Just Chillin' / NAC 101

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Hey y'all. Happy Tuesday. I hope you're having a good week so far. Did you have a good weekend? I hope so! I sure did. I got to spend the weekend with Little Nacho, who's 18 months old now and then you know what happened Sunday Night? Football!!!! I'm soooo excited! What I'm most excited about though is showing you this weeks Nacho Challenge project. :)

We have a sketch for you this week and I L.O.V.E., love it! I used it to make a scrapbook page and I can't wait to show it to you! Here's what I designed for this week's challenge-

When I saw this pic of my sweet baby and her new best friend Eggie (Edgar O'Malley), I knew I wanted to do something special with it. They just love each other. Sweet Belle holds him and gives him kisses and little Eggie just purrs and snuggles back. I loved the colors and patterns in the DSP from My Favorite Things. I was scrolling through my Papers looking for something a little different and I thought this was just perfect. What do you think?

Here's this week's sketch-

Love this Sketch!

Well, that's all I have for today. I hope you liked my page and I hope it inspires you to play along with us this week. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks of taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! 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 storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe-

Shan

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Bath Time / Nacho #41/ MDS Today

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Hey y'all. Happy Friday! I hope you've had a great week and are looking forward to a fabulous weekend. I'm going to S.U's Baltimore Regional and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am! I've never been to a Regional before and it's leading up to my first convention, so that just makes it even better!

This is a really quick post because I have to go get things ready. First off, let me say I feel like a real bad friend to everyone but especially to my friends over at Nacho Average Challenges. I have not missed a single challenge with them, until last week that is. 39 weeks and week 40 hit and about 2:00 in the morning I realized what had happened. I will say that I think my excuse is pretty special. My new grand baby Eribella moved in with me last week at less than 1 week old and she and her parents are only staying here for 2 more weeks before they move all the way across the country to California. So, needless to say, I've been a little wrapped up in her, as she has been wrapping me around her itty-bitty-pinkies.

I wanted to make sure I did something this week though. I was going to try and combine last week's colors with this weeks challenge and even had a card idea in mind but simply ran out of time so back to good ole MDS. And last night's Bath-time Adventure gave me just the picture I needed.  Here's my take on this week's sketch. hope you enjoy it-

I hope you'll forgive an indulgent GiGi
 the use of the X-Large picture so you can really see  the details. :)

Here's the sketch I was working with-

I took just a few liberties with the sketch by changing it to a square and moving the sentiment to the bottom instead of the side. Since the sketch is supposed to be a jumping off point I hope the Fabulous ladies over at NAC won't hold it against me too much. There's still a little time to play along so I hope you'll take a little time and join us. I'm really going to try and not miss anything more challenges over the next two weeks but boy it's soooooo hard not spending EVERY SINGLE WAKING MOMENT of the day with my precious little one while she's still here.

Gratuitous Extra Pic :)

That's all I have for you today. I hope you liked today's project.  If you liked it or have questions about it, I hope you'll leave me a comment in the space below. I love hearing from you and read all of your comments. They really do make my day! If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's project, I've put those buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too!

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! Till Next Time-

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

Be Safe,

Shan

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MDS Today - Yarn, Yummy Yarn /SMDS #7

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Hey y'all. I'm so excited! 2 posts in 2 days. Woo-Hoo! I've been trying to do more MDS and there's a new challenge over at Simply My Digital Studio's FB Page. If you haven't checked them out yet, make sure you do, just finish here first, kay. :) The page is the brainchild of Heather Summers & Kimberly Van Diepen, who both do Amazing MDS creations. Although I haven't been with them since the beginning, I didn't start too late and I've done all the challenges. One of the nice things about their page, it's all about trying new things. They also do a video for each challenge. (How Helpful is that!?! So Helpful I tell you!)  Oh and there's lots of supportive people encouraging each other. :) This week's challenge was to use multiple layers of DSP and from different sets. Here's my  page-

This page started with the idea to use a circle as a background for the pictures of my sweet, sweet studio assistant Deucey. Now he's helping out with my crocheting too. These are pictures of him helping out with Baby Tooey's blankie. You did know it was important to taste test your yarn creations, right?

