Happy, Happy Day!

Remember this card from a few weeks ago?  I revisited the same stamp set and framelits to build up my card stash.  

What do you think?

40th Glitz

I was recently invited to attend my new neighbour's glam 40th party - it was a decadent dessert party!  Such a fun idea, and a lovely evening.  I was able to whip up this birthday card in a matter of moments.  I kept it fairly simple.  Love the glimmer card stock, it really set the whole thing off.  I mounted the numbers on bits of Dimensional that I cut into little bits.  

A little bit of embossing, a little DSP and new Banner frame lit and Starburst frame lit, and it's done!

Of course, this would be easy to make into a male 40th card too - just swap the DSP or colours.

Watercolour without tears

Forgotten whether I've shown you these yet - one of my favourite new products in the Occasions Mini:

 A set of cards, already water coloured on Watercolour Paper.  You only need to jazz 'em up a bit and they are good to go.  You get heaps in a pack - 20, with matching envelopes.  A bargain!

Downloads today!

Aren't they cute?  I haven't decided which one to get first!

If you would like to download one of these, head to my Online Store.

MDS Hybrid Bookmarks

A friend of mine is a year 1 teacher, and at the start of each school year, he likes to give his students a little "welcome to my class" gift.  I made his students a bookmark to add to the package of goodies.  

You can make these without an e-cutter, obviously - especially now that we have the Tag Topper Punches I have featured on the blog here recently.  However, at the time I made these, I didn't have the punch yet, and I'd just purchased my Silhouette Cameo - so it just made sense to me to try it out, given I had 27 or so to make.  

I'll show you two ways of making these bookmarks - one with the Cameo and one without.

1.  Without an E-Cutter:

MDS Steps- Go into My Digital Studio, and open up a new document.  Make it the size that works with your home printer - A4 size.  

Of course, you could make your own images and words for your bookmarks, using the stamps and embellishments you already have in MDS (or for that matter you could just stamp on Whisper White Cardstock).  I loved the cute bookmarks in Book Buddies that Stampin' Up! designed in My Digital Studio, so I had to get those.  

If you'd like to get it as well, you can get it HERE

Once you've opened your new file, find the bookmarks.  They will be separated into background panels, images, and the words.

Then, layer them as you wish like this:

Make sure you use the "group" function when you have all your elements the way you want them, so you can move your bookmarks around without losing bits.

If you like, you can save this project as a .JPEG now, and print it out, and cut it out.  I like to even my bookmarks up first, to make it easier to cut them out.

To make them all straight, use the "Align" tool.  There, isn't that better?

Now, you can print it out, and cut out the bookmarks !

2.  With a Silhouette Cameo:

I'm sure the steps are similar with other e-cutters, but I have a Silhouette Cameo, so that's what I know.

First, I cut out a 12 x 12 Crumb Cake page of bookmarks:

I'm pretty sure the bookmark was one of the free shapes that came with my Silhouette or one of the kits. You could easily just make rectangles of course. 

I was able to fit 7 bookmarks to a 12 x 12 inch page. I saved the full page as a cut file so I can use it again and again.

Here they are, ready to decorate!  Usually I like to sponge the edges with Crumb Cake ink, but I didn't bother for these bookmarks.

Now for the Book Buddies images.  Don't bother creating your image in MDS and exporting as an SVG file - because only the parts of the image (3 digital stamps) will be exported.  This won't be the case with some other stamp sets.

I imported all the elements (.PNG and .SVG) into my Silhouette library.  I have the Designer Studio Edition, specifically for this purpose.

I've gone ahead and imported most of the .SVG files in MDS into my Silhouette library already, but you can also import .JPEG and .PNG files.

Here's what it looks like in my Silhouette library:

As you can see, I've already assembled and saved my bookmarks as a printable in my library.  Why reinvent the wheel each time?

Once you've assembled (and grouped) your Book Buddies the way you want them, you'll want to send them to your printer to utilise the "Print and Cut" feature.  I love this.

First, make sure you select "Registration Marks" because this is how the clever Silhouette will know where the images you printed are on the page.

Then, send it to your printer for printing!

Oops, forgot to show the registration marks on this screen!  They should be there as in the previous picture.

 When you've printed out your bookmarks, they will look like this:

I printed mine on adhesive label paper (Silhouette has their own brand, but I didn't have any of it.  I used some I found at Officeworks instead.) but of course I could have used Whisper White card stock and my snail adhesive.

In order for your Silhouette to cut the right lines (in this case, the outside of the Book Buddies panels) you need to tell it what to cut out.  To do this, I used the "Trace" feature, as follows:

Ugh, "TRACE"  not "tace!"  

Load your printed bookmarks back into your Silhouette, making sure the little black square is lined up with the blade (that's how it will "read" the registration marks) and make sure your cut settings are appropriate for your material.  For example, the sticker paper I used is thinner than the Silhouette brand sticker paper, so I had to tweak the settings and experiment a little to get it to cut perfectly.  I found a blade setting of 1 was just fine.  

Then press cut or "send to Silhouette" and let it do the work.

Adhere your printed images onto the bookmarks, decorate with ribbon or twine, and you are done.

I hope this was helpful to anyone using MDS with their Silhouette Cameo.  Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll try my best to answer them.  

What do you think of my Blog and Facebook Page makeover?  I made it in MDS in a few minutes.  I needed to freshen things up a little!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I must admit, my husband and I don't really observe this "Hallmark Holiday" but I do think it is a nice idea to celebrate love.  My 9 year old daughter wanted to take in a Valentine Treat to her classmates, and we were able to whip them up in no time this morning.

I had the angled tag topper punch, some ink, some whisper white card stock, and my trusty paper trimmer on the table from the class I held yesterday (will show you what my talented girls made in my next post), and I had a lot of lollipops for just such an occasion.

I trimmed A4 whisper white card stock into 2 inch wide  strips, and then cut those strips in half.  Then, my daughter punched both ends with the tag punch while. I randomly stamped hearts on it.  Then we just bent the stamped piece so the holes lined up and poked the lollipop in - no glue required!

 I think these would be easy party favours too.  And no glue = no mess if the kids want to make them themselves.  It took my nine year old and I all of 15 minutes to make 30.  Plus, my daughter observed that the wrappers would make cute bookmarks after the lollypop was finished.  Two gifts in one!

Materials used:  Paper:  A4 Whisper White (106549 $14.95 (40 sheets));  

Ink:  Strawberry Slush Classic Stampin' Pad (131178, $9.95),  Night of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad (126970, $9.95)

Stamps:  Hearts a Flutter (clear 129252, $35.95  wood 131922, $44.95)

Punch:  Angled Tag Topper Punch (133323) $39.95 (NEW)

And in other exciting news - I'm holding classes every two weeks (instead of monthly) now!  I'm trying to work out a time for those of you who can't make it during the week day (my Friday nights are crazy with my children's sports now).   Please let me know if you'd find say, a Monday evening, convenient?