Paper pack freebies

Long time no see. I suddenly noticed there are quite a few digital scrapbooking paper packs that I have made and published on deviantArt, but not here. So here goes. They are all free for you to use, click on the image to be taken to  the download page. Enjoy!

Quote Challenge revisited

After a good while, I decided I'd play along the quote challenge from Beyond Layers day 39 anyway. I had already had a look at some quotes, so I went back and did some digging for photos. Seeing the results, I'm happy I did.

First Tulips

A picture of the first tulips pushing up, taken on 2 May 2013. Thought the quote was pretty apt for the image. The prompt word was "life".

Resources:
- font KG Ways To Say Goodbye by Kimberly Geswein

Sleepers

The quote challenge word was "peace". This made me think of our latest little puppies when they were little puppies, in this picture less than a month old.

Resources:
- textures from Shadowhouse October Square Texture Set 2 by Jerry Jones
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts

Foxy - Indian Summer

On reading the prompt word "change" I knew immediately what my quote would be: Dorothy Parker's poem Indian Summer. Ever since I first read it I've loved the poem. And I roughly knew what I wanted to do with the images, too - originally I associate the poem with our second-ever Dandie, Veera, whom we called Madame, because she was very dignified, self-assured and definitely not one to fool with. She was a businesslike, no-nonsense personality, but charming. However, since she left us years before the age of digital cameras and even the scans I have of her are not of very high quality, the dog in the photos is our present Madame, called Foxy. Totally different, with a lot more sense of humour (yes, Dandies come equipped with that), but certainly a lady who knows what she wants, who turned nine this week. In the last picture, by the way, she is not growling but actually smiling.

Resources:
- template 018 by myself
- background papers from paper pack Green Finch and Linnet Bird by myself
- font Lavanderia by James T. Edmondson

By The Frozen River

The fourth prompt was "intentions" and for this, the Douglas Adams quote was my absolute favourite. It's so true for me in so many ways. The picture shows my home town since 1987, where I definitely didn't plan to move. When I first went to study, I somehow thought I'd end up in the south, Helsinki or thereabouts. And here I am, 600 kilometres north, and have been happy here for more than a quarter of a century. Oh my. I took the picture on a walk in the centre on 1 May this year. Yes, it was pretty cold.

Jackdaws

The last prompt was "focus". I like the quote, and the photo is one of a series I managed to take on 8 June of a gang of Jackdaws, who landed on the grass and  were a bit shy of me, obviously thinking the treat on the ground might belong to me. They circled around, trying to appear nonchalant and uninterested, until one of them started the approach. Unfortunately none of the photos I took of the actual attack turned out any good but well, that's life, right?

Finding Fences

Day 52 challenge at BL was to go and find some fences. The idea was to find some interesting (somehow I think they were meant to be pretty?) fences and photograph them. Well, this made me dig into my archives for something not so much pretty but what actually was precisely what we did last autumn. We went looking for fences.

At the end of October, tired of the little girls always finding their way on the fields and disappearing there to hunt for heaven knows what, we finally decided it had to stop. We had fenced a sizable part of our property back when we moved here in the 1990s, but back then, we had
a) a large dog
b) many dandies
c) unrealistic ideas about the need for space
d) illusions of how much time we'd be able to dedicate to taking care of our yard.

Over the years, we kept repairing the fence here and there, but had already come to realise that we had fenced much more than was either necessary or practical. Parts of the fence stood in the middle of untouched old fields, pushing up fireweed and willow, parts were rotting in the wet ground by the brookside. So we went to the bushes to find the old fence and dig it up and move it so that it could be planted closer to our actual garden.

Not so easily done, the two of us toiled away with it for a good while, but   after a couple of weeks, just before the the ground frost set in, we finished the project. The fence had to be revisited and the posts banged in again in the spring, and we'll have to do the same every spring after the ground frost melts, but there's significantly less fence to take care of now.

Resources used:
- template 27 by myself
- paper Cloudbusting 05 by myself
- font SF Arch Rival by ShyFonts
- font Janda Elegant Handwriting by Kimberly Geswein
- font KG Call Me Maybe by Kimberly Geswein

Of Travelling and Knitting

The challenge for day 48 at Beyond Layers: to have a loved one photograph you doing something you might consider mundane. This one was meant to made us think about our special gifts, that whatever we create and touch is of value and important. Kim took pictures of her friend Myriam making a salad, peeling and dicing and so on.

