Rene Marker

It was a long weekend around here. I could hear booms every night since Friday. Monday night there were actually some fireworks in the sky from some of those booms. Then last night was the firework show put on by the annual festival. I live about a mile north of the fairgrounds where the festival is held. When we first moved into this house in 1964, we could see the fireworks from the living room window. There is a street that runs perpendicular to my street almost even with my driveway. One of the houses on the west side of the street has a tree in the front yard. It was small in 1964, it is much bigger now! So my direct view is sort of blocked but I can see the fireworks through the trees. So as the years have gone by when I go outside to see them, I have to move my position to the east to get a clear view (if I want to take photos). One year I used my neighbor's driveway since they weren't home. I can get a pretty good view by standing about half way between the 2 driveways at the edge of the road which is what I did last night. Before those fireworks started, I could hear lots of others. There were some to the north of me (back of my house), to the west of me and to the southeast of me. It was quite noisy for awhile since the 3 not festival fireworks were going off at the same time. Those were also not constant. They would set off a few then it would be a few minutes before the next few went up. Thankfully, Peyton does not mind the noise. I've been lucky with all 3 of my Havanese dogs over the years not having a problem with them. My first Havanese, Pepper, would sit outside with me during the fireworks!

There are a few in my town but I've never used them. I do know where one is on the opposite side of town. I have heard of a couple others but they aren't in areas of town that I go to so I haven't seen them.

I played with it tonight. First photo when I clicked "done", I had the 3 layers (original, mask and ai background) on my workspace. I then closed the image since it was just a test. I opened another image, this time of my dog. Since there was no person I had to use the brush to make the mask. Got that done then selected a background. When I clicked "done", all I had on my workspace was my original photo. Since this was another test, I just closed the program. I don't know if this is the same as what Ann had, but I thought I'd let you know.

I haven't been scrapping much lately since I've been working on a history project for my church with my cousin. But I did finish an album about the pandemic and had it printed at Shutterfly. It is not especially interesting since it is mostly facts about Ohio, my county and my town. Lots of journaling. I started it with January 2020 and finally stopped with May of 2023 when both the WHO and the CDC declared the emergency of Covid as over. For my front and back covers I used some cut-outs from Scrapping With Liz. For the front cover I used Heidelstein font for the word Pandemic and Cass-punched out script after applying a paper to the raster layer. All papers and elements for both pages (except the cutouts) are from a kit that That Was A Year from Sweet Shoppe Designs. The back cover of all the cutouts was originally saved as 12x12 since I was going to use it as a page. I changed my mind so I had to make some adjustments so things were not cut out on the book cover. I just put every layer into a group and used the pick tool to scale down the size and recenter everything on the page. This is the 12x12 version of it. Worked great!

I really appreciate when the settings show in the screen shot or the video. I forget which tutorial I was having problems with because following the directions just wasn't working. I wasn't getting anything like your example. If I remember right, there was one screen shot that showed the settings and once I used those, it worked. I know you like to zoom in especially on the videos but sometimes being to actually see the settings really helps!

GPS are not always the best thing to follow! On a trip with 2 of my friends to London, Ontario, Canada in 2008, we had a GPS. They live in Dayton and had gotten breakfast before they picked me up. I hadn't eaten so I was hungry about an hour into the trip up I-75. I wanted a McDonald's breakfast and we were in an area where there weren't any McDonald's right off the highway. One of the girls tried searching but I saw a bulletin board indicating one coming up at the next exit. So she stopped searching on the GPS. I got my McDonald's and we got back on the road. When we were going through Toledo, it kept telling us to exit. We kept heading north on I-75 and it kept telling us to make a u-turn to head back to Toledo. We did make it to the crossing and heading into Canada (we took the tunnel that time). When we got through the tunnel, the GPS was telling us to turn around and go back to the US. Finally, the girl decided to see where it was trying to take us. Turns out when she quit searching she had accidentally changed the destination to a restaurant in Toledo (Olga's Kitchen)! She changed the destination and we had no problems from then on. Since then I've been extremely careful when setting my GPS unit as to my destination. But I also look things up on Google maps before I go so I at least have an idea already.

