Photoshop Tutorials Blog

It's time to share another one of my favorite blog subscriptions. Since you all know I'm so crazy about digiscrapping and my Photoshop Elements, I will share with you a great blog for learning new things with your program. They have video tutorials!

Photoshop Tutorials Blog

Not always are the applicable to Photoshop Elements, but as always, I can usually translate.

Today is the day....Mom sighs

Today is the day I get to sigh a Sigh-of-Relief. The Eagle scout packet is FINALLY all signed and ready to be dropped off at the scout office. Now all I can do is pray that the scout office will find nothing that needs fixing and approve it for the Board of Review. If it passes, the Board of Review will be on December 7th. Whose more anxious, me or him?

We had some scares as when I called the scout office the other day, I found out that the deadline for turning in packets for the December Board of Review was last week! However, with some e-mails and phone calls, and me all stressed, we managed to get an exemption and they are allowing us to turn it in late. Why does life have to be so hard?

See, this is the last Board of Review to qualify for the big District Board of review in February.

I SO wanted both boys at the District one together. I'd hate for him to have to wait over a year for the next one and I'd hate to have to go twice when I could go just once (my calendar is full enough). And I just want this scout stuff to be over; just want to go to the stuff and have fun if we want and not worry about requirements. And also, since my boss died, I was planning on honoring him at the District event and wanted my boys to make that announcement. If only one were there, it would not be the same for me.

It's going to be turned in today....this is a huge sigh of relief and a huge burdon off my shoulders. I guess he's finally off his grounding from months ago that he never really obeyed anyway and making him obey was causing me stress too. Sigh.

On another subject, yesterday one son announced to me that he has a job interview today. That's good news if he can continue to keep his grades up, along with all the other activities. He's sure to get the job. The person interviewing him is his best friend's mother.

However, another son announced that he was quitting college, that there were more ways to make it in life than college, and that he has "God" which is better than insurance. Well, sometimes God only helps those who help themselves, huh? He also bought himself a laptop....and that's what I've been wanting! Anyway, such news is only a true test of motherhood, isn't it? Am I doing right? I pray that God give me the words that should be said. Too many words and he will put a wall between us; not the right words, and he may go down a wrong path. God help me please. Sigh

Three boys,
Three turning points in each of their lives,
All on the same day.
Why do I feel like I'm just along for the ride? Sigh

S-now Neat

Do you ever get fun stuff in your e-mails that you just cannot resist forwarding on? Well, I've decided that rather than forwarding them, I would just share them on my blog. Have fun!

Click on link below.
http://www.star28.net/snow.html
1. Type in your first name
2. Be patient and wait for a second

E-Mail Ministry

I thought I would share with you another one of my favorite e-mail subscriptions.

I've been a member of E-mail Ministries for a long time and really enjoy their Christian posts.

You can find their website here: E-mail Ministries

You can subscribe to their mailings here: E-mail Ministries Yahoo Group

I'll be putting this in the side bar links. Enjoy!

This is the week for the Eagle packet!

I have not written in a while on what’s going on in my life because I’m so busy!

First, one day last week my husband informed me that the booklet advertising me as the teacher for the local classes came out. I have yet to see it! I need to run by the school and pick up a copy. I understand that online signups begin this Friday, so I pray that people are responsive. It also makes me nervous because I am still so far away from getting all of my lessons written.

Last Monday I made a commitment to get the Eagle packet done within a week. We did it! All of the fussing at my son is now over and a big burden is off my shoulders. It feels so good! It has been a source of stress for me for months. Now we only have to collect some signatures and do any tweaking to it that the scoutmaster wants, and get it turned in. I need to call to see what day the Board of Reviews will be done in December today. We should get his book (packet) turned in this week! Yeah! I cannot tell you what a relief that is to know.

However, that only means that a new to-do will be added to my pot. Sigh. Once he gets his Eagle, I will have another party to prepare for. We made our second son wait for his Court of Honor and party so we could do the two of them at the same time.

Of course, we show off all their patches and what-not at the party, so I will have to get back to getting sewing done too. And with the oldest child, I went back and scanned in all his old photos and prepared memory pages for him to share at the party too. Can I get that done for two boys? When does it ever end?