While I'm sure the idea was to use many more DSP layers than I did, I couldn't do it.  Many of you know that mixing &/or matching different colors and patterns is Terrifying for me, so while I only used two patterns, the Background paper (from the new Lemonade Stand CD available in the new SAB Catalog) and the strip of patterned DSP across the page (from the 2013 Quotable Calendar DSP set) I did add the Hello Doily Background stamp, which added a lot of pattern. In fact, the first DSP I picked was the Doily sheet in the Flirtatious DSP Set. So, in my mind that counts as three. That works for you too, right? I hope so. Any-who, I drew my color inspiration from Baby Tooey's blankie, obviously, and the pics of my sweet crocheting assistant were just too cute to not share. :)

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked it and I hope it inspires you to step out of your comfort zone and try something that you find a little difficult. This silly page took me almost 2 hours to make because I just couldn't decide on the patterns to mix and how to apply them with the picture layout I had in mind. But, you know the motto of this blog - "Just try", so I did and 2 hours later, I'm very happy with the outcome. If you like today's project or have questions about it, I hope you'll take a moment to leave me a comment in the area below. I love hearing from you! I read all of your comments and they really do make my day. If you'd like to +1 or Pin this, I've put the buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Here's the supply list-

Background

     Designer Series Paper/_Designer Kits/Lemonade Stand - designer series paper/Lemonade Stand - 6

Stamps
    Hello, Doily/Hello, Doily - background piece, Color = LUCKY LIMEADE 170,172,62

Photos
    Designer Series Paper/_Designer Kits/2013 Quotable Calendar - designer series paper/2013 Quotable Calendar - pattern 5

   

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! 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 storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,

Shan

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MDS Today- Basking Duck / Texting on a Path / MDSM 4 and Simply MDS Challenge #5

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Hey y'all.
Happy New Year!!!!
I will be back later this week with my 2012 Year in Review. Yeah, I know I'm a little late, but better late than never. I hope you had a great evening last night and are having an Amazing, family/friend filled holiday today.

Today I have a MDS Scrapbook Page for you. I know it's been a while since I posted any MDS. I've been working on my 53 Weeks scrapbook and have been staying caught up with a page each week. I'll try and start posting some of those. For today's challenge I combined two different challenges. Many of you know I don't like color challenges because they give me too many options and I usually combine them with a sketch challenge. I found the same applies to techniques, so I combined this weeks challenge at Simply My Digital Studio Challenge (FB) to text on a path with a great sketch over at My Digital Studio Monday. Here's my take on this weeks challenges-

Texting on a Path

Last week on Christmas Eve-Eve, I went down to the National Mall for a little walk-about. 6 hours and 10.65 miles later, I had pictures of some of my favorite places/views including the National Christmas Tree by day and night. These 2 pictures were taken at my All-Time Favorite place on the mall, Constitution Gardens and additionally they are 2 of my favorite pictures of that day. 

I'm really happy with how this turned out. Deciding on a color palate is usually one of the hardest things for me. I decided to go very neutral so my pictures would really stand out. I added an overlay from Naturals Composition and then added some strips of paper from the Number One Collection. I love how they both look like fabric, like a strip of linen and burlap. I also used the Rip-Edges feature to give a handcrafted, organic look to my page. A little white stitching was added to mirror the sketch.

I used the Text on a Path feature to really Highlight my two pictures and tell how I was feeling when I took the pictures. If you don't know how to utilize this feature you can view a video HERE.

It took me a while to actually get my text on a path but that's because I tried to make the path around both shapes. Here's a Tip for you- If you have more than one shape try splitting your journaling. Once I decided to split my journaling and do two shapes instead of one, it was much easier and went much quicker.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked my page and I hope the ladies at both challenges like it too. If you liked it or have questions about it, I hope you'll take a moment and leave me a comment below. I love hearing from you and your comments really do make my day. If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's page, I've put those buttons on my site for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! 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 storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,

Shan

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Salt Air and Flowers... / MDS Today

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Hey y'all. Happy Monday! I hope you had a fabulous weekend and are looking forward to an equally fabulous week.

Today's project is another 12 x 12 digital scrapbook page. I did this last month and am just now getting around to posting it. I wish I had a larger back-up reserve right now, because we are re-arranging my house to accommodate my daughter and new son-in-law moving in and I'm not getting much done since I don't really have a decent studio space at the moment. Hopefully this will get situated in the next few weeks. It's so frustrating to not be able to sit down and just create in my own little space.

Any-who, a few weeks back I went to a going-away party for my former manager. It was at a seafood restaurant in Annapolis and right on the bay. I can't tell you how much I wanted to just sit outside on the dock with my legs dangling off the end. However, my "boot" would have made that a little difficult and everyone was inside so I settled for just getting a few pics instead. It's days like that one, that make me realize just how much I miss living on the water. There's just nothing like it. I have to say I'm a little jealous because my honey is now living just 2 miles from the beach. Oh well, I guess that's what vacations are for...that and pictures of his view. Until then, I thought I'd share this with you-

I love how just looking at this page takes me down to the dock. I can almost taste the salt air and feel it tugging at my hair. How Beautiful are those flowers? The Hibiscus was so big and beautiful it didn't even look real. In the biggest picture you can see the flower boxes on the side of the dock. Love that! The roses were actually in beds in the parking lot, but even there the salt air was working it's magic.

