Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Upcoming My Digital Studio Blog Carnival

Did you know that Stampin' Up! is rolling out My Digital Studio, a digital papercrafting software package, on October 1?  To help celebrate its release, I'm participating in a carnival style blog hop hosted by Stampin Addicts. Starting at noon EST on Saturday, October 3, and running through November 1, there will be sixteen sites that feature at least two projects created using My Digital Studio (aka MDS).  You can access the MDS Blog Carnival by clicking on the button on my sidebar any time after noontime, EST on October 3.



MDS is a great way to get those photos into scrap pages that you can design in a snap. You can also make cards, calendars, and all sorts of other projects.  Even if you aren't a digital scrapbooker, MDS is great for designing your layouts before cutting card stock.  You can also do hybrid scrapping - use some printed out designs from MDS and add your own layers and embellishments.  Think of all of the possibilities!  I've been using it for a month and love it.  Be sure to check back on October 3 or thereafter to see all the great creations we have to share with you!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Father-in-Law's Birthday Card


Today my FIL is celebrating his 80th birthday, so I wanted something a bit special to give to him.  I had an extra card front of my New Year's card that I made for the Stampin' Addicts' Holiday Blog Hop back in August, so I decided to rework it and added part of the Medallion stamp, stamped in VersaMark and embossed in gold.  When I showed my husband, he said "hey, now that's CLASSY!"  Inside, I used a sentiment from the set It's Your Birthday - 'Life is not a matter of counting years, it's a matter of making years count' and then 'Happy Birthday', both stamped in VersaMark and embossed in gold.  I stamped the envelope to match.  I hope he likes it!

Friday, September 25, 2009

My Digital Studio Calendar


 
 Tonight I spent time working on a 2010 calendar that features some of my favorite scenic images from our Hawaii vacation this past summer.  I'm having fun learning how to use My Digital Studio, and this was my first time trying out the calendar function.  So far I'm liking how it is turning out.  The template I used had grey numbers and elements, so I'm busy changing them to black, which takes a while.  I have five or six months finished at this point, but I'm getting pretty tired, so I think I'll head off to bed!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

A Wreath and a Milk Carton Project

Friday afternoon was my first stamp camp of the new school year, and several of my coworkers, past and present, joined me to make Becky Roberts' milk carton project.  It was fun getting the gang together again to stamp and visit.  The only problem was that I had dropped my key tag punch when putting together my box of stuff to bring for stamp camp, and we found out early that the drop had damaged the punch and it wouldn't work.  So, I improvised making a template that everyone could trace to make the handle for their milk carton box.  Bummer, to say the least, as SU! just retired that punch!  Hopefully I can get it back aligned and working again.  Anyhow, I put together the Autumn Meadows milk carton I had designed last weekend while everyone else was working on theirs, and here it is!



Today was my upline's team meeting (hi Jeanne!).  This month I hosted our project instead of having Jeanne do all the work.  I shared the Big Shot Wreath project that I first saw on Jenny Moors' blog, and everyone had a great time creating their own version.  Here's what I came up with:



I used Chocolate Chip craft ink to color in the letters, and it came out much darker than I had wanted (Something told me to bring along the Close to Cocoa craft pad, but did I listen to myself?  No...).  So with the suggestion of Jeanne and our other team members, when I got home, I added faux stitching with my gel pen.  It helps tie in the stitched Chocolate Chip ribbon, and now I'm happy with it.  I hope you like it, too!

Have a fabulous week, and once again, thanks for stopping by today!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Weekend Sketch Challenge #98



I haven't participated in a sketch challenge for a while, so I thought I'd give it a try this time - with a twist!  I created my card using My Digital Studio.  I saw the sketch on Beate's blog over at Fresh & Fun and this is one of the cards I came up with.  I then discovered all of the embellishments for the Christmas Jingle Designer Kit, so I changed up my card and I like this version even better:

What do you think?  Thanks for stopping by today - have a fabulous weekend!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Big Shot Owl Treats



Last year I saw this cute post from Dawn Olchefske - a treat bag that looked like an owl using small cello bags and the Top Note die for the Big Shot.  To create this cute owl treat topper, I used Only Orange, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White and Basic Black card stocks, the large star punch, and three circle punches - 3/4 inch, 1 inch, and 1 1/4 inch.  I sponged some Close to Cocoa ink on his cheeks and eyelids.  The eyelids are popped up with a stampin' dimensional and the eyes were given a little detail using a white gel pen.  These are so fast and easy to make - I'll be making them for my youngest daughter to share with her classmates, and for my middle school daughter to share with her teachers and friends.  I think we'll make them for my October 'No Tricks, All Treats' stamp camp, too!

I'm so excited to be having my first stamp camp workshop of the new school year.  There will be 12 of us meeting after school tomorrow in my classroom to make the cute milk cartons that were designed by Becky Roberts.  I offered several designs for my stampers, and we'll be making the Cast-A-Spell and Razzleberry Lemonade milk cartons that I designed as well as the Summer Picnic milk cartons that my upline, Jeanne, designed.  I will also be working on an Autumn Meadows version that I designed last weekend.  Any extras that I have will be assembled and donated to our church Pumpkin Patch craft booth.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Fall/Thanksgiving Swap


I've been dabbling around in my craft room this past week, trying to come up with ideas for my fall/Thanksgiving swap for our team meeting next weekend.  I wanted to use the Autumn Days stamp set and thought about making a wreath card using the spray stamp from that set.  I was inspired by LeAnne last weekend when I saw the beautiful wreath cards she created using this set,  but I didn't want to flat out copy hers, so this is what I came up with.  I hadn't used Soft Suede yet, so I thought I'd try it on this card.  The spray was stamped in Soft Suede, then Always Artichoke, then More Mustard (I drew a circle onto the Confetti Cream card stock first with a compass).


