first Collage-o-holic meeting

left: my mom; bottom: my brothers John and Bennett at the Acropolis; right: my grandma's illustration in World Book encyclopedia; middle: old books of my dad's and a French clock I bought Don in Paris

My name is Ruth, and I'm a collage-o-holic.

I'm a normal person, really. I never realized this could happen to me. I am learning not to be in denial about it. Please help me. That's why I'm here.

I was looking for a little fun. I had seen a nice collage at someone else's blog as a header, so I Googled collage software, and found Picasa's site. I've downloaded Picasa before, and got rid of it without realizing its seductive pleasures. I should have left well enough alone.

After downloading the free software, I made my first collage, the one on my header. I was pleased. And then my friends started telling me they liked it, and that made it even more fun.

I decided I could have a different collage header for each season. So I pulled in my favorite winter photos to start creating the next one. Five sample winter collages later, I began to think what other collages I could make. That's when I made this one, of old photos and things.

My arm and wrist are killing me from so much mouse clicking. My arm is about to fall off actually. Yet I go on. My husband doesn't recognize me without the glow of the laptop on my face. We eat American cheese sandwiches, un-grilled. My mind is ever filled with new combinations. I don't read, I don't care about who wins the election. I cancelled dinner with friends this evening to make collages.

Don and the roosters finally had an intervention with me. Bob the Crèvecœur rooster attacked me, and I kicked back, my clog flying and missing him completely. They made me come to this meeting.

(By the way, if anyone is interested, here is the 12 Step Program for making a collage:

1. Download Picasa
2. Let it load all the photos from your computer
3. Organize photos into an album you want to draw from for the collage. Add more photos than you'll need since you have to play with them to see which look best together. I found it easier to organize an album into a file first in My Documents.
4. Find that album in Picasa, which will show you thumbnails of all the photos on the right.
5. Click on the little collage icon at the top to start a collage (next to Play - oh so exciting!). It will select all the photos in the album.
6. Now, Select All at the top, highlighting all the photos.
7. Click on Remove, sending the photos to the left side in a tab called "Clips."
8. Now click on the "Settings" tab and see the various patterns, grid spacing, layouts, etc., choose what you wish. You can change this any time, so don't worry.
9. Go back to "Clips" and start choosing photos and adding them to the work area on the right by clicking "Add." You can select and remove them any time.
10. You can go back and adjust your settings any time, and shuffle the photos until the arrangement pleases you. You'll notice that it tends to crop the photos in unpleasing ways at times, so just re-shuffle.
11. In "Settings" you can choose grid spacing, which creates borders around each photo, at whatever width you want, and you can choose any color you want! Wow!
12. Play with it until you love it, then click on "Create Collage" in the lower left, and voila! You have a collage of your favorite photos.)