Hooray!

I have a wardrobe again! 

Actually, that’s slightly misleading, because…

I have a w-a-r-d-r-o-b-e !! 

My hero and I have worked our little socks off today, beating off the perils of dodgy wall fixings and wonky drill bits, not to mention the after effects of a late night out with friends last night.  But our efforts are well rewarded in the most magnificently fitted out dressing room and similarly ordered but slightly smaller storage for my hero’s clothes. 

We are tired but triumphant.  There’s still work to be done, but really, there is light at the end of the tunnel at last.

On my toes

I’m spending rather a lot of time at the office these days.  With the OFSTED visit looming and a variety of meetings I’d have been going to anyway, my very part time job has changed into an almost full time commitment, for the time being at least.  Whilst in the office yesterday I was really concerned that my normally happy colleagues were scratchy and irritable, over-burdened with work and concerned to make sure that they were doing what needs to be done, in spite of cutbacks.

Though I too have responsibilities and more stress than usual, my role doesn’t involve sitting at a desk working on administrative business and I have rather more opportunities to escape it all.  As we were driving up to Birmingham last night to go to a symphony concert, I was thinking how I could bring a smile to the faces of my friends and colleagues when I went into the office this morning.  Since I’m spending so much time there, I’d take my slippers!

Yes, red sheepskin with pompoms…hardly the most discreet design, but sure enough, when I pulled them from my bag and changed out of my shoes, the atmosphere lightened and we made a jolly start on checking some of the files and folders of information the inspectors will want to see.

And then the fire alarm went.

Yes, who found herself on parade with every worker in the building, a class of students, visitors mooching around the car park and the museum which occupies the ground floor, whilst still wearing a pair of red fluffy slippers?  (Because, of course, I couldn’t waste time going back for my shoes or getting my camera, could I?)

But it least it made everyone smile! 

Another page

I’ve been mulling this one over for a few days, unable to identify a piece of text which I could adapt and use for my page four, themed “Goals and Desires”.  this morning, reading one of my favourite blogs, I came across a short paragraph which just hit the spot (words by Vineeta Nair from this book).  It didn’t really matter that it doesn’t fit the given theme at all, I decided, since I liked the sentiment so much.

No need to identify a palette this time either, since I had this digital collection burning a hole in my pocket for a while, awaiting the opportunity to use it.

An afternoon working at my computer, answering various queries from colleagues gave me an opportunity to take small breaks from work and create this rather simple layout which included most of the features taught in this lesson.

What did I learn this time?

• I created an overpainted background
• created a warped text block
• filled type with colour but then deleted that as being way too naff
• painted the edge of the page (and then neatened the place where the label folds over)
• made all kinds of hue and saturation adjustments to attempt to get the colours to “sing” but ultimately felt I had not achieved 100% success on that one.

So, another page done.  Surprising what we can achieve when we’re supposed to be doing something else, isn’t it?

Lesson Five is themed “Introspection”.  Hmm.  Bearing in mind we have OFSTED stopping by work  in two weeks time, I’m thinking that might be a little close to home?

Colour!

In these dreary January days an injection of colour comes as a boost, don’t you think?  Working through those Digital Art Journaling tasks meant that I needed to assemble a few palettes and so far, I’ve found Kuler to be an easy way to find the kind of thing that I’m looking for – or if it doesn’t exist, to create a colour scheme of my own.

But then I came across ColourLovers.

Did I need any excuse to sit and play with a new paintbox?  Of course not!  But oh my, is it fun?

Needless to say, my very first palette was rhubarb…

Find me here and come and play!

Not long!

In answer to the question of “I wonder how long the next page will take me?”

I went to the dentist this morning to begin the final stage of replacing the tooth I broke last year and though I’d set aside the morning for that, I was there just five minutes, for an Xray to check that all is well to proceed.  So, with an unexpected morning to myself and just a couple of work related issues to resolve, I worked my way through lesson three.

Family.

I wasn’t too sure about that.  Well, of course I could make a page about our family but somehow, I don’t feel comfortable being overly sentimental about such things in the open…anyway, I dived in.

There we are – three stars!

What did I learn from this page?

• I installed & used handwriting stamps as texture, though I later replaced it with some of my own writing, using my own font
• Made flowers stars from imported shapes & charcoal outlines
• Extracted a floral motif to add texture to a background – yes it really is there on layer 4 or 5 of twenty odd layers!
• Created the look of image transfers for photos
• Created a custom dotted brush and very nice it is too!
• Used text paper over a sticky tape and then deleted it from this page because it didn’t seem to fit
• Drew a triangular border with the Polygonal Lasso tool and deleted that as well.
• I added the pin and the “family” word because they were there and I could.

I looked at the finished page and the script brush background texture and thought that it would be better if it actually meant something to the subject of the page.  So, I went back into the depths of my archives and found the framework for the old “I am from…” poem.  Remember that one?  It works beautifully and I’ve used it several times, following the framework to write the story of both parents and myself.  With the help of my hero, I cobbled something together for our family – we are from… and so on.  I then saved it in my own handwriting font and imported it into a layer of the page.  It’s not all legible, nor is it meant to be – but I know it’s there and I am happier with the page knowing that the whole thing has a relevance to us.

So that’s Lesson 3 complete and I’m very nearly up to date.  How impressive is that?!

I see the next lesson is on the theme of “desire” and “goals”.  With an OFSTED inspection in the offing at work, that might be a bit too close to home!