MDS Blog Hop - What are you working on?

The big news in our family this week is that school is officially out for the summer! It's bittersweet; we're moving in a few weeks and it's really hard to leave a school that we love so much. My kids have grown leaps and bounds while attending Halley and it will always have a special place in our hearts.

I feel like I put a lot more on this page than I normally would, so I'm still playing around with it some. But I'm close to finishing. I can feel it. :)

I'm excited to see what other projects are in store for us this week! 

MDS Blog Hop - Hybrid projects

This week we're focusing on hybrid or e-cutter projects. Now... I did get a Cameo for Christmas and I am so, so excited about it - but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. Do you ever feel like the more you try to simply life the busier it gets? That's where I am right now. But hey - I pulled it out of the box! Tell me that's not progress. ;)

I recently did a blog post for the MDS Design Team showing some of the cute things I made for my son Jesse's nursery. If you've already seen that post then I apologize for the repeat. This time I just wanted to show you a hybrid project I created. I've seen this idea floating around Pinterest and I'm so glad I was finally able to finish it.

I like to decorate my kids' rooms around a particular theme or idea; for Jesse I chose "Oh, the Places You'll Go." It's one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. I wanted something that would grow with him, so I purposely stayed away from things that were baby-ish. 

I remember spending hours looking at National Geographic magazines as a kid - I've always wanted to travel. There's something so magical about dreaming of far off places. Anyway, I scoured Instagram for all the coolest photos of the coolest places out there, saved them to my phone and then had them printed. I couldn't resist using MDS to bring in some fun elements. Stampin' Up has put out some pretty awesome travel downloads! 

My photos were 3x3 so I created the same size box on my page in MDS and filled it with quotes and graphics. Then all I had to do was print those designs, cut out the individual elements and put them together. I used Stampin' Dimensionals on some of those elements to bring in more depth and interest to the layers. I feel like it helped give bring more interest to the whole project. 

For a couple of these I knew exactly the look I was going for - like the 'I love NY' picture above. For others I had a basic idea but had fun just adding papers and elements as I went along. I love those moments when creativity just flows and you can enjoy the process rather than worrying about whether or not it'll look great. 

I have several more Instagram pics that I'd like to put up in Jesse's room, along with some more elements from MDS. That's where my Cameo will come into play ;)  I've got plans. Big plans! For the moment I hope Jesse enjoys looking at these 'wonders of the world'. I know I do! 

Let's continue on with the hop - Cindy is next! 

Click Here for Cindy's blog

MDS Blog Hop - Happy {Heart} Day!

Good Morning! It's a lovely snow day for us here in Virginia. I like snow while it's falling and for the few hours that it's beautiful, white and untouched. Then I'm over it and ready for the sun to come out, warm things up and melt it all away. Whether it's snowy or wonderfully warm and sunny where you are, I hope you're settled in front of your computer enjoying the blog hop with us! We love our blog followers!

This week the theme (if you haven't already figured it out) is Valentine's Day. So...anything about love fits the bill. I couldn't resist creating a page telling my boys some of the things I love about them. It was pretty hard to narrow it down - there's just so much to love! I'll just have to make it into a two page spread I guess... or maybe an extra page for each of them :)

Ok, time to hop along and see what Cindy has for us today. Hope you've been inspired to create in My Digital Studio!

Blogger is being weird again and I can't add the link to the graphic above, so please

 CLICK HERE to get to Cindy's blog. 

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you get to spend it with those you love the most!

MDS Blog Hop - What are you working on?

Hi! Did you just come from Aly's blog?  Bet she's got something adorable up for the blog hop today!

I don't have any special projects to share this time, just working on some scrapbooking.  I take about zillion pictures in a week so it's inevitable - I'm behind.  But I've decided that I'll never be finished, and I've made peace with that.  In fact, I embrace it! If I ever reach the point that I am 'caught up' then I need to get out more. Live a little. Take more pictures! :)  

I don't really have a method to my madness; I simply scrapbook what I feel like at the moment.  My creativity flows better that way.  Sometimes I even start working on a page before I know what photo I'm going to use.  It just depends.  This time around I knew what picture I wanted - one of my sweet little Jesse that I snapped a few weeks ago.  He finished his bottle and passed right out - and it was the most adorable thing I'd ever seen.  You should have seen me holding my phone at all kinds of crazy angles trying to get a great picture! My antics were worth it though. This is one of my favorite shots of him. 

