Blog Carnival becomes Resource Jamboree

I had previously tried from May 27, 2007 to March 1, 2008 to get the Digital Scrapbooking Blog Carnival off the ground. I greatly appreciated the ladies who supported it and worked to help get it off the ground. It has not grown, so I am discontinuing my practice of the blog carnival (hoping someone else will take it over because its a fantastic thing) and redirecting my energy.

The links for the last blog carnival are as follows:

Monique Patry presents Blog Marketing: Are you committing libel? posted at Scrappy Marketing Solutions Blog, saying, "A great article for any blogging scrapper to read!"

Hummie presents Take a stroll down the red carpet with our layout contest! posted at Molly's Blog, saying, "You have until the end of March to post a layout to Flicker to joing Digital Scrapbooking Magazine's competition."

Monique Patry presents Wedding Album Layout Ideas posted at Monique's Scrappin' Blog!, saying, "A great list of Wedding Album scrapbook page layout s!"

Monique Patry presents coloring pages from your photos - 3 easy photoshop steps posted at fototiller, saying, "An amazing tutorial! Includes a link to another tutorial to do the same in PSP!" Jose DeJesus MD presents Technology - Renaming All those Files Your Camera Makes posted at Physician Entrepreneur.



If you would like to take over Digital Scrapbooking Blog Carnival, please contact me so that I can work toward getting the widget transferred to you.

*****

I am redirecting my energy to simply posting my finds in my forums, as well as inviting others to do the same.

Welcome to the Resource Jamboree!

Each month I will start a new thread where I will post links to great finds on blogs and other places around the internet.

However, I cannot do it by myself! Did you find something? Please be sure to share it in the current month's thread!

Please, no advertising.

Let the fun and learning begin!

Layouts with My Heritage Kit

It just makes me smile every time I see a layout using my heritage kit.
I just have to share these with you. I love how everyone makes my stuff look good!

There may be others, but I've not made it through the gallery yet.

Here's Tina's


Here's Julie's


Here's MamaB's

Nothing, yes nothing..

Nothing...yes nothing, makes me feel better than to see my three sons spending quality time together....


.....I'm in such a good mood as my oldest son is home from college and he has brought the three of them together for quality time....not a better site for a mother....I'm going to bed smiling tonight....and I don't even care that they are staying up too late on a school night.

This was just what I needed to lift my spirits.

Shhh....who cares if the basement is unorganized.

Let's Pretend --

My statement about life: "Why does life have to be so hard?"

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Habakkuk 3:17-18

So, if Habakkuk had no grapes and no crops and not food and no sheep and no cattle, and yet could still rejoice in the Lord and be "joyful" in God, then what is stopping me? I have drink and food to eat more than enough and my troubles seem small in comparison. I must remember not to complain about my troubles, but to look toward God. And I've got a lot of troubles right now.

There is no situation that is hopeless.
There is no problem too big for God to fix.
There is no darkness so dark that Jesus cannot overcome.

So, what would happen if I rejoiced in the Lord during troubles? Will He give me the strength and wisdom I need? Will He fix my troubles? I know that I cannot change other people and can only pray that God will change them if it is His will. Waiting on God is hard. I have to try to shift my thoughts toward Jesus instead of my troubles and rejoice in Him as He knows what is best. I did read my Bible this morning (in 1st Corinthians), but I don't feel "joyful." How do I feel joyful in troubles? I cannot force a feeling I'm not feeling. I do feel peace knowing that He has forgiven me, but I don't feel joyful as if I want to jump up and down and smile. How can you smile when going through troubles? I don't feel like smiling. Ah, alas, all I know to do is to think on Him and pray.

I have learned something about myself this week, so God is working in me a bit this week. Someone was sharing with me how my son ignores all stress and problems in relationships and pretends everything is okay until it all builds up on him and he explodes. Hmmmm. Who did he learn that from? This has been the one thing I've complained about my son in the past year as he quiets up and walks away in anything that bothers him negatively (which seems as if he is being rude to his parents). God revealed to me this week that this is my own habit, but I never realized it. We do really develop our parents' habits, don't we?

