17th March 08 - DISASTER STRIKES

Our fishtank broke! Well cracked, leaked ... luckily I noticed it fairly quickly and luckily we had a spare tank in the garage, and luckily husband was there on hand! It was late Sunday evening where I popped into out TV room to lock the interior doors as our heating had gone off. The interior doors divide the house and when they are open its cooler as the back of the house is not sheltered from the weather. I noticed the water level had dropped in the tank and realised something wasn't right. Looked down the back and it was trickling down through all the electrical stuff for the tank, and making a real mess of the floor. The water had also penetrated the cupboards under the tank and several books were ruined.
So we spent our Sunday evening negotiating a 4 foot long tank into the house, adding gravel and rescuing fish and water from the old tank.
They all survived despite their ordeal.

Its a jungle out there!

This was such a busy day ...

This morning after the usual panic to get everyone ready and out the door we made it in good time at our destination. We went to the science museum, W5, in Belfast. The little playgroup were going, one of our children belongs to the playgroup so we had arranged to meet up at the museum and spend the day. We had a lot of fun, and at 4.30 pm we arrived home with some pizza hut pizzas, and the children were very tired and very happy.

But as I said ... IT REALLY IS A JUNGLE OUT THERE! ROAR!

Keep Om Walking Kids ...

one day you will get somewhere!

13th March 2008

well this post is really about the 12th march but I am sitting here way past midnight doing this instead of getting a decent sleep.

Wehave had some rubbish weather this week. apparantly we are in the midst of a hurricane but where we live we did not get full force of the storm. This is it! Awesome to see, us being homeeducators tend to be fascinated by this stuff.


We received a little damage, a few tiles and a damp patch, but our trampoline gave us a scare. It was lifting right off the ground despite being weighted down with bags of gravel and what not. With memories still fresh from the last trampoline incident we were not going to take any chances, so at 1 am yesterday morning hubby was out there pileing stuff on to the legs. Amazingly this morning it was still in the same place despite the 70mph winds.

and the last trampoline incedent ..... Well it was freaky, we have a full size trampoline complete with safty netting. We just got it last summer and the children absolutely love it and spent all summer bouncing on it. On the strength of what the shop that sold us the trampoline had said we left it built up for the winter. Well one afternoon whilst it was too wild for the children to play outside they settled down in the TV room to watch a DVD. Meanwile the wind whipped the trampoline into the air, flipped it over and set it on a journey ...
First of all the trampoline hit the garage roof, it knocked some tiles off and the guttering. Then it continued to blow and it bounced right over the top of our washing line which was probably 6 foot high and it hit the back of our house feet first and got stuck. My eldest looked us as the trampline was hitting the glazed wall of the TV room and he almost fainted with shock. Bt some fluke the windows did not break and the children were unhurt, despite being a little shocked.

The trampoline was wedged and it took four adults using full strength to get it unstuck. When we got it out and the right way up it was evident the force of the impact - the frame of the trampoline was bent! Now we are talking a strengthed frame here - you know the circumference of the jumping mat, all the springs are tensioned on it and it takes the weight of a couple of adults easy. So now the trampoline has two feet on the ground and two off - it still workd but it just doesn't look the same.

13th March 2008

Well, it isn't totally a "purrfect" day for me. Its been a hellish couple weeks for our family. And to top everything my grandmother has been admitted into hospital. She is in her mid 80s and a couple weeks ago had a little fall and hurt her back. she went to A&E and they decided to admit her into a community hospital for a couple days physiotheraphy, and said that would do the trick. Whilst she has been in for her physio she has managed to fall another two times and is now on Oxygen as her SATS levels are too low. It beggers belief how someone can get so sick so quick, and it just doesn't feel right that this could be the case, especially considering both falls she had in hospital she was left undiscovered for a period of time. Are they negligent? Well who is to know for sure. So she cant walk now, and they wont let her out of bed incase she falls again, she has hardly had any physio and is miserable wanting to come home yet she is too sick to come home.
I cant see a way out, if they dont let her walk she wont get strong. If she cant get strong she wont want to get better - going from able to invalid in two weeks is not a good sign.

We need to consider complaining, getting her moved perhaps.

