I started out by opening up MDS & selecting File/Open & then selecting Cards & Tags.
Under cards &; tags you get several options - Greeting card; Postcard; Trifold card & Tag. I selected Postcard.
Under the postcard option there are a lot of size options including 9 1/4" x 4" landscape which is the option I chose.
The next step asks you if you want to use a designer template or a create your own. Take a look & see if you like any of the designer templates that might be in there, I personally only have one & really want to create my own so I selected that.
You are then asked for you project name & also where you want to save the project to. If you want to change where you save the file to, just click on "change location" & select where you would like this to save to.
So now you have a white rectangle & you might even have a grey outline around it. That grey outline is the page bleed. The page bleed is the area that won't get printed if you were to print this out, but that doesn't really matter for a blog header.
The first thing I did was to choose my background paper. I wanted to use paper from the new Sent with Love kit which is the kit that is on promotion at the moment. Yes, the promotion is for real paper & a real clear mount stamp set but a lot of the time you can buy the same things for MDS. In MDS you can buy the Sent with Love Kit digital download 132914 ($13.95). In that kit you will get 12 designer series papers, 8 stamps & 12 embellishments.
On the right hand side of the MDS screen is the Design Centre. In there are a lot of tabs & one of them says background papers. Under that tab you can choose to select either designer series paper, cardstock or just a colour or even something else on your computer eg. a photo (which is found under the custom selction).
I chose the Designer Series Paper. What you must remember is that in that long list of DSP's there's also a particular one called Designer Kits. Underneath designer kits there will be a whole lot more DSP's. I think these are the papers that have be included as a "kit" rather than downloads that have just been of "DSP".
I wanted to use the Calypso Coral DSp which is "Sent with Love paper 9". Click on that name & then click on OK.
The next step was to create my name tag. I love the shape of the decorative label punch & the great thing is that it is a punch that everyone who has MDS owns under the punches menu. Again on the right hand side of the MDS screen (in the Design Centre) I clicked on the tab called Punches. Click on Add a Punch & then under the punch categories there is a category called "originals". In that category you will find the Decorative Label Punch. Click on it & then click "apply". Once you have done that you will notice that the dialogue box doesn't close. That's so you can easily choose another punch if you want to, if you don't want another punch just click on the "x" up in the top right corner. You should find your grey punch shape on your layout in the middle.
My punch is too small at the moment to hold the whole of my blog title so I need to make it bigger. You should notice that there are little black squares around the outside of the punch shape. You can click, hold the mouse button down & pull on them to make it bigger. A word of warning if you pull from a side it is likely to distort your shape. To keep your shape in proprtion you need to go to a corner box, move the mouse over it until the arrow becomes a diagonal arrow, click & hold the mouse button down & drag the mouse. This will keep your shape in proportion. Don't worry if you muck it up there is an undo button on the top menu (it's the arrow pointing to the left). To move the full shape about, make sure it has the black squares around the shape then click inside the shape & you should get a 4 pointed arrow. Click hold the mouse button down & drag the shape to where you want it.
Once I was happy with the position & the size of the punch, I wanted to fill it with patterned paper (like taking a punch & punching a piece of patterned paper). To do this you make sure the punch shape has the black sqaures around the outside & then go to the Design Centre & there is a button under the punches tab (which will be open if you have the black sqaures around the punch) called "Paper fill". There is also a button for "colour fill" & "photo fill". All 3 of these are used to fill your punch shape. Again I wanted to use the Sent with Love kit papers so I clicked on "paper fill". Again the menu with all the DSP options comes up. Select the paper you want & click ok. The punch shape now has the paper in it. What if you don't like the bit of paper it selcted to put in it? That's fine, double click inside the punch shape & the "punch image editor" box comes up.
1. Choose the bit of paper you really want.
Click inside that punch shape, hold the mouse button down & drag the paper around to choose the piece you want.
2. Make the pattern inside the punch bigger.
If you click on the "+" box the pattern gets zoomed in on, so if you have a patterned paper with flowers on it but you want a particular flower to cover that punch, keep pressing that + key & eventually the whole flower will be in that punch.
3. Have more of the pattern inside the punch.
This is useful if you like the whole patterned paper & want the whole, or nearly the whole thing inside the punch. Click on the "-" box. This is what I had to do to get the stripes on either side of my punch. The full paper is like an aerogram with a nice coloured frame around the outside.
What if I can't get the Edit Punch box to come up?
This happened to me when I first started using my MDS. I was following along with a tutorial & then my edit punch box was just not clickable. The problem is in your settings for your MDS.
The easiest way to fix this for a one off is to close down you MDS program then find the shortcut key on your desktop. Instead of just double clicking on that icon to get the program to open, right click on it & then choose "run as administrator". This option lets you have full powers over the MDS program & also access to the "edit punch" option.
If you want to fix this problem for good here's what I did.
Right click on the MDS icon & then click on properties. Under the "security" tab click on Administrators & you will see that the administrator's rights are "full control". Now click on "your name" (in my case it said Katrina) & you will notice that the permissions are different to the "administrator" ones. (in my case they said "special permissions". So to change my permissions to "full control", click on "edit" & then click in the "full control" box. Click "apply" & then "ok" & you will now be able to do everything the administrator does without having to keep opening MDS in "run as administrator" mode.
I hope you have learnt something from this first part of the series about making my blog header.
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