Heather here with my very first “blissful” blog post.

I am the “modern day hippie mama” who is excited and a bit anxious about gearing up to homeschool my kiddos. For years I’ve told people that I’m unschooling my kids. It fits my personality best. I had a hard time in school and I found that I just learn best on my own and by just doing it. Well, I figured my kids would be that way too, but I was wrong. My daughter is just like her Daddy and needs a curriculum. So, last year we went to our first homeschool convention, just to check it out and see. I found some curriculum that I really thought would fit my style of teaching and also fit Moriah’s style of learning. I was so excited, but sooooo not ready to start yet. We were newly pregnant with our third little miracle and I knew that mentally I just wasn’t ready. Thankfully, I got confirmation from some of the workshops that I didn’t need to be in such a rush and that she just needs to play and that’s her best way of learning right now. Phew… one more year of unschooling!!!

Last week was the convention again. I was excited again to learn some new stuff and to take another look at the curriculum. I loved the workshops I took and felt renewed. Then we went to the exhibit hall… WOAH… that was quite overwhelming. Even though we already knew what we wanted we still thought we should walk around to see what else was there. It was fun though…. so much fun that I ended up buying more than I went in there for LOL! It was blaringly obvious that buying one curriculum just wasn’t for me or for Moriah.

Later I went to a workshop about having a nutrition curriculum. Oh yeah… I was totally in my element… my hippie self was so excited to find a curriculum for natural health and nutrition. WOOT!!! My hubby on the other hand wasn’t so excited to have to pull out the credit card for more stuff LOL. Who knew I could be so excited about curriculum. I also went to a reading workshop and found another curriculum that totally suited me. Could homeschooling actually be fun? I’m starting to think it could be with the right curriculum. I’m starting to not feel so overwhelmed anymore.

All in all the convention was sooo good. It was renewing and I really learned some new and interesting things. I’m actually so excited to start in the fall… that part of me wants to just start now. Though, since all of Moriah’s friends are off from school I think we’ll just enjoy this last summer before my kiddo is a student in the “Greenwood School of Advanced Learners” as my husband calls it. LOL

Of course I had to scrap about my experience, specifically the vendor exhibit hall. I also thought it would be fun to do one of the portfolio challenges for my page. I chose to do portfolio #6 which is the Ad Inspiration prompt. I used Dani’s School Spirit and Grad add-on, Traci’s Slip Ins 2 and DJB Celeste, which has become my new favorite font!!!

Lastly, I wanted to give a little tutorial for shadowing the slip ins for PSE users. Traci has awesome instructions on her blog about using the slip ins, which you can find HERE. Unfortunately, PSE users don’t have the tools for shadowing it the way she does. So, for shadowing the top layer of the slips ins, I do these steps so that you don’t see the shadow darken your whole layout. Of course, now I wish I had PS so that I could just do it Traci’s way LOL and not have to do this extra step. BTW, this is how I shadow acrylics, vellum and anything else that’s transparent.

1) Duplicate the top slip ins layer
2) on the bottom “top slip in” layer, add your drop shadow… I like to turn off the top layer too, so I can see what’s going on better
3) on that same bottom “top slip in” layer, go to Edit –> Fill Layer
4) you want… Contents Use: “black” & Blending Mode: “normal”, Opacity: “100%” and make sure the preserve transparency box is checked
5) click on your paint bucket tool and make sure that black is your foreground color in your tools
6) with the paint bucket tool you’ll click down on each of the rectangles/squares (still working on that bottom “top slip in” layer) so each “pocket” will be solid black on that bottom layer
7) in the layers palette you will change the blend mode from “normal” to “difference”… now you will see that it became clear but still has the drop shadow. If you had turned off the top layer then you will turn it back on and there you will have your top layer of the slip ins shadowed w/o darkening the whole thing.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, I hope that was helpful for my PSE peeps.