Monday, September 29, 2008

Doodling

I've been having flu like symptoms, the past couple of days and spent most of Sunday in bed. I am going for my flu shot on Wednesday, lot good that does me if I've got the flu now.

I did make it through work today.

A few doodle tags....

I never really liked fairies growing up. The whole princess phase that young girls go through sort of totally missed me. And fairies like Tinkerbell just seemed very whimpy. It wasn't until later when you get into the Celtic Legends that Fairies become down right EVIL that I started really enjoying the whole faye universe.

Tag


The Fairy is this is from the uncredited Fantasy Freebie I got of digifree. I dolled her up with the Glittered Blossoms freebie kit from Creations by Jo, more because I wanted to play with the kit than for any other reason. Playing with the kit is a good reason, right?

Tag


The Fairy in this one came from the Shadow Fairies freebie from Efie. The Unicorn is from a freebie from Grafix4All, (which blogger now says has been removed?).

I used the Autumn Breeze kit from Creations by Jo on this one. Now do I stay with the kit, or unicorn...hmmm....

Tag


I didn't like this one when I did it, but since changed my mind. I call it Dark Unicorn, for obvious reason. The unicorn is from the same source as above, while I used Yarrow's Gothique Rouge to do the background stuff with.

Tag


And finally, the only tube tag in the set is my Thank Ewe tag, which I'm sure I'll have some use for over the thanksgiving season. The Ewe tube is from Krissy's Scraps (as shown in the copyright) and the background kit is Autumn Breeze from Creations by Jo. I really like the autumn colors, in case you haven't notices. You can get the tube off her blog, I don't know if it's on Designer Scraps or not.

Anyway, I'm feeling dizzy again now, so I think I shall take myself back to bed. Thanks for visiting!

More Miss Diamond

This is a 5 x 7 "tag" using Yarrow's Gothique Rouge kit. I hate it when the pictures looks faded out like that. I might be able to fix it though in PS, I'll have to look into that this evening. I also noticed I need to fix the tag for Tillie took as the paper I though was black is actually purple. I have a hard time seeing dark colors on my screen at home.

Miss Diamond,5 x 7


I had done a tag for her with the Gothique Violet kit previously and didn't like it. This was turned out much better despite the faded cat. The button is from the aforementioned Gothique Rouge kit.

Miss Diamond,Tag




She doesn't look too faded out in this 5 x 7 which uses the Autumn Breeze kit from Creations by Jo.

Miss Diamond


I wanted to do something for fall, couldn't come up with anything to write, and so just turned it in a tag instead.

The Autumn Alpha was a freebie, and it's actually pretty nice, with an upper and lower case. I should probably realign the letters better though. Lots of fix it work for tonight...

Miss Diamond


I turned the Floral Freebie tag into a 5 x 7 for my family as I knew they'd like it. They'll like the fall one (above) as well. You get more room side to side, but it cramps everything top to bottom. (This was done with Floral Forest Fantasy by Tizzy's Angel.

Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


The 5 x 7 version of the Spidercat tag, using the Gothik Vampyre kit, also from Tizzy's Angel, and the Bone Alpha from Free Digital Scrapbooking. This is going to be my Halloween card for the year, since I'm rather pleased with it.

Midnight Monday

I was thinking of doing a collection of House Panther for this Thursday's T-13. I already have three (well four if you count Diamond) done. Here are a few more.

This first one I used on House Panthers for Stygia Sunday and as I'd already done one of Stygia last week, I didn't feel I should do another one.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


This is uses the Dark Gothic taggers kits by Creations by Jo, combined with the Bone Alpha from Free Digital Scrapbooking. Stygia was getting her but nipped in the shot by her tabby sister, but I cropped that part out. :)

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


Mickey just turned 15 I think, not quite old enough to drive. He's still going strong though for a senior cat. Here he is lounging in one of the windows of Castle Diamond, the only place to be during the Howl-N-Scream season.

I used the Dusk Till Dawn kit from Scrappy Redhead combined with the Nettie B Scrapz Brushed Metal Alpha.

Tillie is Michey's little sister and she's ready for a night of dancing under the stars.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


I used the Dancing in the Dark mini-kit by Scrappy Redhead, which is a freebie you can pick up at Scrap Happiness. The heart from however is from her Purple Passion Add-on. I like the inclusion of the fireflies, it's a nice change from dragonflies and butterflies. The Black Gold Alpha was a freebie from Bizee Digital Arts and is a bit of a nightmare as it came with two upper case Y but no lower case, and the upper case Z looks exactly like the upper case B.

