Tuesday, August 14, 2012

More from My Digital Studio

I am finding it hard to find time to get to my blog these days. Currently, I have my granddaughter here for a second week this summer. It is a joy to have her here. She loves to craft and is working on a scrapbook at the ripe young age of 6.

I will show you two cards today, and I will not comment so much on every item I used, but on some of the great features of the MDS software.

On this first card, I started with the medallion in artichoke, then added the border on the right. Next I created the 'label' on the bottom right with two oval punches layered, then two modern label punches layered. The words were created with a text box and a font I had on my computer. This is one great thing about MDS - any fonts you already have on your computer will automatically be moved into the program. I added the 'brads' and then left the design as it was for a couple of weeks. 

When I came back to the design, I decided I wanted more overall coverage, so I added the vintage overlay digital stamp, reduced the opacity to 1/2 (another very useful feature) and moved it back until it was under the label but still on top of the medallion and border. The other colour I used for the brads and one of the ovals was rich razzleberry. I am not a big fan of the digital embellishments like the brads and next time, I will probable use real brads instead. It would probably have helped if I had added a drop shadow to the brads for a more realistic look. The rest of the card I am quite satisfied with. 

I printed the card front on whisper white c/s  and trimmed it, leaving a 1/4" border of white. I made a 5x6 1/2 " card base from razzleberry c/s and attached the front. Finally I added the satin razzleberry ribbon.




For the inside, I used just the border and the vintage overlay. The great thing is, I have this project saved now and can reuse it, changing the sentiment as needed. This is such a great time saver when you find yourself looking for a card at the last minute.

The second card is a recreation of a template that you can buy from SU ready to use. I did not like the face that the white areas were actually vanilla on the original, so I used the daydream medallion stamps that come with the template to make my own version. 


 This is a fairly acurate copy of the original. I made one medallion group, minus the mustard center design, then 'grouped' it and copied and pasted it three times.

Then I added the centers to the medallions.  For the 'thanks' medallion, I added a label punch, colour filled it and layered the word on top. A drop shadow makes it look like the label is popped up on dimensionals.

The rhinestone brads are real and attached after I printed and trimmed the card front.

Colours used were mustard, white, olive, marina mist, and navy. The navy mat and mustard card base are SU c/s. As you can see, I am lucky that my printer puts out colours that are a very close match to SU products.



I know there is a way to copy this whole page, paste it on another page and reduce the opacity so that I can print a message over it . I have to work with this program more to learn more of the features.

I have a couple of earlier posts which feature MDS here and here, if you want to see them. On the first one, Holiday Bells, I misspoke when I said it was my first foray into digi stamps. In fact, what I meant to say was my first time to purchase a stamp elsewhere than Stampin'Up!. If you have MDS and you purchase stamps elsewhere, you can load them straight into the MDS program and have instant access to them.

Okay, it is time to go spend more time with a very patient 6 year old.. 




Wednesday, August 8, 2012

My Digital Studio

As I mentioned in my last post, SU has just released a new version of My Digital Studio - MDS2 and MDS2+.

For those of us who already owned the original program, we were able to download an upgrade for our existing software. It has some wonderful improvements and I went to town playing with it. I am not a big fan of digital embellishments however, so I make my base on the program, print it on white or vanilla C/S and then make a hybrid card with real embellishments added so my cards are still 3D.


The first one is a very simple shower card for my niece-to-be, Ashley. The wedding colour theme is green, white, and black, so I stayed with those colours. For the base I created my own pale green shade using the RBG palette in the design center. It is closer to the colour of the wedding invite. Then I saved this shade in 'my favorites' so I can use it again when I make their wedding card.

The digital stamp set is called Wedding Sweet, and I placed two 'small flowers' on the base and altered the colour to artichoke. Then I added the greeting in white and again in black, moving the black one to the back of the white like a drop shadow.

I printed the finished card front on white c/s and trimmed it to fit a 5x6 1/2" card base. Then I added SU pearls and a bow made with SU ribbon.

Inside, I again used the green base, added two smaller versions of the 'Small flower' and added a text box with my own words typed in.

One interesting side note on this; I was talking to someone in the IT department at SU a few days ago, and in the course of the conversation, I happened to question the white area created when adding the 'small flower' stamp to a project. Maryann realized that this is a glitch so she spoke to the design team and apparently it has since been fixed. I have to download the newest version now, but it is cool to have been the one to discover the error.I really feel like a team member now.

Post script; I did manage to download the improved digital stamp set - 'Wedding Sweet' and the little white space glitch has indeed been corrected. I have gone back and fixed my project so the next time I use it, those white spaces will be gone. So cool.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Regarding Age....

This card is a complete CASE from my friend, Lisa's card on her blog here. I loved the colours she chose and stayed with that same palette.

I decided on a square card because I had some purchased black card bases in my stash. The background paper is from Graphics 45, as is the sea horse tag on the lower left.


The three die layers in vanilla and black (SU cardstock and some textured Coredinations ivory) are Spellbinders; Floral ovals and Fleur de lis squares.

I created the sentiment on my computer using two different fonts and printed it on to the vanilla cardstock before cutting it with the die. As you will notice, this is completely CASEd from Lisa.

The pretty flower is by Spare Parts, and all the pearls are  by Recollections. The brad  (Vintage by Creative Charms - avail. thru Heartfelt Creations) originally had a gold rhinestone in the center but I popped it off and replaced it with the pearl. A touch of vanilla organdy ribbon was the final touch.

Inside, I added a square of the textured ivory C/S and a band of the patterned paper.



I will be back again soon, as I have been playing with my newly upgraded MDS from SU and have several computer hybrid projects to show you.