Fabulous 30

My wonderful daughter-in-law had a special birthday last week.  One of the reasons I invested in the Sizzix Eclips was because I needed to be able to do numbers.  I do not have any alphabet or or number stamps or dies and my wish list was sooo big this year that I needed to figure out how to make my money go the furthest.  One of the great things about the Eclips is it works wonderfully with MDS.  I just brought the Alphabet & Numbers Punches (Timeless Type Junior) in to my Cutting program.  Made them the size I wanted, added a shadow and cut.  This card is all SU but the flames (Which I probably could have found in one of my sets if I had taken more time.) I was soo excited to be able to do number and words the exact size I wanted with out having to cut them by hand (and be unhappy with them). 

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Details:

Stamps: None

Paper: Strawberry Slush, Basic Black, Silver Glimmer

Ink: Basic Gray Reinker

Accessories: Tea Lace Paper Doilies, Big Shot, Beautifully Baroque Impression Folder, MDS Timeless Type Junior Letter and Number Punches in the Sizzix Eclips

MDS Trading Cards

I love taking pictures and my husband bought me a great new camera for Christmas.  I have an addiction to my children so when they have a sporting event , I am there.  I think I have missed 3 events in the 27 years and 6 kids. I take about 200 pictures per game-what player does not like to see pictures of themselves so I try to take for all of the team and give CDs out at the end of the year.  For those you know me here, know that I love to play around with MDS.  I hate how much I have to pay to get these fun trading cards made for my kids so I decided to make them myself in MDS.  My kids are home-schooled and they play basketball for our church's school. (Bragging rights-They went 28-2 this year and placed first at state for the Wisconsin Association of Christian Schools class B).  My kids loved them so much I ended up taking orders and making them for both the JV and Varsity teams (only about 10 kids).  I was able to fit 6 cards on an 8x10 sheet.  I bought double sided photo paper, placed the cards all grouped in the center of the page and printed both sides.  It was such fun and a great and easy job in MDS!

Christmas Card MDS

For my Christmas pictures I want them to be able to fit them inside the card.  So I design them in the size of the envelope I will be using, in this case 4.25" x  5.5" .  I then bring them in to my photo editing program and put them on a 4" x 6" canvas.  That way I can send them to any printer to be printed on a 4"x6" sheet and I just cut off the 1/2" I leave white on the end. To make the background paper the way I wanted it I layered it and then made the top one more transparent so that the small flakes shown through.


Details:Made in MDS

Bridal Bike

This week I am going to share a few of the wedding cards that I put together a while back.  This one, the image and words were made in My Digital studio.  I added a slight shadow to it.  I had seen so many cards made with this set but I did not own the set.  I was so glad that I had it in MDS so that I could put this together the way I imagined it.  The great part about creating my images in MDS os that I could make them the exact size that I needed to fit in the shapes I wanted to use.

Details:

Stamps: MDS-Wedding Wheels, Mr. and Mrs.

Paper: Whisper White, Sahara Sand

Ink: Printer

Accessories: Big Shot, Lacy Brocade Impression Folder, Apothecary Accents Framelit,  Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack-Flower, Basic Pearls, 5/8" Whisper White Organza Ribbon,Essentials Paper-Piercing Pack

MDS- Monday

Well, my Mother's genealogy book is finished and sent to the printer. I cannot wait to see it! Here is one of my favorite pages that went together so easily.  My Grandmother had kept newspaper clippings of her grandparent's 50th anniversary and her grandfather's obituary.  They were a great help in putting together that merged family, since his first wife died after 7 children and then he married and had 11 children with my great-great-grandmother. These clippings helped me know who belonged to who.

MDS Monday Ellis Island

Since my Mother's heritage book was so full of censuses and immigration information I thought it fitting to include a 2 page spread on Ellis Island, where some of her family came through.  It was very interesting to study and learn about.  It was fun to see the pictures and imagine your ancestors waiting in line to enter their new country.

Basketball

Well, we had a long weekend.  My #3 son had a 2 day out of town basketball tournament to attend and I never miss a game so off I went.  After traveling the 2.5 hrs to the tournament and his team winning first place we then had to travel another almost 4 hours to another game that night.  Unfortunately my son was injured in that game when he took a shoulder to the neck.  He had numbness and tingling in all extremities and blurred vision so we spent the night in 2 hospitals (first one's CT machine was broke and they did not have a neurosurgeon on call that night so we took an ambulance trip to another one near by).  His team is a group of great boys who love the pictures I take at their games so I thought I would put this together for my son in MDS to raise his spirits (it is now the wallpaper on his phone).  He is home with no fractures found. They think it might be swelling and ligament damage that is causing the problems.  He is in a hard neck collar for awhile.  He is the monster tall one in the center of the boys- 16 years 6'3" and growing.  The team is 18 wins and 4 loses and praying my son can continue the rest of the year playing with them.

Genealogy Page

Yes, I am still working on my Mother's genealogy book.  I did not get it done in time for Christmas as a bunch of other projects came up and I had a big break that added many new pages. At this time the book is about 140 pages. I place all of the objects I want on the page and then I go back and decorate.  I try to keep things in a 2 page spread and I want the pages in the right order before I decorate.  All of the pages with the family trees have the same concept: same background, same size boys and girls and same layout (-design).  I smeared out the names here because they are present day and I do not feel right publishing their information. Once I put the medallion stamp on this page my daughter told me that I should add some bling.  When she came back and saw what I had done she LOVED it so I just had to share it (plus I haven't posted any MDS in quite a while even though I have been getting about 4 pages done a night).  To add the color behind the flower I just added circle punches, colored then in and then moved them back to be behind the stamp.