Blue and Sticky

Okay, I couldn't resist....really, I shrink wrapped my dog, didn't I? It's only fair!

Sally commented to me, "If I can get hold of Hummie, I might kiss her till she's blue and sticky."

Okay, so when I made it I got it wrong...it should be "kissed," not hugged.

For some reason, feeling blue seems okay today. Not sad, but all warm and fuzzy!

Hitting the Curb

Remember that baby photo layout a few days ago? Well, here's my baby, all ready to go. Sigh.

It's been a few days since I posted as I've been horribly busy. I was so excited for my son that he passed his driver's test on the first try. Mostly for the selfish reason that I won't have to leave work again to take him.

What a joy to share in this part of his life with him. Our lives are divided into stages and watching each part of my sons' lives is as wonderful as the previous stage. I feel as if this is the beginning of a new stage for this son. I'm ready to embark on this trip with him.

Although I truly enjoyed being with my family and friends for his birthday party (and am thankful for those who traveled far to attend), I am also glad it is over. All that shopping, cleaning, and cooking is now behind me. One good thing about entertaining guests is that it motivates me to clean my home. I always feel better when it is clean.

The first basketball game was tonight and it was a very close loss. Bummer.

This week I am changing my focus to getting that Eagle packet done. I'm setting aside writing tutorials for one week and getting this other burdon off our shoulders. We are so close; I am so anxious.

Layout above made with Jeri Ingals Oregon Grape kit. I added all the text to the one paper.

That's it for now, I'm too exhausted to thing of what else I should be saying.

Beyond Goofy

I'm just in awe at these people wanting to get the Playstation 3.

On our local news, people have actually been camped out (yes, literally camped out in tents) outside of Best Buy since 1 p.m. on Wednesday to be able to purchase the Playstation 3 at open of business on Friday. That is over 36 hours of waiting for what? ....a game? Do they not have better things to do with their life? Don't they work?

The news also stated that this crazyiness is half for personal use and have to sell on e-bay, with the highest bid of over $4,700. For a game? Not a bad gain for the sellers....divide that profit by the hours sat waiting.

This is beyond goofy!


P.S. I also just read that Webshots is now jumping into the video realm. You can now upload videos there. Good for them to give us all a choice and keep away the monopoly.

Popular Baby Names

I found this site that I thought would be interesting to share.
I find it interesting to see the most popular baby names, don't you?

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

The one that seems to be a new popular one is "Ava." The girls names seem more unique while the boys names seem to be the same common ones.

Always my Baby

I'm a sentimental sap; it's true
My son is 16 years old today and he's his laid back self,
and I'm all sentimental and sappy.

I just want to cry. Tears of feeling blessed, that is.



It is hard for me to believe
that so many years have passed.
Where did my little baby go?
He hasn't gone anywhere.

He will always be Momma's baby
Even when he's old and grey
He will always be my baby
Just as his brothers will be

He is far from a baby now
And more as a young man
He can deny it if he wants to
But he will always be my baby

And no one can claim
that away from me.

Sample Day in the Life of Me

What a day yesterday. Here is a peek into a day in the life of me.

Read e-mails and do daily digiscrapping routines for Yahoo Group. What's breakfast?

Work all day at my full time job. Run home for lunch so that I can e-mail something to someone at scouts who caught me at my work e-mail address looking for it. Go back to work.

Rush off to pick up son from basketball practice. Wait around as they are assigning lockers and handing out uniforms.

Rush home to allow son time to change clothes and load up van.

Take son to a classmate’s house to work on homework project (along with a huge piece of plywood that barely fit into the van, two flashlights, and our camcorder—you go figure what that homework is about) and ask classmate’s mom to please give my son a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for supper.

Rush to store to get wrapping paper (I have to wrap my son’s birthday gift because it is too big to hide and we do not want him accidentally seeing it).

Rush home to wrap gift and tell other son to get on scout uniform (not enough wrapping paper to cover gift).

Rush to scout meeting (accidentally pass McDonald’s as I’m daydreaming, so missed the cheap spot to grab the two of us dinner and stop into Sonic instead).

Call husband who just got home from work to tell him he has to go get more wrapping paper for me and watch for phone call from son who will be needing a ride home from homework meeting.

