Very excited!

Since I started dabbling in digiscrapping about a year ago, I have been managing to teach myself a fair bit using Photoshop Elements. I have come to love many things about this program and it's ability to not only edit photos easily, but also to create digiscrap pages that I can be proud of!

That said, the version I have been using up until now is version 2. To give this some sort of reference point, this program came free with our computer. Which we bought when we got married. Over six years ago now!!

Ideally I would absolutely love to buy a new computer and have something decent to be working with, but unfortunately with me working part time this isn't a huge priority right now. But I have been toying with the idea of seeing if I could at least upgrade our version of PSE so I can start doing more of the tricky things I would like to do in the world of digiscrapping.

I wasn't sure if our computer would even support the new version of PSE, but today I downloaded the free trial of PSE 7 with much hope and excitement. And many exciting things ensued:

1) It worked!!
2) So many things are in similar places, so I didn't freak out about not knowing what I was doing
3) The new format makes so much more sense! You can see previews of the effects you want to try, scroll through fonts with your chosen text to try them out on the page (this step alone used to take me forever on my stoneage version!), and they are only the first couple of things I noticed in the first few minutes.

I love that they haven't reinvented the wheel since version 2, just added so many features that make it much easier to use, as well as being able to customise things that you wouldn't dream of in the old version.

And yes, it's probably pathetic to be excited over this, but damn it I am! I love digiscrapping already but can only imagine the possibilities with the new improved version.

The other bonus is I was looking at possibly paying $150 plus for PSE 7 if I was going to purchase it, but I currently have a 30 day trial which will take me past my birthday, so guess what this little black duck is asking for! And I have noticed we can just class it as an upgrade because we have a stoneage version, and there is a redemption code as well, so we should be able to purchase the new shiny version for under $100!

Very happy :)

Blog daily? hmmmmmm

I thought a good way to get my blog started would be to have 'blog daily' as one of my challenges for the month. but as I sat here this morning, I realised that the small pleasures I am wanting to keep up with aren't necessarily the big things I can keep up with everyday. I had an absolutely shocking day yesterday with the Monkey, and it was all I could do not to lose it by the end of the day, so of course the small pleasure for yesterday ended up being not going totally insane ;)

But even so, this whole thing is a work in progress, and realistically I do not have time to be doing some huge crafty project every day, but there are always other small pleasures to be writing about.

So my small pleasure for today, is that after a day from hell yesterday, last night the HTC brought home my first bunch of poppies ever! I had been dying to get a bunch ever since the Monkey was born actually, but we had never quite worked out when they were in season, and they are just beautiful. And even better - he actually bought them early in the morning before he realised what a shocker of a day I was having, which I think even makes them more special. Flowers because things are crap are lovely, but I think I like 'just because' flowers even more.

There are only two buds out right now but I know they will look amazing once they are all out. I will try to take another photo then.

But for the moment here they are, my first gorgeous bunch of poppies!

(yes, photography is not great but that's one of the things I want to work on soon)

Oh and two more SPs for today:

The HTC has taken Monkey out to the markets to give me a break - much needed!
We are having friends over for tea which I am really excited about, we should do it more often!