Because sometimes it's worth it to go digital!

I love to play with paper, scissors, ink, and stamps as much as even more than the next girl.  But sometimes it's nice to sit down at the computer and make it all happen -- especially when I need to make duplicates of something.   When Stampin' Up introduced My Digital Studio, it didn't take me long to decide that I needed to add it -- the digital element -- to my crafting world.   I certainly haven't regretted that decision. 

Today, I want to show off the birthday party invitation I made for my little guy's 6th birthday party.   You see, this little guy of mine is absolutely obsessed with Legos and most especially with their Ninjago line.  He was dead set on having a Ninjago party.  Well, that would be great except for one small thing -- there just isn't any Ninjago birthday party line -- no plates, cups, stickers, napkins...nothing.   So what's a good mommy to do?  Well, 2 years ago, I could have convinced him that he wanted a different theme.  But not now that this child is 6.    Oh, no.  6 is stubborn sure of himself.   So I did the next best thing:  I went to Pinterest.   I found cute stuff that other much-more-creative-than-me mommies had done for their precious little Ninjago fans.  And one of them had used the free wallpapers from the Lego site to create her stuff.  (She just happened to be a graphic designer.)   "Ooooooo..." I said.   "I can do that with My Digital Studio!"    So here's the invitation I created:

I'm very proud of my Ninjago punched stars.  They were pretty easy to accomplish.  I downloaded wallpaper of the 4 Ninjas from the Lego site.  I saved each image in a folder.  I found where the Designer Series Paper is stored (in a backgrounds folder) for My Digital Studio.  I created a folder called "My Photos" within that folder.  Then I moved my Ninjago photos over to my new folder.  Now I can use those pictures anywhere I would use a background paper -- inside of a punch, for instance.   I then inserted the star punch into my project (4 times for the 4 Ninjas).  When I went to the "Paper fill" option for each punch, I selected the picture from "My Photos" that I wanted.  To adjust the picture placement, I simply double clicked on the star and dragged the picture to the best placement within the star punch.  The one problem I was left to solve was that the pictures weren't large enough to fill all the points of the stars.  To solve that problem, I put in another star punch (layered behind each incomplete star) and filled it with an appropriate color using the color picking tool.  

I printed these and mounted onto Not Quite Navy cardstock and sent them out to his friends.  The best part?   When my little guy saw these, those big brown eyes lit up and he asked, "Can I have one, Mommy?"