Finally I can show these!

Here are the many family gifts that I made this holiday season.

I hope that everyone liked them and enjoys them thru the year.

A 2012 MDS desktop easel calendar for my brother-in-law of his three sons.  One of my favorite projects this year! 

A flower bookmark band for my mother-in-law.  I have to make myself one!

A Starbucks Gift Card Holder for my sister-in-law - the GC is inside the cup!  Also made this as a light latte with kraft paper in the bottom for another gift.

A Stampin Up card keeper completely covered with Spice Cake DSP/fabric and filled with 40 cards and envelopes for my mom. 

2012 MDS Desktop Calendars for my mom and sister-in-laws from this post HERE

MDS Custom designed Lego shirts for my three nephews! They loved them!

Two MDS date frames for our brothers' families.  The anniversary date is in the center then each parent's birthday are next out and finally the kids' birthdays are on the outside.  You can see the one I made my parents HERE.

I did make an iPod box in Basic Gray for my brother to hold his iTune cards. Looks like this one here on this ipods POST. I changed it to say Jon's Itunes and his favorites bands of all time. I forgot to snap a pic of it. oh well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hope your Christmas was a joyful one!

Cindy

A Family Christmas Project 2011 - Merry Christmas!

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we decided to skip the Black Friday mega mess and do a family project together. It was so GREAT! Just spending time together and crafting to Christmas music, of course! I got this idea from Pinterest HERE on my board.

My husband Howard cut all the wood pieces and sanded them. 

Then Megan, Allison and I painted the pieces. Megan did Joseph, Allison did Mary and I did the heads and the baby Jesus.  

Here they are all ready for final touches and assembly.

I made tags from MDS with the Punny Holidays brush stamp set.  As soon as I saw "the Reason for the Season", I knew it would be perfect for this project.  I used the Wide Oval punch on these and added a Decorative Label punch layer in Chocolate Chip.

Here is the final piece and below is how I labeled them with the other sheet of MDS.

We gave these to friends at church that have helped us in many ways over the past year.

I think this was my most favorite thing that we did the Christmas season and that we did something as a family together that reflects our faith!

Joy to the World! The Lord is come!

A very Merry Christmas to you!

Cindy

Holiday FUN Gifts with MDS Tags!

I found a cute idea on Pinterest for co-worker/neighbors/friends gifts for the holidays.  They gave you 52 items with 52 punny funny sayings with them. So my mom and I decide to make some of them for our co-workers this year.  They were super easy to make tags with the sayings on them to match the item.

I used the awesome "Savor the Season" hostess CD for MDS. Added stamp brush images and text. Here are some of my favorites.

 

Have a holly, jolly Christmas - bag of Jolly Ranchers

Orange you glad it's Chirstmas? Hope you Christmas is a sweet one! - bag of oranges

Remember the Reason for the Season - Star ornament

May your days be happy, your heart be light, your Christmas merry and your New Year bright! - candle

May the Sweet songs of Christmas make your heart rejoice! - Christmas music CD

Keep Christmas in you heart the whole year though. - 2012 Calendar

Here is all 11 gifts wrapped and tagged and ready to go. Everyone thought it was a cute idea and was looking to see what the others said because everyone got something different.

You can see the rest of the tags Here on MDS.net on my page of samples.

Our MDS Blog Hop is on hiatus at this time. But we will be back in full force come January 6th, 2012!

Some ladies are still posting their Christmas MDS creations so go check them out if you want.

I will be back tomorrow on Saturday with a very special post!

Enjoy your day!

Cindy

My Digital Studio Program ROCKS!

My Digital Studio. It is so much more than a "scrapbooking" tool. Basically, years and years ago I had a computer program called Microsoft Greeting 2000 by Hallmark. I used it for cards, invitations, tags, free typing, mailing labels, etc. The graphic were shall I say...very limited but doable.  I can not even show you a sample because the program is not compatible with my computer today so I lost all those saved files.  Anyways, with MDS I can do all that and much more! And the graphics and options are AMAZING x 2! 

Here is another way I used MDS: 

I took a simple card template from a download and changed it for a special bulletin for our youth Advent night at our church. I also did them in 5x7 black and white to save on ink, but when I got the bulletin on the Sunday before, our secretary Gail had printed them in 5x7 COLOR because they were so beautiful she said. We had a record number attend that Wednesday night youth service! 

