Abbi's 9th Birthday Party Pages

The boys are at a birthday today so Abbi and I sat down for about an hour and made 10 scrapbook pages (yes, 10 pages in an hour) with my new My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up!. I still had not scrapbooked the photos from Abbi's birthday party last November...until now! What fun we had! I used another pre-made template and basically all we did was drop photos in. So simple an almost 10-year-old can do it!

Here are some of the pages we did...

Above - literally, all we did was drop a photo in and add the text.

Below - again, we just dropped photos in and added text. I think we'll add some ribbon to it when we get the page from the printer. I could've added ribbon from the software, but Abbi wants to add some 'real' things to a few pages. That's one of the great flexibilities of this program!

The above page is another one that we'll add embellishments to after we get the hardcopy from the printer. The photo boxes on this page were positioned vertically, but I didn't have any vertical photos...so I simply turned and rearranged them! This also left a little room for the photo of the feet. Pretty cute, I think!

The page below needs a bit of ribbon, don't you think? We'll add that later...

On the above page, we're going to put a brad in the middle of the white flower. I think a tangible brad will be pretty cute on this page! Maybe a few on the page below as well.

We'll add some ribbon to these 2 pages as well.

Normally, I wouldn't have so many pages for one event...I would've cropped and put more photos on each page. But these ones will go in Abbi's album, so we went a little overboard. And the price to print individual pages is pretty reasonable, so I'm okay with this. We still have some more text to add to a few pages before we order them, but you at least get the idea.

My Digital Studio

Right before we left for our vacation, I had ordered Stampin' Up!'s brand new My Digital Studio. If you enjoy digital scrapbooking, you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this program! If you've ever created anything with Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc., you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this program! If you don't have the time or space for 'conventional' stamping, you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this program! If you just want more flexibility with your stamped projects, you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this program! It is awesome! You can use it to create scrapbook pages, cards, calendars and more. One of my favorite features is that you can PRINT YOUR CREATIONS FROM HOME! Of course, not everyone has a printer that will print 12 x 12 pages (including me). So Stampin' Up! also has a professional printing service you can use. You'll be able to order individual pages, cards in 5 different sizes, calendars in 2 sizes and beautiful bound scrapbook albums in 5 different sizes. I could go on and on...

I finally got to sit down with it today and it is the coolest thing ever! It comes with over 2,000 images...over 60 stamp sets, 6 Simply Scrappin' Kits, 25 punches (!), brads & grosgrain ribbon in all the colors in the catalog, buttons in all the colors in the catalog (including Button Bouqet and Button Latte), eyelets, and hodgepodge. PLUS (as if that's not enough) it also comes with all the cardstock (every color including some retired In Colors) AND Patterned Designer Series Papers. The possibilities are literally endless with this awesome new software. You can even use the images in other programs like Photoshop. Incredible! So, today I sat down to make some thank you cards for my family for their hospitality while we stayed with them last week. I used a premade template for these and they were done in seconds (okay, minutes, but not very many)! I wanted to include photos on each card and it was so simple to do! Everything you see above was in the template. I only added the photo and the greeting. One thing I love about My Digital Studio is that you can change the size of anything...the punches, buttons, brads can all be made larger or smaller. YES, you can even change the size of the STAMPS!

Oh. My. Goodness. That's all I can say. Really. After I made the first card, I wanted to see how easy it was to change things. On the above and below cards, I changed the background color as well as the color of the flower embellishment, button and brad in seconds. I also used different photos in each card and the stamp is also different on all 3 cards. I hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek at Stampin' Up!'s brand new My Digital Studio. It will be available for customers to purchase on October 1st. Watch for details or visit my website.

http://www.amyevans.stampinup.net/

Weird and random conversations

So, we're here in the beautiful Northwest, as of Friday evening. We had an excellent 5 hour flight and arrived in Seattle just after 7 pm on Friday (which was 10 pm to us). The kids all sat together on one side of the aisle, while Jon and I were on other. When we got off the plane, it was like the kids had been cooped up in school all day and hadn't been allowed to talk. If you know my children, you know they're not the most talkative, so it was quite humorous to see them all trying to talk over each other and get my attention. They kept interrupting each other trying to tell me different things about what they did on the flight. The movies weren't working, but luckily there was still TV to watch (Animal Planet for the kids) and lots of games to play.

So, while the kids and I waited for Jon to get our rental car, I tried to listen to each of their stories. It went something like this...

First, they all described (in great detail) each video game they played and what the point of the game was and how tired their arms got. Since it was airplane games, they had to push the buttons on the screen...no handheld controls. Abbi ended up using her knitting needles to push the buttons so she could rest her tired arms a bit. She also told me that using her arms like that was probably good for her since she's still getting used to playing the flute. She thinks it built up her muscles a bit. Yeah, okay.

After the video game discussion, we moved onto the snacks discussion. Jon and I bought a few snacks for us on the plane, but the kids had to settle for the free snacks. Jacob told me the cookies weren't very good. I asked him what kind they were and he replied, "Delta." I got a good chuckle out of that one. Jacob was also excited because when the flight attendant handed him his peanuts, she dropped a package of them so when she went by, he snagged them off the floor. See, there are advantages to having the aisle seat.

Then Caleb pipes in and says, "bees are like small factories because the abdomen does this while the thorax does that." I wish I could tell you the rest of his explanation but, one, I was trying to figure out where in the world this came from and, two, while Caleb was giving us this science lesson, Abbi interrupted and began describing all the different landscapes she saw out the window of the plane and asking questions like, "Mommy, what crop were the brown squares? And why were some of them green? And light brown? And dark brown? And why were they blocked off into squares anyway?." I guess my job as their teacher is a never ending one. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, that's all for now. I'm sure the kids will have other great insights to share this week. Stay tuned.

Name Poems

This week the kids' writing assignment was to write a name poem. Since we're getting ready for our vacation, I gave them a relatively easy writing assignment. They did a fabulous job and I wanted to share what they came up with...

A - amazingly fast reader
B - beautiful inside and out
I - incredibly smart (I think we have some pride issues)
G - genuine article
A - adventureous and brave
I - imaginative and curious
L - loves her dad

C - climbs like a monkey
A - acrobatic
L - loves Legos
E - energy all the time
B - believer in Jesus

J - joyful all the time
A - always hungry
C - calm and quiet
O - obedient to mom and dad
B - big and strong