Its been a while since I played along with MDS Monday so what better time to do it than when everyone else in the house is sleeping and I'm just sitting here watching 'Jail' on TV.
Holly has a great layout for this challenge and I decided to use photos from my cousins wedding that took place in March. We're not blood cousins, but we've been best friends since we were 12 and when we found out our families had a link(her dad, who was in the Army, knew one of my dad's cousins who lived across the country) we were instantly "cousins" and have referred to each other as that all these years!
She called me about 2 months before the wedding and asked me to officiate her wedding, as I was her oldest friend and that would mean the world to her. Of course I said yes! However this also meant I couldn't get as many pictures of her and her groom as I wanted because I had my official duties to take care of, but I did get a few, mainly at the reception.
It was wonderful to be there for her special day and I hope they have a lifetime of happiness!
Whaaaattttt? 2 challenges done for MDS Monday within 24 hrs? I'm on a roll, woot woot! My oldest has to be at work at 4am today, and I drive him, so I figured why bother going to bed for 2 hrs or so just to get up again .I'll hit the hay at 0430 when I get home from taking him(ETA: Its now 0430 and I just got home. It was a great drive in to Wasilla, the Northern Lights were dancing in the sky! Pretty darn good way to start the week!). This gave me a great excuse to whip out my laptop, work on the new MDS challenge and catch up my DVR'd shows from the week.
Joan has a card sketch for us this week and she'd also like us to try using the opacity feature. That's one of the few features I use regularly so I was pretty comfortable with that. I changed my mind several times on this card.....I think that's why MDS is so hard for me, I cant just throw paper and stamps on my desk and hold them and look them over. I have to keep doing the trial and error on my digital project and that's just really hard for me. I finally decided on using the splatter feature to bring in some color and its also where I used the opacity feature.
I started with a base color of Island Indigo and then using the square punch I created a panel of Whisper White. I matted that with some Pear Pizzazz. For the splatter I used Pear Pizzazz, Melon Mambo and Whisper White. I adjusted the opacity for the Pear Pizzazz and Melon Mambo splatters but left the Whisper White ones alone. The embellishments are Polka Dot ribbons and the sentiment is from Delightful Dozen and I colored it in Melon Mambo.
Have a great Monday, thanks for stopping by and make sure you go check out MDS Monday and play along with them!
I haven't played along with MDS Monday in a while (I know, bad me, its a great challenge blog!) but when I saw the states/province challenge I just couldn't resist. I love geography, especially US geography, and learning new things about the states excites me. After looking at the DT examples I'll be researching Canada some more too (Tara, I'll go with you to Nunavut, it looks like I place I'd get a kick out of!).
I didn't have the Fifty Nifty download so what a great excuse to get it :) I went with my state, Alaska, and the photos are from a trip we took up to Fairbanks in Oct. 2011. It was the one year anniversary of my dad's passing and my birthday is in the same time frame and I didn't want to be home. On our way north we stopped had some marvelous views of Denali ( aka known as Mt. McKinley to those who don't live here, aka as the highest mountain in North America) and so that's one of my pics on the page. We also went by North Pole AK to Santa's house to see him and do some shopping. For dinner one night we went to Denny's, the most northern one in the world! Some people may see Denny's and go "ew" (said in my best Jimmy Fallon voice) but I tell you, it was one of the best meals we've had and our waitress was fantastic!
The highway to get from my house to Fairbanks is 2 lanes most of the time and its a pretty long drive with no real services offered along the way. When we went up we didn't see many other folks on the road(its different during the summer, tourists galore clogging the highway) and you need to make sure you are prepared for anything. Our weather changes rapidly and our wildlife is plentiful, which means hitting a moose or caribou is a worry. Its a beautiful drive though and one I highly recommend to anyone that comes to visit our state!
