Earlier this month we had a retreat for demos at my house and we learned all about My Digital Studio.  It was so much fun!  My friend, Cindy and I came up with the idea last summer as we flew out to Salt Lake City for the Stampin’ Up! Convention.  We started talking on the flight over and then had even more ideas after attending the classes that they offered at convention.  We worked on our plans and on our projects and scheduled the retreat for mid October.

There were 12 of us here for an entire day learning and playing with My Digital Studio.

all of us

A picture of the whole gang eating out in my sunroom.  We set up tables out there so we wouldn’t have to clear the computers off our work spaces.  We set up two classrooms – the kitchen table had the beginner group that I taught and the dining room table had the intermediate group that Cindy taught.

Beginner Classroom

Intermediate Classroom

We planned our day with class time in the morning, lunch and dinner breaks, three hybrid projects, and free create time at the end of the day.  For each hybrid project the time was split between actually completing the project – adding the hybrid elements – we had the MDS part pre-printed – and going over how we created it in MDS.  We covered topics such as printing through the Stampin’ Up! print service, using Designer Templates, printing at home, and more.

One project was a Welcome Banner.  This one was modeled after one that we saw at one of the classes at Convention.  I changed it to use the Spice Cake Designer Paper in MDS.  This one I printed on my home computer and then we added the elements such as die cut letters, punched flowers, ribbon, pearls, linen thread, hemp twine and the mini clothes pins for hanging.

The second project was a card.  This is the card sample in the Holiday Mini catalog. It is made using a postcard template so we showed how to take that template (it is a digital download) and create a card with it.  And then add the hybrid elements.  Cindy created this project for the class. These were printed through the SU print service.

The third project was the calendar.  Cindy recreated the calendar that was made in the MDS +FUN class at convention in the portrait option.  And she made it a 2012 calendar. For the class we added little hybrid pieces to each month.   These were printed through the SU print service and they are so nice.

Everybody received a Make ‘n Take bag that included a personalized name tag.  I got this idea from another demo – Heather.  I created the tags as a MDS Swatchbook project and had them printed through the SU print service.  The swatch books are really nice – see the hole in the corner – that is where the rivet is and then the book has a plastic cover on the front and back.  I just took it all apart to create the tags which we tied to the bags with Very Vanilla Seam Binding.  Inside the bag were all the pieces for the projects we made (we pre-punched everything!) and all the handouts with instructions for our class topics, printing, and the projects.

We had good food – Chicken Salad for lunch and Chili and baked potatoes for dinner.  We had some desserts – look at these little brownie bites – We punched out the detailed flower from the Triple Flower punch – laid it on each brownie and sprinkled them with powdered sugar.  They matched the cover of our calendar!!

I think everyone learned a lot in that one day – even Cindy and I learned from each other as we prepared and held the retreat.  We enjoyed ourselves so much we started planning the next one before the night even ended.  If you live near us – I hope you will be able to join us for the next one!

Have a great day!