Gerry Landreth

Day 2 - Noah.

 

Noah turned three in December but has already started announcing that he will soon be four. Since he lives in Texas (we are in Alabama), we don't get to see him more than once or twice a year.

 

The plaid effect is a great tool. I tried several versions before realizing that I could either keep going or cook dinner. Mother was getting hungry, so the latter won out.

 

Bull Dog element - Pixabay; Font - The Rollingstone

Ann: I have a special place in my heart for vultures. In Miami, I worked downtown, surrounded by high rises. Every year at the same time, the turkey vultures would return to circle around the top of the buildings.

 

One morning, a co-worker squealed with delight. "Christmas is coming. The turkey vultures are here!"

 

Some areas mark the change of seasons by the weather. In Miami, there is a different kind of signal of change.

Baby Xavier was joined by Baby Amelia this past September. She is my mother's 6th great-grandchild. After a challenging year, with more challenging months ahead, Amelia's giggle lets me forget the ugly for a little while.

 

Paper - Pixel Scrapper (Maria Lerin); Font - Sinentosa; Hand with butterfly - FreePik; Butterfly element - Pixabay.

Athens, AL USA (near the Huntsville Space Center - rural to the west and high tech to the east)

 

One of the many fascinating aspects of this group is the diversity, including geographic.

Carole - As mentioned earlier, this project will be a work in progress for a while. But, I wanted to thank you for this challenge. Each one is an adventure in learning, exploring, and growing. It's always great to see everyone's work, and particularly exciting when participants share tips and ideas.

It's always fun and inspiring to see everyone's work. This project will be a work in progress for a while.

 

I am trying to find a way to help my mother keep up with birthdays. At 81, her eyes balk at small print. Using pictures of the kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids in their birthday month should make it easier.

 

Those who live in the far north, feel free to make fun of the "snow" in the January layout. Alabama doesn't get much, but it freaks them out when there is even a dusting. It's been a while since I lived in Boston, but the memories of digging the car out of snowdrifts still haunt me.

Hello! Carole's challenges always push me to learn new skills and fellow participants always push me to expand my creativity. The two don't always work at the same time or move in the same direction, but I always enjoy trying.

Ann Adams, thank you for sharing a wonderful story. With all that is going on around us, it is easy to forget that there is a lot of goodness out there.

 

 

Thank you for an excellent challenge. It's always fun to see everyone's work, but the stories were an added bonus.

 

Carole: I confess that I had to look up the number of steps there were to the bell tower. At the time, I had two concerns: was I going to have a heart attack before reaching the top or have one before I hit the ground after losing my balance.

Assignment Fear.

 

After the challenge is over I'll have a little more time in the day, but I will miss reading these great stories.

I went for the Text on a Path option. My justification was that I needed to practice and I did have to look it up.

 

The real reason is that I got bogged down in trying to find letters that I liked. One of my challenges, in general, is overthinking design aspects at the expense of the main point of the challenge, in this case, the journaling.

I had all but forgotten this story until this challenge. After a brief and embarrassing dalliance with sports, I focused on a different type of competition.

Like Ann, I was back and forth between the video and the layout. Once it was all in place, it made perfect sense.

 

Modifying the selection to accommodate elements has made me appreciate the "word wrap" function in desktop publishing or word processing programs.

 

It's fun reading the stories. An added treat is the geographical diversity of the group.

This story describes a special moment from my first weekend with The Boys. I was apprehensive. Not having children, I was in uncharted waters. How do I entertain two rambunctious boys?

 

My deep knowledge of SpongeBob helped with the 5-year-old. Cooking breakfast with the 8-year-old was a plus. By the end of the weekend, Uncle Gerry was the "awesomest!"

 

Watching my mother putting them to bed brought back warm memories of being a sleepy boy who tried to stay awake and then couldn't wake up. It was a feeling of being safe. A feeling of love.

Good morning from Alabama!

I continued with the postcard theme. The etching wasn't clear when I put them on the fridge so I uploaded them individually.

 

Carole - Thank you again for another interesting and challenging week.

The New York postcard on the bottom left is a recreation of sorts of one my niece sent to my parents in 2000 which has a little different layout.

