MDS Blog Hop ~ What are we working on?

It's MDS Blog Hop time again!  What is an MDS Blog Hop? Well, we are a group of Stampin' Up! demonstrators who have grouped our blogs together to form a blog hop.  We hop on the second and fourth thursday's of each month to highlight our love of MDS.   This week we are showing you what we are working on in MDS.  I am working on Faux Mixed Media techniques.   I loved the look of some Mixed Media projects that were shown at the Stampin' Up! convention last summer, and I had been planning to make some of my own, but I never got around to it.  I wanted to find a way to make it simpler, no mixing paint, and less chance for error.  I wanted my "randomness" to be less "random" :)

 Here is what I came up with. I opened an 8 x 8 page, because I don't have a 12 x 12 printer and I wanted to be able to print from home.
I started with a newsprint background.  There are several downloads that included a newsprint, such as First Edition, Newsprint, and Mixed Medley.  I used Mixed Medley on my page.   Then I needed to add  my paint layer.  There are several downloads that offer stamp brushes that look like a paint wash.  I used the new Happy Watercolor on my page.  I added the stamps, resizing them and flipping them, and layering them to get different looks.   This is the beauty of MDS, you can just delete what you don't like.   I colored  my stamps Pool Party.   I also used the dots from the Happy Watercolor Download in the center of the page.

 Next I added some stamps.  I used stamps from the Sweet Summer download as well as a heart from Days to Remember.    I printed the page out on some watercolor paper in my home printer. 




Next I used my aqua painter to color in the stamps.  I tried to do this somewhat rapidly because I wanted to maintain a whimsical doodley look. 

I actually wanted to make some smaller versions for card fronts too, so I exported the large version to a photo file, opened a new project page, added 4 photo boxes and filled them with the "photo" of my 8x8 page.  Now I had 4 4x4 card fronts.  

After I had my page finished I printed off a sheet of text that I could cut out and add to my projects.

For more details on the "how to" of it, you can check out my digital blog "Beth's Digital Cuts".  I hope you like my projects today!  next head on over to Holly's blog where I am sure you will see something great! I hope you enjoy our Hop!

Sweet Sale-A-Bration

I am playing around with my Sale-A-Bration items this week.  Today it is the Sweet Sorbet paper and Sweet Sorbet Accessory Pack.  The paper is super pretty and soft with pops of black.  The Accessory Pack has three spools of colored twine and a fun sheet of cork stickers.   AND, I used the Sale-A-Bration Banner Punch to make that pennant.  But how, the punch only makes a small pennant right?  That's only if you use it the way it was intended.  You can also change things up by placing a strip of paper through the back, only going through one side.  Here is a picture to show you what I mean.

I placed a strip of Summer Starfruit in first, at the same width as the punch, 5/8th of an inch.  

Next I did the same with a skinnier strip of Whisper White.  I didn't measure the width of this strip, because I have a bag of Whisper White strips that I grab from for just this purpose.

 I layer the two banners, easy peasy. 

Here is a closer look at the Sweet Sorbet Accessory Pack.  Cute right? 











Sale-A-Brations runs through March 31st and you can choose one of the 12 Sale-A-Bration products free with every $50 you  spend.   Contact me with any questions you have, I am happy to help! 
You can view the Sale-A-Bration brochure by clicking on the catalog link at the right of my blog.

Banner Blast

Tell me that there is a new punch with a matching stamp set and I am pretty much sold before even seeing it.  Honestly tell me that there is a new punch with or without a matching stamp and I'm sold right?  Well, this card uses a new punch and stamp set,  and I didn't have to be sold on either one because they were FREE!  You gotta love SAB time! 
I put this card together in just a few minutes really.  The colors were chosen from the papers in the SAB catalog, Crumb Cake, Pool Party, Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Summer Starfruit. Even the cute Summer Starfruit twine was Free!  If you are unfamiliar with SAB (Sale-A-Bration) justt click on the catalog link at the right side of my blog to view all the offerings and how to get them.  One free item for every $50 spent during Sale-A-Bration!

see the cute little flower stamp?  It co-ordinates with an existing stamp from the main catalog called Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack.  I stamped it on a scrap piece of Whisper White and punched it out with my punch.  I added a rhinestone for a bit of bling.

