A Touch of Elegance

For today's subject I thought I would talk a little about the Midnight Oil wedding toppers. I love the elegance that they can add to a page. You can even add a touch of glitter for that sparkle factor! With all the summer weddings you will love using these on your designs.

Here's a layout that I did of my brother's wedding using the toppers.

Midweek Madness

Hi all. Debbie here. Hope your week has been full of fun and sun so far. My week's just been zipping by!
I wanted to talk more about working with acrylic mini albums. Last time, I posted some thoughts about designing on acrylic pages. This time, I thought it would be fun to talk about embellishments.
Here are a few of my must haves - all are great for showing through layers, and you won't have to worry so much about covering up the "backs" of items:

MOSD stickons
Rub ons
overlays
stamps
Staz on ink
acrylic paint
bling
ghost shapes or glitter cuts
Stickles
Slick writers
felt shapes
Die cut or "lace" cardstock

If you want to use patterned paper, try double sided papers. Once they're on, you'll have color on both the front and back of the page. You won't need to think about ways to creatively cover the white back side of single sided papers.

Oh, and of course, you'll want to pull out that ribbon! Tie it around the binding rings for a fun way to really pull the album together. Add some beads or dangling charms and you'll really get a wow.

Here are a few pages from my Family Hike album that show how I used several of these embellishements on each page:





Don't forget, you can also embellish the photo itself, adding rub-ons, stickers and chipboard.
The most important thing with these albums is that you have fun with it.
Hope this gets some mojo working for you. Be sure to post a link of any MOSD acrylic albums you have created so far - we'd love to see them!

How Many days till Christmas???

Yes I said Christmas! It's only 5 months away and for you die hards that's 148 days! Have you thought about making any Christmas gifts for this year? Would you like to get a jump start on the holidays this year and make some cool, fast and fun presents? Well if you said YES then here are two fun and fast projects to make!

The Monogram Wall Hanging

You'll need a MOSD Desk album, a Monogram Stick on of your choice

and ribbon.

1st step take the protective cover off the acrylic

2nd step center and line up the Monogram Stick on to one side of the

Acrylic Desk Album.

3rd step adhere the Stick On to the acrylic

4th step Attach ribbon and bow using the prepunched holes

at the top of the acrylic piece.

Easey Peasey--this is a gift that would also be great as a new baby nursery item too! Takes less than 5 minutes (unless you're bow challenged like me, then it takes less than 10 minutes)

Another Fun, Fast and Very functional Gift to make!

An altered planner!

You'll need a planner with a plastic cover that allows the front insert to be slipped out. I picked this up at Walmart around 7.00. Patterned paper and your choice of a Monogram Stick On.

1st step take the original insert out of the planner cover and use as a cutting guide for the pattern paper. Trim pattern paper to size

2nd step apply the Monogram Stick on to the Pattern Paper.

3rd Step Slide the decorated piece back into the planner cover insert

VOILA you're done!! Another fast, fun and functional gift to make for the holidays in less than 5 minutes!!

Now you've got two great gifts made for the holidays! Happy Tuesday to everyone.

Veronica

Monday Muses: School Day Box Album

Hello Everyone,
It is back to me - Ali - for your Monday Muses.
I did a little shopping this weekend - nothing special just the usual 'box' store for some household supplies and then off to the grocery store so my family can eat this week. But while doing these very normal errands I discovered a trend I am definately NOT ready to embrace. It is BACK TO SCHOOL time! Yes you heard me - the school supplies were everywhere and I saw parents and students taking the journey down the school aisles with list in hand. Glue sticks where flying off the shelves, paper was sailing into carts, and all the pencils were standing at attention saying 'pick me pick me'. I have to admit, shopping for school supplies is one of my FAVORITE activities to do with my kids. I love the look of a clean notebook and sharp pencils. But alas, I am not ready to send my kids back to school yet. We are having a really fun summer, they are at a terrific age of discovery, and fankly school starts too early this year (August 20th for us). They say they are giving us extra time at winter break, but winter here is kind of yucky - not all snowy and pretty, but wet, grimy, and not much fun. So I would rather have more time NOW in the beautiful sunshine. Besides I LOVE lazy pajama days!
Okay - I hear you - you are saying - enough with the musing we want to see product and samples. My musing does have a point....school days - have you seen the collection? Here is a box album I did with a simple box that was about 4x6 and the MOSD school days collection. You might even spy a couple of techniques for attaching transparencies...



