SPCC #20

Yeah it's time for a new SPCC Color combo. This card uses stamps from DRS Stamps. All the other product is Stampin' Up! Paper & Ink Colours: Really Rust, Crushed Curry, Always Artichoke, Whisper White. Accessories: 1/2" polka dot grosgrain in Crushed Curry. Stampin' Write Markers, and Aqua Painter.

Hybrid Christmas Cards

I copied this layout from the fabulous Mary Fish. First I decided to try my hand at making a card with MDS. Here is the digital layout. Then I broke the card down into it's elements and printed them out as the two pictures below.

Next I took the full digital image, printed it out, and mounted it on Whisper White cardstock.

Then I printed out the other 2 pictures and cut out the images. I then layered them and mounted them on dimensionals. Then I added the white grosgrain and mounted it on Real Red cardstock.

This image was taken to show off the layers - sorry it's upside down. :)

Yay!!

I'm so excited. I entered Saturday Spotlight this week and...

I Won!!! Check out their challenge blog here.

And check out my winning post here!

Halloween Fun with MDS

I am having a blast with MDS!!!! Yesterday Stampin' Up! added a few more digital downloads to their catalogue. I really regretted not buying the Cast-a-Spell earlier but now, for half the price of the real paper, I was able to download the entire pack of DSP. And yes, that`s the Medalion stamp on this card as well. I decided to try entering a digital card to the OCC challenge this week. I mistakenly thought that I could whip this card up in a few minutes, well, it took much longer than that, but here we go. I think I`m going to print it out as large as I can and put it in one of my shadowboxes. I`ll try to post a photo of that tomorrow. Stamps: Eat Drink & Be Scary, Extreme Elements, Medallion. Paper: Cast a Spell. Cardstock: Whisper White, Perfect Plum, Basic Black. Accessories: Basic Black Eyelets, Round Pumpkin Pie Buttons, Pumpkin Pie Grosgrain, Staple

Spotlighting Trees

I just found a challenge blog called Saturday Spotlight. I was immediately inspired by the challenge this week as I have been pondering over cards from Mary Fish and Andrea Walford using circle punches and the Season of Friendship stamp set. I wanted to redo my shadowboxes that I occasionally showcase on this blog. It's time for some autumn themed work. The challenge this week is to 'dress up a tree'. To make this tree I used Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, and Pumpkin Pie cardstock and ink as well as Chocolate Chip Ink. I used Circle Circus and the aforementioned Season of Friendship stamp sets. First I stamped every image in the circle circus set on matching cardstock in the 3 colours and then punched them out with the 3/4", 1", and 1 1/4" circle punches. Then I layered them to make 9 circles. I then stamped the tree in chocolate chip and versamark and heat embossed clear embossing powder to make it pop. The citcles were attached at various levels using dimensionals and then I added the strip of paper and ribbon at the bottom to "ground" the image. The sentiemnt is from Season of Friendship and I backed it on a punch out from the Modern Label punch and then a strip of Riding Hood Red. I added a few brads on the corners and mounted it a few times on matching cardstock.

I apologize for the poor quality of the photo. I wanted to show the depth of the popped up circles and label, but the picture below shows the colours much better.

Oh yeah, more butterflies

Well I made several of these butterfly cards when I was preparing last months BLOG CANDY. And I got a bit carried away as you can probably tell. Anyway, so here is yet another version of that card that I cased from the most amazing Mary Fish. In this card I used the Cottage Wall DSP which is most definitely my most favourite Stampin Up DSP ever!!! Purple and green are my most favourite colours in the whole world. In fact, my wedding invites were purple and green. But I digress... The DSP was Cottage Wall, the Big Butterflies Bigz die was used for the butterflies and so was the Eyelet border punch. The cardstock is Rich Razz, Old Olive and Whisper White and the brads are the large round rhinestones.

SPCC combo number 19

HAPPY TURKEY DAY CANADA!!! - I just have to throw that in here as today is Canadian Thanksgiving. Why is it not the same as the American Thanksgiving you might ask???? Well, seeing as we live a bit further North, our harvest is a bit sooner, and so we celebrate is a bit earlier. (Not that many of us actually harvest our own food anymore) - but I digress. Today is Monday and time for another wonderful colour challenge over at SPCC. Please check out the blog to see what wonderful prizes are up for grabs this week. I know that Samantha, the scrapmaster, works hard to secure awesome prizes for you every week.
Wow do I LOVE this colour combo. Purple and Green is my fav, I tell you. Samantha never ceases to AMAZE me with her talent at picking colour combos. For this card I used the Petal Pizzaz stamp set which is one of my fav's as well. I tried, I really tried to make this an all Stampin' UP! card, but until they come out with something as awesome as nestabilities, I have to use my nesties once in a while. So I used the scallop rectangle and the labels 4 dies. All the paper, all the stamps, all the ink is SU! I stamped the images and carefully cut around them and popped them all up on dimensionals. I used Stampin' Write markers to colour in the sentiment which is from the Full of Life stamp set.

