West Point Revisited

About 6 weeks ago I started taking an online class through San Diego Continuing Education. We work at our own pace at home and on Monday and Wednesday night from 7-8 pm we come together through a special computer program and get to see each other's work in regards to that week's assignment. There are about 25 of us in the class.

This week assignment was to pretend that we get a call, "Can you design a graphic Book, CD or Video cover for us?" and you respond, "Yes, when do you need it?" " Well, we needed it last week but we had to fire the designer. Due to the tragic circumstances our Publication date has been moved up. Do you think you could bring in some thumbnails tomorrow around 10:00am?"

We can choose to design the graphics for a book cover, a CD/DVD Case or Video Box. (Choose one). That's hard enough, but, Jane, the online Hands-On-Print teacher did not give us the choice to pick our titles. Each of the 25 students had different titles to work with and decide how to interpret those words visually. My title with no explanation was "GRAND AND VIVID DAYS." Now what exactly is that conjuring up in my little brain?

The first night after the assignment, one student had already completed his task. It was very cleaver and looked great. His title was Leap and Pause. He used a beautiful photo of a very green lily pond with lily pads that were in bloom. Then he found a big old green frog and planted him artistically in the foreground on a big lily pad. He used a font he found called simply "frog font" for the title. It really looked great and so creative.

Back Cover - spine - Front Cover

Here is what I came up with after much deliberation and thought. First I went to the dictionary and looked up the words "grand" and "vivid". Grand: most important, admirable. Vivid: striking mental images; clearly perceived by the mind as a recollection.

I immediately thought of my son's experience and graduation from West Point. Erik was there from 1994 to 1998. He was on the football team that went to the Independence Bowl in 1996. His wife to be, Shannon also graduated from West Point the same year and was Captain of her Softball Team. They both went on to be Captains and Army pilots. Erik flying the Apache Attack helicopter and Shannon flying the Army Blackhawk helicopter.

I have already made 4 complete scrapbooks covering those years. But, I have videos that need to be compiled into one DVD. Hence this is the front and back cover of a DVD case for just that DVD.

Sidenote: They both served 7 years and then resigned their commision. They are currently living in Oceanside and work in San Diego. Neither of them fly for a living.

Genealogy Art Doll

Genealogy Doll

My Family- 4 generations

This is the first altered alt project I made in my life. It is also where I met my wonderful friend, artist and teacher, Georgia Lichon. She taught the class in Carlsbad at Geegee's which is a stamp store on State Street. She had taken this class at ArtFest.

It is my most special things I have ever made. It is approximately 4x12 inches. I had never painted before and she started me off using Lumiere Paints for the background. I wanted all the photos that I was going to use for their heads to be proportionate. So, I waited to add them at home when I could work with them in photos shop and choose carefully which head shots I really wanted to represent the female side of my family.

Georgia provided and incredible amount of something I had NEVER heard of: ephemera. I was to come and love this word and all it represents.

Helen

This is my grandmother, Helena Gorszczyk. For my grandma, I was able to find a Statue of Liberty charm in her box of trinkets. She was very religious and Catholic - hence the picture of the Sacred Heart of Mary. She was very intelligent and the first in the Polish neighborhood of Elizabeth, NJ to learn to speak English! She came to America as a young adult. She died when her 10th child was only 5 months old right after my grandfather buying her a washing machine. So sad for all her children.

Irene

The next doll is my natural mother, Irene. She loved to sing and one of her favorite songs to sing was I Left My Heart in San Francisco. There is also a photo of my natural father, Joe Ferrara. My mom was his mistress her entire life, never married and bore him two girls.

Nadine

Next is my mom since I was 9 years old - Nadine. Again, this is the photo of her taken the night before she died out at sea on the Norweigen ship, The Sagafiord. She loved to sew and made a lot of her clothes. She only sewed Vogue patterns. That is actually a piece from her cloth tape measure. The flower pin is a pin I made her in Campfire Girls back in the 50s.

Me, Silly Sal

Next is me and my high school yearbook photo. Plus, I photo of me in 1st grade. There's a skinny photo of me in the suit I bought with Carole in Palmsprings off the rack for Erik's football banquiet that year. Then there is me in my yell leader's outfit from Glendale Jr. College. Lastly is a photo fo the night I met my natural mother for the first time. Thanksgiving evening at my natural sister's home in 1980. This was a poloroid photo and very hard to clean up. I love to play MahJong and I taught piano and organ from when I was 15 years old until my mom, Nadine, died in 1983.

