Class Guide Sign-ups Are Up! (Subscribers Only!)

I welcome you to join in on the next round of guided classes. Although you can always subscribe and do lessons on your own and even lurk, these class guides are sent by e-mail and I do check off the assignments to encourage you to get through the lessons.

Read about the Subscriber Area here. Subscriptions are $5.50 per month
Read how to subscribe here.
Guided class descriptions here.

To register for the classes below, please see this thread.

Each person who completes a class will receive a special icon by their name in the forum, but the real prizes are the layouts you will complete along the way and the skills you will learn!

You can use any products in this classes, so there are no excuses!

I have decided to slow down some of the classes so that one does not get burnt out. For Course 1, we utilized an every 3 day for the last round and I think it worked out well, so that will remain. However, since I have SO many rounds of classes going on and it is difficult for me to keep up, I believe every 4 days may be the right setting. I've been tweaking the intervals each time I go through a round and I think we've almost arrived upon a standard!

I am also going to stagger the start dates of the guides to make it easier on myself. Some mornings I was overwhelmed and other mornings I had none to do!

Here are the classes with available sign-ups:

Course 1 - Every 3 days (beginning August 3, 2009)
Course 2 - #1 -20 - Every 4 days (beginning August 3, 2009)
Course 2 - #21-40 - Every 4 days (beginning August 4, 2009)
Course 2 - #21-40 - Every 4 days (beginning August 5, 2009)
Templates - Every 4 days (beginning August 3, 2009)


They are a great way to get yourself organized and motivated to JUST SCRAP and JUST LEARN!

These classes are NOT live online. They merely are e-mails that direct you to a tutorial or a challenge already within the forums to complete. Therefore, you can read the e-mail and do the assignment as you have time during that day or week.

I ask that if you sign up for the guides that you make a serious commitment to yourself to follow them. No lurking allowed. The others in your class want to see what you are doing too as part of the "class" experience of doing it with someone else.

I encourage everyone to know their classmates and to comment on their layouts in the gallery. There's nothing like warm fuzzies to keep you motivated to scrap!

THREE E-MAIL GUIDES FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

This course is great for new scrapbookers as well as seasoned! I have read many remarks over the past year indicating that one was hesitant to do this course because one felt that they already new the basics of scrapbooking in Photoshop Elements, only to find that they learned so much more! I always get warm fuzzies when I read that.

This Course follows the lesson plan on this index page. This course includes both the written tutorials and the video tutorials.

With this guide you will receive one e-mail every 3 days.

This course is an awesome way to scrap! This is my favorite way to scrap and learn. Consider this course as "technique challenges."

There is a layout assignment with each class.

There are three sets of this course available at the present time. Each set has 20 lessons which come out by e-mail guide every 4 days.

You may take more than one guide at a time, but I do not recommend it unless you are seriously ready for a huge commitment. Others have tried and failed, but I won't stop you if you think you can handle it!

This course will pull from various lessons in no specific order on this index page. Some lessons include a written tutorial, but all lessons include a video tutorial.

What better way to encourage yourself to JUST get your pages done than to commit to using templates.

Templates are great as they are merely layout starters and can evolve and change into your own personal style.

I love that I can use a template with any of my scrapping goals and not be led to create pages I do not already need to complete.

For each set of 20 templates that you do, you will receive an icon by your name.

These guides will come out every four (4) days (although the icon above indicates every day, I have slowed this one down!).

Class Guide Sign-ups Are Up! (Open to All!)

Sign-up in this thread.

They are a great way to get yourself organized and motivated to JUST SCRAP!

These classes are NOT live online. They merely are e-mails that direct you to a tutorial or a challenge already within the forums to complete. Therefore, you can read the e-mail and do the assignment as you have time during that day or week.

I ask that if you sign up for the guides that you make a serious commitment to yourself to follow them. No lurking allowed. The others in your class want to see what you are doing too as part of the "class" experience of doing it with someone else.

I encourage everyone to know their classmates and to comment on their layouts in the gallery. There's nothing like warm fuzzies to keep you motivated to scrap!