Digi Scrappin' With MDS

Digi scrappin is FUN! Ok yeah, I'm getting a little crazy over this. And seriously, I have to say that I am actually really addicted to PAPER, so the Digi scrappin is only slightly fulfilling a need. But, this past week I have been horribly sick with a nasty flu. It started with the aches - so bad that I thought it was exercise from playing hockey that was making me sore. But it turns out that the Flu was the culprit. And I knew that I was truly sick when I decided that I was "TOO SICK TO SCRAP!" crazy eh? But in my misery, I was able to sit down with my laptop and play with MDS. (at least for an hour at a time). So yesterday's post was done with MDS. It's thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, so I have a bit more time to sit around and play and so today I'm posting a few pages I whipped up on MDS with more free images I found on the net. If you are desperately trying to find them yourself, drop me a line by email and I'll give you the link.

In case you're not a Winter Sports follower, the Winter Olympics will be held here in Vancouver in February 2010. And because of this, we've been getting some excellent new facilities for the events. Last February, we went to the new Speed Skating Oval with my hubby's family and spent the evening trying out the venue. The following few pages are from that day. The Oval is in the suburb of Richmond, thus the title page.

In the middle of the oval they have a hardwood floor and basketball/ badminton courts set up. This will all be removed for the olympics, but for us it was a great way to entertain the non-skaters (like my 18 month old daughter)

Hybrid Christmas?

This card was CASE'd from Jenny Moors over at Stamping Moments. This is a digital image that I created using MDS (My Digital Studio).

I printed out this card several times and decided to try my hand at hybrid cardmaking. First I printed it out on my wireless laser printer but the colour didn't look right (see the 2 cards at the front of the picture below) So then I printed it out on Whisper White cardstock (see the 2 cards at the back of the photo)

The picture below is a copy of the card printed out on Whisper White cardstock.

The card below is printed out on regular paper in a laser printer. I mounted the card front on whipser white cardstock. I drew in the strings by hand with a chocolate chip marker.Thc card below was printed out on regular paper in a laser printer twice. Then I mounted the background on whisper white cardstock and added an actual real red grosgrain ribbon. The centre rectangle was cut out, mounted on whisper white cardstock and then popped up on dimensionals.

The centre image on this card below was printed out with my bublejet and then cut out and mounted on Very Vanilla cardstock. I then used some old DSP to make the background and then popped up the rectangle and mounted it on dimensionals.
As you can see, there are many different takes on this card. I took a great design from a great designer and then put it into MDS in about 15 minutes. Next I printed it out on two printers and tried different ways of presenting it. This is an easy way to produce multiple copies of your cards.

Scrappin' Away with MDS

What is MDS??? Well it's the new My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up! If you're not a Stampin' Up! addict like myself, you probably haven't noticed that most of the product on this page is non-SU. I made this page because I wanted to showcase how easy it is to use MDS and how you can easily use materials downloaded for free on the web. Now I'm not actually allowed to tell you where I found these papers and embellishments for free on the web, but I'm sure you could figure that out if you tried ;)

Scrappin With Real Paper!

So one of the wonderful perks of being a SU demonstrator is access to all kinds of deals. About a month ago, SU started their Inventory Blowout. It was immediately available to Demonstrators. I bought this Simply Scrappin kit (retired almost 2 years ago) for $9.95 CDN. It was a great savings. And I've always missed these retired In Colors. Anyway, I put this page together in a snap!

Exploring a Blackberry Smoothie??

This page was created using the new My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up! I had taken all these photos of my daughter. I thought they were really funny but none of them were good enough to highlight, so I was struggling to figure out how to put them in a layout. It was a real snap to put this one together. It took me about half an hour and that was because I had soooooo many choices for embellishments and fonts that I had trouble making up my mind. No cutting, no glueing, no trouble matching cardstock with matching DSP - this was FUN!

SPCC #18

Welcome to another example from a great colour combo from SPCC. Wow did I find this colour combo really challenging. I absolutely love this vellum DSP that I used. It's from Colorbok and I used most of this pad in my wedding album which has been featured on this blog. I really like the way the pattern popped out on top of the Dusty Durango DSP. The ribbon is from my stash and the vellum, metal tag was from the dollar store. I added a retired rub-on from Stampin Up! and attached it to a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock that I punched out using my nesties. The eyelets are from the dollar store and the scrapmaster.
Please check out SPCC to see what the fabulous prizes are this week. Don't feel intimidated to enter. We LOVE to see what you all come up with.

Christmas in Cocoa

This cute card was a real breeze to create. I used this fabulous new DSP called Christmas Cocoa. You can find a full image of it below and you can find it on page 20 of the new Holiday Mini. I used the fantastic Christams set Snow Swirled and heat embossed the image and the sentiment.

The sentiment was cut out with the Modern Label punch and then I adhered it to Real Red cardstock and carefully cut around it with craft scissors. And the fabulous ribbon is 1" double stiched grosgrain in Real Red.

And We Have A WINNER!!!!!

With the amount of participation and extra votes that people received, I had to turn to Random.org to pick a winner. And...

We have a winner!!!!! Congratulations to Alison Day. Please email me privately with your mailing information so I can send you your fabulous Stampin' Up! candy!!! You can find my email on the sidebar.

