Sketch Challenge?

I tried making a card sketch in My Digital Studio and I thought maybe it might be fun to do a sketch challenge each week. What do you think? Once a week on Sunday's or twice a month on Sunday's?

I hope you'll give the sketch a try and then link your card to Mr. Linky below. I would LOVE to see your creations!

Blessings!
Barb

Too Much Fun!

I am having way too much fun in My Digital Studio ;-). This evening I started on an 8x8 book for my daughter to mark her first competition. I have seven pages done thus far and I plan to have them professionally printed through Stampin' Up! The printer will print the pages and bind them into a book. I have a choice of a photo cover, leather cover, cloth cover, or soft cover. Not sure which cover I will go with right now, but I know this will be an awesome keepsake for my daughter when it's all done and printed. So far I have kept all my pages in a Tempting Turquoise Designer Paper with white accents. You will notice in the photos that my daughter's figures competition dress is turquoise, white, and silver. You can't tell in these photos, but the white areas of her dress have light blue swarovski crystals sprinkled on them. Actually, not sprinkled on, but heat set on, and boy was that nerve wracking, lol! I was so concerned that my hand would slip and the heat tool would land on the fabric and burn a hole in it. Thankfully, no slips! Here are the first two pages...

I should have imported these into Photo Shop and knit them together so you could see them side by side. Oh well, I'll try to remember to do that next time :-).

After playing in MDS for only a short time, I can honestly say that this software is well worth every penny and then some. It comes with tons of Designer Series Paper, stamps, punches, buttons, brads, ribbons- lots and lots of fun stuff...everything you need to create great scrapbooks, cards, and other projects. You can even make slide shows, interactive pages with links to other photos, add video and music, and much more. The best part is that it's so incredibly easy to use! At first I kept forgetting to add drop shadows to the elements on my pages, but I put a note on my computer screen to remind me to do it and I am happy to report that it is officially a habit now :-D. Have a great day today!!!!

Edited to Add: Shari asked about the dotted circles I used on my layout. The circle is one of the circles from Circle Circus, an additional download you can purchase for MDS. I enlarged the circle, set the color to Whisper White, and the opacity to 50%. I hope that helps- please let me know if you have any questions!

Blessings!
Barb

Supplies:
My Digital Studio

Is it Memorex?

Or My Digital Studio :-)? The UPS man finally came with my order, but I was busy so I didn't get a chance to play until late. I'm burning the midnight oil just a bit ;-). I found My Digital Studio very easy to use and if I didn't like something I just deleted. I wasn't out any paper, plus I had no mess to clean up afterward. I am really tired though, so I am going to go to bed and get some sleep. But before I do, I thought I would post my very first MDS card creation :-D.

I really liked the fact that I could make the butterfly punch in MDS smaller. I wish I could do that with my butterfly punch in real life!

I usually like to do the inside of my cards to coordinate with the outside. In My Digital Studio I can still do that! All right off to bed with me now. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!!

Blessings!
Barb

Supplies:
My Digital Studio

Daisies Scrap Book Page

Before my daughter and I got sick, we made a trip to a local garden. We like to go there fairly often when the flowers start to bloom. It's a pretty garden and I like to get photos of the flowers. I decided that I would finally scrap my photos of flowers! I'll need to find out the names of some of the flowers, but everyone knows daisies so that is where I started ;-).

The strip of daisies on the side was from an idea that Dawn Olchefske had on her blog. She did a technique called 'reverse masking' using a die cut from the Daisies #2 die. She made a background for a card that she made, but I thought it would make a great border for my page. You simply die cut a daisy flower, lay it on your card stock and ink the inside with a sponge dauber and some yellow ink. Then you take your next color of ink and again with your sponge dauber, ink around the petals. Dawn has a video for this very easy technique on her blog- just click on her name above and it will take you straight to that post. I die cut three more daisies and the letters to add to my 8x8 page. I matted my photo and my daisy border on Garden Green card stock. I like to sometimes print my photos with the white border around it so that I get the look of double matting without using more card stock to do it :-). My next page will be roses! I may actually have to do several pages of roses, lol! They are beautiful flowers to photograph. Wishing you all a wonderful, wonderful day today!! See ya' tomorrow!

Blessings!
Barb

Supplies:
Paper: Garden Green- 102584, So Saffron- 105118, Whisper White- 100730
Classic Stampin' Ink: Bashful Blue- 105209, So Saffron- 105213
Dies: Daisies #2-114520, Billboard alpha- 114510
Other: Stampin' Dimensionals-104430

Back to School ideas

I know it's probably a little early to be thinking about going 'back' to school when most schools aren't even out for the summer yet... BUT, for teachers or moms who like to get a good head start, this project is for you ;-).

I often start a project by pulling out something that I haven't used for a while. I just hate for my stuff to sit around doing nothing. As I was taking a mental inventory of stuff I haven't used for a while, my Bag with Scallops die came to mind and there it stopped, lol! I made another mental inventory of my colors of card stock to see what color I wanted to use and stopped at Kraft, which was a ways down the list! Ah ha! Light bulb moment! I thought it would be so cute as a paper lunch bag! Where are paper lunch bags used the most? Kids taking their lunches to school, of course ;-). So I pulled out my First Day stamp set and went to work. This is my new lunch bag, sponged with Soft Suede ink, perfect for little surprises for the first day of school.

