arlblog

this is a crossword puzzle that came with my Arleigh Calendar 1997; a few hints are self-referential ( meaning they refer to other pages in the calendar ). I hope you enjoy it. click the image for a PDF to print. or click here.

click for PDF to print

last december I gave you [printable cubes] using creative commons images from flickr. this year, I’m giving you a handful of fonts. they’re all freebies downloaded from the ‘net. I didn’t design any of them. but one of them is a font made from my handwriting–little ducky font.

so go to [this page], download the zip, and enjoy!

1. don’t try to make them with graham crackers. you’ll end up being teased by your husband endlessly. believe me, I know.
2. when you have to admit defeat, buy the already put-together gingerbread houses, $9 each at target.
3. always always always buy extra frosting.
4. and quit calling it frosting. it’s icing.
5. each piece of roof is 1 package of necco wafers exactly, so don’t eat or break any!
6. kids know what they’re doing. don’t be bossy.

here’s mine:

and here’s my son’s:

difficulty rating: ★★✩✩✩
if you’ve never used layers or masks, then:  ★★★★★

how to adjust someone’s eye color the arleigh way. I don’t know how the professionals do it, but this is the method I use. you will learn how to use a layer and a mask.

although I’m a photoshop purist, I admit to whitening teeth, healing a blemish or two, and adjusting eye color. for this demonstration, we will change my son’s eyes to red. just for giggles.

1. download [this lovely photo] by right-clicking (PC) or option-clicking (mac) on the link, and open it in photoshop.

2. open your layers palette.

3. make a copy of the background layer by dragging it to the little folded piece of paper next to the trash can at the bottom of the palette.

you now have two identical layers.

4. now select the lasso tool, and click the second box that allows you to add-to-your selection (see image below) and roughly select the eyes (see image below the image below).

5. create a mask. ooh, isn’t this exciting?

while the eyes are selected, click the square with a circle at the bottom of the palettes menu.

your palette will look like this:

but your image still looks the same, so…

6. hide the bottom layer, the “background,” by clicking the eye.

7.  now we’re going to use the mask to isolate just the eyes. make sure the mask is selected by click on it once.

8. select the brush tool.

9. choose the hard round brush. change the size as you need.

10. choose black to make the mask conceal, and white to reveal.

11. paint on the mask with the black to erase away the skin and whites of the eyes.

12. don’t worry if you accidentally erase too much. you can switch to white and brush it back in.  also, you can always come back to the mask and adjust it before you flatten layers.

this is approximately what your file should look like before you move to the next step:

13. now click the eyeball box to show the bottom layer.

this is what you should see. it won’t look like you’ve made any changes, but you have. honest.

14. choose the image in the duplicate layer. in layers palette, click on the image in the top layer, not the mask.

15. open hue/saturation adjustment menu. in your image pull-down menu, choose “adjustments” and “hue/saturation”

16. in hue/saturation menu, make sure “colorize” and “preview” are selected.

17. play around with “hue” and bring up the saturation a bit. it WILL look too saturated. that’s okay, we’ll fix that in a bit. click “OK” when you’re ready.

18. change layer to “hue”. going back to the layers palette, make sure the top layer is selected and click on the little “normal” menu, choose “hue”.

19. now we’ll play with opacity. (opacity is the lack of transparency. at 100% opacity, the hue layer is not transparent at all.) click on the little arrow and choose a different percentage of opacity.

like maybe 63%

note: this would be a good time to go back to the mask and paint black to conceal, white to reveal. remember to select the mask in the layers palette before you paint on that layer.

20. flatten. if you are finished with mask adjustment, the eye color changes, and the layer transparency, head on over to the layer menu at the top of your screen and “flatten image”.

21. and you’re DONE. your file should look something like this:

last december, I created these [printable cubes] as my “I don’t want to buy stamps” card.

you will need scissors or x-acto, and double-sided tape or a glue stick or something like that.

to print “2010″ simply print [this file] 4 times.

try printing your last name, or a word that expresses how you feel about the holidays. peace, family, joy, or maybe bah, humbug.

you may want to create your own! simply print the [blank cube], and get your crayons out! a great activity for kids.

the squares are 2.5 x 2.5″ if you’re feeling crafty and want to adhere photos or scrapbook paper.

