Donna Sillia

We just returned from a mini vacation to visit my daughter and her husband in Fredericksburg, VA. There are "Love" signs in many of the sites that we toured. The barrel and the fish are from Adobe Express. The Virginia map is from a font and filled with a texture from FF. I missed the Affinity Vector workshop and plan to complete it soon.

Day 7 - I really wanted to challenge myself using the knife. My husband was a SeaBee during Vietnam so I wanted to honor them. Thankfully, Phil is still with us so I didn't use his photo. I used the poppy tubes and some corners from Carole. I made the rectangles and stripes. The firefly is from a CF dingbat font called Insects. I used my name so that I could have a lot of practice using the knife.

Day 6 - I love using the Vectortube script. I used a presetshape and the offset cutout for the flower, and created the tulip some time ago and added some of Carole's seed beads.

What a cutie!

Day 5 - Part 2 I took this photo several years ago and used in a bookmark with the St. Augustine quote which I love. I made an oval vector converted to a raster and used the cliptoit script. I forgot how to make the bottom circle and was so happy to have a reminder. I downloaded the handout since I have a tendency to forget when I don't use something often. The font is from CF and is called "Belive." I used a layer style on the vector fonts and added a drop shadow after converting it to a raster. The background paper is from CF with an color overlay.

Day 5 - The first photo from our Christmas vacation--a view from our condo balcony. I enjoy using vectors to create words.

What a good idea, Sue.

Day 4 - I tried to make a saucer under the cup, but I'm not happy with how it looks. I think I need to work on the saucer more now that I see it posted. The pattern is from FF, and the cup and saucer are from Adobe Express.

Day 3 - I made a new leaf to challenge myself. I am not really that happy with it, but I made a preset shape so that I could play with it.

I'll be out of town next week, but will catch up when I return.

Day 1: I used Affinity for these shapes. I didn't sign up for the Affinity vector workshop for next week because I will be on vacation. I was happy to see the Affinity lessons along with the PSP lessons.

My hearts and arrows. I used the guides to make the hearts and arrows more symmetrical.

I'm already downloading screen shots of the ones that I want to plant if my old ones don't revive. The tree and the hydrangea were budding and then the buds just died. The insides are still green.

I used a PSE action for the layout, but had to finish it in PSP since I didn't know what to do in PSE. It has been such a horrible spring here near Cleveland, OH. I am featuring photo that I took last year of my Japanese maple, my oakleaf hydrangea, my clematis and my lilac. The second layout shows how my plants look after a horrible spring that rained and never became even warm. My landscaper has advised me to wait until the beginning of June to see if anything blooms. I don't have a photo of my clematis since I can't even find the roots.

Susan, I found this YouTube site for some videos on both Affinity and PSE "HTG Photo." He also has some online learning courses that have a fee. There is also a forum for PSE called Photoshop Elements and more that has a lot of good information a tutorials.

My second attempt: The papers are mine that I used for the 2025 Bootcamp. The dog silhouettes are from Adobe Express. I made the paw print frame from a CF paw print clip art and a frame from Procreate. The font is Majestic Inline Grunge, probably from CF. I played with Styles on the font, using bevel, color overlay, 3D and outline. I love playing with styles.

I finally broke down and downloaded the trial version of Affinity. It is only the 7 day trial, but I am pretty sure that I will invest. The papers, hearts and scatters are all mine. I'm not really happy with the font which is from my Hallmark card program, but experimented with a bevel along with the shadow.

Thank you, Julian. The Iris is one of my favorites, especially the dark purple one. I love the one you posted and am going to look for a bulb or one similar. Do you know the name? I have a friend that works at a garden center and will ask her.

Day 7 - In anticipation, I decided to use some of my garden flowers from last May. The large background and the flower backgrounds are from Adobe Elements which was use to extract the Iris flowers. The large photo is of one of my clematis growing on the vines in my flower garden. The scalloped background is my own from the papers workshop and recolored for the circles. The font is called "Bureno Regular" from CF.

Day 6 - I've never seen the Savannah Bananas live so I enjoy seeing them through my daughter's pictures. I also follow them on FB and laugh at their antics. I discovered the background paper by accident and don't know where I got it. It is called "banana bark." I used a blend mode for the color. I once again used the gradientstripe script from Carole. It is so versatile. I applied a FF effect to the stripes. The long stripes are a banana texture from Adobe Express. The font is "Night Scream" from CF. I used the Glitch script from Carole. The bananas are all from Canva. Carole, the Glitch script works differently when I add colors. It mainly gives an outline and a textured font.

I use the Selection to Path script quite often. I believe that I found the script through one of your posts.

Day 5 - I seem to be running a day behind. The background is my own created from a photo of my cement driveway. The lines were a bit harsh so I used a gaussian blur. I made the stitches into a vector using the selection to path script. I used vectorpaint to add the stars in the circle. The patterns were created using Adobe Elements styles.The balloon pattern is from my Build a Kit 2025. The stripes were created with the cass gradientstripes script, and the beads are from the cass Alphabead 3 script. The photos are mine. The heart was a vector preshape selected and converted to a raster. I then applied a FF effect called "Colored Squares with Photos." The striped #1 is a png number from CF. Carole, I am really enjoying using all the scripts that I downloaded on your birthday.

Canva has design templates which can be modified. However, when I used it to design a business card, I uploaded some of the elements made in PSP. It has limited creativity on effects. I sometimes use their templates for inspiration. I also download their elements for use in my PSP projects.

Ann, I learned about Canva when I editing and doing graphics for a book written by my friend, John. It is a graphics and design program that is a yearly subscription of $120. However, there also a free component if you want to give it a try. Canva Pro is free for primary and high school students and educators. I recently designed a business card for my son's bowling pro shop and had it printed by Canva. They sent me a PDF to approve which I did. However, I made a mistake and the cards were printed incorrectly. Upon contacting them, they immediately corrected the image and applied what I had paid to the new order. Needless to say, I was very impressed with their customer service since I had made the mistake in the first place. The cards came out beautifully. You can also create a team. I uploaded my 2025 Thailand calendar, and the printer was able to download a PDF suitable for printing. She was also able to make the pages larger with no loss of sharpness. You can also download graphics or pictures for use in your programs such as PSP. You can also make your own videos, although it is in the experimental stage but keeps improving. I just love Canva and use it frequently. I am currently working on a Web page for my son. https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity/

I am still dithering on whether or not to buy Affinity. One interesting thing that I discovered in my research is that Affinity has been bought by Canva which I do have.