My Digital Studio

Below is my first attempt at publishing my MDS scrapbook pages. This isn't the whole scrapbook I'm putting together of my grandkids in 2010. I'm able to save just a few pages in jpeg and then place them on my blog. Isn't this great? I'm totally in love with MDS and enjoying all the flexibility when putting together an album. I have even prepared an interactive album that I will burn to a CD and send to a couple people...it includes videos I've taken.

January Workshop

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays. I enjoyed my first Christmas away from Atlanta visiting my grandkids. Don't you know it decided to snow in Atlanta for the first time in over 100 years.

We will be having our first workshop of the year in a few weeks. Here are the cards I've prepared. The Baby Blossoms set from the new Occasions Mini is sweet and very nice to use and the Designer Series Paper, Springtime Vintage, is especially pretty.












I never got a chance to make a card for a workshop that included the Happiness Shared set in this years Idea book. I think it's a nice stamp set to use to make a quick card.

On another note..I finally have had a chance to use MDS (My Digital Studio) and five of your fellow stampers in our group purchased the set during the Thanksgiving sale. We are all enjoying the software and are very impressed with how much we are able to do and just how darn fun the program is.

Almost every week there are downloads for sale and I decided to go ahead and make a monthly invest in my own Stampin'Up web site where you can always place an order to be delivered to you or you can order your digital downloads and download them immediately from this site. I doubt I'll be doing a lot of updating at this site but rather just use what Stampin'Up puts on it since it gets too cumbersome to have two web sites. You can access this site at ritanystrom.stampinup.net

Birds-eye view of Frosty

Saw this on Stampin'Up's website and had to see if it was as simple to make as it looked. Isn't this a clever idea?

Owl Be Darned...these are a Hoot

Having too much fun playing with the owl punch. Lots of great ideas on the web and at the Stampin'Up web site.

Judy even tried her hand at making a Phillies ballplayer Owl (below). I still haven't spent a lot of time making up "owl" type sayings for these cards, but I'm right on the edge of getting corny... any suggestions will be appreciated. Joan has a talent for having just the right sentiment and promises to share them with us.

Finally finished the last card for my workshop while waiting for Trick or Treaters tonight. Here is the pop-up I promised for the November 6th workshop.

Our next workshop is November 6th and we'll be making three Christmas cards. We'll use the Come to Bethlehem set once again. I got this idea from my upline, Barb Mueller, while up in Erie, PA this month. The wisemen are stamped on glossy cardstock that has been colored using a brayer. After our previous attempts to get a good, clean stamp of the wisemen, you'll agree that this gives the nicest affect so far.

Our second card is a snowflake card embossed with silver and with rhinestones added. This card was created by Bozena and definitely the favorite at our "show-off" table at Camp last week.

The last card isn't quite ready for display yet. We will be using the Merry Crittermas set and it's going to be a pop-up card. Hope to see you at the workshop.

Christmas Card Marathon

We'll be making two cards of each of the following designs at our Christmas Camp on October 16th. There may be one change if I'm able to come up with a design I'm pleased with. I will move one of these cards to the workshop on November 6th.

Most of these cards were made using Cherry Cobble cardstock, Old Olive cardstock and Deck the Halls Designer Series Paper. The gift card holder card was made using Jolly Holiday Designer Series Paper.

I used the Dasher single stamp for this card and stamped the "joy" from Delightful Decorations and then punched out with a circle punch.

This card was created with the holly stamp from the Bells and Boughs stamp set and the Delightful Decorations stamp and then punched out with the Ornament punch. It's a simple but very pretty card.

This card was made from the Come to Bethlehem set. I found the We Three Kings sheet music on the internet, shrunk it down and changed the color to a light brown. I ran Very Vanilla through the printer and was able to print four card fronts per sheet. I cut the star apart from the stamp so I could put it up toward the top of the page and used gold embossing powder. The wise men are stamped in a brown and then colored in with a corresponding marker. After trial and error, this seemed to produce the best results.