Susan Ewart

Here's a funny thing I noticed. No, I'm not into tatooing iguanas. I was moving my Stripe Ribbon around and passed over the photo and it looked like the iguana had a tattoo. I think this was a blend mode of "color", not the one I used in the layout. Now I can see what people are doing when they color animals or other objects, they are likely using blend modes.

I combined the April Front Challenge with Lab 6-8 Stripe Ribbon Custom Label Cross Stitch I didnt like my Stripe Ribbon so I put all 4 together, merged and made a couple layers and used it as a border with a blend mode. The Custom Label; I saved the two parts before putting together and ended up using that version with the Flora Gardent font for the challenge in between. I hummed and hawwed with the edging, if I should omit it from the text or continue it. I tried just the top and bottom of the 'E' but it looked unfinished, going around the th outter edge looked weird, so I just closed it all up. the shadow needs work on the offset so it makes it hard to see. I believe the pictue tube leaves are Carole's. The tag is KMRD-My Fathers Study Tag 01. The Cross Stitch I used as two stitches to hold the tag on. The photo is mine I found while cataloguing shoot dates. I had passed it off as a bad photo, but thought I'd see how much I could do. Adjustment layers were used and I made selections and used the Adjust option on the top of the tool bar for selections (3 different ones in total). Does anyone know if you can make separate adjustments layers for selections, would I need to group them so the adjustment doesnt affect the whole photo? I used a texture layer on the backgound to simulate reptile skin. second font is Funky Grim (CF). This was fun to do and a surprise at what I did with the photo. Cant wait to get better at the photo editing/adjustment layer part of it. Again, I must add, my monitors are very bad so i really have no idea what anything I do looks like.

Good to know, I have been buying since 2018 but I think I never used 2018 for a very long before upgrading to 2019, which i didnt use until 2020 when I took my first bootcamp and have been upgrading eversince. they give such a tantalizing upgrade price it's hard for me to resist. ?

I'm gong to play with it and see what i like. I like the idea of less clicks.

I have been downloading some 3D files too. I love the look of your layout, even smaller compressed size I can see the layers and dimension in it. This is beautiful, it looks like a real framed piece of artwork.

I still havent tried the JPG optimizer even though I put it on my tool bar. I use the PNG one all the time. I think the settings probably throw me off and it's also probably not as hard as i'm thinking it is. Do you find it more useful than resizing and saving and then changing the compression at that time. Just wondering how it's a benefit to using it over regular resizing and saving. If it makes my workflow faster I'm all for learn it.

That is a big difference. Nice colors. Look how that one tree is in the gutter perfectly. That's fabulous.

Me too. Unzipped stuff, and me thinking, that's where that went. I usually have a specific spot the zip and readme folder goes once I'm loaded it into My PSP Resources folders, sometimes I forget to do that. We need a script to catalogue our scripts/store purchases...but where would that script go? hahaha

what a nice tribute and a wonderful story to read. Jackie is very impressive.

Or maybe some kind of flowering tree, like a cherry tree with blossoms or a pretty maple in the fall. You know how you can buy them when they are small, and they are in big pots. I know a bonsai would be hard to do. If anyone can pull it off, it's you. of course it's spring so a little long rectangular planter box of tulips would be nice too.

How about a bonsai tree. Keep showing us, they are so interesting. Love miniature things

so pretty. the frame looks great and goes so well with the photo

Good information Rene. Thank you. that is just my problem. Some have instructions you need to follow and i want to have access to them. I do have all the README files in one folder, but want a visual as well. then I can do a search say for BOWS and get all the ones that have bows, then I can see which one I want to use and how big the ribbon needs to be etc. This is year I get organized....hahaha, just like every year! Really, I mean it this time. Oh oh, that's another fib. Did you put One Note on the bottom bar (task bar?) I have to go diving for mine as I never use it, but seems like lots of people do so it might be worth looking at that one as well.

