Dreaming

Yesterday, as the captain and I stood on the balcony of our winter retreat, we watched the Disney Dream sail by us. The Dream is Disney's newest cruise ship and she's a beauty.

I captured this photograph from our balcony, then gave it a subtle texture treatment using two textures (Pool Party and Sandstorm) from Elemenopea's Texture and Background Collection: Set 4. I used the Soft Light layer blending mode with both textures, and played with the opacity of each layer until I was happy with the look.

Yesterday afternoon we drove up to the port to get an up-close peek at the Dream. Come this fall, we'll be getting an even closer look as we have a cruise booked on her and we're very excited about that. But, for now, we'll be delighted to watch her sail in and out of Port Canaveral all month long.

I apologize for what you are about to read

To all my northern friends and family .... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sharing the current weather conditions and I'm sorry I couldn't fit all of you into our car. Trust me, we would have brought all of you with us if we could have made room.

We are in Florida now; the captain and I crossed the state line around noon yesterday and after hunting down a Jacksonville seafood restaurant we had seen on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (Singleton's Seafood Shack -- amazing!) and meandering down State Road A1A after lunch instead of directly returning to the interstate, we finally checked into our hotel late yesterday afternoon. And we awoke today to a simply glorious day.

People often ask the captain why he takes such a big chunk of vacation time so we can do our winter escape. In the summer, people think it's odd. They forget about winter. But not now. No. One look at the weather forecast and it's understandable.

Wienermobile

So.........the captain and I headed out this morning, turned around the corner, and what did we see?This! It's the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!

C'mon now .... you know you want to sing!

The road not travelled

When driving around, local or not, I am always up for the idea of taking a different route, of driving down an unfamiliar street. So when we stopped for lunch on Sunday in Cleveland, Tennessee (I know ...... who knew there was more than one Cleveland?), we took a different route back to the Interstate than the way we drove in.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, looming on the horizon on our left, there appeared to be a water tower featuring a blue M&M. This warranted a quick turnaround to investigate further. It was none other than a Mars location and, when I put my window down to take photographs of the aforementioned tower, the air was redolent with chocolate. How it could be possible to live directly across from the plant -- the other side of the street was strictly residential -- is something I don't understand. That aroma would drive me crazy.

If we had not driven off the main route, we never would have seen this. I'm glad we took a chance on an alternate road!

We had a similar experience today. The skies opened up here in Savannah and the rain pelted down, but the morning and early-afternoon were relatively rain-free, so the captain and I were out driving around today, trying to find a particular old gas station that I remembered from last year and never photographed. I remembered the station, not the location. Anyway, we came to a street that we might or might not have driven down before, we weren't sure, so we hung a left and gave it a try. It was quickly apparent to both of us that we'd never been in this particular section of Savannah before.

So what did we find? Not the old gas station I was searching for, but instead we found ourselves driving right beside the Wilmington River. On the left, we saw a row of shrimp boats docked at a small pier; on the right, a seafood restaurant that looked inviting. If you are ever in Savannah, by the way, eat as much local shrimp as you can; they're amazing. And also on the left, an old shack selling fresh local shrimp.

So we ate shrimp for lunch (should I mention that we also had shrimp for dinner last night?) and I took photographs of the boats as well as the shack. A great lunch and a great photo shoot -- all because we took a chance on an unfamiliar road.

The Peach State

Greetings from Savannah, Georgia! Yes, the captain and I are once again on our winter getaway. We left a FREEZING cold Toronto early Saturday morning, spending our first night in Corbin, Kentucky. It was chilly there, but nothing like we'd left behind. Macon, Georgia was where we called it a day on Sunday, and this morning we left Macon and headed for Savannah.

Before we pulled away from the hotel in Macon this morning, I snapped the photo you see above. It was so wonderful to see all the pansies planted around the hotel. Pansies = spring! And it's only January! Ah, I love coming south.

(The clipping mask I used to create the rough edge and the word "beautiful" is one of the offerings at Elemenopea; please pop by to have a look! And thank you for the kind comments and emails about the new venture!)

BIG News!

After all the waiting, all the "coming soon" and "stay tuned" hints, it's finally time. Time for what? Time to announce the launch of ELEMENOPEA!

I'm so excited to tell you about ELEMENOPEA. ELEMENOPEA DESIGNS is an online resource for all manner of digital goodies for use in all your creative projects. ELEMENOPEA is a collaborative artistic venture -- our name, ELEMENOPEA, is actually a wee mysterious hint at who we are. Can you figure it out?

All the digital delights available at ELEMENOPEA are unique, created just by us, and are elements we use in our own creative pursuits.

You'll find high-resolution textures and backgrounds, clipping masks and brushes, even royalty-free stock photography. And I'm sure you'll all appreciate that ELEMENOPEA's Terms Of Use clearly states that our digital elements may be used in artwork you plan to sell! I know for me, there are now many items from other artists that I just won't use in my own artwork because the artists don't allow commercial use of those items. I'd much rather have the peace-of-mind that should I decide to make greeting cards, for example, using another artist's textures, I'm not violating anyone's policies by trying to sell them.

Oh ..... everything at ELEMENOPEA is reasonably priced too; no wallet-busters here!

Below is just a little sample of something I created using ELEMENOPEA's digital elements.

The background is from Texture & Background Collection, Set 3 on the New Stuff page; the angel is from Angels, Set 1, found on the Stock Images page (the image is not square; I cropped it for the project); finally, two textures were used (Burnt Paper, from Texture Collection, Set 2, and Soft Summer, from Texture Collection, Set 1) that can be found on the Textures page.

