Stamps, Paper, Scissors

Gappy Grin

Preparing videos and exploring My Digital Studio for Tink & Bell's Digital Scrapbooking Club has its rewards! I am actually getting more scrapbooking done and feel quite inspired seeing the work that our members are doing. Here's a page I prepared when filming a new video:

STINKIN' CUTE!! (and the page is great too! YILM! ) Ah, yes. The Boy with the Wayward finger about 2 years before the incident that earned him his name. He was so stinkin' cute...his sisters even think so!  The amazing thing is he will be 13 years old this weekend (yes, three teenagers under one roof...pray for me). Already I can see he is going to be quite devastatingly handsome when he is a bit older. Even his sisters think so (and believe me, this accolade from two older, very critical sisters is not easy to earn!) At least, once we get those teeth straightened, LOL!

Life is moving along here at the International House of Contagion. Emily is still recovering from a nasty bout of influenza that started last Thursday and has kept her out of school since Friday. Laurel is walking wounded and coughing from the same, at school after being home from school with it two days last week. I took Emily to the doctor yesterday and the good news is no strep or mono, but she remains very fatigued from this nasty bug. And it must have been one that Dan and I had had before, because we haven't had it. And the boy had it and bounced back, just like Tigger.

Ta!

Sale-A-Bration has arrived!

It's the best time of the stampin' year! Here's a card I made with my SAB goodies:

Ingredients: Stamps - Fresh Vintage, Elementary Enchantment DSP - Everyday Elegance, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Very Vanilla; Ink - Early Espresso, Calypso Coral; Other - Calypso Coral 1/8" Organdy Ribbon, gold brads, Decorative Label punch, markers.

GOJUS!!! (YILM!)

Want some of this? Head on over to my website and place an order! Ta!

Why must I be a Controlfreak in Love?

It's that time again, time to freak out with the freaks on our monthly blog tour! If you've just arrived from LeeAnn Greff's blog, you are in the right spot!

But if you started right here, fear not! You can manage to get all the way around the entire tour just by following the links at the bottom of each post.

This post is going live on the evening of the 19th, so if you find some posts in our tour have not yet posted, please be patient.  The entire tour should be accessible at some point this evening. Keep checking back!

The Theme this month is Love is in the Air - Cards and Projects for Your Valentine.

So without further prevarication:

Ingredients: Stamps - Sweet Cake; Paper - Sweet Shop DSP, Calypso Coral, Blushing Bride, Whisper White; Ink - Calypso Coral, Versamark; Other - Vanilla Scented EP, Calypso Coral ruffled ribbon, Polka Dot embossing folder, Blushing Bride pleated satin ribbon, Labels Collection Framelits, Calypso Coral marker, In Color 2012 Printed Brads, Dimensionals, sponge wedge.

GOJUS!!! It looks good enough to eat and it also SMELLS good enough to eat. I stamped with Calypso Coral and then again with Versamark over the top using my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig. Then I embossed with the new Vanilla Scented EP. YILM!!

One thing I'd like to know is, though:

Where is the CHOCOLATE scented embossing powder?!?!?!

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Ingredients: Stamps: Take It To Heart, Loving Thoughts; Paper - Regals Prints Patterns, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla; Ink - Versamark, Cherry Cobbler; Other - Cherry Cobbler EP, Cherry Cobbler seam binding, dimensionals.

I know, right? This is so unlike me, always finding a place for a brad or two. It just didn't need them! Very simple and elegant and GOJUS (YILM!)

Finally, what is Valentine's Day without something sweet? Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Outlined Occasions; Paper - Everyday Enchantment, Very Vanilla, Poppy Parade, Pool Party; Ink - Poppy Parade; other - Hearts Framelits Collection, Pinking Hearts border punch, paper crimper, Scallop Oval punch, Polka Dots embossing folder, dimensionals, Everyday Enchantment Ribbon & Brad pack, Kraft gift box.

STINKIN' CUTE! (YILM!) This was made to hold some delicious sugar cookies made with our new cookie stamps, but I didn't have time to bake them before the tour, so you will just have to imagine them.

Well, there you have it. My part of the tour is done and you are to go on to my BFF Wendy Weixler's blog, where undoubtedly something wickedly wonderful awaits you! Ta!

Just My Type

Howdy! I've been thrilled at the response to Tink & Bell's Digital Scrapbooking Club! Most people want to know if you have to have experience with MDS to join and the answer is "No!" Our aim is to help both people who are just beginning as well as those who just want to learn new things. Sign ups are still going on over on this page.

But digital is not all what I am about! I have been snatching moments to play with my new Occasions Mini goodies and so thought I would show you the card I created for the Controlfreaks' swap. Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Just My Type; Paper - First Edition Specialty DSP, Mocha Morning Specialty DSP, Real Red, Very Vanilla, Basic Black; Ink - Basic Black Craft, Real Red; Other - Clear EP, Real Red 5/8" satin ribbon, Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch, silver brads, dimensionals.

