Corrie Kinkel

Just a small X-mas star with a decoration. As most of you know I'm taking the Scripting Course and in this week's lesson we had to use a preset shape and rotate it. Then write a (simple) script using what we had learned in that lesson. For fun I used a star preset shape and when finished with the lesson I thought well that looks like a nice X-mas star. The result from the lesson was quite small because we had to use a 200x200 image. This evening I played a bit with that script and redid it on a 400x400 image. After running the script I placed a decoration on it and I have something to use on cards or whatever related to X-mas. I love it when I can make something with the knowledge I'm getting in this course.

Wow, this is not an easy question; I think it will need at first the chapters and than the many topics related to that particular chapter. A chapter could be about all the different ways to use the tools, like the brush tool, selection tool. Vectors would be a topic that I could have used. I'll have to think a bit more about this and come back when I have more ideas.

Sherie I have the same problem if I'm not very careful to save in the correct place! When I was following the calendar workshop I have been searching many folders for elements I wanted to use and very often I didn't pay attention to where I saved my page. When I wanted to work on it later I had to search for it through a lot of my supplies folders, or even use the search function. But when I pay close attention where I save my project all is well and it is in the intended folder! It is a nuisance! So I'm very glad you contacted Corel support and hope you will share the solution to this annoying problem. Thank you for taking action!

Bonnie I'm so glad that you could find the time to resize your calendar pages so we could enjoy them. They are lovely and will print well, should you decide to do so. I hope your care duties will stay manageable and leave you some time for yourself!

Monique a very nice job and I like what you have done so far!

Ann you have made a great gift for your granddaughter with this lovely calendar!

And here is my cover with a photo that I intended to use on one of the month's pages where it didn't fit. I had the same problem on the cover but could solve that by using a mask before I pasted it into the coverpage which gave me space to put a title that stayed readable. I tried different backgrounds but this one gave the best result as far as the page-mask is concerned. The title font is the same as I used for the month names: Almond script and the year is Bilderberg. I'm still debating with myself if I shall put the names of the flowers on the pages. The problem is that I know the English common names but most of the flowers I showed are not known here. So the English names won't have a meaning especially so for the intended German speaking recipient. Of course I can use the Latin names, but that won't have much meaning as well. Not all the months are completely finished yet, I will work at bit more on some of them.

Rene so sorry to hear, hope that all goes well in the end. What a miserable end to 2023. All the best and let us know if possible, how you are doing!

P = Pizza Hut, another chain for pizza!

Yes I have used blendmodes to all the images under the date boxes and for some background gradients too. I have used different ones because different colors needs different blendmodes to get the effect I want. I always check in the layers palette which one I'll choose and very often I reduce the opacity too. I have PSP 2023 and in this version you can scroll along the blendmodes and see on your image what it would look like. For me one of the great assets of this version.

Thank you, found it and it had an active download. Redownloaded and removed the old one.

No notification for me too, after reading this I'll check in the store because I have this script for maybe 2 years now.

Already many, many years ago when I was in the Swiss Alps, it was - 20c but when we were at or near the summit of a mountain (by cable car) there was a very strong wind blowing too. There were warnings in place that the wind chill would be -40c and everyone was advised to take shelter in the restaurant and not linger outside! It was a clear day and the views were amazing, but at that point I hadn't a camera with me.

Ann beat me to the answer, because I do the same and this way you can even add more than 2. I didn't try how many you can add but occasionally I have done 4 or 5.

M = Maple Donuts

Here are my finished pages for November and December. I intended to use the same technique of "find all edges" on a duplicate of the photo, but I found that it works great on some photos and their pages but not on all! I want to be consistent so I skipped that idea and did something else instead. I search through my stock for images relating to the particular month or season and put that image under the boxes. Of course I have to use a blendmode to give the desired result and the blendmodes are different for each page depending on the colors of the image and the gradient on the page. For December I maybe overdid it with all the decorations but it is the month you can go over the top! Now again I have to alter my other pages as well, luckily I hadn't done them all yet! After that I have to alter some of the pages from German to Dutch and not all the extra holidays are the same. But that will be peanuts. Only the German calendar has to go in the international mail, the rest stays here and I bring those with me when we meet the intended recipient.

All the above looks so elegant and will go fantastic on a label or a card, love them!

The script for the date boxes is really convenient and gives you many options to customize to your liking. But you have to understand how it works and read the instructions carefully. Because at the start you have to "draw" in a small box how your boxes will look. I'm very bad at drawing by hand but I discovered that I could use a preset shape too and convert it to a raster layer and merged it down so I had one little box with my design. After that I just follow the script. Good luck!

Thank you Lynda, if you mean the date boxes: Yes that is a script from Carole and I have used before because I do more calendars as gifts and wanted those to look all differently. And for the script that made the background behind those boxes: it's one that comes from Corel and I don't remember if it was one of the weekly freebies they offer or that it was already inside my PSP when I bought it initially.

Susan good question, I noticed the same in 2023 but have been busy making the calendars. It doesn't seem to do any harm when I change the font and the size of that new font.

After the "font" discussion back to my calendars and these months are almost done now. I didn't like the black date numbers and have changed them to a middle/dark grey color for all the months; the outlines of the boxes are very thin and I kept those in black to keep them visible. In the lesson from today was the option to color the boxes mentioned and I gave it a try but didn't like it. All my pages have a gradient and then some part of the boxes has a slightly different color than another part, which didn't look great even with the opacity lowered or a blendmode. But I wanted something to fill those boxes and it should not be very obvious too. After some trying different options I took the same photo as in the page and in the scripts I have inside PSP I choose the find all edges. I know how to do this manually, but the script is much quicker. After that I put the resulting image in the date boxes and played with the blendmodes and opacity until I liked what I got. More work now to do this for all the other months!

Exactly my problem too!!!

I don't have decorated yet. After Dec 5th I'm going to and that is after we had "Sinterklaas" although we no longer celebrate this. I have kept that "rule" for so long now that it doesn't feel right to start before. Of course I have a couple of those little lights dotted around the living but that has more to do with the fact that it is getting dark so early now. Since we moved to this much smaller house 6 years ago, we don't have the space any longer for a big tree and we don't have much storage space either. But on top of our cupboards I always have garlands with small decorations and lights, we have a sweet little fake tree (no photo) and I can't go without Pointsettias. The rest of the deco varies, depending if we have company or go somewhere else. One item is always present and that is the candle holder that my youngest granddaughter made 6 years ago, although we now have battery operated lights for it. Outside I mostly have some lights in a plant on the patio and maybe I do a wreath with light and fir-cones on the table outside. On the front we have not much space and there is a streetlight directly in front of our house. Next to the frontdoor we do have a light but we almost never use it thanks to that streetlight; no problem there finding the keyhole.

July and August with some of the dates in another color. At first I wanted to make all the weekend days for all the pages in the same color, so it would be coherent. That didn't work because the backgrounds of my pages have different colors and besides white and black there wasn't one color suitable for all. Therefore I took a color from each page for the weekend dates for that page. If a month has special days like X-mas I'll give them a different color and probably a short text. Family birthdays will be added later on. Now I'll go back to my other pages for adjustments. I post every day the pages of that day and lesson. When we are at the end of the workshop the last pages will be completed and I'll have to go back to update the earlier ones.

You are not the only one that is addicted!😆