Sale-A-Bration starts Today!

Yea! Today is the day!! Sale-A-Bration starts today!  I have been holding onto a download wish list Forever! I am so happy that I got to order them today!  I wanted to wait so that I could also add the FREE MDS DOWNLOADS that are in the Sale-A-Bration brochure.  There are two MDS offerings in the catalog, both super fun! You get to choose one with every $50 you spend. 
I have been holding off on purchasing downloads for weeks, and that was hard because I just love those Retro Fresh downloads from a few weeks back and those fun Valentine downloads earlier this month!  Well, now I have them so you will be seeing some in upcoming posts! Yea!
click the catalog on the right to view the Sale-A-Bration catalog.

MDS Monday #51

It's Monday!  This time Holly has a fun sketch for us.   I really like this sketch.  You could take this in so  many different directions from pretty to grungy, elegant to simple.  I finally decided to use these photos from a trip to the library we took last summer.   It was really fun.  We usually walk to the library once a week in the summer, participating in a summer reading challenge.  On this day we arrived to find a BMX bike demonstration going on.   X-Games Champ Matt Wilhelm was there giving a demo as well as a motivational speech.  He was really fun and the kids loved it.  David even took part in a demonstration.

Here is Holly's sketch.

  What direction will you go with it?  We can't wait to see.  Head on over to the MDS Monday site and check out what the rest of the team came up with.  Don't forget to add your page.  You don't need a blog to add your page, you can add it to free sharing sites like  www.mydigitalstudio.net  or www.splitcoaststampers.com.  These are great online communities to join and share.  The more you use MDS, the more you will learn all the ways it works and it will just get easier and easier.  This means you Kathy (L.) !!!  Can't wait to see what you come up with!!

Combining Challenges

Hi everyone!  I am participating in a couple challenges today!  This page uses a color challenge from the site "Pixel Maven's Retreat" and a sketch from "Stampin' Celebration"
I love Challenges, they are just such a great way to start when your stumped.   If you are looking for some inspiration, check out some challenges at the sites above, and of course at my favorite, "MDS Monday"

Playing with photos

I have been playing around with some photos that I will make into Valentines for my Daughter Jillian.  These were so much fun to make! I stared with a photo of Jillian with her arms outstretched. I added the bow and other fun embellishments to the photo and then printed out the card.

My printer is not the best, I did this just to see how it would work.  I ordered printed postcards from Stampin' Up! and they will look much better.  I also ordered them smaller.  This is 5 x 7, I ordered 3 1/2 x 5.  I think the smaller size will fit in the kids Valentine's boxes better. 
I used a hole punch to add holes for the lollipop to thread through. 

The lollipop version is not a good choice to mail though so I made this one with digital button flowers.

Or this one with Jillian holding a pennant banner. 

How about a Birthday version?

I also had a photo of Jillian with her arms up, and when I asked her what she should be holding she said a rainbow.  This was the only MDS Rainbow I had.  The clouds were in the embellishment, and I couldn't crop them out nicely.  I may try a free form rainbow instead. 

















Hope you like my fun photo cards!  Thanks for stopping by!!

MDS Monday #50!!

It's Monday, you know what that means!  This week's sketch is brought to us by Tami and she has added a challenge to use some "watercolor" elements in your page.  This is no surprise as Tami has been rockin' the watercolor look for a while now.  She has created some really beautiful cards and pages with this look.  You can check out her gallery at the MyDigitalStudio.net site and see for yourself!
I used flowers from "the Earth Laughs" download.  This is a fun download because you get the frame-able template all done for you, but you also get all the elements that were used to create the template, in this case some really pretty flowers and a sweet little bird, all for just $1.95.   I used the same flowers on my little tags, just cropped the edges off to make them fit the tag.

Here is the sketch.   As you can see I flipped it to be more vertical instead of horizontal. 



 Head on over to the MDS Monday site to see what the rest of the team has come up with, then give the sketch a try.  We would love to see what you come up with!

Endless Wishes

 

Did you love the Stamp set Endless Wishes but miss out on getting it?  It was supper popular and sold out fast!  Happily, the set was introduced as a digital download!  I know, not everyone uses MDS, but at $19.95 its a great deal even if you are not a digi scrapper.   Thursday I posted a page that I made with the set, using bright colors for the snowflakes.  Today I made a fun card, this time using more traditional snow colors.   One of the great things about digital stamps is the ability to resize them.  I also love that if you are going to print your cards out using Stampin' UP's print services, you can take advantage of the fact that you can print on all 4 sides (two outsides and two insides) of your card for the same price. 











Here are the inside panels.  They are actually white, for some reason they are showing up really dark here.

I also like to make sure to add my name to the back.  You could design your own signature logo and add that.  It's so fun to be able to fully design the whole card and personalize it for each occasion.
I also printed a bit of the card to use on another project. 

 I printed out the center panel and one of the inside panels to use on this card.  I almost added real rhinestones on top of the digi rhinestones, but they looked really good so I decided to leave it alone.  I also sponged the Night Of Navy card front with Whisper White ink, to match the digital version.  It doesn't show up in the photo but it does look very nice.

When I use dark card stock I like to add a panel in a light color to write on.   So, there you have it, a digital card, and a hybrid card. 
Thanks for stopping by today!

Guest Blogger!!!

I was thrilled to be asked by Stampin' Up! to be a guest blogger for their mydigitalstudio.net site! As you know, I love using MDS, and I love going to mydigitalstudio.net for inspiration.  Of course I said yes! I hope you hop on over to the mydigitalstudio.net site and check out my post!