Eat dinner during committee meeting of parents at scout meeting.

Call husband again to ask him to run out to get desert for the basketball banquet the next night (hoping that he is picking up dinner for himself somewhere along the way). What did we do without cell phones?

Wonder where my third son is at, hoping he is at work, hoping he ate dinner, and being thankful I no longer have to run him around.

And when we get home, I lose my computer to homework and my son was up past 10 p.m. getting it done. I am just thankful that he is committed to his education.

And you wonder why I can never get my underwear washed.

10 Hour Tutorial

Hey all,

Just a quick note.
I spent 10 hours yesterday writing a tutorial I had procrastinated doing for some time now. It feels good to get it done, but I just do not feel like being at this computer any more right now! I really had to make myself work on it. Hopefully the next ones will be more fun to write and I won't have to push myself.

Maybe I will find something more interesting to post later.

Sounds to be Heard by Millions, a Million Times over

Wow, can you imagine having this job? This guy's job was to create the new sound that everyone will hear when they log into and out of the new Windows Vista. Want to hear it? Click here.

Does Mom Sleep?

Oh my, it made my day! My son asked me this morning, "Mom, do you sleep?" Yes, there is a glimmer of hope every once in a while. Yes, my children do observe and care about their Mom. I can see why he thinks that I never sleep. I am awake when he goes to bed and then when he awakes in the morning, I am already up and going. He never sees me sleep! Yes, I am SuperMom! -- not!

It just made me smile. :)

Today's goal is to write a tutorial on organization (of digital elements). I am not doing too well at my goal. I'm procrastinating it. Hopefully I can keep talking myself into getting it at least started.

The two younger boys are reffing soccer all weekend.

My oldest son traveled with 15 other people to participate in a Frisbie Tournament. That is, Ultimate Frisbie at a tournament with other colleges. His team is representing our university.

He made my day too. He took a moment out on the sidelines of his first game to call his mother, 420 miles away, to tell her how the game was going. Yes, just when you think they are only close to God and not their Mom, they do something like that to make their Mom feel loved.

Unfortunately, his team is not representing the university too well. I think they are mainly there to learn from the other teams by observing them. Really, they even have game plays! And they slept last night, unlike my son's team who only slept from 3 a.m. until 6 a.m. My son is hoping the other teams who get to attend an "over 21" get-together tonight will have hang-overs tomorrow. How funny. I cannot wait to hear this one play out.
It will be The Sleepys vs. The Headaches.

One more week until the 16th birthday party. My second goal today is to plan the food and cake and to shop for a gift (preferably while he is gone reffing). Laundry? Do you think I can get that done too? Or is that pushing it?

That layout above has photos from this morning. I look horrible, especially those dark circles. That's the way I look every day; I think I inherited them. I made all the papers and elements for that page to give away as freebies.

Well, here it comes. Here comes what? The holidays! I read two days ago that there is only about 6 weeks left until Christmas and then someone yesterday said something like 43 days. Really? It will be here before we know it! I have to get through this party first before I can think of Christmas.

New Universal Calendar

I want to let you know about a new calendar I created last night.
I have been trying for a long time to get a universal calendar for chats and crops, etc….to bring all of the sites together. For me, who is too busy to watch the ads, when I do get a free moment or possibly even get a moment of boredom, I’d like to be able to go to one spot and see what chat is going on “right now.” In fact, that’s the best way to get me to attend chats.

I had a calendar at my site for the past year that I had paid for and we had volunteers to add entries, but it just never took off because it was too difficult to learn. I am not renewing that subscription and had to find a new calendar.

So, I am going to utilize google’s calendar. It is embedded on my site.
http://www.hummiesworld.com/Calendar.html

There is not much on it right now, so we need help filling it up.
If you want an invitation to be able to add to it, please let me know. Only those people that I add to the calendar and make their settings so they can edit it can do so. But the more people we have keeping it up from more various sites, the better! You will need a google account to do so though.

If you do not want to help edit, you have two options for viewing.
You can go to my website to view it (link above).
Or, if you scroll to the bottom of the calendar on my website, you will see a link where you can subscribe to the calendar through a google account. When you log into google, you will see the calendar on the “other” calendars below your personal ones.

