Month: September 2011

Around Town: Student Military Training

Published by Sula H.

Every year the Freshman students have to spend their first month at university doing military training. That involves hours of exercising, usually in sun and heat (something that especially some girls dislike, because they like to keep their skin as untanned as possible). In any case, this year’s military training has been reduced to a minimum so far, since it’s been raining and pouring every single day for pretty much the last two weeks. Lucky for those girls, I’d say, though I haven’t figured out yet what they do when their training is cancelled due to bad weather …

Inspire Me: Alexis

Published by Sula H.

Ok, so she’s been next on my list for my “Inspire Me” series for a while now: Alexis, aka mrshobbes. I think I first noticed her because of her comments on some of my layouts. That got me curious, so I went and checked out who “mrshobbes” actually is, that is: what kind of a scrapper she is. And when I saw her gallery, I instantly knew I had a favorite new scrapper to stalk! Her style is versatile, from clean to very artistic, and she always has new ideas to bring out her photos and work with the kits. The best of it all is: Just last week she was announced to be one of the newest sugarbabes over at the Sweetshoppe. Well deserved, in my opinion. Anyways, if you haven’t checked out Alexis’ gallery yet, you should do so, for she might be just the kind of inspiration you need for one of your future pages! You can visit her gallery at DST HERE.

Food Corner: New Dining Hall

Published by Sula H.

Well, I while ago I promised you to post a picture of our new dining hall. It has taken me a little longer, but I finally managed to get a photo at our BBQ dinner last Monday. Fact is that our dining hall now is twice as large as it used to be, and it has undergone a real upgrade: cushioned chairs, sofas, and lots and lots of tables of varying sizes and shapes. The only thing some of us do miss are the big round tables where we used to sit and get involved in grand conversations. With the new setting, it’s more difficult to involve more than four people in one conversation. But then, you can’t just have everything, right? I’m sure, rather sooner than later we’ve forgotten all about those large round tables!

Behind the Scenes: Recoloring Gray-Scale Items

Published by Sula H.

Today, I have a very simple tutorial on how to recolor gray-scale items. This technique works best for papers and elements that only have different shades of the same color, or at the most have some white mixed in. Here’s how it works … Step 1: Duplicate Open your element that you want to recolor. Unicolored flowers, etc. are perfect for this. Make sure you duplicate your image (never work with your original, if you want to avoid ruining it by accident): Simply go to “Image” and then “Duplicate.” Step 2: Desaturate The next thing you need to do is desaturate your image: Go to “Image” again, and then “Desaturate.” You see, I am working with a red flower that has some white stitches. (The white stitches are just border-line to work well with this technique as you can see with the end result.) Anyhow, now you are ready to change the color. Step 3: Create New Layer & Fill with Color Create a new layer (windows key + shift+ N), and from your layout …

A Get-Better-Soon Card

Published by Sula H.

I just have to share this cute get-better-soon card I got from some of my colleagues last week, because I think it’s one of the best cards I’ve gotten in a long time! Don’t mind the parts I had to scratch out before posting it here (to protect some privacy, etc.); I just love how they tried so hard to add some German words, and you can see that you don’t have to go all fancy in order to do a little, but meaningful random act of kindness for someone! This card definitely did what it was meant to do last week: It really cheered me up!

Monday Highlight: Sweetshoppe Quarterly Assortment Vol. 3

Published by Sula H.

If you’ve been around my little digiscrap corner for a while, you’ll probably know that I love the SSD Quarterly Assortments. They are a great collection of mini kits released by the Sweetshoppe designers for one really low price. What’s especially exciting about them this year is that the designers have started to collaborate on coordinating their kits, which means that basically you get four full kits and one medium size kit for the price of less than one. A great deal in my eyes anyways, and with the newest volume they offer another full set of beautifully designed kits. Take a look … But it gets even better! While these QAs come with a huge assortment of papers and embellies, they were usually missing only one minor part: the solid papers, which I happen to use a lot in my scrapping. So, I usually had to look for some coordinating solid papers in my digistash, wich is quite extensive, though it takes more time finding the right paper. So, for this latest release, I …

Mid-Autumn Festival (ZhongQiu Jie)

Published by Sula H.

Like most other traditional holidays in China, the Mid-Autumn Festival has a long history. It is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which in the Gregorian calendar usually is in September or early October. Various legends exist as to the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival, in most of which the moon plays some more or less important part. In modern day China, probably the most important aspect of the Mid-Autumn Festival is the eating of the so-called “mooncakes,” small round pastries decorated with ornaments on the outside and filled with various blends of fruits, nuts and/or beans inside. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a public holiday, which means schools and other public institutions are usually closed.

Treasure Sunday: A Kiss

Published by Sula H.

I’m sure this is a day with lots of memories for everyone of us. To me, September 11 always is a day full of emotions as the memories of that fateful day in 2001 flood my mind once again, and I can still feel the same horror and sadness grip me when I see the pictures – even after all those years. But: On the bright side, life is going on, and there are lots of reasons for why we should celebrate life. And the layout I chose for my treasure box collection today does just that: It celebrates the joy and love of life. “A Kiss” by UltraCoolMama Not only do I love the soft colors, the beautiful composition, all the little extras she included on this page, I’m sure you’d all agree with me that the pencil drawing of the photo makes this page stand out from the gallery right away!