Hello Crafting World!

EEEEK!!  Has it been a whole week since our last meeting?!

Back to school and our fall Ministry kick off event's are almost over!! (and literally kicking my butt!)

Thanks for your patience as I muddle through life making changes and simplifying my blogging process.

You are amazing!  And I hope you enjoy the next few posts with tricks and tips from my crazy craft projects!!

 Here are the name tags I made for my Young 4s ministry class.  They are going to be "fishers of men" this year.  I cannot even begin to tell you how freaking much I love MyDigitalStudio for ALL of my school/church decorations and tools.  Love love love!!  I can make my OWN theme, and coordinate ANYTHING! and then I can use the MDS files to cut with my e-cutter.  Life....is....good :)

Do you LOVE the scales on the fish??  That is a super neat (and EASY!) trick in MDS to add an "embossed" look to your stamps.  Simply add one image over another (this works GREAT for backgrounds!)  In this example, I added the dots to the fish.  Then I changed the color of the dots to the same color as a fish. (well...um...Donna, they disappear after that!)  BUT! then all you need to do is add a drop shadow to the image, and be sure to change the color of the shadow to white.  then VIOLA!  it looks 3D!!  :)  

Here is our Theme verse for September.  This Back To School Digital kit makes it SO easy!!  Everything coordinates and has a grungy back to school motif.  I am loving it this year!!

  See these SUPER cute blocks?!  I needed an element and did a google search for "blocks PNG"  this will (99% of the time) provide you with images that you can use that have transparencies in the background.  (I recommend purchasing from people as much as possible, but there are LOTS of free images on the internet) SO you can add them ON TOP of stuff and there is no white space!!  (when you see an image online and it says PNG, be sure it has the weird grey/white checkerboard background....thats how you know its transparent and a true PNG file)  also:  DO NOT VIOLATE COPYWRITES!!  

Hope this helps you navigate the world of graphics and designing simple projects with a little extra love in My Digital Studio!

~Donna