Once signed into google…you can also leave comments under a particular event, which could be fun if people participated.

I hope my efforts on this one takes off…that other one was a lot of work wasted!

Have a happy Friday and I look forward to some requests to be added to the calendar so people can add events!

As always, our yahoo group supports all sites, everyone is welcome to participate.

Shrink-Wrapped Dog

Will life every slow down? Oh....shame on me....God, thank you for our health and time so that we can do so many things!

We had to spend time juggling schedules as the boys want to ref a soccer tournament this weekend. First, we had to make sure the veteran's parade for the marching band was canceled and then we had to make sure it was okay to miss basketball practice. Sigh. It is good for them to learn commitment.

So, the two of them have 8 or 9 games to ref this weekend. They do two games straight, then off one. And go figure, their schedules are opposite. Does this mean my van will get a lot of mileage all weekend running back and forth to the fields? Sigh....that driver's license cannot come fast enough!

The good thing is....I understand they make at least a few hundred dollars each....sometimes I think I should ref.

Good news today though! We learned that at their next appointment both of them get their braces off! I have to get that appointment scheduled (and probably reschedule the dentist cleaning so it's after the braces come off...always something to do). But with an hour drive there and back to the orthodontist each month, we are more than ready to begin the ending part of their treatment. We will have trips for retainer check-ups, but the end is near! Yeah! I hate traveling.

I am so fed up with my dog shedding and all the hairs all over the floors, especially my white kitchen floor. I am so fed up, I keep exclaiming that if my dog loses one more hair, I'm going to cover her in plastic wrap. It sure is a lot of love for a pet to put up with this.

Multi-Photo Scrapbooking

Well, I will share with you another one of my favorite blogs! As many of you know, I never understand why there are so many one photo layouts in galleries. I feel many of them are just made to show off a kit. We've had many discussion on this matter in the Yahoo Group. Anyway, I love this blog for inspiration and scraplifting purposes. It's a blog full of multi-photo layouts! And Tanika posts daily to it too! What an awesome, awesome thing she has done for our scrapping community. I'm sure this is time consuming for her and I thank her for doing so.

The link is also going in the sidebar of my blog as a favorite blog subscription! If you don't know RSS yet, time to learn!
Tanika's Multi-Photo Scrapbook Gallery

Monday Night Football is good for....

...getting a tutorial done! Scout meeting was canceled and my men took over the t.v. to watch football, which left me the evening to write a tutorial.

It took me a long time tonight (about 4 hours) to write the next tutorial, but I have another one out of the way! Bad news is that while writing it I thought of yet another tutorial I should write and, so, it is added to the list.

Here's the new tally:

Cheering Tally:

Course 1
Lessons Done: 14
To-do: 13

Course 2
Lessons Done: 4
To-do: 13 +

Course 3
Lessons Done: 1
To-do: Undetermined

Need a Volunteer Cheering Team!

I need a cheering team to keep me going! Any volunteers!

I did get two more tutorials done over the weekend. I have 13 more tutorials to write (that I have planned) for Course 1.....and I have 13 done! Hey...I'm half way! Cheer me on! I need motivation!

I have a Course 2 and Course 3 planned too....I'll be writing forever! But I'm getting past the boring stuff....soon....and maybe doing more interesting things will motivate me more.

I have to have Course 1 done before I teach my classes in February...then 6 weeks later...I have to have Course 2 done....so I cannot wait until the last minute to start working on Course 2.

As of right now, I have 17 lessons for Course 2 planned, but I have some more ideas that have not made it to the list yet. I have 4 of those 17 done.

I have until next fall to get Course 3 done (I think).

When I get them written, that's when I'll try to open up online classes. This is so much more work than I imagined! But, hey, my checkbook is balanced and my bathroom curtains are washed. >smile<

We re-hung a stitched framed artwork of that my grandparents made last night. It had fallen about a week ago and it was not an easy re-hang. I had two scarfs that my mom made me hanging from the sides of the frame that also fell. What an interesting find last night -- One of the scarfs had really icky sticky greeny stuff all over the end of it. I was horrified at the site! It looked like possibly three big wads of green gum, but we were not even sure that was what it was. Once again, De-Solve-It came to my rescue. What would I do without that stuff? Growing up three sons (and living with four men) is not an easy thing. I am always finding weird things and constantly fixing what they mess up. Of course, it's a conspiracy because no one will admit to anything.


