Alien Surprise!

What is a paper card doing on a digital blog you ask?  It was made with My Digital Studio!!  I loved the cute "Blast Off" stamp set for some party favors and things for my son Zachary's birthday last year. I wasn't sure I would use it very much after the one time, so I bought it digitally instead of getting the actual stamp set, since it was less expensive that way.  I was making a Pop - Up Birthday card last week and later when I was scanning the catalog I saw this set and thought it would have been great for the pop - up card!  So, I gave it a try. 

I love how it turned out.  My kids have been playing with it for days.  Jillian just loves to see the Alien Pop-Up!!

I added all the needed stamps onto a page in My Digital Studio.  I used the coloring tool to add multiple colors to my stamp.  I sized the astronaut so that he would fit nicely into the space ship.  I then printed the page.  I cut and punched out all the needed pieces and got to work putting the card together.  So much fun!!

One of the best things about digital stamps is the ability to resize them!  I love that! 

Here is what the party favor bags looked like, and some cup cake toppers.  So fun!

And some candy holders to pass out in class.













Thanks for stopping by!

MDS Monday #25

It's Monday again!  This time Rochelle has the sketch and challenge! Rochelle's challenge is to incorporate numbers into the page.  This page is somewhat busy, but it goes with the craziness that is happening in the pictures.  The kids had an idea to see how long they could keep the rollers spinning on the roller slide.  They had me set the timer on my phone and kept at it for a long time.  They started to run out of steam and asked me how long they had been at it and when I told them 9 minutes they were
determined to make it to ten. 

Here is the sketch.  Now head on over to the MDS Monday site and see what the other design team members came up with. 

Hockey Invite

My digital Studio is great for so many reasons.  This week I made a postcard for my Nephew's hockey team.  So quick and easy and hopefully they think its pretty fun too! 











Thanks for stopping by!

My Garden Fairy

 

My mom took these super cute pictures of Jillian a few Sunday's ago.  I tried a few different layouts but I just couldn't reduce the size of that pretty rainbow.  In the end I went back to a previous layout I used for MDS Monday a while back.   I used the color match feature to make the bottom background match Jillian's dress.  I also recolored the "drop shadow" behind the flower embellishment the same color as the background so that the flower has a tint of that same green.


Thanks for stopping by today!!

MDS Monday Card Sketch

This week at MDS Monday we have a card sketch for you.  This time Joan is the hostess and she has come up with a fun card sketch.  She says that this was a blast from the past for her because the sketch was inspired by a card she made for her very first Stampin' Up Convention.     Here is my take on the challenge!  

And here is the Sketch! 


















Heidi mentioned using photos in the boxes and that got me thinking about Christmas, since I've been playing with my Holiday catalog order on my paper cuts blog.  I made up this card really quick to give it a try.  The size and number of boxes are perfect for my kids!  I may have to play around with this again when I get new Pictures take of my munchkins this Christmas. 







Head on over the MDS Monday blog and see what the other designers have come up with, then see what you can make! 
Thanks for stopping by today!!

Zachary 2012

Today I have Zachary's initial page for his 2012 book.  I love how these photo filled initials give a summary of the year.  So Fun!  I posted Jillian's and David's last week, so if you would like to see other examples, scroll down through the past weeks posts to check them out.  This page uses papers from the Back to School download kit.  There is a video tutorial by Marti Crapo on how to fill the initial punch with multiple photos. Follow this link to see the video!   Thanks Marti!!

Monday Again?

 
 

It's Monday again!! Wow, summer is going by so fast!! 
As you know Monday means MDS Monday, so we have a new sketch for you!  This time Tara has the sketch and it's a good one.  Here is my take on it.  Hope you like it!  Now it's your turn!  Head on over to the MDS Monday site and check out what the other designers have created, then show us your take on it!!













Here is the sketch....

I look forward to seeing what you create!!
 

MDS Monday #22

Hello everyone! It's Monday again, and that means MDS Monday to me!  This time it is my turn to host!   I was asked to make a card project for this week (we are alternating card and scrapbook projects if you haven't noticed).  Of course you can choose to use this as a page sketch as well.  Just let your creativity shine!!  One other thing I was hoping you would try to do with the sketch is to use papers and stamps from one kit, if you can.  I just love how Stampin' Up! puts together kits that include papers and stamps and embellishments that all work seamlessly together.  It really makes for a perfectly polished project, don't you think?
Here is my card using the sketch...

I used the International Bazaar Photobook Template for my project. item # 130875. 
I love the bright colors.  I colored the stamp with the coloring tool, I love that option.  I zoomed in to get the petals perfect.  I also added some fun rhinestones to the centers. 

















Here is a page I made based on this template.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Check out what the other Designers came up with at MDS Monday!