The gallery is an open gallery to those participating, so you may use any products. There is no excuse for not joining in!

TWO GUIDES OPEN TO ALL PEOPLE FREE OF CHARGE

All of my challenges in the forums are always open, but it can get overwhelming trying to decide where to start!

This class guide will take you through a variety of older challenges at the site, one per week, for 20 weeks, with e-mails to come on Saturdays.

We will begin the next set of 20 on August 8, 2009. These will NOT be the same as the first round, so all can join in, whether or not you participated in the first round.

All of my challenges in the forums are always open, but it can get overwhelming trying to decide where to start!

This class guide will take you through a variety of older challenges at the site, one per week, for 20 weeks, with e-mails to come on Saturdays.

We will begin the next set of 20 on August 8, 2009. These will NOT be the same as the first round, so all can join in, whether or not you participated in the first round.

#followfriday - A twitter thing

Here is this week's #followfriday pick!

piggyscraps

Please read this page.

You can also add your twitter address there for others to find you and also so that I may choose you for a future week.

This is a collaborative effort each week to get one digital scrapbooker noticed on Twitter.

Summer Mini-Kit

Here is a mini kit for a very limited, time, and then it will be in the Subscriber Area permanently, as always.

I did this kit for the August Designer Color challenge in this thread. There are others that have already joined in and, therefore, you can find other downloads in this thread.

Won't you join us and make something? Also, you can make and share Quick Pages with the kits in this thread! Let the warm fuzzies abound!




Some people are having trouble with SkyDrive, so I uploaded it to 4Shared also, although I don't like 4Shared at all since all of the virus issues twice in the past.


Here is a layout I made while making the kit. It uses the frame and the papers, but I did some blending. The paper with the text on it is part of lyrics and was done for a challenge in the forums. Won't you join us (here).

What? There's no delete?

I've been saying for a long time that I would be deleting my "internet me" Facebook account, but people kept adding me as a friend, so it was hard to do! Ever since I was able to create and utilize the Fan Page from my "real me" Facebook account (you can join it here), I had no need for the other account.

I finally got up the muster and decided to delete it. I could not find a delete link, but there was a "deactivate" link.

Much to my surprise, once it was deactivated, I was immediately invited to reactive it! What? So there's no way to get all of my personal information off the Facebook cache? That is actually a bit scary to think about. It even indicates that it will be "like you used to". I'm totally curious now and almost tempted to reactivate it to see if all the friends and everything else is still there, but I won't.

So join me on my Fan Page instead. I'm having a lot of fun chatting to people there and am so appreciative of all those that chatter with me!

NEW- Scrapping Goal Challenge!

I've been in bit of a slump for a long time, as some of you may or may not have noticed. I often feel like the only way the forum becomes active is if I put forth the effort first. When I stop, everyone else stops. It is hard for me to keep that self-motivation going.

On my hand, I get discouraged that the forum is so quiet, but then I am reminded that God knows what is best and its probably because He knows I could not keep up with much more.

On the other hand, I do realize that there is a whole lot more scrapping and learning going on in my world than chattering and drama, so I am reminded that the forums are actually exactly what I want them to be!

I guess I just secretly, deep down, really want both hands. I guess we cannot always have our cake and eat it too.

Personally, I have not even been getting any layouts done! A combination of this thought and the thought that all I ever wanted the site to be was to encourage people to scrap, brought upon this idea.

There is now a new section in the forum for Scrapping Goals.

You can read more about it in the forum, but in a nutshell, simply take on my scrapping goal challenges. All active participants will be honored with a special icon by their name. After you complete 25 goals, you will get another special icon by your name. However, the real reward will be the layouts you get done.

The challenges will be random, with varying lengths of time to complete them, but there will only be one challenge at a time running. Choose a few or do them all! JUST SCRAP!

Designer Color Palette Challenge!

I want to try to get some challenges going again here at Hummie's World!

Let's start with a color palette challenge for designing.

Click here to participate in the forum.

To participate is simple! Just create something, anything, in these colors and share!

It's a great way to practice to see if you really can design!