Cheering Tally:

Course 1
Lessons Done: 13
To-do: 13

Course 2
Lessons Done: 4
To-do: 13 +

Course 3
Lessons Done: 1
To-do: Undetermined

Basketball Girl

Has everyone seen this video?

Isn't this a crazy thing to try? Who would even think to try it in the first place? You can see her holding her head at the end because she does hit it on the rim. Amazing stunt, nonetheless!

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Well, here some more personal life blogging for my friends and family. I’ll try to get something more interesting up soon.

Have you ever had one of those low grade fevers where you just feel blah enough that you don’t feel like doing much, but you don’t feel bad enough to just lie in bed? Well, that’s what has been going on for me this weekend. I am glad for some down time though. I even rescheduled my visit with my Little this weekend. I hope to be ready to get back to normal life tomorrow.

We have begun the great reorganization and clean-up around the house this weekend. I’m remembering we do this every year after marching band ends. Marching band consumes so much of our life that regular things seem to get out of hand. Then on our first down time, we spend our time getting life back together. It does feel good to have things put back in place somewhat at home. The boys’ bedrooms have been the main target. I think I did 10 loads of my oldest son’s clothes for him. The other men put them away for him though. I sure hope he appreciates all the work we did for him.

I’m making a pledge to myself to keep the checkbook balance running more current. We’ll see. Sigh.

I got up this morning and made a nice double apple muffin recipe. Naturally, my hubby won't eat fruit so he had to come along later and make a double chocolate one. Which one do you think will be gone first? It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!

****************

There is more conspiracy going on. Sigh. Of course, everyone else knew that the sleeping bag that had been left for weeks on end in the corner of a bedroom had some sort of odd sticky stuff all over it. The story goes that it was taken to a sleepover and got some kind of ant-attracter stuff on it. Of course, I only find out when I make specific reference to the bag and demand it be rolled up and put away. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya! One washing did not work. So I had to take this grand, miracle working De-solve-it stuff and a bunch of elbow grease to get that sticky stuff off. Whoever invented that stuff is a genius! Whatever did we do to get stuff off before it was invented?

It makes me wish that I could De-solve-it away all of my life problems. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Of course, in a way, God is our De-solve-it, isn’t He? If we just give all our problems to him, he will dissolve them away for us. The trick is to be able to surrender all our problems to Him.

********************

By the way…that frame around my photo on this blog entry came from this site: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/freedownloads/l/blframesmain.htm

I learned something new today! It is so much fun to play with digital scrapbooking skills. Always something new to learn...that's what makes this hobby so fun.

I found their instructions a bit difficult. So, the teacher in me came out analyzing other’s instructions and making them into sensible directions (in PSE).
Here they are for you digiscrappers!

They gave two ways of using them.

First Way
1) Put both your photo and the frame on your layout and resize them and line them up together to fit your desires for your layout.
2) With the frame as the active layer, hit control key and then "I" key to invert the frame. (or: Filter drop down menu/adjustments/invert).
3) With the frame as the active layer, change the blending mode to "screen."

I thought this one was really cool how it worked and loved it!

Second Way
1) Put both your photo and the frame on your layout and resize them and line them up together to fit your desires for your layout.
2) Using the magic wand selection tool, with a tolerance of around 100, click on the white area of the frame to select all of the white on the frame.
3) Hit Control-J to put your selection on a new layer.
4) Click on the eye key to make the original frame invisible (not going to need it again unless you want a re-do).
5) Move your photo layer above the new layer that you made with the selection.
6) With the photo layer active, hit Control-G to group the photo layer with the selection layer and, wha-lah....cut out frame around photo!
7) You may want to put any solid color rectangle (or hey, paper might be fun) behind the photo and frame layers to make it look more like a frame.

