Mix and Match! There’s no catch!

Have you checked out the great paper packs in the MMS Design Shop? Some of our designers feature beautiful paper packs that don’t have any embellishments. Let this be an opportunity for your creativity to shine by mixing and matching embellishments from other kits There are so many great designers of scrapbooking kits that it is often hard to pick your favorite. Don’t feel obligated to feature just one designer for your layouts – Mix and match embellishments and papers from your favorite designers to make the perfect page. Also consider embellishing a template page with embellishments in your stash to make it uniquely yours. Below is a Template page from the Family Defined Template pack by StoryRock. I swapped the background for one from Dana Zarling’s Champagne Wishes Paper Pack. Then I added a few embellishments from Barbara Ryan’s Sweet Girl kit. I think the final product is adorable. Switch up some of your kits, templates and embellishments today. You might be able to make some “suite” pages with them.

Happy Scrappin’!

Sarah ~

… and don’t forget to check out my blog for more great ideas!

ScrapHappySarah

Don’t know where to start???

Maybe you are new to the world of Digital Scrapbooking…  maybe you are wondering,  “What do I do first?”  “What does it take to create a really GREAT photo album?”  “How do I get my albums to look like those in the pictures?” “What if I get stuck”!!!???  First of all, remember that even the best designers and scrapbook artists ALL started at square one.  They all had to learn.  They all made mistakes!  So, don’t give up before you get going!  YOU CAN DO THIS!  There are some great tools in My Memories Suite to make sure that your photos are preserved and your family’s story is told and that you create something very special that YOU can be very proud of!

First, realize that the PERFECT album will look different for everyone.  Even with the same photos, and the same page kits and embellishments, each person will see the story a little differently and build their       pages in a little different way.  The wonderful thing about My Memories Suite (whether you have version 1 or 2) is that this program puts YOU in complete control!  You have the ability to decide what goes where, your page order, your background paper, and your embellishments – EVEN on the Designer Template pages.  It is easy to make sure your story comes together in just the right way!  So, decide what story or event your album will include.  This can be anything from a general collection of photos by theme, or a group of photos that commemorate a particular event or holiday, and some will just be for fun.  A great way to give your album a coherent feel is to select a theme or kit to serve as the backdrop or foundation to build a great showcase for all your photos.  This is SO easy in the My Memories Suite Design Shop because there are TONS of great collections to choose from that will instantly give your album that “put together” feel that we all want.  So, gather your photos, pick your theme and you are READY to get started!

Make sure to stop by and check out the My Memories Suite Design Shop and take a peek at all the wonderful Designer Template pages and paper packs and embellishments sets.  Start with one that really strikes your fancy or suits the “feel” of the album you are trying to create.  Even if you build your own album from scratch, choosing a coordinated set of papers instantly unifies your pages.  Pair the set of background papers with a few of the photo only templates already built into your My Memories Suite software and you are well on your way to your own wonderful work of art.  I have included a few pages here from the “Drama Queen” paper pack from Dana Zarling to show you how the background papers pull the pages together.  See how the coordinated background papers and mat pull the pages together?

Your friends and family will be amazed at the impressive, professional results you will achieve, from your very first project.  How easy it was… well, that can be our little secret!  And remember, if you get stuck, or ever need help, we are only an email away.  Remember, you can also check out the Facebook fan page or Flickr gallery for some great inspiration, too!!  We have some very talented friends and fans who have posted wonderful pages that they have created quickly and easily in their MMS program.

So, what are you waiting for???  Your photos are waiting to tell your story!  Let them OUT of your computer, and off your memory card and into the hands of those you want to share that story with!

Have a happy scrappy day!

… and don’t forget to make a memory today!

Lisa J.

lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com

Winter Magic kit FREE with purchase!

Here are a couple cute pages from the great kit by Sandy McDougal for StoryRock. This wonderful kit is perfect for scrapping all your wonderful winter memories or ski trip pages! Check out the entire kit here: Winter Magic. For a VERY limited time, you can have this great kit, perfect for your winter pages for FREE. Just make a minimum purchase of $5.00 from the Design Shop and add the promo code: wintermagic at checkout!

IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT ADD THE WINTER MAGIC KIT to your cart, it will be added automatically to your cart when you add the promo code!  Enjoy this great kit for FREE – for a limited time only!
and remember to make a memory today!

Lisa J.

Making a Designer template yours! :-)

Here are some great tips that you can use to help you make the most of the Designer Templates available with your MMS program! There are tons of great templates that can really help speed up the process of creating family keepsakes for you. Let’s face it ~ we creative people have a big struggle when we approach a project. We want to get it done, we want to enjoy the process, we want to enjoy the results, and we want it to look like it’s ours! The flip side of that however is, most of us have INCREDIBLY busy lives! We have children and families, we work inside the home and out, we volunteer, we are there for those around us – and we TRY to squeeze out a little time for ourselves in there somewhere! Well, I have found that using Designer Templates really help me to get through a project quickly. Now, sure, there are still some times and some projects that I start from scratch, because there isn’t a template that quite matches the look I want or I really do want every element added to be of my choosing. That’s one of the things I truly LOVE about MMS. I have the flexibility to choose either option every time I add a page to a project I am creating. But for today’s post, I really wanted to show you some quick tips you can use to start with a Designer Template and truly jazz it up and make it yours! A couple quick steps and you will be DONE before you know it!

So, first I will show you the template page, completely as is. All I did was drag in the photos from one of my folders. In this example, I am using some photos from a project I did for my aunt for Christmas. We live in Florida, so we don’t see much snow – but there is a wonderful exhibit called “Ice!” at the beautiful Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando every year and I have some cute pictures of her family that I am going to use in these two pages.

As I was saying in the first page, the “before” page – I simply chose the page I was going to work on, and dragged each picture into one of the photo boxes that were placed on the page. This is so quick and easy the page literally creates itself in less than a minute or two. Drag, drag, drag, DONE! Looks great, sure! I could move on, sure! BUT… I want to “snazz up” the page just a bit so it better suits my taste. So, I choose a few simple options from all of those available in my MMS software. Now, most of these additions are available whether you have Version 1 of MMS or the newly released V2. They are SIMPLE to do and whether this is your first page or your 1,000th – YOU can do it!

As you can see, I used the ZOOM tool, to really get the pictures more “close up” so you can tell who’s in them! Click on the picture you wish to zoom, then click the ZOOM IN button until you get close enough in. You can also adjust the visible portion of the picture with the CROP tool, which allows you to move the part of the picture that is shown. This is one of my favorite things to do to really get more of the subject in each picture on the page. Okay, so now that I have done all three photos, I move on to the next little change. I choose to add a MAT to my photos. Again, all under my control, for these photos I choose a thin white mat to frame them up a little, and click the “APPLY TO ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE” so they all match exactly. You can choose the color of the mats to suit your taste – you can also color match them so they are a perfect fit for your page! Then, I move on to my FAVORITE little change – SHADOWS. I can’t say enough how much I just LOVE shadows and what they can do for your page. They literally POP your pages to life. I pretty much use shadows on just about everything on the page! What I love about the shadow option in MMS is that it is COMPLETELY under your control. It’s more than just “do I want a shadow or not?”. It’s how much shadow do I want, where do I want the shadow to be placed, how dark do I want it, how much of a drop do I want? Everything is under my control! So, I first click on one of my photos and click on the SHADOW box in my Control Panel. That brings up the SHADOW PROPERTIES box. This is where you control the appearance of the drop shadow of your selected item (the shadows for embellishments work much the same way). So, you choose how opaque you want your shadow, how much blur (which affects how “soft” or “hard” the shadow appears). Then, my favorite part is to decide the offset. You can use either your mouse, by clicking on the actual shadow in the preview box and dragging it around until you like the way it looks, or by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Either option gives you the flexibility to show a little or a lot, drag it more to the side or the bottom, etc. I just LOVE that option! You can even choose the COLOR of the shadow! Then, I click the little box that says “APPLY TO ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE” so that all the pictures look the same. You can do each photo individually, but this will save time.

