be going to rain again, but there are things that have to be done. 😉 Maybe I'll have more free time in the winter months. October is a busy month with birthdays that we have to attent, I'm making and printing the cards now because 2 of those are for dear friends that will be 80! For the more common numbers I can choose cards from my stock. But these are the first 2 that reach 80, so for the next one I already have a card.😀

Nice frames and a bit wider then the freebies. I love the simplicity of the layout and the colors.

There is nothing wrong with using "stuff" that is available so widely and you used it in a great way too. It is not always easy qua time or inspiration to do everything from scratch!

I needed a new card to send to a friend of us and I know he likes flowers too, but I didn't want the card to be too girlie. I used one of my photos taken of summer bells (Leucojum Gravetye Giant) with a mask by Jessica Dunn and of course the freebie frames. I had to change the colors of the frames for something that goes with the photo but I kept the transparency of them. The background is made of the same photo with a lot of blur and an overlay of paint streaks that I did for another project with reduced opacity. To let the frames stand out a bit they got a very light shadow with an offset of 1 and no blur. The font is Belinda. The card has to go in the mail so it is a double card with my logo on the back and I'm going to print it later today.

I have watched Band of Brothers when it was broadcasted over here and it comes on again sometimes. I think my husband has seen it at least 4 times now.

I had to check it out because I have never heard of Moo-Deng, but I found something!

I agree and do this always, it is such a timesaver! Isn't it great that we can learn something new on each bootcamp we do!