PaperWhimsy

Happy Thanksgiving & a Giftie!

I just read somewhere that there are only 34 days til Christmas!  Now, back in the "olden days" you didn't even think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving.  But since I've been thinking about Christmas for about three months, now for my shoppe, PaperWhimsy, I'm panic stricken!  I don't have any idea what I'm getting anyone let alone my gifts bought let alone my gifts wrapped.

So, if you're like me - you haven't bought gifts yet or any of the paraphernalia that goes with the gifts like the gift tags - or you haven't bought your Christmas cards, yet... maybe these little holiday gifties will help.

I'm attaching two digital files here for you to use for decorating your packages or making Christmas cards.  I started out with the PINK because I'm a pinkie and then thought, "Hey, not everyone is a pinkie", so I also made them in a sepia (which still has a hint of pink).  So, if you're a pinkie hopefully the PINK ones will please, and if you're not a pinkie, then hopefully the SEPIA will float your boat.  And if you like 'em both then hurrah!!!  Help yourself!

I would dearly love to see what you create with them if you care to share.  Just respond to this post with a link to your blog and your artwork.

Just click on the corresponding image to get to the download.  Please be patient, they're BIG files so it will take a few minutes to load and save to your computer. 

For my other digi sheets, please wander on over to my shoppe.  It just so happens that today is the first day of my Pre-Thanksgiving Giving Thanks Sale. The entire line of my "everyday" digi sheets are marked down 25%.  Just in case you suddenly decide you'd like to make some gifts for someone you love... or yourself!

Happy Thanksgiving!!  Happy Holidays!!!

Newness

Just thought I'd pop in and report that I am almost over my election day miff and back in my studio creating some new digital goodies to keep me inspired and hopefully you, as well.

A few peeks at what's been cooking...

Pretty little faces which are actually composites of several pretty little faces.  The children of Frankenwhimsystein.  I don't think these qualify as Steampunk - no watch parts or nuts and bolts holding them together.  Digging the purple all of a sudden.  You'll be seeing this background in a digi sheet somewhere down the line.

A little closeup for you.  They look as though they're in need of an adventure.  Interested in creating one for them?  You can find these sweet little faces HERE.

And some Christmas papers, below, with special Christmas pricing.  These Christmas bits will be retired on Dec 31st.  Nifty, these, you can just print and print and print to your heart's content - these are in digi format (pdf). 

Again with the purple.  I'm not anti-traditional Christmas colors but these are so much more fun, don't you think?  You can see this sheet HERE.

And some pale frosty blues.  You can find this sheet HERE along with some other flavors.

Is it just me or is Typepad a BEAR to format.  I can never get it to do exactly what I want it to do.  Even with their new and improved display and formatting features.

Back to the creation station.  Cheers!

Did ya vote?

Okay, we're talking about a presidential election and an historic election so I'm getting out of my PJs this morning and heading to my local polling place.  Already know where it is and I'm dragging Draw along so he can soak up this amazing experience.

I figure to head to the polling place at 10am.  After the initial rush hour madness and before the lunch madness.  Makes sense, yeah?

We're voting at the local township fire department and I'm wondering what happens if one of the fire trucks needs to make a run and I'm in the middle of casting my vote.  As it turned out, they did have to make an emergency run but they'd already moved the trucks and equipment out of the garage which is where the voting is taking place.

Get in the line which is snaking outside the building but it seems to be moving pretty fast (at least faster than the haunted house line which is the most recent line I've stood in) so I'm chatting and happy and it's a pretty day.

We finally get inside the fire station which only took about 10 minutes and I figure hey, that's not bad.  Cast my vote and then blow this pop stand 20 minutes tops.  Plus, Starbucks is passing out free coffee and I'm excited about that.  What I don't notice right away because they have the line snake right to go around a table and then snake left to file into the garage, was the enormous snaking line inside the garage.

So, here's the scoop.  I live in one of the fastest growing cities in the US.  One of the five best places to live according to US News or one of those magazines and there are two... TWO voting booths in my precinct.  Well, actually four voting booths but some shmuckety shmuck got it in their mind to have TWO precincts voting at one location.  So there are four voting booths total, divided between two precincts.