Let's pretend nothing is wrong and treat everyone with love, even when things are wrong. That's what I do in life. Aren't we supposed to just love. Period.

However, isn't it good to recognize that we cannot change other people, that only God can, and to just walk away from it and wait on God? That's always been my practice. Maybe God is telling me its not always right by showing me how my own habits as revealed in my son make me feel.

Maybe both things (to avoid drama and confrontations and to wait on God to fix the problem/or to address them head on as God can work through me) are the right thing to do, but in different situations. So, maybe I should pray to God for wisdom to know what is the right thing to do in which situation.

If you have read my ramblings thus far, thanks. It is not easy sharing my personal thoughts in public on a blog, but I am hopeful that at least one other person will read my thoughts and be helped by them. It helps me to write and organize my thoughts, so maybe if I share them, it will help others. I could hit the delete button right now---but--God can and does work in odd ways.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Phillippians 4:4

Sandie's Garden Analogy

I was touched this weekend by Sandie's thoughtfulness. As my regular readers know, I do enjoy making garden analogy layouts. As I was down last weekend, stating that it makes me depressed when I post something at DST indicating I have a new video up, I get next to no responses. However, when others post, they get pages of responses and accolades. I feel really inadequate at times. Am I really doing what I should be doing having this site?


Sandie reached out to me and communicated in a way I can identify with using a garden analogy. Isn't that sweet? And then she made a layout! I am holding onto her hope now. Isn't her tree beautiful!

Here's what Sandie had to say:

Garden Analogy: Beautiful flowers often take a long time to bloom, and often lots of hard work, but they are worth waiting for. (My Jacaranda tree is 7 years old before it blooms , but will live to about 90 years with glorious purple flowers every October-November).

Keep working at this- its too good to give up.
Remember, not everyone has the confidence to share work on-line- feeling inadequate is not just about housework. I like the way you welcome everyone, Hummie, and make such positive comments on layouts and how you so selflessly share all your techniques and tutorials. I'm sure your many passive members are gaining just as much from your work as I am, just by visiting, stealing peeks at work and gaining s from what you share. I know it is demoralising for your good work not to be recognised widely, but the nature of today's society is to take and rarely to give back. Just be confident that you are doing a superb job and we love you for that.

Heritage Kit in Store!

I am so excited to finally be done with this kit! However, I have more ideas and am planning an add-on kit to this kit.

You can find my Heritage Kit in the store.

This kit was designed for creating genealogy and heritage layouts. There are 64 files in all in this kit.
Watch for the add-on for this kit!

KIT INCLUDES
16 Papers
4 Borders
3 Brads
2 Edges (great fun in the middle of the page, to hang things from, or along edges!)
1 Eyelet
1 Frame
3 Journal Mats
6 Leafs
3 Mats
1 Curled Ribbon
1 Grograin Ribbon
1 Staple
5 Unique Tags
15 Label Tags
2 Word Art

Blogger in Draft

I have had quite a few communications about my last post on the new Blogger Widgets. I understand that not everyone can see the widgets as I am seeing them.

I will say that I am not signing into Draft Blogger, so I do not know why I can see them and you cannot.

If you need to sign in to Draft Blogger, sign in to your account here. There is no reason to be afraid to do so. It is a testing site for the new features, so just signing in will not harm anything and you can see the new features. Of course, testing is at your own risk, but most often it is also harmless. If it doesn't work, just uninstall it.

There is a blog which you can follow to know the new features called Blogger in Draft.

The Hunt is On! (& my freebies)

Get your first clue at DST in this thread! Are you ready to hunt all weekend for freebies!

Have fun seeing new sites and new shops! Meet new people along the way! And download away, ah hoy, matey!

At my site, there are freebies by me and Tina Williams. Hummie's World is far down on the list, how long will it take everyone until they reach my clue and find my trash!



While you are working on that, be sure to head on over and download freebie Template #36 in both SQUARE and RECTANTLE!

Check out the newest Technique Challenge and video. I would love to see you layouts using this technique!

Hint, Hint! Oh my!