Kari

The last doll is of my daughter Kari Irene La Com. What is so bizarre, is that we named her before I was ever told anything about my natural mom and sister. It turns out, my natural mom's name was Irene. . . An athelete of all sorts including gymnastics, varsity volleyball and water skiing team at USD. What a "cutey patootey" our friend Suzanne would say. We have so much fun together. I am so glad her first home she purchased is only 20 minutes away. She is a character and we said the other day at my son's, that we invite her so that we have some entertainment. Her stories are hilarious!

On the back of each doll I have written their birthday information and a little bit about each person. The ribbon I choose is so feminine. It runs between the two pieces of chip board that Georgia had already cut out for us. I hope you enjoy this genealogy dolll and it provokes you to want to make one of your own!

Grandma and Grandpa Fedele

Mary and Salvatore Fedele

Are theses not two of the cutest people you have ever seen? How can they both be so happy? they are Ernie's grandma and grandpa Fedele. They raised 9 kids above the candy store they owned in Rochester, New York. They were both born in the gated city of Gaeta in Italy.

Mr. Salvatore Fedele

Do you see all the damage to this photo? What a lot of work. But, I needed a photo for my online class which the assignment was to restore and colorize a photo.

It took me two full days just to get the lines out of Grandpa Fedele's face and the top part of his suit. (I don't believe it was a pin-striped suit he was wearing). I then cropped just his portion of the photo so that I would have something to colorize and turn in that Sunday night.

The teacher suggest that perhaps I should have just colorized his hat and left his shirt and carnation white. I think I did a horrible job of colorizing his shirt. What do you think about whether the shirt should have been white or pink?

By Hand or Adobe Photoshop?

Card made by hand

A couple of weeks ago I started taking a online class called Hands on Print through the wonderful San Diego Continuing ED. The teacher is Jane Newcomb and I had taken some of her classes before on site at the North City Campus.

Throughout the semester we will study Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat. Right now we are on the Photoshop unit. The second assignment was to make a collage using layers and Photoshop. Since I have been making all my aunts this year, hand made cards in celebration of their birthdays, I decided to have a go at doing one on my computer.

I decided to make a comparison by using most of the same elements in both cards - on done the old fashioned way with paper, glue and ephemera and one scanning theses elements in to photoshop and manipulating them and making backgrounds from scratch.

The above example is the card I actually sent to my Aunt Sonie today. She will be 89 March 3. (be sure to click on the photo to see it up close). Only my mother and the youngest of the sisters have died. That leaves seven with the oldest living. Aunt Jean, having celebrated her 95 this past January and the youngest, Aunt Lee. celebrating her 78 birthday Feb. 23.

I essential used paper and glue and a metal charm. I printed out a photo I had of my Aunt Sonie after sizing it in Photoshop and cut it out and glued it on. One of the background papers had little metal rivets and added texture. The bird was cut out from a napkin. I could not adjust the colors, their brightness or the hue and saturation. It was made to fit a standard 5x7 card.

Photoshop Card

This is the card made in Photoshop. One of the first differences is that I did not cut out Aunt Sonie's image with a pair of scissors. I "extracted" her image using Photoshop tools. I also added a shadow to her image. I scanned in the ripped brown box material and had to resize it because our canvas for class had to be a 7x10. I should have darkened the shadows in the corrugated material. . . I added an addition sticker with the "Come Sail Away" and stretched it and enlarged the sun sticker. The green background I made exclusive in Photoshop from scratch. I was able to sharpen everything and brighten the colors. Each image was on it's own layer so I could manipulate them independently.

The final evaluation: I believe that each was created and looked best in the venue it was created. I love the card I sent that was made by hand. But, on the computer screen, the card that was created in Photoshop looked best on the screen. The one made by hand and scanned looks washed out on the screen, but looked great as I slid it into an envelope that had a short Happy Birthday note included and sent it off to Florida. Happy Birthday Aunt Sonie!

Leslie Altman's Friendly Plastic Class

Leslie Altman's Sample

I have been wanting to take a Leslie Altman's Class for a long time. I have never worked with Friendly Plastic and had no idea what it was or what you did with it. The class was at Stamping Details and ran from 9:30 until 3 pm. What a wonderful day and a very well-prepared teacher. We really had time to complete all our projects. It's my fault, mine are not all finished.

Below I am showing some of Leslie's samples from her sample board. They are copy protected and can not be used for sales or anything that would make money for you from them. She gave me permission to photograph them and put them on my blog.

Leslie's Pin

Leslie hung a dangle from the bottom of her pin and embedded little seed beads. Click on the image itself and it will open up so much bigger.

The leaves and flowers are from Leslie's silk wallpaper collection.





















Above, the hair is designed with Friendly Plastic.

