fiona cook

Beautiful. Everything so right about it.

Well done Carole. You must live and breathe Paintshop Pro!

Lesson 7. I copied the vector layer, removed the stroke and added fill and texture but have made the mistake of adding this on top of the inner bevel! Not sure how I could have achieved this properly.

Lesson 6. Text used 'Mister Earl' but it is an unusual character 'F'. The Picture Tube is 'Confetti' which I made look thicker by reapplying the Vector Tube script.

With the text on circle exercise, I got muddled up with where to double-click. To Reverse Path double click on the actual circle path (not the layer). To get the text to go under the circle, double click on the object text path Layer (not on the image) and select all.

So sorry not to contribute before now as have had unexpected family commitments and only just managed to catch up. The first lessons I found quite tricky but got into it from lesson 5. Although the text on the path with the cat got bit distorted even if I changed the size of the text.

I'm in even though I have done the class before and this year may not be able to join in until later. Yes it's a fiddly subject I think but practice makes perfect so they say. Ever hopeful!

From the recent masterclasses I liked the effects: 1. creating the stripey effect patch 2. creating a circular element from a straight, flat ribbon 3. The circular stamp from vector text. As an exercise I managed to combine the techniques in one image of a stamp for my name. First I created the stripey patch by taking a small image and adding noise as in the tutorial and from that I made a strip. Then I took the stripey strip to form the circular element and used it as the background for my stamp. What I would like to have is the stripey effect more defined, not so soft. My ribbon strip was 583 x 64 pixels resized to 200 x 64 px.

This version looks softer than the previous one. I like it. Well like both really.

My friend bought me a twizzel decoration for the garden and I liked the way its shape and colour mirrored the alliums that I have growing.

Foxgloves have appeared everywhere in our garden but I have not planted them. It must be the birds dropping seeds and then the seeds come up year after year. I let them do their thing.

I love the quote you have used for your image.

Yes Ann, It's amazing when you see wild animals in your domestic situation isn't it. I used to live on my own in a mobile home and one night I felt the wall gently moving. It wasn't scary as I could tell it wasn't human intervention but it was a deer that had wandered down from nearby woods and was rubbing its back on the edge of the mobile home. Maybe it had an itch or it was a territory thing putting its smells there. I don't know.

It makes you so angry but then you can hear of good neighbourly things that go on that restore your faith in human nature. Some of the refugees for example help in the communities giving back a little of what they have received. I greatly admire that.

I have seen another deer today in the strangest of places. My friends and I passed through the very peaceful and massive, historic Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey as part of a country walk and some deer were paying their respects as well (or eating the flowers and shrubs). At this point we were in the American Military graves area. Didn't see any groundhogs!

My previous Peony Stamp was a bit low res.

My print outs have come out at the right dimension so I thought I would do another version of a card with the matching envelope using the popular Scrapbook square format. This one is 11cm card but the max I can do with an envelope is 14.5cm square. This card will just have one fold. The peony photo is mine and the background has a 'Paper' effect (Effects/Texture/Paper. I have made a pretend postage stamp for the envelope. No royalty on this one but instead a Brush Tip 'FancyFlower' with a small inner bevel. The Selection border around had the perforations made with the Eraser tool, size:30, Steps 118. (note to self!)

I created the card with my peony photo as a 5"x7" 1500x2100 and decided to set the envelope up to suit UK A4 standard size so I can use it for future. A4 210x297mm = 8.3"x11.7"". In pixels (8.3x300dpi) 2490 x3510. I hope I have understood this. The envelope (not shown) was a little clunky where I had applied the Pic tool Perspective scale on the flaps so I might redo that. I also liked the idea of printing a design on the envelope or maybe a pretend stamp. The font on card is The Billion. Loved the lace. So pretty.

Cassel, I opted for a white shadow from the start as I knew black would dull the image. My gamble!

Card 6. Just catching up with yesterday's template. It's a bank holiday weekend in UK so juggling hobbies and weather! I may have a graduation card to do soon but didn't want to tempt fate by doing it too early. Instead I just made a holiday card. The Classic Materials Palette option that Carole suggested has worked for me and I find easier to tweak the colours than the swatches set up I had before. Thank you.

I like your watermark effect for you the designer. I might nick that idea, especially for the folded cards.