MDS again

Oh yeah, you are probably getting tired of this, I know. But using MDS is sooooooooo easy. Below you will find 2 more pages from our family trip to the Richmond Speed Skating Oval - home of the 2010 Winter Olympics. I gave this little album to my Mother-In-Law as a hostess gift for Thanksgiving dinner.

Mojo Birthday

This is my second post today so please scroll down for more.
It's been a while since I did a Mojo Monday challenge. I used this weeks sketch to make this birthday card for my nephew. This nephew love trains (especially Thomas the Tank Engine) so Choo Choo seemed the perfect stamp set to use. The bottom view shows you the sentiment in the card and all the layers that were popped up to give this card some depth. This card was inspired by a card made by the fabulous Jenn Picard.

Stamps: Look Who's Turning, Choo Choo, Train Track Wheel.

Paper: Bermuda Bay, Whisper White, Tangerine Tango, Crushed Curry, Soft Suede

Ink: Bermuda Bay, Tangerine Tango, Basic Black

Punches 1 3/4", 1 3/8", 1/2" and 3/4" circle punches

Accessories: Crushed Curry 1/2" polka dot grosgrain, small silver brads, Small metal edge circle tag, stampin dimensionals.

Swaps on Saturday - Punchy Pals

Isn't this the most adorable card? It was made by my sideline Sarah Newman. She stamped the background using Bermuda Bay, Rich Razzleberry and Melon Mambo. The penguins were stamped in basic black dye ink and coloured in with stampin' write markers. She stuck down the penguins with snail and then lined up the large oval punch between the 2 outside penguins to punch out the oval for the greeting, which was stamped last. She mounted it onto basic grey cardstock. set and the current In Colours. She carefully sponged around the circles with Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay.

A Direct Copy of A True Original

Well I made several of these butterfly cards and here is yet another version of that card that I cased from the most amazing Mary Fish. This card is actually a direct copy of Mary's Card. In this card I used the Walk In The Park DSP which is now retired. :( The DSP was Walk In The Park, the Big Butterflies Bigz die was used for the butterflies and so was the Eyelet border punch. The cardstock is Pretty In Pink, Old Olive and Whisper White and the brads are the large round rhinestones. I also used Basic Grey Taffeta Ribbon.

More SPCC

This week at SPCC we are using DRS stamps. To celebrate, we have been asked to make more than one sample for the challenge. This page was made using an old picture of my Mom, up on Seymour Mountain when she was a year old. The picture was coloured in by hand at some point as was the fashion in the 30's. The 2 DRS stamps used are the Butterfly stamp and the textured background stamp on the green cardstock. The ribbon is 1/2" polka dot grosgrain. I used the top note die and the labels 4 nesties to mount the butterflies on. The very vanilla cardstock was run through the big shot using the finial press textured impressions die. The butterflies were coloured in with an aquapainter. The tulip die from the big shot was used to make the rust coloured die cut. I also used hodgepodge Hardware and the pretties kit to finish things off. The DSP is from the Raspberry Lemonade set.

One of my Swaps

Here are a few of my swaps for a recent upline meeting. I used the Baroque Motifs and Christmas Punch stamp sets. I stamped them in versa mark and then heat embossed silver or gold embossing powder. The stamped ovals were carefully cut out with craft scissors, and then mounted on a punched oval. I used Basic Gray with the silver card and Soft Suede with the gold card. The ribbon is Whisper White wide satin ribbon.

Halloween Shadowboxes

Aren't these little creatures adorable? I made this little layout for my 8x8 shadowboxes. This was sooooooooooo easy to make. The creatures were cut out of DSP by BoBunny and the background paper is from K&Co. The ribbons were from my stash. I took some patterned DSP and punched out the characters. Then I sponged the edges and mounted them on die cuts using my nesties.

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.