I printed mine on regular printer paper, which works fine, but you might want to print the blank cubes on cardstock if you’re coloring with markers.

I hope you enjoy these.

difficulty rating: ★★✩✩✩

for once I thought I’d post something useful.

fyi, I am on a mac, running OS X version 10.5.8, aka leopard. as far as I know, this works on all versions of mac operating systems. I’m too lazy to verify.

HOW TO CHANGE THIS

TO THIS

step 1 – create a new folder on your desktop.

you will be changing this folder’s icon, so you won’t screw up anything important. once you finish this tutorial, go ahead and screw up whatever you want.

file > new folder.

it will look like this:

step 2 – find a fun icon set on the internet.

just pick one at random. because when you’re done, you’re going to want to play with this all day.

try interfacelift mac os x icons and pick one that seems cute.

I chose creatures vol 2 ( click here to download the same set I used ).

it shows up in my downloads window (in safari)

here is the icon set that I downloaded.

and I’m going to choose the pink guy at the bottom, SmileCreature.

step 3 – select the icon by clicking on it once.

it will be highlighted like this:

step 4 – open the “get info” window for the selected icon.

file>get info

step 5 – select the new folder that we created in step 1. click on it once to select it.

step 6 – “get info” on the folder too. you should have two Info windows side-by-side like this.

step 7 – select the new little icon at the top of its Info window by clicking on it once.

you’ll see a halo of color around it to show you that it is selected.

step 8 – copy it. (method 1: ⌘ C , method 2: edit>copy)

step 9 – select the “untitled folder” icon by clicking on it once.

step 10 – paste. (method 1: ⌘ V , method 2: edit>paste)

your side-by-side Info windows should look like this (with whatever groovy icon you chose):

and your folder’s new icon should look like this:

isn’t he cute?

that’s it. but for you newbies, here’s how to change the name of a folder.

step 11 – click once on the name of the folder to highlight it and go into text mode.

step 12 – type the new name.

step 13 – you’re done! now you have a lovely empty folder with a new name and a new look. now go get ‘em, tiger.

there’s something that happens in a long-term relationship that’s hard to explain. it’s the having-fun-but-pretending-to-be-cranky thing. it’s very subtle. you could never manufacture it. it has to grow and develop spontaneously.

we’ve been together 15 years. the empty cracker boxes is one of our funny-but-cranky things.

when I look in the shelves to write the grocery list, I always forget Zesta Crackers, because my husband puts the stupid empty boxes back on the shelf! so to me, it looks like we have plenty.

it has gotten so bad, one day I made a stack of all the empty boxes on the counter.

last year I made little notebooks for the kids in my son’s 1st grade class with Zesta Cracker box covers.

we keep the dog’s Rx bottles in a little box made from the bottom of a Zesta Cracker box.

today I was cleaning up our back room, where the dog sleeps, and found 3 empty boxes under a table.

I said to husb, “are you saving these to put my christmas gifts in?”

he said, “damnit, why do you have to ruin everything!”

and the joke lives on.

so, here I am with a 7 year old son. it just occurred to me. I’m a MOM. a MOTHER. someone’s PARENT. what was I thinking? who the hell trusted me with all this responsibility?

I was lying in bed the other night thinking about how inadequate I am as a mother.

I fall short because I don’t cook amazing meals and I forget to serve him 5 servings of fruits or vegetables a day. or that he wears “flood pants” to school because the newer pants that fit are still in the laundry.

I let him watch too much tv, I let him stay in the shower as long as he wants and I don’t make his bed every morning.

he’s probably overdue for a haircut, too

this morning when he needed clean socks, he went to look on the couch, out of habit, rather than his sock drawer (I had cleaned the laundry off the couch a day earlier.)

I think it must be like when an actor refuses to watch their own movies. you have to keep your “forward only” blinders on, or you’ll be paralyzed by the self-criticism. nay, the self-loathing. I act like my parenting shit doesn’t stink. but in fact I’m scared to death. I’ll readily admit I make a lot of mistakes.

I might not bake cookies from scratch for him, but he knows his negative numbers already, because I taught him this weekend. and today on the way to school we discussed politics, liberal/conservative, left/right wing, and why there’s a star on top of a typical christmas tree.