It is a great way for those who already design to share to get their name out there and allow others to see what great products they create.

It is a great way for scrappers to get new fun things to scrap with.

It is a great way to share warm fuzzies when you make a layout with something someone else has shared.

It's just a great win-win for everyone!

What are you waiting for! I'd love to see the forum get active again!

Next Stop on the Restaurant Saga Train

Just in case you missed them, here is the first reading that started the double coupon restaurant saga and here is the second reading which continues the saga and here is the third stop.


Our next stop on the restaurant train was The Branding Iron in Jackson, Missouri. We had never visited this restaurant before, so were not sure what to expect.

We immediately asked our waitress if she would honor both coupons (as we did the other restaurants). We were immediately told we could not, to which my polite hubby indicated that it was okay. Of course, I'm testing the rude comment from the first restaurant and, therefore,
made a comment regarding how unfair it was that just because our birthdays were so close together, we could not both use our coupon.

We ordered our waters, planning on keeping our bill cost low and splitting a meal.

However, to our surprise, when our waitress returned to the table with our waters, she announced that she had asked her manager and we could not use both coupons! Here's to saying "humph!" to that first restaurant again!



This restaurant markets its BBQ sauce which comes in regular and hot. I did try it and it was good, but was not wowed by it over other sauces.

We tried hard to run up our bill. We ordered two appetizers -- potato skins and cheesy bacon fries. I must say I was not thrilled with either and will not order them again. They were not bad, but they were just okay. It is my opinion that B G's Olde Tyme Deli & Saloon has the best potato skins ANYWHERE and that once you've eat theirs, nothing else compares. B G's uses real American cheese shredded into thick cuts fresh in the restaurant. Most restaurants use "processed cheese" bought in bulk that just tastes disgusting melted. It is my opinion that The Branding Iron did have real cheese, but it was the finely shredded cheese similar to what is sold by Kraft that you can buy in the bags in the store. The cheese sauce on the fries also tasted like low quality cheese from one of those big restaurant cans.




We both ordered our main entree and, to try to run up the bill, I ordered two sides! I did enjoy the fried onion rings and the fried green beans! Those were the best things I ate at this restaurant. They tasted fresh and hot. Now I want to have fried green beans again! I'm not sure I've ever had them before.



My entree was a huge salad topped with pulled pork. It was of good quality and tasted good, but I'm not sure it is anything that has my innards pulling me to come back to eat it again.



The amazing thing was that, even through our efforts to run up the bill, the bill was only $7.47. We gave our waitress at $10 tip. She was very attentive, quick, friendly, and always with a big smile on her face.

I'm a Power User!

I realized today that Version 9 of Yahoo Instant Messenger is available, so I upgraded. I do not know how long it has been available.

I had to laugh after the install because I was told I am a Power User! I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing to be told that I am a "top user." Does that mean I'm online too much?

So, Yahoo thinks I'm "special!" Isn't it good to be told you are special? It comes with privileges, like having a special icon next to my name in other's friend lists. Here is a page with the list of benefits.

I found the Flickr sharing through IM to be interesting. It makes since that they should be integrated because Flickr is now owns by Yahoo.

Join the Title Game!

Click here to join the title game. We are trying to get this fun game back up and running! It is Marcie's turn and she has submitted the above photos.

To play, just post your title suggestions in the thread. Marcie will pick the winning title, scrap a layout with it, and the announce the winner.

The winner is the next person to put up a photo or photos for title suggestions. It's easy and fun! Won't you join us?

Flower Tour

I took a quick video with my new iPhone of the flowers in my yard that are managing to flourish even though I'm neglecting them badly.

Template #52

I am utilizing my new found skills in the full version of Photoshop to advance my templates for Photoshop Elements users! I really like this template with the justified text that follows the curve of the mat.

This is available in the Subscriber Area permanently and here for about 24 hours (it's 6 p.m. CST).

Download

Image Favorites

My long time avid readers will know how much I like http://vi.sualize.us/hummie/. However, today I found another great site comparable in experience for those that love being inspired by graphics and quotations that move the spirit.

