Steelers MDS Monday Challenge

MDS Monday had a great challenge this week with their weekly sketch.  I just discovered yesterday that my sketch was featured on the MDS Monday blog for the pick of the week a couple of weeks ago.  This week the challenge is to create a page highlighting something you love.  Well, there are a lot of things that I could have picked from - family, life, travelling, etc.  But, I decided since it's now football season, to pick STEELERS FOOTBALL!!  I went through some of my older photographs to pick out a few favorites.  This was good timing since Sonny and I will be going to the Steeler - Panther game in a couple of weeks thanks to a very good friend who is giving me her tickets!!

I used several stamps and elements from MDS.  My favorite tool to use is the Search tool in the bottom right.  I can just put in any word and it finds all stamps, embellishments, punches, etc. that are associated with it.  I used mostly the Game Day stamp set for this layout.  I created my own Subway Style words for the top and the bottom instead of using DSP.  I like the way it turned out.

Embellishments
    _Designer Kits\Downtown Grunge - embellishments\Downtown Grunge - frame5
    _Designer Kits\Downtown Grunge - embellishments\Downtown Grunge - frame2

Stamps
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Decorative Overlays\Decorative Overlays - grid, Color = 0,0,0
    Game Day Football\Game Day Football    
    Sporting\Sporting - score,
    Game Day Football\Game Day Football - 10 yards,
    Designer Kits\Lemonade Stand\Lemonade Stand - i heart this
    Game Day Football\Game Day Football - ball,

Punches
    Basics\1.25 Square Punch, Fill Color = BASIC BLACK 19,27,29
    Basics\1.25 Square Punch, Fill Color = BASIC BLACK 19,27,29
    Basics\Oval Punch, Fill Color = BAKED BROWN SUGAR 174,142,94

Keep This Memory

Shh .... I'm supposed to be cleaning!  But MDS was calling me and I wanted to put a page together of a happy time in our lives.  We were so proud when Ashley graduated from medical school and officially joined the Army.  And what made us even prouder was the fact that our son, Jeff, was there for the occasion and was the one who pinned her bars on.  The ceremony was held at The Alamo in San Antonio and was quite impressive.  Hopefully, Ashley will have time to see this today and it will cheer her up a bit.  She is in Cleveland for work and will be returning home on Thursday .... and flying here on Friday.  Yesterday she found out that one of her interns from the Transitional Program (she is the program director) hung himself.   She was really upset and feeling a little guilty that she was not there and the guy who is taking her place while she will be gone is having to deal with it on his first day.

Life is so short.  We need to keep the good memories and do away with the bad ones!  I am in hopes that Robin Williams' death will awaken people up to depression and they will get help in their lives when they suffer from that disease.

OK - enough depression - on to happy!!

I have done another MDS Monday Challenge.  The challenge on MDS Monday this week is to use Overlays.  I love using overlays and do it quite often on my scrapbook pages.  On the page above, I used the Texture Overlay in white over my background paper and set the opacity at 60%.  I used two overlays over the large square punch - a checked overlay from Tickets and Tags that I recolored to match the uniforms and the Hexagon Overlay from Keep In Touch in white. In keeping with the hexagon theme, I added a few hexagons (paper filled from Keep This Memory) and tucked them under the pictures.  The "memory" text is from Keep This Memory.  I even played around with the top picture where Ashley is being sworn in and blurred the guy next to her so she would stand out.

Background
   Designer Kits\Keep in Touch - designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 10

Embellishments
     embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)
    embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)
    embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)
    embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)

Stamps
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Be Awesome Today - texture overlay,
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Tickets & Tags - overlay,
    _Designer Kits\Days to Remember\Days to Remember - picture perfect memory,
    _Designer Kits\Keep This Memory\Keep This Memory - arrow,
    _Designer Kits\Keep This Memory\Keep This Memory - keep this memory

Punches
    Basics\1.25 Square Punch, Fill Color
    Basics\Hexagon Punch,  Filled with: designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 4
    Basics\Hexagon Punch,  Filled with: designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 8
    Basics\Hexagon Punch,  Filled with: designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 2

MDS Monday Ireland Scrapbook Page

The challenge sketch this week from MDS Monday was one that used lots of photos!  That's the best thing for me.  I have a hard time weeding through my photographs after a trip to just pick out a select few.  I see other people's scrapbook pages where they have just used one or two pictures.  Not me!  I tend to want to share them all!!  So that is one of the reasons I liked the sketch this week.  I decided to use some of my pictures from our Ireland trip.  That was the most awesome trip.  And I got to relive a few of the moments while putting together this page!  Hope you like it!  The main focus of the challenge was to include a map on our page. I had downloaded this map after our trip so it was easy to use it for the background and circle some of the places we visited.  The focal picture is Sonny and I walking through St. Stephens Park early one morning.  What a gorgeous place!  I used several elements from Project Life for this page.

MDS Monday - The World of Coca Cola

The MDS Monday design team posts a sketch each Monday and anyone can play along with it.  My sketch was chosen last week and shared on their blog HERE.  I was honored.  I have applied to be on their Design Team and am keeping my fingers crossed!

Here is this week's sketch:



Here is my page based on the sketch above:

Talk about colorful?!!  This page sure qualifies (although that was not a criteria!)  These pictures are from our visit to the World of Coca Cola a couple of years ago.  I matched all the paper and background to the colors in the middle picture.  I used overlays on the two solid papers and the background paper (Hip & Handson and Kaleidescope).  I love using Overlays - it changes up a solid paper and gives it pizazz!!  For my title, I used a text box (font - Bernard MT Condensed in size 64) for "the world of" and did the text in black; then I copied and pasted it in place, changing the color to white.  I put the black on top and just moved it over and up with my arrow keys a couple of times to give the shadow effect.  I also did the same thing with "Coca Cola" except I used the Smitten Alphabet Punch and filled it with Real Red.  This is a skinny alphabet so by copying and pasting and moving it over a little bit, it gives the appearance of being "fatter."  The swirls in the corners are from "For the Grad."  This was a fun page to make.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Hard to believe it is already football season!!  If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that makes me happy!!  Tonight is the first pre-season game for the Panthers and tomorrow for the Steelers.  Not that pre-season means anything but it was nice to see the Patriots LOSE last night to the Redskins!!  The Panthers will be on tv tonight and the Steelers will be tomorrow night - although at midnight!  Not so sure I'll stay up to watch them.  Guess that will give me something to watch on Sunday.

The sketch challenge for MDS Monday was a template that is pre-loaded on MDS.  You have to have just the right pictures for this one.  I was going to use some of my New Zealand pictures but decided to go with these football pictures instead since it is that time of year.



All the elements for this page came from Game On digital stamp.

This was taken last year at the Panthers-Steelers pre-season game.  We play the Panthers again this year in pre-season on August 28 in Pittsburgh.  But then we play them at the Panther stadium in September for the Monday Night Game.  I've got a possible chance to get tickets to this game.  We'll wait and see!