I haven't done much with Batman so he seemed ot be a good candidate for a tag. I used the Gothic Rouge kit from Yarrow for this one, but the Batman ring comes for the compliled Halloween 3 kit from Efie. The theme for that kit was bats and she put every little bat thing she could dig up into it.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


On a side note, Chaos Priestess is retiring, at least for a while, and as a result, all her kits are on major sale at Digital Chaos. While I'm happy for the sale, with pay day right around the corner, I'm not happy to see her retire, as she was one of my favorite designers.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Walgreens Photo Shoot

Diamond went to the Walgreens Call to Action Photo Shoot on Saturday. I don't know how many cats mde it, most of the ones one the Blogosphere felt they wouldn't have behaved, they didn't like the car ride, or their wasn't one by their house.

She writes in her blog that she was a very good girl and she was. We got six picture of her on a cd, plus pictures of Roscoe, the doggie, who had his picture taken before her.

I didn't put her in her carrier, she rode over sitting on my left thight, and checked out the back seat on the way home. Except for meowing a few times to tell me I was going to fast (over 10 MPH is too fast) she was fine.

Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


I added the borders and word art to the shots. The borders were a freebie from Angel Designs from DigiFree. The Word art was also a Freebie from DigiFree, but I'm not sure who created it as it didn't come with a preview or TOU. (Seriously Chica's if you want to be credited, you need to add TOUs with blog addies. Don't expect me to remember where I got it!)

After sleeping on it, I decided I wanted to do a collage with a frame inside a frame, so I went with Dark Gothic from Creations by Jo to put this together. It's in 8 x 10 format and that's a taggers kits, so I don't know how well it will print.

Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


I did a few more tags, but for some reason, I'm not feeling well today, so I want to take myself back to bed. I'll post them a little later tonight or tomorrow.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Dead until Dark

I've been reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels - I'm working on book six right now - and so vampires have kind of been the order of the day.

This was the tag I'd forgotten to upload earlier of Grr, doing her love at first bite impression. And it's going to be a really BIG bite...

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


Diamond, I guess would have to be a Countess and not a count? This was actually a really quick piece to put together....she's so big there's not much room in it for anything else, but I thought it worked out pretty well.

Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream

Taking an entirely different track...I went with a fantasy piece. I could point out that there are fairies in the Southern Vamire books as Sookie has a fairy Godmother. Diamond does not have a fairy godmother. Nor does she have a unicorn, but she'd probably like one.

Miss Diamond,Tag


The two vampire pieces used the Gothik Vampyre tag kit and Freebie add on by Tizzy's Angel, and the last piece used Floral Forest Fantasy tag kit and freebie add on, by the same designer. Tizzy puts out some of the most original and exclusive kits on the internet. Some really, really great stuff.

The unicorn came from a "fantasy freebie" that I'd downloaded from Digifree. There's nothing in the file marking where it came from so I don't know who to credit to. The "stickers" in it were saved as .pngs but not transparent .pngs, so I ended up giffing them, as I can't figure out how to make and save a transparent .png in Photoshop. I know there's a way to do it, I just don't know how.

I should probably redo the fantasy piece as a 5x7. I'm sure my family would like that better than the Halloween pieces I've put together, despite the fact that it's really not seasonal just at the moment.

Two tags and a 5x7

Wow, this was supposed to be three tags, but evidently I forgot to upload one. The first two both use Chaos Priestess' Night of the Dead kit (and add on freebie) with the Bone Alpha (Freebie) from Free Digital Scrapbooking.

If you're just getting started in Digital Scrapbooking, Free Digital Scrapbooking is a great resource.

The first one is Mr. Hendrix, who lives in Ohio. Actually, it's probably his evil alter ego Bendrix, but we won't go there.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


The second is One Eyed Jack, the Pirate Cat who actually has two eyes.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


This is the somewhat evil tempered Grr, who is one of my favorite internet cats. I just love reading her blog!

This the 5 x 7 and I used the Gothic Violet kit (and add on freebie) from Yarrow.

House Panther


All three kits are available at Digital Chaos, one of my favorite places to shop.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Things on my wish list...

Helly's Fairy Magic taggers kits. She's got a couple of freebie samplers and a plopper on her blog, but you only really get enough with the samplers to do one or two layouts.

