Grandparents

I have been reflecting a ton about grandparents this week (both good and bad). But I'm lucky enough to still have a couple grandparents here on this earth and we sure need to spend more time getting to know them better before they're gone!!

Anyway, I created these two layouts, but regretfully they are not mine or my kids grandparents, but hey the layouts are cute. In fact, they're a brand new template available at My Memories Suite. It's a beautiful template set called "Grandparents Brag Book" created using the gorgeous designs from Miriam Lima (my very talented friend)!!

Doing a Little Digi Scrappin!!

Yesterday was a productive day...actually finished four layouts and happy to share them.

Description: Happy Garden by Traci Murphy. Created in My Memories Suite software.

Have you ever heard of a great scrapbook manufacturer out of Portland called Paper Trunk? Well they have some beautiful paper designs and I've been watching them for a while. So I was thrilled when I saw that they are now offering their beautiful paper designs digitally now!! And even better is only available right now for the My Memories Suite software (my favorite of course). Below are a few layouts I created using their new digi papers.

Description: Created using the Batik Digital Paper Pack from Paper Trunk. Layout was created in My Memories Suite.

Description: Layout created with the new Gigi Collection by Paper Trunk. Created in My Memories Suite software.

Description: Layout created with the new Jellybean Collection by Paper Trunk. Created in the My Memories Suite software.

Father's Day Poem

A friend of mine called this morning and told me that she was in charge of the "Fathers Day Treat" that will be handed out at church on Sunday. They're making "bow ties" out of bags of M&Ms, which I thought was a darling idea!! But she also needed a poem to go with the treat.

I thought I'd share and "yes" it was created in My Memories Suite...only took me a few minutes, but I just had to share!!

Feel free to use the graphic if you need it...just click on it and it will open up in a new window much larger. You can then print it off or save it to your computer. I actually brought this into WORD and printed 4 to a page!!

Make Trading Cards of Your Kids!

Okay I see a lot of fun ideas that you can do with your pictures when I'm working or simply surfing the net. But typically the ideas are very girly and not tons of ideas for BOYS. My friends with kids in sports will love these.

My Memories Suite is now offering "Trading Cards" that you can make of your kid with his stats, etc and hand them out.

The Victory Road trading card collection is now available in the Designs Shop at My Memories Suite for a variety of sports including baseball, football, soccer, basketball, and more. You can even choose the colors to match your child's team.

FREE Baseball Template

If you already own the My Memories Suite software, they're offering a free download for a limited time. The Victory Road-Baseball trading card template is available absolutely free from the Design Shop.

Magical Templates - Disney Ideas

I "need" to go to Disneyland again!! The girls at Ettes & Company created the cutest new kit called Magical Memories. Then of course, since they're partners with

My Memories Suite they offer their same designs for that software as well. But the BEST part about using their designs on My Memories Suite is the TEMPLATE feature (read more below this layout about why).

Unlike quick pages for photoshop...templates in My Memories Suite are super versatile. You can add or omit photos, embellishments, etc. You can move things around, resize them, etc. In fact the first layout originally only had spots for 2 pictures and I needed three, so I copied the black box behind the pictures and dropped my 3rd picture onto the layout, added my journaling and I was done. Seriously it only took me a few minutes to create these darling layouts. The two at the bottom though that aren't "Disney" pages I created from SCRATCH using My Memories Suite and the Magical Memories kit. So yes, another trip to Disney is needed so I can scrapbook more great pictures to go with these fun designs.




These two layouts I created using the papers and embellishments from the Magical Memories kit. I think I posted them before, but I wanted to show how versitile this digi kit can be.

Mother's Day Cards

I had fun last night creating some darling Mother's day Cards in My Memories Suite software. They'll be posted on the MMS blog later today with some additional card designs, go check them out. 

Description: Created this card with the Wildflower pack by Miriam Lima.

Description: Created this card with the Pink Dahlia pack by Legacy Digital Design.

Description: Created this card with the A Mother's Life template & pack by Ettes & Company.

Ettes & Company New Designs

Okay if you have Disney pictures you've never scrapbooked then you need to check out the new Magical Memories collection from Ettes & Company!! I created the first two layouts with this collection. The bottom layout was created with the new Princess Collection and they also just released a darling Pirate Collection. And as always, I created these fun layouts in My Memories Suite software...it's the easiest way to scrapbook your memories!!

Project 52: Weeks 9, 11 & 14

I fell a little behind on my Project 52. I had some weeks where I'd put pictures on the darn page and never actually finished the pages. So I thought I better get caught up before I fall TOOOO far behind. 

Here's my typical disclaimer for those of you joining us new. I saw tons of people talking about Project 365 and couldn't commit to something that large...and came up with my own version called Project 52. So I take random pictures from each week, create a layout for that week and add them to my ongoing album. I create all of these using My Memories Suite software (which I love). When I'm finished I'll have the layouts all made into a 12x12 photobook. 