This is our School Days Topper - and the first technique for adhering a transparency. For this one I simply tied the transparency to a piece of cardstock and then I attached the cardstock to the covered box. I used a glue pen and 'wrote' on the back of the transparency behind the printing to give it a little extra stick.

Here is Technique number two (School Days Translated): Did you know you can use paint like an adhesive? I turned the transparency upside down and laid the word learn on top of it. I then painted with plain white acrylic paint over the top of both of them. Enough paint seeped around the edges of the word learn to hold it firmly to the transparency, and then I used adhesive behind the word learn to attach the entire piece to the page.
Technique number 3 (School Days Monogram): This one is pretty simple and you have probably already done it - but you can attach your transparencies using brads.
Bonus Technique: If you love the look of clear or 'see through' and you have a double sided 'ablum' like this one...simply line up both the front and back pages and punch through both of them. Then make a transparency sandwich with punched shapes, or stickers, using your punched out 'circles' (in this case) as a guide. Glue your transparency sandwich between the two pages and PRESTO - magic!

There you have it - a few techniques and a back to school mini box album sure to give you an A+. Now your homework...

1 - Make a plan for your first day of school pictures - think about the lighting at the time of day you send your kids off to school, it the lighting is bad - too dark or too bright think about where you will take your photos. If it is inside make sure you straighten up the night before so you don't have cluttered backgrounds or messes to try to scrap around.

2 - charge those camera batteries if shooting digital, or make sure you have film on hand if you shoot with a traditional camera

3 - stock up on some great school days collections for those pages

4 - get those kids on the bus and plan a morning of 'back to scrapping'

Leave me a comment and I will pick a winner to receive a school days collection.

ENJOY!

Eye Spy Sunday

Hey everyone! Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Today I wanted to feature someone that used one of my sketches. Here is an awesome interpretation from Zoa...

Thanks for playing along! There will be more sketches to come!!!

Here is your next chance to win some MOSD goodies...be our next EYE SPY. All you have to do is mention MOSD (and post a link to the blog) on your blog or message board and if we see you...you win! You can post a comment here with the link to your post. Winners will be chosen next Sunday!!! Good luck and get to posting!!!

~Shannon

Title Challenge...

What is a common element on most scrapbook pages besides pictures? I think most often it's a title. MOSD has a little know product in the Clearly Stated Line called "A to Z". I fell in love with these from the first time I saw them at Cropper's Alley. I begged to carry them through MOSD - and yipee we now do! These little transparent alphabet sets are so versitile and fun!!! - The Clearly Stated A to Z are the inspiration for my Challenge this week... do something different for a title, swich out the stickers for die cut letters or better yet - see if you can get your hands on some of these little cuties... (the alphabets, the kids are already spoken for;-)

Have a great Week! - Christy

Friday Fun For Two!

My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in September 2007. We took a two week trip to Paris and London...alone! I wanted a fun way to commemorate our trip, so I made two MOSD Retro albums! Here is one of them. I'll show the other one another time. (wink)

The Retro Album has 2 clear covers (approx. 5.5x7 inches) and 6 chipboard pages (approx. 5x6 inches). I love working with a combination of clear acrylic and chipboard.

Hope you can pick up a Retro Album...or two, and have some FUN!

- Gloria

Unexpected items & we have a winner!

First I want to start off with the winner of the baseball products. Sorry it took me so long, I got a little sidetracked with CHA! So, the winner is...................................Melita!!! Email me your address at pompom1802@hotmail.com and I will get your baseball goodies in the mail to ya!