The site is "imgfave" which is short of image favorites. Creating an account was quick and painless. You can also become a fan of the Facebook Fan page or connect with Facebook (although I did have trouble working with the connect feature).

Once registered, it is simple to cruise through the images to click the "fave" link to preserve those which stir up your innards.

You can change it to a thumbnail view or list view for your preference.

Click on "Profile" to view the images that you have favorited. In addition, you can create groups (collections) for them.

What's more is that you can follow others, just as in most social media sites, as a "friend" to see what they are favoring. Of course, you can find me at http://imgfave.com/Hummie with my name after the slash in the base url.

Click on the "post" link to find the favorites tool so that you can add images to the site, just as you can do with http://vi.sualize.us/hummie/. In fact, the sites are so similar in purpose that only the interface is different. Imgfav does seem to have a more user friendly interface.

Click on settings to change your avatar and find widgets which you can put on your blog or website.

I am just waiting for the digital scrapbooking world to find the site and begin to utilize it for sharing layouts, just as they do on vi.sualize.us.

This site touches me and sends me to that sentimental mode where I begin to get the urges and inspirations to scrap my better layouts.

Our Next Stop on the Double Coupon Saga

Just in case you missed them, here is the first reading that started the double coupon restaurant saga and here is the second reading which continues the saga.

So, we decide to send hubby with BOTH buy one-get-one-free Dairy Queen Blizzard coupons to see if they will honor them with one purchase. Not one problem! All four of us were able to enjoy fattening DQ Blizzards for the price of two.

And that first waiter that started this saga said none of the other restaurants would honor the double coupons! Humph at him!

Too bad this stuff is going to my hips and not affecting my men at all!

The Restaurant Coupon Saga continues

You can read what started this restaurant coupon saga series here.

So, to continue our investigation we headed to the next restaurant (Bella Italia in Cape Girardeau) after church on Sunday. We were immediately told that we could sit at separate tables to utilize our $10 off coupons. So, we sat at two tall bar tables right next to each other. It was just like sitting together anyway as we were near each other. I immediately began laughing and telling our waiter what the previous restaurant had said. It was not long before he told us it was okay to sit at the same table, and so we did.



Of course, I immediately began ordering lots of extras, just to run our bill up. I had this WONDERFUL glass of wine which was their suggested wine. It was $7 for a small glass of the 2007 Riesling, but goodness, was it SO smooth and fruity going down. I would have never imagined something so easy going down came with such a punch! It took everything I could not to buy a whole bottle of it to take home, but $27 was just a bit too much.



Hubby ordered toasted ravioli for an appetizer and I ordered this portabello mushroom (stuffed with a rich cream cheese, artichoke, pancetta and black olive tapenade; topped with mozzarella and baked until bubbly). Oh, was it Yummy (with a capital Y!). Now I'm just going to have to go back there some day in the evenings and get one of these mushrooms and a bottle of wine just for an evening out! I have never seen a mushroom so large! Yep, that's ONE mushroom! My first bite brought me this twang of a flavor, but after a few bits, my mouth was relishing in it.

My entree was "Farfelle Milano" (grilled chicken, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and bowtie pasta topped with a roasted garilc cream sauce) and it was a bit of a dissatisfaction. It was a good, but the sauce was a light sauce without much flavor. My mouth was still exploding with the yummy-ness of the mushroom and, therefore, I needed something with more flavor to follow. I did really enjoy the flavorful sun dried tomatoes. It was sort of like when someone on American Idol has to follow up someone else who just gave a great performance. Their performance is not bad at all, but it just does not give that impact of the first performance.



So, our bill was much more than the $1.66 of the first series in this saga. We also gave him a $10 tip. We are known to tip well. I used to be a waitress. He well deserved the tip for his great service.

What is a storyboard?

Occasionally, while making ones way around the digital scrapbooking world, one will see reference to the word “storyboard.” However, the term seems a bit vague and one just passes over it. What is a storyboard?

A story board is something different to different hobbies.