Then I moved on to a little more personalization – but not too much, just to keep this short and sweet! I change out the text that says “Dec 2010” for a little “Ice!” so it fits more with the page. Remember EVERYTHING that is included in a Designer Template is completely under your control. You can move it, resize it, reshape it, duplicate it, eliminate it, whatever you like. I chose to just leave the little shape and embellishment and change out the little words. So, I created a new text box (you can create this in “WORDART” in V2). Used one word to help define what is going on in the pictures on the page. Of course, I add shadows to each of the three parts of this little set. The white circle SHAPE on the bottom, the little blue MAT embellishment, and the text. When I am adding the shadow to the little blue MAT embellishment, I click “APPLY TO ALL EMBELLISHMENTS ON THIS PAGE” so it also adds the shadow to the snowflake embellishment along the left side of the pre-designed page, as well as the shaped strip at the top of the page (that you almost don’t even notice until the shadows makes it pop!)

Then, finally, I add one line of text at the top of the page, and the year at the bottom, to really just define it better and fill in some of the empty space at the top and bottom of my page. I add the “Gaylord Palms Orlando” and the “2008” text. I choose a cute font (this one is called “Tingle Institute” – cute!) and add the text in black, of course add my shadow also. Then another one of my favorite little tricks is to create the text like I just described, then I click the COPY button up top and paste and exact duplicate of my text line, so now I have two. Then I click the WHITE button (or you can choose ANY color) to change the color of the duplicated text to white (or whatever color you selected). Then I just “layer” it over the previous black text and it really POPS your text off the page. Some of this can be done in fewer steps with the word art options in V2, but I still like the double layer look!

To finish up, I enlarged each of the pictures, just a bit, to fully utilize the space on the page and maximize how much of the picture I could show.

NOW, I can say, “I’m done!”. I am happy with the layout of the page, and a few simple, QUICK little changes that really just bring it to life for me. Now, you can spend a ton of time working on each little detail, and many of us love to do that – I love to do that too, but sometimes you just WANT TO GET IT DONE! And this is a great way to combine your own personal flair and the ease of the Designer Template options.
Please let me know if you have any questions, or need a little more help with the instructions for anything I talked about here, just ask away! You can always reach me at lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com or find me on the Facebook page at “Polaroid My Memories Suites”!

Good luck with your New Year’s projects and Happy Scrappin’!!

Lisa J.

Working on a “Two-Page” spread!

The best way to do this right now, is to click on VIEW from your top menu, then from the drop down menu click on PAGE WINDOWS. This will allow you to click on more than one page at a time and then show them both on your screen at once. You can zoom and minimize each page individually so you can enlarge the one you are working on, but… See More still keep the other visible. Depending on the size of your computer screen, you can probably get a pretty good idea of how your pages will look side by side. I will post a screen shot above to show you what it looks like on mine. Also, closing your RESOURCE GALLERY panel gives you a little more screen space! Hope that helps!

Adorable CD Case Calendar Project

Well, Christmas is RIGHT around the corner and we have started to think ahead to some great projects that you can put together for those family members and friends on your shopping list!  We have just added a great new project idea to the Design Shop!  It is a great little calendar template, called MY YEAR TO REMEMBER 2010 – and the fun thing is, that when trimmed up, all the pages fit all nice and tidy in a CD case!  These fun little calendars make a GREAT gift that is easy to put together and even easier to give!  Just pack all the pages inside the case and put a bow on it!  You can even find really cute little CD wrappers at some music shops that make wrapping even easier.

There are just a couple of quick instructions then you will be UP and running!  First of all, these template pages are a “landscape” layout on a 8.5″x11″ page, so they can easily be printed at home on your home printer.  They print two months on a page so they only take 6 sheets of paper, or 6 1/2 if you create a cover!  I chose to print on a matte finish everyday photo paper just to give them a nice feel.  They are designed to fit in both a standard CD case OR the slim-style CD cases.  The pages will store inside the standard cases, but not quite fit in the slim-style case.  You can just attach them in a pretty envelope for giving.

After you add your pictures to the template pages and make any changes you wanted to make, print the pages and carefully trim out the calendar pages.  I find it really easy to use some of the scrapbooking trimmers to make the cuts nice and straight – even an old style paper cutter does a great job!  After they are trimmed, just stack them in order and place them inside the standard size case and give them away!

