MDS Blog Hop - What We're Working On...

Have I ever told you how much I love the Epic Overlays stamp set? It's SO fun and doodle-y (yes, that's a word!) and it's perfect if you have kids of any age. I used it for my MDS project today - a page about Audrey's 10th birthday cake that was made just for her by her Grandma. I took the photo in front of our white dining room curtains and used a photo editing program to strip out anything left out in the background. I love how the white background gave me a bigger canvas for the fun doodles!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and be sure to visit the other blogs in the hop to see what the other designers are using MDS for this week! Links are below - have fun!

And don't forget the MDS Blog Hop group now has a board on Pinterest here!

Mandy Grant Amber Meadows Rochelle Gould Jeanna Bohanon Erica Shaw Cindy Schuster Holly VanDyne Aly Schilling Julie Leblanc Kimberly Van Diepen Guest Blogger - Julie Davidse

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MDS Blog Hop - SNOW!!!!

Today's finally here - it's our 1st day of the ALL NEW MDS Blog Hop with it's NEW YEAR'S MAKEOVER!!!! YAY for the new and fresh! :)

Here are some quick things you can be expecting in the NEW YEAR!

• A Blog Hop the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every month!
• GREAT Samples, GUARANTEED at every stop on the hop. With doing the hop twice a month, all of us are able to be fully committed to posting every day that the hop takes place.
• The 1st post of the month will have a holiday or seasonal theme featuring the month we are in (today is SNOW!). The 2nd post of the month we will be sharing with you what is current on our laptop : ) the projects that we've been working on most recently that are trendy and timely!
• NEW GUEST DESIGNERS! Each month we will have a different guest designer joining us with the challenges - our first guest designer is the uber-talented Julie Davidse!
• A NEW PINTEREST PAGE!!!! That's right! Follow the hop on PINTEREST by clicking HERE.
• PLAY ALONG WITH US! We would love to see what projects YOU come up with! On the 2nd Wednesday of the month, go ahead and take on the same holiday challenge that we have and upload your creations to mydigitalstudio.net and mention the MDS Blog Hop!

I think that just about covers things for now! So here we go.... the 1st Hop of 2013!

The theme for this hop was SNOW! and boy did Ohio get dumped on a few weeks ago! I got this great picture of the girls going sledding with Audrey's teacher. Now, I have to admit - never in a million years did I think I would ever use orange on a snowy/winter page, but I love how it turned out. It's not your typical snow colors, but I think the non-traditional colors make it fun!

On this page I used the Back to School MDS kit, the Day in the Life kit, the Snow Burst stamp set (with the stitches kit around each one), and a cute little rhinestone in the middle of each snowflake. You know me - can't do a page without just a *little* bling! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by and don't forget to follow along the 'hop' by visiting Erica's blog for the next fun snowy project! Hope you had a great start to 2013!

1. Amber Meadows

2. Jeanna Bohanon
3. Julie Leblanc

4. Rochelle Gould

5. Aly Schilling

6. Mandy Grant

7. Kimberly Van Diepen

8. Holly VanDyne

9. Erica Shaw

11. Cindy Schuster

12. Julie Davidse - January Guest Blogger!

MDS Blog Hop - Sketch!

Oh, I am SO late getting my post up today! I figured out a little too late that my blog post for today posted to my writing blog by accident. That's what I get for having two different blogs at one time. UGH! Well, it's late now but here it is!

We had a sketch to do from here:  I love sketches and pages with lots of photos, so I thought I'd do one of a collage of Audrey baby pictures. She was such a cute little bald baby - we had a good time looking at all of these last night while I was working on the page.

I used a lot of cardstock, ribbon and some overlay stamps on this page, and the title was just made up of all kinds of fonts (love!)

Hope you have a great weekend and don't forget to visit the other MDS Blog hoppers today and see what they did with this fun sketch!

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen

MDS Blog Hop - Brushes

This week Jeanna challenged us to use brushes! This is the digital term for our digital stamps and I was all about this challenge! I LOVE using MDS's brushes. I used a stamp from my old standby favorite brush set (Frames with a Flourish) and one of my new favorites (Neon Notes).

