Susan Ewart

19 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Have found Epson printers to be very reliable if I stick to Epsom ink. My tech told me the generic inks are missing an ingredient to keep everything smooth. I always print my monthly Wild Cat calendars just for my own refrigerator. I do want better quality for this Christmas gift. 

 

 

I have heard that, it messes up the heads or something as well.  we tried a no name ink in a very old printer once, didnt go well.  lesson learned.  

2 hours ago, MoniqueN. said:

I have a Canon printer for years now, when one broke down(?), we bought a Canon again. I'm very satisfied with it. I print the calenders on not shiny (Matte?) photopaper and it really looks good. I don't know if in other countries you send "birthcards' when  baby is born, but I had the honor to design one for my granddaughter and it was like it came from a professional printshop. It depends also on the paper you use 🙂

Thank you, I am looking at Canon and Espon.  Leaning a little toward the Canon as the one I want has 12 colors.  

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

I am in Canada and I have ordered from them before for single pages I wanted to give someone. I was also very happy with their quality.

but wasnt it expensive and was there shipping.  Usually that's the killer for me.  The price I'm usually okay with, the shipping is was gets me to empty the cart.

2 hours ago, Mary Solaas said:

@Susan Ewart I still have to have an "honest to goodness" camera.  Even though my cell phone takes marvelous pictures, the real deal for me is the camera.  I have a Canon - it's heavier than my old point and shoot camera, but it takes marvelous pictures.  I'm not the photographer you are (or Sue Thomas or Ann Seeber), as I use the auto focus features - but those are marvelous features on my Canon as it has various settings to choose from.  My mom and my Aunt each had one of those cameras that folded up like a "brick". But my first camera was a Brownie box camera and it did for me until I bought my first camera.  I don't have it any more as I gave it to someone who collects "antiques".

@Rene Marker Have you ever ordered a photo album from them?

Oh, Mary, thank you for the compliments and putting me in good company with Sue and Ann.  It's not the camera, it's the person behind the camera that makes the photos great and interesting.  I love to look at all styles and learn from them.  I really enjoy your travel photos as it's not a strong suit for me.  Types of photography I don't do, I tend to find fascinating.  And I never get tired of seeing old cameras, I loved them before I even thought of photography as a hobby.  Prior to this new camera I got (also a Canon) I was shooting with a 10 yr old camera, then was given another 10 yr old camera.  It's cool that you know who has your first camera.  I laughed at "antiques", most of us in the campus would qualify...I hope we dont get snatched up and put on a shelf, and if we do, I hope they are better than me at dusting regularly!

2 hours ago, Rene Marker said:

Ann, my go to for printing my layouts is Persnickety Prints. I do print 12x12 size but they have a multitude of sizes that can be printed (as photo prints). I just looked and although they don't have 8x10.5, they do have 8x10 and 8x12 for $3.99 per print. They also have 8.5x11 for $1.99 per print. The quality of their prints is exceptional and if you don't like it, support will work with you until you are satisfied.

If I was doing a calendar for a gift, I would use Persnickety and get the 8.5x11 prints and see if they would put a white border all around it. Then I would bind it possibly with ribbon like Sue suggested. Persnickety's customer support is awesome and works with their customers to make sure everything is what they wanted. Shipping is usually very fast, I've gotten orders within 4 to 5 days (Utah to Ohio). If I was doing a calendar for me, I'd just print it on my printer.

If they were in Canada I'd use them.  You told me about them before, they use photo paper, not the stuff that gets scratched easily.  I liked their mandate (at time I checked it out) and was very impressed.  I need to find a Canadian version of a company like that.

Oh, dont forget a section on clusters.  that seems to be used a lot

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

Let's be honest: that is definitely one purpose of that book too! 

and it should be!  The more people that find the campus and the store and Corel will only benefit us all and hopefully you really will, because you put tireless effort into all the great resources you've given to us.  You should be well compensated for that.  I'm a book lover, I'll be buying no matter what.

