New Stuff!

I finally placed my first order from the new catalog, and it was a big one! It came yesterday and I had so much fun looking at all my new goodies! I will be using it over the next few weeks so keep checking to see my new creations.

I did get to play with it some this morning, and I think I may have made my favorite card EVER! I LOVED the Cottage Wall paper that was in the last catalog and couldn't wait to get my hands on the matching Cottage Garden stamp set from the new catalog. I also ordered the Sunny Garden paper, which is the same design as Cottage Wall only in new colors. Before cutting into that, I wanted to use some of the retired Cottage Wall paper. I started out planning on using the Stamping 411 sketch challenge 159, but couldn't bear the thought of covering up so much of my beloved paper, my card took a completely different direction!

Paper: Rich Razzleberry and Orchid Opulence Card Stock, Cottage Wall DSP

Stamps: Cottage Garden

Accessories: Rich Razzleberry Grosgrain Ribbon, Beautiful Wings Embosslit, Eyelet border punch

New cards from MDS

I've made a few cards using My Digital Studio. I love that program! You can quickly make a card using the premade designs, tweak the design to make it your own, or just start from scratch and design your own card. I designed my own for these two.

For the "True Friend" card, I added a drop shadow to the stamps. Since you don't have a shadow when you are stamping with ink and rubber, I moved the shadow directly under the image by using the arrow keys to shift it to the pixel offset of X:0, Y:0. I reduced the blur to 3 and increased the opacity to 75%. All of these options are available under the "Drop Shadow" window that comes up after you select drop shadow. I also changed the color to be the same as the "ink". This gave my flowers a heat embossed look. I will be posting more details on how to achieve this effect.

The second card is fairly simple and straight forward. Let me know if you have any questions!

Birthday Wishes

This is a card I made using the Black Magic Technique. Stamp your image on dark cardstock using white craft ink, heat set with embossing tool, then color with colored pencils. Outline with white gel pen.
Project Recipe:
Stamp Sets: SU Watercolor Trio from Summer Mini Catalog
Paper: SU Ruby Red, Pixie Pink, and Basic Black CS, SU Bermuda Bay Script DSP
Ink: SU White Craft ink