And a little tidbit of information, these were my wedding colors 11-1/2 years ago! (Purple and Silver).

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today and be to check out the other blog hop ladies for some brushy goodness!

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen

MDS Blog Hop - Scrapbook Your Childhood

This week I challenged the My Digital Studio Blog Hop ladies to scrapbook something about their childhood. I had such a fantastic childhood, and this guy right here is a good part of the reason why.

I love my dad! We are so much alike and butt heads a lot, but he really is the best Dad. When I found this photo strip in an old box of photos, I knew I had to scan it - it's so funny and typical of photo strips back in the 70's. The first frame cracks me up, you can see the "Is this thing working" look on our faces? LOL

Now for some of the fun kits I used to make this page! Oh, and a disclaimer - I didn't have a high-res version of this photo so I did the page as a 5"x5" page so if some of the elements look really big, that would be why. Some of the kits I used were: Downtown Grunge, Neon Notes, the striped background paper was from the Days to Remember kit, and the big blue circle is from the More Candid Frames download. Enjoy! :)

Now, you know the drill! Be sure to check out the other childhood scrappin' ladies and see what they've come up with for today!

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen

MDS Blog Hop - Holiday Goodness!

I *LOVE* the holidays! Wouldn't I a person with the name of Holly who was named after Christmas (even though I was born in May!) HAVE to love the holidays? Yes! So I love this week's holiday challenge.

I've been overdosing it on scrapbook pages lately so I wanted to do something a little different. When I saw the "Tags" template on MDS (speaking of MDS, have you downloaded your new complete MDS update yet?) I knew I wanted to make some! How fun would little MDS tags on your gifts be?

This first one -->
uses the Christmas Cocoa II kit (love the papers in this one!)


My husband makes the best homemade Chex Mix the weekend before Thanksgiving that we give out to family and friends in little tins and I thought these tags would be great to put on the tins.

This second tag uses some of my favorite holiday papers, from the Wintergreen Digital Paper Pack and the Snowflake Trimmings punch kit. I love how festive these are, they're getting me in the Christmas spirit already (all I need now is a little bit of that homemade chex mix!)

Be sure to visit the other blog hoppers today and get your MDS Holiday on! :)

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen

MDS Blog Hop - Circles

I love the page I have to share with you today (Circles!!!!), but I forgot to hit the Publish button before I came to work this morning! (ugh!) When I get home from school in a few hours I'll get it posted, but until then, continue on with the hop and I hope you'll stop back later!

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen

Sell-A-Stamp Spooktacular Sale!

Click here to shop this very rare one-day-only sale!

MDS Blog Hop - Slacker Central

I was SO hoping to get a page done today, the theme was Owls and I have a 9-year-old daughter who absolutely loves them, but I'm organizing a huge fundraising scrapbooking crop for our school this weekend and I just wasn't able to get this week's challenge finished. Next week I will be back!!!

Don't be a slacker like I was and keep going with the hop - I'm sure Kimberly has something amazing to share with you today!

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen

MDS Blog Hop - Inspired by...

To say I was excited about today's challenge was an understatement. We were challenged to CASE or be inspired by the person under us in the hop. Know what that means? I HAD KIMBERLY VAN DIEPEN!!!!! Holy cow I love her stuff, Batman! And let's just say that it didn't take me long to be inspired by this post on her blog. I never scrapbook myself. I hate pictures of myself. But then I saw her post, and I read it, and I poured over that amazing page she made of herself. But what really stuck out for me was that she said, "Life is short and I want my kids to know who I am. This includes the good, the bad and the ugly." Yep, that's it. That's what I don't do, but really need to do. So, beyond thank you for the inspiration, Kimberly. And here's my good, my bad, and my ugly all wrapped up in one page.

Now be sure to check out the other CASE-ing and inspiring going on around the hop today! Hopefully something will inspire YOU!

1. Jeanna Bohanon

2.Rochelle Gould

3.  Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 
5.Amber Meadows

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne
12. Kimberly Van Diepen