Trying to learn guitar

Hey Im tryin to teach myself the guitar...i know the chords and have no problem with my left hand, but i cant strum worth crap!! any tips? And when you read the tabs for TGA how can you tell if they are strumming up or down? sorry if this is a stupid question, but nobody round here plays guitar lol

red in the morning is one of the easiest gaslight songs for me to play, well, it uses some of the most basic chords and most used chords, can be a bitch to go from one to the other. But I'm still learning. My main problem is singing while playing, ugh!
As far as strumming, just have to listen and mess with it until it sounds right, that's my way at least.

It sounds like you were having the exact same problems as me, which resulted in me buying a bass instead!

But I would agree with Geezfools advice on just playing around with it until it sounds right, and would also add that you shouldn't expect yourself to be rockstar standard as a beginner! (this is a problem I struggle with...just need to practice, practice and practice some more!).

Play along with the song, hear when the higher notes sound first and when the lower notes sound first, then you'll know which way to strum.

For instance, Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts goes Down/Up, Down/Up/Down/Up/Up over and over again

and when I saw red in the morning, I really meant red at night...
sorry, lol
on some serious cold medicine

yeah, just listen to the song and play along. once you're able to match up the chord changes in time with the song, just keep rhythm and downstrokes on 1 and 3, and make it sound good with upstrokes and stuff

Cool to see I'm not the only one learning ^_^ I take a lesson a week and so far I've been pretty much SUCK but I'll get it. Practice Practice Practice and all that, yeah?

The best way to learn strumming patterns, in my mind, is to think of it like drumming. After all, the guitar is really a percussion instrument in a sense.

A great site that helped me out when I was just starting out was justinguitar.com. This link goes to his first lesson on strumming:
http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-006-BasicRhythmGuitar.php

Basically, just think of it as beats in a measure, like dancing. Often times it's 4 beats.
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
'Down strum' is 1 2 3 4, and 'Up strum' is all of the '&'s. You move your hand in that steady pulse (up down up down up down up down), but you don't hit the strings every time, depending on the strumming pattern.
Learn to strum the patterns in the lesson, listen and find others, and internalize them. Once you hear them in a song, you'll be able to pick out what the rhythm and pattern is.
Oh, and a good tip? Don't bother forming a chord while practicing strumming. Just rest your left-hand fingers on the strings so they mute.

That's pretty much what I tell my beginner students, and so far it seems to work pretty well. Don't fear the strumming! It'll be as natural as tapping your foot.