I mostly used Hello Perfection and Finest Simplicity but the background paper is from Life Celebrated and set at 40% opacity.  

To help with the placement of my circles, I opened a circle punch, expanded it to the size I wanted and used it as a template for the smaller circles. Once I had them where I wanted, I deleted the large circle.  Easy Peasy!

I hope you're having fun and feeling inspired on today's blog hop! Your next stop is Cindy who always has a treat in store for us! :)

Convention Samples - Round 2!

Alright - it's time for a few more Convention samples!  I had so much fun creating projects with all of the adorable new products.  I'm really grateful for the opportunity.  I had to design a calendar, a board book, 8 cards and 5 scrapbook pages.  I've shown you the projects that made it to the display boards {my book, calendar and a few cards} so today I'll show you the remaining cards.

First up is a card using the Betsy's Blossoms stamp set which is included in the Floral District collection.  This was a really quick card to put together.  To create a two toned bird, I added lighter blue punches behind the wings.  The bird wing from the 2-step bird punch worked perfectly for this.

Card #2 is one of my favorites - another simple one without tons of embellishments, but you could easily add some pearls after it's printed to add a little something extra. That's one really nice feature of MDS - when you open an embellishment it's already true to size so there's no guess work. I think Comfort Cafe is one of my absolute favorite kits. I heard a lot of grumbling about the new In Color Summer Starfruit, but I adore it! Comfort Cafe includes a ton of beautiful paper!

I saw a fun banner where the flags were going both up and down, so I tried it out on this card - I'm pretty pleased with the result.  I found the Birds of a Feather Collection to be really versatile - I can use it for all kinds of layouts.  The speech bubble is a simple outline but I really wanted it filled it.  Simple fix.  I grabbed an oval punch, manipulated it to the correct size, filled it with white and then reduced the opacity.  Voila!  You can see the DSP behind it but it's not competing with my greeting.  

I was a huge fan of the Floral District collection the second I saw it!  It's bright and fun {two of my favorite things} and it makes me happy.  I didn't use it a lot in the Convention projects I designed but I'm absolutely sure that I'll get plenty of use out of it.  The scallop and large circle on this card are filled with DSP and the rest are embellishments from the kit.  Well, except for the buttons.  I pulled those from the Twitterpated kit :)  The lines in the background are from the Hip and Handsome Overlays.  I use overlays all the time.  It's a great way to add interest and texture to my projects.  With this card I wanted a very subtle background, so I applied the overlay, changed the color to white and added a drop shadow.  Super easy technique.  Just play around with the drop shadow until you're happy with the look.

And last but not least, a card I created using the Patio Party Collection.  I had a lot of fun with this kit too - great color combinations and adorable embellishments make it easy to whip up something cute in no time.

Tomorrow I'll post the 5 scrapbook pages I created - see you then!  

MDS Blog Hop - Punches!

Happy Friday to you!  I've been looking forward to this day all week - my hubby has the day off {YAY!}  Any extra time we get to spend with him is a good day.
Our theme for the hop today is Punches.  I love punches - I can create all kinds of layouts with them and one of my favorite things to do is fill them with paper then manipulate the paper size to change the look of the paper.  It's like having a million different papers at your fingertips.  I've also been experimenting lately with combining papers from different collections.  I've amassed quite a collection of downloads and one of the great things about Stampin' Up is that they have a core set of color families. What does that mean to you?  Everything coordinates!  I can mix and match papers and embellishments to my heart's content and never worry about whether or not the colors will work together.

To get started, I pulled up my Pin Boards and found a layout I liked.  You'll notice that I head to my Pin Board a lot for inspiration {sometimes I outright copy the layouts - shhh...}  I'm trying to actually do something with the ideas I pin. It's just a little goal of mine :)  What really jumped out at me on this layout was the circle border, but I'm kind of in love with the whole thing.  {Layout by Kelly Noel}

Lots of tweaking and fussing...and Ta Da!

I took these pictures of Simon at the park the other day while waiting for Andrew to finish soccer class.  The park was nearly empty and it was heaven.  I'm not much for crowds.  I love being able to snap away with my camera without worrying about who's going to wander into my shot.  I drive my kids crazy with the constant camera in their faces, but as I was explaining to them this morning - I am preserving their memories. And they'll thank me later.  They laughed and laughed.  I'm dead serious though - they'll thank me later!

I hope you have fun hopping around this morning - enjoy your weekend!

