Dreaming Spirals

A quick question: does anyone know how to remove backgrounds in Paint Shop Pro? I want to remove the background from photos of various objects (like you get in a sales catalogue) and can’t figure out how to do it. Well, I can sort of do it but PSP doesn’t seem to act consistently… I’m sure it’s because I’m not a competent user!

Instructions for dummies, please!!!

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Found this over on Lesley Riley’s blog:

So - what sort of reader are you? Tell me!!

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Sharon reflects on Three years of blogging in her blog, In a Minute Ago. Her experience is valuable.

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This is a test - I’ve just installed the new (free) Windows Live Writer which is a blogging editor which you do on your computer and then upload to your blog.  I’ve read some good reports about it so I’ll let you know how it goes! 

You can upload photos from it too, apparently, and do stuff with maps and things.  We shall see…

This is Cwm, near Ebbw Vale in the Welsh valleys.  We went there on the bus on Thursday.  It has a factory shopping village on the site of the old Garden Festival (remember them, UK readers?) and this was taken from the edge of it.   

Hmm… no thumbnail options…(maybe it will do that automatically)  but I like the drop shadow.  

I love the colours of the mountains.

I like this so far - it lets you view it as you type and also as it will appear on your blog. 

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Bristol-Myers Squibb - one of the large drug manufacturers with its hand in AIDS treatment medication - is donating $1 to AIDS every time someone goes to their website Light To Unite and moves the match to the candle and lights it.

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Drat! My sidebar seems to have gone to the bottom of the page. And I thought this photo plugin was working… I will need to have a look at the html in the template and see if I can fix it. Bear with me! Anyone know what might be wrong?

UPDATE: Thanks to Marty for her comment that YouTube was the culprit! I fiddled with the dimensions in the html and that has done it, so hurray! I will be able to use YouTube again…

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I think this obsession with green could be something to do with all the emphasis at the moment on global warming and cutting back on our carbon emissions. I’ve been thinking a lot about where I buy our food from (how many miles it has travelled before it ends up being eaten), fairtrade and stuff like that.

I found this site about calculating your global footprint. In answering, I erred on the ecologically favourable side and still need 2 planets to support my lifestyle…

Have a go - it’s quite revealing!

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I haven’t done much quilting related stuff this summer, but having spent the last week making crafty things with kids, I thought I would post some pictures of what I had done with them previously, partly to remind me and partly in case anyone is looking for ideas. We have an all-age service at church each month and I come up with a related craft activity to keep the kids quiet at the beginning. It is quite a challenge because the children can be anything from 3 to 11 and there is only 10 or 15 minutes to do it in.

Here are a few of the things we have made over the months…

Pipe cleaner men

Treasure box

Masks which we decorated

This is what I’m doing next Sunday. A foot out of fun foam, decorated with all sorts of twinkly things.

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