Thanks for stopping by today!  as always, contact me with any questions, I am happy to help!

Thanks Kathy!

I received a fun card in the mail yesterday from my friend Kathy Leibfritz.  It was such a nice surprise and it couldn't have come at a better time.  I have been having a rough Jan and Feb and I can't wait for winter to be over.  That is so not my normal feelings about winter by the way.  Anyway as some of you know I hurt my knee at the start of the year and I am getting better but still only getting up stairs slowly and every so often I do something that hurts it again.   I tripped over an extension cord at stamp camp last week and fell over a pile of shoes near my back door on Tuesday.  But add to that I burned my hand pretty badly on Monday night too!  I like a show called "Secrets of a restaurant chef" and I learned that while cooking things on my stove top that it is a good idea to put things like chicken in the oven for the last bits of cooking, this seems to keep them from drying out.  So that's what I did, but the whole pan right into the oven as I finished the rest of dinner.  But did I use an oven mitt to take the pan back out?  No,  so I need to also be on the show "Worst cooks in America".   All five fingers were burned, especially behind the knuckles.  Now in reality I am not really that bad in the kitchen and I am a pretty decent baker, but this is just the sort of winter I am having.  Today for example I dropped an open bottle vegetable oil onto the kitchen floor, cleaned that up and then managed to drop an open bag of ground coffee.  And, I haven't made anything in my craft room in over a week. First my hand hurt too much, and then once my hand felt better I came down with a cold and I just want to lay around.  Wow! What a sad post that this is?
So, that is all to say Thank you to Kathy for the cheery card on a gloomy day, she truly does make the world a better place just as the card says!  I love the splattering of sequins and the bright colors from the Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper!  Thank you Kathy for the card, and for giving me something that I can post onto my blog :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  I thought I would share a last minute Valentine.  My daughter gave away photo Valentine's Day cards made with MDS and my youngest son gave away the cute monster Valentine's from Stampin' Up! but I needed just a few more at the last minute, so I made these cuties on my computer with My Digital Studio.  Super cute and super fast. 

I searched though my digital stamps for a bird and found this cutie.  I colored it to match the DSP I choose.   I love that I can add text boxes to say what ever I want, so I added the "you are so Tweet" and the "Valentine" text and printed them out.  I used a glue dot to add a chocolate heart. 

Here is the back. 











Thanks for stopping by!

MDS Blog Hop ~ "What do you love about MDS?"

It's MDS Blog Hop time!  Yea! It feels like its been a while since the last MDS Blog hop, but I think that is because I have been laid up with a hurt knee and I feel like its been forever since I've done much!  But this month our blog hop theme is "What to you love about MDS?" and let me tell you, being stuck on the couch makes you love MDS even more!  My poor stamp pads are being neglected.
If you are unfamiliar with the MDS Blog hop I will let you know what it is about.  Twice a month, the second and fourth Thursdays,  a group of My Digital Studio loving demonstrators link our blogs together to highlight all that you can do with My Digital Studio.  We love MDS and we want you to love it too!  And what do I love the most about it?  Preserving my family memories in pages for the kids to look at for years to come.  When I get out the pictures of the kids as babies they are always interested in how little they were and what they did,  questions are always asked and they giggle about things.  Zachary usually complains that I have captured him in some embarrassing situation, Jillian wants to know if I still have some of those old outfits, David remembers when his siblings were smaller and unable to mess up his things.  Then they say, "where's that page with Kiddie Land" or "remember that picture of all those cicada's  ?"  and the conversation flows.   This is a page I made not for a book, but for my dresser.  I made a similar one a few years back and I wanted an updated one.  Which brings me to another thing I love about MDS, how easy it is to change things in an instant.  Switch out a photo, change a paper, re-size, re-color, re-make.  love it.   For this project I wanted a hybrid look, not a flat page, so I printed out three copies of the page, then cut up different areas to pop-up with dimensionals.   