Another aspect of the challenge, as I see it, was using our hands, and that made it easy for me to choose how to tackle this one with photos I already had: my knitting. I don't know if I see it as mundane, but I definitely am happy for finding it again, and I suppose it could be considered a gift?

Resources:
- template 25 by myself
- paper Happiest Search 05 by myself
- font SF Arch Rival by ShyFonts
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts
- brush Stitched Mess by Kim Klassen
- Post it sticker by Akizo

This layout actually meets another challenge demand, too: the photo of me grinning goofily and holding the finished sock was taken by my friend Marjo. The sock was a trial for a bigger project, to test out if I, who had not been knitting socks for the past thirty-five years or so, could knit some pairs of this pattern or not. I had the correct yarn for the pattern at home but not in the correct colours (grey, black and white) but who cares - the purpose was only to try out the pattern, and I had three colours anyway, orange, green and grey. So as we took a train to Helsinki to celebrate Marjo's birthday, I started knitting, and before we arrived back home, the sock was finished. The sock is actually rather crappy, but for a first effort after such a long time I'm mightily pleased with it. But no, I'm not going to knit more of them.

Which sort of brings me to the next layout. I got a new sock pattern to try out from my boss, and I really like it. She said it's a traditional Finnish pattern, and anyway, it's simple and pretty. These pictures were taken when I was celebrating the World Wide Knit in Public Day all by myself, knitting in public but without much more company than some cyclists, joggers, jackdaws, wagtails, thrushes and a heard-but-not-seen pheasant. The weather was wonderful and my knit-in-public days pleasant and relaxing.

Resources:
- template 26 by myself
- brush by Mouritsa
- paper Blue Jean 02 by myself
- font Denigan by Måns Grebäck

Polaroidish

Day 47 at Beyond Layers was called Polaroid Love. I was somewhat suspicious of the theme to start with. We've never had a Polaroid camera in our family, so I really cannot say I'd love Polaroid. I do remember somebody we knew had this cool camera with which you could take these instant photos, but they never were that popular with the people we knew. But then I thought about it from another point of view: what I remember very well are the first colour photos from the 70s that started very soon losing their colours and turning red and faded, especially in the plastic pockets where we used to place them. I shudder to think my Granny's large album with all plastic pages, little pockets full of reddened photos, some almost impossible to make out anymore…

Furthermore, there seem to be these actions for that sort of effect - blur, fading colours - floating around, so I thought perhaps I'd now get to try out some of them within these polaroid frames Kim urged us to download. So I did try out various actions, with pleasing results. Then I dediced to turn them into scrapbooking layouts, and also got the opportunity to use some scrapbooking papers from the Au coin de l'objectif website, which I has been my favourite scrapbooking resource for years. It's a treasure trove, though nowadays I tend to make my own papers.

All these photos were taken on 1 May on the now already traditional Mayday orienteering event in town. It's a lot of fun. The local orienteering club places these about 20 check points around the town, the map with the points is published in the local paper, and people go around punching the checkcards also published in the newspaper at the check points. You can find as many points as you wish and in the order you wish, but if you punch your card at at least six points, you can return your checkcard and take part in a draw of some little prize. Some people take it as a sports event, running or jogging the whole route, but for many it's either a nice walk or a family cycling tour. We take a walk with the dogs and of course I take the camera along, since there's always something nice to see. I thought these pictures were well suited to this challenge, because they were sort of timeless, places that certainly had been there in the seventies. And now I'm even happier to have taken and played with the pictures, because two of the photos couldn't be taken anymore - the buildings have been pulled down this summer.

Resources:
- action Vanilla Peach by NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements d'un premier anniversaire by Au coin de l'objectif
- font Tusch Touch 1 by Måns Grebäck
- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Dusty Haze by Sarah Lynn Cornish
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 2 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Vintage by  NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 4 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Seventies by The Pioneer Woman
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 3 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Doesn't look too bad. Perhaps I'll do something like this later on, too.

Cups

Wow. Posting day 46 of Beyond Layers already. This time the challenge was to capture some cups during the week. I didn't use a week for this though - just one day.