This week at 'Tis The Season we have a sketch for you! You'll notice it has hexagons...well, I'll fully admit to NOT liking the current hexagon craze that has taken over the crafting world and therefore I have nothing in my stash related to it, except for an embossing folder I think. At times like this MDS from SU comes in very handy. I can complete the challenge but yet not add anything to my stash here at the house that is only going to collect dust!
I started with a Pool Party background and used the hexagon punch to create my shape. I got it to the size I wanted and then just copied and pasted the image so all the hexagons would be the same size. I used paper from the Joyful Times set to fill in the shapes and added a Real Red border around them. My sentiment is from the designer kit Very Merry Twenty-Five and I made that Real Red also. The brads are Old Olive and the stitching around the edges was done in Very Vanilla.
We hope you'll come play along with us at 'Tis The Season, we'd love to see what you come up with using this sketch!
Over at MDS Monday Joan has a great layout for us, and the focus is on the title.
I turned 40 on Oct.11 and for the first time in 20 yrs, since our oldest was born!, my husband and I went on a little getaway together. We drove down to Seward Alaska, a gorgeous little coastal town that is a must see for anyone that comes to Alaska. We stayed at the military resort and spent our days wandering the area and enjoying the solitude. It rained the entire time we were there, absolutely pouring at times, but that didn't hurt our trip at all. Rain or shine Seward is a fantastic place!
Have some fun with My Digital Studio and go play with the gals at MDS Monday!
My son has to be at work at 4am Monday morning so I figured I'd stay up and work on an MDS challenge. No sense in going to sleep when I stay up to 4am during the week anyway due to my work schedule.
Beth has a card sketch for us and I decided to go with a Christmas card, using the Jingle and Joy Kit. My favorite colors are blue and green and I seemed to have stuck with that a bit on this card, using Pool Party and Gumball Green with a touch of Calypso Coral and Very Vanilla.
It's a pretty simple card :)
It's taken all week but I finally got some time to kick back with my laptop and play with the current card sketch over at MDS Monday!
Since we're wrapped in the arms of autumn here in southcentral Alaska I decided to make a Halloween card. I love Halloween, my family goes all out for it, but I don't normally make cards for it. MDS is the perfect way to make a quick card that can be easily printed and given to a lucky recipient.
I used the Howlstooth and Scaringbone DSP along with coordinating colors for the background and for the flag banner and circle. I decided to use the scallop border embellishment across the page and changed the color to Basic Gray. I also played with the color tool for the first time, coloring in the images on the stamp I used, Halloween Happiness. I just love this stamp, it's so cute!
Make sure you head over to the MDS Monday blog to play along with them!
It's 2am and everyone in the house is asleep but me, so what better thing to do than get busy playing along with the challenge over at MDS Monday!
Tara has a great sketch for us, and she is also challenging us with an embellishment cluster. I wont lie, I saw the cluster and had a bit of a heart attack. In my paper crafting I am not good with layers or lots of embellishments and trying to do that digitally really seemed out of my league! I put on some Glee episodes for background noise(yes, I'm a Gleek!) and set out to try and conquer the cluster :)
Since fall has arrived in my neck of the woods I went with the new fall DSP, Sweater Weather. I just love this paper and the colors! I tried to pick patterns from this DSP that were colorful but not too busy, and I think I reached a pretty decent balance.
The swirl is a stamp from 'Autumn Elements' and I colored it Chocolate Chip. If you look closely you'll also see that I randomly placed Basic Pearls around the swirl. I thought the area looked a little plain so wanted to give it a little something extra. I also added pearls around the sentiment on the bottom panel. The scallop circle punch is filled in with Sweater Weather DSP and the button is colored in with Crushed Curry. I added Chocolate Chip Bakers Twine to finish it off. Last but not least the sentiment is colored with Chocolate Chip and is from the set ' So Typefelt'.
Before I sign off I'd like to thank Heidi for picking this digital Christmas card as a MDS Monday Master! You made my night when I saw that!
