Tag : Photoshop

29 posts

I have been so focused on creating that I completely forgot about blogging. I tend to do that. My focus shifts and I have tunnel vision. Of course, it’s always hard for me to complete each project. That’s a whole other issue of mine. Many UFOs aka unfinished projects. Amid this creative explosion, I’m trying to devote a bit of time daily to cleaning, organizing and purging unused or unwanted “crafty crap” as Mr. G calls it.

Let start here with yesterdays crafty diversion. It started with me finding a bunch of small styrofoam balls that I’d used to make knitting Christmas ornaments. I thought it might be a good starting point for a yarn ball wreath.  I dug out my bin of yarn and gathered my other tote bags and came up with my color scheme. While I had all of it out I made the executive decision to toss 3 UFOs. I just wasn’t interested in finishing them anymore. How freeing!!!

My fabric stash and sewing supply hoard are much further out of control.  I love fabric. I have gotten rid of a bit. I gave it to a co-worker whose girls learned to sew this summer. They started a scrunchie making business. They’ve earned enough to buy themselves the trampoline they were begging for. Isn’t that amazing!?! Anyway, Mini-me and I have been following their progress. Mini-me loves scrunchies too. They are not cheap to buy. Once she found some pink velvet in my stash, I knew I’d been making some scrunchies too.

We picked out some fun fabrics…now her hair accessory bin is overflowing! I don’t envy the girls at all. Those scrunchies are kind of a pain in the you-know-what. Digging through my fabric did get some other ideas going. Once J goes back to college in a couple of weeks,  I’ll set my sewing machine up in his room again.

Yesterday was HOT and HUMID! We had two rounds of severe storms…thankfully the worst of it missed us. About a 30 min minute drive from here had tennis ball size hail. YIKES! Before the storms came I was going outside to secure anything that might blow away and I saw this in the backyard…

A turkey hen and her chicks…or whatever they are called. She was much bigger than I thought one would be. And very protective. She chased a grey squirrel that happened to jump from the tree…it was pretty comical. Do you see my compost “garden” in the far left middle of the photo? The plants are still thriving. LOL

With the weather so gross I decided to have a refreshing beverage. It’s almost like drinking a mimosa to me. Pretty tasty.

The weekend was really hot as well. I decided to do a bit of work on the computer where it was nice and cool.

I’m creating some printable pages for junk journals. I’m thinking about reopening my Etsy store with digital downloads for some passive income…all to support my crafty habits.

I also got this in the mail last week. I ordered it when they had a 20% off sale. I’m super excited about this project. I have until February to complete and send it back.

So as you can see, I have been busy…just not in the blogging world. I think part of it may be the fact that I have been slack on using my planner. I was definitely more on track when I used it daily. I know I need structure in my life but willy-nilly suits me.

Next week will be a scheduled post if I am disciplined enough to get it done. I have training on Tuesday all day and them Mini-me and I are taking the red-eye to Montana! I’m so excited. I’ll have lots to share about that the following week.

What are you doing today?

Well boys and girls…not sure if we have any boys visiting but I’m all inclusive…it’s story time.

This week was eventful. We had more snow once again. This week we had a 2 hour early release on Thursday afternoon and a 2 hour late start on Friday morning. We never should have had school on Friday. The roads were glare ice. So slippery that I managed to spin out our Jeep across on coming traffic and end up with the back end in the ditch. Thankfully we didn’t hit another car and I was able to put the 4 wheel drive to good use by driving back out of the ditch. With frazzled nerves I continued on to drop the girls off at school and get myself to my school. UGH! So lucky. Could have been a much worse end to that story.

J also came home for the weekend to celebrate his birthday. We had cake…of course it might have been good if i’d remembered to take a before photo.

Whoa…not sure what happened with that image but I’m too far along and too tired to go fix it. One of my custom brushes must have gotten away from me. :)

I have been doing some work in Photoshop over this past week. I’ve been wanting to create some texture backgrounds. I hope to use them as overlays on photos, backgrounds, starting points for digi-art etc. 

I even thought about making some printables with ephemera, photos or even vintage linens for texture.  Do you ever use printables in your art? If so, are they purchased or freebies? I see tons of digital downloads on etsy but I wonder if people actually buy them or use them.

What are you doing today?

Last week was a 3 day workweek for me. Schools in MN have a long MEA (Minnesota Education Assocation) weekend off of school. Most families use this 4 day weekend to get away from it all before winter hits in full force. We used part of our weekend to visit J at college for parent weekend.

Even though we’ve been to the Twin Ports area loads of times, this time I decided to play tourist a little more since we were exploring more than just Canal Park In Duluth, MN.