First, videographers utilize a storyboard to preplan the story that they are to film. Storyboards are a series of panels of rough sketches detailing the sequence of major actions which define the plot and can be very detailed and lengthy to very simple. For those videographers that are artistic, the graphics can be very detailed. For those less artistic, the use of stick figures is sufficient. A storyboard could be created on index cards with a quick sketch on one side and notes beside the sketch (close-up, pan, fade to, etc.)

The easiest way to understand what a storyboard is to videographers is to visualize a comic book. Each panel of a comic tells the next part of the story. Cartoons on the television are actually a series of panels put together into a video to tell a story. Actually, you will see a storyboard in most video creating software programs. Frames of video or photographs or images are cut, spliced, and moved about on the storyboard within the software programs in order to create the story.

However, a storyboard to a photographer is something much different. Professional photographers create storyboards to share with their customers as a printed collage of the best photos in a photo shoot. These photos tell a story of a moment in time, rather than a story with a plot. For instance, a storyboard could be a sports team photo coupled with an individual photo, or a bride and groom coupled with some close up photos of the rings and flowers, or other groupings of wedding photos, or a series of senior photos to include a full length view and a close up view, or a series of baby photos in different positions. Storyboards to photographers are very simple collages and all about the beautiful photos.

This brings us to ask the question, “What is a storyboard to a scrapbooker?” Has it ever really been defined?

My first thought is that each and every multi-photo layout is actually a storyboard in and of itself, including a series of photos to tell a story. However, scrapbookers can draw from the way videographers and photographers use storyboards as inspiration for their own creations. The following are some ideas:

1. Utilize the color blocking skills as taught in my tutorial to create blocks to fill a layout with photos from a photo shoot or family gathering. Often, these simple layouts will contain no journaling allowing the photos to tell the story.

2. Create a layout with a series of photos and utilize speech bubbles to create a comic book themed layout.

3. Journal first and utilize the journaling as a storyboard to choose matching photos.

4. Take a series of photos as quickly as your camera will snap and put them into a storyboard layout. For instance, take a photo of your toddler walking towards you and share three photos next to each other of the child slowly getting closer to you, or use five photos of your child shooting that all star basketball shot, or use 9 photos of your relative doing that crazy dance step. Create a layout whereby the subject is extracted from a series of shots showing movement and paste them across the page over an applicable background (i.e. golfer making a shot on a greens background).

5. Grab a notepad and preplan a hardbound book with coordinating pages. For instance, make a series of layouts to tell the story of your wedding and upload them to Shutterfly to order a hardbound book of this special occasion. Jot down which photos will be utilized on which pages, as well as the simple text or quotes for each page.


CHALLENGE
Create your own storyboard layout, upload it to the gallery, and share it in this thread.


My goal is to share some samples of these various types of storyboards with you in upcoming posts. I am hoping that it will just get me scrapping! Of course, I will share any downloads with you as I create them in my own layouts, as always.

Download for a limited time, then in the Subscriber Area permanently.

The cost

I have realized that in recent months I just have not had time to blog! I'm getting out freebies and things, but nothing personal. I know some of you really like to read my personal posts, as well as other great finds. I have moved toward twittering these things instead of blogging them. Isn't it odd how our habits transition with technology?

So, I thought I would share this one with you from last night.



Hubby and I both got a packet of birthday coupons....most of them are $8 to $10 off a main meal! However, our ticket said only one coupon for table. So, we went in there and asked indicating we could sit at different tables to both get our free meal. They said we could not do that even! I was like...what! That's what we get for being honest. We could have walked in there, sat on opposite sides of the room, and got our free meals, but because we asked first, we did not get away with it. I was not happy, so instead of ordering an appetizer, drinks, etc. just to run up our bill so we could pay them something, like I would have done because of our own ethics, we ordered waters and split the free meal! If we had not ordered fries which were extra, we would have paid less.

Our bill came to the .99 cents for fries and .67 cents for tax, which equalled $1.66! How crazy is that to eat a meal for $1.66! We almost always split our meal anyway, so we were satisfied with our meal. Just think, now we can go back and do that to them again!