Here is the page I created. 

Amazingly like my old one huh?  I just changed the papers in my boxes and the colors of my letters. 

Here is a side view so you can see what I mean about cutting out items and layering them. 














I hope you like my project!  And I hope that you will continue on the Hop and see what the rest of our team has come up with.  Next up is Holly's blog, where I am sure you will find lots to "Love".

Pennants with a peek a boo!

Last months My Paper Pumpkin has some fun cards with triangle cut outs on the front.  I thought the little cut outs were really fun and so I wanted to add them to a card.  The fun patterns and colors in the Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper were perfect for this card.  I used the Chevron Punch to make my cut outs.  

 I added a strip of patterned paper to show through the chevron punch outs and some Whisper White to write the greeting on.  

Perfect Pennants Bundle is a great way to save 15% both products, but they are also available separately too.

Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper
















Thanks for stopping by! 

Pucker Up!

I made these fun little treats to hand out on Valentine's Day.   I love those cute little 1 x 8 cello tubes, so when I see a new use for them I am happy.  The lemon drops from Target were a perfect fit.  I used the new tag topper punch for my tag and a heart for some accent color.  Fast and Easy!

tag topper punch

Crazy Mixed Up Love stamp set is available as a digital download too!  love that!
















Thanks for stopping by!

Join SU! during Sale-A-Bration!

I joined Stampin' Up! back in 2005 and it was the best decision ever.  I loved the products and bought them anyway, so why not get a discount?  For many years I just made my own purchases and that was that.  Then after a while I started doing a few workshops when asked and then some classes and now I hold monthly events.  That is the beauty of Stampin' Up!   You can join as a hobbyist or make it a business or do something in between.   You will find that even better than the products are the people you meet.  There are wonderful online communities of other Stampin' Up! demonstrators who will share ideas and projects or just chat about life.  I have made many online friends but its even more fun for me to spend time with other crafters at Stamp Camp.  During Sale-A-Bration Stampin' Up! has made joining a little sweeter with an added bonus of $25 extra dollars in your starter kit, and, the kit ships FREE, so you save even more!  In the past you had to choose from a small selection of products for your starter kit.  That is not the case anymore.  You get to choose any $150 worth of product for just $99!  Go digital!  Get some new colors, hoard some paper!  What ever you want, its your kit, your way!  Check my Join now tab for all the details.  You can even join right there online, in your jammies, day or night,  and get started right now! Contact me anytime with any questions!

Burlap and Blooms Wreath

At the next stamp camp we will be making the Burlap and Blooms Wreath.  This wreath is really pretty and will get you in the mood for spring!  You will also learn how to make some really pretty paper flowers too!  The class cost is $20 and includes everything you need to make the wreath.  I have 4 more spots open, so if you are in the area and can make it on February 15th, let me know! details are on my events calendar at my SU! site.  In the meantime, check out the video!

New Personalized Stamps

Stampin' Up! released a new line of personalized stamps today!  They are really fun!  I went to the online store to check them out.   There are 5 different designs and when you choose one, you can make them say what ever you want.  I tried one out with my name...

You type in what you want it to say and click "Apply" to get a preview of what it will look like.










Here is a version for the backs of my cards...

or maybe I would change the "R" to something else entirely.  You could make it a "C" and have the line say "create".  You can make them however you want, so if you don't want them for addresses, you can make them for your baked goods labels if you bake a lot.  Homemade goodness just for you, with a big "C" and cookies in the middle.  Then you need to mail some to me of course!



Here are some other styles...

Head on over to the online store and check them out.  While you are there be sure to check out the new weekly deals, updated every Tuesday!  I got the valentine download of course!