This week I learned how to make a grungy-edged focal photo and make a four-square template to create a circular photo block (difficult), created reversed-out journaling strips and darken paper edges (red) using the burn tool and re-color and blend an overlay (white part on top of red). Took me ages to do and I couldn't find any recent photos that were appropriate so here is one of me taken a while back in San Diego Zoo. In the desert, it is monsoon season and palm tree trimming time. Photos tomorrow.
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June 28, 2008
June 22, 2008
Looking forward to the UK...
... and spending time with family and friends this summer. Here's a page I just finished about Slapton Sands. I'm hoping to go there with Auntie Angela and dear sister Annebella and my niece Poppy!
June 20, 2008
I love beachcoming
But I just don't get to do it enough. So I did a bit today and played around with some images from Oregon. Here's the before and after. I found all the elements in digital scrapbooking kits I downloaded. I 'extraced' myself and pasted my image onto some digital paper that reminded me of where the photo was originally took: Oregon and added in all the rest, including a tiny bit of surf and some fishies! (As always, you can click to enlarge). You can tell I'm housebound can't you??? Yes, 114 degrees today in Arizona!
Playing around with Photoshop
I've been trying some new techniques with Photoshop. You can place a piece of patterned paper on a page and then place a photo over the top and use a tool called Linear Burn and it fades both layers. Anyway, here is my finished layout of Carmen and I from her desert trip earlier this year.
June 15, 2008
New Digital Scrabooking page
I'm starting an online month-long intermediate class on digital scrapbooking tomorrow, so I thought I had better practice a bit to get up to speed. I found a site called 'The Digi Dares' and each week you have to complete an assignment challenge... so this is what got me started. Using Photoshop, the prompt was that you had to write about 10 random comments in 140 characters or less in a 24-hour period, use something acrylic, and use Kraft paper (I didn't even know what this is, but I guess it's just a brown paper).
Here's my finished layout which you can always click on to see it bigger:
June 13, 2008
I'm going to Utah!
I just signed up for a Digital Scrapbook Convention at the University of Utah campus in Fort Douglas! It's at the beginning of October for 2 1/2 days. From the forum I found a room mate - a very nice lady from Illinois. Totally excited! The actual conference is held in the historic Officer's Club... here are some pics. Never been to a convention before, never been to Utah before either... should be loads of fun!
June 08, 2008
Route 88
Ralph and I went out for a desert adventure. It's been a bit warm around here so we took the car and headed out to Route 88. It's spectacular: miles of steep, winding and mostly unpaved road past magnificent scenery of twisted igneous mountains with dense forests of saguaro. There was so much in bloom and almost no one about. Some of the drive is a bit treacherous as you drop down a canyon, one-way only, tight switchbacks and steep drop-offs with only a paltry guard rail... but the rest was entirely stress-free and beautiful. The nicest part was that we stumbled upon a shady glen with a running stream so I got my shoes and socks off and went for in the cool water up to my knees, poking around the tadpoles and algae.
June 04, 2008
Hello
Things have been a bit quiet here lately. The desert is almost deserted! Well that is an exaggeration but it is quiet on all the roads, all the winter tourists are gone and the temperatures are rising. In the 90's most days. I have been using the free time I have to continue to learn Photoshop. Went out for a 100 mile drive yesterday with Ralph into the wilderness and took 150 photos of all sorts of blossom and other visual delights and so I will post some of those soon.
In the meantime here is a trick I just learned today that I've been wanting to figure out for ages: vignetting and recoloring. So here is the BEFORE photo of the Gila River railway line and then the AFTER.
Pinal Peak
- These photos were taken on November 24th. The light and colors were amazing today... it's been far too long since Ralph and I have been out east exploring. I had forgotten how odd the little cities are that we drove past and how high the elevation is to Pinal Peak.
Home decor creations
- There seems to be endless possibilites as to what to embellish... here are some items that I had a lot of fun creating. Watch this space for a set of scallop coasters in a box and triangular box, a box that is a book for photo storage and wooden frames.
