Christmas Time is Coming...

I have spent the last few weeks decking the halls, geesh seems as though I could go on and on, thought I would share just a few with you. My husband thinks I have gone mad by the time the middle of December rolls around, but that is just the way it goes at my house. I love going through all the old and new decorations every year and remembering where they have all come from. It certainly is a special time of year. I have this huge walk in closest filled to the brim with everything Christmas and I couldn't possibly put it all out, so I change it up every year and rotate the boxes so the following year it is all new to us again. My daughter so wants to come over and go through the decorations and start taking some home with her but I just haven't been able to bring myself to that point yet. One of these days we may get there, but not ready yet.

Here is my one staple that is a must every year, my old~fashioned red and green tree.

Some of the pretty ornaments I have received in our art exchanges in Christmas past! They are so beautiful and so much fun to pull out every year and look at.

I purchased a black tree two years ago and I love it. I couldn't get a good picture of it no matter how hard I try. Been trying for two years and will have to keep trying. LOL...I took a few close-ups of it to make myself feel better.

Even the bears are waiting on Santa.

Oh Max!!!!!

This is our sweet little guy that we adopted from his rescue home last week. He is three and has a mind of his own. He is cute and he is bossy. LOL... We are having lots of fun with him and he is loving all the attention he is getting. I stuffed all the doggie toys (minus about ten) in a bag and put them in this basket where he couldn't get them. He doesn't like Colby or Zoie playing with his toys and he destroyed two of their's yesterday so we went into hiding mode. He found the basket, couldn't ge to it and barked and barked and jumped. Tom got up and put him in the basket where he was happy to stay. He is a real little goofy.

Out Of Bounds!!!

This is an Out of Bounds picture made in PSE 7 for my class homework.

Find original photo below.

This photo was taken by Carly at Opaques Studios.

This is an Out of Bounds that I done of the bridge picture below in photoshop! These are so cool and lots of fun to make.

Original taken by Carly at Opaque Studios!

You can find her work here:

http://www.opaquestudios.net/

My Learning to Love Layers class is coming to an end and what a great class it has been. I have been taking the classes by Sara Froelich over at LVS Online you can find it here:

http://www.lvsassociates.com/

and they are reasonable and Sara is an awesome teacher.

Remembering Pleasantville

Well blog~hopping I found a new site, new to me anyways! I see they are celebrating their first birthday so obviously I am a year behind! Better late than never, I suppose.

Anyways, they do a weekly challenge on Friday and supply either the background or a photo that you have to use in your artwork. This week they supplied the beautiful lady you see in my collage. I decided to play and made this Remembering Pleasantville digi collage for my first attempt.

You can find all the great artwork here:

http://artcreationsfriday.blogspot.com/2009/11/hoera-acf-is-jarig.html

The elements I used for my collage are by Idgie!

More photo fun!!

After some playing with filters!

Original photo by Carly at Opaque Studios

Playing with lots of different filters on this piece. Photo by Opaque Studios.

PSE Learn to Love Layers

The photo of the girls was taken by my niece Carly and the flowers by Athena. This technique is combining two or more photos into one. I faded the rose photo in the girls three times to get this effect. Pretty easy to do and I love the effect.

This is two images the background is another of Athena's pictures and the angel is actually a picture of my niece Lisa, that was taken by another of my nieces, Carly at Opaque Studios. We had to use a displacement map for this lesson. Kind of fun to play with the photo's like this.

This is a photo of our adopted daughter, as we love to call her Athena. I stole this pic from her to use for this particular technique which is adding photo edges.

I am busy taking a PSE class over at LVS Online, having lots of fun too...hehehe...

Lesson 3 was fabulous and I thought I would share my pics with you. Remember I am very much in the learning stage, but I guess we have to start somewhere.

Photoshop Fun

I was playing in photoshop yesterday. So thought I would share what I created. I used a picture of my great-nephew and elements from E-lena at Pickleberrypop.

My niece is a photographer and she is turning out some amazing work. Be sure to check out her website here:

http://www.opaquestudios.net/

Here is PickleBerry Pop address:

http://www.pickleberrypop.com/

Finally finished my last house for Oh My Gothic Exchange

front of house

back of house

Here we go again, way behind but I have accomplished getting my last house done, mailed off and Heather has received it.

I am finished work for the season and looking forward to a few months off. I have lots of plans and can hardly wait for some play time. Busy cleaning my house from top to bottom, like to get that out of the way in the first few weeks. I am hoping it is just not me, but the time is flying and before we know it the Chrismas decorating will have to begin. Geesh, there is never an end to the list. Hope to get around to visiting all my fav blogs in the near future.

More photoshop fun!

I had a chance to play around with the new Jpeg's from Paper Whimsy last night and completed this piece before heading off to bed. I am liking the jpeg's a bunch.

A little Me Time, Today....

Finally got some time to mess around in photoshop this morning before I am off and running again. Paper Whimsy brought out some new Jpeg's last week so I thought I would play with one of those this morning. I am loving the photoshop and learning lots in the classes I have been taking. It is amazing what they have packed in the PSE program. Here is just a quick piece that I done this morning, but really enjoyed it.

Hello....And Auction Link for A Place to Bark...

Hey everyone, how are you? I am doing good, been very busy and hoping to be able to get back into blogworld once October is out of the way. Have missed so much, it will be fun to see what everyone has been up to. Thanks so much for you concerns as to my whereabouts...hehehe...

Be sure to check out the link below at ebay. All proceeds will go to A Place To Bark. Bernie does so many awesome things to help all the animals out, so if you have time check out the auctions to help this great cause.


http://shop.ebay.com/sitstaysmile/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

Where oh where does the time go....

Playing around in photoshop, trying to pretend I know what I am doing....Love it, but it takes time to get things figured out.

I am so very busy these days, I don't even have time to visit my own blog!!!!! LOL....

I am getting things ready to head out next Thursday for the Paper Whimsy Pjammers party in Ann Arbor. So excited to be meeting up with the girls I met last year and meeting even more of my Whimsy friends. Can hardly wait for all the excitment to begin. Lots of fun, food, shopping and art. With that said three more days of work left and then I have to get things in order for hubby to be able to survive while I am gone. Poor thang!!!

Try to talk to you all soon and as always thanks so much for stopping by and I appreciate your comments.

A Little House for Caryl

side two for Caryl

Still having a hard time trying to keep up with work, home and art but did have a chance to constuct a house for Caryl!

Happy September everyone.

ATC for ArtChix Lottery

Pam Barnes won the last ArtChix lottery and she chose Bold & Beautiful for the next theme. Here is what I came up with for the lucky winner of all the those cards in the lottery.

Lemon & Lime for my Colorgroupie pals...

Caryl

Liked the combo so much made one for me! LOL...

Frieda

Lenna

Tristan

I believe the color for August was LEmon & Lime, sounds so darned yummy. I have sent my atc's off and I know they have been received by everyone so I thought I would post them. Hope you enjoy them, loved this color combo.