Teletubbies...

My little niece is a HUGE teletubbies fan. She turned 2 earlier in the week and I wanted to make her a birthday card. I thought it would be really cool if I could make one with teletubbies. So I got some teletubbies and rabbit images and extracted them from the backgrounds. Then I used two very sweet digital kits from SSD and created a scene, added my teletubbies and rabbits and finished off the card. This is the result:

[Supplies: Lil' Buggy - Traci Reed, Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Down By The Pond - Lauren Grier, Lliella Designs (both SSD)]

It turned out to be really popular (the way teletubbies are her favourites, I kinda knew it would be) and they have even talked about framing it for her. I decided not to put a birthday greeting on the front as I thought she might want it on a bookshelf for a while or something, and now they are talking about putting it in a frame I'm really glad I made that decision.

Vintage Hand-Tinted Look...

Oh this was fun! Day 3 of the photo editing class by Jessica Sprague and we learn how to add a vintage hand-tinted look to a photo (the frames that I have used have nothing to do with the class at all - just something I added myself).Using adjustment layers (which is what to do to create this effect) is something that I have done before. But never to a point where I have really learnt in...you know, in a way where I would remember how to do it later. I've kinda done it, followed the instructions and then forgotten it all a few days later. So I really enjoyed this lesson. It's definitely the kind of thing I would like to take more time to learn more about. It's just finding the time in the first place I guess :)

It's not so obvious here because I have had to make the photos rather small to fit well on the blog, but... In real life, working with the full size photos, it's really amazing what a big difference a little tinting etc can make to the general feel of the photo...

Having done this lesson today, I'm really looking forward to what tomorrow's subject might be.

On a totally different subject, I'm also working hard on some CT assignments. Making cards, digital layouts, bookmarks etc. So I will have lots of new stuff to show you over the next week or so. Got to continue with all this today so I better get going... :)

Playing With Brushes...

The second day of the class...and time to play with brushes... I totally love brushes and the effects you can get with them. The best thing for me is to use smaller brushes to build up your own frames. :)

Again the subject is something that I'm already familiar with. I'm not an expert at all, and I would love to learn a lot more about it, but I know the basics for it at least. Rather than using the brush set that Jessica Sprague supplied for the class, I used some brushes that I downloaded a long time ago.

I think it's a fine line between what looks nice and what looks "too much" when it comes to brushes. The photo above definitely have the "too much" look for me. I was going to re-do it, but then I thought it might be a good example of what doesn't really work. :)

The photos that I have used to play with brushes on were taken mid May this year in the Oxford/Cambridge area. The one above and below are taken at a National Trust place. The weather was perfect and we went for some nice long walks :)

Right I'm off as I have some Creative Team assignments to work on...

Playing With Frames...

So it's the first day of class. I've just gone through the first class video and even though it was pretty basic stuff, which I already knew (playing with frames and adding wordart), I still really enjoyed it. It's just nice to take some time out and sit for a few minutes playing with photos. I find that it's something that I don't do often enough (simply because of time).

Some of our pansies had seen better days so I pulled them out of out outside plant pots yesterday and off we went to the local garden centre to get something new. But it was pretty empty and we didn't really spot anything we liked... so we ended up going to a second garden centre and in the end we got this pretty fuchsia...

I've just been out taking these photos, this morning, to use for the first day of class. They fit perfectly, even if I had to recolour the supplied frame a bit to fit with the colours of the photo. I don't really think an orange frame would have looked quite so good :)

Looking Forward...

I had hoped for a weekend with really nice weather but it doesn't look like it's meant to be. Instead we have it decently warm but rather unpredictable...sun, clouds and the odd bit of rain...rather humid too. So I guess it's good that I have something like this to look forward to this summer:
...and talking about looking forward to things, I'm also looking forward to Monday. Monday is the start of Jessica Sprague's "Photo Editing: Frame-Ups & Special Effects" class. It's a free two week photo editing class which I'm really excited about :) (I do believe that if you haven't signed up already, it's too late, the free registration was between June 22-28 only - sorry!) Anyone else joining me on this adventure...? :)

Lilypad BYOC...

So it's that time again, the first Friday of the month and time for the Lilypad BYOC. Not surprisingly, some of the products this month have a very summery feel, which fits perfectly :)

Yesterday I was busy downloading some of the kits, tagging them and playing around with them. I really enjoy this special time each month and the excitement of finding out what colour combination that they have decided to go with etc. Anyway, this is the layout that I came up with:

[Supplies: Summer Medley - Anne deJong, Messy Paints 2 - Amy Martin, Messy Sprays - Amy Martin, Epoxy Dates - Amy Wolff, Half Ripped Minis - Amy Wolff, The Weekly Gazette - Amy Wolff, Sprayed Alpha & Numbers - Jenna Desai, Rough & Rusty Papers - Jenna Desai, Newsies - Jacque Larsen, Sandy Toes - Kate Hadfield (all from the Lilypad)

The BYOC is the largest release of kits during the month and there's sooo much nice stuff to choose from. Still, I have tried my best to pick out my 3 most favourite kits. 2 of them were really easy....the 3rd one I was picking from about 4 different ones. Tricky! Anyway, I have made my decision:

I just love this kit by Amy Wolff. Both for the newsprint aspect and for the elements aspect. Flowers always, always works no matter what you do (and yes I totally believe in that you can have flowers on male layouts too!)