I embossed the typewriter using Basic Black craft and clear EP:

GOJUS!!! (YILM!!!) I love the way this turned out, not complicated, but very elegant!

Life has been going along here. Nothing new and dire going on, but actually something very good happened! Laurel got admitted to the college of her choice, the College for Creative Studies! We had done the usual campus visit, started the application process, then finally photographed her portfolio this past weekend. I burned everything to DVD and dropped it in the mail on Monday. They must have received it on Tuesday, and Laurel got a message from her admissions counselor that she was recommending her for admission and we would get the acceptance letter within a few weeks. I am so proud! All of our kids want to have creative careers. Laurel is interested in fine art and illustration. Emily wants to be a graphic designer. And William, of course, wants to be a video game designer. All this despite my dire warnings about how hard it is to make a living this way. But CCS really prepares their students for careers, so if Laurel is going anywhere to develop an art career, this really is the best place for her. Now she just has to find the money to go. Let the scholarship hunt begin.

Ta!

 

Announcing....(cue trumpet fanfare)

Yes, the day has finally come for Wendy and me to launch our new MDS digiscrapping club, Tink & Bell's Digital Scrapbooking Club! This has been in the works for a long time now and between one thing and another, it seemed like this day was never going to come, but it is finally here!

We are going to be officially launching the website on Monday, January 16th, but we will be starting to take reservations for membership starting today! We are excited...geeked really!

We have got a ton of cool stuff planned, including exclusive templates, exclusive video tutorials, advice, tips and tricks, techniques, and member contests and challenges! All of this will be available to members only.

Memberships are available in two different terms: 1-year membership and 6-month. The cost is only $45 for 1-year membership and $25 for 6-month membership.

So if you would like to learn more about My Digital Studio and enjoy all the perqs of being in a club that gives you a reason to get up in the morning, toddle on over to this page here to read all about it and buy your membership today! Ta!

 

Keeping up

 

While some of you may be starting the new year out with a bang, mine left me more like this:

 

So far this year, two cars with dead batteries, a daughter with projectile vomiting, a trojan on my new hard drive...and a partridge in a pear tree. Really. Except for the partridge. Probably just as well, as it probably would have flown out of the pear tree and proceeded to crap on my head (too many pears can do that to ya). If all of 2012 is going to be like this, the world is welcome to end at any time.

As far as keeping up, I've been having a hard time doing this for the past year, so one of my New Year's resolutions was to keep up with my blog, keep up with my family, and keep up with My Digital Studio.

Honestly, they put out new downloads every week and it got to where I couldn't remember what I had bought or downloaded. And that got to be messy when my hard drive crashed over a week ago, taking everything with it. Once I had bought a new drive and a new copy of the operating system (the one I had was an upgrade) and reinstalled all my software, I had to redownload all of my purchased digital files and reinstall every single one of them. And (cough, cough) there were many of them. Many, many. Many, many, many. I thought I would never get through them all!

One of the things I did to help me figure out what I had was to print off the entire MDS catalog, which can be downloaded using the nifty icon in my left sidebar. I printed it double sided so that it took up less space. Sure, I can look at this file anytime in Adobe Reader, but only by printing it could I use the handy check boxes next to each download and keep track of what I had. As new downloads come out, I will simply print off the PDF and add it to the end, which is the way this catalog is set up, after all.

Once I got it printed off, I put it in a presentation binder. I could have just added a label on the spine and called it a day, but it seemed rather heartless and plain for something I was proud of and wanted to show off. So I created a cover for it in, what else, MDS! Lookie:

I printed another page using the background paper on the first layer to put on the back. Isn't it GOJUS?!?!? (YILM!) This uses the Cheerful Treat CD available as a hostess product in the big catalog.

I then printed it off using my Epson Photo Stylus 1400 and some Epson Presentation Paper Matte.

Now I'm ready for the new year, easily able to keep up with Stampin' Up! as they release new downloads!

One thing I did learn from my disk crash, though, was to back everything in my Components folder as well as the Designer Templates Uninstallers folder to an external drive. I simply copied these two folders from the My Digital Studio folder to an external drive. Then when I got that Trojan on my system last week, I still had to reinstall all my software after I reinstalled my operating system. But all I had to do to get my digital downloads back was to copy those two folders back to where they belonged and download the latest update for MDS, and I was back in business.

So here's hoping the rest of this year is better. I know that there is at least ONE thing that is going to be putting up my happiness meter, but I am not going to tell you just yet. Just that Wendy and I have had our heads together and have come up with something that we hope you will just LOVE! Stay tuned! Ta!