Corrie, many months ago, did you post a picture of how you organize your scripts and other purchases from the store. It looked like an Excel spreadsheet and it had the preview photo on it as well, and the instructions and other information (what folder to put it in etc). I want to do a similar thing with my scripts, tubes etc. Just having the Name and Instructions in a MSWord document doesnt work for me. Excel has conditional sorting, and other types of sorting that will work better.

Very much. I have a number of them where I did the bargello pattern. Your script is on my wish list for the next sale. My original inspiration was from a glass artist who made complex bargello patterns in fused glass. Soon I as I started where I work now and saw the spines of flyers or paper sections I knew I wanted to do that with paper. The whole project was supposed to be called F & G because that was the sections of the paper that I inserted on those nights. My co-workers thought I was nuts, now they dont even bat an eye when they see me taking bundles home. (these are left over bundles, sometimes there is really cool patterns but that flyer will run out so I dont get them)

This is a sample the of the flyer "spines". the big one is a shiny very thin 1/4 fold furniture flyer, the upper right is Safeway (food always makes cool colors on the spine) and bottom right is another thin, not shiny 1/4 fold Michaels flyer. They make neat patterns. Not sure what I'll do with them but maybe one day i'll figure it out. Right now, they just look cool to me. This is a layout from a past sketch challenge.

I didnt use the template, just made the masks myself. Raster-To-Mask would have saved me a lot of time. On the other hand, I've finally committed to memory how to make the masks. Actually, it really didnt take that much time to make them. I wonder which would be faster to see. Carole making a mask or the script making a mask...my bet is on Carole.

I got one called Confetti Maker and one called Punched Confetti. I couldnt decide, so I got both. The Build A Kit workshop really taught me that I want to make more of my own elements/papers etc, So I bought things with that in mind. That workshop had a big impact on me. And now I see the value in the Double Page layout too. Love the workshops.

hahaha, you crack me up. Not sure if you remember that abstract spines of the flyers I was taking pictures of. It's those. I keep saying to myself I"m not going to bring home any more flyers. But I see some with a cool color combo or design and I end up at home wth copious bundles of flyers. I'll post a few, but right now I'm late leaving for work. Work is such a hassle when it cuts into my creative time.? PS. they are quite dead (if dead means "stale dated").

I have just played with the Open book script so far. When I saw Gerry's book I had to have it. Now I'm going to add the Merge Group rename too to my wish list. I always think I will go back and rename it, then I dont. I bought 24 items so it will take some time to get them all installed and tried out. I did buy lots that would be good for making kits, like button machine 3, a number of bows, some tubes, confetti maker, paper pattern type scripts and the two tone font. I'm looking forward to playing with that one. After watching the Vector Master Classes and now on the Brush Variance classes I can see how that font will come in handy. I could see scheduling in time for just playing with tools to see what they do (with assistance from the master classes) without having to think of and end layout in mind. I'm taking a PSP short break while I catch up on an ongoing abstract photo project so I can eject the flyers (I'm photographing) out of my house.

I agree, this was a wonderful workshop. I have never attempted a double page before and quite liked the results of them. Lesson 7 was also very informative about how to print them and learning about the gutter. I like the look of having a lot of photos and pages of having few photos. I was wow'd by all the different interpretations of the layouts.

Here is the 2nd page as a layout. It might be easier to read it here. Ugh! I see a typo. That will have to wait until tomorrow. FIXED!

Lesson 6 with the "Open Book" script. What a fun script. How does everyone save it to keep the transparent background? PNG? (I mean as well as saving pspimage file). Fonts: title is British Columbia rough, there are several styles of this font which i had to have, since I born there. Arial is used in the journaling since I used white I needed it to be very readable. This is a pretty way to showcase to pages. This packaging for the gift took a couple weeks to do. Lots of components and time waiting for things to dry or glue to set up. The card is the same, first I have to make a mock up to make sure it's going to unfold properly, then comes measurements (ugh, my nemesis) and then cut the piece and do the build and hope it all comes together.

Anja, what beautiful layouts. The Karneval layout is superb!

Good tips, thank you.