I loved the old signs on this building in Superior, WI.

Some of you know this but others don’t….I HATE BRIDGES. No seriously…its a problem. Near phobia status. And there are two big ones that we use to cross back and forth from MN to WI. 

I honestly kept myself busy snapping photos with my photo so I wouldn’t have to think too hard about the fact that we were on a super long bridge high above the water or land depending on what part of the bridges. ICK!!!! Gives me goose bumps.

After we had crossed the dreaded bridge for the third time we stopped and had a drink and appetizers at a local bar. I had a darn good Bloody Mary with beer chaser. The chaser is called a snit around here.

It was a nice weekend although it was cold and windy. But not as windy as it had been about 10 days before that. A crazy storm whipped up and there were gale force winds hitting the harbor.

This is an old photo for reference of the flooded walkway.

Check out this video…

Isn’t that crazy!! It’s weather like that that the Edmund Fitzgerald (made famous by Gordon Lightfoot in his song Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald) went down in.  Speaking of crazy…J and his buddies decided it would be really fun to go down to Canal Park since they heard it was flooding. The wind and waves weren’t quite as bad but the canal was still flooded at the time. The invincible 18 yr olds went and stood in the knee deep flooded canal walkway while the snow came down sideways. Thankfully all was fine and I didn’t see any of these crazy videos until morning.  Grey hairs people….grey.

I did a bunch of journal writing about this event. I saw the most amazing photo on FB of a wave crashing against the North Pier lighthouse by Charles Howard Smith.

I’ve created a few more pages that are more personal. In addition I got my title page done.

I’ll add then end date when I feel I’m done. I’ve started adding smaller photos to my journal for visuals as well. I’ve started resizing several images to fit on a standard photo print. It’s cheaper to print and better quality than printer ink on paper in my opinion.

See how I’m able to get many small images on a 4×6 print. This way I can add a little image without taking up an entire page in the journal.

I’ll be doing more of these type for sure. I’m loving how this is evolving for me.

Work and raking on are the agenda for me…
What are you doing today?

TIL you ask? Today I Learned.

While looking through photos to put this post together I saw a burst photo series that I thought would make a cool animation…the only problem was that I had no clue how to make that happen. With a quick search I found a great tutorial that walked me through the process step by step.

Not too shabby for less than 5 minutes worth of work.

I did finish my quilt…you can see the full post about it here.

And created an art journal page for AJJ…full post here.

Today consists of some taxi driving….J to school as the roads are pretty slippery from a glaze of ice and Mini-me has an appointment this morning. Nothing like having to drive on the ice. YUCK!

What are you doing today?

Have a safe and happy Holiday!

Happy Independence Day

snow teaHappy Tuesday! It’s Veteran’s Day here in the USA. Time to remember and pay tribute to those who have served and are still serving in our armed forces.

Here’s my favorite veteran…my dad…in 1946.3-3-2013 12-35-3_051 edit

Below is the original scan of the slide image.

3-3-2013 12-35-3_051

I’m thrilled I was able to coax the colors back to a more natural look. What a difference.

As for the rest of my day…I’ll be home catching up on housework and shoveling out the end of the driveway. I’d forgotten that it needs to be widened at the end…if it doesn’t we windup with a very narrow driveway once the snow is several feet deep at the street.

What are you doing today?

EDIT: I almost forgot…my second sale went well. I sold out of one item and nearly of another. It was a good day.

Welcome to T stands for Tuesday, hosted by Elizabeth @ alteredbooklover. This is a day that we share a cup, a glass or a mug of cheer and chat about our week.

photoshop tea

I got a little playful with my tea this morning. Photoshop is fun!

Well…what about the wreath? That was the title of the post. What kind of show are you running here anyway?  (don’t you love it when I put words in your mouth)

I’m getting there…just need another sip of tea.

So, last Fall, a good friend of mine sent me a picture via FB of a wreath that she loved. She was convinced that I could make one as well. I wasn’t as sure. After collecting the needed supplies I gave it a whirl… Within a few frustrating minutes, I knew I was on the wrong track.  I set it aside and really didn’t give it another thought until yesterday.

I was laying on the couch…I finally caught the crud the kids had….and it came to me how to properly wrap the wire.  Within 10 minutes I had the wires in a complete wreath form….no thanks to Gracie who kept batting at the wires and tried to steal the floral tape. What a pest!!wreathI had the leaves all prepped and ready to go so the wreath went together really quick! It’s not exactly like the original photo…which I can’t seem to find anymore…but it my version.

Today I’m going to catch up on some laundry and rest some more. I’m definitely better than yesterday but not 100% by a long shot.

What are you doing today?

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