blog reader solution ?

Like most of you I was disappointed when google reader announced it was to close as I have been very happy with this tool for reading all the blogs I follow.

After several weeks of denial I listed the things I want from a reader; read through some lists of alternatives, looked at examples and made the switch last week to the old reader

It works for my tops wants:

* I can read the full post in the reader

* I can group blogs into categories

* the pictures are clear and load easily

* it is intuitive to use

There is no app for use on a tablet (yet) but that is not a problem for me as I hadn’t got into the habit of using my tablet to read blogs.

Transferring my list of blogs from google reader was a breeze and took less than 5 minutes.

It’s been working well so far so I can return to a state of not thinking about the architecture behind my daily blog catch up.

look what I found

I like using stitching in digi layouts, although I have never put a paper layout near my sewing machine.

Until yesterday I used bits of stitching that I’d found in freebies or bought sets, which can be frustrating.

Then yesterday while browsing a wonderful site full of free photoshop brushes I discovered a set of sewing stitches.  Warning – the brusheasy site has masses of fabulous free brush sets, once you enter you may lose all sense of time.

So now I can create whatever I want in whatever colour I want.  I love the brushes tool in PSE because it allows so much control over colour and size. I’ve added drop shadow to these stitches because I think it looks more realistic.

If you haven’t download brushes before, accessing them from within PSE is easy. You can access the file each time you want to use them or you can load them so that they always appear in the set of brushes.

To access the brushes

1. Select the brush tool
2. Click the down arrow next to the picture of a brush stroke and the brush selection box will appear
3. Click on the >> to the right of the box
4. Select Load Brushes. A navigation box will appear so that you can navigate to the folder with the brush file. Double click on the brush file and the brushes will appear in your brush menu ready to use.

To load the brushes into PSE so that they are always there when you look at brush sets.

1. Make sure Photoshop is closed
2. Find the location of your Photoshop files – probably under Program files on C:, then under Adobe
3. Within the Photoshop Elements files select Preset, there will be a folder called Brushes within that folder
4. Now copy your new brush files into the brushes folder.
5. Start up PSE and your brushes will be showing in the brushes selection dropdown list.

I know several of you have recently started PSE and may not have played with brushes.  Here are the basics

1. Create a new layer and make sure it is the top layer
2. Select the brush tool from the toolbar that is down the left of the screen – a new toolbar will appear at the top of your screen
3. To choose the brush style that you want. Click on the arrow next to the picture of a brush stroke.  To see the brush collection, click on the down arrow next to the name of the brush set and you will see the list of brush sets that are installed.
4. Choose the size that you want by clicking on the down arrow next to the size and then moving the bar. If you place the cursor over your layout you will see the selected size in comparison to your layout
5. The brush will use the selected foreground colour (the one that is showing as the top square at he bottom of the toolbar) so make sure it is the colour that you want.
6. To add the brush onto your layout, click in the place where you want the brush. If you don’t like it then use the undo button and try again. For the stitches you want to draw a line rather than have a single stitch – just draw a line with the mouse while holding down the left button.  To create a straight line hold down shift while you draw the line.  To draw a straight line that will end where your last line ended, move teh cursor to where you want the start of the line and hold down shift and click – magic.
7. You can move and resize the brush using the move tool. Select the move tool and click on the brush layer to make the moving box appear around the brush shape and you can then move as normal.

And if adding drop shadow is an unexplored area

1. Click on the layer that contains the stitching
2. From the top menus, select Layer, Layer Styles, Style Settings
3. Select the box beside drop shadow.
4. Click OK

Let me know if any of the instructions are unclear.

Look forward to seeing some custom stitching on your digi layouts.

have you done a photowalk ?

I recently discovered the annual world photo walk which happens on 24th July.  There is  a map which shows all the places where walks are being organised and more venues are being added all the time.  Edinburgh has just been added so I’ll be joining in.  The idea is that a group has a walk and takes lots of photos on the way.  The Edinburgh one then goes to a bar to share shots and stories.  Sounds like fun.

Have you ever been on a photowalk?  Is there one near you on the 24th?