The hair to the left was created with a hot glue gun.

Below is one of Leslie's "women."

Here are my renditions of some of the many things we made in class. Leslie had already cut the mat board and sprayed gold webbing. We just edged it with gold Krylon pen.

The house shape is a canvas board that Leslie supplied. We just had to add Lumiere paint and gold Krylon pen to the edge. She used the Cesanne font for the message. She created the man and woman in her editing program. The face she provided. It is from a mold and made out of paper clay. We used water color pencils to color the face.

Missing Door on left

To my surprise, my friend, Diane Chen from the stamp company, Pugnacious Stamps was also there. She is the one who helped me and the gal next to me learn how to make the lace look.
Diane had it down pat.

Lace affect used for "hair"

For the pin below the face was supplied by Leslie. It is a classic photo that she has sized and had it heat set laminated. You have to be really careful with the heat gun around the laminate!

A shower hook is colored with gold Krylon and used as a hanger for the pin. How very cleaver!

Pin that I made that needs a dangle

On the right is the beginning of my girl's head with hair made from drizzling hot glue from the hot glue gun. Haven't finished coloring it and it needs to be mounted on a card.







Work in progress with glue gun.





Dress? Above on the left is my first attempt at making a dress. Can you see the bust line, waist, hips? Next, I will have to add a head with hair. That should be exciting.

Tomorrow I will be taking another class from Leslie in "wet media coloring techniques". I am so looking forward to it!

Scrapbook Royalty Charity Event

Last Thursday when I was sicker than a dog with sinusitis and liquid in my ears (but not contagious), Georgia and I drove to Elena's Scrapbook Royalty charity event at Summers Past Farms just out the 8 and east of El Cajon.

I had been there a couple of times over the years and thought this was a marvelous place to hold an event. Elena, with her sidekick and best helper, Kat, did a marvelous job transforming the upstairs of the barn for us to dine, socialize and decorate an Owl chip board book They were so cute.

Upon arrival we were treated to scones and muffins, teas and coffee for our morning snack as the rest of the group trickled into the barn. We talked and visited and got to know people a lot better that previously we had thought of as casual acquaintances finding we had mutual interests and backgrounds.

At some point Elena directed us to the downstairs garden. She had the owner come over and tell us about some of the events that are held at Summers Past. The most interesting event to me is a Fairy's Sunday where children come dressed up in their fairy outfits and also bring little gardens they have made using some of the miniature garden accessories like arches and wheelbarrows, etc. etc. that are sold here. And, there is a parade!

Elena is on the right sitting down

In the meantime, we shopped and took pictures of everything and everyone. So many cameras were available. All wanted the photo on their camera. Kat's assisted us in granting our wishes. Kat was always there with a helping hand and a smile.

Everyone was hungry and lunch was ready. We returned to the upstairs of the barn to find it magnificently set out with beautiful sheer covers to protect our meal. We all toasted each other and Elena with sparkling cider and then jumped into the buffet that had been set up for lunch.

The Owl Book

Before starting to make the project Elena had brought , an adorable Owl book for us to create. Those of us who brought items to be included in a silent auctioned, stood and described their gifts. I brought a book I had made in a Leslie Altman class (F.Y.I. - she's teaching this coming week at Stamping Details in Poway).

Gloria on my right

Finally we sat down to begin putting our Owl together with paint and paper and glue. There was not enough time to complete the elaborate project, but we all took photos and promised to go home and finish the Owl book provided by Jennifer. We didn't need to bring anything with us because Elena provided us all with gifts of scissors and dots to take home with us.


As we went to leave after a really fun day, Elena showered us with gift after gift including: the oriental satin cushion that we had all been sitting, a porcelain little box with darling buttons, the sheer canapes that covered our place setting, flowers to be planted, a porcelain white little bird on the end of a stick for your garden decor. And there was more. Some of guests had also donated things to be given out. It went on and on and on.

Check out the cushions, aren't they cute!

On the way home, after all the goodbyes were said over and over again and pictures of everyone were taken together and with Elena, Georgia and I stopped by a new scrapbook store in Point Loma. What a darling store. Very shabby chic. It's called Scrapbook Tale. While we were there purchasing things we really didn't need but had to have, we saw a project on display that our friend Jane had been in the process of creating during Elena's bookclub at Pink Pineapple in Vista. It was a darling crocheted cupcake and the crocheted frosting top came off to show you that it was a box.

By the time we got home, I was tired and Georgia still had to drive home to Oceanside in the traffic up the 5. But, a really fun day was had with wonderful women all supporting Elena's cause in one day at Summers Past.