First I thought I'd browse my archive, because I know there are some cups there, but then again, why not shoot some? So I grabbed the camera and went to my new small "studio" with a pile of mugs and started shooting. Taking many pictures of course meant I was going to scrapbook the results. Not to make the pictures tiny, I ended up making three layouts with the cups. Silly? Perhaps, but fun.  I was also rather self-sufficient this time, using my own resources, which makes me even more pleased with the results.

The first set was our dog-themed mugs, included are the Dandie Dinmont Terrier ones and some from special occasions: one from The European Winner Show in Helsinki 2006 and two from Helsinki Winner Show 2012.

Resources:
- texture Mute Light 01 by myself
- papers Cloudbusting 03, 04, 05 & 06 by myself
- template 22 by myself
- fonts Love Ya Like A Sister  &  KG Call Me Maybe by Kimberly Geswein

The second layout starts with unique handmade mugs made by a colleague of mine, a teacher of pottery. Then there is our wooden mug-stand, which I absolutely love, with yellow Teema mugs by Arabia. There are also our two Moomin mugs, my Little My and Better Half's Stinky, our plastic mugs for travelling and Glühwein mugs I got as a present from my German students.

Resources:
- papers Mellow Yellow 03 & 04 by myself
- stitches by Gunhild Storeide
- font Lavanderia by James T. Edmondson
- template 23 by myself

The third layout includes out two Russian tea sets and some rarer mugs, such as the hand-painted one in top-left corner.

Resources:
- papers Lemonade Stand 03, 04 & 06 by myself
- font Simply Glamorous by Brittney Murphy
- font Seaside Resort NF by Nick's Fonts
- template 24 by myself

That was a nice bit of work for a rainy day in July, in between typing dog show critiques.  It's only apt that I post it after the most rainy day I've ever experienced... it doesn't often rain here without a single break the whole day through, but it did yesterday.

Will be posting a pile of other challenges today as well, some of which have been sitting on the computer since July.

Rediscoveries

Long time no see... well, better continue from where I left ages ago. The prompt for day 35 at Beyond Layers was about shaking things up, taking a new route… The big change at this very moment is typing this blog after such a long break, in the effort of finishing the eCourse sometime during the next two months when the material is still available.

But the sort-of-new thing I've done recently has been to rediscover old skills. I've taken up needlework again, after years and years of not touching any. Far easier than working with photos: doesn't require computer, there's hardly any brain effort needed, it's just simply relaxing, something you can do when you're in the half-braindead state you get to when you finish work late in the evening.

It started during the Christmas holidays. My friend was sitting in the armchair next to me knitting, and I was feeling restless, doing nothing next to those busy hands. I think she needed a crochet hook for finishing off something, so I went rummaging in the needlework baskets and boxes, and while I found what I was looking for I also discovered a hairpin loom. I faintly remembered having crocheted three shawls in this method ages ago, one for my mother and one for each granny, and had to go and dig on the net how you actually do it. To my great delight I found instructions and started working. To start with, I made a couple of scarves of left-over yarns, and then I actually went shopping for yarn for a new project! I ended up buying this lovely multi-coloured yarn called Peippo (Finch in English). It is actually rather heavy, meant for socks mainly, but I made a huge shawl with it.

Hairpin Lace

Here I photographed the two scarves, the loom, mother's old needlework basket, the fun yarn and the beginnings of the shawl. The photos were taken on 2nd January.

Resources used:
- background papers Road to Sunset 01 & 04 by myself
- brush from Bittbox
- template by Katie Pertiet

Will post some photos of the finished shawl later on, and other stuff I manage to make. Not if. When.

Sweet Georgia Brown paper pack

Here's another digital scrapbooking paper pack, this time various browns. All free for you to use, click on the image to be taken to  the download page. Enjoy!

Click here to download the papers

Life's Light

Playing catch-up at Beyond Layers… the day 33 challenge was Honouring Life's Light. The purpose was to capture "anything that shines light into your life", to celebrate the love.

This one was so easy. My bright spot, as Kim said, is without any doubt similar to hers: the pets. There’s been a Dandie Dinmont Terrier in our household for more than twenty years, and after the first half year there have always been at least two of them. Our current pack has six members, each one of them unique, each one of them special. Life certainly isn’t boring with the lot of them around, and I really cannot imagine life without them.