The pudgy lady standing at the doughnut table (the doughnuts are not for the cranky voters who are standing in the two snaking lines) is supposed to be directing traffic and alerting the voters as to which of the lines they should be standing in based on which side of the railroad tracks they live.  Unfortunately, she's got a donut in her mouth and can't talk too good.  I stood in line for over an hour before she actually waddled on by close enough for me to ask "what line should I be in?"  It was sheer dumb luck that I happened to be in the right line. 

So, all told, I stood in line for an hour and forty five minutes to take two minutes to cast my vote in one of the two voting booths set up for the 50,000 +/- voters in my precinct.

I'm not gonna ask you who you voted for, I'm more interested in if you had a worse voting experience than I did this morning. 

Hey.  Don't forget your free Starbucks.  House Blend or their Pumpkin Blend.

Pardon Our Faerie Dust

Our migration to a high CPU server is currently in the works.  You'll notice something wacky about the website, today, when you visit.  It will appear as though we're there but when you click on any of the links you'll get a download prompt.  Not to fret, we will be back right as rain and running better than ever later today.

In the meantime, here's a little something to play with while you wait if you haven't had a chance to download from my previous post.  Feel free to download this collage sheet, save to your hard drive and create to your heart's content.  It's a pdf and rather large so it'll take a bit to open. Please use THIS LINK to get to your freebie and not the download link in my previous post (at least for the time being since that takes you to my website and my website is a mite busy being transformed into ROBO-WHIMSY)..

If you need to reach me while the website is down please click HERE for an alternate email address.  Further updates on the website migration can be found in this blog.  I've also sent out a quick newsletter to those of you who have subscribed.  If you haven't subscribed to the PaperWhimsy Musings newsletter, please drop me an email and I'll sign you up.

Thank you for your patience and see you soon!

Gale

Oh, for Pete's Sake & a Freebie

Okay, it didn't happen last night because the guys on the swing shift didn't get around to making the move.  I'm calling tonight after "they" get in and ask if they're going to get to it tonight.  Beings that I'm already paying for it.

Rest assured the website is going to be moved *someday soon* so don't be surprised if you decide to go shopping and the website is momentarily unavailable.  It is... momentary.  Promise!

In the meantime, I've been wanting to do this for a while.  Here's a "little" freebie for all my favorite customers and soon-to-be-favorite customers.  Something from me to you because you've provided me with the means to live my dream day after day.  I hope you enjoy... it's a wee bit big so if you're still on DIAL-UP (is that even around anymore?) it's gonna take a bit to download this 4+mg file.  Hopefully, it'll be worth the wait  :o)  Please feel free to save it to your hard drive to use again and again.

Click on the image, please.

Happy Creating and Thank YOU!

Duck Attacks!

Did you read about this????  It appears that there was a major altercation at one of my favorite English gardens the other day.  It's hard to imagine, given its posh atmosphere, but there was a free for all that turned quite ugly from what I hear.

It seems there was this gentleman, let's call him... Just William, and his lady love, having a beautiful afternoon tea at Pashley Manor.  If you'll recall, I've mentioned Pashley Manor in a recent post and highlighted it as one of my favorite gardens of 2008.  And that's why the events that unfolded there just a scant week or so ago, are simply beyond shocking.

Anyway, this Just William fellow and his wife were having a lovely afternoon tea at Pashley Manor when suddenly this big ball of feathers decided to pick a fight with him; poking at JW's leg in a very mean-spirited manner.  Mind you, JW was minding his own business, in fact, I believe he was staring longingly into the eyes of his lady-love wife, whilst eating some kind of a scone or other, when this big... huge... fat duck decided to become quite obnoxious in a very un-English-like manner.

It was a horrendous affair with bits of scone and feathers flying all over the veranda and the help shouting at Just William to stop feeding the duck (which it might have appeared, whilst in the midst of this altercation, that the scone crumbs that were flying were actually being tossed at the duck)... deep breath. 

It ended up with Just William giving everyone a tongue lashing, including the duck who does not understand English, and marching off to the local Little Chef, which has no ducks, to finish his afternoon tea.

Sigh... it's such a sad state of affairs to see yet another lovely English garden fall prey to roving bands of malicious ducks who don't even pay an admission fee to get in.

