Susan Ewart

I meant to thank you also for all these samples, they are beathtaking and I can study them and see all the nuances (techniques) in them. I did do selection>modify>set selection borders on all the photos and then used a gaussian blur instead of flood filling with a color. Putting the two shadow layers (reg and reverse) under them made the "blur" frame more opaque, but it was a new(to me) technique I tried, I thought it was interesting.

Wow, thank you. yes, I can do the mask version as I have taken the workshop (and finally have one mask version committed to memory...that is thanks to your advice of picking one thing and doing it over and over -thank you for that) and have watchd the masterclasses as well. For some reason I thought it was some kind of feathering the edge of photo to have it fade out to nothing. I believe you used it on a tag recently. yes, I just checked, it's the vole tag. I think I got it in my head that it was to do with making a selection and feathering or something. I did see a tutorial in the campus also using the eraser tool and I could have used that. It was at 1:30am and I wanted to finish and post. Today I am a zombie. Remember the days of reading a book before bed and not being able to put it down and then the next day you suffer from lack of sleep. that's me today, hahaha. Now, I have to shake the cobwebs out of my head and go do some dandelion portraits before the lawnmower gets them.

I totally agree with you both. I played around for a few hours and it didnt come together until the very end. Those strips and the short stitiching were a challenge and I was putting them all over and at the very end I put them where I did. I had wanted the head shot picture to have those co0l faded edges that Sue does, but do you think I can even remember how to do it. I tried a few things, looked for a tutorial but didnt find it. PSP was acting weird too, wouldnt go to layers when I clicked on them. I would do selection>modify>select selection borders on a photo that was under another photo on the corner and it would select edges around the photo and the edges of the photo above it, but only the part that was overlapping. Finally I just filled it to see what it would look like and the odd "extra" border wasnt there. It was very late at night so now I think maybe I just imagined it. ? That's why I like these challenges, because they can be hard, but I keep going until I am saftisfied with it.

This baby squirrel visited us only on one day. We've had a number of momma squirrels leave their kids with us to baby sit for a few hours. These babies are oblivious to harm and the dangers in it's surroundings. Even coming right up to my feet. The magpies had a keen interest in taking it home to meet their hatchlings. I spend 3 hours watching it and chasing off the magpies and male squirrels (who are just mean and nasty to the little ones) and the neighbours cats. His/hers mom only came twice to check on it. Not really Mother-of-the-Year material. They run around for a bit and then just where ever they are, they stop and sleep. I can go right up to it while is sleeps, sometime it would wake up look at me and go back to sleep. They would sleep 3 or 4 times. It's amazing they make it through this time. The picture of it sleeping is only about 2.5 feet off the ground. I used one paper from Gina Jones-A night in October Solid paper 02 (Digital Scrapbook) Font is Flower Love (Creative Fabrica) Photos: mine This was a tough one to design, took me some time to find something I was okay with.

Wow this is awesome. I think I know what to do. I had a Mountain Ash that is rotting, in fact a branch just fell off and part of the truck has mushrooms think we will take off the dying bits and I'll make a little pile of them for the bugs. The birds used to make nests in the trunk but it got too unstable for them too. I can let it go back to nature, it's in a part of the yard that nothing grows and no lawn mowing happens there. Thank you for taking this photo for me.

First laugh of day...Gerry you do not disappoint! thanks.

Thank you and Thank you Bonnie. I wanted to use the wood paper from that kit. I will look for that program.

Project 5 Again, I used the kits provided (except the one kit that is a 7z file that I cant open) and changed the papers/elments a bit, mostly darkened them. The frame was actually a polaroil frame that I used the custom selection to select the inner portion to delete to make the frame. I added a bevel. The bolt or silver item in the "O" of the title came from one of the kits in the bootcamp as there wasnt anything suitable for the "O". I followed the same shadow as in the tutorial. Is it too big? Given what item it is and that it's one a thicker frame it would be pretty far from the background paper. I was riffing off of the Penguins of Madagascar cartoon and "Kowalski" name in military shows. I did look up the Royal Canadian Air Force and found that there was 408 (Goose) Squadron formed June 24, 1941 that flew many missions in the war. It's patch/insignia (whatever it's called) has a flying goose. I didnt know the etiquette around using military likeness without permission so I turned to hollywood and used the penquins instead. And I loved that show, especially Kowalski the very capable Frist Lt. who had deep pockets filled of all kinds of things he'd pull out when needed by Skipper (his Captain)...who knew peguins had pockets in the first place. ? I tried to tilt the photo enough to look tilted but not look like the geese would be sliding off the photo. Just the way the ice is, it still looks like that's happening. Fonts are: Off War, Olivetti Typewriter Wide, Old Typewriter (all Creative Fabrica) Kit used: PSBT Nov 202 Songbird So Thankful Photo: mine Thank you for another wonderful Bootcamp. I have realy enjoy everyone's layouts. So nice to come home from work and head to computer to be inspired.