The technique challenge is to cut text out of paper or vellum and then use that text that was cut out in another part of the layout. This is a paper realistic techique, just as if someone had taken a pair of scissor to cut the text out and then glued the cut out part down on another part of the page.

Secret Revealed! Don't miss this weekend!

Are you ready for a hunt? Hop from site to site following clues for freebies! At each site, the downloaded zip file will contain a clue to the next site and freebie.

I believe there are 48 designers involved now.

They made a time change! This is for the convenience of those on dial-up.

Trash to Treasure Hunt--6pm Frid to 6pm Sun, Feb 22-24

Trash to Treasure Scrap Layouts (made with the freebies, to be posted at DST)--6pm Sun-6pm Mon, Feb 24-25

Voting for Trash to Treasure Queen (in a thread to be posted at DST)--6pm Mon-6pm Tues, Feb 25-26

New Widgets in Blogger

Wow, I've been so busy I think I've been hiding under the cover of winter! I just realized that Blogger has added a bunch of new cool tools!

Under Blog List, you can create a list which sorts by the most recently updated. I'm not anxious to start yet another list, but I am curious as to how this works and may play with it.

Have you tried the Add a Gadget? Wow! All the choices you can now quickly add to your blog! Sidebars are going to be filled rampant now! Oh, the temptations to add something fun to the sidebar causing the download per blog page to take forever is so tempting. Really, I can even count my calories from my own blog page now!

There are other new things too---get on in there now---just hit the "layout" tab from your dashboard and click away! How fun!

I have not had time to look to find fun stuff on the internet to share in a while.

While watching today's ice storm come down in the wee hours of the morning (it's 5:44 a.m. now and I've been up a while now), I found this site called Keybr.com.

I know I can type fast, but I'm always curious how fast I can really type. Within a few minutes, I advanced to level three (it took me a while to realize that when it flashed "new typing record" it was actually advancing me to the next level) with a speed of 135 words per minute with zero mistakes.

Wow, is that accurate?

What speed to you type at on this gizmo?

In the last gizmo, I typed 121.42 words per minute. So maybe I can really type this fast.

....off to see if I can go faster.....

A Surprise is coming to the DigiWorld--Trash to Treasure!

Designers and DST are gathering for a big event this weekend! There are now over 40 designers involved.

Because of all the recent drama and downs in the digiworld, the designers want to do something big to uplift the ladies in digiland. If you missed the drama, good for you!

If you are curious, the "Readers Digest Condensed Version" of the drama is that the digital community has some wonderful ladies who are working hard to protect us from digital piracy. Over the weekend, they uncovered a big operation which was sharing digital kits which were wrongfully acquired by hacking sites. At least three of the people involved were "designers" in our digiworld. This was very disturbing to all. You can read about the new Anti-Piracy Movement at DST. In addition, please do not ask for names as the answer should be "no."




East Coast Timezone:

Trash to Treasure Hunt--6pm Friday to 6pm Saturday Feb 22-23

Trash to Treasure Scrap Layouts (made with the freebies received on Saturday, to be posted at DST)--6pm Saturday-6pm Sunday, Feb 23-24

Voting for Trash to Treasure Queen (in a thread to be posted at DST)--6pm Sunday-6pm Monday, Feb 24-25

I plan to join them and will have a clue to my treasure somewhere in my forum! I've got to work on the details, but I plan on digging up some old things I made that will probably never get into a kit for my store (my trash) and giving them to you in a download! What can I find as I clear out my folders! Who knows, maybe I'll make something new too. :)

Stay tuned to my forum thread for more details as they come in.

For Ice Storm Damage & Video Tutorial

Why does the weekend go by so fast? I never get done everything I want to get done.


CLEANUP
We did have someone come to our rescue with a chain saw and we now have everything down by the street from the ice storm. Our city is awesome! If we get it at the street cut to a reasonable size, we can call them and they will come with equipment and dump truck to pick it up. I am SO glad. I'll be on the phone first thing this morning.

MUDFEST
We have noticed how bad the yard is. It has become one big mud slide, especially in the areas where they worked hard getting the branch off of the car as it got trompled down good. The backyard with all the thick ice resting in the lowest areas is also all mud. Now we are going to have to think about re-seeding grass too. Sigh. When we put out seed, we tend to just feed the birds instead of grow grass.

