February Club Projects - Part I using My Digital Studio as a Design Tool

One of the things that sold me on My Digital Studio (among other things) was the ability to "play" with design ideas without wasting paper.  Before MDS I would use old "In Color" card stock or non-Stampin' Up! cardstock (my upline calls it "contraband" LOL!) to plan out prototypes.  However, sometimes I just want to see how different Stampin' Up! colors work with each other along with different design elements that I'm thinking of.  I'm like a lot of my fellow blogger/stampers out there in that I don't make things up totally from scratch all the time - sometimes I shamelessly C.A.S.E. (Copy And Steal Everything) a project from start to finish, sometimes I take the basic color scheme and adapt using what I happen to already have (see previous post!) but sometimes I'm borrowing elements from several places or just mulling different things around in my head and want to see how they look using current colors and products.  MDS is a great way to do this without using up precious cardstock and supplies.

For the first of my February Club projects (check back tomorrow and the day after for the other two), I wanted to feature not only Vintage Vogue (117690 wood, 118598 clear) which is hands-down my Favorite Stamp Set from the Occasions Mini 2010, but the coordinating Very Vintage Jumbo Wheel (117693).  So I got onto Stampin' Up!'s new totally cool "Stampin' Connection" which is a cool website - part Facebook, part Splitcoast (available to anyone who is a Stampin' Up! demonstrator) and searched on both Vintage Vogue and Very Vintage.  I found some cool ideas, but I knew there were some other things I wanted to do.  So......... I hopped onto to MDS and started playing.

Now MDS doesn't have every single stamp set, although they come up with new downloads very frequently to incorporate new products, but they don't have Vintage Vogue yet.  I don't think they have any of the wheels yet either (hmmm, something to suggest to Demonstrator Support)... ANYWAY - I found another set called "Simple Friendship" (113397) that had a similar feel and would act as my "stand-in".  And I came up with this:

I knew in addition to wanting to use Vintage Vogue and Very Vintage, I had the new Pretty In Pink 5/8" Satin Ribbon (117289) I wanted to coordinate somehow, so that steered my color choices a bit.  On Page 27 of the Occasions Mini I saw that they were using Old Olive, which I thought was nice, and I also thought Rich Razzleberry (2009-2010 In Color) would be good, so that was what got me going.  Here's what I came up with:

After playing with some of the elements, I decided not to tie the ribbon in a bow - the floral embellishment was enough "fancy" and the ribbon is mostly there for texture.  But the basic design is the same, and as you can see, no cardstock was wasted in the construction of this card!

So, this is how you can use MDS to help you design a project without wasting anything but your time!  And time spent designing is NOT time wasted is it!