MDS Content cd's for $1.00

Hey all my fellow My Digital Studio users!! I just thought I would tell you to RUN, dont walk, to the Stampin' Up Clearance Rack! The My Digital Studio content cd's have gone to just ONE DOLLAR!  There are several to choose from, all great.  I, unfortunatly have them all already and not for $1, but you should go grab them while they last.  Many dont show picures of the included content, but if you click on them you can see what collections were included. There are some great paper and stamps from previous catalogs.  Remember Just Add Cake? super great paper and its in the Sweet Retreat CD, as is Big Top Birthday and Domestic Goddess.  Love those.  And the Avant Guard collection has that great Flirtation paper and Pocket full of Posies paper, matching stamps too!  AND, the October, December Whenever CD has papers from Halloween and Christmas.  Go check them out!!

Zachary's Birthday Cake

I finished my page for the MDS Monday challenge #6.  These are pictures from Zachary's 4th birthday.  He is such a cutie and was super happy to get a Tom and Jerry cake. 
















This was the sketch.  As you can see I substituted pennants for the hexagons, but I had used a lot of hexagons lately so I decided to switch it up.   I like the way the sketch placed the photo boxes, cute.








One tip for this page is moving papers around in a punch.  When you use a paper punch with real paper, you get to position the punch over just the exact place on the paper you want to punch out. Maybe you want a certain color to show up more or to get a certain flower or pattern in your punch.  Well, the same is true in MDS.  When you paper fill a punch, you will automatically get the center of the paper.  But if you wanted a different area, you can change that.  Just double click the filled punch and you will get a screen like this...

just move your mouse around to get the highlighted area to be exactly where you want it.  In my case I wanted the number 4 to show up on the number papers and so I moved the papers around to highlight the 4.  Silly I know, and probably I am the only one who would notice the 4's but that's me :)
I also wanted a little something more in the bottom right corner, so I added some balloons in White, but reduced the opacity to 33% so they are there, but not really distracting, KWIM?

Thanks for stopping by today!

MDS Monday 6

It's Monday and for me that means My Digital Studio Monday.  Usually I post my page when I finish it, around the end of the week, but I thought this time I would post the sketch challenge on Monday and maybe you'll play along.  If you make a page but don't know how to upload it to the challenge site, no problem, I can help you with that. 
This challenge is a fun one as I have used a lot of hexagons lately, although the ladies at MDS Monday said any shape will do.   Last week I made a card using My Digital Studio and I didn't post it but I will go ahead and do it now since it works with this sketch.  I am still going to make a page for the Challenge though.

I used papers from the Sale-A-Bration catalog to fill my hexagon punches.  I have a tip for hexagons for you.  When you add them to a page, I find that it is easier to add 3 of them and space them apart as you like, then "Group" them together.  Then copy and past another set, and they will be evenly spaced like the first set.  This cuts time in having to arrange them all separately.  I blogged about this a while back, Here is a link to that post so you can see pictures of what I am talking about.









I also designed the inside of the card, here it is...

 

 

and here is the back...

This card was made for me to send to people who purchase MDS products from me during Sale-a-Bration, so I left the Stampin' Up! logo's and things on the back.  You can take those off when you are creating your own cards.   Maybe you can even make up a logo of your own!

Thanks for stopping by!  Check back later in the week to see the page I made with the Sketch this week!!

Willis Tower

Last weekend we took a family trip to the Willis Tower in Downtown Chicago.  Many of you know this as the Sears Tower.  I am having a hard time calling it the Willis Tower, since I've lived near it all my life and change is hard :)  My sister had a bunch of tickets to the sky deck and ended up not being able to use them, so we let the boys each invite a friend and off we went.  It was a great time, there was no one there!!  Well, there were a hand full of people there but we could walk up to the windows or telescopes with out waiting or getting in anyone's way, and there was no wait for the Ledge at all!  If you are not familiar with the ledge it is a glass box that dangles out over Chicago 1,353 up in the air on the 103rd floor!   The walls and the FLOOR are all glass!!  I was scared for sure, but put on a brave face for the kids.  My kids all went on with out any problem, My oldest actually started jumping up and down on the ledge to show how sturdy it was.  You can see our little friend Ben is holding onto me for dear life.  He was terrified, but I wanted him in the picture, so I scooped him up, they snapped the picture and I placed him safely back onto the Non-Glass floor area.  Bravest of all was my son David's friend Matthew who walked straight in, leaned on the glass to look down as far as he could.  I have to admit that I did not go all the way in, and luckily I had little Ben as my excuse for needing to stay near the entrance!

