An Apple a Day

I am behind in posting, I am in the 5th week of project 365. Here is week 3, I haven't compiled week 4 yet.

In week 3 I decided to have a theme, which  was a good idea, but I was a bit too narrow on the theme: Apples!

By the last day, I had run out of ideas. And time, as I left the photo taking for the last minutes of the day.

I love punches!!!

My love affair with punches started slowly, but now I have a sizeable collection. I counted them just now and if I include the tiny ones, there are 26 punches in my collection. Excluding a few mistakes (impulse buys) and one or two which are not good quality, I use them all, they're the a scrapbooker best friend.

All this to show you a layout which I made a while ago but never posted.

It is still on my wall, one of my favourite layouts of all times.
Another favourite tools/supplies in the layout:
White mist by Studio Calico.
Twine
Martha Stewart Score Board (used to make a grid pattern on the cardstock).

Project 365

 First of all, a shout: GRÁ,  thanks for the comments, could you please email me with your address at elisamayn at yahoo dot com.

As if I didn't have enough things to catch up I started project 365. Which is to take a photo everyday for a whole year. This is an attempt to take my photography to the next level as I feel I didn't improve at all in the last 2 to 3 years.

To make it feel more manageable, I am thinking in weekly chunks, somehow taking a photo a day for a week (for 52 weeks) doesn't seem as daunting.

I just finished my 3rd week but I haven't uploaded all the photos yet, here are my first 2 weeks.

Two days to get used to the whole idea, 29/10 to 30/10

First week 30/10 to 06/11, some taken at home, some taken in Westport. Photos were really boring so I inverted the colours of a couple of images and run an action in another. Cheating I know.  2 Chandeliers, 2 ceiling lights.

Week 2 07/11 to 13/11. I had the worst flu in years but still managed to take a photo a day. Last one is my son's bike in the porch seen from indoors.

Back into Craftland and freebie giveaway continued.

A couple posts ago I offered some Halloween scrapbooking stash, and the winner  :-)  is Grá, I didn't have to have a draw for this one. Grá, please contact me at elisamayn at yahoo dot com with your address so I can post you the stash!

My another giveway is My Memories Suite which I posted here. It is a fabulous prize and I'll wait a little bit more to announce the winner. Put a comment in the original post to have a chance!

Here's another digi I made with My Memories Suite, using a ready made template, I only changed the title of the layout. It traces the change in my daughter's outfit from the last 3 Halloween nights. She wanted to be scary and  she chose her outfit; a vampire; and I let her do her own make up. I have to admit it was a little bit too creepy for me, but she was happy.

As for paper and glue, I am also making some Christmas stuff, some cards like this one:

I'll post my remaining cards in my other blog next week.

Have a great weekend!

Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway!!!

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!

I have a great and fitting giveaway for Digital Scrapbooking Day; a fabulous sofware called My Memories Suite!

A few weeks ago, I was asked to review it and give a copy to one of my readers.  As a hybrid scrapper; that is one that like to use digital elements to real life pages; I jumped at the opportunity. 

My background is in IT, so I think that sofware should be easy to use so I just started using as soon as I installed it. I was amazed on how easy it is was to create a whole album from scratch. There are tons of templates; with styles to suit all tastes.

My own style veers towards clean and simple; so I choose one of the simplest ones - but there are lots of quirk and colourful ones too. One that caught my eye was the baby one; I think I might have to make one for a friend who had a baby girl recently.

One thing that My Memories Suite have to accomplished is to have ways to create an album very quickly while at the same time allowing you to have as much control as you want. In one hand you can create a 30+ page album in one step and upload all your photos in another step.  Or alternatively; you can pick each page style one by one; or even create your own style. And choose which photos go where by using the drag and drop.

Because I didn't read the online manual it took me a while to find out how modify each photo (eventually most of the things I wanted were in crop and effect tools). Under effects I found a few basic tools like making the photo lighter; darker; black&white; etc. Crop  allowed me to move a photo within the frame. The think I missed was how to resize the photo while keeping the frame intact.

There are a number of background papers, embellishments to choose from, as well as a big array of text effects available. However, since I already have a great amount of digital papers and elements, I wanted to know if I could use them. The answers was YES. There's probably other ways to do it, but the easiest I could find was to upload them as photos.

This is a quick album I created this evening - I used a pre-designed album in My Memories Suite and used the option to add the photos automatically. My only design choice was to add a few doodles and word art by Karla Dudley which I had already in my laptop. And then I exported in movie format which I am sharing with you. Easy peasy!
 

There's more cool features which I didn't review here, like the ways you can make your album interactive. I think an album in a DVD would make a great Christmas present for the family. I am envisaging adding a Christmas message from my children to their grandparents. Maybe I could record them singing a Christmas carol and add it to the album too?

This is my evaluation of the software:

PROS: This is a great software to make an album with interactive features or a quick traditional album to be shared online or to be printed.
It is easy to use and flexible.

CONS: Not many, but it is bulky and takes a while to install and to run the first time.  Some features, like ordering a calendar are only available to US and Canada customers.

I am pleased to say I was given a Share the Memories code that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value!). The code is STMMMS32678.

My Memories website also has digital scrapbooking kits, which of course can be used on its own or with My Memories Suite. If you'd like to put your name in the hat for a chance to win My Memories Suite; leave a comment telling me which is your favourite Christmas kit from My Memories.