I've had Fox News on this afternoon and they've been talking about it a lot and showing lots of images and live cams. They even said that because of all the people coming in and going out of their building, there is a smoke smell inside as well. Of course, not as bad as outside but after time it probably builds up. What has been interesting is that they have shown a map (like radar) that shows the likely movement of the smoke in the next 2 days. Pittsburgh is going to hit hard and I'm on the edge of what will hit Ohio so the air quality here will be worse in the next couple of days. Looks like Friday might be the bad day here. Unfortunately, I don't have any N or K95 masks, just the regular surgery masks and a couple of cloth masks. I hope it isn't too bad when I run my errands tomorrow.

All the way over here in Ohio, we are having air quality in the moderate to unhealthy range per AirNow.gov. Can't see smoke but when I was out earlier, there was a different smell to the air. It was in the unhealthy range at that time but has now dropped down to the moderate range. I had trouble breathing just the couple of minutes I was out. I've decided to keep windows and doors closed today.

Hearding works for the sentiment he is expressing with this layout.... the cats are laughing because of what they are hearing ("train these cats") and he can't hear because of their laughing. Definitely a play on words. Love the layout Gerry!

I print my layouts as 12x12 single prints from a service in the USA called Persnickety Prints. I buy print credits when they are on sale and then print when I have a bunch of layouts ready. I do put them in Creative Memories albums in page protectors that are specifically for that purpose. I have also printed gift books using Shutterfly that are 10x10 in size when they have an unlimited pages sale. One project I did many years ago, I printed it at home on 8.5x11 photo paper (layout size 8x8). I then bought an 8x8 scrapbooking album with page protectors to put the prints in. However, I do know of many people that print at home since they scrap 8.5x11. There are scrapbook binders in that size with the protectors that they then put their prints in. Most common sizes for scrapbooks sold in stores are 12x12 and 8.5x11 and 8x8. One important thing for me is to use page protectors that are made specifically for scrapbook pages and not the generic protectors for a binder. Here is an article that talks about various types of scrapbooks, page protectors and lists some vendors: Which Scrapbook Album Should I Buy? It might give you some ideas to move forward.

Have you tried putting the flower under the photo but on top of the green paper? That would hide the stem of the flower. Although my thought on your first layout was to not have as much shadow on the flower and make it look more like a sticker.

I know I responded before about this but I accidentally found a way to only get 1 screen when doing a print screen. I have always used "Ctrl+Print Screen" keys to do screen shots. Today I accidentally used the Alt key+Print Screen. When I did the paste as new image in PSP, it was only the one screen and the one I wanted! For me, that is the left screen (which is set as my main display in windows properties). As long as what I want to print screen is on my left screen I can use the Alt key. If it is on the right screen, I would have to use either the Print Screen alone or Ctrl-Print Screen. I tested both to see what I go with them as well.

They usually have storewide 50% sales during National Scrapbooking Weekend in May, and sometimes again in October or November. They have also started doing a "Love Our Designers" event from mid February to mid March where one designer is highlighted each day. Quite a few of them will offer a discount during their day as well ranging from 20 to 30% off. Quite often if I see something I might want and it is an older product, I will put it on my wish list. Then when a sale comes I'll buy it if I determine that I really can use it.

I do print screen and also have 2 screens. So when I use the Paste As A New Image in PSP, I get both of them. I just use the crop tool and get rid of the half I don't want. That works best for me because I'm usually going to save the image and can easily do that in PSP.

I have freebie templates from her that I got all the way back in 2008. At that time she numbered them! When she found out I had some of them around 2013, she asked me to be on her CT for 3 months and I shared the old ones with her since she had gotten rid of them. She has since updated some of them. So I've been a fan of hers for 15 years. Her style in the beginning was much like the Creative Memories style which I had done when paper scrapping and it made sense since she had also done CM scrapping. I still use her templates for 95% of my scrapping and these days I am challenging myself to use at least one template from each set I have of hers. Lots of thinking outside the box! I have been collecting more of the cutouts as well.

Love your layout! Amazingly, that is one set of SWL templates that I don't have (and I have a lot... over 42MB of her templates). I do have the cutout version of the globe though. Liz has had some wonderful shape templates over the years including the now retired cutout sets for all 50 states, DC and USA. She also had previously done over 10 years ago some state templates that had photo spots inside the shape of the state. She never completed the series and retired them before she moved to The Lily Pad in 2016. I have been using some of her cutouts as titles on pages and experimenting with different ways to highlight them. These were my latest (basketball done in March and the other in April).

Cutter tool is also available in the Preset Shapes tool. I found a video on Corel's site about it: How to Cut Out Shapes and Text - Corel Discovery Center

Text Tool!

