Can you believe it... CARDS

I know, for a paper-crafting blog I show very little projects actually MADE with paper (as opposed to printed on it). It all has to do with the accessibility of my stamps (piled helter-skelter in the closet), where I have time to work on something other than raising an infant and taking care of the house (on the bus), and where my current interests lie (that one is obvious...).

However, this weekend I helped my mom out with a workshop/class/display that she was invited to. I was the "MDS teacher" who told everyone about My Digital Studio and the great things that it could do. In return, I got to make a set of cards from my mom's class for free! So I actually got to touch a stamp to paper for the first time in a LONG LONG time :)

Well, since I don't make much of my own in the way of paper projects, I thought that I just had to share these real, physical, crafts with you. I picked two of the three cards to share. The first is my favorite- it is so nice and bright, making me feel like spring.

The next one is just nice and simple, yet really elegant. This one is obviously themed for a wedding, but you could easily switch out the stamped sentiment for a different one and still keep the same effect. I love the rhinestones especially. Gives it that extra shine :)

Graduation

With Graduation season coming up I thought I should feature an invite to an open house that I had designed. This will be for my husband's graduation from his master's program this spring- it is just waiting on a nice picture of him (which I plan to take at Easter when he is all spiffied up) and a "join us" type message.

In the meantime, I have a placeholder picture put in so that I can see what it will look like finished.

Note the nice dark area at the bottom, perfect for the "invitation" portion of the card. This was done with my (favorite) Night and Day paper, with the opacity turned WAY down and black background filler. I also put a little tab in the top right corner which is perfect for a school emblem.

But the best part of all is the ability to put a picture inside a punch. How do you do that you ask? Well, I ran across this technique on mydigitalstudio.net. You place your punch on the page and fill it with DSP- it doesn't matter which one, cause you're not going to keep it anyway. Now, double click on the punched image to bring up the window where you can move the DSP around. In the lower left hand corner is a "replace" button. If you click this you can navigate to any picture on your computer and choose it as the punch filler! I hope that in the future MDS comes out with an update that makes this process easier... but in the meantime you can still enjoy the benefits of punching out a picture with this process!

Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to create your own invites soon!