Corrie Kinkel

I have marked my calendar too, but it is always a bit difficult to know when to start due to the time difference and I suspect that I need to go to the American Amazon site and not to the Dutch one that comes up first when I go to Amazon. If I'll be buying the book depends on how much it will cost having it send to me in Europe. Of course I can have it delivered to my daughter's but it will be in 2025 before I will be visiting there. Dilemmas..........

Michele all the best and take good care of yourself; double pneumonia is not something to take lightly! We are here and love to see your work when you are up to it again.

So true, when I want to print an album or something for a special occasion I always ask my hubby to check it and almost always he finds something!

Ann giving birth in a warm bath has been a practice over here too. Nowadays it isn't as populair as it once was, but it is still done!

Fascinating and something I vaguely remember to have read somewhere, but this video makes it real and I won't forget it for sure.

Julie this are gorgeous creatures with their colors, most of the time when you see them in an aquarium they are greyish.

Q = Queen Triggerfish - thanks to google

Julie not so clever as you assume because many of the gardencenters over here have an animal department with toys for a cat or dog, animal food, in fact everything you may need for your pet. The one thing that they don't sell are the animals itself with the exemption of fish, at least until now. We go frequently to the gardencenter in our village for a cup of coffee and cake because there is a nice cafeteria as well and I admit most of the time I come home with a new houseplant, a bunch of flowers or something we need for our patio. Just today we went there and I had to ride home with a somewhat larger plant in my bicycle bag. I rode rather slowly because I was afraid the plant would fall out of the bag on places where the road was bumpy, but I and the plant came home in one piece!

At first I had no idea what to do for this topic; I have no photos of the aquarium we had many years ago. That was way before the digital camera and iPhone existed; in those days we only took photos from our kids or on holiday. But the gardencenter in our village has a decent aquarium department and although it was almost impossible to get a good shot of the fish tanks or aquariums I managed to get something usable. For the background I used "By the stream" from Jessica Dunn and blended that with a fishy paper by Marissa Lerin from her Origonian Fisher kit. On my photo I used cass-CurlyLines script to get rid of the parts I didn't want. Two little fishes also from Marissa were recolored and used to make a banner. The rest of the fish I found on Pixabay. In the new lab 14-07 is a tutorial on how to make an enamel element and I used on a clipart plant. Enamel is a very easy technique and I like the result it gives. The title is made up of the letter A from the freebie alpha that comes with this week's blogpost, and the font for the rest is Impact.

Donna you did a lot of work on this one, not only the vectors but especially the different patterns to "fill" your owl!

Lovely cards and in your own unique style!

Who would have thought that lions like a foot massage!

N = Neon Tetra

@ Sue Thomas Your photos for the weeks of June are spectacular and some made me laugh! Your love of nature is so apparent in this photos, even more then in a layout because here it is all about the animal in the photo!

J = Jackfish

Yes, it is unusually bright for you but the colors match the glow on your teapot! So well done and I love it!

C = Carp

Daniel thank you, I got it and by seeing how Ann did it, I just typed the link in the address bar. This way I didn't get a message about unsecure download and my anti virus software is usually very picky. Clearly there are many ways to do things.........

Ann in turn I didn't know this. I used the translation of the Dutch word "luis" or plural "luizen" and found louse or plural lice. It are those little greenish basterds that leave a sticky surface on the plants and ants love them! When you notice them in the garden than you are sure to see ants feasting on them. We use the word "luizen" also when there is a lice infestation in the hair of schoolkids. It seems that lice is a more generic word for a small and wingless parasitic insect on man, animals and plants , while aphids is only used for plants. At least according to my old and trusted Webster's New World Dictionary.

Beautiful Anja, love your color scheme!

G = Granny Smith - another apple

Me too, thanks Rene and I'm glad you can make travel plans once more!

Thank you! For a while petunias were considered old fashioned but they are back in full swing. I always liked them and have them almost every year, but they are prone to lice.

Sharla a fantastic photo, I can even see the little hairs on its stem and it look great against that dark backdrop.

Week-26, we are already half way through 2024. Where is the time gone, or do I sound a bit old now....... After all the rain of the last weeks this week the sun did its utmost best to let us forget that and not only we but the plants enjoyed it too. I have taken the opportunity to shoot a lot of photos from the plants on my small patio. The gardencenter we usually visit often has a rack with small free plants that are no longer good enough to sell but if you take care of them they most of the time perform later on. This petunia was looking dreary and didn't like all the rain but, look what a couple of warm, sunny days did to it.