For my thoughts for today we are going to talk about using unexpected items on your acrylic albums, or layouts, for that special wow! factor. I have used clothing tags, ticket stubs, my children's artwork shrunk down to size, ads, and my favorite...paint chips! Yes, the little paint swatches you find at the hardware store. I love all the different colors, and the names can just be perfect for what you are working on! Here's an example of a Midnight Oil acrylic album I did using all shades of pink paint chips. Hope you like it and decide to use some yourself!

Midweek Madness

Hi all, Debbie here. How's your week going?
Today I thought I'd post more about acrylic albums.
While these albums look amazing when completed, they do take a little planning. Here are a few tips to get you started...

-Since each page offers a peek of the pages to follow, you need to think about where you place your elements.

-Once you've decided on your theme and photos, you will need to consider the order of the pages. It's a good idea to start working from the last page of the album, and create back to front.
I periodically flip my album in progress over to view the "backs" of the pages too, to make sure that view works too.

- Anything you adhere to the front will show on the back of the page, but backs of photos and embellishments can be hidden.

For example - the owl page can be seen behind the page with my picture:




When you turn the page, however, I needed to hide the backs of the journaling strips and my picture.

I cut strips of patterned paper the same size as the journaling strips. I also used some black cardstock and some embellies to hide the back of my photo:


I hope this gives you some ideas for how to start off with your acrylic album projects! Stay tuned for more ideas.

Carolyn Mcavoy - Loved your suggestion for my weekly entry! Please email me at mdfitz33@aol.com so I can send you a RAK.

CHA update...

I don't know how many know it, but Midnight Oil was at CHA. We didn't have a booth, but we teamed up with 3L Scrapbook Adhesives to supply their Make N Takes. Here is a little preview of what they did with our desk top albums...

How cute are these??? Use the desktop albums with 2 panels (like the Christmas album)...or just with one (like the Halloween panel)! 3L double-stick tape works so well with these albums, too. These are the perfect project for the scrapper on the go because they are SO EASY to make and so versatile that you can virtually come up with tons of ideas to use them!

Pictured here is (from the left) Shannon Blinn (MOD Squad), Kari (3L) and Veronica Melton (Mod Squad). Thanks again to 3L for working with our products! We're stuck like glue (or any other 3L adhesive) to you! ;) Want information on how YOUR store can carry these...contact us at orders@mosdinc.com and we will be happy to help!

~Shannon

Monday Musing - Wordbook Video Tutorial

Hey Everyone,



I am going to try something new today. I have created a video tutorial for lining up, and cutting wordbooks using out Expressions Build A Book (TM) system. Now before you send me a million e-mails here are my pre-canned excuses..



1 - I am NOT a videographer

2 - This is the first time I have EVER made and/or published a video to the web

3 - I have never been accused of being 'brief' (the video is 12 minutes and 3 seconds long)

4 - yes I talk with my hands A LOT - my mom use to say if I had to sit on my handles I would be able to complete a sentence

5 - I saved it in a cable/DSL Quicktime format - if you have a slower connection and want to watch the video...email me and I will send it to you.

6 - my kids were in the room with me (there is one spot you will see a little hand sneak in on the right side of the screen) all in all for their ages I think they did and AWESOME job being quiet - but you might hear some russling and a sneeze - LOL

7 - YES YES YES - the A, R, etc do have middles that 'pop' out - I simply forgot to take them out and in the interest of getting this on the web I didn't want to take the time to re-shoot



So here you have it - my first ever video tutorial - if this goes well we will post more on using some of our other products. This one is in response to specific questions from some of our consumers and retailers!



ENJOY!

Hey Teacher!!

I was just doing some school shopping the other day (gotta hit those sales!!) and it hit me that school will be back in before I know it! Sheesh! Where did summer go? But luckily, I already have a teacher gift all done thanks to Midnight Oil!

