Just a few more hours to add this past week's "Deals" to an order - 'cuz by tomorrow morning (Monday), Stampin' Up!® will announce their 4th and final "Deal of the Week".  I'll get it posted as soon as I can after the announcement! 

Just got in from a wonderful family evening celebrating Mom's birthday.  Here's one of the few pix I got; I kept too busy to shoot many photos.

More later, but now it's time for bed!

Every month my Sea to Sea Stampers demonstrator group holds a themed card swap – and we take turns hosting it.  So this month it was my turn to host, and our theme was "babies".  This could be interpretted any way one wished:  "welcome baby" cards, birth announcements, shower invitations, whatever….  One of our demonstrators even interpretted that into a "1st birthday" card.

Well, today was the day the cards were due, and when I host, I prefer to just accumulate the packages as they arrive from around the country, and then open them all together.  (Seems more fun that way.)  And WOW!!!!  Were today's cards ever AWESOME!  So I'll be sharing some here eventually – once I get a chance to photograph 'em and get 'em all ready to post.

But first, there's a big family birthday dinner to carry off this weekend – in celebration of my mom's birthday…… one of those super-special ones that end in "0"! 

Do you or someone you know have their eye on that awesome new My Digital Studio software?  Might you also have been thinking about possibly becoming a Stampin' Up! demonstrator? 

Well Stampin' Up! has the answer for both – a new demonstrator starter kit featuring My Digital Studio!  This kit includes not only the complete My Digital Studio software, but also two stamp sets, inks, and other accessories and elements that coordinate with the software's images so you can design hybrid projects.  In addition, you'll get a full set of business supplies so you can launch your new business immediately!  

Check out additional perks of becoming a demonstrator here, and then contact me to help you get started! 

Digital+ Starter Kit Price: $185 (over $295 value!)

Digital+ Starter Kit Contents:

• My Digital Studio software suite
• Two stamp sets (Party Hearty, Petal Pizzazz)
• Whisper White card stock (8-1/2" x 11")
• Earth Elements assorted card stock (8-1/2" x 11")
• Four Classic Stampin' Pads (Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, Tempting Turquoise)
• Four Stampin' Write markers (Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red) 
• Chocolate Chip 1/4" grosgrain ribbon
• Real Red 1" double-stitched grosgrain ribbon
• Button Latte Designer buttons
• Stampin' Dimensionals
• Mini Glue Dots
• SNAIL Adhesive
• Business supplies (product catalogs, order forms, training DVD and other supplies)

Some of you know that I have a tendency to find myself "in charge of" coordinating some or all of the "decorating" aspects of a social event.  I think it all started many years ago when I was making wedding cakes, and that eventually led into a fun adventure collaborating with a friend to design, coordinate, and create all the decorative elements of my daughter's wedding…… and since then there's been another wedding, the beginnings of a nursery design, and right now we're in the thick of planning a big family birthday dinner this weekend.

And one of the ways I keep it all together is to plan in Stampin' Up! colors. 

Now I can't really take credit for the idea entirely; way back a couple decades ago during one of those wedding-cake weddings, the bride lived all the way over on the East Coast, but was getting married in Southern California, which is where I was at the time.  So her challenge was to plan and coordinate an entire wedding – as an absentee bride.  When she commissioned me to do her cake I was initially really concerned about how I was going to get the flowers the specific colors she was trying to describe over the phone.  Afterall, everyone's got their own idea of what is "peach" or "lavendar", and I could just envision everything being left to personal interpretation.  But the bride had a brilliant idea!  She sent each of us – florist, bridesmaids, and myself, the cake preparer, matching paint chips from the hardware store – showing us EXACTLY what colors she had in mind.  Wow!  How clever was THAT!  And it worked like a charm.  Her wedding was exquisite, and PERFECTLY color-coordinated from beginning to end!

In the years since, I have developed my own technique for coordinating similar social events that call for color themes; I only use Stampin' Up! colors!  That way I can carry around samples of the colors I have in mind, and don't have to try to remember what they look like when shopping or designing.  And it's easy to communicate to someone else the color I've got in mind; I just give 'em a piece of cardstock.  My son & daughter-in-law's wedding was all done in Stampin' Up! colors, and that was also planned largely long-distance. 

And right now, I'm in charge of the table-setting for this big family dinner this weekend.