I'm happy to report that Just William has fully recovered from this horrifying event and is now having his afternoon teas at the local garden center.  I do advise him, though, to be sure to sit under an umbrella whilst having his tea.  Birds won't peck at people's legs in a mean-spirited manner but they have been known to leave their calling cards while flying overhead.

Wish You Were Here

How's this for fun?  I was playing around in Photoshop which lead me to creating postcards which lead me to dragging out the England photos which lead me to creating faux postage to go with the faux cards from a faux trip to a faux country that's a cross between England, Italy and France (an English garden on a French "postcard" with an Italian "stamp").  Bellisimabeaupucka.

The top three "stamps" are ATC-sized.

***

These are all a ruse - fake fake fake but fun fun fun.  Wish me were there.

More dumpster art this week - stay tuned.  Went to Noblesville after a depressing trip to the local mall that pulled up absolutely no grunge and very little rust.  Even the parking lots were crack-free.  I never realized how boringly well kept up the local mall was.  Not that Noblesville isn't kept up, mind you.  It's a sweet little town north of Indianapolis.  But it has c-h-a-r-a-c-t-e-r and doesn't mind if its age shows just a bit.  Peeling paint, cracks and rusty dumpsters are so much more appealing when one is carrying their camera.

Dumpster Art

If you're ever in need of a good texture, you need go no further than the dumpster behind your favorite store.  Today, Draw and I went on a dumpster hunt looking for rust textures and, lo and behold... all of 15 minutes later, pay dirt.

A peek at the fun I have in photoshop using dumpster rust.  This photo is of a charming window at the charming Clergy House in Alfriston.

I shoot in RAW so every photo I take requires some processing in Photoshop - this is the original shot (above), after converting from RAW to psd and processing (exposure, sharpen, crop).

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This is the same photo using an overlay of dumpster.  The actual shot of the dumpster rust looks like this...

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After a bit of processing in Photoshop because this was shot in RAW mode, as well.  Hard to believe that, by using this overlay of rust on the original photo it can achieve that kind of soft vintage look.  Depends on your layer setting - I used soft light.

***

Now.  Same original photo but as I was jumping in the car after taking some photos of the dumpster behind Pier One - I happened to look down and saw this...

...which, in and of itself, is rather homely.  But that cracking at the top has some potential.  After a bit of color and exposure tweaks and some cropping, I got this...

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...which has major potential.  I think it looks pretty cool just like that, but I really wanted it for this...

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Voila!  Changing the layer setting on that interesting grunge layer, let's the even more interesting window peek through.

And this is why I have this intense love affair, bordering on an obsession, with Photoshop.

By the way, if you're a mixed media artist, these window will be available in a digital collage sheet at my shoppe, PaperWhimsy.  And these texture overlays will be available shortly for purchase for digital artists.  Same place.

Rememberies Part Deux

More on Pashley Manor as I'd promised. 

This beautiful scone was eaten by me on a warm sunny day at Pashley Manor.  It was flaky, crumbly (as a good scone should be) and filled with herbs and cheese.  And yes, that is butter and I ate every bit of it.

A close-up... Oh, I remember it well.

We shall get back to Pashley Manor shortly.  Perhaps later today.  For now I want to bounce over to Exmoor, where we spent our trip within the trip.  Five rainy, wet, cold, and somewhat glorious days traveling between the two moors: Ex and Dart.  After the first day and a half of wetness we watched the weather report with the notion that somewhere on that peninsula there would be sun.  And we found it.  It was quite the trek on those crazy English roads but half the fun of sightseeing needs to be the journey getting to the destination otherwise one could find themselves quite miserable.

This beautiful spot happened to be in Exmoor, specifically the Doone Valley and even more specifically, Oare Church.  An old and ancient structure and purportedly the church where Lorna Doone was shot on her wedding day.  Through a small window, by her half brother.

Perhaps this window.

The view from the steps of the church - the peaceful Doone Valley.

A closer look...

The church gate.  I must say, there is noting quite as inviting as a gate that is left open.  It just calls to me... "enter... enter...".  And I usually do.

And this foreboding thing is Knole, Photoshopped to high heaven.  I think the overlay really adds to the rather ominous feel of this place.  I'll share more of the moors, Pashley Manor and a touch more of Knole as I wade through my photos.  I'm really just browsing through them and picking out the ones that appeal to me in that moment.

