Scenery

A few pictures from around town

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

I meant to write this up last month but I got busy with the 31 Things project and never got around to it. Early May is Teacher Appreciation Week and we got suggested themes for each day. I missed the first day which was to send a flower for a bouquet. But I managed the rest of the week. The second day was Breakfast, "Teachers Help Us Start Our Day" so I sent a one cup bag of coffee with a helping a latte or some sort of coffee pun.


 



The third day was Sweet Treats, "Because you are SO Sweet- we say Thank You!"  For that day I made an apple out of a coke bottle and we decorate it so that the cap looked like a stem and made leaves from construction paper. One of the big leaves had a note about a Sweet Treat from my son.



The fourth day was A Note From the Heart. I bought some erasers that look like desserts and a notepad that looked like a cookie and included some pencils. Bub wrote her a note that said he liked being in her class and drew her a picture. Then I made a label for the top and put it all in a ziploc bag. I think it came out pretty cute.






 
The last day was the Student's Choice, "Thanks for Making Our Day Sunny!"  So I got her a straw cup because they are my favorite with some liquid beverage mix sweet peach tea flavor and added a straw note that I got from here. She said she liked it and appreciated the thoughtfulness. So I successfully made it through my first Teacher Appreciation Week. Now onto first grade and all that entails.

Y'all or you guys?

 A couple of people tweeted links to this article 22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Differently From Each Other. I found this endlessly fascinating and spent some time looking at the survey page that contains all the maps. It reminds me of the show "How the States got Their Shapes." It's interesting to learn about the small differences between regions. It's interesting to me for many reasons. But the main one is how I pronounce words or the phrases I use. Do I sound more like an Oklahoman where my parents are from or like a Louisianan where I am from or do I have some of my husband's Massachusetts pronunciations? Judging from these maps it is mostly like other Louisianans. But there are a few words or phrases where I sound more like my parents or like my husband. My pronunciation of "aunt" changes depending on whether I am referring to one of my own (ant) or one of his (ahnt). The same goes for ottoman though that is not one of the survey questions. I had never heard of the word "hassock" until a few year ago. It's funny because even though he has lived down here longer than he lived up there he still pronounces a few words like a Northerner. I think it is all about how you originally learn to speak. Because I can't remember him even saying y'all and I don't know how to say anything else (well that is not strictly true because sometime I throw out a "you guys" like they do in Oklahoma). It makes me wonder how our kids will pronounce words. I assume that they, like me, will do regional pronunciations. I do wonder though about the difference between Mary/merry/marry. He is going to have to explain that one to me.

How I did 31 pages without Photoshop

You'd think I'd want a break from blogging coming off of two months of month long blogging projects but I thought I'd write a bit about how I did the pages for the 31 Things project. At home we have a free Photoshop program called Gimp. I have actual Photoshop at work and sometimes (on break!) I'd use it to tweak any designs I made. But mainly I used Pixlr and Ribbet to make the pages. Pixlr is basically Photoshop light and I find it easier to mantipulate than Photoshop which is a program I am still learning. The 31 Things project was a great way to learn more about these programs and I think my work got better over the course of the month.

I didn't like what I did originally for the Being Great at Something post.  So I obtained a cooking kit from Digital Design Essentials and decided to change it up before printing the book.

From this

to this

So using Pixlr I opened the original prompt from Erica at Crashnotes. Files are .png.

I decided not to use the chevrons she had created because frankly I didn't know what to do with them. So I erased them. Then I opened a few backgrounds to get an idea of what I want. From there I can start building onto the frame what I want it to look like.

 To manipulate objects you have to use the navigation bar and drop and drop from there.

I picked out a few elements and tried them out and thought about doing some sort of paper layering but decided against it. Free transform will take a layer and allow you to resize or rotate inside the frame which is what I did here with the utensils. When you have multiple layers on one page, use the layers section on the navigation bar to select the object you want to manipulate.

Moving objects around

Color picker

The color picker allows you to match the colors in the paper or elements that you are using. It is very handy for finding the RBG codes for matching text too. It will also show colors in the same spectrum if you want to go lighter or darker. I added a recipe card for the writing, bow to the utensils, and a flower to spruce up the title.

In Ribbet

For the text I am not fond of Pixlr's text option. I find the fonts are not creative or big enough sometimes. So I use Ribbet which is the closest thing to Picnik I have found since that website shut down. Here I add in my text and this is where knowing the RBG codes come in handy. So that they match. The drawback is that the images are not manipulable anymore so what you see is what you get. After adding my text I notice that there is too much empty space at the bottom so I headed back to Pixlr and added a few more elements. It came out pretty nice and I like it much better than the original page I had created. I usually save in both .png and .jpg for some reason but that is not necessary.

Almost done

Saving

As for scrapbook kits, I've found quite a few really nice free ones and have been building a collection for a while. On my 31 Things posts, I tried to include the designer of the kit I used for that page in case anyone is interested. Digital Design Essentials, Citrus and Mint, and Shabby Princess are just a few of the digital scrapbooking designers I like. But a google search will bring up many. Pinterest is a good resource too.

My new goal is to remake my blogs using some of the skills I've picked up and  a few of the scrapbook kits I've collected. I've already started with Annie, I think as you can see and I love the new look of my blog. Next I will work on The Little Bookworm. I've had the same look over there for close to 3 years and it might be time to do something different. Anyway, I had a good time learning and growing my skills.

In bloom

One of my favorite flowers is the magnolia.Luckily for me I work on a campus filled with magnolia trees and we have a dwarf magnolia in our front year. The trees are all in bloom and they are so lovely. The only problem with them is that they don't last long and you can't touch them at all without browning the petals. But they are gorgeous to look at.

Took it the day it bloomed and the next day it had already browned