2nd March 2008

Its been an age since I have written to this blog. I guess life has been pretty mad the last few weeks, and I must take time to fill you all in on the details!

For now I want to share some photos I have taken of my little baby Sol, well she isn't really a baby anymore as you can see.

HOW TO MAKE A GLITTER NAME

HAVE BOTH (animation shop) AS and PSP (paint shop pro) OPEN

save some glitters somewhere easy to access, you can find some glitters here
http://www.blackheartedwolf.com/glitter.htm

Go into Animation Shop, and click on file menu then browse ...
look for the glitter you need and click on it ...



still in AS


go into edit menu up top then click on select all

then back up to the edit menu and click copy ...


GO INTO PSP

And anywhere on the blank area in middle right click your mouse .... chose paste animation as multiple images. You will find the three (or more) layers of your glitter have appeared on your screen.

Meanwhile select an image if you are using on ... for this example I have used a transparent PNG which in this case is a shamrock. I like working with transparent pngs ... its my personal preference)



Now go into your file menu and click new

here are the settings that I use ...


size 600 x 600 resolution 200, raster and transparent background

click okay and we are ready to rock and roll.

Copy your clip art image and paste as a new layer onto your blank canvas .... I had previously resized my shamrock graphic to around 150 pixels tall at 200 resolution - that is your personal preference.

So now you have this ....


click on your text selection box on the left hand side - its got the letter A on it. Chose your text size and colour and place it on or near your shamrock.

I have used brush script here at 72, colour green!
Dont worry about the colour being flat here I am going to introduce a new technique to you ....



Now using your crop function trim your image down so there is small space all around ...

once you have cropped use your selection tool and click on your name ... the selection tool is the cross shaped arrow thing about third down on the left hand side. just click on the name - it wont do anything but you will see on the next stage why ....

go into Effects menu .... 3d effects, then click on inner bevel ...

use the settings I have here just so we are doing the same thing BUT it doesn't matter after this tutorial what you do ...



If you like a shadow you can add one too but please don't at this stage till you learn how to make this.

now you have your name in 3d and the shamrock flat ...

this is where we start to add glitter

use the little selection tool like earlier and click on the shamrock ... make sure the shamrock is still behind the name ...

now click on the bucket fill on the left hand side, is 14 icons down I think .... then click on the materials on the right hand side material properties will pop up then you can click on the patern tab ...

if you look down it you will see your three glitter files, select the first glitter file - click ok.


now take your bucket and either right or left click (depending which contains your glitter) your mouse over the leaves of the shamrock to fill it. You may have to click two or three times till the are is covered with your first glitter layer.

Now SAVE this as a PNG file (very important) call it 1

once saved use your back arrow to get you back to the bit just before you glittered ... dont go too far back otherwise it wont work when you come to animate.

Follow the step where you click on the material properties and select the 2nd glitter file .... save as PNG 2

and again back and do it for the 3rd glitter ...

you will with a bit of luck have 3 png files saved.

NOW INTO AS

Close all the stuff in AS you have open from your previous glitter search ...


look just below the file menu - there is a little icon that looks like a film strip ...

click on it - it is your animation wozard and will take you through the next few steps ..really easy.

first screen - select top ... same size ....
second screen - select whatever you like but for this glitter name I have selected opaque and clicked on the colour box and made sure I selected white ...... OK so far?

next screen - just leave it as it is ...

next screen - click yes and select your speed .. for this I selected 13 - again you can play with this setting

next screen you can browse and add your 3 png files you have saved from PSP



next screen just click FINISH


yay yay you have done it ...

this is what you will see



to see your glitter name click on VIEW tab up top then view animation ....

you see it - and hopefully like it - if not you can adjust the speed and size here but I will spare you those details until you master how to animate ...

Now to save ...... go into file menu and click save as - just follow the three screens that come up each time clicking next - and of course give your glitter a name.

So here you have learned two techniques - one is how do make some text 3d, the second is how to glitter an image. Hopefully with this tutorial you can figure out how to glitter other things ...

for glittering test - you apply the same method by selecting you materials as I have noted above, except you dont do the 3D bevel before hand.