MORE DAMAGE
The adjuster came on Sunday too. We have some damage to the house, but it is minor. One shingle and some damage to the gutter and wood as that first branch that damaged the fence came down. We are awaiting the estimate now to see if its worth turning in as a claim.

REALLY BAD NEWS

We did have some bad news over the weekend, however. Hubby's brother who is in Iraq suffered some serious damage to his house. There is a tree through the rough. The hallway inside has a crack down the ceiling and water is leaking into the house.





TAXES & FRIGHTENING EXPENSES
I worked for a while yesterday gathering all the financial information (excel document, receipts) for setting up my site with the forum, gallery, store, and videos. Wow, was I shocked at how much I spent to get it set up. I needed this information for taxes. I have been procrastinating doing them because I really didn't want to know how much in total I spent. It is going to take a long time to get reimbursed for those expenses.

PAPERWORK MOUNDS
I did do some other paperwork, going through a mound of mail, and can now see my kitchen table in total again. I still have more to do and I want to be on top of it, in addition to getting my taxes done, over the next few days. So my activity of new things in the forums may be down for a few days.

LAUNDRY & MUDDY FLOOR
I did get some laundry done as well as some cleaning in the kitchen, but with all of the traffic in and out from cutting, axing, and carrying branches through the mud made my kitchen floor a disaster.

OUT OF BOUNDS VIDEO TUTORIALS


I did get a video tutorial (2 parts) on Out of Bounds Layouts done on Saturday and you can see them for a limited time in the main forum area, but then they will be moved to the Subscriber area. I wanted to get additional videos for this technique done, but it did not happen over the weekend.


PIRATES AND BEHIND THE SCENES WORK

The pirates in digiland are at it again big time and it is disturbing and depressing reading about it all. You just get sucked into reading about it and, in my opinion, waste a lot of precious time in doing so. (Although it is important and I am thankful for those spending even more time chasing the people.) Most if it is read in private designer forums at DST, so the majority of digital scrapbookers are unaware. It is hard to read those threads and not be down and depressed. I have some changes for security purposes to make and did stay awake much of the night working on some of it, but have a long way to go. All these behind the scenes things that shops do and the time spent on it is amazing to me and so eye-opening since I've opened up my own place.

Japanese Television - Oh my!

Why is it I find myself watching Japanese shows a lot lately? It seems the boys have always got it on the t.v. I wish America would do some more reality t.v. like the Japanese shows for physical skill. They are sure interesting to watch.

I previously shared with you the television channel G-4 which my boys have on a lot now and the Ninja Warriors show (and videos) that is always on.

Now G-4 has a new show called Unbeatable Banzuke which is another Japanese physical challenge show that seems to be on a lot when I set down in our living room. Watch some videos on this page. I was watching the hand-walking challenge yesterday.





Youtube has quite a few you can watch.

Try searching for Japanese Tetris or try searching for Human Tetris. My son showed us these over the holidays and we sat one evening having quality family time watching these and laughing together on our computer screen--much better than what was on television. I laugh so hard every time I watch these!








Try searching for Japanese Matrix.




However, some of their games just make you wonder. I didn't find this one too funny, but whoever thought of it and implemented it--well....watch it. If they do not get through the tongue twister, they get a swift whack in the groin. We don't need to bring this one to America.




Who thinks up these games over in Japan?







How crazy is this to run through doors? Pick the right one!



How about these for MXC - Most Extreme Elimination







If you've made it down this far, I'm sure you have been online and watching for quite a while now!

Lenten Sunday

I thought this a wonderful video to watch during Lent.

Fixing Exposure in Photoshop Elements (Video Tutorial)

I did a video this morning and it felt good to have electricity once again and to be able to provide you with something new.

I do hope you learn a lot from this video on fixing exposure. Not only can you learn about PSE, but you can also better understand your camera settings.

This tutorial covers not only the various ways to correct exposure, but the basic understand of what underexposure and overexposure is. This tutorial also touches on camera settings and how to avoid taking photos with the wrong exposure. Therefore, this tutorial is also very helpful in learning about the various options on your camera.

