Mega Collection trying again

I had a look at the Blog today and realized that I had not posted the photo of the Mega Collection but of an earlier kit. So here it is, 21 papers and 56 elements all created during the class The Art of Digital Design II over 5 weeks.
The other class that I have been taking Fantasy Style Layouts has just finished week 4 and I'm enjoying it immensely. I am have fun learning how to cut, blend, shadow and extract photos to create a whole new landscape.

This coming weekend I'll be back to real paper, paint and stitching with Sandra Meech.
Sandra is Canadian born textile artist now living in the UK. She is giving a two day workshop for my Guild. Sandra has published several books over the years combining mixed media with quilting for some stunning results.

Another Class

I love taking on line classes and was temped into to signing up for this one at Deviant Scrap called Fantasy Style Layouts.  I am just loving it!
Here are my some of my assignments.

With this assignment I blended the two top photos together to create an new landscape

The next assignment I extracted my granddaughter from one photo and added her to another one.

This assignment was to add shadows to the figures we added into the landscape.
Learning how to extract and blend is just too cool! An added bonus has been the feedback from the instructor which I find so helpful.

Class ending

The design class that I have been taking for the last month is coming to an end. This class has been a terrific experience and I feel that I have learned so much. Our instructor Carina Gardner gave 110% of herself to insure we had a good experience. I found her feedback from each assignment excellent, positive and yet pointed out areas that needed improvement. The last assignment which is due next week was to created a mega kit! Three pack of papers and 3 packs of elements.

All of the papers needed to coordinate with each other as did the elements. With the three packs of  elements I had the most fun with the last one which I included shoes, ribbons and buttons as well as a pocket watch frame and umbrella all made by me ;-)

Street Party

I live in a great neighbourhood that has a terrific sense of community spirit. This past weekend neighbourhood volunteers organized a community street party.
The day dawned bright and clear for all of the events to take place. We chose to start the day with a lost river walk.

The walk was led by  very knowledgeable volunteers Liz Hood and Helen Mills. Our neighbourhood was once the shore line of ancient Lake Iroquois which evolved into lake Ontario http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Iroquois which explains why we have very sandy soil in this area.Our city originally had many small streams and rivers which have been covered over in the sometimes misguided spirit of progress. If you are interested you can read more about it here http://www.lostrivers.ca/. During our walk which lasted about 2 hours we followed some of those covered streams and rivers that flowed into lake Ontario.
Our walk ended at the street party which was in full swing.

Our little granddaughters had arrived earlier and had their faces painted.

My husband and I headed for the Victoria Tea party for a much needed cuppa. Our city councilor joined us before her important job of judging the apple pie contest.

After filling up on delicious scones, jam, clotted cream and tea we headed back home passing this fellow who was on stilts entertaining the children by  juggling.

Cruise Journal

In anticipation of a cruise that we will be going on next winter I've been thinking  about what kind of journal I wanted. It has to be easily portable, and able to work for both writing, photos and general stuff that I pick up along the way. A frustration that I have encounter with journals that I've made is space for photos and journaling does not always match up with the order of my  pages. A solution I thought would be to have a ring binder. That started a quest to find where to purchase the binder rings to incorporate in a travel journal that I could make. After much trolling of the Internet I found a place surprisingly here in Canada that sold the rings.

I bought some great paper made by Graphic 45 which is my all time favorite paper company and put together the cover.

Using bright red duck tape to strengthen the spine.

I filled the book with a varity of pages for journaling, pockets for goodies, and places for photos. All of which can be shifted around to suite what the situation calls for.





Exchanges with Australia...continued

It was my Australian friend Heather's turn to chose what to make for our challenge in May. Her choice was a cloth covered journal from a tutorial by Jane LaFaziohttp://janeville.blogspot.com/2011/05/tiny-tutorial-cloth-covered-journal.html.