Can’t post without a photo so here is one I took a year ago today – on Niue, a very small island in the Pacific Ocean – it rained heavily all day.

my big new project

I just bought a flat.  Just over a year ago I packed up my stuff and set of for some travelling before moving back to Scotland.  I am staying with my sister and parents and have been house hunting near Edinburgh.  On Tuesday I made an offer on a flat which was accepted – under Scottish law that agreement is binding so the flat is mine.  Very excited.

The flat needs new kitchen and bathroom and every room needs decorating – yeah – a big project to keep me busy.  I have piles of brochures that I am looking through and a book of graph paper for plotting room design.

I’m also thinking colour palettes for each room.  I love colour so have been thinking about this a lot and gathering inspiration.

For the room that will be my office/crafting room and the guest room I am using this fabric as the inspiration

  

 

 

I used the fantastic colour site, kuler, to create some palettes. The site has lots of created colour schemes but it will also create them from a photo on your computer (or on flikr).  You can choose bright, deep and so on and also customise your own.  

Here are four that I made from this photo. I’ll be playing some more and using them while looking at some materials before deciding which version to use.

Love this aspect of kuler.  I’ve been collecting other images as possible basics for colour range for other rooms.  I’ll share them as I work on them.

And expect regular postings on aspects of home decoration over the coming months.

 

 

 

colour swatch challenges

I love colour – individual colours and the magic of colour combinations.  I’ve been following a number of colour swatch challenges – often I collect the palette for future use and sometimes I create a page.

This layout uses the May colour swatch from design house digital

(template Cathy Z from Design Your Life.  The rest created using PSE)

That is my hand holding the plate of apple while the birds eat. 

Other colour challenges I follow are stacy julians’ i love color and designer digitals colour challenge. 

Both designer digitals and design house digital have a range of other interesting challenges too.

chores day in week in the life

Saturday is when I do all the household chores as the photos for today illustrate

I also generally find 90 minutes for some scrapping fun

and one thing was specific to today – pink buns and tarts to raise money for breast cancer awareness (they were yum too)

Thanks for all the comments during the week.  I really appreciate them, in fact I’m going to use them on my printed page for Sunday. 

Does anyone else listen to paperclipping roundtable?  As well as the fascinating scrappie talk I’ve been intrigued to put voices to people whose words  I’ve read for over a year.

Photobooth fun from your own home

Remember the photobooths where you get a strip of 4 photos – great fun cramming several friends in and making funny faces?

Well there is a site that lets you create the same thing from your own home, using the webcam camera on your computer.

It's a French site called photocabine.  The instructions are in French but if you remember the old booths its easy to follow:

1. click on the arrow to enter the booth

2.  when you are happy with lighting, pose etc press the red button and it takes 4 photos, with a flash effect

3. click on the strip of photos for options – the 1st one ’telecharger’ with the picture of the old floppy lets you save as a jpeg. 

You can have them in black and white or colour, for the authentic look – most of the strips I remember from my teens were black and white.

Great fun and lots of potential for use on pages and projects. 

photos from above

on my various flights over New Zealand last week I encountered clear skies and had a window seat.  Managed to take several good photos showing some of the variety in landscape.  I like to take photos out of the window of most forms of transport and find that if I click a lot some of them will come out well. 

To see some more mosaics head over to mosaic Monday

time for some craft projects?

when wandering in blogland one of the things I can’t resist is a free printable, especially templates.  I have saved lots but not used many.  Here are some of the free templates for projects from the internet that I have bookmarked recently.  Hope to get to some over the next week.

template for paper fortune cookies look fun for a New Year dinner.

Russian nesting doll card because my Mum likes nesting dolls.

free templates for lots of lovely things including cute gift boxes and a handy holder for small post-its in a matchbook cover

a tiny folder template – just like office ones but smaller.  Not sure what I’d use it for at the moment but it does look so cute I need to make one.

And because I prefer blogs with a photo here is one I prepared earlier

cards for a good cause

I saw Cindy’s post about cards for charity a while ago and have been meaning to post on it because it seems such a good idea.

One of the frustrating things with making cards is having more inspiration and stash than people and occasions needing a card. 

Cindy is organising distribution of cards to charity and she is giving prizes each month.  For more details visit cindy.  The next deadline is end of January 2010. 

I hope to get some cards made this week.  One of my Christmas gifts was a set of alpha stamps so this seems a great excuse to play with them.