Learn how to use the levels popup box in Photoshop Elements and gain a basic understanding of histograms.

War Zone

It is literally like a war zone in our neighborhood. The site is unbelievable and indescribable.

We have had no power at our house since mid-afternoon yesterday and it is rather cold outside, but not quite as cold inside, but getting colder with each passing hour. I understand from the news that as soon as they get are of power on, another goes off in our city. Many neighboring towns are totally without power.

I am at work and able to type this where it is warm, but my Men and Abbie Rae are at home keeping warm under blankets.

I just want a warm shower.

Oh, what a scary night and day in this Ice Storm

Wow, it is really scary here. At least we have power. About 6,000 in our city and many more in neighboring city's do not have power. So we are blessed.

I'm not sure how we are going to get all these mini trees (branches) out of our yard.

As we stand outside, you can hear the cracking and snapping as branches continue to drop everywhere. It is quiet scary.

I was videotapping my men trying to get a branch off of the vehicle when this happened. This is half a tree in the middle of our front yard coming down! At the beginning of the video you can hear the ice crunching under my feet.







This is a photo of the tree after it fell in the above video.





This is the tree in the video looking up at our house through all the downed trees.




This gives you an idea of how large the branch was that fell in the video.




This is the first branch that came down in my backyard around midnight last night. It actually hit my bedroom window on its way down and then I heard it go kurplunk---how scary!



This is the same branch as above showing the damage to our fence.



This was on the ground and I found it photogenic.


I took a close up shot of some of the ice hanging down from a branch. Every tree everywher is covered like this.


This is another branch in the backyard that hit the fence in a different place, only not as bad of damage.



You can see branches up in the trees that have broke off but did not make it to the ground.



We were surprised to wake up to a branch over our son's car. Upon closer examination, we we found we were blessed that it hit a lower branch (which bent all the way to the ground) which caught the broken branch from landing on his car.


We kind of smiled to see a branch land perfectly in the back of hubby's truck.


There are buds all over our maple trees that are covered in ice.


I enjoyed taking these artistic photos.




I found irony in this photo. We have fall leaves still on the tree, Spring buds, and Winter ice.


Just thought this one was an awesome photo.


Back to more photos of the branches on the car.





Here you can see the end of the branch where it broke off up in the air as it is resting on the branch below it.


This photo shows the ice on the cars. My vehicle was like this yesterday. It is really thick.


This photo shows the potential danger in our front yard. These are the trees covered in ice in our front yard. The constant crackling and snapping makes it fearful to be outside. Hopefully nothing else will come down on our vehicles.


These are my men trying to figure out how to get that branch down without it hitting the car on the way down. I've lots of videos of them trying to pull or cut it down. It's still stuck in the air


Sometimes I wonder what men are thinking. Really? Standing on the hood of an ice covered car while sawing? You can see they managed to get a lot of the branches removed from the bit branch at this point.

Blog Carnival

I am SO delayed in making this announcement, but Kelly Shults was right on time!

Go check out the latest blog carnival for links to great finds in the digital scrapbooking world!
It came at a bad time for me with my illness and computer crashes, so I had no time to make submissions, but I see there are some great ones anyway. Thanks ladies!

I am skipping the next carnival and moving onto the next to be posted on March 1st. So be sure to get in your submissions! It's easy to do. There are links in the sidebar of my blog for more information.

ZipGenius--Oh NO!

I have read that quite a few people are using the free program called ZipGenius. However, I had a terrible experience with it on Friday night and would like to share to save others the hassle.

I understand that it may work fine in XP (although I won't be testing it), but I had serious issues with it in Vista.

What a night I’ve had and a lot of wasted time to boot!

I installed the program earlier in the week and observed that when I right clicked on a zip file, where previously I could see the Windows link for "extract all" it was replaced with ZipGenius links. Immediately, I was not comfortable with the program invading my Windows settings and changing them.

I uninstalled the program as I couldn’t quickly figure out how to use it.
It also uninstalled the default Windows extraction ability.