These would be great for teachers to make to welcome their new class and possibly put little things like those cute little erasers in it. They would also be a nice little ice breaker for a student starting a new school or just to introduce themselves to new classmates as they start a new grade. To go with the brown bag special, I made a matching bookmark. Kids can write their names on the stamped paper at the bottom and the teacher could laminate the bookmarks after wards, making a sturdy bookmark and also a little keepsake of the child's handwriting for mom to keep forever ;-).

The paper stamp is part of the First Day stamp set. I just used markers in Tempting Turquoise for the lines on the paper, Real Red for the margin, and black for the words on Whisper White. I used other stamps in the set to stamp 2nd Grade on the paper. You could stamp any grade from 1st to 12th, so this is a set that could be used for a looooong time. I made a First Day of School mini scrap book with this stamp set and it could be paired with this paper bag and bookmark easily.

The brown lunch bag could be used for office workers or other jobs where people bring their lunches in brown paper bags and filled with chocolate or whatever you want to put in it. I just used a glue dot to close the top of my bag, so it's easy to open, but stays closed. I hope you'll make some of your own brown bag specials with this great die. It was a lot of fun! Have a great day today and thanks for stopping by!

Blessings!
Barb

Supplies:
Stamps: First Day- 120051 (wood mount- 118521)
Paper: Kraft- 102125, Whisper White- 100730, Brilliant Blue-100721, Real Red- 102482
Classic Stampin' Ink: Soft Suede-115657
Stampin' Write Markers: Tempting Turquoise- 100058, Real Red- 100052, Basic Black-
Dies: Stars #2- 113461
Punches: 1" Circle- 109046, 1 1/4" Circle- 104403 100082

Hybrid Card

Good Morning!!! Thank you for leaving get well wishes for us! I think we are over the worst of being sick now :-). My daughter went back to skating yesterday, was she happy about that! Last week I posted a card that I wasn't too happy about -see post below this one. The sentiment oval was just too bright, so I had to fix it. I changed the card stock I used from Very Vanilla to Kraft. Then the bird looked too bright to me, so I re-stamped it in Elegant Eggplant on Kraft. I think it looks better now- what do you think?

Last week was my birthday and my hubby purchased My Digital Studio for me. It isn't here yet, I have to wait just two more days for the UPS man to deliver it :-), but I purchased some extra downloads that I knew I would want to use with My Digital Studio when it arrives. The great thing about the My Digital Studio downloads is that you don't have to have the My Digital Studio software to use them. You can use them in any software that uses JPG and PNG files, so if you have Photo Shop, or Paint Shop, or something similar, you are good to go.

Now you know you can't just leave new stuff alone, ya' gotta play with it! :-D
So I downloaded one of the paper kits that I purchased- Summertime Splendor. The papers are gorgeous!! I opened up one of the papers in Photo Shop Elements 7 and added it to a page that I had already sized to 3.75 x 5. Since I can print photos on my Canon printer, I used the 4x6 paper size option to print my paper on Whisper White card stock that I had cut down to 4x6. I also used the matte photo paper setting. Whisper White and Very Vanilla card stock have a coating on them making them ideal for stamping, coloring, and other techniques. In my card below, the flowers and the blue background are one of the papers from Summertime Splendor that I used.

I added some So Saffron ink to some white areas of the sky and around the edges with my sponge . I stamped my sentiment with Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Ink and added my butterfly with Stampin'Dimensionals. Add some ribbon and there you have it- a combination of digital and traditional, aka a hybrid card. It was fun to make, took very little time...I think I might be exploring the world of hybrid a little more :-). Wishing you a wonderful day today!!!

Blessings!
Barb

Supplies:
My Digital Studio downloads: Summertime Splendor- 121067
Stamps: Sincere Salutations-115068
Classic Stampin' Ink: Pacific Point (returning in July 2010), So Saffron- 105213
Paper: Whisper White-100730, Old Olive- 100702, Night of Navy- 100867
Dies: Beautiful Butterflies- 114509
Other: Bashful Blue 1/4" grosgrain ribbon- 109029

We are sick :-(

Sorry I've been missing for most of the week. My daughter came down with strep throat and I am not feeling well either. We are drinking lots of water and orange juice and my daughter is on antibiotics. Hopefully, my husband and I won't need antibiotics along with her. The good news is that she is starting to feel a little better, so thankfully, she is on the mend. Her throat was so red that our Dr. winced when he saw it. Poor baby- her throat hurt so badly and she had a 101.7 temperature. On top of that she had a headache and was so achy, with chills and sweats. I'm glad she is feeling better today.

I did get my card with the 'too bright' oval fixed :-), and it looks better. I just haven't had time to get it photographed for posting. Hoping to resume regular posting again on Monday. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Blessings!

Barb