Aloha, all!
Not only do I not have young children, but there are very few in my circle of friends and acquaintances. But that doesn't mean we don't have parties – in the case of our party this past Saturday, a "Garden Party." Oh, this is not like a genteel urban or suburban garden party. No, the gardens in our neighborhood are tropical gardens. My friend, Karolyn, has a fantastic 5-acre Palm Garden, and it was this garden that was to be the site for some fun socialization – and a garden tour – by the members of the Zonta Club of Hilo to which I belong.
As I live nearby, I volunteered to help. Of course they know that I do paper crafting, so I was asked to help with favors that would be at each place setting for the luncheon part of the affair. There are other parts of the set of favors, but this is my contribution.
Bookmarks! And I didn't even have to use the retired palm tree stamp that I showed off here last Thursday! These palm trees – in fact the whole bookmark design – are from My Digital Studio! I was especially happy to be able to use My Digital Studio because I had to make a LOT of bookmarks (just showing a few here)!
Three of my favorite features of My Digital Studio show up in this design:
- I can color one stamp with more than one color! The palm tree is one stamp from the Digital Stamp Brush Set, Tropical Party. But I was able to color the palm leaves using Pear Pizzazz Digital Ink, and the trunks using Baked Brown Sugar.
- I can resize stamps (and embellishments as well!) to whatever size I need. In fact, with this design, I not only made the stamp small enough to fit on the post card, but I made one even smaller to create the 2-palm design. (I colored one palm then copied and resized it to make the smaller palm.)
- I can add text in any font on my computer AND color it whatever color I want! For the book marks, I used Baked Brown Sugar for the text.
To make the actual bookmarks, I grouped all the parts of the design and then placed 6 copies on one 11" w x 8-1/2" h digital background.
Each bookmark is 6-1/2" h x 2" w. I'm able to get an extra one on the bottom by laying it on its side. Then I exported the file to .jpg and inserted it into another file to print it exactly as I wanted it. Yes, I could have printed directly from My Digital Studio, but I did not have as good control over the finished product as I wanted with MDS. Oh, and I printed this with my HP printer directly onto Very Vanilal Cardstock – it came out beautifully!
After cutting out all the bookmarks, I punched the top of each bookmark with the Scalloped Tag Topper Punch. I added a 6" piece of Pear Pizzazz 1/4" Cotton Ribbon through the slit in the tag topper, and my bookmark was done!
This was lots of fun, and a handmade bookmark – even in these days of Kindles and iPads – is such a nice addition to a favor. There are always books lying around that need a space marked – even if it's just to put in a reminder of a fun party!
