July Blog Hop--Summer Celebration

Hi all!  I've returned from spending a week up in Salt Lake and the day I returned it was 117 in Las Vegas!!  It's not the hottest it's ever been, but really anything over 110 is just no-earthly-reason-to-be-outside hot!  So, I guess it's appropriate for this month's blog hop theme to be Summer Celebration!  I created this project last year, but I have revamped it just a bit.  Since I created it, MDS added a few new tools to make subway art and printables much easier to put together.  The  text tracking tool helps you stretch or shrink the spaces between your letters (kerning) and the cropping tool lets you crop parts of a photo, stamp, punch, or embellishment.  Most of the stamps I used on this project were from Red, White and Blue designer kit and July 4th stamp set.  I love to use fun printables for holiday decoration, and this is perfect for our Independence Day celebration this week. This printable can be printed as a 5 x 7 or an 8 x 10.  You could even do it as a 16 x 20, but the very top or bottom may be cut off, depending on where you send it, so I would stick with the smaller sizes on this one. 

Download

I have one more project for this hop!  When I think of summer, I think of a circus. This is a card I actually made as a Stampin' Up! Artisan contest entry, but because of issues beyond my control, it didn't make it in time to be sent, so I will share it with you!  I used Big Top Birthday Designer Series Paper and Under the Big Top stamp brush set.  After I received it from the printer, I used my 2 1/2" circle punch to punch the balloon from the front of the card so that you can see the balloon that is inside the card and then I also added the white baker's twine for the balloon string.  I just liked the idea of a cute little elephant holding a great big balloon and then letting it fly above the big top tent!

I hope you are enjoying your summer!  Make sure you visit my blog hop friends and see how they celebrate summer!!

Stay safe and cool-er!! (Seriously, you probably will unless you live in Death Valley!!)

Julie

Shared on Tatertots and Jello, Skip to my Lou

My Digital Studio 2 videos--Card Template

My Digital Studio 2 is a great digital crafting software that will help you do more than just scrapbooking!  In the next few days I am going to post several videos that will guide you through some of the new features that MDS2 has.  If you have the original My Digital Studio, you may notice a few new tools and features that we didn't have before! Stampin' Up! really listened to us and gave us more than 70 new tools and features! The videos touch on many of the new options we have.  If you are interested, you can try out a 30-day free trial of My Digital Studio 2! There's no pressure but I think that once you try it, you will love it!  If you ever have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to answer them or connect you to someone who can. (Disclaimer: I'm not a techie, I'm a dabbler!)   I know from experience that Stampin' Up! has a great technical support team who can help you with most computer or software issues!  Please leave a comment and let me know if you would like to see other tools and features in a video tutorial, I will do my best to make one!
This first video is a basic card which I taught to some demonstrators in Utah.  It starts with a Designer template so you don't have to think of a new idea for a card!  It uses several new features including: color combos, recoloring embellishments, recoloring Designer Series Paper, text on a path, and freeform stitched line.  This is a good place to start if you are new to My Digital Studio.  I hope you enjoy them!

Julie