I'm sure my neighbours cringe at my "lawn" it's mostly weeds. Weeds are green, it's look the same to me as when it's mowed. I wont allow pesticides on the lawn that animals go on, I have reluctantly allow ant extermination around the perimeter of the house as I do not like ants in my house, thankfully the "ant garden" where the mound is for the birds is out by far end of the garage in the back yard.

Thank you for the explanation on Bug Hotels , it's really quite interesting. I inadvertently followed your no mow May objective too. I love dandelions and lately have been photographing them. I put a "no-mow" decree on the the backyard (to my husband) and it was gloriously yellow and the seed heads were stunning, until the wind blew them away, and I cut some to photograph (soon to be in a layout). I had also read that bees hibernate in the ground and they need the dandelions as the flowers aren't out early enough. I did not know this. My husband was saying he hasn't seen as many bees on the dandelions as there usually is. How sad is that. This year my tiny garden (I am a terrible a growing things)got a soil refresh and I was lifting up some small paver stones and there was an ant colony. I felt bad so I put the stones back and covered over with the really fine soil/dirt they seem to make . So, they still had their solid roof, then I used the cement pavers to mark the edges of the ant "garden" section and that's where the little brown birds go for their dust bath. They dont like the garden soil but they love whatever it is the ants make. Also the Magpies and Crows will use the ants to eat the mites off them (there's a word for it, but I forget right now).

Love this, the laughing cats are the best!

yes, I refer to the book too. so much to remember, and thankfully we dont have to if we have the book nearby.

Fiona, those are so cute. what a great idea. I have bird baths and bird feeders and this year I thought, what about the bees and the butterflies? So I have been researching a water station for them too. I've never heard of bug hotels and will have to look that up.

Thank you Sharla. How lucky you are. I cant imagine what that must be like to see that many geese at once. I have many many bad photos and a few good ones. My timing is usually pretty bad. Thank goodness for digital, I can shoot a lot on continuous and hope I get something. I'm much better taking pictures of things that dont move.

I like the flower and the stem showing. The flower is bright so your eye naturally goes there, then it meanders down the stem with a huge payoff of the photo and in particular, the bench...which is the "Why" of the photo...The perfect peaceful place to rest and destress. I wont get into angles and triangle in photography, they are there too, a huge thing in composition. Great color choice in that flower; magenta based with green all around as it's complementary color.

I want to do the squares like you did and try effects on them. I did that in the Build A Kit workshop but didnt do squares, I did blocks of color and strips and rotated them, I found there was too much of one color. So many possibilites. I was just watching the the Distort It Masterclass (havent finished it yet) and there is a really cool paper idea I want to try out too.

It sure was fun and surprising. I was not liking my layout, it was too busy when it was a photo background and lowered opacity just looked grey and dull. Then I thought about blend modes and was moving layers all over when the happy accident happened. I could never have predicted what the blend layer (difference) would do since I had multiple layers with adjustment layers below it.

Project 4 I used the kit that came with this Project (cpjess-spring skies). But you wouldnt know it, unless you took a peak in my layers palette. I used the blue sky paper, duplicated it and turned it upside down so the clouds above were same below - but you wouldnt even see that now as it all blended in, all these two layers had adjustment layers applied to them and both paper layers had different reduced opacity. I used the blue paper (with newspaper writing on it) with a reduced opacity and above that layer I promoted a selection of it to make my pinking shear effect. And above that layer was a photo of mine of Canada geese flying into the pond. I didnt like the photo background look so I played with blend modes and chose "difference" and it made the birds look like a graphic and the pinking shear was lightened against the background of the same paper below it. I thought it looked interesting. Lots of this was me moving layers around and seeing what would happen with the blend mode. This again, was a happy accident. that works better with the two smaller photos. I made the other little strips of paper from the original blue paper and from the new brownish paper. Used also in the title. Font: NNSafari Serif (Creative Fabrica) Photos: mine This was shot on November 20, 2011 and these geese (over 800) had only 2/3rds of the pond as the rest was frozen, and they had to share it with about 6 other species that flew in. It takes about 10 minutes for the geese (coming from the farm fields nearby) to all get landed. the sky is black with Canada geese, it's really quite a site and fun to watch them come in for the landing. This is a very different kind of layout for me.

Thank you for the info on the font, it's a nice one. Where did you post your project 4? or did I miss it in this post.

Thank you Mary. It is a good (read: hard) challenge for me to use just one kit, make it work and be happy with the end layout. I'm learning that "playing around" and "happy mistakes" are a good thing. Also the photos from this one day of shooting werent that great (started sunny then got really grey and dark) so I'm also seeing if I can get acceptable ones to use. Good thing the bootcamp doesnt need a huge amount of photos.

The weather was going from sunny to really dark overcast that day. It was November and the day started out sunny, that's why I went to the park, but it turned quite dark very quickly. The water went from having blue sky to reflect on it to a grey sky. There is trees around the pond so there is also lots of shadow from them too.