My Digital Studio - 30% Off Selected Seasonal Downloads

Get ready for your digital Christmas with 30% off selected seasonal downloads available for My Digital Studio (don't forget that you can use most of the digital content in any graphics program).

Nip over to my Online Store and click the MDS Seasonal Sale link to see what's on offer, and remember the offer is only available until 30 November 2013.

Another MDS project

I have been playing around a lot with My Digital Studio (MDS) recently, although most of the time I am just fiddling about seeing what I can do with it (answer:  a LOT).

Here is one of my earlier, finished projects (my Dad's 80th birthday last year).  Now bear in mind I am not a scrapbooker, not in the traditional sense.  I have always enjoyed "dressing up" my photographs with the many digital scrapbooking elements available out there on the web, and am having some fun doing the same thing with purely Stampin' Up! digital paper, stamps, accessories and colours.

Because the elements within MDS are all digital, in most cases they are scalable - so a stamp image can be shrunk or enlarged (to a point) to suit your project.  The swirls shown on this page (from Autumn Elements) have been reduced slightly, and I also reduced the opacity a little so they weren't so "stark" in their original black.  I could have recoloured them, but liked the contrast.

My next challenge with MDS will be to take some of my finished projects to Big W or Harvey Norman or somewhere similar to get them printed up in proper scrapbook page size :-)  I'm looking forward to seeing how they come out.  I am even thinking about t-shirts, or printed canvases, not to mention the flexibility of "hybrid" projects using both digital and physical elements - there is so much I want to do with this product!

Most of the content on this scrap page is made with elements which come with your initial purchase.  You can see a full list of what comes with the "full version" of MDS here, and the 30 day trial version here.

Images © 1990-2013 Stampin' Up!®

My Digital Studio - a report from a new user

Well, I have been having a play with Stampin' Up's digital scrapbooking software (My Digital Studio, known as MDS), and have to say that it's pretty good!

I have been using graphics software in one form or another for over ten years, and while MDS isn't going to replace your Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro when it comes to editting photographcs, it certainly does the job when it comes to making digital scrapping easy and fun.  The initial program comes with lots of free digital paper, digital stamps, digital punches and so on, with the options to use the exclusive Stampin' Up! colours and images in a variety of ways.

There are also a few additional downloads available free through my shop (see that "Shop Now" button there?  Click it to be taken directly to my online shop), as well as tons of other digital content available for very reasonable prices.  Even if you don't have MDS, much of the content is in JPG or PNG format, which can be used in most photo editting programs (there is a bit of content which can only be used with the MDS, but not enough to make it restrictive).

Now, I am not really much of a scrapbooker - you can probably tell that from the content of this blog - but I have digi-scrapped in the past.  Mostly I have created small "pages", the size of a regular photograph, and have it printed then to put in my regular photo albums.  But since downloading MDS over the Easter break, I have actually made three layouts!  Yes, a whole three!

I also made a new blog header - which is why everything is very orange today :-).  I have no idea why it's orange, it just ended up being the background "paper" I liked the best at the time (late last night - that might explain things) and it kind of went on from there.

Here's one of the layouts I did (my dog looking festive and very confused last December.  I think the hat lasted approximately 5 seconds on her head before she scraped it off):

You can find a lot of useful information on how to use MDS over at mydigitalstudio.net, a site Stampin' Up! has set up specifically for this software.  There is a forum, plus loads of instructional videos.

Feel free to download the MDS Free 30 Day Trial to give it a go (via my shop).  If you like it, it will only cost you $24.95 (Preferred Price) to upgrade to the full version.