The standard cases will require removing the case lid, then flip it and carefully reattach it to get it to display your case.  The slim style cases must be carefully opened and gently pushed back onto themselves to get them to display your pages.  See the picture above so you can *see* what I mean!  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to zip me a note on Facebook, or email me directly at lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com

Hope you enjoy using this template as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Have fun!

Lisa J.

For the LOVE of the GAME!

For the Love of the Game

As summer has come to an end and Fall seems like it’s going to be shorter than ever (at least here in Utah) that means a lot of sports leagues are ending. I hope that everyone took plenty of pictures and captured some incredible memories. There are some great designs in the shop to help show off those wonderful moments – make sure you check them out. I used the Victory Road Sports Pack and Soccer Goal by StoryRock to capture my son‘s first season of soccer.

When you create your layouts don’t be scared to mix and match from other kits. In the ‘Soccer Is Life’ layout I used the Victory Road Sports Pack and Soccer Goal kit by StoryRock, elements from Magical Memories from the Ettes and Company, an overlay from Kitty Designs, and Remington Portable font from Lettering Delights.

Don’t forget to check out our Facebook page for inspiration. There are tons of great tips and tricks being shared and tons of layouts that can be lifted for quick and easy flair to any design!

**You can have VICTORY ROAD SPORTS PACK for FREE when you spend $5.00 or more in the Design Shop!  So, spend $5.00 or more in the Design Shop and add the promo code: VRTEAMBOOK at check out! **

Remember: Do NOT add “Victory Road Sports Pack” to your cart ~ it will be added automatically when you enter the promo code at checkout!

Happy Scrapping!
Brooke

Week 5 “Page of the Week” winners from Facebook!

Hi all!  Just a quick note to let you know that the new “Page of the Week” winners are posted on the Facebook page!  Make sure you check it out!  The pages get better and better every week and it gets harder and harder to choose just a few to pick as the winners…  I am *so* excited to see the wonderful great ideas that all of our friends on Facebook are sharing.  Some of the pages are so touching and it is such a treat to share in the family stories that all of you are sharing.  We are able to share great creative ideas with each other and I think everyone learns something new each time!  So, a special congratulations to Carrie, Crystal and Kate!  Fabulous job girls! Keep up the good work!

… and  note to all you guys out there – we had our first page posted by a Man Fan this week – so let’s see what else ya got boys!!

So, great job girls!  And if you haven’t joined us yet on Facebook, you are missing all the FUN!

… and don’t forget to make a memory today!

Lisa J.

Week 3 “Page of the Week” Facebook Winners!

Good morning!  I am very excited to share the winning entries from our Facebook fan page.  These three entries were chosen as our “Page of the Week” winners!  The winners get to choose a FREE StoryRock kit from the Design Shop as their prize!  We love these pages and hope to see more from the girls in the future.  If you haven’t joined us on Facebook, sign up today and become a FAN!  There is a FREEBIE kit available to our Facebook fans only.

Congratulations to Emily, Kathleen, and Jamie!  Keep up the good work!

Congratulations to our Facebook “Page of the Week” Winner(s)!

A great BIG congratulations to Amy, Lindsay, and Michelle for being selected as our winners for the Facebook “Page of the Week” contest this week!  All you have to do to enter for next week is log on to Facebook, become a FAN of My Memories Suite on our page, and UPLOAD your favorite or newest or silliest, or most meaningful page!  We have gotten to see some wonderful work from the crew on Facebook and it is SO hard to choose ONE page of the week that we have had to choose 3 each week so far!  Take a peek at the winning pages below and you will see what I mean!  How could you pick just ONE???  Each winner gets to choose a StoryRock kit from the Design Shop for their prize!! Congratulations again girls!  Can’t wait to see what will come next week!

Awesome work this week!  Make sure you get your pages uploaded in time to be considered for next week’s contest!  Winner(s) chosen every Friday!  Don’t miss out!

Have a great night ~ and don’t forget to make a memory today!

Lisa J.