I explained to our (unfortunate to get us) waiter that the owner should know that by not allowing us to use both coupons, we were intentionally spending less money. That should he have shown us the kindness, we would have shown him the kindness. I think that often people are so directed at seeing the principles that they forget to look at the situation outside of the box.

Our waiter returned with a comment that the other restaurants that provided us coupons would not let us get away with using both coupons, to which I replied that we would now just have to go try it at each and every restaurant and blog the results!

Get this! Our waiter returned with a comment like "no one will read it." Hubby and I just looked at each other and cracked up laughing! Hubby told him "you have no idea." Goodness, why do people assume that everyone is just a nobody? What if I were a reporter or someone from a famous food critic blog?

So, here I am, blogging about my restaurant experience at Beef 'O' Bradies in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I also shared my experience on Facebook, which has more local people on it that this blog. People should know what word of mouth can do for a business. Oh, however, the service is good and the food is good at the restaurant. I cannot say anything bad about that. We did give our waiter a $5 tip, which was more than the food! How funny is that!

I've often thought about starting a new blog and being an anonymous food critic for our city. I think it would be something fun to do, but then I stop myself because I just don't have the time.




What is wrong with this picture? $1.66 for our dinner and $27.75 for a movie and popcorn? Our world is turned upside down, isn't it? We saw The Proposal and just loved the movie. It is hard to find good, clean movies and this one was so. It made us laugh out loud and had a great plot, complete with the beginning, middle, and end. I would love to see a sequel to it to watch their marriage progress.

#followfriday, a twitter thing

Here is this week's #followfriday pick!

mrsmandak

Please read this page.

You can also add your twitter address there for others to find you and also so that I may choose you for a future week.

This is a collaborative effort each week to get one digital scrapbooker noticed on Twitter.

Color Blocking in Digital Scrapbooking

I recorded a new video for Subscribers only today to match the written tutorial for color blocking. The written tutorial is available for all on the index page.

You can download the templates here on my blog for a VERY limited time (usually 24 hours and it is noon on Wednesday now) and thereafter they will be available in the Subscriber Area permanently.

Download

The video is 34 minutes long, so it is too long for YouTube and posting on the blog. The video will teach you how to use these templates and give you inspiration for using them.

What coordination & patience!

I have mostly been sharing links to cool videos I see on my Twitter, rather than my blog, in recent months. However, this one was so cool I couldn't resist sharing it here too.

What coordination this must have taken! Can you imagine the patience of working with each individual looking into their own web cam? It seems every detail was worked out perfectly, all the way down to each of them sitting a certain distance from their computer screens to holding up items a certain distance from their camera screen.

I believe, if I read this right, this video was done to market the song, which is in a language not understandable to me, but which it doesn't matter to enjoy this video!

I appreciate You!

I just had to share this. I keep thinking that I should share more of them as a way to say THANK YOU to those who take the time to give me warm fuzzies about the tutorials and lessons for digital scrapbooking and Photoshop Elements which are in the Subscriber Area.

I get so tickled in my belly each time I see someone get excited about learning and knowing that I had a small part in making a difference in their world.

I really appreciate each and every one of you that takes a moment to type to my your excitement. I know I have a hard time keeping up lately and often you may think I'm not reading everything because I do not reply to everything any more, but I want you to know I am soaking it all in. THANK YOU!

Text on a Path - Star

Have a safe and happy Independence Day!

Download (for a VERY limited time, then it can be found in the Subscriber Area for only $5.50 a month)

Become Facebook Fan via Texting!

Just text "fan digitalscrapbooking" to FBOOK (32665) from your mobile phone, and you will be added as fans instantly to my Facebook Fan page! Standard charges may apply.

Isn't that cool?!!!

Now what will they think up next?

Text Within Star Download

I am so glad to be able to know how to create these now! It is one item that I always wished I had as a Photoshop Elements user.

I decided to make a star due to the 4th of July holiday this weekend in the States. Won't this file make a great patriotic layout? What about a sports star layout!? The ideas are endless.

Please share with me what you create with this file.

Download (for a VERY limited time -- about 24 hours-- then permanently in the Subscriber Area -- $5.50 a month).