I also use MDS for any flyers and announcements for my youth group. It has made all the difference in getting news out to the church and parents. Just taking that extra step to make things look nicer.

So run now and get a My Digital Studio Program! You will use it, I promise you!

3 more days til Christmas! Yippee!

Cindy

Christmas Treat MDS Blog Hop Friday!

We are back again this week with Holiday MDS style! I have been making lots of gifts, holiday decorations and treats with My Digital Studio this year! Here is idea that I found thru Pinterest and modified with MDS. You can click on the MDS page and save as a jpeg and then print yourself at home to make these cuties!

I used the Home for the Holidays Ensemble download for this. I added the HOHOHO circle embellishment and sized to 1.75" in the edit object area. Added BELIEVE from Tres Chic in Real Red and sized to fit. Then copied and pasted several times on a 8.5x11 page. Export to jpeg and print at home. Next you will use the 1 3/4" circle to punch them out.  I used the 2 1/2" scallop circle punch with Real Red cardstock.  Added two holes with my Crop-a-dile.  Placed the candy cane between and tied with Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine very tight.  Then thread a jingle bell and tie a bow.

I made a bunch of them for my girls to give their friends as they watch The Polar Express at school today.  Something to remind them to still BELIEVE in the magic of Santa this year!

Have a great day!

Cindy

Now move on to see some fabulous HOLIDAY projects from our MDS designers.

Jeanna

Rochelle

Mandy

Julie

Amber

Terri

Aly

ME - HERE!

Erica - next blog!

Heather

Alesha

Holly

MDS Holiday Cards

Doing cards in My Digital Studio has been a struggle for me. So I like to challenge myself every once in awhile to get out of my comfort zone and try.

It was not hard to do here with the wonderful Home for the Holidays Ensemble download. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!  The snowman HAS to be my favorite but those cute houses are right up there too.

Let me know what you think. Did I do better in creating MDS cards? Which one is your #1?

Thanks for stopping by!

Cindy

My Nephews' Wish List

A few weeks ago, we had my 3 nephews over for a sleepover. Friday night they came and it seemed like my home had been invaded by Legos. Legos were everywhere! Then on Saturday, I wanted to have them make a craft to take home. So I came up with this Wish List 2011 for them. 

Very simple to make. Take a 3 x 11 strip of cardstock and fold in half. Cut regular printer paper at 2 3/4 x 5 1/4.  Decorate the front as you see here. Place paper inside the fold and then punch two holes with my Crop-a-dile. The ribbon holds the paper in there. Later I punched a hole at the top for a piece of Baker's Twine so they could place it on the Christmas Tree.

All punched characters were found on Stampin Up Demo Connection. Collin made the Santa first.  Then Aaron came back and wanted to make the Polar Bear and stamp some snowflakes (his favorite part was stamping). Jack was last and he picked the cute Rudolph Reindeer (he loved working with the Big Shot as did Collin). I later added their names and year to them with MDS help.  They immediately knew what to do next...

FILL THEM WITH LOTS OF WISHES FOR TOYS! (Legos were mentioned many times)

Here are my boys and Allison together at the playground later that day. We had a great time and I treasure these moments we get with them.

Have a magical day!

Cindy

Christmas JOY MDS Blog Hop Friday!

For the rest of the month of December, us MDS Blog Hop Designers will be showing the Holiday items we have been creating with MDS. I can tell you that I have been using MDS TONS for home decor and gifts this season.

You should know by now that I LOVE BANNERS! So I wanted to create a banner for my mantel. Last year, I changed my mantel to showcase my beautiful Willow Tree navity scene.  I knew that I wanted to use the pennant banner style from the Hello Baby Kit.  But what to say....PEACE, JOY, REJOICE, and then I saw this on Pinterest and it was perfect!

So I changed the background of the pennant to the NEW You're My Sunshine DSP download Pattern 1. I love how it looks like snowflakes but not. Then the pennant layer was changed to Baha Breeze and opacity at 50% to tone it down so you can see the pattern thru it. The letters are from the Sweet Details Alpha in Chocolate Chip. 

Here is a close up of the banner so you can see how it printed out. I printed this at home on Whisper White cardstock. I used hemp twine and 1/8" circle punch to put together.