1 hour ago, Sue Thomas said:

I print everything off myself.  Using good quality paper, it's worth paying the extra.  I use HP Photo premium (matt) paper for the calendars, as I'm able to print on both sides.  Avery products for cards etc.  For the calendars I round the corners, or other punches to subtly remove the  sharp edges.  Everything , is always  well received.  Several years ago I looked into buying the wire binding kit, but for the price it wasn't worth the expense.  I punch two holes, and use ribbons to use to hang the calendars. I will also punch holes in cards, to thread ribbon, of course it will depend on the  card. Choosing ribbon colours  to match the calendars, or whether it's for a  man or woman.  Once again, it's the little details that  count,  which get noticed the most, and remarked upon.   Bit like an error will stand out like a sore thumb.   I agree, although  it's nice to use your own photos in the calendars to personalise a calendar  using the online printing services, which are basically premade,  are excessively expensive.   I certainly couldn't warrant using them, for the number of  calendars, and  cards I  produce and print.  Also, for me it would take away some of the personalising   of the item.  It's all my work,  from start to finish. 

That's how I want to be doing it.  My cards are handmade, although I do have to have the prints outsourced then I make the rest of the card after that.  Binding is a no-brainer and I did bookbinding (by hand) for years and am feeling the desire to get back into it again.  I've done cards in the past with pamphlet stitches (3-hole and 5-hole).  It's a lot work but in a way, quite relaxing as you must find it when you are creating by hand as well.  I keep thinking I shouldn't buy a printer because my hours at work are now 1/3 of what they were.  My husband keeps telling me to buy one.  I just don't feel I contribute enough to the family income to warrant such extravagance.  Silly isn't is? 

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

If you use FB Messenger, it will shrink the images even more and you won't get anything good to read! FB does that!

 

1 hour ago, Sue Thomas said:

Ann,  I doubt that you will find an online printing company, such as VistaPrint to print and bind your calendar in the way  you want.   You will have to make many changes, such as resizing, without distortion for instance, which will fit  the large number  of templates they offer.  These calendars come with premade months, and backgrounds.  I often have  my work printed onto canvas, using a British online printing service,  for gifts.  I always  select the size I want to use first, from the printer selection, as invariably, if I don't  I will have to make changes in order for it to fit  one of their canvas sizes.  

This is good stuff to know for me too.  I like total control over my printing, for example, I'm doing a square card this year, and thought I'd save time and get it printed, no one local offers that (without going to a professional print company-$$$).  A printer would be the way to go.  They are so expensive, as I want one that has 10 inks!  I wonder if I'll have enough use for it to warrant the cost and dealing with jammed ink heads from lack of use.  That's why I've always outsourced.  

I am however lucky that I have a coil binder, that's the cheap part of the process though.  

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

They're not on Facebook yet. I might not because Jackie is on my Friends list and I don't want her to see them prematurely. I can send them to you on Messenger, if that would help. Have you ever had any of  your work printed?

I never had.  I have always wanted a color printer, but the ones i want are too expensive for a hobby.  If I was making money, that would be a different story.  I too would like to find a good outsourced printer.  I used to be a photofinisher so I am picky and have had to compromise over the years in what the local photo place prints.  I get a test print done and have had to actually tell they what to do, eg. -/+ density, take out Cyan, add Magenta, etc.  Now I just think; can I live with this, it's just a Christmas card people will eventually throw away.  

I really want to get some layouts printed (outsourced), just to see what they are like. And go from there.  I'd like somewhere good though.  I should bite the bullet and test some out.  I'll have to put a little money out for testing.  However, I just looked up a local printing place I go for Calendars, they are insanely expensive, even for tiny 6x8 ones.  I think it actually would be cheaper to buy a printer (even the expensive one) and print my own. 

I will wait for the big reveal after Christmas, when you have given the gift and can freely paste on FB like you do every month.  I look forward that! 

