MDS Blog Hop - The VanDyne Christmas Card

Merry Christmas!

Today we're sharing what we've been working on, and for the past few weeks I've been trying to get my Christmas cards finished up, addressed and out the door by TODAY! I'm having surgery to remove the pins from my foot bright and early today so I've been working overtime trying to get everything Christmas finished up -- especially my cards!

I still have a few more to mail (that may not arrive until after Christmas!) but I like to think I have a somewhat decent excuse. ha ha.

If you click on the image above you'll see a slightly larger version of it.

This is the first year I've used a tri-fold card and I have to admit, I'm SO in love with them. With the template (Bright Reviews tri-fold card) I used they were so super-quick to put together. I used the back of the template too, but changed the year from 2012 to 2013.

And that's my project for today! Now I'll send you over to Jeanna's blog where I'm positive she has something amazing to show you (doesn't she always?) :) I hope you have a very merry Christmas!

MDS Blog Hop - Calendars

I love Stampin' Up!'s calendars, so when I saw this week's MDS Blog Hop theme was calendars -- well, WHOO HOOO! :) I had the perfect one to share with you. I created it last year for my desk at school and even though the calendar is now outdated, I still have it on my desk front and center, because I'm so in love with how it turned out and I love the pictures.

I made this using the 10" x 5" heavy easel calendar (printed through MDS's print service) and the Sun Garden designer series paper kit. (Frames are from Downtown Grunge)

The first photo above is the front page of the easel. The second photo is the front flap which has each month on it. MDS makes it so easy to create your own calendar -- just drag the calendar of your choice over from the right-side menu in MDS and it does all of the dates, etc. for you! It doesn't get any easier than that!

The last photo is the back side. For each month I used a close-up photo that matched the photos on the front of that month. The best part about doing that is that now that it's 2013 and the calendar is "outdated", I can still use it by just showing the backsides of the calendar! With just a flip it became a fun photo easel. These calendars make fantastic gifts that anyone would love.

I hope you loved today's project and are enjoying the hop! Now hop on over to Jeanna's blog post and calendar project by clicking the 'Next' image below!

Daily December - Cover Page

This year Stampin' Up! came out with a Daily December kit for My Digital Studio. If you're not familiar with Daily December, it's a concept introduced by Ali Edwards in which she documents the entire month of December and her family's holiday traditions day by day for that month.

Our family has a ton of Christmas traditions, but I've never documented them in one place so I thought this year would be the perfect year to do it.

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is my cover page. I used an 8x8 ring binder by Stampin' Up! and their 8x8 divided page protectors that are in the Holiday mini catalog. For my title panel I used Stampin' Up!'s vellum and printed directly on it after I designed it in MDS. To keep it consistent I plan to use a little bit of vellum on each page. I printed out some of the patterned papers from the Daily December digital kit to use and put them in the smaller pockets, with some Whisper White for my journaling. Then I stitched some red ribbon to the side of it to give the page a little texture.

Are you doing a Daily December album this year? If so, post a link to it in the comments -- I'd love to check it out! I'll be posting more pages this month as I get them completed.

MDS Blog Hop - Christmas Vintage Photo Tags

It's that time of the month again - the MDS Blog Hop where we share what we're working on! You've probably gotten here from Elizabeth's blog -- she's so talented, I can't wait to see what she's working on this week!

About a year ago I saw an idea on Pinterest where they wrapped their Christmas presents in plain paper then put an old photo of the recipient on the package instead of a tag. What a cute idea, right? Well, this year I thought I'd MDS it up a bit and made tags out with MDS with the old photos on the tags. I had so much fun at my parents going through old photos!

I started with the Decorative Label punch shape, colored it black, then added the Texture Overlay from the Vintage Overlays kit. I colored the overlay white and set the opacity to about 10% so it would be light. It kind of gave it a slightly worn look that I wanted. The holly berries that I added over each photo were from the Holly Jolly greetings download.

I hope you enjoyed today's project -- what have you been working on to prepare yourself for the upcoming holidays?

And now it's time to visit Jeanna's blog to see what fabulous piece of artwork she's come up with to show you today! Just click the "next" button below and you'll be right where you need to be. Enjoy your weekend!

Hello Fall Pocket Cards in MDS

Just a quick post today to share a blog post I have featured on the My Digital Studio blog. In the post I share two projects using the new "Hello Fall Pocket Cards" download and the 8" x 8" divided pages available in the current Holiday mini catalog. Check it out if you have a minute -- the pocket cards are so fun to play with!

MDS Blog Hop - The Meaning of Christmas

Yay! It's a Christmas blog hop and I couldn't be more excited about it! If you're following the hop you probably just came from Elizabeth's blog and her fun Christmas project. She's awesome, isn't she?

I adore Christmas and wanted to make a home decor piece from one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite Christmas movies - The Grinch who Stole Christmas. I'm loving the chalkboard trend so that's what I used. In addition to a lot of downloads, I also used a lot of free fonts for this one so I'll list those, too!

