I am so excited to have CD here with us this month and I know you are too (based on the requests from our reader surveys)! I have been a huge fan of CD’s for a long time and was thrilled when she started selling her designs.  Her signature doodled, hand-colored, and hand-painted style is easily loved and recognized.  Here’s a closer look at CD’s contribution to THE DIGI FILES this month:

Here’s what our team did with these goodies:

Layout by Steph, supplies: heart, divider, sweeter doodle from Sweet Love included in TDF12; paper, Au Natural; alpha (recolored) Happy Dance, by CD Muckosky.

Layout by Janet, supplies: Sweet Love by CD Muckosky for THE DIGI FILES 12; FREE SPIRIT ALPHA by CD Muckosky; Paper by Michelle Coleman from WITH LOVE; Stitching by Michelle Coleman from LIGHTER SHADES OF PALE; fonts are CK Ali’s Writing and Typewriter Scribbled

Layout by Katie, supplies: template by Janet Phillips; Papers by Michelle Coleman, Seeing Stars

Layout by Ana, supplies: Sweet Love, CD Muckosky (TDF 12); Dreams Take Flight (papers), CD Muckosky; Bitty Stitchies 2, Lauren Reid; Template pack 15, Kaye Winiecki; Font, DJB It’s Meeegan, Darcy Baldwin

Layout by Rachael, supplies: Sweet Love by CD, Part of TDF12; Lollypop Paper Pack by Dana Zarling at LDD; Template Set No. 12 by Mushy at LDD

Project by Steph, digital supplies: Sweet Love by CD (TDF 12); other supplies: ink for inked edges on tag, cellophane bag, ribbon and candy.

I’m CD Muckosky (CD is short for Christie-Dawn…I get asked all of the time) I am from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; married to my high school sweetheart- Cam, and we have 3 little girls- Emilea 11, Tiara 8, and Kaiella 5…they keep us laughing and make everyday a fantastic adventure!

My Store Link

My Blog

My flickr

My Tweets

The best tip I can give is to encourage you not to limit yourself…So often we admire each other’s work and say “WOW I wish I could do that!” The thing is, you can! But only if you get in there and try new things, believing that YOU CAN.

Whether it be designing , scrapping, or photography…I have found that just being open to reach farther than I think I can go, and spending my creative time trying new things and learning along the way, has been the best thing for my artistic growth.

Go For IT, be bigger than you thought you could be!!!

I have Loved making any kind of art I could get my hands on and collecting photos and memory bits all of my life, so naturally I started scrapbooking with paper about 4 years ago. I was super slow and the things I made were not very attractive at all LOL! When I saw how much of a mess I was making I decided to try digital pages just so that I could hit save and walk away without the wild Art spread every time. I Loved it right away, loved the freedom to splash down paint and then change my mind, to use odd sized photos in a single click…Loved everything about digi scrapping…mad mad Love.

In the Fall of 2006 I was named Creating Keepsakes’ first “Scrapbooker of the Year” and given a 2 year exclusive contract with the magazine that included a monthly column called “CD’s Playground”. Because most of our readers at the time were paper scrapbookers, I always encouraged ways to try a hybrid mix,  although I found myself getting more comfortable once again with my Art mess in order to share my fun techniques in the column.  Although I made a lot of my own scrap products and sometimes offered bits as free downloads and fonts for CK, my contract didn’t allow me the time or freedom to explore “designing” beyond that.

As soon as the two year contract was up I began working on some digi collections and my friend Michelle invited me to join her store. I LOVE the new adventure that designing offers me. As much as I do enjoy travelling the world to teach about my passion for creating, I also reeeeally Love that designing offers me the ability to share my creativity from right here at home with my family.

I am inspired by the world around me…a cool bit of packaging at the grocery store, a funky building, or the recycled bits that find their way into my little creativity basket are about all I need to get going and then I just let it unfold as I play!

I Have an HP Desktop PC with an nice Big apple cinema display screen, It has an extra couple of terabyte drives for plenty of memory space, and I think that it has about 6 gigs of ram…I love this machine, it’s screamin’ fast even with all of the hundred tabs I usually have open. Oh and I have a confession to make…I only restart every couple of months…sigh…I know; BAD.

Then, for travel and the other bits I need it for, I have a macbook pro 19″ laptop…I know, I am the crazy girl who is both a mac and a PC but that’s just how I roll!!!

I use Photoshop CS4 EVERY day; it’s one of my BFFs, I also use Bridge, Camera Raw, and Illustrator for all of my “digifying” needs. Most of my product design is done with a good old fasioned set of watercolor paints, some pencil crayons and my favorite black pen though…I am always tinkering with something.

My camera is a Canon 40D, and right now my most used lenses are my 50mm fixed lens, my 10-20mm wide angle, and my 28-135mm everyday happy lens.

I Do have a Wacom Graphire 4 tablet, It is so much more sensitive than a regular mouse and gives me way better precision for designing. Love It.

Gosh, that’s a hard question…they are like my babies, each one has a bit of my heart in there… how can I pick?!

I guess I would have to say that I still Love my early waltercolored canvas packs Enchanted Garden and In the Meadow Mega.

My Alphabets seem to be the best seller in my shop.

Here are a few of my favorite products by CD:

Here’s some inspiration using CD’s products (layouts without credits are linked to originals):

Layout by Ana, supplies:  CD Muckosky: Dreams Take Flight, Divided Frames, Bubble Magic, Free Spirit Alpha. Other: Bitty Stitchies, Lauren Reid.  Font: DJB It’s Meeegan, Darcy Baldwin

Layout by Jacki, supplies: Dreams Take Flight by CD Muckosky (LDD), JellyBean Toes alpha by CD (LDD), Collection 26 template by Janet Phillips

THANKS so much, CD, for being with us this month and sharing your talents and insights, we really appreciate it!!

Go have a look in CD’s store and come back and tell her what you like, we will randomly select a winner from those comments to win a $10 GC to CD’s store!  (Comments must be posted before midnight EST and must include a product name to qualify)!

As a THANK YOU to our readers CD has this coupon for us:

code:  CD-spotlight

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