Sidebar Feature in MMS V2 adds Convenient Access to Elements!

A great new feature of MMS V2 is the great sidebar Resource Gallery.  Located on the left-hand side of the screen, you can quickly find photos, embellishments, shapes, photo layouts and papers.  You can also select a variety of predesigned wordarts to your layouts from this gallery.

The photos section of the resource gallery can link to any folder on your computer, which adds ease and speed to locating the perfect picture for your page. The Embellishment option of the resource gallery conveniently displays embellishments in folders.  Change from folder to folder without any delays.  Drag and drop your embellishments to your layout with ease to create the perfect layout.

The Shapes option lets you quickly select the perfect shape to compliment your layout.  Edit your shape and add a paper for pizzazz using the shape menu on the right hand side of the screen.  You can also add shapes made from your favorite papers using the paper option on the resource gallery.  Just click the box that says “Add a Shape Object” to choose the background and shape you want in one click.

The Photo Layout option lets you easily place photos on your page.  You can choose photo layouts with multiple photos and fill in the photo boxes with papers to create a different look when using the same photo layout on multiple pages in the same album.

The Background Papers option lets you easily select backgrounds for you page layouts and also lets you easily add shapes made with your favorite papers.  Consider using the square-rectangle shape to make ribbons from your favorite papers.

The WordArt option provides a variety of premade wordarts using features from the wordart menu.  This helps speed up the wordart feature by letting you select a format that will best fit your layout without having to go through each option of the wordart menu.

You can make your memories into a suite album in no time at all!!

So make every day a SUITE day!

Sarah B.

CELEBRATE FREEDOM!

What does freedom feel like?  What can freedom do for you?  What does it mean to you to be free?  Well, that is certainly a different answer for each of us.  There is nothing like feeling free though!  Feeling free to enjoy downtime with our families, feeling free to relax a little and enjoy life, feeling free enough from the stress that sometimes we feel from making sure that EVERYTHING that needs to be done is done!  Well, there isn’t ANY scrapbooking program that can give you freedom in ALL the areas of your life, but My Memories Suite CAN create a sense of freedom in your quest to chronicle and preserve your family’s story!  It is packed FULL of great tools and features that will make any project you do FAST and FUN!  MMS is packed full of great Designer Templates to help you get started and offers a great selection in the Design Shop to cover most any other topic you might be looking for!  We would LOVE for you to feel FREE from the stress and pressure that can come from trying to create the perfect scrapbook – it does NOT need to be hard for you to feel proud of your results!  There are TONS of ways you can share your projects when you are done that will FREE you from trying to make sure that you create equally for everyone!  Attend a family reunion lately??? You CAN create an amazing history of that event in no time, then with the click of the mouse, save it as a slide show, burn it to DVD, or CD and for very little cost, send one out to everyone that was there – BEFORE the next reunion! 

Summer is a GREAT time of year to catch up on things – the kids are out of school, and even though schedules are still crazy – you can set aside a little time to create a wonderful memory book or project for your family!  If you are REALLY good, you can use your My Memories Suite software NOW to create wonderful projects and gifts ahead of time to prepare for the gift-giving holidays that we all know are coming!

It’s never too late to get started and you are NEVER too far behind!  We have a couple of GREAT promotions going on now to give you just the push you need to jump in!

Use promo code: FREEDOM15 at checkout to save 15% on your MMS purchase OR use promo code: MMSJuly4 to get the great Designer Template kit “Americana” FREE with $5.00 purchase!

So you have NO excuse NOT to get going!  Put MMS on your laptop and it is ready to go on vacation with you – stop wondering, stop waiting – and just get going!  We are also continuing to host ONLINE free “Intro to MMS” workshops to help you get a brief overview of the features and functions of your new MMS software, so be sure to email for the upcoming schedule! We would LOVE for you to join us!

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

Lisa J.
lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com

Easter is right around the corner! Save those precious memories!

Creating a Cohesive Look for your pages!

One thing that I love about My Memory Suite is the ability to create without thinking – let me explain.  Sometimes I just want to sit down and not worry about what will match or coordinate on my page.  For example, when I sat down to scrap part of my Easter from last year all I had to do was pick the kit I wanted.  Once I knew what kit I wanted I could easily look at all of the coordinating papers or embellishments for that kit and I knew they would all match and would look great together.  That is very important for me, especially when I’m making a lot of pages for big events or holidays.  Easter is coming so start looking for those kits that are a must have for your special day, like the Blue Skies Pack from the Ette’s and Company that I used for my layouts.  So whether you want to let your creativity shine and mix or match with multiple kits or stick with a single kit and keep a simple cohesive look you can do it all with My Memory Suite.  Most importantly – have fun and capture those memories.

So, take a look at all the wonderful kits that there are in the My Memories Suite Design Shop – you are sure to find something that is just right for your project.  Remember you can ALWAYS mix and match!  And if you get stuck you can always find someone to offer a creative helping hand either on our active Facebook page or follow us on Twitter – we’re “Tweets4Suites” !  We do a lot of fun giveaways and challenges!  Don’t miss out!