I haven't had the problem again and it was only after using the one script (Open A Copy) and it changed it to compatibility with PSP8. It wouldn't bother me if it saved as X8 because I do use X8 a lot and I don't use the features that are not X8 compatible at this time. I just cannot use 2023. I have too many issues with the main one being the issue of it not always going to the layer I'm selecting and especially the bottom layer. So I actually have reverted to using 2021 for all my scrapping. But it doesn't always run scripts right especially the Credit List Compile script that I use on every layout. So I always save my layouts then open them in X8 to run that script, add any text and save. I then go back to 2021 to do any final touches and save the jpg copies. I do text in X8 because I have had issues with the text tool at times in 2021, especially if I have a lot of it. Text wrapping is wonky as well and will actually shut down the program on me. So I do hit save quite often when scrapping because I lost a lot during the Story Teller Workshop on one of the layouts. So I'm a multiple version user of the program!

Back to the topic of favorite purchase... Awhile back I had bought the Multi-Tool Script then promptly forgot I had it. When I made a page in OneNote for all of the scripts and their descriptions, I took time last week to add the graphic so at a glance I could see what the script does. Because Bow #2 and Bow #10 doesn't tell me a whole lot! LOL I saw I had the Multi-Tool script. So this weekend when scrapping with a template with lots of layers, I decided to try it. When I scrap I usually turn any of the template layers off (hide them) after I've added my stuff then go through and delete them one by one at the end. So with over 20 hidden layers I figured I'd give the script a go.... Loved it! Best of all even though it has four tools (delete empty layers, delete hidden layers, re-number the layers in order, unlink all the layers), I was able to say no to the 3 tools I didn't want to use. I can't see me using the renumbering or unlinking tools at all. Delete empty layers is a maybe but I usually end up deleting empty layers as soon as I notice them. For me, the tool scripts have been the most useful but I can see using some of the Element scripts for the next build-a-kit workshop ? I have played with a few of those. I did like the Custom Kit Buttons script once I got it to work. Wouldn't work in PSP2021 but worked just fine in X8. I did have an odd result using raster-to-mask on the template I was using. It was not masking the circle template element but making the mask layer solid black. So I looked at the template again and specifically the circle. It appeared to be very close to the edge of the canvas. Turns out it was actually off the caanvas by a small amount. I moved the circle away from the edge and ran the script again and it worked perfectly! So now I know that if something is on the edge of the canvas, move it a little if I want to use raster-to-mask. For my layout, after doing the merge-group-rename on that mask layer, I was able to move the photo into the original spot on the template.

I just looked it up on my computer. I have that font. Have had it forever. Never use it but somehow it is one that I remember the name. LOL

Looks like Jokerman.

Love the use of the plaid. I need to do more of the layering of background papers. One of the designers at The Lily Pad does live sessions monthly where she scraps a layout and she does this quite often.

No ladies, you are not alone. In the 15 years I've been digi scrapping I have downloaded a lot of free stuff and purchased a lot of kits from various stores. Quite a few with good intentions that have not happened. Many I had even forgotten I had. Several years ago I made a vow to myself that I was going to use kits I already had instead of always buying new stuff. But I had to figure out what I had! After trying a couple of things I finally landed on a system that is working quite well for me. Since I have mainly kits that were purchased that have the previews, I put a copy of every preview into a folder of its own. Then I set up Adobe Bridge (it is free), to read that folder. I also set up keywords for each preview. My keywords are mainly by theme. Bridge also has a way to label an image with colors so I chose to use a red label for kits I have used and a yellow label for templates I have used. I have so many templates and some I really love and like to use a lot! So now when I scrap I go to Bridge and filter it so I can look through the unused templates and kits to see if I can find something that will work. I am happy to say that I have added a lot of labels to both kits and templates! I don't feel like I wasted my money on that stuff anymore. And, I have found some real gems in those kits. That's actually how I found the kit that I decided to use for my Build A Kit workshop. (But, yeah, I still buy new kits... especially when there are big sales like this coming weekend. LOL!)

I also used NoteTab when learning to code webpages but I did get the paid version. I did several websites 25 years ago and did the coding from scratch. I haven't had those websites for years but I am thankful for the classes I took on learning HTML coding and CSS coding. I can actually look at the coding of a page and see where/why they are issues. Sadly I no longer have the program since I've had multiple computers since then. I never thought to move it to the next computer since I wasn't using it... But coding of webpages is so far advanced of what it was in the 90's.