Using My Digital Studio to Design

I needed to get working on my swaps for our upcoming team meeting on Sunday, so I decided I'd do a hybrid project to show the versatility of My Digital Studio.  I just love the Sweet Pea designer papers.  I  saw a card posted recently on a stamping blog somewhere, based on this one that you simply print out from MDS, all ready to go.  It is a 5 x 7 card, using the Sweet Pea papers add-on to MDS:

I thought it was a cute card, but I'm a layers gal, so I decided to create my card from scratch using My Digital Studio.  Mine is 4.25 x 5.5 inches.  After playing around for a while, here's what I came up with.  I'm still debating about adding a sentiment, but so far I like it without:

My hybrid card added some layering to the MDS version.  Mine is a tent card, with the fold on top.  I used Chocolate Chip textured card stock for the card base, an accent of Rose Red textured card stock with Pretty in Pink brads, and So Saffron card stock (non-textured) to frame the image.  The  bottom border is from the Sweep Pea DSP pack.  My main image is from the digital My Sweet Pea MDS add-on.  I cropped the original DSP sheet, made the image smaller, and printed it out onto Whisper White card stock.  This was then trimmed and adhered to the So Saffron mat.  I wrapped 1/4 inch Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon around the card once it was assembled.  Here's the hybrid version, which I made six of for our swap:

It was fun designing something in MDS - it saved me cutting up the little bit of Sweet Pea DSP that I have, and I was size the main image as I needed for my card, making me able to reproduce the main image multiple times to make six cards instead of having to buy three packs of the Sweet Pea DSP.  Man, I love My Digital Studio!  Have you gotten your copy yet?  It works on Windows and on the Mac.  I'd be happy to help you get a copy - simply email me or better yet, click on the 'Order Online' button on the left panel of my blog.  It will take you to my Stampin' Up! webpage where you can shop from the catalog directly!  My Digital Studio is item 118108, and is $79.95.  Did I mention you can use your credit card and shop online?  What are you waiting for?

A Good and Not So Good Valentine's Day

The day started out with our oldest doing acolyte duties at the first service at church this morning.  My DH and I then enjoyed some time together hanging out at our local coffee shop.  I did some cutting for a swap I'm participating in over at Stampin' Addicts. 

Last night I did some stamping, making an easel card calendar (pictures to come on Monday).  When I set it on my DH's desk to show him, his comment was 'Wow, this is nice, but isn't it kinda girly?'.  He thought I was giving it to him!  So, after getting back from the coffee shop today, I made a masculine version of it for him.  He loved it! 

We celebrated our Valentine's dinner last night with a nice piece of filet mignon at Outback followed by seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D (again!), which allowed us to go to a handbell concert at church in the late afternoon today.  Afterward, we headed over to Panera Bread for some dinner.  When we got home, our oldest called me upstairs, that our youngest needed me right away.  I knew right away that it was her hamster, Sandy.  During Christmas break, we noticed that Sandy had developed a tumor on her abdomen, below her right front paw.  I did some reading and found that female hamsters sometimes get tumors, and that there isn't much you can do in that case.  The tumor became the size of a marble, but she seemed to be doing well.  Today was a different story.  Sandy slept as normal during the day, but upon coming home from dinner, our youngest noticed that Sandy was very limp and having difficulty breathing.  Sandy hung on for about an hour, dying in my hands.  It was tough saying goodbye, but we knew it was coming.  Our little one took it well - both of us cried together as we stayed with Sandy during her last hour.  Knowing that Sandy is no longer suffering and is now with God in heaven helped to ease the pain a bit.  It will be tough seeing that empty cage in the morning.  We'll miss that cute little girl!

January Stamp Camp

Earlier this month, I went to my friend Erin's for her monthly stamp camp.  My upline, Jeanne, does a monthly stamp camp at Erin's and I really loved the cards Jeanne created using the 'A Happy Heart' stamp set (with some inspiration from other stampers).

I wanted to do the same cards at my stamp camp the end of the month, but Jeanne used some retired products that I don't have, so I needed to create some samples with current product.  Here's what I came up with.

The bride specialty card is the same as the one I made at Erin's.

 The blue card is nearly the same.  I particularly loved this one!  I added a Bermuda Bay layer on the back of the card to frame it a bit more.  The Brilliant Blue behind the main image was stamped with the dandelion hearts stamp (Jeanne's was plain blue).  The strip of Bermuda Bay behind the main image (with the brads) was originally supposed to be spritzed and crinkled up before laying it flat to dry.  The right edge was supposed to be a torn edge, but that's out of my comfort zone, so I left it a plain strip of paper.  I just wish it would lie down better.  I'll try some sticky strip at my stamp camp to see if that gets us a better result.