So pleased with the results!

What are you making with MDS for the Holidays? Please share!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cindy

Now move on to see some fabulous HOLIDAY projects from our MDS designers.

Jeanna

Rochelle

Mandy

Julie

Amber

Terri

Aly

ME - HERE!

Erica

Heather

Alesha

Holly

Monochromatic MDS Blog Hop Week 18

This week's challenge was brought to us by Jeanna. Monochromatic is definitely a hard one to start but I found a page from my latest Disney album that I had been working on and with a few clicks of color change...here are the results!

However the photos did not match this brown tone monochromatic theme I had going. The Sepia was too reddish brown and the black/white photo effect was ok but nada. What to do? what to do?

So I was playing with photo effects and opacity and tah dah!

I made a little cheap sheet for you to save and remember this technique.  Just click on page to enlarge and see how I did it. 

Let me know what you think.  Did you already know about it?

Thanks for stopping by!

Cindy

Jeanna

Rochelle

Mandy

Julie

Amber

Terri

Aly

ME - YOU ARE HERE! : )

Erica

Heather

Alesha

Holly

Trifold Christmas MDS Blog Hop Week 17

Welcome Back!

First I have to say Happy Thanksgiving! What a great day we had! Full of turkey, family, turkey, stuffing and more turkey! My Dad made his traditional stuffing and the best turkey! YUMM-O!

With all the stores opening at midnight last night, I thought maybe I will go shopping for a few things on sale. I drove up the hill out of our subdivision and saw before me the craziest scene EVER! The Target Shopping area was JAMMED PACKED! I mean PACKED!  I drove around for 25 minutes to find a parking space with no luck. Then turned out of the shopping area and headed home. Once home, I got online and did all my shopping with FREE shipping!  I slept in this morning. Black Friday shopping is just not for me.

On to today's Blog Hop Challenge selected by Holly. Which you HAVE to go see her Trifold Card! I love how she turned it into a Home Decor piece. Genius! I will be doing that!

I was playing around with certain types of cards for our 2011 Schuster Christmas Card and this is one of them that did not make the cut next to the photo tag that I did. I love the idea of the trifold card but designing one is a challenge. I visually just do not get it when I go to view the project. Something I think maybe SU should change as to how you view this card type. I love this trifold card created by SU's Charlet Mallett HERE. That card design is AWESOME! I used the Bells and Bough stamp images and the Elizabeth stamp image on this card. Colors are Baha Breeze and Basic Gray. I might get some of these printed.

I better get busy. Lots of MDS designing to do today. Several Christmas gifts are being made with MDS this year! I will share them at another time!

Have a great day!

Cindy

Many of our bloggers are MIA this week due to the holiday so jump around.

Go see what they have come up with our challenge of Trifold!

Jeanna

Rochelle

Mandy

Julie

Amber

Terri

Aly

ME - YOU ARE HERE!

Erica

Heather

Alesha

Holly

Home MDS Blog Hop Week 16

This week's theme was selected by Alesha. She selected "HOME" whether it was something reminding you of home, feelings of home or just home decor. I was inspired by three things. #1 Pinterest  #2 Frames that I bought at a yard sale #3 Those CUTE houses on the Home for the Holidays Ensemble MDS download. 

These were simple to create in a 4.25x5.5 card. Going off the colors of my living room, I used the punch alphabet filled with Spice Cake DSP for the "home". Added some More Mustard punch squares and the Sweet Details Letters in Very Vanilla. Added the house and resized. Added the text "this" in CK Ali Font. Added Pool Party ribbon and Soft Suede Ribbon and knot to finish it off. Left the background removed so that I could print them in Very Vanilla on my printer. They were printed in 4x6 for my frame. 

Then I could not stop myself. I played some more with other color themes and I love how this turned out!  These will make great Christmas gifts to family and friends.  Need to find some more of these frames!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope this encourage you to use MDS for your home decor!

Cindy

P.S.  HAPPY 83rd BIRTHDAY MICKEY MOUSE! :)

Head on over to the next blog hop designer and see what "home" creations they have made.
Jeanna

Rochelle

Mandy

Julie

Amber

Aly

ME  : )

Erica (next blog hop)

Heather

Alesha

Holly