A section at the end for where to find supplies listed by category

Like:

Fonts - then a list of some current free and non free places

Kits - list places you can get kits or elements etc

Other supplies: eg. like textures, brushes, scripts 

Tutorial sites - yours, Corel

Also:

section on "making your own supplies"  (papers, flowers, elements - just some basic ones )

Also, somewhere in there explaining what CU and PU and Scrap-for-hire mean...I didnt understand that for some time.  

12 hours ago, Suzy said:

Here are some random thoughts from me.

There should be several chapters on photographs.

one for disguising bad photos,  but  the others could be something like cropping, and getting rid of photobombing things…we were just at the Andy Griffith of Mayberry Museum in Mt Airy, NC, and the 1966 Mayberry patrol car was leaving the parking lot. I snapped some quick photos because it was leaving. The houses in the background were old, but there was one modern SUV in the photo I want to get rid of. Something lIke that.

Jannette is right - the one thing about what is going to be important in 30 years.   It’s the people. And pretty much only the people. Their names. The date (as close as possible) the location. A caption at least of what you’re looking at, but more text the better.  (More text, fewer clusters.). My kids like the text the best in their baby books. It is descriptive text on their lives from my perspective…how much they cried, what  outfit  of mine they spit up on that day. what they ate, the color of their poop, presents they had gotten, that they pulled the dog’s tail or cried when they saw a certain person….minutia, really, but they love reading about it! Still! 

a caution…..where there are so many junky elements with giant flowers bigger than the heads of the people in the photos…. Where so much junk is there itks hard to figure out where there even are any important pictures.

there could also be a chapter on genealogy. Easy Sharing is one of the most important reasons to do genealogy digitally.  The other thing is not having enough actual photos of an old great uncle, for example - but the person might know he had a yellow Lab dog and the address of his house and his occupation. Without a whole lot more, they could put together a page with a little story.
(I am STILL selling copies of a genealogy book I wrote in 2008.  personally for me, figuring out how I’m going to print and bind BEFORE doing even one LO was a Godsend.)

A chapter on embracing the decade.. maybe they have a photo with 1960s color  Cross processing?, I think that's the term. They have a choice to make. Fix it or embrace it?  And you can show them how to use period text and the sepia colors for old photos,  then how the colors change per decade or generation. Because that would be really groovy. Er, da bomb. I mean hip, baby!

Be sure to touch upon the idea of scrap every day of the week, or 365 or 52 week, or whatever, to show their actual lives and what they do and how they do it. Show pics of their bathroom sinks, kitchens, including wall paper and maybe even the inside of their refrigerator, maybe you could two pages that have 365 prompts in tiny font of everyday life?  Riding in the car…facing front, backwards, car seat?, big booster seat?, whatever.  Wouldn’t it be fun for me to have that from my youth?

Well, I have 1000s of ideas, I’m just not sure this is what you mean.
 

 

 

 

Wow. So much awesome ideas.  I have loads of old family photos of my parents and no clue who anyone is (other than my parents and grandparents).  They are all gone now.  Wish I was into that sooner so I could have asked more questions.  I guess that's why I never actually scrapped physically, because I come from a photo arts background (and handmade books/paper) so I was more interested in the art aspect of layouts...as I am now.  The only family members i've digitally scrapped is my cats.  Yikes eh!  

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

I need advice! For the first time (this is my 3rd calendar class) I need to get it printed as a Christmas gift. I always see calendars that open up from the center and can be pinned to the wall. And they are bound in the center. I have two now, one is stitched and the other has wire coil. This class has produced 13 pages @  8 inches x 10.5 inches. So what do I do now and where is a good place to get it printed. It's for my granddaughter, Jackie, who lives nearby. I only have one more page to finish, for December. Here are July thru November finished.

I was able to read the Badger and Caracal text.  How interesting about the Badger, they must have a way to digest and filter out the poisons.  Unreal.  Ann, I'm so blown away by this Calendar.  I'll head to FB today and see if you have posted them there so I can read the rest.  The information is very interesting.  

