Wuvies Whimsies Designs

Archive for March, 2009

   To me, the background papers of a kit are the biggest source of inspiration. The colors, textures and patterns are what catches my eye first and sets my imagination in motion. I start all my layouts with the background, it is the base to build from. It is after all the mood setter of the layout.

  So anyway, I have always wanted to be able to design kits and I figured I should start with the main part of a kit, the background paper. Being new to Photoshop I went looking for a nice simple tutorial. I stumbled upon this one written by Vlad Studio’s.

Here are the examples of what I was able to create…

Painted Orange

White Smear

   This is a super simple tutorial, with what I think are really great results. Who knows, maybe in a couple years, I will complete a kit!

   I have got to be one of the worlds worse photographers. I admit it, I can not take a good photo to save my life.  This is not a new affliction, it goes way way back. I have lots of photos that are nothing but blurs, dark shadows, grains of noise or big blobs of lights. I have cut off heads, arms, legs, hands, noses and chins. I even have photos of thumbs, door casings and feet. Oh, and who can forget the famous “eye” picture, that was taken when the camera was held backwards. (oh like you have never done it!)

Needless to say, I have had to be very creative with my “artistic” photos, in order to feed my digital scrapbook addictions.

Here are a couple examples:

Before

Daughter - in - law to Cherish

This photo was taken many many years ago and has always been one of my favorites, even though it was so bad.

Mom and Dad Moment

and this is how I scrapped it …

Everlasting

   So, there you have it. There is hope for for the photography challenged people like me. Take all those fuzzy, grainy, dark and  light photos and turn them in to “Memory Art”!

PS:

If you are interested in the beautiful kits I used, just click on the layouts to open a link to them in the DSP Store.

Christine Gundersen has a great tutorial for both PS and PSP on how to make a folded corner.
This is part of her Triple T’s Thursdays.
Check out her blog and the TTT Forum thread to get some great Tutorials, wonderful Digital Designs and all around great company!

Gundies Goodies Blog

TTT Forum Thread

Laura Lou from DSP gave me a great tip today on how to handle forum threads and web pages that are so big they make you scroll sideways, or so small you can’t read.
Contol + and Control -
Holding the Control key and hitting the + will make screen larger, and holding the control key and hitting the – makes the screen smaller.
Go ahead and give it a try.
Now, no more heavy sighing or cursing under your breath. Just use this handy little trick, and thank LL next time you see her.

Posted by DSP’s PQ:

THE 1500′S
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all t he babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water..

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying . It’s raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slipper y in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the bu rnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid ou t on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a ..dead ringer..

And that’s the truth…Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Educate someone. Share these facts with a friend