We discussed this with Better Half some time ago, trying to imagine what our lives would have turned to if we hadn't taken the first Dandie. You know, "Turn a different corner and we never would have met." Although we are both blessed with good imagination, neither of us could really figure out where we'd be now without the Dandies. But there's one thing we concluded: it certainly would be hugely different. There are so many things we're involved in nowadays - and have been for years - that have evolved out of this, our whole way of life, how we see the world, friendships… everything.

The scrapbooking layout shows the whole current pack in photos taken between 29 July, 2011 and 25 October, 2012: the old Great-grandauntie Leia, Granny Foxy, Mom Misaki, Dad Renny and their daughters Marleena & Justiina.

A Pack of Dandies

Resources used:

- background paper Happiest Search 01 by myself
- gradient from the Super Dooper gradient pack by Digital Phenom
- template 212 by Yin Designs

A load of freebies

Decided to update here those of my scrapbooking freebies that I haven't posted on the blog yet. 

First, some paper packs:

Download Green Finch and Linnet Bird here

Download Road to Sunset here

Download Lilac Wine here

Download Mellow Yellow here

Here are some templates:

Download template 001 here

Download template 008 here

Download template 009 here

Download template 010 here

Download template 011 here

Download template 006-007 here

Everything is free to use, would love to hear where it gets used, though.

A Daily Deviation!!

Click image to see

 I simply don't believe this -- just stopped for a quick visit at deviantArt and wondered why there were suddenly so many people adding one of my scrapbooking paper packs in their favourites --- and then noticed it has been featured as a Daily Deviation! Am totally overwhelmed. *faints*

Nestled among Trees paper pack

Another scrapbooking paper pack with some earthy, greenish hues this time.

Click the preview image to download

My, it's so much fun creating these packs. These have all been made quite a while ago, when I was on my lengthy sick leave last year and had time to do a lot of scrapbooking, but perhaps I'll at some point get to really create papers from scratch again, since that's a lot of fun, too. *beams*

Mute Light paper pack

Started sorting out stuff that's residing on my hard disk, and am in the process of compiling paper sets out of them. The papers have been made for my digital scrapbooking layouts, but they are free for you to use for what ever you see fit. Just please do not claim them your own, and let me know what you create with them.

Click on the preview to go to download page

 You may expect to see quite a few of these in the near future, as I get my hard disk rearranged. :-) 

Freebie template 005

Here's a template I posted over at deviantArt. I've created others for my own use, posted them at dA but thought I might just as well post a link here. All free to use, enjoy!

Click the image to go to the download site.

Snow, Birthday & Tricks

We woke up this morning to see the first snow, and it seems it's not going to go away either. Not really surprising in the sense that it's been frosty all the weekend, but still. It's cloudy now, the temperature is at zero °C, and the weather forecasts for the rest of the week promise even colder weather, with daytime temperatures around -4°. It's about time we had the winter tyres changed for my car today, Better Half has had them for a week already. Wouldn't really have wanted the winter to start already, there would have been work to do on our yard, if not exactly in the garden anymore. But luckily we were so hard-working a week ago and prepared most of the garden for winter, and it was only on Saturday that we raked the last leaves.

Our kids Justiina and Marleena turn one year today. Happiest birthday, girls! I guess they enjoy the weather - when they first got out of doors, there was plenty enough of snow around, and they had months of it before they even saw the first glimpses of bare soil, let alone grass. Anyway, they certainly have changed from what they were a year ago. Here's one of the first pictures of the girls: Nuppu, Marleena and Justiina having a meal a year ago.

Credits:
- template by myself (link upcoming)
- texture Sweet Tart by Kim Klassen
- papers from kit Pour Loane by Margote
- font Daniel by Daniel Midgley
- font Channel by Måns Grebäck

But to get to the original topic of this post, on day 30 of Beyond Layers Kim shared a few tips with us. The first one of them was how to create animated gifs. Now I have to state that I'm not a great friend of animated gifs in general. I think there are far too many of them blinking around the net. Sometime ages ago I had also created quite a few of them, so I wasn't too enthusiastic about it to start with. But Kim's got this wonderful way of throwing in something new that you'd never known or realized. Since Better Half uses Photoshop at work and especially when making all the various club magazines in the so-called free time, I've also been using it for years, starting even before we bought Elements 2, but I'm constantly learning new things.  That's exactly how it was this time, too. Watching the video, I was suddenly inspired to dig these two series of photos I took of Misaki and Foxy in March 2011 and make animations of each.