Mr. Peanut

This page was made with a sketch from Kimberly Van Diepen and Heather Summers.  Here is a link.  I love sketches and I am always on the look out.  I decided to use this sketch for my silly Mr. Peanut photos.  Jillian wanted to meet Mr. Peanut so bad, but any time he got close she ran away.  See how she is leaning as far as she can away from him?  Too funny.  Zachary was brave and David completely not interested. 
The paper is from the Neon Notes digital kit, as is the tag.  The title font is a free one from online called BADABOOM, the journaling font was from creative keepsakes called "Ali's Hand".  It was free at the time but I don't think it is any  more.  check there each Friday for a new free font.  Here is a link.   Hope you like my silly page!! Like silly jokes, read the journaling!

Happy 4th of July!!

 


This is a pre-made template, one of the many fun templates at Stampin' Up's My Digital Studio.  A great thing about the templates is that you get the finished template, but also all the separate elements that are used to make it.  In this case that means all the quotes, the stars and the flag.  You can then use those on other projects as well.   You can also resize the templates!  This one would be a great card to send to a service member. 

This is a close up of the template.

These are some of the other templates I have in my frame, I change them out with the seasons.  Stampin' Up has quite a few frameable templates in their store.  Follow this link to see them.










It is really easy to change this template into a greeting card size.  Simply click on the edit button and twords the bottom you will see "change project size / type"
That looks like this...

You do need to keep within the same size ratios. For example, this template is a portrait style rectangle, so you should stick with rectangle shaped cards, not square.  I first tried a 5 x 7 greeting card size, which looks like this when you try to print it at home.

You can chose to print it out so that you can fold it in half to make your card.  To do this you would simply click on the "quick setting" at the bottom.  Here is where that is, and what the project will look like...

see where the red arrow is?  that is the setting for a greeting card.  The dotted likes will not print, that just shows you where you will need to trim and fold to make the 5 x 7 card.  You can also choose to make just a card front, and two will fit on a page.  Click the other Quick setting for this....

See how you now have two card fronts?  You can them mount them onto cardstock.   I decided that they were bigger than I wanted, so I changed the template yet again to a 3 1/2 by 5 greeting card.

I hit the "edit" button, then "change size / type".  I then clicked the 4 cards quick setting, which gets you this...

 

I printed them out, and them mounted them onto cardstock.  I added a few embellishments and my projects were complete! Quick and Easy!!

 

 

 I thought I would show you a great card made by my friend Linda Budzik in MDS.  She designed this card for Operation Write Home.  I love the hearts and the words representing the stripes.  Great card Linda!

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a wonderful July 4th!!

 

 

 

 

 

Another Initial! this time it's David's turn

Another initial page.  They are so much fun and a great way to start off a series of pages for each child.  I selected only pictures from 2012, and then I will arrange the pages featuring David in 2012 behind this one.  If you missed the how to, scroll down to yesterday's page featuring Jillian and follow the link for the video. 
Thanks for stopping by!!

Initial page

I saw a very fun page by Marti Crapo on the MyDigitalStudio.net site.  She used a large initial punch and filled it with a collage of photos.  How fun!  She also made a how to video.  I had used this technique in the past to fill a punch with multiple papers before, but never multiple photo's.   Here is a link to Marti's video.   I plan to make one for each of my children. 













Here is a page I made filling a punch with multiple papers.  You do this the same way Marti shows in her video.  The strips of matching papers behind the heart are separate and I lowered their opacity.

It's Monday again and that means a new challenge at the MDS Monday blog!  Yea!  It's challenge number 21!! There is a sketch and a trick.  I'm not sure what this technique is called, but you add multiple photo boxes to your page, group them together and then fill them with just one photo.   It's best to take a good look at what photo you want to use, then lay out the photo boxes so that they fall onto the main images without chopping something that should not be chopped.  I played around with my photo boxes a few times until I got all my family to be in one frame, and I made sure to bring that frame to the front.  It took a few tries because when you add the photo to the grouped photo boxes, you can't crop them or play around with them.   here is the sketch...

and a quick photo how to...

add your photo boxes.  I think adding a mat helps this technique really stand out, but depending on your subject, it can look pretty with out too.

Hold the shift key down while clicking on each one to highlight them all.  Right click and choose the "group" option. 

Now it will be highlighted like this, so how the box is around all four photo boxes.  When you drag your photo in to the boxes, it will fill in as if its one whole box.










See how the photo is spread across all four boxes? 

Here is one I did with this technique in January.  This time I didn't use the mat function, just used a drop shadow to show that there are three separate boxes.

















Head on over to the MDS Monday site to see what the other designers came up with.
Thanks for stopping by today!!