Spring Flowers

I was trying out the new tutorials at Cottage Arts for Masks and Gradients. Even though I use a lot of masks and sometimes gradients I find that I always learn something new when reading through tuts. You can find them here if you are interested. If you're interested in the supplies I used check them out here.

Here's my technique for achieving this look - The photo was enlarged to fill the whole page, placed above the Photo Mask 3 and duplicated. The top layer was blended to luminosity, the layer directly above the mask to screen. I added a layer above with the Blanc De Noir Paper 09 adding a Gradient Map of Magenta/Yellow (included with PS CS3 - Color Harmonies 2) Opacity set to 99% Fill set to 43%, a mask was added and the center brushed out with a soft brush

Sissy and Me

All supplies for this from Cottage Arts. This is Carol and I when we were both a tad younger!

Adventure - Featured in Scrap Street Magazine

This page is being featured on page 35 of the May edition of Scrap Street Magazine, which is a free E-Zine, check it out here.

Supplies: Digital Kit: Life’s Journey by Swissaroo at Scrap Street Fonts: Myraid Pro, Minion Pro.

Journaling: My roots come from Europe, my Great Grandparents were from England and Germany, my dream would be to visit where my heritage began, to walk the land, smell the flowers and get a feel for them. If it had not been for an adventurous young man in his early teens that set off on a Merchant ship from England to Canada in the early 1900's to join his brothers, I may never have been. That was my Grandfather Fred, sailing from England to St Josephs Island, Canada. Later he would meet my Grandmother Clara and together they would begin a family in the Eastern part of Washington and Oregon. Eventually my family ended up in SW Washington a far distance from the lands in which my blood began. I look at me today and wonder if I would have had the nerve to leave my family behind, knowing in my heart of hearts I would never see them again for lands so far away. It was lives full of long days and hard work to carve out homes for themselves. I wish I had known my Grandfather, to be able to hear his stories of home and family, to get a sense of me.

My Grandmother Clara (Kiehl) came from Kiel Germany. I do not know as much about them, but when Amber was in High School she had the opportunity to stay with a German family and they in turn took her to visit her Ancestors area. I have seen pictures of the beauty here, much like my Pacific Northwest and I hope that perhaps someday I will be able to see it firsthand as well.

Design notes: The shapes of the continents made great photo masks for the pictures of my family