This is a two page spread.  I used the new download "Nobody's Business" This download is full of fun elements.  Frames and digi tape and splatters and bright colors, fun hexagons and cute page layouts.   

Here is page two.  

 Item number 132812 $19.95 for a 24 page photobook template, 27 piece SVG stamp brush set, 12 Designer papers, 49 embellishments, and 3 punches. 

Thanks for stopping by today!!

As always, I am happy to answer any questions you may have, email me!

 

Sketch challenge 5

I made this page for the MDS Monday challenge 5.   I love a sketch challenge, I'm sure I've said that before.  Sketches are such a great way to start a page.  This page is pretty straight forward, so I'll just tell you were I got the patterned paper.  The papers are from Big Top Birthday digital papers (123138 $4.95) great for kid pages.  The Big Top Birthday papers also have a matching ensemble kit (125834 $3.95) with lots of labels,tags and pennants for kid pages as well. 
There is still a week left to play along with the sketch challenge, why not give it a try? Here is a link to MDS Monday (My Digital Studio Monday in case you are new to the digital software)

here is the sketch...

and here are the digital kits I used...

Thanks for stopping by!

My Angel

Each year the preschool children act out the nativity scene at the beginning of the Children's Christmas program at church.  I love to see my little guys dresses as angels or shepherds.  This year it was Jillian's turn and she looked very sweet in her halo and costume.  I decided to go with just whites and vanillas in this page.  The snowflakes are from the "Snow day woodcuts" #131523 $5.95 download.
Thanks for stopping by!

Officially Awesome Valentines templates

Stampin' Up! released some really cute Valentines last week.  The download is called "Officially Awesome Valentines" and it has a very cute owl, a mustache, and more.  Check out what I did with the download. First of all, it comes with these cute pre-made Valentines.  But, it also comes with all the elements in the Valentines, such as the owl, the words, the heart flower, and the Mustache I used in my page the other day.  I added some candies to Cello bags, and printed out the Valentines.  You can size them any way you like, I made mine 4inches by 2.75 inches.  I then made a base 4.25 inches by 6 inches, folded in half to use as a topper for my bag.  I added the printed Valentines to the topper.   The one that says "you are my O' "Fish"ally awesome Valentine would be perfect for fish crackers or Swedish fish candy.
The sucker in one of the bags has a mustache on it.  My kids saw that one and wanted me to print out some more right away so I guess it was a hit.

I used a hole punch to make a hole in the center, and added some slits so that the wrapper would go through too.

"Officially Awesome Valentines" download only $3.95 for lots of fun!!

Free January Wallpaper

Hi all.  I wanted to let you know about a free download in case you missed it.  It is January Wallpaper.  You can add a fun snowy photo to the template.   item #132962.   here is a picture.

 

Go to my Shop now button and add the item number to your shopping cart.  completely free.  And if you missed this one, it is still available, item #132810. 

 

I will keep you posted about any other Freebies!!

Sketch Challenge from MDSM

This is the page I made for the MDS Monday Challenge.  The challenges come out every other Monday and this one ends Today at 11:59 pm, so I got it in just under the wire.  I Love challenges, especially challenges put out be My Digital Studio users because I know most of the people participating are also using Stampin' Up! downloads and I will get so many new ideas and ways to use them.  This page uses papers and stamps from the Winter Wonders download (#132567 $9.95) that comes with 15 stamps, 10 papers and 19 embellishments. The colors are perfect for my kids winter pages, I also used it on my Christmas cards a few posts back.  This is David attempting to help me shovel by using his little Bob the Builder "Scoop" truck when he was.  Here is the sketch from the challenge and a link to the site. 

