MDS Monday # 72

It's MDS Monday time again!! Holly has a fun sketch for us this week.  Holly's sketched used a  speech bubble and lately the only speech I hear is Jillian singing " let it go" from the movie frozen.   I had a lot of pictures of her twirling around from a few weeks back, so this sketch worked out really nicely for me.  

Here is the sketch!

Head on over to the MDS Monday blog and see what the rest of the team has come up with.  And then give the sketch a try of your own!  We would love to see what you come up with!!












I used the Love is all around kit for my page.
#136821 $9.95

Weekly Deals

 

Did you know that Stampin' Up! releases new weekly deals every Tuesday?  Well they do and they almost always include a download.   This week includes a really fun summer time download that I have used several times in the past.  I Just love the red, white and blue and it is perfect for photos of family picnics or parades, ball games, you name it.  I guess that's why they call it the Summer Possibilities kit!

This kit has 12 fun papers and lots of embellishments.  Here are some of my past projects that were made with this kit.  A fun park page...

and a party invite from last year...

And I am sure I will use this kit a few times this summer as well!  A great deal at $4.77!!

Ombre Background in MDS

Hi everyone!  I know, it's Tuesday, and I am just now posting my MDS Monday page!  I thought I had scheduled it over a week ago but I guess I didn't.  Oh well, better late than never!  You may also recognize the photo, its the same one I used for the virtual crop last week.  I actually made this one first.  One of the many great things about creating digitally is that you can play around with a photo on many different layouts and see which one you like best. 
On to the Ombre effect.  I created this effect on my page with punches.  I added a 12 x 12 square and filled it with soft sky.  I reduced the opacity to 20%.  Next I added a 12 x 10 in punch and added soft sky again.  Layering the colors will give you a gradually darker effect as you go down.   You can play around with the opacity in your layers to get more subtle or more noticeable shades.  

Here is the sketch.  Head on over to the MDS Monday blog and see what the rest of the design team has come up with.  We hope you will give the sketch a try too! 

Another virtual crop page!

This is another page from the virtual crop night on facebook.  We were working on the idea of "masking" which in stamping is an area you would cover up so that you could apply ink around it.  You can achieve a similar look in digital as well.  Here I added white circles on a white background. The "Drop shadow' acts as the ink I would have sponged around them if it were paper. 

Normally I leave the drop shadow in the default position, but in this case I changed just about everything.  I increased the blur, that is how large the shadow casts onto the page, I increased the opacity to make it darker, and I changed the color to make it Lost lagoon. 

I did a similar thing on this card here. I used a stamp and background in the same color, then added a shadow to the stamp to get those diagonal lines.  They give a look like that of an embossing folder if you had used paper.
















And look, I was the "pick of the crop" winner for the page I posted yesterday!

here is the page in case you missed it...

Thanks for stopping by!

Last day of school

I joined in on a virtual crop last night on Facebook and this is one of the pages I made.  I got these photos from my son's teacher.  so cute!  Zachary had a great school year and really enjoyed his class.  It was so thoughtful  of her to take these and send them to all of us!  If you are interested in joining in on the next "virtual crop" let me know and i will get you all set up.  The virtual crop is run by Monika Davis and Cindy Schuster.  They post two challenges with a technique to try.  Joining in on challenges is a great way to get to know your software.  The more you use it the easier it will become.  You will get to know all the tricks, get to know what images you have and how to find them in your library.  This is a win-win because you will also make cute projects.  They can be cards or pages. And, while I am on the subject, you should also do my MDS Monday challenges :)  Hope to see you at one of these sites!  Let me know if you want an invite to the Facebook challenges!

MDS Monday # 70!

Hi everyone! It's Monday, MDS Monday of course!  This week Joan has a fun sketch for us to try! We are layering shaped today. Joan used circles on her sketch, so I used circles on my page, but you can use another shape if that works better.  This page features my daughter Jillian and her friend at the park last summer.  My friends husband is a park designer and needed some kids to visit a local park for the catalog photo shoot.  We were free, so we went along and now Jillian is in a park catalog! how fun is that?

   I hope that you will give the sketch a try.    You may have noticed that we have switched to page sketches instead of alternating between card and page sketches.  But, you can still do either and we hope you do.  We would love to have a nice variety of samples to show you.

Here is a card i made with the same sketch.



Head on over to the MDS Monday site and see what the rest of the team has come up with.

This is a card I made for the sketch.

MDS Monday #69 ~ Card Version!

Hi everyone!  This weeks MDS Monday challenge was just that, a challenge.  For me anyway.  I struggled with getting all the layers just right, but I was super happy that I kept at it because I just love my finished page!  At the bottom of the post Cindy Challenged us to give the sketch a try as a card as well and so I decided to do just that!  Here it is!! What do you think?  Once again I used the Hi There kit for this page, but I added some Balloons from the Patterned Party download. 

The problem with the balloons from the Patterned Party download is that they are see through.  Do you add a stamp only to find it wont work because it has empty spots that show your background?  Well, there is a fix for that.  You can add a freeform brush layer or you can add punches to cover up the areas that show through.






Since the balloons were mostly just ovals I decided to use oval punches.  I sized them on top of the balloon and then sent them back to behind the balloon.

See, problem solved!

Here is the page, in case you missed it!  Head on over to the MDS Monday page and see the samples!  I hope you give the sketch a try too!