Not much going on around here with Spring break in full swing.  Yesterday I spent most of the day working on a family history project - a book to be self published. 

Today I am starting the Heath Vest for J.  He's really excited to get this sweater but wants to watch me make it so he can wear it "tomorrow".  I keep trying to tell him that it will take much longer than 1 day but it's not getting through!  Here's the Heath Vest for those of you that are interested.
The pattern is my first try at Intarsia but it also called for a provision cast on - something else I haven't done before.  It is available through Knitpicks.com but you can also buy a kit that comes with all the yarn in the colorway shown above (which is what I purchased) for $14.99 here!!!! I thought it was an amazing deal so that's what we have.  The pattern comes in 4 kids sizes (starting at 24" chest) as well as adult sizes.

So far I've only done the provisional cast one - I want to read up on Intarsia a little before starting it. 
In my search for information/help on provisional cast on's I wanted to share the following youtube videos which were really helpful.

Making the provisional cast on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3J-sUx_whE
Removing the provisional cast on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNFXO8MH2z0

Enjoy!

About a week ago, K reported that she had a loose tooth and finally today it fell out.  So tonight we are expecting a visit from the tooth fairy.  I think we set the expectations well, the tooth fairy will exchange the tooth for a "toonie" or should that be "twonie" (hmm, have to think on that one!).

Hope to get a photo of the gaping hole tomorrow along with a shot of the poster K made so that the tooth fairy wouldn't get lost on the way to her room (she was rather concerned that the tooth fairy might go to the wrong kids' room - and it's not like we have that many kids right?  only 3......, can you imagine if we were the 18 kids and counting family.......)

For those of you still waiting for your kids teeth to fall out, there's more blood that I expected/remembered and make sure you don't brush the teeth too hard that day or you have more bleeding!  Well come on, it's not like they come with a manual ;) (the kids or the teeth)

We read "Clifford and the Loose Tooth" tonight which is a big improvement over Robert Munsch's funny story "Andrew's Loose Tooth".  Despite the latter being the funniest, I think it may be a little scary for the newly wobbly-toothed child. 

I'm really excited to report that Who Do You Think You Are? is finally coming to the USA.  The series first started (to my knowledge) in the UK and has been produced in Canada (with Canadian stars).  Now the series is coming to the USA with a great line up of 7 famous people: Lisa Kudrow, Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee, Emmitt Smith, Brooke Shields, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

They have some interesting discoveries, including Slavery, Slave Owning (ironic considering this is Spike Lee's family), Holocaust, Gettysburg and more.

The series starts on March 5th, 2010, on NBC and is produced in conjunction with Ancestry.

For more information, watch the following introduction by Lisa Kudrow.

Loving how my Berry & Bramble cardigan is coming along!  I started this pattern early January (I think?) and have ripped out sections several times as I wasn't "getting" the pattern.  Now I'm moving along nicely and have almost finished the main body piece.  I just have to figure out how to do a 3 needle cast off to join the shoulders, then I can start the edge trim which is ribbed.

Here's mine:

And here's what it's supposed to look like:


The only thing is that I wish I'd picked another color.  After reaching my ripe old age! I found out that actually I am not an "Autumn", I am actually a "Winter". Duh!  So instead of wearing leafy, earthy tones, I'm supposed to be wearing clear, jewel tones (ruby red, emerald green, purple, brilliant blue, as well as pure black, white and grey).  The only brown I'm supposed to wear is dark chocolate. Oooops!

As a recap you might want to read this article on how I set up my Category Drawers digitally in Photoshop Elements.  Now while Elements lets you set up sub-categories and keywords at different levels, it turns out that when you write them to the files, that they are not hierarchical at all. (And of course, if you don't write them to the files, you won't have any at all).

This means that when you read them in Bridge, they are all jumbled up because they are sorted alphabetically by keyword, and the categories are actually ignored.  To some people this is OK, but in the Library of Memories this is not helpful.