Their board books are AWESOME and you can even get them with an acrylic cover!!! Now how cool is THAT? My biggest problem with a lot of board books is that they are sort of vunerable. But with an acrylic cover, I can breathe easy knowing that my hard work is safe! Make sure to give them a try! Ask your favorite store to carry these books. They will be glad they did!! And just in case, our website also has a list of retailers that do carry them!

OK, and since it is Sunday...I must leave you all with some inspiration for the week. Here is a sketch designed just for you, our faithful readers!!! Give it a try. Got MOSD? Use it!

Have a GREAT week!!!

Oh yeah...and Lynda...you are our stacker set winner!!! E-mail me your e-mail and I will send you a set of stackers!!! Great ideas everyone!!

~Shannon

Christy's Challenge

Happy Saturday everyone! I'm glad it is Saturday - although I will be working today! I am so blessed to have a job I absolutely love. My boss, well I won't mention the slave driver she is :-) - Kidding. Alison and I make a great team!

Ok - onto my challenge... I was looking through some older layouts

I did and came across this one:

Park Play Satcker Collection Featured

I love, love, love this layout! Did it get published? NO... Did it win a contest? NO ... Am I some famous scrapper you should want to scraplift??? Ba Ha HA - absolutely NOT! But the fact remains I love this layout - I remember finishing it ( about 2 years ago) and being proud of the way it came together - handwritten journaling and all.

So today my challeng is to look back at some older layouts and find one you are really proud of. Make it a Family thing, sit with the kids, DH, the dog - whoever and do some reminicing.

Have a great Weekend!

And the Winner is>>>>

Congratulations!!! I asked my Son to pick between numbers 1 - 4 and he picked 4 --- Paula M you win the entire Football Stacker collection - just because "I'm 4 that's why I picked it Mommy" Shoot me an email through the CONTACT US page at www.mosdinc.com and give me your address. It will ship out Monday!

Fun Friday on a Small Scale

Who says fun has to be BIG? With MOSD, you can have fun with the small stuff too! This little baby is called the Clearly Cute Petite and is small enough for your key chain, purse, or backpack. I made this fun, little album in about 30 minutes with some left-over photos of my son's 2nd birthday. (Please, do not comment on the fact that the boy will soon be 8!) The covers are acrylic and the inside pages are chipboard. Each album comes with a binding chain.

If you have a lot of small photos or "distance shots," get out your square punch and corner rounder, and have fun making this cute little album. As always...HAVE FUN!

- Gloria

Acrylic Tags

My thoughts for this Thursday are about the MOSD acrylic tags. I love these little guys! They look great on layouts, and are great accents for those clear albums. I have even seen them grouped together to make a mini-tag album. I used mine with the acrylic tabbed album and love the added punch it gave my cover. Let me know what you think!

Simple Scrapping

Howdy all! Christy coming at ya today for our MOD Squad post of the day... Veronica our regular Tuesday hostess has quite the sick little one - we send get well wishes out to her!

Tuesday's theme is Tips and Techniques - so my tip for you today is to keep things simple. Here is a layout done by Sherry of the Scrapbookers Bag.

Sherry is a busy mom, like all of us and she advocates getting pages done, by keeping them simple! Here is a quote from her site:

I want to focus on all of you SIMPLE scrapbookers who are like me. Those of you who love to use many photos on your pages; want easy, but beautiful embellishments; have a quick turnaround time in preserving your family history, and products that won't break the bank.

Sherry is a fan of MOSD products because they go together quick, are innexpensive and add just the right touch to simply scrapped pages. So all you scrappers like Sherry - give a shout out in our comments section for a chance to win the entire MOSD Football Stacker Collection.

I'll draw the winner and let you know who it is on Saturday July 19th, my "regular" blog day.

Sherry used the Football Edger on this simply scrapped page.

Monday Muses...

Hello Everyone! It is Monday again so you are back to me (Ali). I have a winner to announce and some fun samples to show you - so let's get to it.