Description: Paper-Feelin Happy; Notebook-School Memories; Font-LD Old Remington

Description: Paper & Embellishments-Twilight Fanpire; Font-Zepher

Description: Papers & Embellishments-Easter Traditions by Ettes & Company; Font-LD Woodland

My Project 52: Weeks 12 and 13

I'm a slacker I know..sort of like keeping up on writing in my journal. Months would go by and then every entry would start with, "I'm a slacker". So one thing to note about this Project 52, if you get behind too much (like me) then it's harder to catch up. I think the last week I posted was week 8 and we're now on week 14. So I decided to do what I would do in traditional scrapbooking and work backwards. 

For those of you that are new to my blog, I decided that "Project 365" was too much for me to cope with and started my own version called "Project 52". Rather then taking a picture every day and scrapbooking it, I do a layout from each week. Loved the idea and the book I'm going to have printed at the end of the year will ROCK! All my layouts for Project 52 were created in My Memories Suite. It's a great, inexpensive program that allows me to organize my layouts and have them ready to output to a Photobook when I'm done. I'm very proficient at Photoshop, but find that this program is much easier to use. I think My Memories Suite software is a great "companion" software to Photoshop.

 

Description Week 12: Not sure who to give credit to on the paper and embellishments since I pulled them out using the search feature in MMS. I'm pretty sure that they're from Miriam Lima and The Ettes & Company. But the fonts are both Lettering Delights (Remington Portable & Sweet Potatoes). 

Description Week 13: Papers are from StoryRock's Birthday Boy collection and the font is Lettering Delights Neetle. 

Classy Photo Blocks

Love, love this idea that my friend Jill Means created for her digi shop (Legacy Digital Designs) and for My Memories Suite software. You've all seen those wood blocks where someone mod podges photos onto the blog and then stacks them as a unique photo display on a shelf...right? Well I have to say these are the classiest (is that even a word) blocks I've ever seen.

Jill told me she created these for her Grand Father and the entire family is now requesting these for Christmas gifts. If you're a My Memories Suite user, the kit will be available soon...in pleanty of time for Christmas (wink). What a great idea!!

Photobook Arrived!!

I meant to post about this 3 DAYS ago when my 12x12" photobook arrived for my hubby's 40th birthday gift. It's AWESOME and so much better then I expected it to be....actually I expected it to be great, but until you see the hours of work you've put into a project COMPLETED it's hard to know what to expect. I absolutely love the photo of Kirk on the cover...isn't he handsome?

Just a reminder for those new visitors to my blog, I created the entire book in My Memories Suite software. It's amazingly easy and had I created this entire book in Photoshop (which I could have) it would have taken me weeks and weeks, instead of days. I spent more time scanning in photographs and tweaking them then I did laying them out in the book. I have to send a BIG THANK you to my friend Michelle, she took this gorgeous picture of the Salt Lake Temple and was willing to let me use it in Kirk's book. The year we were married they were cleaning the Temple, so all my wedding pictures have scaffolding on the left side of the Temple. The original, full-size of picture is stunning and I think she should sell the prints...I would buy one!! If you want to see more of her amazing photography, check out her blog here.

Twilight Inspired Bedroom

My daughter has been asking for Christmas if we could remodel her room (which use to be yellow and green). She really wanted it to be "Twilight" colors...red, black and white. So after putting her off a couple months I decided it would be a great 12th Birthday gift and we got to work. We painted over the yellow - white...the green was covered with the best red paint color ever. We then repainted the closet doors, ceiling fan, dresser, chair, night-stand all black. For her birthday she received those inexpensive poster frames that we put her very cool Twilight posters in and we have on order some cool "Twilight" inspired vinyl for the walls. The last thing we need to get are some black sheer curtains for the two smaller windows and then it's COMPLETE!! 

Description: Layout created in My Memories Suite
 using the (soon to be released) Twilight Fanpire Template. Font is Lettering Delights Nettle

Cupcake Anyone?

My good friend turned 40 last week and I wanted to make something fun and memorable for her for her birthday. Haven't been scrapbooking with paper a lot, so I thought "cupcakes". My daughter has the cutest cupcake book ever and so I chose the popcorn...since it went along with the movie bucket of goodies and "Twilight" movie I was giving her too.

Now I thought these would be super easy...which they were, but they were TIME consuming for sure...because you have to cut apart mini marshmallows and make little popcorn parts and then stick them to the cupcakes. But they turned out super cute don't you think??

Description: Created this layout in My Memories Suite software. Fonts used Lettering Delights Flutter, Satisfaction, Grilled Cheese

Finished!! Photobook is Ordered!

For those of your following my Facebook or Twitter then you've heard me complaining about working on Kirk's 40th Birthday gift...a photobook about him. His mom and sisters sent letters, stories and GREAT photographs to include. I then dug through some albums Kirk has hidden away in boxes or in the closet and started scanning in pictures. 

Well, I finally finished it and boy am I glad. Now I'm crossing my fingers that the book which I ordered in 12x12 will arrive in time for his birthday. So for kicks and giggles I created a iPod slideshow to post here (ignore the black bars on the sides).  I'll post a pic of the final book when I get it!! 

