fiona cook

I love the way this oomphs off the page. Wow factor.

I'm in for some revision because I always take ages doing a page! For this first layout I have taken the decoration literally as the crochet doilie is the same colour as a beanie I made for my cousin, who at the beginning of the year was undergoing chemotherapy. Beanie shown here on the wrapping paper I sent it to her in.

I also liked your clever use of a basic texture from your own photo. I take photos like that usually of dilapidated buildings or foliage but have not used them much as you have done here. Inspiration indeed for textures and that Lab tutorial. Thank you.

This illustration is fantastic. What an imagination. I can almost see the frogs leaping off the page. Thank you for introducing us to the artist. It would make a lovely card for girlfriends.

Love these photos Sue. So sharp. You must be a patient person!

I've not heard of Pickle Ball so not sure if we play it in UK. The bats are a bit of a clue though to what it is. Looks like it may be energetic and you need to protect your joints.

I have a couple of greetings cards to make so for the first I have utilised an effect for text from the recent master class 'Perfectly Imperfect'. For the main fill layer for the 'Maria' text I used Effects/Texture Effects/Texture 'Crumpled'. The Shininess was set to 47% which seemed to create more a gold look. I made 2 outline layers and used the Warp Brush on both. The lady in question is quite dramatic so I hope she will like the bold colours. It's her 70th so I used the pattern palette fill having created a little '70' image and kept it open on my screen in the process.

Oh Ann, so glad there are others who feel the same as me about lawns. Interestingly where I have been walking in the unmown grass I have created a natural path. Probably all the dandelion seeds blew to my neighbours though, which won't please them!

Susan, I was out walking today and saw a bug hotel near a farmyard so I photographed it for you.

Hi, Bug hotels as they call them come in all shapes and sizes and I think started out by people leaving old bits of wood and leaves in a corner of a garden so the bugs could have shelter. I've seen huge ones made of layered pallets (not PSP palette layers!) in-between which would be all sorts of organic matter. Our councils in UK place them in parks or wild areas, some made of decorative carved wood or use bird boxes with the fronts replaced with things like bamboo, straw etc. Kids like them and it's a way of introducing them to the importance of natural areas and gardening. Susan, you will now need to make your own bug hotel to go with your bird baths. Michelle, I try not to use insecticides or such like chemicals and make compost for the garden from vegetable scraps and also get a bit of exercise digging the heap over. We have a smallish lawn that this month I have let grow wild as encouraged by the environmentalists to help wild life thrive mainly for pollination purposes, so called 'No Mow May'. It doesn't look tidy but it's not a problem. Now you've given me a couple of subjects 'vegetable garden' and 'No Mow May' for other scrapbook projects. Hopefully I won't take so much time doing those ones!

Forgot to say that the title plaque is a photo of a wooden plaque made by a crafty friend of mine using wood burning tools. She's so clever and resourceful. Quite often she uses wood she just finds lying around.

I have finally completed my project 'Bee Happy' so this is what I have been working on in May. I made the hanging bees for the purpose of decorative bug hotels for my garden. In PSP I used the Fringe Effect technique from Lab13 Module 5 for the grass layer & a reverse shadow then added a texture with the grass picture tube. I used various papers and images from the Digital Scrapbook site and studied 6 ways to add borders from the Campus Blog.

Thanks Mary for the explanation to your method.

I used to make things for my parents years ago and still like crafts. Recently I have been making bug hotels from tin cans. It's fairly time consuming but I could imagine they would appeal to kids as they are a bit cartoon like. Method, clean soup or vegetable tin cans. Need one tin and two ring pull lids per bee. Coat with acrylic primer on outside before using acrylic paint for decoration. Stick wings onto body by the ring pulls using hot glue gun (adult only!) Loop thin fishing line around tin and hot glue in place. Stuff inside the can with anything waterproof that insects like to live in. I used some old organic mattress filling and pine cones. Hang outside. The thin fishing line means they swing around in the breeze as if they are flying. (Probably makes the resident insects giddy).

I know what Michele and Susan mean about the effects of grief and the way something out of the blue hits you when you weren't even thinking about it. The price of love. I find writing private thoughts down helps. I don't know why. On a happier note I am taking ages to create my current design so don't have anything to share yet but am enjoying your contributions. My design focuses on some bug hotels in the shape of bees, for the garden I have made from tin cans. I am using the 'Fringe Effect' from The Lab 13, Module 5.

Just seen Susan's pinwheels which are fun and has reminded me that 'A Beautiful Mess' is one of my favourite Masterclasses. Must go over it again. The Serenity sympathy card is a lovely peaceful design. Too often these days, the cards you buy can be too glitzy as sympathy cards, I feel. Also love Mary's neat layouts. You are all encouraging me to do more and we seem to be keeping Carole busy with technical issues too. Thank you; all of you.

I am going over the Tags Masterclasses and just trying to create examples of tags. I haven't had time to apply to any designs. When I made the rectangular selections for the striped effects I used a ‘Feather’ value to blur the edges. My VectorPaint script did not work to start with until I realised, following the first Tags Masterclass, that after drawing the rectangle, I needed to right click on the rectangle image and ‘Convert to Path’. I didn’t see the ‘Convert to Path’ instruction in the latest Masterclass so I wonder whether it could be a difference in the versions of PSP we are running? I am on Ultimate 2021. My F11 key wasn’t working but I looked that up in View/Palettes/Brush Variance or Palettes/Brush Variance. Note to self!

Colourful tropical fish tank or maybe that's another project. What you have done so far looks amazing. I've made miniatures in the past and used small dried beans and pulses and dried pasta/spaghetti dripping out of the pots.

How about a Bird of Paradise plant (Strelitzia) because it's quite sculptural.

The flowers are more dainty on yours.

Ah, I see. Can print both ways. Saves a lot of mucking about. Thanks.

I have one flowering at the moment with some pretty colours. You may have made a similar one already.

In this example, would I be able to print just one layer?