 

wow and wow

 

these two Scottish women and professional crafts people / artists whose work I adore

 

 

wonderful pictures by Moy MacKay made from felted wool which she then embroiders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simone Lyon makes stunning ceramic works that include lizards, iguana and dragons.  I do own some of her work from over 20 years ago when she was first selling.

 

 

 

have you showcased the work of craftspeople and artists you admire?

online fun

I love the widget on etsy that lets you browse by colour.  I like the ability to hunt for lovely things in a particular colour but I also just love to play with the screen that lets you choose the colour because of all the yummy colour bubbles it creates – instant smile for me.

For a longer fun distraction how about quilt based puzzles? My mum introduced me to an online puzzle game where the pictures that you make are patchwork patterns or pictures using lots of colour and pattern.  Good mix of fun, frustration and design.

Calling UK knitters and crocheters

I enjoy knitting and crochet but since my nephews grew up I have not had a good home for lots of wool items.  [the photo is a baby blanket for a friend due at Christmas]

Then I discovered the Loving Hands site organised by a lovely lady to provide clothes, toys and blankets for range of different charities.  She sets seasonal challenges and the ones due in January are newly posted.  She also welcomes donations of wool and fabric for use in the projects.

I will definitely be joining the 800+ members when I’m back in Scotland.  Will be nice to have a reason to knit and crochet and also help some people less fortunate that me.

Wordle magic

 When I saw the wordle on the I speak Melsh blog I remembered that I had meant to create a wordle of my journaling for Me:the abridged version to use as the back page. 

If you haven’t tried wordles then go and play.  You need some text and flashplayer loaded – then just play with changing colour, font and layout. 
I increased the number of words that is used to 400 (under layout ) because the default is 150 and I wanted more words to show.  I also kept some words together like ‘see also’ by putting ~  between them  see~also.  I then played - I customised a palette with my favourite colours and played with font and layout and these are some of the ones I liked.

pure luck that see also was separate – you cannot control where a word is placed


this one used the any which way layout choice
and for this next one I double clicked on the words to get the online font – it works on any of the fonts.

To save then I hit print and then choose cute pdf writer as my printer.

Why I want to spin plates rather than juggle

image source

Over on Stacy Julian’s blog she has been talking about multi-tasking and getting organised. I love to have several project on the go and get bored if I do not have a range of things to work on or choose between. For me metaphors are important in how I think about things and organization of multiple tasks is a good example. Here is what I wrote in the recent Big Picture Scrapbooking class Me: the Abridged version by the wonderful Cathy Z.

juggling is often used as a metaphor for multi-tasking but I think plate-spinning is better. With juggling you touch each item briefly before throwing it up again and the whole impression is of only just being in control. With plate spinning you spend time on each plate at the start and then work on any that are faltering to keep them going. An added bonus is that with plate spinning you can have someone help with the ongoing work but this can’t happen in juggling.

A really important part of the plate spinning metaphor is the idea of giving a plate a small stroke to keep it going rather than having to put big work into all projects weekly. Here I have incorporated the idea of micro movements from SARK – the idea is to write a small thing on your list (5 seconds to 5 minutes) and then you do it and write the next micro movement . She explains it better in this interview. The idea is that you have a feeling of completing something.
The FlyLady idea of setting the timer for 2 or 5 or 15 minutes for a task is similar – the big job will get done but in small bits.
 
One of my favourite sayings is ‘how do you eat an elephant? – one bite at a time’

Which colours to use?

I love colour. I use purple, green and brown pens for everything except very formal things. I dress in colour (mostly brown, purple, red range) and I like to have colour around me.

So when I was setting up this blog I of course needed to decide on colours to use. My default is purple and maroon but I decided to go for something different – I wanted some energy and contrast so that links stand out.

I used a fantastic free feature on kuler which extracts a palette from a photo. You need to register to be able to save palettes and you also need flash player for it to work (free and easy to install).

I browsed my recent photos for some with the bright and energized feel that I wanted and then tried them out. I chose the deep option because I thought those would be easier to read than the bright. You can also customize by moving one of the dots to a different part of the photo.

The palette I’ve used is based on the vegetable photo. You can see the palette I saved from it here. If you want to use the palette precisely then the website gives you the colour formula in various formats eg for paint and for printing.

I could play on this site for hours and a visit always gives me a lift if I’m feeling too greytone.