What in the world

Perhaps it's just my bored, imaginative eye, but I think that this picture resembles a small part of the universe. Earth is standing out in front with another planet looming behind. Beyond that you see the blackness of an infinate universe.

You may be wondering at this point if I've lost my mind. Or maybe you're in awe of my outstanding photographic skills. Another possability could be that you're questioning how I did this.

Well, no, I haven't lost my mind, yet. I may be a little on the looney side sometimes but for the most part I am still in posession of all, if not most, of my marbles. If you were thinking this was a stunning work of photography, I thank you for the compliment, but alas, this was merely a picture taken in a moment of shere boredom. I held the camera over the top of an open can of fish food....LOL (ok so maybe when I did that I was temporarily a candidate for the nut house)

Here's how the whole thing started.
As I said I took a picture from the top of the fish food can. (I really can't believe I'm admitting to this)





-I opened up this picture in photoshop elements 5.
-Duplicated the layer (Layer > duplicate)
-Turned the duplicate layer to black and white (enhance > convert to black and white >urban snapshot)
-changed the blending mode of the black and white layer to exclusion
-I then used the eliptical marquee tool to make a large oval selection.
-I chose select > feather using a value of 200 then select > select inverse
-before filling this selection I created a new layer. On the new layer I right clicked and chose fill selection and chose white for the fill color.
-I changed the vignette layers blending mode to color
-At this point it pretty much looked like the final image except for the corners still had too much white in them so I used the clone tool to carry the black all the way to the edges. (You may be thinking that it would have been easier to just add a black vignette instead of white. It does sound like a better option. However I did try it that way and didn't get quite the same look as I did with the white)

I hope you enjoyed my pictures and mini tutorial. Maybe it even inspired you to take your own boredom pictures to see what you can come up with.

Stop and have a cup of tea

Some time ago I was introduced to the art of tea bag folding. If you aren't familiar with it, you fold squares of paper and then join them to make medallions. (to learn more you can check out this site http://www.cardsandcrafts.freeservers.com/teabaginst.html ) For a while I was printing out tea bag tiles by the dozens, cutting them out, learning different folds and then using them to make greeting cards. Eventually I moved on to a new creative outlet and the teabags were retired to the craft drawer. That is until the other day, when I got the idea to scan them and use them for scrap booking

This is one of the medallions I rescued from my craft stash


After I scanned and extracted this one it led to 3 more, followed by some related embellishments, and before I knew it I had a whole kit put together. For lack of a better name I simply called it "Tea Time"

The kit includes:
16 papers
1 alpha set (upper case only)
28 embellishments which include
-2 borders (1 tiled and one punched)
-4 bows
-4 buttons
-1 envelope
-1 journal
-1 note paper
-3 paper clips
-1 photo mat
-1 pen
-1 raffia button bow (ready to add on top of a button)
-1 swirly
-1 tea bag
-1 tea cup
-4 tea bag medallions
-1 tea bag tile
-1 word art


So are you dieing to see what it looks like yet? Well then, without further adieu, I present to you, "Tea Time" I loved the combination of warm dark colors blended with the softer pinks.




Now, I could either pour you another cup of tea or you can click HERE to get the download. Stop by again sometime and maybe we'll have coffee.

Bah Humbug and a freebie

Bah Humbug is exactly the way I'm feeling about Christmas right now. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. What I'm really disliking right now is what it's turned into. Retailers rushing the holidays through so they can get bigger sales every year, shoppers fighting to be the first one to get the years hottest toy, the mentality that tells people if your really want to show your love and appreciation you have to spend, spend spend (whether you have the money to spend or not).
You could say I'm guilty of rushing the season myself, since I've already posted some Christmas freebies here, and you would be right. I'm also guilty of over indulging my children when they were younger. After so many years of it, and my holiday spirit taking longer to kick in, it's time for me to ignore the unrealistic expectations and focus more on what it's really all about.

I sat down tonight and created some word art that was based on the true meaning of Christmas.



To get the freebie click here

Sunday part 4 (a freebie)

My final post for today is a freebie. It's called "Tis the season"
It includes 8 papers and 13 elements. I was going to include an alpha set as well but I've discovered that I am not a fan of making alphas. If anyone knows of a quick and easy way to do them, please share your secrets. Enjoy the kit, and I would love to see how you use it. Send me an email or a link to what you've created.



to download click here