I hope you'll take a moment to go have a peek at all that ELEMENOPEA offers and have a look around. Much more is planned for the site, including video tutorials! I'm so, so pleased ELEMENOPEA is finally up and running. I hope you like what you see there!

Gizmo and Terra

Hey everyone ... I'm featured over at Mortal Muses today! Please check out their Double Trouble posting!

I'm so pleased to have the above image, one of my favourites, honoured this way. Big thanks to the Muses!

The wonder of it all

(UPDATE: THESE TWO CLIPPING MASK COLLECTIONS HAVE NOW BEEN RETIRED. PLEASE VISIT ELEMENOPEA TO SEE WHAT'S NEW!)

Did you ever have such a full brain that you made yourself a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich and forgot to include the ham? This happened to me, just days ago. I actually ate the whole sandwich before I realized what I had done, I was so distracted.

This distraction is the result of exciting things that have been occupying my time. Sorry to be a tease, but that's all I'm saying for now. All will be revealed in the next few days. Promise.

But in the meantime, I wanted to give you one last opportunity to grab my two sets of clipping masks before I retire them (see below). Soon they will make way for some new clipping masks -- of the 16 masks you see below, only a couple of them will continue on into new sets. All part of that distraction I mentioned, you see.....

The above image was created using the "wonder" mask in Sampler #2; this particular clipping mask will not be in the new sets. Besides the mask, I used one of my angel photographs as well as one of my new textures to create the piece. And yes, both the angel and the texture are part of the recent distraction too!

When I first blogged about these clipping masks HERE, I gave detailed instructions on how to use them. If you're looking for an easier method, I suggest you give this trick a try. Just open up the clipping mask file, which is a PNG file, and with your foreground colour set to white, click in any of the transparent areas (where you see the checkerboard when you open the file in Photoshop) with your Paint Bucket tool to fill those areas with white. As long as "Contiguous" is not checked off up in your menu bar after you select the Paint Bucket, all the transparent areas will be filled with white, all at once. If "Contiguous" is checked, you would need to click in each transparent area, filling them in one at a time. Too much work!

Save the PNG as a JPG; after you do this, Photoshop will ask if you want to save the changes to the PNG file when you try to close it; just click "no". And now you're set -- no worrying about where to place the mask or how to apply it. Use the JPG just like you would a texture -- on the layer above your photograph -- and then with that mask layer selected, choose either Screen or Lighten as your layer blending mode. Done!

Why don't you give it a try? These two sets will only be available for the next couple of days.

$6.00

$6.00

SAVE! CLICK BELOW TO BUY BOTH FOR ONLY $10.00!

Thanks for having a look ... and stay tuned!

Do you remember Bi-Way?

Browsing through some photographs I captured last year, I came across this shot. Last June, on my birthday, the captain and I went on a mini-roadtrip, meandering east and then north, ending up in Orillia, Ontario. We walked around and I was quite surprised to see this empty store, windows papered over, with what is obviously an old Bi-Way sign with paint slapped over it.

I remember Bi-Way. I bought a grey flannel robe with a teddy bear on the front at our local Bi-Way many, many years ago; I still have that robe. For some reason I also recall that Bi-Way was a good source for wrapping paper, especially at Christmas. It's odd to remember that, but I do.

I also remember Woolworth's; do you? And Woolco? Simpson's? My first-ever credit card was from Simpson's. Or was it Simpson-Sears first?

I also remember shopping at Miracle Mart for groceries, where they'd put your bags in a plastic tub and whisk it down a conveyor belt that went outside. You got your car and drove up to the curb to retrieve your purchase. I don't think any supermarkets do that anymore.

Today in the news, it was announced that Target is coming to Canada. I love shopping at Target when in the U.S., so this is good news, but it looks like we Canadians are losing Zellers in the process. As the stores gradually become Target outlets, I'm guessing that Zellers will soon be just a memory. Like Bi-Way.

We all have memories of certain stores, of particular shopping experiences. What are yours?

Digital MAGIC

How would you like to win a wonderful online class? Even better, how would you like to win a wonderful online class -- Digital Journal Magic -- taught by the exceptional Marie Otero?

Class starts January 15th, but you have until January 8th to WIN yourself a spot. Just head on over to the Collage Cat Studio blog, where you can enter to win one of two spots in Marie's exciting new digital class for Photoshop and Elements users. Marie is an excellent teacher and I just know you'll learn so much in this new class, and you'll enjoy the whole process too.

Good luck!

Sweet Eleven

It's 2011. Let's start it off the right way, with something sweet -- sweet potato pie!

I devoured this yummy piece of pie at Matthews Cafeteria in Tucker, Georgia; that was the very first restaurant the captain and I ticked off our Diners, Drive-ins and Dives must-try list, almost two years ago now. I'll never forget that visit as it was early March and the entire town had just had a major snowstorm. (I blogged about it HERE.) Tucker is just outside of Atlanta and I never thought I'd see such a wintry scene there. I actually went looking through the Tucker photographs for some lovely icicle shots I knew I took then, thinking those appropriate for January's calendar page, but I stopped when I saw the pie photographs and instantly knew I'd much rather start the year with something soft and sweet than something sharp and cold.

As always, just click on the image above to be whisked away to its home on Flickr, where you can download the size of your choice. The "original" size is a high-resolution full-page (8-1/2x11) image, perfect for printing. I hope you enjoy it and I apologize in advance if I've spoiled anyone's dieting resolution!

Happy New Year!