The Siobhan plopper I'd already posted. This one is from the Nyssa sampler:

Miss Diamond


It was done to a 5 x 7 format so I could print it.

This one uses the Rhiannon sampler:

Miss Diamond


Also done to 5 x 7 and I antiqued the photo of Miss Diamond. The unicorn is not part of the kit, I just felt like adding it. There's also the Aleia kit which we did not get a Sampler/Plopper for. (Not that I'm complaining, mind.)

And to go along with these, I'd like one of Selina Fenech's tube sets, which probably only comes in .psp format.

Somehow...I think I could go quickly broke if I get into this hobby graphics thing.

On a side note, Amazon has PSP X1, which is the last version of the program that will run on my system, new for around $40. So I'm thinking go ahead and buy that. It's gotta be better than what I'm trying to work with now, and there are at least some tutorials available for it on the internet.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Thursday is Grrday

I figured I'd should put something together in case the Lady doesn't get something put together for House Panthers.

House Panther,Grr


This uses Imperfoxtion Designz' Electrify Kit which can found at either Digital Chaos or Scrap Happiness. The Foiled Again lettering was a freebie from Dundas Designs.

A honest to god tube tag

Sonel's Corner had three tubes on Digi-free today, which were saved in .psd, instead of .psp format. If you use Photohop, you probably know from experience you can't get the .psp files open. I'm wondering if I can open them in another vector art program (like Adobe Illustrator), or if it's proprietary format.

In any case, that allowed me to try my hand at creating a tag using "tube" art. This particular piece of art is © Ana Rasha at Deviantart.com. I do wonder if the freebie tubes that do show up on Digi-free are supposed to be there, but that's not my problem, just at the moment.

This is the end result...

tag


Yes, I know, I still have a lot to learn.

I used Yarrow's Romantique kit to do this. The background frog is from VladStudio.com and may or may not be copyright, and the chrome lettering is from Scrapdolly.

I think I've now credited everyone that needs to be credited, if I let anyone out, please forgive me.

It's done in 6x6 inch format and you can click to enlarge the piece.

Shades of Blue Wednesday

Diamond, who I tend to refer to as Diamond Down Under, is a 12-year old Russian Blue House Panther who lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


Both of these tags were done using Scrappy Redhead's From Dusk to Dawn kit. It's her contribution to the Halloween kit mania that's been going around. Both tags were done to a 6x6 inch format. The brushed metalic alpha is from Nettie B. Scrapz (who seems to have vanished off the internet).

Miss Diamond


Miss Diamond is of course a more traditional kind of House Panther. She's pictured here using the Electrify kit from Imperfoxtion Designz. This was done to a 5 x 7 format (so I could print it); the Chrome Alpha was a freebie from Scrapdolly. (No, she's not missing her eyes, she has them closed as I was using a flash.)

Both kits are available at both Digital Chaos and Scrap Happy.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A Pair of pairings

After due consideration, and taking into account that Minutes to Midnight was a taggers sized kit, I redid the pieces in 5 xy 7 format to print for my sister. She gets a kick out of Diamond, she thinks she's adorable.

Miss Diamond


tabby cat


Yes, Tris is holding the key to Diamond's heart but we had a minor scrimmage earlier this evening, so I don't think he'll be unlocking it anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Scrappy Redhead put out a new kit called Midnight Acquaintance and as always, the blues drew me in. That and the "butterfly" that kind of looks like a super chicken logo. I got the full sized kit, so both these pieces were done to 8 x 10.

Miss Diamond


tabby cat


This is a stand alone 5 x 7 that I did of Diamond using the same kit.

Miss Diamond


The nice thing about this is that if you buy it before the end of the September, you can download the September Collaboration kit from Scrap Happy for free. So you're basically getting two kits for the price of one, and one of those kits is supersized.

If you scroll down to the bottom of Scrap Happy, there's a couple of Mini-freebies from Scrappy Redhead as well, so it's worth the visit.

Switching back to the Halloween theme again....

Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


Spider Cat, spider cat, does whatever a spider cat can...

This uses Gothik Vampire from Tizzy's Angel (of course!)

Anyway, that about wraps it up for me for tonight. For some reason I'm just really, really tired, so believe I will turn in early. ::yawn::

(I know, I know, I need something for Blue Wednesday in case Not the Mama can't do it...)