Bridge can support Hierarchical keywording which is just what you need for the LOM system.  To check it is switched on, select Edit, Preferences, Keywords.  I suggest that you uncheck the "automatically apply parent keywords", and check the other two boxes (Write and Read hierarchical keywords).

So I had to look for a way to bring those hierarchies over from Elements to Bridge.  So this is what I did.

1. First you need to open Elements Organizer and make sure that your categories/keywords are all cleaned up, no duplicates etc.  You cannot have 2 tags the same even if they are in different categories.  To fix this, rename the tag to incorporate it's parent category so that the duplicates are now unique.

2. Use the Edit, Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info to file function to ensure that all the keywords are written in the metadata of your files.  You will need to do a Ctrl+A to select All before chosing to do this.  This process can take a really really long time in Elements so be prepared to walk away from the computer for an hour or two.

3. Next open a spreadsheet program (Excel, Works, whatever).  Starting with the top of your LOM categories (in my case People) open up your categories and sub-categories in the Organizer so you can see them all.  Back in the spreadsheet, start typing in each category/tag vertically in column A.  I had around 200 entries by the time I was done.  Phew!

4. Save your spreadsheet if you haven't already!

5. In your spreadsheet program, select File, Save As, and choose a text document (.txt) format with tab delimitation.  In Works this looks like Text & Tabs.

6. Now open Bridge CS4.  You are probably on the default "Essentials" view.  Select the "Metadata" view.  You should have a Keywords pane on the right side of the screen.

7. If there are any keywords displaying in the Keywords pane, right click on them to remove them from the keywords list. You can select multiple keywords if necessary.  It is best to start from scratch to avoid confusion.

8. In the keywords pane, on the right top corner is a drop down menu icon.  Click on it and select Import.  Navigate your way to the .txt file you saved earlier.  And select it, click Ok and import it into Bridge.  You will eventually see your keywords show up in a list.  This list appears alphabetically and is jumbled because there is no hierarchy, all tags are at the top level.

9. Using "drag & drop" mouse technique, go about recreating the same structure you had in Photoshop Elements.  Simply drag the sub-categories onto the top level categories, and the keywords onto their parent categories.

Now when I go to a photo, I can see the keywords with their correct hierarchy, a la Library of Memories.

I've written several tutorials about using Photoshop Elements for the Library of Memories system taught at BigPictureScrapbooking.com and detailed in the book "Photo Freedom" by Stacy Julian.

As a LOM 2009 alumni, I get to take the course for free again this year.  This is just as well because I never did finish "everything" in the course.  To recap, I organized my photos, created my cold storage, my binders etc all in PSE and even created some layouts with my newly organized photos.  But every organization system needs an overhaul once in a while and taking the course again this year is an opportunity to take a fresh look at what I've been doing, and how it can be improved (or not).

One big change for me since last year, is Photoshop CS4.  I purchased Photoshop CS4 back in July of last year.  It was a great deal as part of the Wacom tablet owners program, you can get a full version of Photoshop CS4 for $299 USD.  Anyway, I have to admit that I haven't fully made the leap from PSE to PS CS4.  This mainly boils down to the high comfort level I have with PSE7 Editor over the newly designed Photoshop Editor CS4.  The second reason is that my photos are currently organized in the PSE7 Organizer.

For those that aren't aware, Photoshop CS4 comes with it's own organizer called Bridge.  Bridge isn't a database driven organizer (like PSE Organizer, Lightroom, ACDSee).  It is simply a powerful file browser, more like the File Explorer in Windows or iPhoto on a Mac.  And I've been a little put off by the process of figuring out a new workflow for my photo organization/editing.

But a new year is a new year, and I'm feeling inspired, so I've embarked on the journey of switching my workflow from PSE7 to Photoshop / Bridge CS4 and I'm going to document the process, through in some tutorials and (hopefully) you'll follow me on this journey.

More to come....