Here's Misaki, placed firmly on snow and observing the road, making her presence known to anybody who happens to be within earshot by howling regularly.

This turned out to be quite funny. As if she climbed up from a hole or something, Foxy appears out of nothing behind Misaki, walks around her, goes down to the path, shakes herself and disappears again.

Credits for both:
- font Mawns' handwriting by Måns Grebäck

The second tip of the day was creating a triptych, which, simple as it was, again taught me two new, quicker techniques for creating storybook layouts. Had to try out both of them, and the beautiful bouquet I got a few months late for my 50th birthday from the trade union was the perfect subject. Well knowing my favourite colour, my workmate had ordered the bouquet only stating "make it orange". Well, orange it really was, and I just loved it. I took the photos on 15 October, and didn't retouch them in any way, only piled them together and added the labels and text.

Belated Birthday Bouquet

Autumn Bouquet

Credits for both:
- brush from Kinetic Splatter Brush Set by Dustin Schmieding
- font Mawns' handwriting by Måns Grebäck

Now off to take the car to the garage and buy some birthday presents for the girls.

One Photo in Three Ways

At Beyond Layers, the day 28 challenge was to take a photo and process it in three different ways. For the photo, I took another stroll in the garden. This time, on the 9th October, there were considerably less flowers to photograph than a month ago, but surprisingly many anyway. I rather liked the picture I shot of the Narrow-leaved Meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) with all the raindrops, and so it ended as my subject for this challenge.

Hardly surprisingly, I made a scrapbooking layout of all the versions. The one in the bottom right corner is where I started from. The template is my own, I'll post the link once I get it uploaded, and both the papers are from my set Cold Spell.

Meadowsweet in Three Versions

Here are the resources and recipes. I used a couple of the techniques Kim showed us on her video, but not all of them.

Bottom left:
- Hue/Saturation layer, preset Old Style
- texture Framed by Kim Klassen at Colour Burn 18%, brushed away from blossoms with a layer mask
- texture Fall Returns by Distressed Jewell at Soft Light 46%, brushed away from blossoms with a layer mask
- levels adjustment, preset Midtones Darker, applied to previous layer
- returned a touch of colour to the blossoms by adding a burn layer at Soft Light 38%

Top left:
- action Heartland by Pioneer Woman
- added a tad of colour with a layer mask
- action Boost by Pioneer Woman, applied mostly to the blossoms
- action Soft & Faded by Pioneer Woman at 20%
- texture Abstract by Kim Klassen at Soft Light 25%

Top right:
- action B&W Beauty by Pioneer Woman
- added just a hint of colour with a layer mask
- texture Cool Grunge by Kim Klassen at Soft Light 25%
- texture Frost from Heavenly Vintage Set by Jerry Jones at Soft Light 85%
- texture Baby Blue from Heavenly Vintage Set by Jerry Jones at Colour Burn 25% on the blossoms

Originally I thought it would be rather tough to create three different versions, but actually it wasn't. What's even more surprising, I find that I'm rather pleased with all of the versions, as well as the scrapbooking layout. And yay, with this I can move week 14 of BL into the folder Done!

You First?

It seems that my backlog at Beyond Layers just keeps growing, at the moment I'm a whopping twenty-three days behind. Furthermore, the challenge for day 27 was to take some "me time" and document it with at least one photo. That made me groan - for me it just happens that these challenges are the time I've reserved only for myself, but arranging the time is not so simple.

Well, photography and singing fall into the "placing myself first" category, too, but since my photography is taking snapshots it takes next to no time, just having the camera along. And as I take singing lessons and sing in an ensemble, that time is necessarily scheduled, which means that this photo-tweaking hobby of mine and blogging get their turn only when work and other hobbies leave me enough time.