Diamond & Tris

With fall moving in, I needed to do something autumny for Miss Diamond's blog, and to be honest, the fall colors suit Tristan very well.

Miss Diamond


tabby cat


Both of these pieces use the Autumn Breeze kit from Creations by Jo. In the first one, I supplimented the kit with elements from the Autumn Forest Friends set from Danielle Engebretson and which is available at Digital Freebies.

In the second, I used the Cork Alpha which was created by Claudi and which is also available at Digital Freebies. The little leaf buttons are from the Canada kit that I got from Scrappin' Girls (I think), I needed a brad or something and this just sort of went with the overall fall theme.

Today is new release Tuesday over at Digital Freebies. Don't forget to check out the DF Blog, where they have two freebies available for today, including an add on to Melanie Ann's To the Moon kit.

Speaking of freebies, Diane over at Candy's Treats has retired her Metallic kit and is offering is a Freebie. It's a great chance to pick up a nice little kit with alot of pieces for free. While she says it's not as good as some of her newer stuff, it's still pretty descent.

Yarrow has put together a new 2-in-one kit called Opposites Attract. She has an add-on freebie on her blog and it probably has many pieces in it as some full sized kits do, so it's worth snagging.
I thought I'd mention it because I almost used it for these next two pieces, but I felt like working more in black and white so I put that idea on the back burner and used her Minutes to Midnight kit instead.

Miss Diamond


tabby cat


I was contemplating doing matching pieces using her freebie Birthday Wishes kit for my sister's birthday on Saturday, but I've decided to trash that idea in favor of sending her matching 8x10 of my fursons using the Minutes to Midnight kit. I'm going to redo a piece for Diamond though to make it more like, but opposite, the one for Tris, so the overall theme is the same, but swap out the colors. For example, Tris is a light frame on a dark background, her's will be a dark frame on a light background.

Finally a new store called Moki Joe Designs is opening up to help raise money for Moki the cat's Medical Fun. Not much there right now but you might want to bookmark it and keep an eye on it.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Jewelgirl's Jewels

I wanted to re-do the tag I'd done for Spooky Do because I wasn't all that happy with the effort, largely because the fonts didn't match.

While I was over at Jewelgirl's blog picking up pictures to use, I appropriated several from the rest of her feline crew.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


This one of Spooky Do uses the Fright Night kit and freebie add on from Creations by Jo. I'm not sure if the kit was inspired by the yearly event at Universal Studios, but that's certainly the feel I get from it.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


I used Chaos Priestess' Night of the Dead kit for this tag. I loved the way I was able to blend in the sort of Emo background Spooky's sitting in with the purple shift of the kit. I thought that turned out really well.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Its a little tough to make a sweet, shy little calico named Daisy into a Spooky Halloween cat, so I just sort of Gothed her up a bit. This uses the Dark Gothic (taggers sized) kit from Creations by Jo. I was rather happy with the circular theme I managed to accomplish in this piece.

Unlike the other pieces in this post, which uses one of the Alphas from from Free Digital Scrapbooking, I went with the Brushed Metal Alpha from Nettie B Scrapz on this one.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Shadow is a 13-year old, medium-to-long hair Domestic Cat. From past experience, I've found it's almost impossible to separate a cat lying in the grass from it's background, so I didn't even try. This used the Dark Thoughts kit from Creations by Jo. I'd originally wrote this one off as Goth-lite, and it sort of still it, but I find I like the charms that come with it.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


I'm sure there's a story behind the name, but I'll be honest in saying, I don't know what it is. I used the Night of the Dead kit from Chaos Priestess, a kit I find a really like, lost souls, fallen angels and all.

(I think I'm up to 10 or 11 tags for Miss Diamond's 13 spooktacular cats, T-13 this week! And I've still got several days to go!)

Fright Night Add On

Miss Diamond,Howl-N-Scream


I went by the Creations by Jo blog this morning and discovered a Fright Night add on freebie which addresses what I felt was a glarring need in the kit...A big round frame! You get two frames actually, one round, one square, a couple of bows, a pair of flowers and three different skull elements, one of which Miss D is wearing in this tag.

She also has eight stitched CU spookie shapes you can nab if you need more.