Does this not feel like the most chaotic and boisterous trip, ever?  Hither and yon, to and fro, over and back?  Oh, Shee and Pee, I can't help but wonder... is this how it feels when your chaotic DIL comes to town?  But far more than just looking at the photos, you're actually living it?  Bless you.

More tomorrow...

Rememberies Part I

My love affair with Photoshop borders on an obsession.  Just about everything I do during the day has something to do with Photoshop.  Other than cooking, cleaning, laundry and the occasional trip to the loo.

So the last couple of days I've been looking through my photos of England and giving them a good dose of that old Photoshop magic.  Given that I've written and rewritten about day one and day two of this year's trip and I'm not really interested in rehashing that again, I thought I'd just post a few photos every day or so and just blab about what was going on when a particular photo was taken.  For me, that's the best way to wade through all this mess and keep me going.  I am notorious for leaping with both feet into a project and then stopping mid air and changing direction.  Hopefully, doing the trip blogging this way will keep me pushing on through all 1600 of my photos.

And since my FIL is bugging me about my journal (as I did him about his - hey, where is your journal, anyway, Pete?) I think I'll appease him and get on with it.

In no particular order...

This is my favorite castle - Leeds.  I've belly ached about this a zillion times already and I'll belly ache yet again: Leeds is like the only castle in England that lets you take shots of the interior.  Go, Leeds!  This particular shot was one of the 453 shots I took that day.  And of course it's sporting a few texture overlays and some filter magic.  Hey, I never claimed to be a photographer - I'm just an image maker.

Leeds, again.  How nice to be taking a shot from the inside looking out.  This was our last full day in England so very bittersweet.  I think this shot does a right good job of evoking how melancholy I was feeling. 

Also Leeds with a minimum amount of Photoshoppery.  As you can see it was a rather dull day - they were holding a jousting match on the grounds.  Peter, Sheila and Jo went there instead of in the castle with Draw and me.  I think I can see one of the horses beyond the moat.

And one more of Leeds - busts of the monarchy.  They don't look this moldy and grungy in real life - that is totally me and my filter obsession.  Cool, eh?

Did I already tell you about Smallhythe Place?  This is a National Trust property so no photos inside.  BUT they do advertise that you can make an appointment to take interior shots.  Several years in advance.  Nah... just kidding.  Or at least I hope I am.  You can make arrangements to take interior shots but I don't know that you need to do it several years in advance.  Okay, enough about that - here's a window.

Walking up to the house - it really is quite charming.

A look once we've passed through the gate.  I just love the way this house takes its age in stride.  A few dips here and a few sags there and she is even more lovely now, I am sure, than she was the day she was built.  This is what I dearly love about England.  It does not feel the need to raze the old to make way for the new. 

Okay, jumping from Smallhythe, which was Day Two, to Pashley Manor which was Day Nine or Ten... Pashley Manor is just lovely.  Lovely lovely lovely.  The grounds are peppered with contemporary artwork and done so in a very tasteful and highbrow manner.  I enjoyed our visit to this beautiful garden - I think it was way up there on the "Gale's Favorite Gardens of 2008" list.  They also have a charming little gift shoppe and a top notch restaurant with al fresco dining under white canvas umbrellas.  I would go to this garden again and again (be prepared, Sheila and Peter).  This scene is in the pool area.

I just realized that I've not played with a lot of Pashley Manor photos so now I'm jumping over to Alfriston and this charming rose-festooned bench at Clergy House.  I'll get back to Pashley Manor, I promise. 

Alfriston is a very old, very cool town.  Very old.  And Clergy House is their National Trust property.  Clergy House is just an amazing and charming and quaint little decrepit house with a small cottage garden.  I wanted to pick it all up, stick it in my pocket and carry it home with me.  And I really really really wanted to take some interior shots but unfortunately... you got it... National Trust.  No sign saying you could make an appointment to take interior shots and given that there are, like, only three or four rooms in the place, I can't imagine that a lot of people are dying to get photos of the rooms.  Just me.   Because this is the kind of charm that just tickles me. 

Ahhh, so... I think I will head back over to Photoshop and take a peek at some Pashley Manor snaps for tomorrow's entry.  I'm really going to try to do this...

Okay, Peter, I've showed you mine - now let's see yours.  How's that journal coming?