So far that time has been gloriously lacking this autumn, as work turned out to be far busier than I thought. At the moment I have nine hours more to teach a week than originally planned, which equals about eighteen hours less free time every week… We've also been busy with dog shows, both visiting some, arranging some, working in some, so it's really no wonder I've had little time for photo blogging.

But yes, I did actually manage to snatch some time for photography. It might not sound like a big deal, but since it was the first half an hour I didn't need to use for preparing lessons or doing the related office work, it actually was a big deal. On 11 September I took this stroll in the garden with the doggies and the shiny new camera, which had been in my possession for four days then. I'll share some storyboards of the new camera and the pictures of the garden here - this has taken more doing as it is far more time consuming. But I'm so happy to be doing this again.

New Camera

Here's the new toy. Better Half noticed this ad for a considerable reduction in the price of a camera, which was of the same make as our previous one, and the one before that. So, on Thursday 6th September, I hurried to the shop after work and now I'm the happy owner of a brand new beautiful camera. *beams*

Credits:
- photos by me and Better Half
- template by myself (link upcoming)
- Tone textures 3 & 10 by Jerry Jones
- textures Poetic & Luminous by Kim Klassen
- pattern from Pack 87 by Elemis
- gradient Rivendell 14 by ElvenSword
- font Bank Gothic
- font Savoye by Alan Meeks

Below I'm sharing the results of my photo walk in the garden on 11th September.

Animals in the Garden

The dogs were, of course, with me, and I got some nice shots of Renny, Justiina and the Leopard Duck, Misaki and Leia, the sixth creature is our Garden Gargoyle that Better Half found somewhere a couple of years ago. He (the Gargoyle) has been guarding our garden at various spots ever since.

Flowers in the Garden

There were surprisingly many flowers still in bloom, here some of them: in the large picture, the Panicled Hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) we planted almost exactly three years ago - this autumn it luckily has had time to blossom. Below it, Narrowleaf Meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) with a visitor. On the right, a New York Aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and Bistort (Persicaria bistorta).

Resources for both of the above:
- template by myself (link upcoming)
- texture And Then Some by Kim Klassen
- brush from Real Brush Strokes Set by Doodle-lee-doo
- font SF Arch Rival
- gradient by Digital Phenom

Autumn Flowers

Still more, and this time more colourful flowers: the blue Monkshood as well as the blue-and-white one (Aconitum napellus), pansies, Petunia Million Bells, Loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata), Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata) and a strawberry bud.

Resources:
- template by Margote @ Au coin de l'objectif
- papers from Close to Ground by myself
- texture Happy Heart by Kim Klassen
- font Zirkon
- gradient by Digital Phenom

Autumn Colours

The fading and faded flowers of Marguerite Daisy (Argyranthemum frutescens) and a leaf of Thicket Shadbush (Amelanchier spicata).

Resources:

- template by Esther @ Au coin de l'objectif 

- papers from Close to Ground by myself

- texture Happy Heart by Kim Klassen

- font Zirkon

- gradient by Digital Phenom 

I wonder if it occurred to you that I might be studying the plant names in English, too? ˆ_____ˆ

Now Me

The challenge for Beyond Layers, day 25 was self-portraits. Most people seemed to cringe at having their photos takes, with the notable exception of my new friend Michele, who seems to be an old friend of mine. ˆ__ˆ

For me I think it's something I got so used to in childhood that it's just something quite normal. My father was the one who photographed us, the whole family, wherever and whenever. So there are all these lovely black & white photos of my sister and me at play  or posing in new dresses (I think we used to be mostly dressed up identically or at least matchingly until I went to school). Later on, I have these colour photos (that have partially faded red) of the family, including me, posing at a landmark or sight when we drove around the country, visiting distant relatives or just touring around for a holiday. I don't like each and every photo taken of me, naturally, who would, but then, why should I? I'm quite used to seeing myself in photos, good and worse.

Really the only problem I've had is quite contrary and has everything to do with the kind of attitude the Beyonders share. Since most people outside my old family seem to abhor being photographed, I developed this shyness… You know, since everybody's saying how horrible it is to be photographed, it really must be that. I've felt quite silly and forward and self-centered and attention-seeking and what not for actually LIKING the thing. It has taken me all these years to gather enough courage to actually ask Better Half to take a picture of me every now and then.

