Learning via You Tube

Growing up I wanted to learn how to crochet.  My mom had some books which, I thought, had pretty clear pictures showing simple steps.  Then I realized, and got angry, that the instructions assume you're right handed.  I'm a lefty.  A few years ago I bought a knitting book from the bargain bin and decided, since it involved 2 needles, it HAD to be more straightforward to knit left handed than crocheting. Ever tried to learn to knit and flip the pages of a book?  Notsomuch.  Enter, the virtual classroom of You Tube!  While I was marginally more successful with the knitting (meaning I did more than a big, long chain), I never really made anything.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish with my blog was to learn how to do more in Adobe Elements.  Namely, editing photos, making collages, and fun ways to share my pictures.  Elements has a 'create a photo collage' button, but either I'm not using it correctly (I blame my left handed brain), or it is so basic it doesn't do what I want it to do.  After searching You Tube a bit, I found a tutorial, and with the aid of the pause button, I followed along and made my own collage template!

Neumann Christmas 2012 (1 of 3 in 24-hours)

It could look a little better, and I'm sure it will the more I play around with it. But, it did everything I wanted it to.  I found out how to do a border on my images, and I was able to drop them into each box and resize them to fit into the box - which was key, because my organizational OCD had placed each photo box EXACTLY where I wanted it.  Thank you You Tube.  Now I'm going to try to make a collage for our other two Christmases.