1. Jeanna Bohanon
2. Rochelle Gould 

3. Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 

5. Amber Meadows
   {nice to see you!}

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Holly VanDyne

Convention Samples - round 1

I still pinch myself when I think that out of the thousands of demonstrators out there, Stampin' Up knows who I am! I was thrilled to be asked to create some MDS samples for Convention this year! The only thing that could have made it better was if I'd actually been able to go to Convention to see my projects on display.  Several of the girls from our hop were able to go, and they graciously took pictures so that I could join in the excitement!  I created 15 samples using the new Digital Content CD's in this year's catalog and over the next few days I'll post all of those so you can see what I was up to during my long absence from the MDS Blog Hop. 

Today we'll start with some pictures of Convention (thanks to my blog hop friends) and the samples that made it to the display boards.

Eek!  I'm on the list!!

Did you happen to notice that Jeanna, Erica, Heather and Holly are on the list too?  So exciting!

Back here in the corner you can see my calendar peeking out.  Before being asked to be a display stamper I had never created a calendar in MDS.  Shocking, I know!  It was a lot of fun to use the calendar options in the Design Center of MDS.  I created a 10x5 calendar  and used downloads from all of the new CD's in the catalog. 

Look close and you can see one of my cards up there in the corner.  It's one of my favorite cards - masculine and simple but lots of fun.  

Here's what the card looks like close up (I left it blank on the inside):

Up next is another card and my attempt at a vintage style design.  I don't do vintage very often - not that I dislike it - it's just not my typical style.

I used the Fan Fair Collection for this one 

Laying down here on the shelf (where no one can see it grrrr...) is a postcard I made.  I combined a couple of ideas I found on Tiny Prints for this one using the Fan Fair Collection.  It's one of my favorite collections!

Here is the front:

And the back. 

By the way, I totally made up this address - so don't send your fan mail there. We don't live in Chantilly - I just love the way it sounds.  ;)

And last but not least, my board book!  I spent hours - and I mean hours! - on this book.  I'm very proud of it and I don't mind saying so.  When I started it, I had a simple format I wanted to follow and I was sure that it would be quick to put together.  Well, I always forget that lots of layers bogs down MDS on my laptop.  I'm pretty sure it's because I'm working on a MacBook Air.  My husband (a super smart computer guy) says that when we upgrade to a MacBook Pro it should fix the problem. For now I just have to deal with it, and when working on a big project like this book every change takes a ridiculously long time.  I'll be honest - I pulled a couple of all-nighters to make sure this book was ready on time, but it was worth it.

I've been collecting kid quotes since Andrew could talk, so I have plenty of material to work with.  I'm sure I'll have at least 2 more volumes in this series of books.  I feel a little like a published author {giggle}.  Except my book isn't in stores... details, details.

A sneak peak at the inside:

Here are the books that were created by my Blog Hop friends!  Aren't they gorgeous?  From left to right its, me, Heather Summers, Erica Shaw, Jeanna Bohanon and Holly VanDyne up front.  Way to go ladies - they look fantastic!

I had hoped that some of my scrapbook pages would make it on display, but I knew ahead of time that not everything would - there simply isn't room.  I'll be posting more projects in the next few days and I'll include a video of my calendar and board book so you can see the entire thing.  

Thanks for stopping by and sharing in my excitement!

MDS Blog Hop - Color Challenge

Happy Friday everyone!  The weeks are flying by this summer - I wish I could slow it down.  Last night I realized we only have 6 weeks left of summer vacation. Yikes!  I still feel like it just started.  I've been trying to capture a picture each day so we can scrapbook and journal about our summer and today's page features pictures from a recent trip to the dentist office.  Not exactly my idea of good time, but it must be done!

It was my turn to choose the theme this week, and as I was perusing some kits from my favorite digital designers I came across an adorable color scheme that I was dying to recreate in MDS.  I'm hoping that the other blog hoppers found it as fun as I did.  I suggested we use some or all of these colors in a layout: 

I found an adorable layout idea on Pinterest and set to work.  Here's what I came up with:

Have you seen the new Family Fun Photobook Template?  I didn't realize it until I was creating this page, but several of the colors I had chosen were also in the color scheme of this download.  I had to have it and couldn't be happier with my purchase.  This download is ADORABLE!! There are some fun twine accents, half circles and stitching - can't have enough stitching :D  I also used some papers from Patio Party, Walk in the Park, and Berry Blossoms.  I created the title with the Lauren's Letters alphabet punch and added some accents with the Washi Tape.

