Mar 13, 2011 | Bingo, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages, Thoughts & Prayers |
I’m not sure that Ryan even remembers this anymore (he probably does – I’ll have to ask). These were pictures from 2003. We found this baby squirrel in the backyard and it was following Ryan around everywhere. It must have fallen out of a nest because he was all alone.
We decided to give it some food (birdseed) and a little cap filled with water. We put it on a paper plate – this was one of those small paper plates not the normal size – the are maybe 4 or 5 inches diameter – so he was still pretty small.
I really wasn’t sure what to do with him. We had out dogs in the house so I couldn’t bring him in there and we need to leave for something so I didn’t have time to take him anywhere. I finally decided just to leave him in the back yard – I didn’t think he would be able to get out of the fence and the dogs were inside so I thought he would be safe for the hour that we would be gone.
When we came back and searched for him he was still in the backyard but somehow had injured himself – he was now dragging his back legs. Not good. We got him into a shoebox and drove him up to the wild animal vet. Ryan was still pretty young so he didn’t really know that something was wrong. The vet said the squirrel had broken his back and wasn’t going to survive. It was so sad and I didn’t really have the heart to tell Ryan. So instead I just told him the vet was going to find a proper home for him and we left him there. It was several years later when Ryan was older before I told him what really happened to the baby squirrel. I still don’t know how he hurt himself unless he was climbing the trees while we were gone or a cat came into the yard and tried to get him.
The pictures were still very cute so I decided to drop them on this scrapbook layout – it was a sketch I found on a scrapbook blog somewhere. I created the rectangles – three photo boxes and three punched rectangles. I got them all to the exact same size by using the edit object and setting the height and width. Then I aligned them with one another using the align options in My Digital Studio – you align the top, the bottom, the centers, or left edge or right edge. On the left side is a rectangle punch filled with the Crumb Cake (Kraft) Textured card stock and then the scallop border punch (two of them overlapping). I added some chocolate chip stitching. The stamped images are from the Thoughts & Prayers stamp set. I played around with the drop shadow on the flowers and the title – changing the opacity and color until I got the effect that I wanted. Once I had everything on the page – I decided to add a text box at the bottom for my journaling – but when I was done the journaling was way to close to the bottom of the page so I wanted to move everything up to make the whole thing include the text be centered at the page. I didn’t want to move all the elements individually because I finally had it all lined up. So I figured out that I could go to the ARRANGE drop-down menu and have it SELECT ALL. Then with everything selected you can select GROUP – so it groups it all together. Then go to the Align Objects button and select to center vertically on the page and the horizontally on the page. This will move the whole group at once. Then you can ungroup and unselect. I hope that made sense!
Spring Bingo players here come your next two pieces – are you ready?
images copyright Stampin' Up!
images copyright Stampin' Up!
Is anyone close to a Bingo yet? Let me know when you get 5 in a row.
So remember yesterday I told you to change the clocks. So Greg changed the clock in our bedroom. What we didn’t know is that the clock actually changes itself – it has a setting that you turn on or off and it was on. So this morning we were TWO hours ahead – instead of just one. It is fixed back now but it’s good to know if we forget the clock will do it for us.
Mar 12, 2011 | Bingo, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages |
One of the fun things about My Digital Studio is the Designer Templates that Stampin’ Up! creates. There are several that come with the base software and then there are others that are included with various Digital Downloads. These make it very quick to create a scrapbook page (or other project) since you just drop in the pictures you want, add your journaling and you are done.
I decided to do that last night with some old pictures that I had been looking at from 2003. Yes I have tons of pictures that I have never done anything with – many are on my computer and never have been printed. Others are printed and sitting in boxes waiting to be added to a scrapbook page. Eventually I’ll get there. Until then I’ll just plug away at them a little at a time. For the page I was working on last night I used pictures from the last day of school in May 2003. Ryan was finishing first grade, Tyler fourth grade and Kyle fifth grade. That seems like so long ago! They have changed sooooo much in that time.
