HAPPY THANKSIVING

 Frost on the Roses

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/443997

Hi, all. I wanted to take the time to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and hope you get to spend it with family. As many as can make it to our house will be here so have started my shopping. We just got a call from our oldest grandson that we will have a new family member for next Thanksgiving. So that is exciting. Our family is very heavy on the boy side so it would be nice to have at least one more girl! But as long as it is healthy we will be satisfied.

More good news, anyway for me. But it involves more work which I really don't need. But as I posted earlier this month I was invited to make designs for a site called Brand Thunder. They are in the early stages but it sounds like a good deal for people that don't use Firefox or even if they do. The Personas from Brand Thunder can be used on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome. So today I spent some time submitting some. The way they have you submit is much easier and faster than Mozilla. So I may try to match wallpapers and Personas for both Mozilla and Brand Thunder. Their home page is:  http://brandthunder.com/homepage/ so you  might want to check it out.

I just finished reading an email from them and they want to feature me on their site so I have to put something together tomorrow! So that is exciting for this old lady. 

The design I featured today is a nice winter design. The wallpaper to match is available, too and the link to the wallpaper is under details at the Persona site. The wallpaper got a lot of hits very quickly and I got tons of comments on it so hope the Persona becomes popular, too. It makes all the time and work involved worth while.


So I am going to sign off for the day. You all have a great holiday and I will get back soon.

Glow Lilies

Glow Lilies

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/438875

Just a quick post to let you know I am putting some of my Persona designs on Brand Thunder and they can be used for either Firefox or Internet Explorer!  The link for this one, Glow Lilies is: https://bt-engage.com/themes/i4i4p/Glow-Lilies/download. Just in case you use Internet Explorer rather than Firefox you should be able to click that link and download it. I may try it...probably should have before I posted here.

Have a great day....♥♥

November

 Raindrops Keep Falling

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/434975

Wow, I can't believe I didn't take the time to post since the beginning of last month! I am sorry, but if you follow my work at all you know I have been very busy. I keep saying I am done with fall designs and then I get an idea or some graphic that I have to work on. But I have to start concentrating on winter and Christmas, which I am working on.

I have to say I like making wallpapers much more than Personas. I have so much more area to work on and can get an entire picture or theme made. But with Personas the space is so small it is hard to get an idea displayed so you can really see it. So some of the Personas aren't as good as the wallpapers that match.

I am beginning to think about the holidays and trying to figure out where everyone will be and who can make it here for Thanksgiving. This will be the 53rd year in a row I have fixed Thanksgiving dinner.  The first year we had a 1 year old baby boy and expecting our 2nd child in 3 weeks and I was 19 years old! We couldn't afford to buy a turkey and since my husband is/was a hunter and deer season was over we had deer. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all came for dinner. Our family always have each family bring something so it wasn't all on my shoulders. But I still remember it very well. I got very tired but it is a tradition I am very proud to have kept. My grandmother used to always bring candied sweet potatoes and after she passed on, my mother made them for years. But at a certain point I knew I would have to learn how to make them so I had gotten the "recipe" from my Grandma. I have to start working on my menu soon. It won't be hard because we have pretty much the same thing every year. But it is always so much fun to get together and with having little ones in the family again it will be so great.

But before we get to Thanksgiving we have our County Council voting next week on the Japanese developer that wants to build a luxury type hotel around his golf course with some commercial properties to go along with it. (This is all to be built on the 500+ acre farm that is next to us.) Of course the big, fancy homes will be clustered around his golf course, too. So far it has gotten approved going through 2 local government entities and this will be the last hoop they have to jump through. And I know the very conservative council we have now will OK anything that the development/real estate community brings to them.  So I am not looking forward to that. I know it will be appealed to the state and hopefully get tossed out then....but we shall see!

And of course the elections are next week! So don't forget to vote. Our state has mail only voting and that is great. You can sit down on a Sat. or Sun. morning and really take your time voting. I think you get more people to vote that way, too. This may not be a national election period but if you stop to think about it the local elections are actually more important and have more effect on you than the national elections, so VOTE!

Oh, I have to write about the unexpected surprise we had one morning last week! I went to go on the deck to hang out some laundry and there was a pygmy goat on the deck looking in the sliding glass door! It was the cutest thing ever and it was shivering because it was a chilly morning. I called neighbors to see if anyone had bought one but no one knew anything about it. We tried to catch it but that is impossible and it disappeared and we couldn't find it. A little later I looked out the window and it was sound asleep on the deck in the sunshine in front of the door. It wanted to come in the house! Well, we had to find out who owned this little guy so I called Animal Control and they said someone had reported it missing so it's owners came and he got to go home with them to be with his sister goat! They had just purchased them and when they were unloading them, he got away. They were afraid a coyote had gotten him since it had been 3 days. I wonder where he was all that time before he found our home. I am so glad he is home now and hopefully warm and well fed. But I have to say I fell in love with the little critter!

I hope you all have a great holiday season and thanks for using my designs. 

Love to all ♥

October

I am on my laptop while my husband watches football and I don't have my graphics in the laptop so this will be my first post without a graphic at the top.

I have started working on winter wallpapers and Personas. Kind of fun as I am having to hunt for more graphics. Last winter when I was making them I really didn't have a good hold on PhotoShop so didn't know as much as I do this year or how to do things so is a lot more fun this year and hopefully better designs.