Details: MDS

Family MDS Picture

These are my wonderful children. I am blessed to be their Mother (Mother-in-law and Grandma) I do make my cards (which you will see on Friday) and I try to include a picture that coordinates with the card.  I do my family picture-card in MDS.  Since my cards are A2 size (4.25" x 5.5") and I use an invitation envelope to send them in I have to make sure my pictures are the same size.  I have them printed in a 4" x 6".  As you can see I left the bottom 1/2" blank.  That way I can just cut off the blank part and drop them in the envelope. In MDS I use a square punch and set it to the 4" x 6" size.  I color it so I do not loose it.  I then create another punch and layer it directly over top of it leaving the 1/2" short.  Then I decorate the area I have left.  I connect them and drag the corner out to be as large as it will allow me to work on.  After I have them just how I want them I export them in a jpeg and crop them to the right size in my photo editing program.  They are then all set to be sent to my local photo printing store for printing.

Heritage Book-Family Record Page MDS

I am still plugging away at my Mother's Heritage book.  It may not make it for Christmas.  Since she wanted it right up to the day I send it to the publisher I thought that I would need to include a page or two for her to write any additional births or marriages.  I found the top part as an image in a Google search.  I added a punched squared background and matched it to what was already behind the image so that it blended.   For the corners I wanted something ornate.  So I opened my photo editing program, brought in the Frame It Stamps and cropped a few corners and sides.  I then saved them right back in the same folder with a slight change of the file name.  I was then able to open them just like any other stamp in MDS and alter them just like normal.  The lines I also created in my photo editing program (Microsoft Picture it) saved it as a png file in  the Frame It folder and I was able to alter the color to match once I placed it on my page.  So if there is ever a stamp in MDS that you just want a part of, you don't have to mask it, make it work for you! (If you do accidentally save it without changing the name after altering it, you may have to re-install or re-download)

MDS Monday-Heritage Book

One thing I get stuck in a rut with when doing the heritage book is what to journal on.  I have soooo many census and immigration sheets and write out what they say, since they sometimes can be hard to read.  Here I layered a bunch of oval punches (since they seemed to match the background pattern. )After I had them how I wanted them, I grouped them together and added a drop shadow.  Then I threw a couple of antique brads on the end.  I think it had a cool look to break up the monotony of all of the charts.  Now to get this book done and sent it to print before Christmas gets here....

MDS Heritage Book

I am still working on my Mother's Heritage book.  Do you think I will get it done for Christmas?  Why is it that the month of November always seems to be the busiest month for me?  This is a page that I did with my Great-Great-Great Grandmother.  I love seeing these old pictures and reading about the history behind these wonderful people.

MDS Monday-Grand Daughter

I have not had much time to work lately with my MDS.  I do have a good reason though.  My son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter came and spent the week.  I took lots and lots of pictures so I have plenty of pages to work on when I find the time.  She loved playing with a puppy app on my phone and would talk to it, scold it when it was naughty and give it lots and lots of kisses.  I do not have much use for the Play Date set in MDS (but I had to have it) since my kids are older but it looks so good with her pictures and will work great on my outdoor pictures of her playing in the woods.

Heritage Book MDS

This is the wedding picture of my grandparents. I so enjoy working on these books.  I love finding out where my past generations came from and what they had to sacrifice to come to America.

Grandfather MDS

Here is another page out of my Mother's Heritage book.  Finally I got to a page where I had a picture that I could incorporate into the page.  This is my grandfather as a baby.  I am so thankful that my mother has so many wonderful pictures I can use.

MDS Monday Family Tree

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was working on my Mother's Heritage Book.  I decided to go another route for how to layout her family trees per page than I did with my Father's.  I did his with a spread sheet and thought that using the Forever Young digital  would be more appealing to the eye.  The tough part was that they had quite a few kids in the  family so it took a whole page to lay them out. I do my books in an 8.5" x 11" so this one I did in a landscape layout to help it fit better.  I started each page with the parents facing each other and then the kids below them all facing to the right.  I shadowed and offset the one that would continue the family tree on to the next page.  My mother had no problem following the layout.

MDS Monday Faces 6

Wow, I just realized that I let this post without any comment from me at all.  What a busy week I have had!  I tend to be a very frugal person.  I love stamping and digi-scrapping but I hate to spend the money unless I earn it, so that is why I became a Demonstrator.  When I saw the price for the Downtown Grunge Digital I really debated on paying $19.95 for a download.  I let it sit for a bit and then I broke down and ordered it.  I love it.  It has so many uses and elements that I will use on many many pages.  So if you are debating on getting it or missed it on the downloads, I give it 2 thumbs up!

MDS Monday Faces 5

Another page from our first day of school photo shoot.  My favorite thing about digi scrapping is that you can make your pictures any size you wan them to be.  

MDS Monday Faces 4

I love that with MDS it is so simple to make the stamps to match in colors.  I can change them to  any SU color I want to make them match any color on my page.  Another great thing is the opacity.  I love to change the transparency of the objects....and the drop shadow is as popular as the shading when I make cards.  I have soo many ideas for the Downtown Grunge Kit.   It is just loaded with things I love to use.

MDS Monday Faces 3

The next page I am going to share with you today from our beginning of school photo shoot is my #2 youngest.  He does not like going outside or smiling so these were great shots to get.  I love the Awning stamp.  I wanted it shorter than normal so I created a square punch, filled it in with the same background and moved it to cover the extended punch.  I live to double layer text, almost as much as I love to sponge on my cards.  I have been working on another genealogy book and I cannot wait to share some of those pages with you!