5 hours ago, Michele said:

I've rethought my approach and am working on my new pages.

Looking forward to seeing them.  I'm still tweaking too.  Had a busy week so hoping I get some PSP time in this weekend.  Happy thanksgiving by the way!

1 hour ago, Rene Marker said:

I definitely agree that a chapter on supplies that are already there for people to use would be nice. Most digital scrapbookers that I know like to buy a pre-made kit then scrap their layout when they first start out. Heck I've been digital scrapping since 2008 and still prefer to buy kits. I prefer my scrapbooking time actually being spent on scrapbooking not creating although I have enjoyed learning more about creating my own stuff.

As for templates, make sure to include the fact that PSD templates can be used in PSP. Even though PSD templates might have native PSD features in them, they can still be used in PSP. A PSP user will just get the basic template to use (I do it all the time).

One of the designers I have bought from has glitter styles as an add-on to her kits. Since PSP can't use styles, I always ignored them. Until I found out that the png files of the glitters could be used by saving them in the patterns folder. Not to mention all the commercial use paper textures from Pixel Scrapper that can be used by saving them in the textures folder.

I do agree with Susan about using Bootcamp as a starting point. But make sure to expand into more crafty or complex pages. Show what can be done with PSP because quite a few PSD or PSE users think PSP users cannot do everything they can! Most of the scrapbookers that I know started out with very basic pages but as they continued on they found they enjoyed the crafty (and what some call busy) pages. I've seen (and done) some crafty pages that do have the story on the page as well. Just because a page is crafty doesn't mean it can't tell a story.

Since you don't want to go in to detail about the tools, if you mention something but don't want to go into a lot of detail put a disclaimer that more info can be found at.... whether it be one of your books or a blog post or tutorial here at campus. A sneaky way to advertise 😉 

Well said Rene.  I did not know that about the Styles.  I have downloaded some in the past thinking I could use them.  I'll have to find them and see if they have png files.

Did anyone get the Corel's new Discovery Centre email?  Carole has a great tutorial in it called, "Make a custom calendar in Paintshop Pro".  It's very good.

Since it's about scrapbooking why not make it based on either the Bootcamp or the Basic Scrapbooking course.  Or a mix of the best of both.  I'm thinking if the reader has never scrapped before, but also what if they've never used PSP before, so that's why I thought a blending of the two courses.    When you are making your book think of how you told us you make scripts.  First get the basic outline, then add in the detail parts into the sections as you think of them.  Or reverse engineer it, start with the end products you want to have and then write the lessons on how it was done (This is for you to help organize the layout of the book, not how the reader would use the book).  Mind you in my bookbinding books I learned from, some would have the book you would make ( photo) then the supplies, then the directions with lots of illustrations and written directions for each (drawn or photo - in your case it would be photos and screen shots step by step).  It's quite an undertaking.  Will this be an e-book or physical paper book?   I also have bookbinding books where the chapters are (for example) the type of binding, so I also like your idea of having chapters on different aspects that you listed.  As well as Supplies and subcatagories for supplies like Papers, elements, Alphas.  What about "ready-to-use" masks and templates and how to use them?  It's a pretty complex task and figuring out how not to go with too much ideas or not being thorough enough.  

12 hours ago, Mary Solaas said:

Sue, I value your input also.  You are a master.

15 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Julie, I feel quite humbled by your generous complimentary words. I sincerely, appreciate and thank you, and  others that  comment on my work as you do. I am a stickler for detail, even the slightest   misalignment shouts out to me, to rectify it.  Of course I'm far from perfect, and will often miss things.  I don't scrutinize other peoples' work, but some small details  will jump out at me, that is when I  try to tactfully and without malice make helpful suggestions.   I like to  think that  others would reciprocate.   