So I tried a restore point---at which time my brand new laptop got the blue screen of death and would not start up again!

I called Sony and was able to get it back up and then the claim was escalated to this guy who accessed it by remote trying to figure out how to get the zip to work again and I was on the phone all night until almost midnight.

Finally, we discovered that if we created a new ID, it worked okay.

So now I need to spend time moving over everything to my new ID and setting everything up (like my e-mail and other settings….WHAT a pain….it will probably take me a couple hours to set up the new ID….after all this time now.

And they warned me that it seemed that the program corrupted some of my files and to back up daily as I could get the blue screen of death again….at which point I’ll have to just do a total system restore.

Please learn from my experience.

****
I continue to use UnZipThemAll. It is a stand alone program that works on its own and is free. I love that if I have all of my zips in the same folder, both .zip and .rar, that I can direct the program to that folder and it will highlight all of the files for me. All I have to do is click to start and it will unzip all of the multiple zips files at once. Thereafter, the folder will have two files for each (the original zip and the unzipped). It's just a few clicks to sort and highlight all of the zip files together to delete them. So quick and I'm on my way to sorting my files.

Video Tutorials & a Great Weekend

I attended a wonderful Woman's Retreat on Saturday with 90 other women. I had a hard time keeping myself from bringing my laptop! It seems I cannot stop working on all my to-do's for nothing! I couldn't resist and did bring birthday invitations and filled them out and addressed them during the retreat. At least I got something done! Oh, I'm horrible! Lunch was great and the skits made us all laugh, lots of great readings, a speaker, and singers.

Then on Saturday evening I went out for my weekly dinner date with hubby (oh, eating big twice in one day was NOT good) as my brand new laptop crashed on Friday night and we didn't get to go on Friday night. We then rented movies and then my day was g-O-n-e gone!

On Sunday we watched other movies we rented and I was able to get some house cleaning done which really felt good. Ick, cleaning bathrooms and laundry and floors!

On Sunday I did get three tutorials (4 videos) recorded and up at my site and it felt so good as they completed Course 1 for me! You can find them in these theads. They are all about design principles, colors, the color picker, the differences of hue, saturation, and value and how to utilize them, and color schemes. Lots to learn there! They will be in the subscriber area only soon.

And with the completion of all videos for Course 1, I can now get ready to official open the Subscriber area! I will continue filling the other courses up with videos in the near future, but at least I can feel comfortable having people pay and be able to see one complete set of videos.

You can read more about the Subscriber area on this page and how to subscribe.

Basically, my subscriber area will be where you can view all of my videos that I have ever made or will yet to make as along as you are subscribed.

I want it to be a place for newbies to be able to learn how to scrap in Photoshop Elements right away without having to wait for a class to start.

• Learn when you are ready
• Learn at your pace

I am always around to answer Photoshop Element questions, so if you are new to digital scrapbooking, just jump right in and start with lesson 1 and go through them in order. You can pause the videos as your work along with them. Get stuck? Don't hesitate to ask and I hope to be able to answer quickly to get you on your way again. I can even answer with additional videos if needed.

In addition, I have kept the cost low so that all may afford it. I do not have a lot of money myself and would have appreciated a resource such as this when I was first starting out.

Crumpled Paper Tutorial in Photoshop Elements

I did a new tutorial this morning on making crumpled papers in Photoshop Elements. It includes two free crumpled templates for download.

You have to be logged into the forum to see the video (for a limited time and then it will be in the Subscriber area).

The Bean--I need to get fit

I need to get motivated to get fit. I am hoping that support in the forums and others holding me accountable in the forums will help me to get motivated.

For Christmas, we got The Bean and I really like it. I have really bad feet which keep me from doing too many exercises standing and I feel like I can get a good workout in comfort sitting on The Bean. Of course, my wrist is still not healed from my injury on December 10th and some of the exercises require support of the hand and I cannot do them yet, but I can still do quite a few and it can be done while watching television.