Drum roll please >!>!>!>!>!>>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>! The winner of the custom Expressions Wordbook from last Monday is.......PaulaM. This was a random drawing, but incase you missed what Paula had to say, here it is...



"When I first heard that one of the LSS had these albums for special order, I was thrilled. I have 6 children and the first thing I though about was wanting to order one for each of them. I will either give each of them the blank book and allow them to embellish, or for those that are not 'into that' (the boys) I will embellish it for them with pictures and memorabilia about them!! What a fun item."




Paula send me an email with your address and what word you would like and I will get your book in the mail to you.




Now onto another fun Acrylic album. Have you seen a Clearly Designed Steps Album? They are a lot of fun. They are 5 inches wide and the pages are graduated stating at 4 inches long/tall and going upto 7 .5 inches. Here is a beautiful sample done by our own MOD Squader Debbie Fitzgerald entitled Family Hike






Did you notice how her title is Family Hike- but the family part of the title is actually on the second page with the photo of some of her family- LOVE THAT! Love that with the clear nature of these albums you can stack and layer and get two titles for the price of one!

Still not to sure about putting together a clear album? Angela from The Button Farm is using the Clearly Designed Steps Album for her class at all the CK Conventions. Her 'Ramdom Musings' class sells out quickly. If you are interested in taking this class at a CKC you might want to go here and see when registration is in your area. Here is a picture of the album she is teaching...









If any of you have taken the class leave a comment! We have heard rave reviews about Angela as a teacher and this project. You won't be disappointed!

Well I think I have been long winded enough today. I hope I have provided you with some inspiration. Have a terrific Monday!



-a

Stackers...there's not just for layouts anymore!!

For those that are not familiar with Stackers, they are worth a look! The sets include a topper, edger and monogram. Stackers are really responsible for the birth of MOSD as collaborative effort between 2 stores...Croppers Alley and One Creative Bug. It was a peanut butter meets chocolate idea...one making the die cut words and the other making transparencies...and the rest is history! Originally, the stackers were for layouts, but they are SO MUCH MORE!!! They are perfect for so many things.
Here, I used the Toddler Girl collection to make a complete party package in a snap. What an easy way to get ready for a party!

So here is your assignment...should you choose to accept it (insert Mission Impossible theme song here)...

Take a look at the stacker collections from the link I provided in this post. Then, think of some creative ways to use them and post an idea in this thread. If you have used a stacker collection (in any way) post it in this thread as well. Next Sunday, we will pick a winner for a set of your very own stackers.

I can't wait to see what you all come up with!!

~Shannon

Another Challenge from Christy!

Howdy Blog Fans!!! How did everyone do with last weeks Saturday Challenge?

I hope you were able to scrap some outdoor pictures!

This week I plan to motivate you by issuing a "Christmas in July" Challenge ---

scrap somethnig for the hoildays... make a gift, scrap last year's pictures, get your friends together and exchange scrap supplies! The best part about Christmas in July is there is no SNOW! Here is a layout I did - again I crack myself up because there are none of the Wonderful MOSD products on this page, maybe it's because I'm knee deep in cool MOSD word books, oh well - Have a great week and Scrap some Christmas, Haunakkah, Kwanza, Holiday Cheer!

Clearly Disney!

What is more fun than a trip to Disneyland? Scrapbooking the trip with a MOSD Clear Accordion Album! This 4x6 album of four clear pages is just the ticket for scrapping about your Disney fun! I used lots of die cuts from the Cricut system, plus papers and embellies from Sandylion and flowers from Prima. This album has some glitter and some stamping, and was tons of fun to create!

Ideas to note: Use paint to outline the edges of your clear pages. This makes each page stand out. Also, invest in the Gellyroll Stardust glitter pen! You won't be disappointed. This little baby adds glitter to almost any surface without the mess! And y'all know how much I hate glitter mess!

I hope you all have a FUN FRIDAY and get a chance to make a clear album using MOSD Clearly Designed products.

- Gloria