The cover is made of canvas painted, stamped and then machine quilted. I added some stamped and painted flowers to give it dimension and some dragonflies which Heather is very fond of.
Water color paper was used to make the signatures adding more dragonflies.

Last step was to wrap and add a card which I made using Photoshop and mail.

Practical Use

Our assignment yesterday was to use the papers and elements we have been making from the class the Art of Digital Design II to create a layout.



I'm quite pleased with the results. In the bottom photo is my newest granddaughter. Isn't she cute?

Three Sets Completed

I've been working overtime in Art of Digital Design II class and enjoying every minute of it. Three paper sets are completed WooHoo!

Each week I've been able to complete the assignment and send it in for critiquing. Our instructor Carina Gardner has a wonderful way of both praising and giving good feed back for areas of improvement. 

This week we have been working on elements for our kits, which I think is my favorite part of designing. I have been making frames, stamps and word art which I'm not as fond of. More on that later and some samples as well of my labours.

I would love some feedback from you my friends.



Catching up again

Ahhh...where has the time gone! It's already September and I've not had enough summer! The temperature has cooled down since last week and I needed to wear a sweater today when I went outside. The garden is still blooming away and some photo's will be posted soon.

I've been immersed in a design course led by Carina Gardner called the Art of Digital Design 2. Each day we are given a lesson most by video and at the end of each week we have an assignment to complete and hand in. Carina gives us feedback  written or oral.  My plan is to loosely work around a French country theme.

This is the result of my first weeks assignment.

And this is week 2 assignment almost ready to hand in. Carina's feed back has been so helpful and positive and I do feel I'm learn and improving.

Itinerary # 34

Another challenge using the verb sound. I used a photo taken of  one of my grand daughters giving me a kiss. The quote I used that inspired the layout was by Oliver Wendell Holmes. "The sound of a kiss is not as loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.

Itinerary #33

Doing a bit of catch up on the challenges from the Art Journal Caravan. # 33 challenge was the verb light. I used a layout I made while taking the class Digi: In Deeper at Jessica Sprague.

I'm pleased with the results and have had lovely feed back from the Gallery forum at Sudio Girls.



Self Portrait

I have spent the day trying to catch up on the enormous number of emails that were waiting to be dealt with after our two weeks at the cottage. As a reward to myself for being so diligent all day I decided to have a bit of play time.
Tangie over  at Studio Girls Scrapbookgraphics post the Adventure Quest this month and it  is a self portrait.  They going to be creating an "altered" self-portraiture book with as many members of the Art Journal Caravan 2011 who want to participate. I decided to go for it and use a layout I made some time ago as my portrait. There is a bit of symbolism and a lot of spoof in my self portrait. Now back to all of those emails!

Alice is back

This past week our challenge from the Art Journal  Caravan was to use the verb collect.

My take on it was collecting one wits.  "Alice took a deep breath to collect herself before following the white rabbit".  I do enjoy making fantasy  journal pages and making up a little story to go along.

I also started a embroidery project this week, but more of that in another post.



More Photoshop

Continuing my obsession with Photoshop and my determination to learn how to use it to it's fullest, which as I write this I don't think I'll ever be able to do,  I took another on line class. This time the class  was self paced  which is not as enjoyable as having fellow students. Each of the 8 lessons was given in PDF form which is more difficult than watching a video. I did have access to the instructor who answered my question. The class was called Advanced Element Creations in Photoshop and I purchased it from Digital Scrapbook Place. I think the class should have been called Styles and how to use them. At the end of the class the project was to make a wooden frame with a metal rim embellished with a ring of pearls and a glass over the frame.

Next week I start another design class at Jessica Sprague.com called the
 Art of Digital Design II.   I'm a bit nervous about this one and being able to keep up. Our instructor is Carina Gardner a very talented designer as well as a excellent teacher. Many of my classmates in the spring class and have gone on to open or work for digital shops, not one of my ambitions! I just enjoy the process of creating without the need to sell what I create.

