Technical difficulties, please stand by

I'm having so much fun, and quite a bit of frustration, making some changes to my blog. It started out with wanting a new background for fall but since my old header didn't match anything (and wasn't meant for long term anyway) I needed a new one. I wanted to try making my own so I was thinking about what represents me and also my love of reading. I wanted to use a bit of imagination since I've enjoyed art my whole life (major in college) and while I don't get any professional use out of it now I have to be doing something creative - drawing, painting, x-stitch, needlepoint, some knitting, scrapbooking, and now blogging over this last year. While I'm not super tech savvy on the computer I can hold my own and am enjoying learning more all the time. Having kids around has been my best form of education and they are very helpful, when I force them to be. Of course there is that annoying dial-up connection that slows things down but I can work around it.

So anyway, I decided to take some photos of my mantel. We have a great fireplace in our family room, all built by my parents when I was a kid. The field stone came from our creek and they did the whole room, along with other projects, themselves. This house belonged to my grandparents first, than my parents and now we have it and I love it here. There is so much history for all of us and we've all made our mark. And my kids can't try anything here that my brothers (and maybe me) didn't try first. Ha! I played around with some things that were already on the mantel, old books, a lantern, a cast iron nutcracker shaped like a squirrel that had belonged to one grandparent or another and some of my favorite photos of my kids that I took in our yard. One was when they were little and were playing on their slide and the other was four years ago when my oldest was a senior and I told them they couldn't leave until they all posed for our traditional first-day-of-school photo. Don't they look thrilled? Not a single smile that morning. I arranged and rearranged stuff and took a bunch of shots until I came up with a favorite. I don't have Photoshop but I used some of the programs that came with my laptop to adjust colors, title, font and other good stuff. It's not quite there yet but I thought it was good enough to put on my blog. I need to work on the font style and color more because none of them were just right, and I tried a lot of different ones. The size of the header is also too big but when I decrease it the margins are messed up so I need to experiment more.

I am open to any suggestions and constructive criticism but please be kind. I would love to make it better but don't break my heart and tell me it sucks. This has turned into a much bigger project than I anticipated and I am proud of what I've accomplished so far. Besides, it's my blog and I'll do what I want to anyway. And I'd hate to have to hunt you down and make you take it back if you insult me! :)