… and for a limited time you can save 10% by using the promo code: GMC10off at checkout!

Happy Scrapping!

Brooke

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

You won’t be needin’ the Luck o’ the Irish, to complete your very first successful album in My Memories Suite V2 software!  V2 (and V1) are both jam packed with all kinds of wonderful tools and accessories to give you a professional looking result from your very first project!  Whether you start with one of the FAB-U-LOUS Designer Templates, or strike out on your own and create an album from scratch, you are assured that you will be pleased with your results from the very first page.  This program is quick and easy to learn, but still feature-packed enough to keep up with the most seasoned scrapper!  To get through a project quickly, I usually start with a Designer Template.  Luck of the Irish is featured here from the recently released Quick Design Club CD.  If you haven’t signed up for the Quick Design Club yet, why not try it out?  Your first CD is free and it is only $14.99 every OTHER month, and you can cancel anytime!  The Club allows you access to the newest releases BEFORE you can buy them in the Design Shop and you get 5-6 kits for $14.99!

So, check it out and sign up today!  Ye won’t be needin’ a pot-o-gold from that sneaky little Leprechaun either, My Memories Suite, Version 2 is available for the low price of $39.97 (and is even cheaper if you already own V1)!  You can also check out a great new combo pack from Designer, Meredith Cardall called “Lucky In Love” for only $6.97!

What the heck is “Clustering”???

Layout – You can use a cluster to draw attention to a certain part of your layout. For example, if you have a layout of four photos, but one is more sentimental or has more meaning than the others, use the cluster around that photo to draw your eye there first. Just be careful to not cover up your special photo. A scrapbook is in essence all about the photos (the actual memory) and the rest, although very important, is not the main reason why we look at a scrapbook! It’s OK for embellishments to be under the photo, half hidden. Plus, embellishments don’t always have to be used the way they were intended to be used! Here, I clustered stars, a ribbon mat, bracket, and stitching to create this page. My attempt was to draw attention to the bottom left picture first as I love how my daughters expression shows complete and utter satisfaction.

Shadows - Not all your embellishments are going to have the same kind of shadow! One tip I read said to use “real life” shadows. Embellishments on top will have more of a shadow than those on the bottom. Play around with the shadows and use what looks most natural. Most find it best to add shadows after the cluster is assembled. I used My Memories Suite version 2 to do these pages. One really neat feature in My Memories Suite V2 is that you can move your shadow around on the x & y axis. This way you can create a shadow as if the light was coming from any direction! It’s hard to tell with shadows, and I’m still practicing using them, but below I added shadows to my cluster.

Angles – Again go with what looks best. Some people like to use different angles for their embellishment cluster to add character. You can create white space, which is pleasing to the eye, by spreading the cluster out. I have a harder time doing this as I seem to like things in a conformity. It’s something I’m trying to overcome! Photos - You can create a cluster out of your photos as well. You’re not limited to just embellishments for this technique! Choose a photo that will be your focal point for the page. Then add the other photos under and around yet keeping the one photo the focal point. I think we do this more often than we think about it. The above page is a good example of a cluster without realizing you are doing it. My intent was to make the bottom left picture the focal point of my cluster. My husband commented that the first picture he saw was the top left, mostly because it was a close up of our daughters eyes. To fix this, I added a shadow to the bottom left photo, decreased the size in the picture that drew my husbands eyes, and make all but my focal point picture black & white.

Kits- It’s easier to use embellishments that you find all in a kit, and this is a great way to practice the technique. This way you have a great idea on what is available and you don’t spend hours just picking out embellishments you might use. Then once you feel you have a feel for what “clustering” does for your page, use several kits to draw from.

Let’s practice!!

Start small. Just choose a few embellishments that you want to use. Put them all on your page. It’s easier to imagine the end product when it’s all sitting right in front of you. Look at what you have on your page and decide what looks bulky and what looks flat. Put flat embellishments on the bottom and bulkier on the top. Play around. The nice thing about digital scrapbooking is that if you don’t like it, delete it! If you decide you did like it, add it back!!

Here are the steps I used to create my first ever attempt to cluster thanks to Scrapping Sarah’s Scribblings.

1. Pick your photos. Sarah suggests getting your background first, but I have a hard time seeing a background without the pictures on the page first.
2. Add/move your picture to the bottom right.
3. Add a frame on top of the picture
4. On the bottom of the frame add a ribbon. A curly of wavy ribbon works well.
5. Next add an swirly embellishment on the lower right hand corner of the frame – This could be a stamp or a glittery swirl. Make sure it will overlay the frame corner on bottom and the right hand side.
6. Add greenery on top of the swirl. This will be the base for a flower or flowers.
7. Select a flower or flowers and layer it on top of the greenery.
8. Add a title, journaling and a date.

I didn’t follow these instructions exactly, but it gave my a guideline to follow.

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!