Kate's doodle kits. What can I say? They are amazing as always. :) For this BYOC she doesn't have one but two beach related doodle kits. Both equally as good. Also she's brought out a super cute stripey alphabet - go check it out :)

...and finally these great masks by Amy Martin. Great both for photos or as masks for patterned papers etc. So very versatile and useful :)

The Heat...

Yesterday it was just too hot to blog. My little "cave" (as I call it, ie the "very tiny scrapping room") is by far the way, way hottest room in the house when the weather is warm. It becomes a sauna with no air moving in or out. It's got a window and draft should be going through it like any other room (when we have all the other windows open too) but for some reason it just doesn't. So it becomes this unbearable hole of heat. Today it looks to be even hotter if anything, so I have braved the heat and entered early, armed with ice water, to get a blog post done before the afternoon ...before the impossible time LOL!

Yesterday morning (again before the room became totally unbearable...while it was still borderline on me being able to sit on the chair without collapsing in the heat) I worked on a layout for the Lilypad:

[Supplies: Capture The Moment - Kate Hadfield, Designs By Lili, Messy Stamped Alpha - Nancy Comelab, Scrap Pad Polly Love 3 - Amy Martin (all from The Lilypad)]

And talking about the Lilypad...it's a new month and tomorrow is Friday, so it's time for BYOC again. I'm busy downloading kits and will somehow try and create something in this heat once they are all down. :)

Gone Fishin'...

Wow they were not joking when they said on Sky News' weather this morning that the weather today was going to be "uncomfortable"!! Hot, humid, rainy and foggy. Like seriously hot and sticky! I feel so "bothered" and you can't even escape from it. And it's only just past 11 in the morning. According to what they said it's going to get much, much hotter (and more humid!) still. Yuck! If anyone have a good tip on how to feel better in the humid weather I'm very happy to hear it... :)

And no, I'm not going fishing as the title says... I posted yesterday about having to make a male birthday card. And male cards are the....well, no ---> male cards AND presents are the hardest! For women you can always fall back on nice bath/body products, jewellery etc if you're stuck...and pretty flowers for cards. Men? That's H-A-R-D. Anyway in the end I decided to go down the hobby route and since my sister's boyfriend is into fishing, amongst other things, I made what I believe is the very first fishing birthday card that I have ever made :)

[Supplies: Catch Of The Day - Julie Billingsley, (font) Brittany - Darcy Baldwin (both from SSD)]

Also, Shimelle's latest colour challenge was to make something using "writing in colour", so I decided to match the title of the card (grattis = congratulations in Swedish) to the card rather than going with a black title.

A Photo-Less Post...

A post without photos - that does not really happen very often for me (as I personally enjoy blog posts with photos a lot more, so I try to always have one/some in mine too). But I'm super, super busy today and I just figured it was an option between no blog post at all, or a blog post without photos. So a blog post without photos it is, for a change. I promise the next one will have an image again :)

So today... first I'm really pleased to say that my foot seems to have recovered quickly this time. Hopefully I hadn't irritated the old injury as badly as I'd first thought. I'm still being a bit extra careful, but at the same time I'm not avaoiding walking, so that feels great :) I'm really, really pleased about this as I dreaded a few weeks of not moving much.

Today is definitely a housework day (yuck!) and I'm in the middle of cleaning toilets - don't worry, I have washed my hands for this post :) - as I type this. Double yuck! Still it's things that need to be done. Apart from that I'm making a birthday card which I must get off in the post to Sweden by tomorrow!! A male card. Yes ---> sigh! Male cards are the hardest... ever. So I'm busy thinking up ideas while I'm tidying.

Pastels...

I love pastels. Especially quite bright ones. Give me the option of pastels or brights and I will nearly always pick pastels. Unless we're talking green. Green I will do in any shade and any brightness, of course :)

Anyway, I spotted this sweet summer kit in Kay Miller's shop:

...and the colour challenges that I have been following on Shimelle's blog during the last month fit perfectly ---> "scrap in pastels". Couldn't be better :) So I downloaded the kit and started playing around. The result is this card:

[Supplies: Ocean Adventure by Kay Miller]

Right, that's me off out in the garden to do some work. Lots of plants that need watering and we've got the lawn to cut etc. Just wish the sun would be out instead of this hot, cloudy and humid weather....