The tic-tac-toe card used retired DSP, so I needed to change it out as I didn't have the same in my stash.  I decided to use the Sending Love Specialty DSP and changed the whites to vanilla.

The last card also uses Sending Love Specialty DSP as Jeanne's card used retired DSP.  I really like how it turned out.  I have some extra Chocolate Chip square envelopes from those old Carousel Notes SU! used to sell, so I'm going to use those to go with the card - it's a perfect fit with the extra bulk of the card.

In addition to the four cards we're making, my stampers will have the option of making the candy tote I made for our team's swap next week (see previous post).  Can't wait until Friday to have some stampin' fun with my stampers from work!

Sparkles Spoiler Alert!!

Just a heads up to anyone who is on Jeanne's Sparkles team - this post includes a picture of my swap for our meeting at the end of the month.  If you don't want to see it ahead of time, surf away now!  :)

Now, for those of you still here - I found this cute project two weekends ago on a visit to Andrea Walford's blog.  I ordered the bottles to go inside (4 ounce size) and they arrived today (finally - it took 8 days!).  Andrea purchased the aluminum lid bottles, but they were more expensive, so I opted for a set of black lids and another set of white lids with the 48 bottles I ordered.  After making one the size of Andrea's while waiting for the bottles to arrive, I got the idea of cutting the project down to use just two bottles, so I cut her dimensions down by 1/3 with the hopes that the bottles would still fit just fine when they arrived.  I made my eight swaps last night and was so happy when I placed the two bottles inside today and it was a perfect fit!

Here are the particulars for my scaled down version:

Carrier/Box instructions:

1.  Cut 2 pieces of Real Red card stock, cut 5 x 8 5/8 inches.
2.  Score both at 1 1/2, 2 3/8, and 6 7/8 inches.  Fold inwards along the 2 3/8 and 6 7/8 inch score lines, folding outwards along the 1 1/2 inch score line.
3.  Add 2 rows of sticky strip along what will be the bottom of the carrier/box (on one piece of the card stock only) and adhere the bottoms of each piece together.
4.  Line up the top edges and punch through both thicknesses with the large oval punch to create the handle.
5.  Cut a 1 3/4 by 8 1/2 inch piece of Real Red card stock to hold the bottles inside.
6.  Score at 1 inch and 2 5/8 inches from both ends.
7.  Use a border punch such as the new Scallop Trim Border on one edge.
8.  Add some designer series paper to the center panel of the band - 7/8 by 3 1/8 inches.
9.  Add 2 rows of sticky strip along the 1 inch ends of the card stock.
10.  Measure up from the bottom of the box, 3 inches, and place the band just to the inside edges of the back of the carrier/box.
I used the Holiday Best Valentine stamp and the wide oval punch to finish off the band.

To decorate the outside, I used several products from Stampin' Up!'s new Occasions Mini catalog - the With All My Heart stamp set, the Extra Large Fancy Flower punch, and Sending Love Specialty paper, a large rhinestone brad (on some I used the clear, others I used a pink or red from the Fire Circle Rhinestone brads), some 2-way glue and Dazzling Diamonds glitter, along with Very Vanilla card stock and 1/4 inch grosgrain ribbon, and Regal Rose card stock with one edge punched with the Scallop Trim Border (from the Sale-A-Bration catalog).

Here it is:

It's been a rainy day and I had to once again photograph under poor lighting conditions - but I hope you get the idea!  I hope the gals like my swap.  We had to make a card or other project using something from the new Occasions Mini and I didn't want to make just a card.

Quick Birthday Card

Ok, so maybe it wasn't so quick (took me about an hour), but I think it's cute!  My youngest is headed over to a classmate's birthday party in about an hour, and I wanted a homemade card as my DD's friends have come to expect them.  My DD helped me pick out the colors (which ended up matching the new cute AMEX gift card inside that has pink cupcakes on it - didn't actually plan that!) and I got busy with my SU! cupcake Sizzlets dies, my SU! butterflies Embosslits die, my Cuttlebug and the Cuttlebug birthday embossing folder and got to work making Delaney's card.  I used Whisper White, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink and Chocolate Chip (plus Summer Sun for the flames).  I crimped the bottom of the cupcake as it just didn't look right otherwise.  The cupcake is popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals, and the cute little butterfly is also popped up.  I sure hope Delaney likes it:

If I had it to do over again, I would have added a layer of Chocolate Chip behind the Regal Rose to make it pop just a little more - but it 's stuck down, and I don't have time to change it!  Have a great rest of your weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Welcome to the Stampin' Addicts' Occasions Mini Blog Hop - Stop #9

Thank you for stopping by today for the Stampin' Addicts' Occasions Mini Blog Hop!  The Occasions Mini Catalog is the newest catalog from Stampin' Up!  Our blog hop is designed to show you many of the new products from this mini catalog, soon to be available (January 5, in fact).

