Dj's Stampin Place: Spring Layout

Today we've got a layout sketch challenge at SSINK. If it INKspires you; we'd love for you to play along!

At first when I saw this sketch, I was a little intimidated. I couldn't figure out what pictures I wanted to use with it. However, I was lucky enough to spend an entire day working on sorting pictures and playing in MDS last weekend, so I was able to create this. Once I started sorting pictures, I knew my landscape pictures from Rolling Hills would work perfectly.

I may have mentioned a time or two how much I love My Digital Studio. Since it's release in 2009, Stampin' Up! has continued to update and improve it. I love all the functionality and playing around to find new things I can do with it. I wanted to share a brief tutorial with you on how I was able to line up the flower "punch" in the background, and also fill it with one of my pictures.

As you can see at the bottom of the picture above, if you're working on a photo book, the first two pages are your front and back cover. That means that page number "one" will stand alone in your book; two and three will be a spread, etc. If you want to work on your spread pages side by side so you'll know what it will look like when printed, choose one of the pages you're working on, go to View in the top menu bar, and choose Page Spreads. This is what your work area will now look like:

In order to span an image across both pages, you first want to start by putting it on one page and sizing it to roughly your desired size.

Next, you'll want to right click on the image and choose Span Pages at the bottom of the list.

It will now look like this:

Do you see the buttons in the middle of the right hand column under Punches? The ones that say "color fill, match color, paper fill, photo fill." This is where you'll go to fill your punch shape with one of your pictures. Just click on photo fill, a box will pop up where you can view your folders with your photos in them; you can choose your photo, and Voila!

I hope you love MDS as much as I do! I'm always happy to answer any questions you may have about it. If you haven't already, make sure to stop by Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration to see what the other designers have created as well!