Take It Further, January and February

I have been thinking about my February piece, but don't have anything to post yet. As part of the memory theme, I'm going to use photos and scanned images to make a collage about myself in my college and early professional years. It was going to be black and white images, but I just discovered how to add color to black and white via Photoshop, so I may try that. I've been making a continuing, but very erratic, irregular, and frustrated attempt to learn more about Photoshop, and this will give me an incentive to practice. I find I can only stand a few minutes at a time, and then can't remember what I learned to do. A better manual would really help; it would also help to have Photoshop Elements instead of Adobe Creative Suite. (We have that for my husband's work, but Photoshop CS is way, way beyond anything I would ever need or be able to use. Ironically, he knows even less than I do.)

I wrote to the publisher of 4000 Flower and Plant Motifs to ask permission to use their motif so that I could donate my January TIF piece to Ami Simms' Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, and received an email this morning granting permission, so as soon as I make it to the Post Office for the prepaid envelope, I should be all set. This would be a good use for any of these pieces that anyone didn't feel the desire to save. I have an interest in the cause because my father suffered from Alzheimer's, and as I struggle with Photoshop, I begin to wonder...