Today was the first day I haven't done any designing at all for a long time. But I think it was good to take a rest from it. Just keeping a computer with everything updating constantly is a full time job. Firefox has new updates every other day seems like. And all of my extensions still won't work with the latest version. I have had one that I like called Gmail Manager that is so handy because it keeps your Gmail icons on the lower taskbar so you can see if you have new mail for more than one address. I had a hard time finding the update that would work with the latest Firefox so had to do a lot of searching to figure that out. It is hard for an old lady!  But keeps me on my toes. The one problem I am having with the new FF 7 is a jittery window and I don't like it. It is on my desktop and laptop so I tried opening FF in Safe Mode without any extensions and it was still jittery so I don't think it is my computers, but a problem with FF. I don't think I am the only person it is happening to, but you never know.

I have made some new Halloween designs and some are on line. One is called Haunted Halloween House and the wallpaper has become very popular. But the one I like the best is called Halloween Spirits and I will post that one from the preview on line:

Halloween Spirits

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/435097

 

I am still getting letters from people that like my work and that makes me very happy. I work so many hours a day on them so I get gratification from receiving letters. Thanks to all that take the time to write. I try to answer all of them.

 

Well I am going to sign off for now and will get back soon with some winter ones. I hope everyone is well and in good spirits! ☺

♥ to all!

 

September

Top of Mount Baker

http://nature.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/794443/

I am so bad about posting here, aren't I? I get so busy working on designs I forget to post and then I notice it is a month almost and I haven't checked in. Well, I am still here. We went on a photo shoot Wed, and I took a lot of pictures but as anyone who takes scenery pictures, most of the time they don't turn out like you hope. The one above turned out really well. The sun was working with me this time! But we didn't get to go up near as far as we wanted because our vehicle overheated! You have all read my complaints about no summer weather, well we are having it now and it is in the 80's which is something for this area and it is supposed to get hotter over the week end.

For once I guessed right on a Persona that I thought might be a popular one and it was the one I showcased last month, Purple Prize.  It got popular very quickly for some reason. Well, it is nice but a lot of them are nice and just don't go anywhere so I figure it was just luck!

I really don't have any news since I work all the time! So I know my blog is not very exciting, so sorry about that.

One recent thing is the Japanese corporation that bought the huge farm across and down the road from us is trying to get more development AGAIN! We have been opposing this for 20 years and so far have been successful but I am in doubt this time since the new majority of our County Council is backed by realtor's and developers. And of course any development helps out their pocket books. I must say I don't have a lot of respect for them anymore when they believe the dribble they spew. Farm land should be farmed, not golfed on. I wonder who they think is going to feed our nation if they develop every acre of farm land. We went to a Planning Commission hearing last night and I got up and spoke and told the truth about the farm and the crops it has raised since we moved here 45 years ago.  ENOUGH! I can feel my blood pressure starting to raise!

So back to work I go. I have made a lot of autumn designs, both wallpapers and Personas and wanted to post the one I am using. I called it Autumn Love. 

Autumn Love

 https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/430739

You all have a great September. Till next time.

August Summer

Purple Prize

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/427552

We are finally getting some heat! I know everyone else has been sweltering but we have been lucky to get 70° here and we have finally made it. Our first really good weather has been this week and it is supposed to last through the week end. Hurrah!!!

I think I had mentioned getting an inexpensive video camera. Well, we got it, it is easy to use and it allows us to share videos with people through a program that is in the camera itself. And then I discovered Windows Movie Maker.  So made a little movie and actually put it on You Tube. I thought I would share it with you all. We were taking care of our one year old great grandson one day and my husband decided he would attempt to use it.  So you can check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1oR4C0dlVs/ and you can tell we were having as much fun as he was. I just wish I could have deleted our voices and just kept his but I either can't or don't know how! Am still in the learning process. But let me know what you think of our beautiful great grandson.

I have been working too many hours designing as usual. I added one at the top of this post that I like and am using. It is funny because I will make one I think will really catch on and it doesn't! So it may not become popular but I like it and that is what counts, right? So hope some of you that like purple will enjoy it. Then I will notice one that I made a couple years ago and actually forgot about is on the Up and Coming list! So apparently I haven't got a clue about what people really like.

I am going out for a bit so enjoy this marvelous sunshine. I have laundry out on the clothes line and better get it in also.

Have a great week and hope the weather is good where you are.

August Already

Floral Elegance

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/422770

 Frog Loves Strawberries Too

https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/423871

Hello everyone and happy August to you. We have sunshine today as we should in August!

I posted two designs I thought turned out well for me. The first one, floral Elegance took a long time to make as their was almost 60 different layers I had to put in. The wallpaper to match it is on line also. This is the Persona I am using myself I liked it so well.

The second one, Frog Loves Strawberries Too was a fun one to make and I was tickled when I tried it on my screen. Fact is, I laughed out loud. So I hope others enjoy it. So many people are into frog "stuff". I have gone through different phases of liking something such as frogs. I had daisies at one point, where I had a daisy clock, mugs, etc. Then the owl phase, Native American phase and of course bears. I have a quite a few bear figurines, etc. in our house and outside, too actually. We have some big concrete black bears in a flower bed even! 

Well, hopefully our friends in the other Washington will come to a decision and get a vote soon. That is all we hear lately on the news, etc. My husband was reading an article to me out of the paper yesterday saying people are investing in wine and gold. I laughed and told him that was why I bought wine. He said not buy wine, but invest in wine. So I answered back that buying the wine and drinking it makes you feel better anyway. I think he finally agreed with me!

Well, I am going to get back to work. For some reason today I don't feel any enthusiasm for designing and my brain is kind of blank. I am sure something will inspire me soon and I will get some ideas. 

I hope you hall have a good week and take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Till next time.