This page is a 12×12 Designer Template that comes with the Play Date Designer Series Paper Digital Download. The download includes 12 paper patterns plus the template for $4.95.
There are a lot more templates than I realized. Recently Stampin’ Up! added an online Catalog for My Digital Studio. You can find it HERE on My Digital Studio. net (if you have joined you need to do that right away – its free and has tons of information about MDS). It is updated monthly to include all the new downloads for that month. The catalog will show the pages with the artwork for the download and then it has a page of product details. On this page it lists – the Item #, download name, contents, coordinating colors (LOVE THIS!), price (both US and CAN), Release Date, and Designer Templates.
I was surprised by some of the things that had templates with them. Some of the punches come with card templates, many of the stamp brush sets come with card or scrapbook templates. Now I have to go back and look at what I bought and which ones have templates with them. For my personal use I have printed out the Product Detail sheets and put them in a notebook – then when I buy a download I mark it on my sheet so that I know what I have.
For this one I used the 12×12 template – I added my pictures and the journaling in each box underneath. The only thing I think I really changed was I replaced what was in the template on the letters with the date. That is what is cool about the templates – is you can use them the way they are or delete and add to them. Fun stuff!
Spring Bingo Players here are two more pieces for you today-
images copyright Stampin' Up!
images copyright Stampin' Up!
Have a great weekend and remember that tonight we change our clocks “Spring forward” an hour for daylight savings time. I guess not everyone does that but we do it here.
I’m looking forward to a fun PAWS meeting tonight with my downline, my sidelines and my SU demo friends!
Mar 6, 2011 | Bingo, My Digital Studio |
This month my customers will be playing Spring Bingo with me. Everyone that had $50 orders last month (February) got a Bingo card from me and today we will start playing. I created these in My Digital Studio using the Bingo Card digital Download and a variety of other stamp brush sets with spring time images. I decided to set it up similar to a game we play called Pokeeno – it is Bingo using a deck of playing cards – so there are four suits and 13 images in each one. So I chose 4 colors for my game – So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Baja Breeze, and Pretty in Pink. And then chose spring images to use on my cards. I created 14 different cards in My Digital Studio and then created my “deck of cards” with each image in each color that I’ll use to play the game. Here is an example of one of the cards.
images copyright Stampin' Up!
At first I had the FREE SPACE in the center but on a real Pokeeno card there is no free space so I wanted to get rid of that. In My Digital Studio when you don’t want to see something you basically cover it up. So I added a square punch filled with white and placed it inside the center square to get rid of the FREE SPACE that was part of the Bingo Stamp. Then I could add an image over the top.
This is what the calling cards look like for this game – there is a set for each color –
images copyright Stampin' Up!
For this game the images in each color can be anywhere on the card and not just in a particular column like regular Bingo. I emailed out cards to all my players yesterday (late last night). That means we are ready to play Monika’s Spring Bingo! Check back daily for the next Bingo piece and mark your cards – when you have your 5 in a row email me that you have Bingo! Here is your first piece –
images copyright Stampin' Up!
Feb 28, 2011 | family, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages |
This is Ally – my niece – she just turned 4 years old and she is One of a Kind!
We saw her last weekend to celebrate her birthday. I gave her the big purple ball – lucky for me purple is one of her favorite colors! Mom and Dad gave her a purple Leapster. This picture was taken at my mom’s house – we thought it was too funny that she sat at the kitchen table with that big ball in her lap and her Leapster on top just quietly playing. The added purple eye patch I thought made the picture just perfect. According to my brother her bought her all these colorful patches for her eye (they are trying to correct some issues with her eyes) and the only colors that she will wear are pink and purple. If anyone needs blue, green or yellow patches I think I can find some for you!
This is my next page for Project 52 – to create a My Digital Studio page every week. I actually skipped posting one last week because I was working on some project books instead of individual pages.
