Month: February 2011
Places to Go: Beijing Botanical Garden
Situated in the northwestern outskirts of Beijing, the Beijing Botanical Garden covers an area of 564,000 square meters. While the garden is counted among the major tourist attractions of the city, it also is an important base for science education and research. The Botanical Garden features many different areas, including a lake, the Perennial Garden, Peony Garden, Ornamental Peach Garden, and various other gardens featuring camellias, bamboo, tree peonies, ornamental cherries and many others. The most important attraction within the Garden probably is the Conservatory, a greenhouse, about 10.000 square meters in size. It holds the Rain Forest House, the Orchid House, Desert Garden House, and other various exhibitions. Several thousand differing plant species can be found throughout the gardens, some of them famous or very rare specimen. The metasequoia, for example, is one of these rare species. Discovered in the 1940s, these fast-growing, large trees that belong to the same family as the famous Californian Giant Sequoia, have been cultivated in one area of the Botanical Garden.
Behind the Scenes: Looping Elements
When it comes to traditional scrapbooking, many things seem to fall into place just naturally, while with digital scrapping nothing is coincidence. Everything that is on the page is there, because we deliberately placed it there. For example, while on a traditional scrapbook page you can randomly scatter elements by just throwing them on the page and adhere them wherever they fall, you can’t just “throw” things onto your computer screen, and hope they’ll stick with your digital page. It just doesn’t work that way. Another thing, that comes rather easily on a traditional page is the looping of elements, for example through a ribbon. You just tie the ribbon around the element, and place it on your page. Not so with a digital ribbon. Wrapping a digital ribbon takes some extra effort and knowledge of your graphics program to achieve the desired look. But no need to worry – it actually isn’t all that difficult. Let’s take a look at this page, for example: If you take a closer look, you will see that …
News: New Semester Begins
Today, the new semester has started. The students are back, and life will be returning to “normal” before the end of the week.
Treasure Spotting: You Have My Heart
As usual, it isn’t hard at all to find a beautiful gem in the galleries as they are full of treasures. So, today I want to show you … “You Have My Heart” by Zwyck Did I ever tell you I have a weakness for paint strokes and brushes on a digiscrap page? Well, here it is. Another layout with just that feature! I love how the paint stroke here is blended with different shades of red (and white, of course). The composition is beautiful. The way the photo was edited perfectly matches the color palette, and besides, it is an adorable picture. And aren’t those pops of green and red perfect for this page? Thanks zwyck, for sharing this beautiful page with us!
Word of Wisdom: Light A Candle
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Chinese Proverb
Saturday Feature: Oh, the Woes of the Internet
This is the weekend that most of my colleagues have been eagerly anticipating: the return of the students, since classes are going to start on Monday. For those of us who’ve been enjoying a somewhat decent internet access over the last two months, however, the return of the students also means the regressing of our internet connections, even to a point of where it’s nearly impossible to use the net. And though I myself am glad about the resuming of classes and normal life, I do miss the advantages of being able to quickly access a website when needed, and move about the world wide web more speedily. Well, I’d better get used to the fact that for another four months or so, using the internet is going to be a constant source of misery! Poor desk of mine, who always has to suffer at my hands, for all the beating it gets, because I can’t just throw my computer out of the window when I’m all too annoyed again!
Fun with Chinglish: Veteranen Imbiss Quadrat
Some more “Ginglish” for my German friends – Old Soldier’s Square. Note: When posting anything in the Fun with Chinglish section, I don’t mean to show disrespect towards anything or anyone in any way. I’m simply sharing the fun we get to have with all those great signs!
Freebie Friday: Keeper
Better late than never! Sorry, everyone, the internet has been so slow over here these days that it’s been too frustrating trying to post anything, but here I am, finally, with my latest freebie template for you: Again, I would love to see what you do with this template, so make sure to come back to this post (after you’ve uploaded your finished layouts to the galleries), and leave a comment with a link here. You never know: it might be your page that’s going to be featured next Friday along with the new template! Note: Please don’t re-distribute this template in any way (you may share the link to this post), and when you use this template, please make sure to credit it to Misty Hilltops Designs.