I ended up using Lucky Limeade instead of Wild Wasabi because I really wanted to use the Washi Tape and it just didn't look right with Wild Wasabi.  All in all, I'm happy with the result!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on and see what my talented friends have created - Enjoy!

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. Alesha Walls

12. Holly VanDyne

MDS Blog Hop - Monochromatic

Well, hello there!  When I said I was taking a couple of weeks off I really thought it would be a couple of weeks.  It's turned into much longer than that - I'm sorry  :-/  I am still trying to get back in the groove and although I'm working on my project, it's not quite finished.  We're headed to the water park today and I thought, Why not bring my laptop along?  I could finish up my project while the kids play.  My hubby was quick to veto that idea so sadly, I won't be able to post it until later today.  Never fear though, I'm back on the hop and super excited about it.  I've missed posting with my favorite MDS gals!

*Finally!  I'm finished with my monochromatic page.  It's funny how you can have a clear calendar and then your time seems to fill up before you realize what's happening. This was definitely a challenge for me - I had to resist the urge to add more colors, but overall I think it turned out well.  Hope you like it :)

 While you're waiting for me, why not check out the rest of the group?  I'm excited to see what they have in store for us 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. Alesha Walls

12. Holly VanDyne

MDS Blog Hop - Vacations

Good Morning!  I hope you're enjoying today's blog hop.  This week our theme is Vacations, and I'm pretty excited to see what everyone came up with.

I had several pictures to choose from, but in the end I decided to scrap a few pictures from a recent visit to Monticello.  We didn't have much planned for Spring Break, but when my hubby suggested he take a day off so we could go to Monticello I jumped at the chance! I've been wanting to go for some time. The drive was beautiful and it was a perfect spring day. Even the kids had a blast.

I pulled the background paper from the Tickets and Tags kit - I liked the idea of the grid paper since Thomas Jefferson was an architect, among other things.  If you're ever in Virginia, make sure to stop by Monticello - it's so tranquil and absolutely breathtaking!

Make sure to stop by the rest of designer's blogs today and don't be afraid to leave a comment.  We love to hear feedback on our designs!

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. Alesha Walls

12. Holly VanDyne

MDS Blog Hop - Sketch Challenge!

I didn't get my project posted Friday afternoon like I'd planned - sorry.  It's a good thing I was late though, because I misread the list and thought that we were supposed to be doing a page on Vacations.  Turns out that's for this coming Friday.  I have a head start on that page though, so it's ok :)  


I personally love Sketch Challenges - and never get tired of them - but just so you know, we are changing it up a bit in the coming weeks.  I hope you're as excited every Friday for the MDS Hop as much as we are!


Here's the sketch we used:

And here is my version of the sketch:

Lately I've had a lot of fun combining elements and papers from different kits.  That's not to say I never design that way, but I've made more of an effort to really change things up - try something I wouldn't ordinarily.  I like the results so far  :)

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. Alesha Walls

12. Holly VanDyne

MDS Blog Hop - Sketch Challenge

Happy Friday everyone!  It's been a crazy week, so I'm glad that the weekend is finally here :)  It was my turn to pick the challenge this time around and since I am in love with sketches - they really get my creative juices flowing - that's what I picked.  I found this one on BHG's www.scrapbooksetc.com.  Such a fun site!

Here's the sketch:

And here's my take on it:

Generally I follow the sketches pretty closely, but this time around I had a picture bigger than what the sketch showed.  No worries - it was a great starting point for me and the page came together rather quickly.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to scrap at first, but then I found these pics of my little guy standing so proudly next to his potty chart. Look closely - the potty chart was made using MDS! So it's an MDS page within another MDS page - awesome.  I had already started designing with the On the Go kit and wouldn't you know - it worked out perfectly for this page!

Get the supplies needed for this page:

On the Go kit	Check this Out	Punch Shapes	Taffeta Ribbon Color Pack
Simple Stitches and Corners	Corduroy Buttons	My Digital Studio software

InLinkz.com

I hope you have a great time on the hop this morning and that you get some great inspiration for your own MDS projects.  Have a great weekend!

1. Jeanna Bohanon
2. Rochelle Gould 

3. Mandy Grant

4. Julie Leblanc 

5. Amber Meadows (so glad you stopped by!)

6. Terri Mongeon

7. Aly Schilling

8. Cindy Schuster

9. Erica Shaw

10. Heather Summers

11. Alesha Walls

12. Holly VanDyne