Sue, you've helped me in the past and I want you to keep on doing it. I want you to do you! I'm the one who benefits from it.  We don't see the mistakes in our own work.  It's like proofreading but for layouts and not words.  (unless the words IN the layout are wonky, then it really is proofreading, and I'm probably not making sense). It's 2:15am and I just got home from work, hubby will get up in 15 minutes for work. And I'm back at work in less than 12 hours.  I cant wait for Black Friday week to be over.  

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

Completed the first six months. Will do more later and the rest of the week. 

 

Where did you find your lost text....perhaps my lost money is there too! 😁.  a really stunning calendar.

1 hour ago, Jannette Nieuwboer said:

@Susan EwartI don't no anything about cameras. My husband was used to be the photographer in this household. Now i snap something with my cellphone so now and than. Not  enough to fill an whole calendar. 📸

I was lucky to be handed down cameras from my parents and grandparents.  They were casual photographers, family stuff mostly and my grandfather probably did more than my parents.  I have bought a few on my own to add to the collection but like everything else they have gone way up in price lately.  I used to be able to pick them up very inexpensively at thrift stores.  I have the worst camera on my 8 yr old cell phone (that has no data *GASP*).  The newer phones take amazing photo's.  They are not great to make large prints from due to the small sensor size.  I'm sure that will change in time though.  That's also why current cameras have gotten so expensive, less demand as more people use their phones and less buying camera and equipment/accessories.  I started collecting because I thought they were interesting looking, in doing the magazine workshop I had to do a little research about them and now I've become interested in learning more about the ones I have.

Day 7 Calendar cover.  This cover is to go with my Magazine cover from the Magazine workshop.  I added the black frame as my Mag. cover has a red frame.  I think I need to fill the black empty (negative?)  under the word camera with something and the below the cameras.  Some kind of words tying it to the magazine.  And of course going back and adding the extra touches to the rest of the Calendar.  

Carole: once this workshop is over, should we post are finalized calendars in What Are You Working On forum?

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

Thanks, Susan. It's intended for my granddaughter, Jackie, the zookeeper. Here she is showing me the new Caracal kittens.

OOps, my bad.  Your granddaughter will be blown away.  How lucky she is.  What a great photo.  I cant imagine the experiences she has on a daily basis.  Like I've said before.  BEST. JOB. EVER.

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

I have been doing some additions and revisions and here's what's finished so far:

 

Ann, this is a beautiful calendar.  Your daughter is going to be blown away at how professional it is.  

1 hour ago, Anne Lamp said:

It is great to see so many unique ideas for this calendar workshop.  I got off to a pretty good start with the intention of doing the whole thing, Then I started not being able to sign into my email.  I appreciated the suggestions other members gave me, but none of them worked.  A few days later BINGO everything started working like it was supposed to.  By that time I had spent so much time trying to get things to work, I was just plain computered out.  I did go back and read and saved the instructions, but just didn't work on them any more.  Maybe if I get time after Thanksgiving, I will try to do all of them. 

Good to hear you are back up and running.  I would be needed a break after going through something like that.  It was probably your provider.  We've had that, where something stops working and then randomly starts working even when doing nothing about it.  Recently, it was the modem we got from our internet/TV/phone provider, it had to be re-booted 3 times then everything started working as normal.  

1 hour ago, MoniqueN. said:

I love your backgrounds! Do you make them yourself? 🙂

No, I got them with my ON1 Raw editing program.  they are called Two Little Owls -  Autumn Whimsy Textures.  They are actually presets but they also included JPGs so was able to use them outside that program.  

5 hours ago, Cristina said:

I purchased the Custom Calendar script, and I can see it will speed up their creation... I think it is genius, and I am curious to see how it is coded. 😉 😄 

This morning, I was happy to see that the YouTube video was uploaded:   Custom Calendar

I know it takes time (there are hundreds of scripts!), but having a video explaining how it works is very helpful.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the video.  I watched it and it's really good. I think I'll be getting the script, what a time saver for making Calendars.