It's About Time

My last post has been a while ago, it's about time I got around to blogging again. :)
I've really been doing lots of commenting at Gotta Pixel, the major part of my job as a Praiser there. Plus feeling the need to do some learning I signed up for The Art of Blending at Digital Scrapper. This is just week one, but it's got my mojo working overtime! The class was a bit expensive in my book, but it's for 10 weeks which breaks down to less than $10 a class. I have forever access to the class materials -- this week we got over 200 textures to use in our blending (the class is for Photo Shop & Elements users). Here's what I did for my first assignment:

 

Isn't it amazing the difference a little blending can do? This isn't my first class on blending, I had one at Scrap Girls several years ago, but this class is an advanced class, so I'm hoping to learn lots more. Linda has gone into taking photos with the intention of blending them. Lots of good tips right in that first video - there were two others & an introduction video as well as some pre-class videos. I'm totally impressed with her teaching methods. The only thing I miss is that there doesn't seem to be a chat room at this website -- bummer. But Linda is very quick to answer questions in the forum set up especially for class members.

I had a little time yesterday to do another & used my blended photo in this layout remember our trip to Brazil in 2008:

 

 

This is so different from the flat lands where I live that it is always something special to see so many hills & mountains -- really fascinating to me, if not a little scary. Don't get me too close to the edge please!

 

Then there's Dave, he's hurting so badly that I just want to take away all of his pain. He has a pinched nerve in his back & has been laid up for several weeks now. Just when he thinks he's getting better, he goes & twists & has to start all over. I think this time he has finally learned that he needs to take it more slowly when he starts feeling better. It's really not his nature to sit around day after day & is anxious to be outside working in the yard. In reality thought, he can hardly make it from one side of the house to the other. Please pray for him that he will finally realize some relief from all this pain.

 

Lastly, there's this Fruitful Congregation Journey that we are trying to decide if the church is going to participate in. I'm still feeling called to join if we do. And I've pretty much determined that the Emmaus Walk will be on my agenda for October. Again, continued prayers for these decisions.

 

May God bring you blessing after blessing as you journey through your walk in the world.

 

New Arrival

At last our grandson has arrived! He was born last Friday & chaos ensued for several days after that.
Here's a layout I did Friday evening:

If you're on any websites I frequent then you may have already seen it.

Well, lots of other things have been happening in my life as well. I am seriously considering doing an Emmaus Walk later this year. An Emmaus Walk is a 72-hour spiritual retreat offered to committed, church-going Christians who have a personal relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is something I have thought about & prayed about for a number of years & now the time has come to make the commitment.

Our church is also considering a "Fruitful Congregation" experience. This takes about three years to complete & is a huge commitment, but one that I really think is part of God's plan for the Howe UMC.

I would like to ask you to pray for me & for our congregation as we make these decisions. We need to do this prayerfully & look to the Holy Spirit for guidance.

And there's one other covenant that I've made & that's being involved with Kathy Carter's Project Faith-Book. It's similar to something I did a year and a half ago. I don't know quite what to expect, but our first assignment is to do a layout about who we are. Hope you go very deep Kathy & we get to the depth of our souls. I feel God is really pulling me to do something that will make a difference & dig deep within as I cling to His promises & develop my relationship with Him.

Here's my first layout (I decided to do this in 8½x11 size instead of my usual 12x12).

Thanks for listening.

Ahhhhh -- Peace & Quiet

But it may be short lived! Looks like another storm is rolling in.
It's been chaos around here for most of the day. Julie & the girls came over for breakfast before her doctor's appointment. Then  Kalei & Jenny arrived. Kalei had made plans to spend the day working on her 4-H poster here. The little girls were just here while Julie was at the doctor. That took most of the morning. It was time to fix lunch when they finally left.
Kalei's project didn't get started until after that -- and it took two trips up to the church for things I had in the office there. But she did get it done.
All that on top of a very stormy night. Janessa had spent the night & she's a little afraid of storms, but nothing like the dog. I have scratches & bruises from where she clawed at me. For some reasons she thinks I'm her great protector when it's storming. We ended up with over 3" of rain during the night. And I was right about it looking like another storm was coming -- it's really pouring again.
I did manage to do a layout about the river rising....

Yesterday there was a sand-bar in the river behind the house. Today it is gone & the log back there is pretty much covered up. Amazing! I can't imagine what it must be like in Calgary where they have had to evacuate thousands of people.

I think there is electricity in the air here. What with the stormy weather, the humidity and to top it all off, Julie's doctor is putting her in the hospital Friday morning to start inducing her labor. It's all very exciting though.

May you see rainbows in the sky in spite of the storms of life & have a blessed day!

PS. I forgot to report that I did not make it to round 4 in my contest, but that is really a good thing because of my new spot at Gotta Pixel. It was fun creating the layouts & getting to know the other contestants!

