Selfies!

I am playing along with the Project Life x Stampin Up Trio challenge, PLXSU Trio Challenge.  This is a fun new challenge group that uses the Project Life line by Stampin' Up! It was started by my MDS Blog Hop Friends and I intend to mostly use their challenges with my paper Project Life packs, but sometimes I will use my digital versions as well.  I am glad that Stampin' Up! has released the Project Life line in digital format, and we were told that they would continue to release them digitally through the Becky Higgins Project Life site.  This week the challenge was Selfies!  I had a fun bunch of photos that I found on my phone of Jillian taking selfies.  Too Funny!  It was quite a surprise to see them on my phone, I didn't know she could figure out how to do it!
Here is a link to the challenges at PLXSU Trio, I hope you will find some inspiration to help you get some fun pages done, whether digital or traditional!

MDS Monday #111 Cute and Done!

Hello Everyone! Jeanna has a new sketch for us today at MSD Monday!  She is keeping it simple this week and I appreciate that!  Sometimes we can get a little crazy with our stamps and embellishments in both the paper and digital world.  It's nice to keep things clean and simple sometimes.  I chose to keep it super simple by sticking with one kit for all my papers, Hello there.  Isn't that the perfect paper name for these photos? 

Here is the sketch.  I hope that you will play along with us this week as we wind down to the end of MDS as we know it.  Check out the main blog to see what the rest of the team has done with the sketch.  Then give it a try of your own!  We can't wait to see what you come up with!

Hello There Kit - Digital Download

$6.97

Mds Download - Digital Download

$13.97

Table by StampinBuddy. Try it FREE.

Sale on Digital Downloads

http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/CategoryPage.aspx?categoryid=1162&dbwsdemoid=0095176

Stampin' Up! is giving MDS downloads a nice send off by offering them at 30% off.  

As you have heard, they have decided to stop offering the line of My Digital Studio products and I am super sad about this.  I have been spending a lot of time looking for other digital content from other companies and as far as Stamps go, Stampin' Up! has the best offering.  I went through the whole category and made a list of stamp brushes I have to have while I can.  Luckily it is not a huge list because I already had most of them (I guess that is sort of unlucky since I paid full price). 
I have found a few other places to buy downloads and I plan on getting a few and seeing how easy it is to add those downloads into My Digital Studio.  I will keep you posted on where to find fun digital content as I find it!

MDS Monday #110

Hello Digital friends! We have a new sketch for you at MDS Monday!  This time Yapha is the hostess and she has a fun page, neatly tied with a bow.  I decided to use this photo of my sweetie who just turned 6 last month. 

Here is the sketch!  Be sure to check out the MDS Monday blog to see what the rest of the design team has come up with.  And we hope that you will play along! We can't wait to see what you do with the sketch!

MDS Monday #109

Hi everyone! Today at MDS Monday Heidi has us using both patterned papers and photos in a strip.  This is a fun layout for days that have lots of pictures.  I choose to do a day at Kiddieland! My two boys were too little to ride the ride by themselves so my mom had to go around several times as I had a new baby to take care of.  That was lucky for me because then I could take their pictures as they went by!









Here is the sketch...

We hope that you will play along with us!  Check out the MDS Monday site to see what the rest of the team has created with the sketch.

Backing Up your MDS files

As most of you know by now, Stampin' Up! has decided to stop supporting My Digital Studio after May 31st of this year.  While this does not meant that you can no longer use it, it does mean that if you have a problem with it, you will not be able to get assistance. Tami at MDS Monday had been working on making some videos to help you back up your software and downloads.  You can view them at the MDS Monday blog under the Video's and How to's tab.  

For those of you with MDS who love it like I do, here is my plan.  I am going to back up my files just in case. Then I am going to continue to use it as I have been for a few years now.  I looked into some other software and found that there is a lot of good stuff out there, but since this is working for me, I am not going to get rid of it just yet. 