Digital Layouts
- Here are the first of (hopefully) many more digital layouts I hope to create using Photoshop Elements 6. There is certainly a huge learning curve ahead, but now I've at least got my feet wet, it's not nearly as intimidating as I thought. Watch this space for more soon!
BOOKS - miniBOOKS
- Here are some miniBOOKS I have been making recently. I guess I got a bit bored with 12 x 12 layouts and wanted to do something a bit different.
Layouts for scrapbooking
- I love to scrapbook. I can't put it more plainly. It allows me the time and space to be by myself but it also gives me the mindspace to be around my family, relations and old friends. Why do I scrapbook? Because there are no boundaries to what idea you can create a page with. It seems a richer form of either a diary or journaling; it's a way of preserving a moment in it's entirety. Moments in time are nuggets, like gold, and worth keeping. Almost nothing is insignificant. Once gone, memories may or may not return. We're all aware how the intensity of a moment dims, no matter how good that moment ever was. Scrapbooking can keep that feeling alive for a long time. I love to document the simpler things in life, not necessarily just the important events. I can see how myself and others close to me in my life are growing. I can appreciate the now.
Desert Photography
- Here are some of the many thousands of images that I have taken of the Sonoran Desert. I love the desert so much. Anyone who really knows me knows this. I chose to live in the US southwest above anywhere else, and that has made a real difference. Not circumstance, but choice. It is inspiring to me for my art and in other areas. So many trails, so many views and such variety. It's breathtaking. Every single day, really and truly I appreciate it, whether it's small things like my little but beloved cactus container garden, or a certain light of day or something in bloom (because there's always something in bloom here)... the desert is endlessly fascinating, a source of constant awe and inspiration, and I'm so glad I have discovered it in this lifetime. Thanks for looking.
San Diego Zoo
- San Diego Zoo is an amazing place. It has to be one of the best zoos in the world, hands down. I love it there so much. I have a mental note that 2 times a year is the minimum I would want to visit. I love all the tropical plants, the vastness, the enormous variety of plant life as well as of course the huge variety of animal life. The ways of transport in the zoo are so cool: skychairs over the entire site, open-top double-decker buses, trains, etc, it is fabulous. Ralph and I have taken some of our very best photography here and there is more to come.
Phoenix Zoo
- I love zoos! I'm really happy to get these shots as the time before this visit, I took 150 photos and at around 4pm (an hour before closing) I discovered I had left my memory card at home and had been snapping away at nothing....eek!
Edwards Park
- Ralph and I went out on the atv to Edwards Park. It is beautiful remote area near Four Peaks here in Arizona. It is entirely wilderness. We did not see a soul all day. These photos were taken in May of 2006, long after Spring down in the valley. The elevation there is 6000 feet, so Spring is longer coming, hence these shots of wildflowers. This alligator juniper is charred as two summer prior, there was a large wild fire that spread through the entire area. It was quite strange and eery to see such vibrant bright wildflowers springing up amongst such black charred decay.
Daryl's Garden
- These are some shots I took of Daryl and Merlin Flemion's lovely garden, back in 2003 or 2004 I think. I used these images and more to make a hardback book, sized at 8 x 10 with 20 double-sided pages. I made it for their 2005 Christmas present. Making it was a lot of fun and allowed me to appreciate their garden all over again. Daryl and Merlin are members of the Milwaukee Rose Society, but there are much more than just lovely roses in their garden. Each time I visit, there is something new to enjoy, photograph, and then later share.
Wisconsin Wildflowers
- Love Wisconsin when it is lush and green and before the cold takes over. Daryl is the best person for exploring the beauty of this area. All these photos were taken in one lovely afternoon. Thanks for looking.
Sunsets
- There are always sunsets in Arizona, or in the southwest for that matter. The skies are bigger, I mean seemingly more expansive here, I am not sure why it is, or seems that way. It's easy to take sunsets and sunrises for granted, but they are spectacular, and these images are just a few of many I have taken over the years. Hope you like them.