I stamped the sentiment in the center of the wreath using the Holiday Best level 1 hostess set (love it!).  I used markers to color in the images before stamping - More Mustard, Bravo Burgundy and Always Artichoke on the leaves, and Soft Suede for the sentiment.  I added Soft Suede ribbon to highlight the wreath, and some Autumn Traditions designer series paper in the background, along with two vanilla 5/16" brads.

The rest of this weekend means time to finish preparing the milk carton kits for my stamp camp on Friday afternoon with the gals at work.  Since many of them can't stay more than a couple of hours, I thought I'd help speed things up for them by having all of the scoring and cutting lines done before stamp camp.  That part is done - now I just have to cut the DSP panels that I used on the Halloween milk carton I made last month.  I'm looking forward to having a chance to sit down and chat with the gals while we work on a project together!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A Card CASE and a Pop Up Cake!

At a recent stamp camp, my upline shared with we stampers a very cute card that she received from Mary Pickett as a swap during convention.  Using the circle scallop punch, Mary had created these cute ice cream scoops.  She also created her own DSP by using one of the texture plates on the Big Shot, but lightly brayered on some Pretty in Pink ink onto the plate before running the Whisper White through the BS.  Soooo creative!  Jeanne didn't have many of the half-backed pearls from the pretties kit that Mary used on her swap, so Jeanne used the 5/16" white jumbo brads instead.  I love this card and will be making it with my own stamp campers in the coming months.  Not the best view of it as I photographed it at night under my desk lamp, but you get the idea of how cute this card is!


We made two at Jeanne's stamp camp, so the extra one is going to my neice who celebrates her birthday later this week.  I wanted to make it an even more special card, so I grabbed my new Pop Up Cake Sizzix die and made a cake inside the card.  I know it opens sideways compared to the direction the candle would normally be facing, but I still think it's cute, and what's better, it still fits inside a standard-sized greeting card!  I used some old DSP to decorate the layers.  I hope she likes it!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Another MDS Scrapbook Page and a Helpful Hint

I've been trying to troubleshoot off and on all day today, trying to figure out why My Digital Studio on my Vista machine hangs, particularly when you try to adjust a font on an MDS project.  I updated Windows, reinstalled QuickTime and Java, uninstalled and reinstalled MDS, all to no success.  Late tonight I was reading a thread on Stampin' Addicts about someone who has MDS loaded on her Mac and was having a similar issue.  James, SA site administrator, made a comment about fonts sometimes causing problems when you have too many of them on your system.  Since I was having MDS hang when trying to work with the fonts tool, I had that 'a ha' moment and checked how many fonts I had installed.  Between the fonts and the various versions of each, get this, I had 422 installed!  YIKES!  So, I took some time to delete fonts that I never use, trimming my font list down to 180.  I went back to MDS, and guess what?!  Now it works!  If you end up getting MDS and run into font problems, check how many are loaded on your system and trim the fat a bit if you need to - you'll find it runs great after that!  After other posts I read about fonts, it sounds like my system should boot faster now, too!

Since then I've been working on a scrapbook album of the Girl Scout Junior Jam campouts that my girls have participated in over the past few years.  Here's a page where I took a layout from one of the kits that is part of the MDS software, then changed it by moving page elements around, deleting some, and sizing the pictures how I wanted them.  If you are into scrapbooking, I think you'll LOVE My Digital Studio.  Soooo easy to use!  It's a great tool to add to my craft stash, and I'm so glad Stampin' Up! created it.

Upsy Daisy Card

I'm still having fun using my new My Digital Studio software, new from Stampin' Up!  I plan to use the software to help design cards, so this is what I came up with for my first. I was having trouble figuring out how to add card stock layers, but then I tried adding a square punch, enlarging it, and filling it with either a color or a designer paper and viola, it worked!  I can see this being a really cool tool to use to design stamp camp cards and scrapbook pages - without wasting paper on a design that ends up not working out.  In MDS, I can build it first, then cut card stock and designer paper to create the real thing.  Soooo cool!

Friday, September 4, 2009

My Digital Studio

Stampin' Up! just released it's much anticipated design software, My Digital Studio, for demonstrator purchase during the month of September.  Customers can get their copy starting October 1.  My copy arrived yesterday, but I didn't have time to play with it until tonight.  Here's a very simple scrapbook page I created highlighting some of my favorite sunset pictures taken while on our vacation on Moloka'i this summer.  I look forward to getting to know all the in's and out's of the program and plan to use it as a design tool for cards and scrapbook pages.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Blog Candy Winner!

This morning I hopped over to random.org to have it pick the winner of my blog candy - a set of rub-ons from the new Holiday Mini that is now available for customers to order from.  I had 58 sweet comments on my projects for the Stampin' Addicts Holiday Mini Blog Hop over the weekend.  Drumroll, please...

My ninth post was made by Gayle - congratulations!  Gayle, I've emailed you to ask for your mailing address and to let me know which set of rub-ons you'd like. 

It was SOOOOO fun all weekend checking back to see the kind comments everyone was leaving me.  The acetate card was most people's favorite, but close behind was the winter garland project.  Quite a few of you liked the New Year's card, too!  Thanks again for visiting my site and I hope many of you will come by again to see what's new!