Anyway, the real challenge for me in this self-portrait thing now was the already familiar fact that I don't have a working camera at the moment. It must be much easier to do it with a tripod and things, but one can't really put a phone on a tripod. I managed to take some rather nice shots with the phone held in hand, though, and then remembered that Mac has this program-thingy called Photo Booth - you just sit in front of the computer and have your Mac taking pictures of you with the in-built camera when you click the mouse! Did that, but the light in our study is not really optimal for photography. It would have been so much nicer to have an outdoor picture, too, in the pretty autumn light. And in a flash I realised that we do have the Mac Book, too, which I promptly took for a little walk outside. The pictures are naturally tiny, but I solved this by making a scrapbooking layout with the little pictures. The additional challenge for day 26 of using either one of the  text brushes Kim gave us or her texture I Am were both met here as well. A little creative thinking goes a long way! Here's me, at 50 years, 1 month and 3 days.

Not perfect but all me!

Resources:
- texture I Am by Kim Klassen
- texture Green Haven by Kerstin Frank
- text brush from brush set Affirmation by Kim Klassen
- template adapted from Photobooth by Just A Storyteller
- gradient Rivendell 02 by ElvenSword
- action CoffeeShop 2020 by Rita @ The Coffee Shop Blog
- font Blokletters Balpen by LeFly Fonts

If not now, then when?

At Beyond Layers, day 23 challenge was to ask oneself "If not now, then when?" That's a tough one for me, always busy doing something but always postponing things as well. To list even part of the things I really should do Now would take all too much time and energy, I'm not going into that...

But actually, one of the bigger long-standing Nows that I have rather recently tackled is this blog. I'd never really used it although I had an account for years, and I'd always sort of been writing a journal in my mind. (The problem with that is, of course, that the thoughts will not stay there for more than a few hours at the most.) Now, after I took this course, I've started putting my blog to good use. Although I'm mostly just posting pictures, I'm still recording events for myself to remember and recall later on, and I feel awfully good about it.

Another Now is approaching -- we'll be attacking our accumulated fat again with Better Half, and this time I'll simply have to find time to do exercise as well. It's not a question of "keeping fit" for me, it's "getting fitter" as I haven't been doing anything for years. Funnily, I feel happy and confident about it, too.

Kim gave us a text brush to use, and here's what I did with it. I took a phone photo of the Saintpaulias at the living-room window, and played with it.

If not now...

Resources used:
- background paper Cold Spell 03 by myself
- texture Stamped Right 2 by Kim Klassen
- text brush If Not by Kim Klassen
- template inspired by Marjo @ legrenierdemarjo.canalblog.com (no longer online)

We've done something extraordinary already, as a matter of fact. As I was going to mow the lawn on Monday, it was sunny and I went to get my sunglasses from the car, a little bird suddenly flew right in front of me, somewhere from the old neglected lawn, nowadays an unruly meadow or something of the sort, next to the old house. As I looked into the direction it came from, I saw something red - the red currant bushes that have been totally neglected for years were shining with berries! So I went and told Better Half and we picked the four or so bushes empty right then and there. Well, not totally empty, must leave something for birds, they've been having all the harvest for years anyway. It didn't result to much, since the bushes are ancient and almost drowned in grass and weeds, but a few litres anyway, and it'll be nice to munch them with yoghurt for a few days.

It's a pity we aren't really into berry-picking, it's quite nice and relaxing. Then why aren't we? Most of the reason is the total impossibility of going out into the woods with the whole pack of dogs, if the intention is anything but giving them some exercise. The other part is our reluctance to go out into the woods without the whole pack - that'd be time wasted. Quite a dilemma, which means that we'll have to resort to buying frozen berries at the supermarket yet again.

Oh, and while picking the berries we saw something interesting neither of us had witnessed before. I noticed this moth sitting on a berry, and it was clearly sucking the liquid from inside the berry. It was fascinating to see the berry slowly collapsing as the moth fed on it. We'd never known they'd feed on anything but nectar. The larvae of course I had known might feed on fruit, but that the adult moths will drink berries? I'd somehow always thought that the wrinkled, dried berries one finds in the bushes had been tasted by birds, but it seems it was moths instead. Fascinating.