Description: 33 Page Album created in My Memories Suite 
 with Celebrate Life template. Placing the photos was the easy part for sure. It was gathering the journalling and getting it all where I wanted and were it would work too longer. But I thought this template worked great for a guy. 

Photo Background Idea

I was working on Kirk's 40th Birthday Photobook and a friend told me about this very cool feature I can do in the My Memories Suite
software. Read below for the details...
Directions: Starting from scratch in My Memories Suite you simply need to go to the "Backgrounds" option on the right hand Control Panel. From there select "Custom" (file folder) and select a photograph from your computer and voila your picture becomes your background. Note: It will automatically center the photo, so if you don't want it to you'll need to crop it outside of the program. I then scaled the opacity back to 40% and added text and a small photo by the poem. I like how it turned out!! 

Easy Flyer in Minutes

My of my friends ask me to post tips, tricks and simple ideas using the My Memories Suite software, so here's another fun idea. I needed a flyer to pass out at church this weekend, but didn't have a lot of time to create a cool graphic design one like many people seem to expect from me. So I opened up my My Memories Suite program and searched through the Templates until I found one that would work.

I opened up the Carnival Template and got to work. I only needed to pages (see the images below) so I selected those and opened them up. I then copied the "Party Time" title from the second page and pasted it where the "Let the Festivities Begin" title was (after I deleted of course). I then deleted the second page. Then I changed the page format from 12x12 to Portrait and adjusted all the graphics until I thought it would work (see image above). I knew I'd be printing this 4 to a page, so I actually only worried about designing the top half to the page and cropped off the bottom. I then selected the "SHARE" button and output it to a medium quality image. The next set I did for printing I did in word...read on.



So to print, I opened my MS Word program and set up my page to be landscape. From there I "inserted image". Once I had the original image in work, I selected my crop tool and cropped off the bottom section. Then I sized it to a quarter of the page, copied and pasted it three additional times until my page looked like this. Then I printed them off and I was ready to hand them out. By the way, everyone thought I spent a LONG time on this but I snickered because it didn't take me much more then 30 minutes from start to finish (actually took me longer to cut them down).
For more information on My Memories Suite click here!

Fast & Easy Invites Created in MMS

I needed some quick invitations for church last week, so I turned to My Memories Suite. I started by creating a landscape page from scratch. I dropped in a new paper design from the Be My Guest Pack by Ettes & Company and then added ONLY text. It's amazing what you can do with beautiful fonts!

I exported (share button) my page out as a JPG. And then I printed it out on white cardstock. From most PCs you can print 4-up to a page from your preview screen. But I dropped it into Word and pasted a few copies so I had four to a page. I then trimmed them with my paper trimmer.

Next I trimmed a slightly larger piece of black cardstock, punched the right edge with my very cool Stampin Up punch and adhered them together. I tied a small piece of ribbon to a paper clip and slid it onto the white part.

I thought I would personalize them a bit and add each child's name. I simply created a black shape and dropped the kid's names in white text over it, printed it out onto cardstock and then trimmed the names down and placed them under a small paper clip.

These were very inexpensive and very fast and easy to create...and I think they look beautiful, don't you?

My Project 52: Weeks 5 and 6

For those new to my blog, these layouts are for my Project 52 album where I'm creating a layout per week about my life (see link to the right for older layouts). It was less overwhelming then Project 365. All layouts for this project are being created using the My Memories Suite Software. 

Design Note: Created layout in My Memories Suite
 software, using the Bohemian Designer Pack by Miriam Lima (new pack available online in the Design Shop). The paper was too gorgeous that I didn't want to over embellish the layout.

Design Note: Created in My Memories Suite
 Software using the My Favorites Recipe Designer Pack by Ettes & Company. Love all the veggie art and beautiful word art this set had...to yummy not to use!!

My Project 52 - weeks 3 and 4

Just a reminder to all who may have forgotten...I decided that the popular Project 365 was too much pressure and so I created my own challenge...I call it Project 52. 52 weeks didn't seem as hard as 365 days did. And yes I'm scrapbooking each week when they're done (or a week later). But I'm using the My Memories Suite by Polaroid program I got for Christmas. It's quick and easy and I love that it keeps it in an ongoing album. Then when I'm done with the entire year, I'm going to have it bound into a 12x12 hardbound book...I can't wait. 

Design Note: The darling designs I used on these two layouts were created by The Ettes & Company designers (Faye & Annette). If you are a Photoshop guru then you can pic up their digi stuff there too.

Cool Beans, getting paid to share!

My friend sent me some information about getting paid to share my excitement about the My Memories Suite software I use all the time on my projects. I was so excited about this, I had to share. If you're interested you could earn a $20 credit for signing up...well why not?

Here's the information she sent me:

The My Memories suite affiliate program is up and running! Just add our banner to your website and you can earn 20% for every box of software sold. To sign up visit:
http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantID=20384

If you need more information contact me at lori@lilredcottage.com.

The process to setup an Affiliate Account is a simple 5 step process that begins with a selection of your username and password. In the future, you will use these selected words to access your ShareASale.com Affiliate Account.