My Digital Studio: Adding Pages and Design Elements

I will continue where I left off last week in the design of a 6" X 6" card in My Digital Studio™.  Above you see the card as it appears on the "canvas" in the design center of the software.  The front of the card is completed; now we can add the inside portions of the card.  To do this we will need to add two pages.  One for the inside front cover and the other for the inside back page.

Note: When making cards in MDS, the very back of the card is printed with a My Digital Studio™ icon logo at the center bottom.  You will not have the option of designing this page.  You will only be able to design the front cover, inside cover and inside back.  For this reason, no more than three pages can be used.

We will add the pages by selecting the ADD PAGE ICON or select the INSERT DROP DOWN MENU and select ADD PAGE.  The ADD NEW PAGE window will open, as shown below to allow you to add a new page.  You will do this action again to create the third page (inside back cover).

You will now have NEW BLANK CANVASES to work with in your design.

Let's add a few design items to the inside of the back cover to finish the card.  Below, I added some stamped images from the stamp set ENJOY EVERY MOMENT and positioned them right in the center of the inside back cover of the card.

Following are the steps I took to accomplish this design.
I began by adding the stamped image "enjoy" by going to the DESIGN CENTER (right of canvas) and selecting the STAMPS option.  When you click on the large ADD STAMP icon, it will open up a selection window for you to choose from any stamp set in your software.

I chose the ENJOY EVERY MOMENT stamp set and selected the stamp that says ENJOY.  The ENJOY image appears on the canvas in black (default).  It actually appears exactly as if you had actually stamped that image on a piece of 6"X6" cardstock in Basic Black™ ink.

 I want to color "enjoy", so I select the image "enjoy" and then go to the Design Center in the STAMP palette and choose CHANGE COLOR.

Here is the CHANGE COLOR palette that will appear.  You have many ways you can color your stamped image.  Let me tell you a little about each of the color selections.

PALETTE- Stampin' Up!'s exclusive color selection.
SWATCHES- A rainbow array of non-SU! colors.
HSB- Allows you to select a non-SU! color controlling Hue, Saturation & Brightness
RGB- Allows you to select specific non-SU! Pantone colors using Red, Green, Blue codes
PICKER- Allows you to use a "picker" tool to select a color that has appeared somewhere else in your project.  This would be how you could select a color from your sister's dress color in the wedding photo
FAVORITES- Color choices that you have used in the past that you saved to your FAVORITES palette.

You can see here at the bottom of the COLOR WINDOW how you could just pick a color or you could save it to your favorites and then pick the color to use for your stamped image.

I added a drop shadow to the stamped image "enjoy" by selecting the DROP SHADOW icon in the STAMPS Design Center palette.  Here you have complete control of any drop shadowed images.  Play around with the setting until you find what you like.  You can always click DEFAULT to go back to the way the software originally had your shadow.

The shadow can be moved anywhere by clicking on the black image "enjoy" and while holding down the mouse key, drag until you see the shadow moving out from behind the image "enjoy".  You will notice the PIXEL OFFSET X & Y coordinates change as your mouse moves the shadow around.

You can save those coordinates to be used on THIS PAGE and/or IN THE PROJECT.  This will save you from having to go into every object and manually having to add a drop shadow.  Cool, huh?  When you've finished with your DROP SHADOW, select OK and let's move on.

Here's how I added the WHITE BRAD in the middle of the Riding Hood Red™ flower.  BTW- I enlarged the flower by selecting it and then using one of the little square "anchor handles" and dragging it outward.  To find the WHITE BRAD, go to the Design Center and select the EMBELLISHMENT palette.  Then click on ADD EMBELISHMENT.

The CHOOSE EMBELLISHMENT window will open to allow you to choose from all available embellishments in the program.  Here you will be able to preview all your choices and make your selection.  Once your selection is made, the embellishment will appear on your design canvas in it's ACTUAL SIZE.  You may enlarge your embellishment, however, when printed it may appear slightly pixelated (resolution not as sharp).  Embellishments do not offer the option of changing color.  They are what they are.  There other design options you have which are shown in the DESIGN CENTER EMBELLISHMENT Palette and self explanatory.

Have fun playing around with the power of this amazing software.  Feel free to contact me with questions.  Next week we will cover how to save your design as a JPEG document to share with others.

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Comments

[Kathy Mc]

Keep it up as seems to be making some sense to me now. Looking forward to next Monday's MDS class on your blog.Thanks!

[Mary Fish]

You go, girl. I still need to get on the band wagon. thanks for the nudge. hugs, m