 I used Well-Worn DSP for the background. I thought it matched perfectly. I took the idea for the photo layout from one of the pre-loaded ones and flipped it and changed it around a little to fit my needs. Love how easy it is to do that with MDS2.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked it and I hope it inspires you to save a few memories. :) If you liked it or have questions about today's project I hope you'll take a moment to leave me a message. I read them all and they really do make my day. If you'd like to +1 or Pin it, I've put those buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too!

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! 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 storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Also please Remember that October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month-

Love Does NOT Hurt!

Be Safe,
Shan Pin It

Then & Now / MDS Scrapbook Page

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Hey y'all. Happy Friday! I hope you're having a great day and are preparing for an Amazing weekend. I'm having a get-together at my house tonight, a team meeting to go to tomorrow and then to my friend Brenda's house afterwards. Sunday is of course filled with football and more creativity. Sounds like a fun and busy weekend for me. :)

I've got a new scrapbook page for you today. I was fooling around with my MDS2 a week ago or so and made 2 separate pages in one sitting and haven't found the time to share either one until now. (Bad Shan!) As many of you know, my beautiful daughter got married a few weeks back. One of her Best Friends, Kendra, was a bridesmaid. These girls have been like two peas-in-a-pod since they met in high school on the first day of Field Hockey Practice. When I was loading all of my old pictures onto my new Macbook I found some of the two of them from J's birthday. It made me smile and I wanted to capture the moment. I thought it would be fun to show how they were then and how they are now. Here's today's project-

All of the layers are from the Summer Smooches Digital Collection. I chose the layers from the colors in the pictures. I really love how the drop shadow makes the paper layers look real. I used one of the alphabet punches that came with my MDS2 program for the words and filled them with a contrasting paper from the same collection and then outlined them in Gray for a little added depth and definition.
I think the text on the banner is a font called Noteworthy. The banner was easy to do with our Flag Punch. It's simply filled with Whisper White and outlined with Island Indigo. The Fabric Summer Smooches Brad ties all the colors together. For those of you that know me or have been following me for any length of time, you know mixing and matching patterns is not something I feel at all comfortable doing. I was really kind of nervous about trying all of these bright colors and patterns together but I think in the end it turned out really nice. The best part, it reflects the spirit and joy of the two beautiful girls it's showcasing.

I hope they love it and I hope you do to. I swear I'm going to figure out how to get the supply list to copy over to here. I'll try and figure that out this weekend. I love hearing from you so if you liked today's project or have questions about it, I hope you'll take a moment to leave me a message. I read them all and they really do make my day. If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's project, I've put those buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! I hope you  have an Amazing weekend filled with lots of time for Family, Friends and of course Creativity! 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 storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Remember also- Love Does Not Hurt! October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Be Safe,
Shan Pin It

MDS Monday- DMB & Hershey Park, One Sweet Night / A Two Page Layout For You

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Hey y'all. Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. Mine was very busy. Saturday was pretty much consumed with finishing up my daughter's wedding invites, which they both loved. Yesterday I got to spend a couple of hours with my best guy friend Jason and one of his classmates watching football. The place we went to had a wall of t.v.'s 2 high in the bar where we sat, so we got to see just about all the games that were playing. Only one of the teams I like won yesterday. O.K. two if you count the team that defeated the Redskins. :) I was able to get some extra creating done last night though, while I caught up on my DVR and did laundry. I finished up the 2-page scrapbook layout for my DMB trip to Hershey 2 years ago that I got started on Friday. Yeah, I'm behind but now that I'm getting used to MDS2 I'm so excited about all the things I get to document digitally. You may be thinking "2 days on one layout?" Well, I didn't get to just sit down and do it, I did it in-between other stuff and wait till you see all the extras on it.

I know I've mentioned before that I don't know why I can't just be a little more simple with my cards as well as my MDS projects. Well, this project is definitely not in the simple category. I finished the pages, but I'm just putting the layout with all the extras here. My sis says I should keep our exploits adventures for just us. Lol!!! I think you're still going to enjoy the pages though. Here they are-

I'm not sure how to get these to look like a 2-page layout on here, sorry. :( Just imagine they're right next to each other, kay? Kay! :)

Here's a bigger picture so you can see all the details I know you're already seeing in the smaller one.

Hershey's Scrapbook page 

Why yes, that is a "Hershey Bar" used as the title. I used a square punch that I made into a rectangle and filled with Basic Grey color. I then layered another rectangle of Early Espresso on top of that and used Basic Grey for the lettering. I used a free font called Hurshey's for the words. How cute is that!?! And how about the little Reese's Pieces and M&M's I made and scattered all over the page? See what I mean about not being simple, and always having to do more? However, I have to say the extra time involved in making all the chocolate was soooo worth it and I think they make the pages. The two white squares are mats for pictures.