Make sure you head over to the MDS Monday blog and check out the great projects from the design team. I've learned so much about MDS since playing along with them!
It's time for another Friday Mashup and this week Liliana is our hostess! She is giving us a sketch, as well as a school theme. Here in the Mat-Su Valley of Alaska the kids started back to school Aug.15 but as a school district employee I went back to work towards the end of July, so we're all trying to get back into a routine. My youngest started high school and getting up at 0630 is hard after a summer of sleeping until 2 in the afternoon!
I don't have a any stamp sets that screamed 'school' at me so I went with a digital card using SU's My Digital Studio program. I used the stamp sets 'A is for Apple' and 'Thoughtful Overlays' to get my school theme. The DSP is from 'On the Go'. The 'A+' is from the 'A is for Apple' set but I created the rest of the sentiment by adding my own text.
Make sure you head over to The Friday Mashup blog to see the rest of the great inspiration from the DT. It looks like a few of us went digital this week!
- Create a project with the "Sketch."
- Create a project with a "School theme (books, pencils, rulers, numbers, etc."
- Or Mash it Up and create a "School themed project using the above Sketch. "
Since I work nights I'm up to 4am every night, even weekends. This can be quite nice, especially when the challenge blogs are updated. I happened to be online when the new challenge for MDS Monday was posted so I opened up my MDS and started creating! Joan has a sketch for us that definitely gets us to put our thinking caps on!
I think the hardest part for me when using MDS is trying to visualize the direction I want to go in. With my stamps and paper I can lay them on my desk, see how things go together and just play around. For the way *my* mind works trying to do this on MDS is much harder. I started with the pictures I was going to use for this project and then I moved to the paper/colors. I knew I wanted to use Gingham Garden but I changed the background about 3 times before I finally settled on the end result. I changed up the 3 layers on the left just a tad by using a flag punch and again used Gingham Garden DSP. All in all I'm pretty pleased with the way the page came out!
This week at MDS Monday Heidi has a card sketch for everyone, and also a tutorial for editing a punch shape. I followed the card sketch but didn't do the punch shape editing...all the shapes I have didn't seem to allow the editing(I don't have the chevron punch set that she used).
I went with a Christmas card (sorry Heidi, LOL) and kept it pretty simple(the usual for me on MDS so far). I think I might have this one printed out by SU and see how it looks, maybe I'll go digital for my Christmas cards this year.(I said that to my family the other day and they said 'yeah right' LOL)
The hubby and youngest are out fishing, the oldest is sleeping and the daughter is about to leave for work so I grabbed my laptop to enjoy the quiet time and to play along with MDS Monday!
Rochelle has a great layout for us and I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to use my daughters prom pics. Her and her boyfriend attended different high schools so they went to 2 proms this past April. These pictures are from the prom for Lucas's school. They both looked so awesome, we were so proud of them!
I went with a 'less is more' mantra on this one. The blue background is pretty loud so I kept everything else simply, getting the number requirement in at the top and then just using a stamp at the bottom for the sentiment. Courtney and Lucas have been dating 2 yrs and so I thought this particular sentiment was a nice one to use. I then used a heart punch and reduced the opacity to have it highlight the sentiment.
I hope everyone has a great weekend, we finally have rain and cool temps in southcentral Alaska, wooohoooo!
I sat down Weds evening and brought out My Digital Studio so I could play along with MDS Monday again. I think I am slowly getting used to the software and figuring out how to do things with it, woot woot!
For my layout I used photos from a little jaunt my daughter and I took the other day. Her boyfriend is working for Alaska Dept of Fish and Game at a fish weir and since he is isolated and bored at the location we decided to go visit him. The wildflowers were a plenty out there so I decided to make them the focus of this layout.
Thanks again to the MDS Monday DT members for the encouraging comments you have left, I really appreciate them!