Drumline Break (Google Video)

I was surprised this morning to discover that Google has a new beta video, especially after they bought out YouTube. Do they plan on merging the two? Click here to go to their video page. So, I thought I would test it out and compare it to YouTube, since I recently tested out YouTube. The video did upload quicker and get processed faster, but I still think that the processing reduces the quality of the film as it looks pixelated.

So far, the embedded html they gave me does not seem to be working.
You can also go to their page to see the video.
I took it off the embeded one because it never did work...I guess the google beta needs some work.

Here it is on Youtube too...

Basketball Season Begins

Just posting a few notes for my family and friends about this week.

I was excited as I thought life would slow down this week since marching band is coming to a close (only one more parade and a banquet and possibly a playoffs football game). But, alas, little to my knowledge did I know that basketball tryouts had already started (and my son even missed a few because of band) and so there is practice every day after school. I cannot wait for that 16th birthday in a few weeks to come and for him to get his driver’s license. Sigh.

On a good note, I was very pleased to find out that the coach for basketball is the same one we had last year. We had two coaches move to different schools and, therefore, we thought we would be getting an unknown coach. I was very pleased with the coach we had last year as he really focuses on growing an entire boy, character and all, and not just winning games. He really cares about the players.

Unlike last year, it does appear that the try-outs were very short this year and it appears that my son did make the team! Each year it gets harder and harder to make the basketball team, so we were worried. He may end up being more of a bench warmer, but he is happy to be participating in a sport he loves and has been dreaming of playing for a while now. At least there are no bench warmers in practice and he can still get lots of fun playing time.

They did some kind of different exercise yesterday where they leaned, squatting, on a wall with arms extended, up on the toes, for 45 seconds. His calves were hurting last night and he was walking around funny.

The scout troop had a costume party on Monday night and I was surprised at how many boys dressed up. I just kind of thought that older kids grew out of that sort of thing. With food and socializing and “down time” for an evening, it was a nice night.

Well, I’m not feeling well as I’ve got a low grade fever. I’m always up between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m., but my hubby had to wake me yesterday at 7:30 to make sure I was getting up for work. That was the first sign that something was wrong.

I wish everyone a blessed day and weekend.

A MATTER OF THE HEART

God’s Word about our heart as found in scripture


Quite a few years ago, I crossed paths often with this particular lady who always said to me “God bless your heart.” A common phrase, but the more she said it, the more I began to wonder what it “really” meant. Why did my heart need blessing so much? So I decided to do a Bible study on the word “heart.” Wow, did I find many references to it in the Bible, many of which are common phrases in our language.

Take a moment to go through this list. All of these phrases are from scripture. Read each line and then pause and reflect on its meaning. I know I learned a lot by this exercise, I hope you do to.

Take a moment to leave a comment about what you've learned.

God had put in his heart
set his heart on
pride of his heart
hardened his heart
sadness of heart
found his heart faithful
devote your heart
my heart yearns
guilt in my heart
upright heart
wise in heart
joy in the heart
meditations of my heart
pure heart
troubles of my heart
examine my heart
my heart trusts
my heart leaps for joy
my heart grew hot
contrite heart
my heart is steadfast
sin in my heart
broken my heart
a heart of wisdom
blameless heart
guard your heart
anxious heart
I had it in my heart to
test the heart
integrity of heart
my heart will always be there
glad in heart
discerning heart
you know in your heart all the wrong
glad in heart
discerning heart
you know in your heart all the wrong
upright in heart
heart longed for
heart and soul
change of heart
hard heart
all of your heart and all of your soul
take to heart
my heart rejoices
grieve your heart
what is in my heart
do not lose heart
take these words to heart
his heart failed him
terror filled his heart
heart’s desire
the lord looks at the heart
you alone know the hearts of all men
praying in her heart
the lord searches every heart
make music in your heart
sincerity of heart
cut to the heart
one in heart
unrepentant heart
believe in your heart
unbelieving heart
doubt in his hear
pondered them in her heart
his heart went out to
good heart
where your treasure is, there your heart will be
new heart and new spirit
humble in heart
overflow of the heart the mouth speaks
out of the heart comes evil thoughts
happy heart
cheerful heart
heart rages
I thought in my heart
hasty in your heart
for the one my heart loves
you have stolen my heart
my heart sank
sick at heart
pour out your heart
attitudes of the heart