The Alpha on this, as in the previous tags was the Bloody Mess freebie from Free Digital Scrapbooking.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Eyes have it

I had a moment of giddy excitement at work on Friday when I ran across a free 30-day downloadable trial version of PSP X2. When I got home and looked it up - and read the technical specifications, my poor little heart crashed. It - much like PS CS2 requires either XP or Vista, and I'm still running Win 2000. (And believe me, I remember when that was state of the art!) ::sigh::

So we're stuck with my moldy old version of Photoshop (5.0). One for the Books did not have any Photoshop manuals either, although they did have a small selection of old computer related technical manuals, including PSP 8 to choose from. "We'd take anything for Photoshop," the girl told me, "but no one ever brings anything in."

Oh well. I did download a few more kits today but I'll get to that as I get to them. Right now I want to share some tags for some expressively eyed cats on the Cat BlogoSphere.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Theo has some really expressive eyes and he's obviously seeing some thing he just can't believe in his Howl-N-scream tag. What next he wonders? This used the Fright Night kit from Creations by Jo. Three of the next kits I just purchased came from Creations by Jo, which prompted me to find her blog. The extra bits in the kit - the ghosts and the black cat - where from the Mini Halloween Scrap Pack freebie from Kristen's Wicked Scraps.

The Black Epoxy lettering on this one, and the Bloody Mess lettering on the next two tags were from Free Digital Scrapbooking.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Yao-Lin does not strike me as the sort of feline to be afraid of anything. I mean, he lives with the Stinky Baby Mao, everything must seem pretty tame after that. But he obviously sees something out there that's not to his liking. This also used the Fright Night kit from Creations by Jo.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Kellie the Orange Cat was out trick or treating when she heard something and now she's not so sure she want to go knock on the door of that haunted mansion behind her. Perhaps it was the moaning of the wind, but then...could it also have been...oh my....

This used the Night of the Dead kit by Chaos Priestess.

I think - and I don't think this will be a problem - I'll do a T-13 with these tags on Miss Diamond's blog on Thursday. I'm working on setting up a new blog for my new Tabby Cat, Trisan, who is cowering under the bed despite the fact the demon cat from hell is somewhere outside.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Tag, you're it

I think I'm having a moment of revelation here. "Tagging" seems to be taking the work of an artist, usually a sensual female or something similar, and decorating it with scrap book pieces. I find a lot of redundancy in the scrap book kits and that probably because most of the kits are compiled from stock art that's been colored or modified in some way. Atomic Cafe and several other places also provide "scrips" or "actions" which help the scrap kit designs in creating something for their kit. This is probably why so many designs keep using the same tired old dragonflies and emo skulls and (yes butterflies and flowers). One of the reasons I like the kits that Kathy Haworth (Tizzy's Angel) puts together is that they're different. She uses a lot of her own photography in designing her pieces. She doesn't compile so much as she creates.

"Taggers" often purchase stock art in the form of PSP tubes to use as the center piece of their tags. Some of this stock art is photography.

I guess I see no difference then, in using photos of cats to create my tags, and if it came down to that, I could probably do my own artwork as well, as judging from some of the "tubes" I was looking at, I'm a better artist.

In any case, a few new tags:

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Momo lives down under and she's actually a very beautiful and colorful cat. I faded her out for this pieces as I was trying to make her look a bit "ghostly". I used the Gothik Vampyre kit by Tizzy's Angel for this one, it's really one of the nicer Halloween kits that has come out.

Cat,Howl-N-Scream


Poor Pumpkin, she always gets made into a pie around this time of year. Here she's begging for Candy Corn instead. This was done using the Spookable kit from Honored Scraps. It's a just a quick little piece that isn't meant to be be really spooky. Notice however the candle...

Now, skip on over HERE and have a look at the one in this layout of Miss Diamond. The kit I used on this was Gothic Rougue by Yarrow. Same candle, different colors. Although I think the designers in Digital Chaos share around more than most. I still like their work however.

House Panther,Howl-N-Scream


I mentioned the harvest moon element in the Night of the Dead kit. Well, here it is in a tag for Little Isis. This was actually a pretty easy job to do as Isis was in silhouette in the shot.

Finally, not really a tag, this was done to 8 x 10 size and is from Yarrow's A Pirate's Life kit, which I like quite a bit. (I liked it better before I noticed it shared a lot of elements with Bluedream Designs' work. Oh well.)

House Panther,Pirate


I love Diego by the way, I think he's a great cat and this worked well for Meow like a Pirate day as well as Fluffy Friday on House Panthers.