I'm working on my digital skills again by playing along with this weeks MDS Monday challenge, which is a card sketch with the added option of using papers and stamps from one digital kit. I did pretty good with that option...my papers and other elements are from the Day in the Life kit, while I grabbed the sentiment from the Delight in the Day kit.
Thanks to the MDS DT members that left such encouraging comments on my photo group MDS project, I really appreciated it!
I'm going totally out of my comfort zone with this latest project....a layout from the blog MDS Monday. Not familiar with MDS Monday? It's a blog dedicated to making projects using the My Digital Studio software from Stampin'Up!
I'll be the first person to admit that I'm not into the digital stuff. I like to have my hands right on my projects and when using the computer I usually get frustrated and ticked off when trying to digitally create something. I bought MDS when it came out a few years ago, used it maybe once or twice and then forgot about it. Fast forward to this year?last year?...I cant remember....and SU was offering the program for $19.95. Since my laptop didn't have the program and I had no clue where my original disk was I figured what the heck, I'll buy it. It's been sitting on computer since then with nary a glance from me.
A Christmas challenge I play with wanted digital elements for this weeks challenge so I broke out MDS and made a card. Then I thought about my friend Holly and the MDS blog and thought what the heck, I'll give it a shot!
I am proud to say that I got the layout made without my computer being thrown out the window, and with no naughty words being flung about! I kept it nice and simple, followed the tutorial that MDS linked to for the photo technique and I was good to go! Maybe I'll learn enough of the program so I can create my families Christmas card this year....maybe.... ;)
The photo I used is of a cow moose that visited us for several days in February. The moose love to come nibble on the willow trees that separate my place from the property next door!
Whew, what a day! I had planned on getting this post up about 8 hrs ago but we lost power! We have no clue why, but its about the 3rd or 4th time in the last 2 months. Its not unusual for us to lose power in the winter but in the summer? It's cloudy and in the 50's but no rain, no wind so who knows what the cause was.
The challenge over at Jingle Belles right now is to use digital elements on your Christmas card. Now I'll be completely honest and admit that I am not a fan of digital cardmaking/scrapping, whatever you call it. I prefer to have my hands on the materials and work like that. I do own Stampin' Up's digital program MDS, so I decided to try it out (I never use it, again, being honest) and see what I could come up with.
I used the past challenge at Sunday Stamps as my guide, as it was a nice and simple sketch. I didn't want to get too involved since I don't know what the heck I'm doing!
I also didn't print out my card, one step at a time for me please LOL Hopefully this will still count for the challenge. I love the Jingle Belles blog and hate not being able to play with them!
I had some free time this afternoon so I decided to play with the SU My Digital Studio some more. I really wanted to make a card for my my dad's girlfriend, who I pretty much consider my stepmom. The entire yr that my dad battled his cancer she was right by his side and did so much for him, it was just amazing. When my dad left this world Oct.2nd she was right by his side and I know with every ounce of my being that if it hadnt been for her love he wouldnt have made it as long as he did. I love her, and I want her to always know how much I appreciate everything she has done. She is currently out of state from where her and my dad lived, visiting her mom down south, so I created this card so I could post it on her Facebook and just let her know that I was thinking about her.
I used Soft Suede as the base color, then layers of Sunny Day DSP in Pumpkin Pie. The stamps are from For All You Do and I used the colors Crushed Curry, Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler. The ribbon is Old Olive.
So I recently signed back up with SU as a demo and got the My Digital Studio program. I havent had much time to play with it and when I have I've gotten a bit frustrated and gave up. Today my friend Holly met up with me on Yahoo Messenger and walked me through it. This is the card I created with her guiding me through the different functions offered with MDS.
Thank you Holly!!
We used the Sweet Sunday Sketch and I have to admit, when she told me I was going to be using that sketch I was like " Are you kidding me? You said we were going to start off easy! LOL". Of course its a Christmas card...only 52 days left!! We used the Candy Cane digital kit. So cute!