When the time comes, and I need to switch, I plan on switching to the My Memories version 6.  here is a link.  The My Memories company is the company that made MDS for Stampin' Up! and works most like MDS.  There are a few issues though.  They do not have the same print options that Stampin' Up! does.  For example with MDS you can make a card and then choose to print 4 to an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet, or you can choose to print two to an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet, cut in half, or  you can print one to fold in fourths.   Also, My Memories does not have Stampin' Up! colors pre-programed, and as I like to make hybrid cards, that is important to me.  However, there are work arounds for all the issues.  Another Stampin' Up! demonstrator Janine Tinklenberg has make a list of all the Stampin' Up! colors and their RGB codes , You are wonderful Jan!! I will add them to the bottom of this post. 

In the mean time, I will keep on creating wonderful pages in MDS and see how it goes.  Be sure to check into backing up your files just in case!  And I plan to keep on posting pages and sketches here and I'll see if that is helpful to anyone. 

I am working on compiling a list of printing options for the MDS Monday site and I will keep you updated on that as well. 

MDS Monday 106

Hello everyone!  I am late posting my MDS Monday page today!  I did not feel well this morning and spent most of the day in bed. :(   Which reminds me of another great thing about digital scrapbooking!  You just need to open the laptop and create away!  I say this because my craft room is an absolute mess right now! 
Anyway, onto the page.  Tami has a fun sketch today and wants us to focus on our journaling.  I have to admit that I was a bit wimpy in my journaling here, but I am going to think on it a bit more and add some text later before printing.  This is my daughter at ballet class.  She really enjoyed dancing with the scarves.  They were pretending that they were blue birds at Aurora's wedding in sleeping beauty.  She and her friend Emily really got into it.  Aurora is one of Jillian's favorite Disney characters. It may have more to do with the pink dress than the story though :) 
Here is the sketch!  We hope that you will play along with us this week.  click here to get to the MDS Monday site and see what the rest of the team has come up with. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Adding Text around a corner

Last week we had a challenge at MDS Monday that had us journaling around the page using the free form tool. A few people have asked about how to get the text to go on the outside or inside of the line.  I found this old post that shows a few examples of how to make the text do what you want.  Here is a link to the old post.  I show you step by step how to get the line you want and how to get the spacing right so you don't have your words cut in half as they make the corner.  Hope that helps!  Let me know if you need any more help, or any other MDS questions!

Digital Easter Cards

Hello Everyone!  I have some last minute Easter cards that I made yesterday in My Digital Studio.  I loved the stamp "Blessed Easter" and so when I saw that it was available in digital form I just had to get it.  I look for digital stamps that would be great for use with Aqua Painters or other coloring tools.  When I heard that Stampin' Up! was going to discontinue MDS, I started looking through the stamp brush sets for other digital stamps that would be great for coloring.  I haven't yet found a new place for digital stamps, so I am making a wish list of Stampin' Up! stamp brush sets to get in case there is a last minute digital sale.  A girl can dream right? 

 I love digital stamps for coloring because I can enlarge or shrink them to fit my needs.  I made a sheet of stamp images and printed them out.  I have a printer that allows me to print on thicker paper through a special slot in the back. It can only do one sheet at a time and will print on my Whisper White cardstock and even watercolor paper. I printed one of each (Whisper White and Watercolor) for my Easter cards.

I love digital stamps because you don't get any accidental inked edges or blurry lines.  And I can use the Coloring tool to make some of the stamp image black, and some green as I did with this stamp. I could even have cropped off the sentiment and just used the tulips. 

I used my markers to color the images on the Whisper White paper.  I used Pink Pirouette on the tulips.  If you let an area dry and then go over it again, you can get some darker tones to get a richer look to your coloring.

I used my Aqua Painter to color the tulips on the Watercolor paper.  This is my favorite way to color.

I cut out all my images and used various scraps of paper to embellish card bases. I challenged myself to only use scraps on these cards, with a solid base of course. 

I love linen thread and so I had to add some of that to my cards as well, 















Thanks for stopping by today!