Now, without going into too much back-story, I have decided to use a palette of 9 Stampin' Up! colors!  Yes, NINE!  I realize that's a pretty daring thing to do, and I doubt I would ever attempt that on a card, but I've got a specific look and feeling I'm going for with this dinner theme.  So I've been borrowing and collecting dishes and linens – and today went to purchase a few more plates to fill in the gaps.  We'll be doing a ton of mix-and-match, and each of the 4 courses will have different (mismatched, er…. "mix-and-matched") dishes.  (The main course alone will be served on 5 different colors and patterns of plates – two of each design, since we'll have 10 people.)  Anyway, even with all my borrowing and mixing, I still needed a couple more dinner plates and a couple more dessert plates.  So off I went today in search of more deliberate mis-match.  And luckily, I was helped by a clerk who was all OVER my idea and totally tickled with my fun cardstock swatches!  So we picked out another couple of plates of each size – but square, not round like all the others - just to keep the mis-match thing going, lol!  It was really fun describing this whole thing to her, and I think she was having as much fun as I was. 

Now I'm not altogether sure the birthday girl (my mom) is all that confident this will turn out looking ok; afterall, she has spent a lifetime collecting things that match, and she had graciously offered up her china set for 12.  But I was going for "out of the box" this time, and I'm going on faith that it will all work out.  I figure if the cardstock swatches look good together (and they *do*), then the table will, as well.  (But for Mom's sake, please keep your fingers crossed, lol!)

Are you curious about what colors I'm using?  How do these sound?

• So Saffron
• Bravo Burgundy
• Elegant Eggplant
• Rose Red
• Regal Rose
• Handsome Hunter
• Certainly Celery
• Taken with Teal
• Tempting Turquoise

Does it kind of make you think of a circus?  If so, mission accomplished!  (wink!)

Christmas Card Design Studio 2009 is off to a great start!  Two weeks ago we worked through the custom designs for those who had signed up in time for our main orientation session, and now supply orders have arrived and cardstock has already been cut for those initial participants.  Then today has been our first of 5 work days.  What fun to watch those cards coming together already!

But if you missed the launch day for this series, it's not too late.  There's still time to join in and make YOUR custom-designed holiday cards, too.  Here are the details again, along with a registration link.

Here are the new goodies for Week #3 of October's Deal of the Week!  Don't forget to add these items to your order this week - either placed directly through me, or at my online store. 

I'll keep this posting up at the top of this page until the next "Deal" is announced next Monday morning, the 26th.  Please scroll down to see additional new articles as I post them in the meantime.

So as I continued to stare at this My Digital Studio card I posted yesterday, it took me a while to realize what was missing.  But if finally hit me; what was missing was the CARD!

So here's the same Night and Day card - "Take Two!" 

So what do you think?  Improved?  Can you tell what's changed? 

A:  I added a white layer underneath the main card, and then a black card underneath that.

Here's a digital card similar to a card we made at one of my recent Stamp-a-Stacks.  It's not identical to our Stamp-a-Stack card because all of those elements are not yet available digitally, but it's fairly close.  It features the Night & Day Designer Series Paper (which just became available for digital download a few days ago), as well as the (digital) stamp set, Friends 24-7 (which is included in the initial install of My Digital Studio software).   

If I eventually decide to have this digital version printed I will probably make this a hybrid project by adding some Dazzling Diamonds glitter to the flowers for a little extra glitz.  Don't you just LOVE this gorgeous paper?!?  It's been mighty popular on order forms around here recently!

Have you noticed?  Stampin' Up!® has released new digital images for download this week, including several Halloween images and that very popular Night & Day Designer Series Paper shown in the Holiday Mini Catalog.  AND currently, that particular set of papers includes a single "Remember" stamp image, too – for no additional charge! 

You can purchase your digital images at my online store, and then download them for use in My Digital Studio or another digital program you may already use, too.  Oh, and btw, since there is no actual shipping involved with a digital download, you don't have to pay s/h, so there's no "minimum s/h charge" to think about either!  So that's real handy if there are just one or a few images you want at a time!

Now, some of us who use Vista for our operating system noticed this week that our new downloads produced an error message when we first opened them in My Digital Studio. I have since learned the solution to that, so if you experience that problem, too, just give me a call and I'll talk you through the resolution.  It's really simple to fix…… requiring just a few mouse clicks.

Keep checking back at my online store to see more new digital downloads as they are released.  Stampin' Up! intends to add new images to expand your image library real regularly!