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 - 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! :)

MDS Blog Hop - What are you working on?

So. . . Christmas is only 6 days away!  Can I get a what what?  Christmas is the same date every year and still it sneaks up on me.  One of these days I'm really going to have things ready in November so that I can sit back and enjoy the fun holiday activities rather make December a mad dash to get it all done.  I still haven't delivered my neighbor gifts and my Christmas cards are sitting here on my desk, waiting to be addressed and mailed.  Lucky for me, I have MDS because it makes these tasks so much simpler. And faster!

For my neighbor gifts I found some adorable boxes to fill with delicious treats on Pick Your Plum. The only thing missing is an adorable tag.  Enter MDS.  It didn't take long to create this and now all I have to do is print a bunch, tie them on and I'm good to go!

Front:

Back: 

I'll be sure to take pictures and post them so you can see how it all turned out.  Hope you enjoy the rest of the blog hop and that you enjoy a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones! 

MDS Blog Hop - What I'm working on

Are you ready for another round of fabulous projects?  I can't wait to see what everyone is working on!

Right now I'm working on a birth announcement for my sweet little man.  I managed to make handmade announcements (and send them out!) after my first son was born and I had every intention of doing that for my second baby, but he switch from one child to two proved to be more difficult than I expected and I never made announcements let alone sent them out.  He'll probably never care, but I still feel like he's left out somehow.  I've been determined not to do the same thing for my third son, and this time, I have My Digital Studio on my side!  It's so easy to play around with different ideas and, even though I love handmade, being able to create the design once and then print as many copies as I need will save me so much time!

I nearly designed an announcement with the new postcard shapes, but I ended up with so many amazing pictures of my sweet baby that I went with a tri-fold card instead.  I really wanted it to open vertically rather than horizontally and I was disappointed to find that we don't have that option.

So I thought and I thought, and then it hit me - design it sideways! I'll admit - it's taken some extra time to do it this way, but I'm very pleased with the results.  I found the easiest way to do it was design everything horizontally and then flip it.  Kept me from having to look at my screen sideways the whole time ; )

Pretty cool, right?  I wanted the main focus to be on Mr. Jesse so I didn't add much in the way of stamps or embellishments.  Besides - why would I try to compete with those gorgeous photos?  My friend Jenny Lewis is an incredibly talented photographer!  She moved earlier this year, but I kind of begged her to come do pictures for me.  Being the sweet person that she is, she drove two hours with her own two kids and then spent the afternoon with me doing the photo shoot.  Let me tell you - a newborn photo shoot is hard work!  Jesse peed on every blanket we had - multiple times - and pooped on me, also multiple times.  My super sleepy baby also decided that he wasn't interested in staying asleep that day.  It was crazy!  LOL.  If you're ever in Virginia and need photos let me know - I'll hook you up with Jenny.  She is phenomenal! 

There is a backside to this card, but since I don't always know who's reading my blog and I want to save some surprises for the friends and family we're sending these to, I'm only going to show you this part. After I send out the announcements I can post the other side for you to peek at : )

Ok, on with the show!  Next up is Cindy's blog and something tells me she has something amazing in store for us!