Downloads:

"Christmas" - Stamped from brush stamp in Baby's First Christmas kit
Background - Essentials Designer Series Paper
Silver Glimmer Paper - Glimmer DSP kit
Staple - Staples & Stitching kit
Swirl Edge - Torn Edges kit

Free Fonts:
"Maybe" - Charlamagne STD

"He thought" & "Perhaps means" - Bernard MT Condensed

"doesn't come" "a store" & "a little bit more" - Chalk-hand-lettering

"From" - Bergamot Ornaments

Thanks for visiting today and now I send you on to the next Christmas themed project from Jeanna! Just click on the "next" button below. I can't wait to see what she's done this week!

Fall Memories Page - In Ten Years

Happy Digital Scrapbook Day!

I have so much to talk about today! First - did you know Stampin' Up! has added a free download available  ONLY today? It's called "Moments Ago" and you can download it here. It was designed by Stampin' Up!'s concept artist Jen Campbell. It's super cute so don't miss out on downloading it!

This week Stampin' Up! also released some great downloads -- one of my new favorites is the Fall Memories kit that I used on the "In Ten Years" page here. Every five years I've remembered to get a picture of Audrey in the leaves the tree in our front yard drops. I love that even though she looks so different now than she did then, she also looks so similar. Same blue eyes and the same sweet smile.

I hope you had a wonderful Digital Scrapbooking Day and got some fun projects created! Don't forget that each day for a week Stampin' Up! has a different digital download on sale for 50% off - you can see them by visiting the MDS blog here. Today is one of my favorite kits ever - the Hello There kit and tomorrow is the All Time Fave kit that I also love. You won't want to miss it so be sure to check back each day!

Paper Sewing

There's nothing I like more than sewing on my cards (and scrapbook pages, now that I think about it). It gives my projects a finished look that I absolutely love. As you can see, I don't have a top of the line sewing machine. It does two stitches - a straight stitch and a zig zag stitch. That's perfect for me because those are the only two stitches I would want to use. It's about 8 years old, I got it off of a Sears wholesale sale on Ebay way back then and I think I paid around $100 for it. Now I'm sure a similar machine would be cheaper. I don't clean it, I don't think I've done any maintenance to it, but it still works fantastically. Why? I think it's because I sew on paper, not fabric -- there's no lint to clean out or unclog from the machine. 

As I mentioned on my last blog post, I'm getting ready for a craft show and made a batch of sympathy cards this morning. I wanted to sew ribbon along the edge, but knew it wouldn't hold as well as I needed it to as I ran it through my machine so I just used a little adhesive to hold it in place before I ran it through. It will make the needle a little sticky but just clean it off after doing a few cards so your needle doesn't get too goopy. Regular adhesive works fine, but glue dots and sticky strip does NOT so be careful. I've sewed on many things in my day, it even will sew through Stampin' Up!'s window sheets.

And here's the final card! The Sympathy stamp is from the "Thanks for Caring" stamp set that is retired.. Usually I sell off all of my retired sets once they retire, because once something retires I can't demo it anymore. But I've kept this set because I love this "With Deepest Sympathy" stamp. And cards for a craft show seems like the perfect time to get some use out of it! 

This & That Scrapbook Page - MDS

When I joined the My Digital Studio design team they asked each of us to create a page in MDS that reflects our personality. I knew immediately which kit I was going to use. The This & That Epic Day kit has Holly written all over it (well, not technically).

My personality is pretty girly, probably thanks to my two daughters, so I love all of the sweet colors in this kit, especially that beautiful pink! I love all of the pieces and parts in this kit, too. The little pink banners were so fun to string along the top and add some stitching to hold them there. The letters for "girls" was from the Epic Overlays kit.

I had my foot rebuilt in the beginning of June and haven't made a paper card since then. Well, that's going to end today. I signed up for a craft show at our school and hope to have lots of cards made to sell, so we'll see how that goes. I'll be sure to share some of them here on the blog when I get them done. I'm FINALLY looking forward to breaking out the cardstock and ink (and all of the other fun little doo-dads that go along with it). Yay for stamping!

MDS Blog Hop - Happy Page

Ooooh, I love black and white. Everything looks so classy in those two colors, doesn't it?

This week for the MDS Blog Hop we are showing what we've been working on. Recently I purchased the Eastern Elegance DSP download, not only because of the gorgeous designs but because I fell in love with this gray pattern and knew I wanted to use it for the family photos we've just had taken.

Here are the digital supplies used:

Background
     Eastern Elegance - 9
Embellishments
    Downtown Grunge - frame3
    Mis-Stitched - white 5
    Blossom Builders Kit - banner 1
    Staple & Stitching, Chocolate - Simple Stitches circle 4
Stamps
    Torn Edges - distressed scallop
    Yippee Skippee - you can never have too much happy
Punches
    Rounded Corner Punch (included in MDS)

Are you ready for the next project created by the always talented Jeanna? Just click on the 'next' link below to follow the hop and thanks for joining us!

An Announcement and an MDS Project!