And even though I didn't get 60 followers, I decided to draw 2 extra names anyway. So congratulations to Heidi and Emily. Please email me privately with your mailing addresses and I'll send you this great collection of tags, ribbon, stickers and more. Again you can find my email on the sidebar.

BLOG CANDY DRAW!!!

I have been absolutely thrilled at the response to my blog candy draw. With 56 followers I did not get the 60 I was aiming for, but I am loving all the comments that people have been leaving on my bog. I am at work right now, so I'll have to sit down and do the draw tonight. So check back here around 10pm PST and I'll announce the winners!!!!!!

Back to the Butterfly

This card was CASE'd from the fabulous Mary Fish. If you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator you will have seen a version of this card in July's Stampin' Success magazine. It was sooooooooo easy to make this card thanks to punches and the Big Shot. The butterflies were punched out with the Butterflies die and the Eyelet border punch made a great border. This paper is retired but I just had to make a card from it. The colours in the card are Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, So Saffron, and Whisper White.

Big Announcement and MOJO

Ever have one of those days when it seems that no matter what you do, nothing turns out the way you want it to? Well it's been one of those days for me. I spent a lot of time making my entry for this week's Mojo challenge, but it's just not what I was expecting. Please scroll down to see the photo. So I decided to post the picture anyway - I put a lot of effort into it and how could this day get any worse eh? BUT then my luck had a sudden turn for the better. I just sat down at my computer to post my Mojo card, when I discovered that I have reached a personal goal. When I started this Blog Candy contest a few weeks ago, I set myself a personal goal of 50 followers for my blog. Well, imagine my surprise a few minutes ago when I found that I have MORE than 50 followers now. I'm SOOOOOOOOO excited. So to celebrate, I'm adding another draw to the blog candy. You could win this collection of chipboard tags, ribbons, stickers and paper with an autumn theme. And I'm setting forward another challenge for all of you. If I can reach 60 followers before the draw date, then I will add ANOTHER draw for a similar collection.
But I digress. Here's my Mojo entry this week. I combined this challenge with Makeesha's Inkspiration Colour Challenge. Check out below for the sketch and the colours.

Best Wishes - SPCC #17

This card was made for this week's SPCC's colour challenge. I had a lot of fun making this card. I used DSP donated by the Scrapmaster herself and a stamp from DRS stamps. Check out future challenges as DRS has a sponsor week and you will get an awesome sampling of their offerings. I absolutely LOVE this butterfly stamp and as soon as I saw it I knew i HAD to have it. The image was stamped using Always Artichoke ink as it offered up a stronger image. I used my Stampin' Write markers to colour in the Bashful blue, and my Blender pens to colour in the rest. The ribbon slide and the frame are from the Very Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware set from Stampin' Up! And the sentiment is from Sincere Salutations which is one of the most affordable and most versatile sets that Stampin' Up! offers.

SP Christmas Color Combos

This is my second post today, please scroll down for more...

That Samantha, the Scrapmaster over at SPCC, she's sooooooo busy. Right now she's posting Christmas Color Challenges on the SPCC blog. They aren't on any set date, so you have to check regularly to see if there's a new one. This card was made for Christmas Combo #3 and for Clean & Simple's Fall-to-Layout # 61

Digital Scrapbooking Again???

Here we have another digital scrapbooking page from My Digital Studio. It gets released on October 1st, so keep that in mind. Check out the holiday mini catalogue for more information. I'm absolutely loving it. And I'll show you some hybrid scrappin' that I've been doing in the next few weeks. One of the criticisms of digital scrapbooking is the flattness of the image. It's easier to store a flatter image, but it doesn't quite look the same as traditional scrapbooking. When you combine digital and real life embellishments it's called hybrid scrapbooking. But this page is all digital. It took me 5 minutes to do because the page is another template in the digital scrapbooking kit. But like I said before, you can also create your own projects from scratch. And My Digital Scrapbooking gives you access to the images from more than 65 stamp sets. Pretty amazing considering the software is only $106.98 Cdn.

Blog Candy Reminder

Just a reminder to get your entries in for my BLOG CANDY!!! The draw date is coming up. You have until Sept 30 to earn an entry. Click on the photo of the blog candy post on my sidebar to find out how to enter. Remember that each entry gives you another chance to win!!!

As Easy As Pie

I have been busy. Yesterday my new shipment from Stampin' Up! arrived and I've been playing with My Digital Studio ever since. Can you believe that this page took me 5 minutes (and that was because I struggled with the text). This page is a template in My Digital studio and it uses images from the Happy B-Day Simply Scrappin' Kit. For the price of 4 simply scrappin kits you get access to more than twice that. Plus almost every Designer series paper, Embellishment, and Stamp set in the Catalogue!!!! It's crazy but I love it. I've never been horribly interested in Digital Scrapbooking but with Stampin' Up! offering this product I can now make pages, and add real details over top because all the colours MATCH! Over the next few days (or weeks) I will be featuring lots of pages that I made using this software. This page was a template. All I did was add the photo and some text. Of course I can completely start from scratch and design my own page.