My Little Reader

I found a challenge site the other day!  Yea!  I love challenge sites, they are such a great starting point.  Of course my Favorite MDS Challenge site is MDS Monday :)  but I thought I would play along with the challenge at Pixel Maven's Retreat this week as well. 













Here is the sketch.  I pretty much copied the example of Nichole Watt with her play on the opacity of the photo.   Head on over to the site and see what the team has created with the sketch.  Unfortunately, I found the site late in the challenge and missed their challenge deadline, but I will definitely check them out again and play along.   

Valentine Downloads!

Did you see today's downloads?  Super fun stuff!  I love the Valentine's Day downloads! I thought last years downloads were great, do you remember these?   They were the Valentines I made last year.  Jillian thought they were great fun!  The Download was called the "Officially Awesome Valentines" and it made the fun treats you see pictured below.   You can visit the old post here http://bethsdigitalcuts.blogspot.com/2013/01/officially-awesome-valentines-templates.html
to see how I made these with the MDS Download.

 

Officially Awesome Valentine's item #133009 $3.95

Here are two of today's downloads

 

 Love Is All Around Kit - Digital Download.   There are lots of fun papers and stamps with this one! It is going to be great all year round! 

My Digital Class Mailbox Love Notes - Digital Download

This download has some really fun papers and stamps too, but it also has a fun mailbox template that you can print and cut out.  You don't quite see all that it has here, so head on over to the SU store to see all the details and check out all of today's new downloads. 

MDSMonday #49!

Yea!  It's MDS Monday again!  This week Joan has a fun sketch for us! At first I was worried about the tall skinny photos, but I really like how it turned out.  I used the Frosty Day II kit, which is on sale as part of Stampin' Up's! "Weekly Deals".  The sale price ends tonight though, so if your thinking about it, act quick.  The kit is still great if you miss the sale.  It has 12 really fun papers and 25 fun stamps, including the trees and snowflakes you see on this page!

Here is the sketch.
Now head on over to the MDS Monday site to see what the rest of the team has come up with! Then create a page of your own and link it up with our linky button!  You don't need to have a blog to link it. You could upload it to other gallery sites such as mydigitalstudio.net or splitcoaststampers.com and link from there.  Need help with that?  let me know.  We would love to see what you come up with.

Frosty Day Download

Each week, on Tuesdays, two really great things happen at the Stampin' Up! website.   Both the "Weekly Deals" and the "Digital Downloads" get updated on Tuesday mornings.  Yea!  And lately there has been at least one digital download in the weekly deals too!  I happen to have a download addiction, which I am trying to work on, but every download that goes on sale, I already have :(   They are just so much fun!  This weeks "Weekly Deal" has the Frosty Day II kit on sale for only $5.97. Love this kit!  It is snow much fun to use on those pages with the kids playing in the snow, or Christmas cards!  I am working on using it for next weeks MDS Monday page, so you will see that page next week.   In the mean time I thought I would share this page from last year.   This page uses the snowman from a kit called "Days in December" and the "Hello Snow" from the kit "Winter Wonders".  Be sure to check back on Monday to see the new page I'm working on using "Frosty Day II". 

winter wonders #132567 $9.95

Days in December ( great for Advent Calendars)













Thanks for stopping by!

Week one on the Year in Review

So far I have remembered to take a photo every day this year!  Of course there have only been 7 days so far, but that's longer than some New Year's Resolutions last, right? 
I was also thinking about what I want the pages to look like and I am going back and forth on this one.  Part of me thinks I want to keep a very simple white background and just focus on the photos and the embellishments.  Then I saw this download called "A year in Review" and I thought maybe that would be a good download to use.  This Photobook template uses some basic paper backgrounds and just a few embellishments but it looks great and works for what I am trying to do.  The Photobook has a two page spread for each month, so I would have to add some pages.  I think I would just copy the basic page for the month and just change up the photo boxes.  Basically, I will end up with 5 January pages instead of the two shown, but they would all match and be similar.  I would then have 5 February pages that look like the ones shown, and on and on.   Here is what I mean....

This is what the January page looked like in the template. 
Below is how I changed it to accommodate more photos on the page.  At the very bottom you can see how I added some duplicate pages to the January and February areas.  I used the "insert duplicate page "feature".  I will then change up the pages in different ways to add journaling and photo boxes.

 

 

 

And here is week one, January 1st through 4th.

 

I also made an opening page, based on the template included in the download.

 

Yea!  So happy to have started this project.  Who else is working on a "Year in Review" type book this year?  Let me know what templates you are using.  I would love to hear your ideas!

 

 

MDS Monday January 6 !

It's MDS Monday again!  This time Cindy has a card sketch for us!  I love hexagons so this as a really fun sketch for me.  The multiple hexagon punches allow you to add several different papers, which is good because sometimes its had to choose just one or two :) 
I choose to use the papers from the kit "Wonderland Party" as well as the "Happy Birthday" from that same kit.  This kit has really fun whimsical papers, and I really like the colors!

Here is the sketch!  Now head on over to the MDS Monday site and see what the rest of the design team has come up with!  We hope that you give the sketch a try too!  Be sure to add your design to the site with our linky at the bottom of the post! We can't wait to see what you can do with MDS!

Wonderland Party Ensemble #134594 $14.95

This ensemble comes with papers, pre-made cards and tags and banners and more!  And I love the stamps, super fun.  Especially those really cute frames!!














Thanks for stopping by!