Ship of Dreams

One of the things that attracted me to Photoshop was the use of brushes, I find them almost magical. I read a tutorial  earlier this week on how to make a bubble brush and I was so pleased with the results that I wanted to use it in a layout right away. The photo of my little granddaughters seem to work well  floating inside of the large bubble as did the figures I used of them for the ship. The quote I used for the layout was made up by me. Background paper and elements came from kits by Nicole Young and Lauren Bevin.

Another photo playing around with a orb brush that I made. Do you think it looks a bit like a crystal ball?

Presto Change

 I've been working on a class in  Advanced Photo Editing over at Jessica Sprague for the last few weeks. After a number of lessons I'll never believe what I see in a magazine again! Below are some of the practice photo's we were given in class to edit.

Here is a before

And this is the after

Here is another one - Before

And after.
As I was getting ready to go out today and was putting some sun screen on I though it would be nice if I could use some of these Photoshop adjustments on my face. A few less "laugh lines" and spots would be nice.

Art Journal Caravan # 29

We have been at our cottage this week in northern Ontario. No air conditioning here and it's been HOT and Humid. I find it hard to get anything done in this kind of weather although I did pack a huge bag of supplies. I had hoped to finish a journal that I plan on using for a cruise next winter and start on another FTB journal. But all of those plans have been put on hold until I get back to our cool air conditioned home on Monday.


One thing I did get done was week # 29 challenge from The Art Journal Caravan. The verb  for #29 was SMELL.

Fox in the City - part 4

After an uproar from the neighbourhood  and also being told that it is illegal to trap wild life the Transit Commission has removed it's traps! Signs have been posted not to feed the foxes and all is well with Mama fox and her 5 offspring.

As well the Fox family now have a page on Facebook, as of yet no photo's have been posted but it's a bit of a giggle to read.

Thanks to Brian Carson for taking the photos and sharing them on our neighbourhood Facebook page.

Fox in the City - part 3

Great drama today, someone found a baited fox trap in the park! The neighbourhood rallied, letters sent off to our local councilor asking for help. Fox trap somehow disappears, removed by "an unknown" person. Local councilor writes letter in defense of OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD FOX, more letters sent to the Transit Commission who set the trap. Threats made to call in the OSPCA who say that trapping of wild animals and removing them are not permitted within the city. More to follow.......

And this little fellow is  having a big yawn through all of it.

Fox in the City - part 2

Looks like our resident fox has had a litter of pups who are now out of the den and playing.

If you look closely at this photo you can see the pup has a dogs kong in it's mouth.
The family lives in the railway yard and seems quite a home there.

Momma fox does venture out on a regular basis to search for food for her growing family.

While the pups wait at home to be fed. Won't be long now until they are foraging on their own.
Wonderful to think of all this wild life thriving in the center of a large city.
Photo's were taken by neighbours of mine and posted on our community web site.

Full Tilt Boogie - Book 3

I think I'm obsessed! I've been working non-stop making journals every spare minute for the past several days. And it's been so satisfying to have completed 3 journals now.
Journal # 3 was made from an old book with a title that jumped out at me when I found it in a second hand book shop near the cottage last weekend. It seem such an appropriate title for a journal.

As with the last Journal I carefully cut out the block of pages in the book and set them aside. I reinforced the binding and then used a lazy daisy stitch to sew the signatures to the binding. I highly recommend using waxed linen thread for binding and not unwaxed thread. Trust me unwaxed thread breaks at the most awkward times!

I use a Japanese Screw Punch which I bought here. It's a huge help drilling through pages and covers. A word of warning do not use this tool unless you have an appropriate base underneath! It will go through a Olfa mat!

I made 4 signatures of 6 pages each. With these pages I used the sewing machine rather than glue to attach papers and embellishments to the journal pages.

I found this add in a vintage magazine I bought at the Rose Bowl flea market when I was in LA.

Some free motion stitching on this page.

A bit of whimsy here.

Places to store things and to write on.

More pockets for tucking away found item and treasures.