Here's page two-

This started out as one of the photo layouts included in MDS/MDS2. I added the layer of color on the bottom to coordinate with the one on the first page. It's Poppy Parade at 90% opacity. The colored squares go with the M&M's and are mats for more photos. I added more candy pieces to this page. It helps carry the theme from the first page, but it also makes it able to stand on it's own and still convey the Hershey feeling. I really like that these pages are great together but can stand alone equally well.

*Tip*- Adding page layers like, the Poppy Parade ones at the bottom of each page and the large square on page one, are a great way to change up photo templates or just add more character to ones you create. However, if you're like me and like to lighten the color up a little with the opacity slide, you might get discouraged by the underlying base color/pattern showing through, thereby limiting your color options. To keep this from happening I simply copy and paste an additional layer (usually a punched layer) when I first decide on the shape and size I want my layer to be. Once you have the additional layer, color it white. Once you have this white layer in-between your base color and your layer color you can adjust the opacity to whatever degree you would like without the base showing through.

Also, play around with your layer function. I love how just by changing the layers I was able to make the candies look like they were on top of, or underneath other pieces. The drop shadow feature is another favorite and it makes all the layers look so dimensional. These pages simply wouldn't be the same without those 2 features.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you liked them and I hope they inspire you to play around with digital scrapbooking, have some fun and get caught up preserving your memories. I love hearing from you so if you liked today's project or have comments or questions about it, I hope you'll take just a moment to leave me a message in the comments section below. I read all of them and they really do make my day! If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's project, I've put those buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! I hope you'll come back soon to see all the new things I have 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 storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,
Shan

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MDS Today - Baby 2.0

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Hey y'all. Happy Thursday! Remember when I said earlier in the week that I wanted a whole week do-over?  Yep, add today to that request. Was supposed to get up early for car-pool and somehow managed to oversleep, even with redundancies built in. Oh, and I somehow mis-counted my frozen lunches and didn't have one for today or tomorrow. *SMH* *EPIC Fail!!!* Oh well, at least I still made it to work on time, the day is almost over and there's just one more day until the weekend. YEA!!!

I've got a new MDS Project for you today. I just now put it together and it was pretty quick and easy. Had a little trouble getting the lettering just right but other than that...Easy-Peasy. I didn't even use a template. Nope, did it all myself. *Happy Dance*

You know how things seem to come in 3's? Well, many of you know that my grandmother passed away last month. That was on a Thursday. Counted as #1. My daughter and her boyfriend had wanted to come over that evening but I wasn't home so the plan was for them to come over the next day. They came over Friday evening and after helping me get my groceries inside, Jordan (my daughters bf) asked if I "would mind if he married my daughter". While not in the same category as the events of the day before, still significant. Count #2. Since this was a little unexpected, for me at least, I did what all good and surprised Moms do and said "Are you pregnant!?!" :D I was assured by them both that was not the case and in fact Jordan had been told by no less than 3 separate doctors that he couldn't have children. They would have to adopt when the time came. No, that's not #3. The next day the kids come over for some cupcakes and to tell me J (my daughter) had become violently ill on the way home the night before and Jordan had taken her to the E.R. for treatment. Now, it really does show that I'm a nurse when my first response was "Really!?! You went to the E.R. for sudden onset nausea and vomiting!?! Are you not my child!?!!!!!!" HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Well, the joke was on me. You got it in one, because I know y'all are smart like that. They're expecting. It's a little Miracle Baby. :) I asked what Jordan did when he found out and he said "I went outside and threw up." Count #3. Jordan said "I always wanted kids and now I get a wife and a kid at the same time!" They are very excited and I'm still in shock.

I got a text last week with a picture and since I had a few minutes I thought I might as well get started on documenting Little Bit's life. Here's what I came up with-

Since we don't know yet if it's a little Princess or a little Prince and
since I'm definitely too young to be using the "G" word this is what I'm calling Little Bit...
"Baby 2.0" :)

I don't think it's a bad start to Little Bit's documented journey. How 'bout you? Can't wait to see what the kids think and would love to hear what you think too. I love hearing from you, so if you liked today's project or have comments or questions about it, I hope you'll take just a moment and leave me a message below. I read all of your comments and they really do make my day! If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's project, I've put those buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too! :)

I haven't figured out yet how to get the supply list for MDS to copy to my blog so I can't list everything for you. :( I do know the background is So Saffron @78% opacity and all the DSP and colors are from the Sweet Details Designer DSP kit. The letters and numbers are from the Junior Alphabet Punch Set and I used the Tag Punch, the Scalloped Border Punch, and the Square Punch (for the photo mats). The button is from the Twitterpated Buttons.

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! I hope to see you back here real soon. 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

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