 

The picture on the bottom right is of my parents at Gooseberry Falls probably in the early 90s.

 

As I was finishing up, I realized that I could have used the shadows better to enhance the 3d effect. (Note to self ... add shadows on a different layer next time.) Ever since I watched one of Cassel's tutorials on shadows, I seem to be haunted by them.

 

 

The person featured on the stamps was the daughter of one of my closest friends. Three of the photos are from her trip to Miami in 2010. I wasn't able to go to the beach with them, but they borrowed my camera. The top picture is her in the early 70s at a beach in New York.

 

Tris recently passed away. She was in a nursing home in New York City and died of COVID-19 related illness. Pictures from that trip brought back good memories of good friends.

 

On a technical note, I wanted to give more depth to the envelopes but wasn't quite sure how to achieve it. My guess is to make use of shadows.

I wanted to thank Cassel for two excellent scripts I used on the Day 3 challenge, Date Stamp 4 and Word Slats. After spending time on blending photos and textures for the slats, I realized it didn't work in that particular layout.

 

Both were easy to use and gave me a good foundation to embellish them.

A friend and I stayed in London with friends who we met working in Cleveland. A day trip to Hampton Court and another to Bath were fun.

 

My favorite was the walking tour of the murder sites of Jack, The Ripper in the late afternoon. It finished just as the sun was setting, conveniently in front of a pub.

 

It's another batch of lost pictures but the memories are still vivid and the stories still only slightly exaggerated.

 

I enjoyed learning how to create the luggage tag. Thank you for helping us explore new things.

When I thought about a double-page, I was put off thinking it would need lots of stuff. My next thought was, it really just means bigger stuff. Once I got started, I realize my first instinct was more accurate.

 

These pictures are from a trip to San Francisco to visit a friend from college. Our trip to Muir Woods National Monument was exceptionally memorable. Cathedral Grove is a section where everyone is silent, allowing the sounds of nature to immerse the worshiper.

 

On the way back, we stopped to soak in the majesty of the ocean views. The sound of the crashing waves was a worthy postlude.

A friend from Chicago met me at Orly Aiport for a 2-week driving tour of The Loire Valley. A travel agent friend did the itinerary and made the arrangements. Starting in Paris on the day after Bastille Day while the Parisians were still recovering from the revelry, we began the adventure with a few days in the city followed by visits to Chartes Cathedral and several chateaus then back to Paris.

 

I experimented with Pic-to-Painting, layering, masks, and blend modes with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, the pictures from the trip were lost to water damage several years ago, so I used stock images (which are MUCH better than the ones I took!)

Most of our vacations in the 60s were road trips to visit my mother's Aunt Bonnie in Duluth. Dad never took the same route twice, always planning and studying for months in advance. Any place east of the Mississippi was on the table from Truman's home in Missouri to the Blue Ridge Parkway with a possible side trip to South Carolina to visit my mother's sister.

 

I took my role as big brother seriously. My parents often used the Santa Claus/Coal in Your Stocking threat in the early years. The angelic grin I was flashing was a ruse that, decades later, I still use upon occasion.

 

Pictured are Dad, my sister Lori, and me in the back seat; Mother was taking the picture.

Cassel -

 

Thank you for another fun and instructive challenge. As always, I learned a lot.

 

The pup in the Day 5 challenge is my dog, Lynda. She will be 13 in August. The picture was taken in 2009.

 

The little creature is what we call a "crawdad," also known as a "crayfish." They are lobster-like critters found in streams and creeks in the South - in my case, Alabama. Larger ones are Southern delicacies (or so I'm told!)

 

Thanks again and I wish you the best as you continue to mend.

There is a little back story. The picture is from our final family reunion. The picture of the crawdad reminded me of decades ago when my cousins and I would run to the creek after lunch to catch some. It was good to see another generation having just as much fun.

 

Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park is the site of a Civil War-era iron plant that supplied the Confederate army which is why I chose the metal beads as the text outline. The furnaces were fueled by the trees in the forest surrounding the plant.

 

The picture was taken with an old camera phone. I ran it through Photozoom 7 to increase the resolution and clean up the JPEG artifacts.