I’m happy with how this turned out even though it took me some time to decide what direction to go in – other than knowing I wanted to use purple for this page – the Lovely Lilac is what matched – we still have that color in My Digital Studio even though it retired from the actual Stampin’ Up! product line. That’s one fun thing about MDS is that nothing ever retires – once you have it you have it forever.
My colors on this page are Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla with the Lovely Lilac – the butterfly is Elegant Eggplant – the flower centers are So Saffron brads and the stem is Old Olive. One trick I figured out that I wanted to share was how I got the Pearls to line up in the circle. I started by adding a stamp – the dotted circle from Enjoy Every Moment – position it where you want it. Then I added the largest sized pearls – you can actually add 10 at a time to your page – when you add an embellishment you can select the qty you want to add so that many get added at the same time instead of you doing them individually. I moved each pearl (yes that took some time) to cover the dots of the circle. I covered all the ones that I wanted and then once I had everything lined up I deleted the dotted circle stamp from the page. Leaving only the circle of Pearls. I hope you like it!
Feb 13, 2011 | Bingo, My Digital Studio, Valentine's Day |
For Valentine’s Day each year we have a special family dinner and scavenger hunt. We have been doing this for many years – for us it is more about me spoiling all the boys rather than a romantic evening for just Greg and I. Our traditional Valentine Dinner is Lobster, Crab Legs and Steak – we couldn’t afford to go out as a family of 5 and eat a surf & turf dinner so we started cooking it at home. I have the lobsters and crab legs figured out and Greg does the steak. This year we celebrated last night while Kyle was home from college.
Normally as part of our activities I do a scavenger hunt – every year they each have their own set of clues and treats hidden around the house. When they were younger the clues were easy and as they got older the clues got harder. This year I decided to use My Digital Studio and create a Valentine’s Day Bingo game. I made a Bingo card for each of the boys and an extra one that I cut apart with all the pieces. I still hid their treasures but they had to have Bingo first before they could go look.
For the markers I punched hearts from Real Red card stock using the Small Heart punch.
In My Digital Studio I created an 8-1/2″ x 11″ photo album with one page that had four Bingo Cards on it. The Bingo card is one of the digital downloads that was released in the past few months. Then I went through all the stamp sets, embellishments and digital kits and selected different elements that were Valentine related to put in the squares. I resized any that were too big so they would fit in the square and used colors that were pinks, reds, and browns. I even used buttons and brads in some of the squares.
To make it easy I took an image, sized and colored it the way I wanted it and then copied it and positioned it in a different square on each of the Bingo Cards. I used the 4th card as the one I would cut the pieces apart for me to call while we played.
When I was done I just printed it out on my printer and cut the cards apart. This is what the My Digital Studio page looks like that I printed:
I love the Bingo card – both the My Digital Studio one and the actual stamp – it is fun to create Bingo cards to go with any theme that you need them too.
So if you need a quick idea for Valentine’s Day on Monday – these are really quick to make and print out. Have fun!
Feb 9, 2011 | My Digital Studio |
UPDATED: Exciting news there is now a My Digital Studio catalog!! It is a pdf file that includes thumbnails of all the software images and downloads. This first release is current up through the end of Jan. 2011 and at the end of each month it will update with the downloads that were added during that month. I plan to print off the product details sheets and use the check boxes to keep track of the downloads that I already have. This is going to be a wonderful tool and you can find it on MyDigitalStudio.net under the Resources Tab – click here for the link.
My Digital Studio Downloads released on 2/1/2011 – CLICK HERE for the pdf file.
My Digital Studio Downloads released on 2/8/2011 – CLICK HERE for the pdf file.
If you would like to see all available digital downloads visit my Online Store on my website. Click the SHOP NOW button and then look under Digital Designing. My signature below was created using My Digital Studio and the So Much to Sale-A-Brate Digital Content CD that you can receive Free – ask me how….
We decided to give it some food (birdseed) and a little cap filled with water. We put it on a paper plate – this was one of those small paper plates not the normal size – the are maybe 4 or 5 inches diameter – so he was still pretty small.