The Bean is supposed to be great for those with back troubles and I can see why--so I am encouraging hubby to use it too. Besides, it just makes a good stool to sit on in the middle of the room. [smile]



I do not feel like I eat much in a day and have had my thyroid tested and it seems fine. It appears that I just need to exercise more in order to raise my metabolism. With my bad feet, I struggle with that. Also, I am always told its not good that I do not eat breakfast, so I started this week trying to eat something for breakfast. I started with a sample of Weight Control Oatmeal on Monday as it is supposed to have a lot of good fiber. I did not like the taste of it. I had a small plastic cup of manderin oranges for breakfast this morning and felt stuffed afterwards.

I am also trying out these water mixes from Kelloggs and South Beach. They have 20% of the recommended daily fiber. All this fiber in the morning is messing with my system. I'm burping and gasing right and left! Uggg! Its making me feel dizzy and noodle legged too until I get done with all the physical movements. I'm going to keep at it and try to give my body a chance to adjust, but then if it doesn't, I'm gonna have to give up on all this fiber.

Taco in a Pan

Update: Eileen shared with me that she made this and her fussy son and hubby even had seconds. I just had to try it and I agree, it was a big hit at our house too and so simple.

Since my men are SO picky, I actually left the cheese off of the mixture and let everyone choose what to do with it. Most of my men put it in taco shells and declared it was good. I suggested nachos too.




I decided to make a salad with it. I put lettuce on my plate and topped it with the mixture, cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, and tortilla chips. Yummy!





*****
Hmmmmm...how about this recipe...my family is always ready for Mexican? I may have to try this one. It seems as quick to make as Hamburger Helper, huh?

Taco In A Pan

1 lb. extra lean ground beef
2 C. water
1 pkg. Taco Seasoning Mix
2 C. instant white Rice, uncooked
1 C. Mexican Shredded Cheese
2 C. shredded lettuce
2 C. chopped tomatoes

Brown meat in large nonstick skillet; drain. Add water and seasoning mix; stir. Bring to boil. Stir in rice. Sprinkle with cheese; cover. Reduce heat to low; simmer 5 min. Top with lettuce and tomatoes.

Buckle Video Tutorial in Photoshop Elements

I was asked today in the forums how to thread a ribbon on a buckle realistically, so I made a freebie buckle and ribbon to go with a video tutorial. You can find them in this thread. The video is available in the main forum for a limited time before it is moved to the Subscriber area.

Chicken and Rice Crockpot Casserole

Chicken and Rice Crockpot Casserole
1 can cream of celery soup
Chicken, cut up
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup rice, uncooked

Combine the soup and rice in crockpot.
Stir well. Lay the chicken on top of the mixture.
Sprinkle the onion mix over all.
Cover. Cook on low for 7 to 9 hours.

Photoshop Elements Video Tutorials - My Progress

I have been back on track with making one video a day to correspond with Course 1 of my written tutorials for Photoshop Elements.

I do try to announce when I have a new tutorial up in the Yahoo Group, but not always on my blog, so if you are interested in them, you may want to get those notifications.

All of the videos I make will be in the main forum area for a short time, so if you are watching daily, you can catch them. Thereafter, they are available in the Subscriber area where you can view them at any time as long as you are subscribed.

I am trying to get all of Course 1 done before I begin advertising the subscriber area. I do want there to be some content in the subscriber area before I advertise it, although it is open for Subscribers now and I do have a few Subscribers whom I am greatful for!

You can find most of the videos in the Course 1 threads or the Technique Challenge threads. In addition, the Element Designer challenge thread will have videos.

****
On a personal note, it feels good to almost be done with painting my kitchen cabinets this weekend. My Little (Big Brother/Big Sister) helped me paint them and it only took us an hour together. I took her out to eat for helping me. My son and I then went to watch a basketball game together.

I am going to replace the liners a little bit at a time, buying a roll each time I go grocery shopping. I need new handles, but will have to wait until I can afford them.

I've had a rough past two weeks, but am hopeful that this will be a normal week. The weather has warmed up today.

Template Freebie #35 & Technique Challenge

For a limited time, here is template #35. You can find the links to download for both SQUARE and RECTANGLE in the forum. In addition, this is also part of a technique challenge for highlighting a title by knocking out the ribbon.