Learning the ropes & more

Wow, learning all that a praiser does has kept me hopping! Busy, busy, busy.
To top it all off Dave hurt his back & I've been trying to do extra things that he normally does & playing nurse for him. When it rains, it pours!
I've been having so much fun learning my new job at Gotta Pixel & loving every minutes of it. I think I need to get out my thesaurus & learn some new words before I start sounding like a record with my comments on layouts there. LOL!
I have done a little scrapping too, including using the kit provided for the GoDigitalScrapping contest -- My Main Man Bundle by Seoule2Soul Designs. It is a great one for scrapping that special man in your life, but I struggled with this one. The first one I did was so cluttered looking that I just started over with a blank page.
Here's the first one I did (I really liked the little heart I made with the quote marks in the alpha set with the kit!):

And here is what I posted in the gallery for my entry in Round 3:

 

We find out Tuesday evening who made it to the final round.

 

May God's blessing pour out to you all day long!

New Doors Opening

My last post was a bummer. Seems like I was having doors slam in my face -- Dawn's website closing; Jolanda's store closing; my decision to leave Wilma4Ever...I was feeling a bit of a hanging-in-the-air sensation.
They say when one door closes, another opens -- well it certainly has for me!
I was looking around over at GoDigitalScrapping & saw a contest starting this month for a 4-month stint on their Supreme Team. I figured it might give me some inspiration. Well, in tonight's chat I found out that I'm on to Round 3 (out of 4 rounds)! I'm very excited to say the least. Even if I don't make it any further, I feel quite honored to get this far.
And after I signed up to do that contest, I got an email from the owner at Gotta Pixel asking me to join the Praiser Team at GP. That website is where I call home & I jumped right on it. They had a Praiser Team call a while back & I was so busy I didn't think I would have time to do it & give it the proper time needed so I didn't even apply. Needless to say I'm honored to be on this team!

Here are my layouts from the first two rounds at GDS:

 

Happy Scrapping!

Saying "God Be with You" to Jolanda

Sadly, Jolanda of Jellebelleke's Designs is closing her shop. Her family has moved into a new home & she has taken a full-time job, so her designing days have been put on hold. I have enjoyed my time spent on her Creative Team & will miss creating layouts with her templates & kits. She was with Gotta Pixel for only a few months -- that's where I first became acquainted with her work. Right now kits & templates at her store in Gotta Pixel are on sale.
Here's my latest layout using one of the templates due to come out next month -- I don't know what's going to happen as these were supposed to be a part of the Gotta Pixel specials for June and are not in the store yet -- but I was really happy with the way this turned out:

So I bid farewell to Jolanda & pray that her new walk in life's travels will bring her happiness & fulfillment.

Progressive Challenge at Wilma4Ever

I'm working on a progressive challenge at Wilma4Ever.
Here's the first week's instructions:
Step 1:
Select a photo that you can stretch across your background. You will be using a single image as your background, so it needs to be stretched to cover your whole page. It could be a photo of a scene, a close-up of your garden flowers, a portrait, whatever. Keep in mind that we will be adding things over it in the next three steps, so there should be some white space or parts of the photo that you can artistically cover once it is re-sized to cover your page. After you have selected and stretched your photo over your page, add some texture to it. There are many ways to do this.
And this is what I did:
I made a copy of my photo after I stretched it to fit the page. Then I aded a a canvas texture to that layer. I added a second copy of my photo on top of that and aded a watercolor filter with the opacity lowered the opacity to 48%. Next I added a mask to the filtered layers and brought out the Great Blue Heron from the origional photos.
And it looks like this:

Step 2:
Create an arrangement out of some type of greenery (vines, leaves, pine boughs, etc.) AND some combination of long paper strips, straight ribbons, cord, beaded string and/or ric-rac.
 I would suggest that you design this strip either horizontally or vertically on your LO and that it should be no wider than 3 or 4 inches and at least 9 inches long. It can be narrower and longer than this, but I wouldn't make it very wide or very short. Think about layering this thing up -- stack things on top of each other, angle items just slightly so that some are a bit askew, mix paper strip patterns, different textures and patterns of ribbon, choose items of varying widths, etc. Have fun!

And here's what I did for the second step:

 

I picked up step 3 today --
TASK 3:
Select a photo and frame. You will position this photo and the frame on or under the strip you created last week. Let's really make the photo pop by using an action or an overlay or a blending mode, etc.
Now I'm off to do this task & will post the LO when I'm done.

Here it is -- I picked my photo & used an action by Dave Jaseck that created a mask & frame for the photo all in one action.

 

One more step to go & then I'll have a completed LO!

 

 

TASK 4:
 Title/Journaling
 Make a title out of at least two words. Use a handwritten font for at least one word and a chipboard alpha (or something similar) for at least one word.
Add some journaling, even if its just the date.

 

And here is my final project: