MDS Monday - My Happy Babies

Pin It
Hey y'all. Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. I know I sure did. I went to the Crawfish Festival all day Saturday. YUM! It was Amazing. I realized, a little belatedly, that I got pics of all the food and none of my friends and myself. *SMH* Oh well, still good pics. Then late Saturday nite my friend Julia hit me up to see if I wanted to go to WMZQFest. My answer- DUH! She had an extra ticket and it was just my price-range...FREE! We had such a BLAST!!! Miranda Lambert, Lee Brice, Jerrod Nieman and Chris Young. So AMAZING! We were 8 rows back. I got a few pics there too. :) Thanks Jules!!!! Will try and post them soon.

Hey it's Monday, so you know that means MDS Monday and I'm actually getting to post it on time. Yea Shan!
Over at Utah Diva's the challenge was to use your pets. Well, I have plenty of pictures of my sweet little furry babies and found two for today. My babies have it really hard....sleep, play, snack, begin again. It's such a hard life they figure they might as well Grin & Bear it... Gee, I guess I should have used that for the title. LOL.

Here's today's MDS Monday challenge-

MDS Scrapbook Page

Are you smiling yet? If not, I just have one question for you. 

WHY in the world not!?! 

Lol. My babies are just so sweet. They are also my studio assistants and I featured them in my first Blog post, way back when (Holy Cow! Almost a year ago.) and others in-between now and then.

Duece (because he's the "second" of his name) is my big boy in the upper corner. Don't you just love his expression? Not sure how he got sooo fluffed out that day. Isn't he just the "Hasslehoff" of kitties. He wants to be "Big" when he grows up. HAHAHA. He's a Maine Coon and he's 16-17lbs and solid. He's over 3 feet tall when he stands up and can open any of the interior doors in the house. He scoffs at the thought of being locked up whenever anyone comes over. He just wants to love on you and is likely to jump up in your lap for some serious snuggling. Oh, and he thinks he's my guard dog. Yep, I don't need a doorbell, because he hears people coming up and runs to the door and howls. I kid you not, Barooooo. He's loud too, I can hear him in the driveway. Another fun fact- He likes to talk to me on the phone. Honest. So many people have heard him. My daughter used to call when she got home from school and she would put me on speaker and he would just sit there and chat with me. I love my sweet boy. I got him at the shelter when he was about 6 months old. His family lost their home and had to give him up. When I saw him he just looked a tiger-striped boy. I picked him up and he snuggled into my neck like a baby and I was totally lost. Never a second thought. He's almost 4 1/2 and I'm not sure who rescued who.

My sweet girl Bitty is in the bottom corner. I took this pic just last week. It's with her new boyfriend, Monkey. I promised not to tell her 6'2" bf (mine) she was kind of sweet on someone else. I'm a Scentsy consultant and this sweet little guy came in my starter kit. It came with a very masculine scent-pack and she couldn't be happier. He sits in the corner of my sleigh bed and every night she snuggles up next to him, ( I have my suspicions she snuggles with him during the day too) often putting her head on his lap. AWWWWWW, so sweet. Bitty's not even her real name but when I got her from the shelter she was sooo tiny only 2 1/2 pounds at 8 weeks old. The next week she got so sick we didn't think she would make it. She had a 106.7 degree temp and such a bad case of bronchitis/pneumonia she dropped to 1 1/2 lbs. She was not happy about sitting on that Ice Pack to get her temp down. She really hated the baby Neo-Synephrine drops I had to put in her nose and the humidifier. Needless to say she was soooo tiny then I started calling her Bitty Kitty and the name stuck. She's almost 4 now and there's not much  "bitty" about her. She is definitely one of those "You're my person" not an I'm your cat type of kitties. She allows me in her life because I pay for her house and toys. LOL, and I have the huge King-sized bed she likes to sheet surf on when they're fresh and snuggle under the covers in. Oh and course I make sure she has a hunky 6"2' bf that she thinks is there just for her and now Monkey too. What can I say, I'm a good mommy. 

Well, that's all I have for you today. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my sweet babies. I hope it inspires you to make something about your loved ones too, whether they are 2-legged or 4-legged. We all need love and sadly sometimes we forget how special our loved ones are until it's too late. If you don't already own our MDS, you can get a FREE 30 day trial by going to my ONLINE STORE. Also, we're getting a new version MDS-2 later this year. If you purchase our current program you will get a FREE upgrade when the new program comes out. That's an almost $20.00 value free. The new program has lots of cool new features including the ability to use multiple colors on a stamp. I can hardly wait!

Till next time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storm to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,

Shan

Pin It

MDS Monday - UDI Sketch Challenge #187 / My Challenge #20

Pin It
Hey y'all. Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. I know I did, filled with lots of friends and down-time and a little creative time thrown in. (Although there never seems to be enough of that!)

I was looking for my normal MDS challenge site to have a new challenge up but they hadn't posted one, so I used a regular sketch challenge from the same site. Normally I don't use my MDS projects for challenges, but because I felt like I really challenged myself on this card I decided to.

Do you use lots of different patterns of DSP when you create your cards or projects? I don't usually. I always struggle with which ones to put together. Normally my projects just have one pattern of DSP in them. I think it's the OCD in me that doesn't like the un-matched aspect. Even with this card, the only way I was able to combine these patterns was because the two outside were both kind of "florally" and had circles. Silly, I know but it's just so hard for me to do! I always love how others use DSP, but somehow trying to use multiples just causes me to "vapor-lock" creatively. There's a session at convention this year on creating with DSP...I am sooo in that session!

Oh well, I did try to mix it up with this project. You'll have to let me know what you think. The Scaredy Cat in me was stressing over this, but I tried anyways. Here's today's card-

MDS Happy Day Card

I used this sketch from Utah Divas Saturday Sketch Challenge for my inspiration-

I stuck right to the sketch for my card. The only extras were the little flowers and brad, that I added, that were part of the MDS Designer Kit I used. I know it say it a lot, but I really love the drop shadow feature. It adds such dimension to your projects it's hard to immediately recognize that it's not cardstock.

Here's the inside-

All the elements for the inside of this card were from the same kit. I think it's just so bright and cheery! Hopefully when I flake and miss someone's birthday and can't send a card by mail in time, they will be excited by receiving this in their in-box instead!

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked my attempt at combining DSP's. If you did, I hope you'll take a moment to let me know what you thought. I love hearing from you! Also, if you liked it and wanted to +1 or Pin it, I've put the buttons on my side-bar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too. :)

I hope you'll come back soon to see what I've got for you!

Till next time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storm to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.


Be Safe,
Shan

Pin It

MDS Monday...Oooops Thursday :) Case the Occasions Mini

Pin It
Hey y'all. Happy Thursday! Just one more day left till the weekend. Woo-Hoo! I hope you're having an Amazing week!

I'm a little off on my posting days, but I figure better late than never. Right? This is challenge #2 for the week. Yea, Shan! The challenge over at Utah Diva's MDS Monday was to CASE a card or project from the Occasions Mini that retired on Monday. For those of you over the pond and down under, you just got yours.

Here's my Occasions Mini CASE- This is a very clean card. No added embellishments because that's how the card in the catalog was.

MDS Beau Chateau

I started with a base of Soft Suede. On that I layered two scalloped borders of Marina Mist, a strip of DSP  from Beau Chateau kit, and a label from the same set. Believe it or not the DSP actually started out white, and the Marina Mist much brighter. I used the Opacity feature to lighten both up and when I did it allowed the Soft Suede to show through changing their color. I only know this is what happened because when I tried to lighten up the label I could see the the DSP & the borders showing through. This is as light as I could get the label and not have them really noticeable. If you look real close you can actually see both elements, but I think if I didn't tell you about that you would never know.

The Opacity feature is one of my favorite tools (next to the recently discovered and adored drop shadow feature) and I use it often. It allows you so much flexibility with your designs and at it's most basic, it replicates the stamping off technique. Love, Love, Love It! I'm not really that much of a "vintagey" type designer but I like how this one turned out.

Here's the inspiration. I couldn't figure out how to just get the card itself, so you have to see the whole page. (Hey I have never claimed to be computer/blog savvy. Just the opposite in fact!) Ok, Epic Fail! I saved what I thought was the page and it gave me the front of the catalog. If you have a catalog it's on page 25, the Apothecary Art card, if you don't have a catalog, you can go to my ONLINE STORE (I've directed the link to the catalog page) and check it out there.

***Edited*** LOL!!!! I just went to post this on the UDI MDS Monday Page and the first thing you see is a CASE of the card I cased, and there's is almost identical to the one in the catalog. : D

Because you probably know by now that I do insides to my MDS cards just like a regular card, Here it is-

The design in the center is one of the Beau Chateau Labels. It's found in the embellishment portion of the kit. I simply used my Opacity Tool to lighten it up so I had a design element that wouldn't interfere with any message I might want to add. I love how it coordinates perfectly with the sentiment on the front.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I have one more challenge for you this week and hopefully I will get to finish it tonight and have it ready to post tomorrow for the End of the Week Technique. If not tomorrow, it will be posted on Saturday, but I'm really trying for tomorrow.

I hope you enjoyed today's card. It came together really quickly and I'm sure someone would love it if you sent them something like this to make their day. If you haven't tried MDS yet, you can get a FREE 30 day trial. Just go to my store or contact me for more information.

If you liked today's MDS card, please feel free to leave me a comment. I love hearing from you! Also, if you liked it and wanted to +1 or Pin it, I've placed those buttons on my sidebar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Till next time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms, than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storm to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,

Shan

Pin It

MDS Monday - St Patrick's Day - Utah Diva's MDS Challenge/My Challenge #14

Pin It
Hey y'all. Happy Monday! I hope you all had a Fabulous weekend! I got to spend the weekend with my Amazing BF so my weekend was beyond compare! Hope yours was half as good!

I did manage to squeeze in just a little time (ok a couple of hours if I'm being totally honest) for the Utah Divas MDS Monday Challenge for something "St. Patrick's Day" or "Going Green". I went with St. Patrick's Day. Now, normally I wouldn't count this as my challenge for the week since I do a MDS Monday every week anyway, but this card was pretty involved with the punch work, so I'm going to count it as this weeks challenge card. I may still do another one, in fact there's one I'm looking at doing, but for now this one is "the one". I hope you like it. :)

Here's today's card-

AUGH! I just noticed as I posted this that somehow during all my manipulating I had dropped my white layer down and it's not even! DOUBLE AUGH! OK, so you guys are my friends and will just pretend like you don't really notice that right, and I'll go home tonight and adjust it. So Sorry. SMH!

Anyways, other than that do you love it? I love how it turned out! My daughter was looking at it while I was making it and I had all the oval punches out on the white background (for the stems) and she said I don't see any shamrocks! LOL

I thought it would be nice to have a bunch of regular shamrocks and one 4-leaf clover thrown in there just for luck.

Just in case you're wondering how I made the stems, here's what you need to do-
1- Make 2 oval punches. Take the first one down to the size you would like the length of your stem to be.
2- Fill it in with color you would like your "stem" to be. I used Garden Green.
3- Take your next punch and fill it in with the color of the layer your "stem" is on. Here I used Whisper White.
4 - Take that oval down in size so that it's close to the same size as your "stem" oval. Use the "Bring Forward" function so that you will be able to place it on front of the "stem" piece. Move it into place and rotate it until you have just the portion showing that you want. Voila! Instant stem! :)
Hope this helps.

I then punched out 19 small hearts 3 each for the regular shamrocks and one for the 4 leaf-clover, re-sized them so each clover's hearts were at least similar in size to the ones next to it and then filled it in with Garden Green color.

Here's the inside of the card-

I always loved this saying, but never knew it was attributed to St. Patrick until last night. I just knew it had to go on my card.

You know I like a little pretty on the inside of my card but I have to say I was so tired of adding punches and re-sizing and re-positioning that I actually considered (for a Hot-Minute!) not making another one for the inside, but then I thought, "How could I not make one for the inside to go with that beautiful saying?". So, back to the punch, re-size, re-position, fill. Then I lightened the opacity to 60% and my card was done.

So, you see, that's why, with all the planning and everything I'm calling this my challenge card of the week. :)

Well, that's all I have for today. I hope I've inspired you to try something new today. If you'd like to play with MDS and create something fun too, remember we're offering a FREE 30day trial of our Fabulous MDS at No-Risk to you. You can check it out at my ONLINE STORE where you can shop 24/7.

If you liked today's card, I would love it if you left me a comment. It's great when I get to hear from you! Also, if you liked today's card, please feel free to +1 or Pin it. I've added the buttons to my side-bar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are also welcome. :)

Till next time-

Remember- Life isn't about Waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,
Shan Pin It

MDS Monday- Happy Birthday Momma! - My Challenge 12

Pin It
Hey y'all. Happy Monday. I hope you all had a great weekend. I got a huge box from sweet Mr. Ups and had every intention of stamping the weekend away. And then life happened as it has a tendency to do, and I spent it, spending quality time with my daughter who just moved back home. We saw the Lorax (go see it, it's Amazing!), did some shopping, did some cleaning and organizing and then it came time to work on my MDS.

I think I have lamented plenty of times here that I am not the most computer savvy person. In fact me and technology, not a good mix in general, unless it's the medical kind or Lexus-Nexus, I did pretty good with the Law library. How I managed to get an A in my computer class was sheer determination, hard work and the fact that the professor gave us the majority of the answers on the first 2 tests. God Bless that man! I have in fact now killed 2 lap-tops, a net-book and 2 desk tops. At any rate, I had some issues with finding some of my downloaded material and updates (totally my issue) and spent the better part of about 4-5 hours over 2 evening dealing with this all in an effort to come up with today's post.

Toady's post is a very special post! It's my momma's 65th birthday.

Happy Birthday Momma! :)


I talked to her late last week and told her I was afraid I had waited to long and was trying to figure out how I was going to manage to get her card in her hand by today. I was thinking I was going to have to Priority Mail or Express Mail it to her. She said all she wanted was for me to make her a card and put it on my blog for everyone to see. She follows my blog and she thought that would be cool.

Well, I think she's the best, so I thought I'd surprise her and do her one better and give her two cards instead of one. So, I made two cards that I'm posting here, and then I'm e-mailing her the cards with a special message inside just for her.

Also, I told you guys last week I'm doing 2 challenges early since my best friend Jason will be here at the end of the month and I won't be stamping and won't be able to do my challenges those weeks. Both of these cards fit the Utah Diva's MDS Monday Challenge for last week of Anything Birthday or Use A Piece of Cake CD from Sale-A-Bration, so I submitted both of them to their site last night to qualify. Now my 2 challenges are caught up and I'm back to just my one challenge a week. :)Yea me!

Ok, so are you ready to see my momma's first card? Here it is-

I used Elements of Style and Messages for Mom. My Mom loves Humming Birds so I knew she would love this sweet little guy.

You know I have to have a pretty inside-

Another little Humming Bird this one getting a little sip from one of the flowers on the flower from the Element of Style flourish. The sentiment is from Messages for Mom.

Here's card #2-

The first card was more serious, so I wanted to give momma a fun card too. This one is from the Piece of Cake CD in the Sale-A-Bration Catalog. You can get it Free. Lots of Fun Stuff in it.

Here's the inside-

Those little pieces down the sides are "pieces of cake" how fun is that?

Well, what do you think? I hope she loves them as much as I loved designing them for her, but more importantly.... as much as I love her!

I hope I inspired you to try creating with MDS today. If you decide to try I would love to see what you make.

If you liked today's card, I would love it if you left me a comment. It's great when I get to hear from you! Also, if you liked today's card, please feel free to +1 or Pin it. I've added the buttons to my side-bar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are also welcome. :)


Thanks for stopping by!
Till next time-

Remember- Life is not about Waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,
Shan Pin It

Preview-Utah Diva's MDS Monday Challenge Birthday Cards or Piece of Cake- My Challenge #12

Pin It
Hey y'all. Quick little post-

These cards are actually for my mother's birthday which will be my Monday post. It will also be my MDS Monday post. I'm posting it early so I can get it in on the Utah Divah's MDS Monday Challenge for Birthday Cards or Cards using the Piece of Cake CD that you can get free during Sale-A-Bration.

My Mom lives out of state and I waited just a little too long to be able to get her card in  her hands on her birthday and she said all she wanted was for me to make her a card and put it on my blog for everyone to see. I decided since I waited to long I would to her one better and make her two. I hope she likes them. Be sure to check my blog on Monday to see both full cards- the insides are done as well.

Entry #1

Entry #2

 Hope you liked this quick little preview. :)

Till next time-
Remember- Life is not about Waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,
Shan

Pin It

My First MDS

Pin It
Hey Y'all. Well, it's another cold Monday here in  the DMV, but at least the sun is shining (weakly) and there is no precipitation. (YEA!) How was your weekend? I hope you had a Great one!

My weekend did not go as planned at all. It was still a good one, just not the one I really had planned. It started off ok, I got to sleep in on Friday, (always a plus), followed by a mani/pedi, then lunch with my sis and then we decided to throw in some quick shopping for my Christmas party Friday night, before my hair appointment. So as we're finding some outfits, I call to check and see what the dress code is only to find out it's been moved  to another night! Luckily I have that night off! On the plus side though, I got a really cute outfit, and I found a purse to go with it on Saturday at one of my favorite haunts, Target. (You did read that Tar-jay, right?), So, now party-less I got to spend the evening with my sis and nephews so I can't complain too much. My stampcamp for Saturday got moved to next weekend, which was actually ok, because it allowed me to go and get the bulk of my Holiday shopping done. Now if I can just get the cards done, and get everything mailed out this week, I'll be good to go. You'd think with all the cards I've been doing, I would have my Holiday cards done, but nope. More importantly, I have to get stamps or I won't even be able to send them out. I don't remember the last time I used regular snail-mail. Guess that's why I have such a back-log of cards at home, huh? The good news about the last minute date change is there will probably be at least two more people which will be great for my hostess! I had to work Saturday night but then got to go to a party with some friends for a little belated B-day gathering. Yesterday I went to a Pampered Chef party with my stampin buddy April and met some really nice new friends, especially Sherry who I have a feeling will def be a partner in crime (sooner than later, I have a feeling)! And of course we had football, right up to midnight so you know it was a good weekend, even if last night's game didn't end the way I would have liked it too.

So with that said, let's chat about football. I'm so ready for the College Bowl games to start up because I am really missing my College Ball!  :-(  NFL wise though it was a mixed afternoon yesterday. As you know by now, I have 3 main teams, The Patriots, The Cowboys, and anyone who plays the Redskins. So yesterday was easy since my boy Tom and the Pats were playing the Redskins. Winnah, Winnah, Chicken Dinnah! Now, while I was waiting for the Cowboys to play there was Miami vs Eagles....SMH....I told you if I bragged on them they would probably just go back to disappointing and they lost BIG! I stick by my assertion that they are the South's Redskins. With the caliber of players they have they should simply not do so poorly on a consistent basis and continually disappoint their fans. Over in Denver, Timmy T and his team, pulled out a last minute win over the Bears. Did you see this game? Oh Holy Smokes!!! There was about 5 minutes left and the score was 10-0 and they come back to win. Their kicker kicked a 59yd'er to tie the game! Who does that?!? 59 yards! And then went on to kick the winner in OT. AMAZING!!!!! N.O. beat Tennessee and then came the last game of the night. The Cowboys vs the Giants. This was just a game of lead changes that went right down to the wire. Those dang giants called a Time Out with 6 seconds left, to ice the kicker for the winning FG, which had already been put into play by the time all the whistles were blown and split the uprights! But if you looked on replay he called it in time, the refs were just slow to blow, which I have to say Really BLOWS! Especially since the next attempt was blocked and we lost by 5. Cowboys and Giants are now tied and they meet again on 1/1. I will be so sad when football season is over, but you know who will be glad? My studio assistants. Yep, Duecey and Bitty HATE football season. Me yelling at the T.V. gets me more than one Evil - Kitteh - Eye a game. Yep, they will be glad, at least until baseball season starts back up full swing! :-)

On to stamping, I finally got around to playing with my birthday present, my MDS!  I've decided to try a new feature here and add MDS Mondays to my End of the Week Technique and have two regular challenges for myself. This will allow me to add one more routine post here and not only challenge myself to step out of my box, but also to develop my skill with MDS. I'm very excited about this and hope you will be too. I just have the basic program at this point so we'll see how it goes.

I had seen on the Utah Divas page that this weeks challenge would be to incorporate Polka Dots or Stripes on a MDS project and I managed to use both. I have to say, I did this card much quicker than I had anticipated and that was even with making a revision. It only took me around 30 minutes which I think was pretty good.

Here's the final card-

This was all done without any additional downloads. I was excited to use the striped DSP for my second layer and the sprinkles on top of my cupcake look like "polka-dots" to me. What do you think?

Here was the original-

I liked it, but I just felt like I wanted a little something more. I love ribbon, but don't have a lot at home to choose from yet, so I don't incorporate it into a lot of my cards. I really like that with MDS I have so many ribbon choices already built in and can change the colors too. For my ribbon I layered 2 Brocade Blues on my card and then layered a Whisper White one right in the center. I then made two bows sized them like I wanted them and then layered them too. So quick and easy! I Likee!!!! The only thing I couldn't figure out was the ribbon placement. I actually wanted it to tuck under the second layer instead of going across the entire card, but other than that I was really excited about the finished look.

This MDS is going to be really helpful for me because you know there's no way I could have gone back and added that ribbon on a real card. That's one of the really nice benefits of creating cards in MDS, you can do Mock-Ups to see if you're going to like a design or see what changes you want to make before you actually cut cardstock and adhere it. What a time saver as well as money saver! Plus the biggest bonus- Built- in Rulers. So easy to make sure everything is equal and placed just right! The one real downside I've found is unless I plan on doing a Hybrid card Tink can't have her way with my cards. Now, if there is a glitter function on MDS, I don't know about, I hope one of you will chime in and let me know, because that would be one download I would be getting STAT!!!!

Now you know I think the inside should be pretty too, so even though this is digital, I couldn't just leave you with a card front. Here's the inside-

Another feature I really like it the ability to change the opacity, so it's just like stamping off. I added a cute little trio of balloons to pretty up the inside and lightened them up, just like I would have done on a regular card. I wish I had been able to find a "string" stamp but I think it still looks cute. And if I go by my standard of "Would I like to receive this either in the mail, or by E-mail?", I have to say, YES!

What do you think? I'm pretty excited about my first MDS project and how well it goes with the theme. Hopefully I will be able to link this to the Utah Diva's MDS Monday page (I don't see a linky-tool, I'm waiting for a response from them) If you liked today's card, I would love it if you left me a comment. It's great when I get to hear from you! Also, if you liked today's card, please feel free to +1 or Pin it. I've added the buttons to my side-bar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are also welcome. :)

As always, if today's project inspires you to create, I would love to see it!

If you need supplies to create this or other project in either MDS or our regular product, visit my ONLINE STORE. There's still plenty of time to get your Holiday shopping done too.

I hope to see you back here soon.

Till then,

Be Safe,
Shan


Pin It