I have an exciting announcement today!
I was asked by Stampin' Up! to be a part of the new My Digital Studio design team!  I'm sure you know how much I adore the MDS program, so this is quite an honor. They are revealing two design team members every other day on the MDS blog here - and my reveal day is today (along with my sweet and talented friend Amber). They asked each team member to create a page that reflects their personality so you'll see that on the MDS blog as well. I can't wait for you to meet each of the new DT members -- they are AMAZING (and I bet you'll see a few familiar faces on it, too!) so be sure to check the blog each day!

I also have a quick, fun little MDS project to share with you today.
I don't get a chance to do it very often, but I love leaving quick little notes in my girls lunchboxes. When I saw the Do Your Best kit, I knew it would be perfect for my little lunch notes to them. I just took the pre-designed notes, added the pictures, recolored the arrow element, added a new stamp from the Seriously Awesome set to the "Love You" card and printed them. I even added a few jewel accents to Audrey's once it was printed. Just a few minutes used for what I hope will bring a few smiles to my little ladies when they open their lunchboxes this week!

MDS Blog Hop - Christmas Banner Bags

WELCOME TO THE "NEW" MDS BLOG HOP!

A bunch of us have joined together over the past two years to share our passion for digital designing with Stampin' UP's My Digital Studio. We have new designers that have joined us - WELCOME CORI, JULIE B. and ELIZABETH RUSH!  There are now 10 of us on the team!  These ladies are ridiculously talented in MDS and I'm so excited to be on this Blog Hop with them! You will find us blog hopping on the 2nd and 4th THURSDAYS of each month! We will have a "theme" selected on the first hop and then a "What we are doing in MDS" on the second hop. Also new, is the hopping method. Just click on the NEXT button and it will take you to the next person on the hop. We hope this inspires you to get into My Digital Studio and start creating! Would love to hear what you think of our "new" hop and projects, so please take a moment to let us know in comments.

Our blog hop challenge for today was to make a project for the upcoming holidays. I chose the Christmas holiday (Umm...hello...my name is Holly, right?) ;) Let me start by saying that even though my name is Holly and share the name of the bush and berry, I am SO not a fan of the traditional Christmas colors of red and green. Give me blue, give me pink, you can even mix some green in there and I'd be OK with it but not red and green together. I think I'm burnt out. So when I saw the Christmas Banner Simply Created kit I fell in love.

I used the rosettes and stacked them on top of each other (making the top one a bit smaller). And that cute little kraft colored tag? It's from the Neon Notes kit! And the Merry Christmas stamp is from the All Holidays stamp set. I printed them out, cut them out, attached them to the front of the bags with stampin' dimensionals and added a non-digital Frosted Finishes Embellishment and it's ready to hold a cute little Christmas gift! I'm thinking I'm going to use these for my teacher gifts this year.

Are you ready for the next holiday project created with MDS? Just click on the 'next' link below to follow the hop and thanks for joining us!

Celebrating World Card Making Day - MDS Style!

Happy World Card Making Day!
This is a super-quick card I made to celebrate today.

Have you seen the new postcard printing options yet for My Digital Studio? I am completely in love with this one - it's the Artisan shape.

I used one of my favorite kits (Hello There) to create a card in the new shape. As a teacher, I am ALWAYS in need of Thank You cards especially around the holidays so I'll be getting these printed ASAP. And the postcard will be fantastic because I'll just be able to hand write my note to the recipient on the backside.

To create a postcard using the new Artisan shape or the also new Scalloped shape just open My Digital Studio (you may need to check for an update if you haven't in the past week) and create a blank 5"x7" postcard then go to:

VIEW MENU --> BLEED AREA --> ARTISAN SHAPED POSTCARD

That will give you the shape guides so when you design your postcard you will see the highlighted area for your shape. Don't put anything important in the gray area, or it will be cut off when the card is printed.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy what's left of World Card Making Day!

MDS Blog Hop - Pool Fun

My girls had SO MUCH FUN in the pool this summer and even though I wasn't able to walk, my sister-in-law Shannon was sweet enough to go out and take some fabulous photos for me!

This picture of Audrey in the inter-tube was my favorite. :) To make this page I used a variety of different fonts for the title and the arrows are from the "This and That" digital kit.

I'm sad to tell you that this will be my last MDS blog hop post (at least in the near future). I have some health issues that I need to work through and recover from so I'm trying to get life responsibilities down to a minimum so I can do that. I hope to be back as soon as I get things sorted out!

The ladies in this blog hop have been nothing short of the sisters I never had but always wanted. I love each and every one of them... and the talent! They are all so talented! :)

So with that, be sure to visit the other ladies and see what they came up with in MDS this week and know that I'll miss sharing with you! Thanks so much for stopping by each hop!

1. Erica Shaw 2. Cori Kozak 3. Julie Leblanc 4. Jeanna Bohanon 5. Cindy Schuster 6. Julie Davidse 7. Rochelle Gould 8. Holly VanDyne 9. Aly Schilling

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