A new Challenge will be posted on Monday, why not play along? 
Here is the winter wonders kit.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mustache?

What is the deal with mustaches lately?  My son David received mustache themed gifts this Christmas that had him scratching his head (sorry Amy).  His little bother Zachary however thought they were hilarious.  After living with them for a few days, David started to give them a little attention and opened the box of "Emergency Mustaches".  We all took turns with the various styles and choose our favorites.  On Sunday we were headed over to Grandma's house so we decided it would be funny to show up with our new mustaches.  Everyone had a good laugh.
This page uses some fun Arrow stamps.  There was a challenge on the newish Facebook group "simply my digital studio challenge" to use arrows in our pages, apparently another trend.  I've used them before and they can be a lot of fun on a silly page and this page is certainly silly!     The Arrows are from a download called Neon Notes, a fun download for sure.  The paper and photo frames are from Downtown Grunge, my most used download.  The font is a free font called "Things that we said" that I found online.

  Neon notes is $9.95  item number 132264 and comes with 23 stamps, 12 papers and 33 embellishments.  The mustache is from the new Valentines digital kit called "Officially Awesome Valentines template" #133009 for $3.95 - love this new download!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope I've inspired you to make something silly this week!

Creativity is Messy

I saw this on pinterest and had to make one of my own.  Too Funny!   I will frame it and put it in my craft area. 

Oops! I'm a bit behind

Do you know that old saying about the cobbler's children having no shoes?  Well, the same is true about the Stampin' Up! demo having no Christmas cards.   I ran out!!  I was super happy to make my cards in My Digital Studio this year and was happily mailing them out when I realized that they only have my children pictured in them, which is just fine for most of the people that I am sending them to, but not so good for others.  For example, there are quite a few people I know who have never met or may never meet my children, friends I've made over the Internet or in my crafting circles for example.  So, with only a couple days left till Christmas I searched through boxes of cards from years past to find lots of Halloween and Easter, Thank you and Birthday, but no Christmas.  So then I had an idea to make a Happy New Year card.  I did this a few years back and I actually received a couple last year so I thought that wasn't too bad an idea.  But then I missed that deadline too!! So, its Happy Groundhogs Day!  I made a sheet of Four card fronts in My Digital Studio, then added some ribbon and mounted the card on Gumball Green card stock and a Midnight Muse card base.

Finding Downloads

A common topic of conversion among MDS users is being able to find downloads.  The catalog has grown so much!! With new downloads being added every Tuesday, its hard to keep up.  I have to admit that I have quite a few of them, I wont even tell you how many "Pages" of downloads I have at the Stampin' Up! site.  I am so glad that they keep our library of downloads there for us, but you can only see them by date purchased and only a few show up at a time, so if you do need to reload them for some reason, this can be cumbersome.  And, what if you saw a download used by someone, and you want to get it too?  You need to know if it was part of a stamp brush, a kit, a template, etc.  Recently someone was looking for the download I used here:

.  I titled my post "Family Tree", but the name of the download is "Sweetly Nested".  It is under Templates, item number 129005 $4.95 if ordering through a demo.  I have also had people who bought the download ask me where to find it in their systems.  It will be in your 8 1/2 by 11 portrait templates.  Once you open the template, you can edit the page to make it into a 12 x 12 page if you want, that's what I did.  You can also find the elements of the template in your embellishments (the heart flowers and the birds) and other elements in your stamps (brackets, tree, leaves, etc.)    A lot of Stampin' Up! template pages are like this.  You find the whole finished page in your templates, and the parts that make up the page in your other folders.  I like to purchase templates for this reason, they are usually offered at a great price, and you get lots of little details to sweeten the deal.  The Toxic frameable is a favorite, as is the Homemade Happiness (I've used the sweet gingerbread man on scrapbook pages and Christmas tags, as well as a cookie recipe sheet).    Anyway, Since I was asked by one I thought others might have questions about downloads too.  If you have any, let me know, I will be happy to answer and share the conversion with other MDSers :)