You may have arrived here via Kim's site, Stitchin n Stampin' On Paper.  Weren't her projects using the Folk Flower Stencil great?  If you are just joining the hop starting with my blog, you can continue from here to visit all 23 of the blogs on this blog hop.  The hop continues through January 3, so be sure to make some time to sit back and enjoy all of the projects we're going to share with you!

My stop on the blog hop features the Well Scripted stamp set.  It is available as the traditional wood-mount stamps (117072) as well as clear-mount stamps (118601) - something new from SU!  I chose the clear-mount stamps for my projects, and I have to say, I really like them!

My first project is a scrapbook page.  It started out as a 12x12 page which not only uses the Well Scripted stamp set, but some new paper and embellishments from the new Occasions mini, as well as new punches (the Scallop Trim corner punch comes from the Occasions mini catalog and the coordinating Scallop Trim border punch comes from the upcoming Sale-A-Bration catalog).  I ended up participating in a scrapbooking swap over at Stampin' Addicts, so I scaled down the 12x12 to a 6x6 for the swap.  I love the combination of colors in this project - Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal, Rose Red, Old Olive, So Saffron, Pretty in Pink and Sahara Sand.

 

With Mother's Day coming up before you know it, I thought I'd create a card for my mom.  This project features the beautiful Cottage Wall designer series paper (DSP) from the 2009-2010 Idea Book and Catalog and a Mojo Monday sketch gave me the inspiration I needed to make it.  The DSP features Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive and Orchid Opulence.  Once again I used the Scallop Trim corner and border punches.  Old Olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon with Rich Razzleberry polka-dot grosgrain ribbon on top adds some texture.  The butterfly comes from one of my favorite sets, Great Friend.  I used Ice Circle Brads to glitz up the butterflies.

I decided to pull out one of my favorite cards from earlier this year and rework it a little to use for my final project.  Masculine cards are always a challenge for me.  I didn't realize it until I was assembling the card that I had a deer on my 'Dear Father' card!  The new sentiment completes the card much better than the original, in my opinion.  This card uses the Nature Silhouettes stamp set and Sanded background stamp in addition to Well Scripted.  I used a brayer to create the gradient background in the central image.

Thanks for visiting my stop on our blog hop!  Next up is Heidi's site, RunningwScissorsStamper where she'll show you some cute projects featuring Something Sweet.  Don't forget, you can come back and visit anytime!

New Blog Background

I've wanted to make a background for my blog using My Digital Studio, and my new cyber stampin' friend, Melissa, helped me get it to work.  Patty Bennett was the first that I saw to give info on how to create a blog header using MDS, but it was Melissa who was instrumental in helping me to get my background from MDS to Blogger.  It's a bit of a tougher process than the header, but I got it to work, and I'm really pleased with it.  I wanted something with a black tie type of look and feel for New Year's, so I used the Night & Day specialty paper download, some ribbon and brads to create my background. 

A big thanks to Melissa for taking the time to type out some instructions for me over at Stampin' Addicts!  Melissa is also one of 23 SA stampers to feature projects using products from the upcoming Occasions Mini catalog from Stampin' Up!, so be sure to stop by over the New Years' weekend to see all of the great ideas for using the new goodies SU! has in the new mini catalog!  It all starts on Friday, January 1!  Geez, it's January again, already?!

Art Journals

I had planned to make these for my girls for Christmas, but it didn't happen until afterwards.  After showing them their albums, I asked if they wanted me to put their names on them.  To my surprise, they wanted their gaming character names - so glad I asked first!  Last night I added the personalization to them and gave the albums to the girls.  They really liked them.

My DD's Painting

My oldest (13) received quite a few art items for Christmas.  One item was a set of canvases.  Last night she painted this beautiful scenic.  She's never had any real formal training but loves to draw.  It was great to see her use a different medium, and I really like how it came out!  Just had to share.  I didn't get my camera exactly flat to the canvas, but it's still pretty!

Happy Holidays to All!

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!