My name is Heaven... (sharing a Silhouette file)

as in full of good intentions. One of the said intentions was to share a die-cut every couple of weeks or so.

That was two months ago. Finally I have my first share, a few summer words. I know summer is over but scrapbookers are always catching up as opposed to cardmakers who are always making ahead, so it might be of use to someone.

Here are some words in .studio format, for cutting with the Silhouette, download it here. It is my first upload in Media Fire, let me know if it doesn't work.

I used some of the words in my summer mini, which I'll post in the weekend. Here is one of the pages,where I used "travel".

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.

Birthday Layout and a digi freebie

My little girl was 9 in February.  This year she went for a small party, only a few friends over for a DVD, popcorn and pizza - she loved every minute of it. I was in a complete non-photographic mood on the day, so I used a photo taken a couple of days after.

* Patterned paper, mist and buttons: Studio Calico
* Pen: Uniball signo
* Font: Century Gothic (journaling)


While I love experimenting, I still find that when I look back at the old layouts, the ones I still love are the simple ones. Like this one. The only thing I am not sure about it is if it suitable for a birthday layout of a 9-year-old. It might be a bit .. how do I say ... not girly enough, maybe?


Now I have a great idea for a girly page, which I might try for something else. I wish I had thought of it when I was doing this page.


Now a complete change of subject. If you have this punch - Photo labels large punch by EK Success - you might be interested in what I have to offer:

The "large" is a bit misleading, the punch is big but not the labels. Anyway, the labels always looked a bit bare when punched them into plain paper, I was always wishing for a border around. Studio Calico has suitable stamps, but I am a lousy stamper, so I thought I'll make a digi with all of them in the same position as the punch so I can print and them punch the 3 labels together. Easy, right?

No so, at least for me, it took ages to get the shapes right and then to position in the same way as the punch. (Yes, I punched and scanned the "left over", but still it took ages). To spare someone the same grief I'm sharing my labels here.

and in blue:

Click on the image to increase it, then save it. Print it and trim the paper on the printed line so you can align it easily with the punch. It's not perfect but good enough.


I just realised now you'd like to see how it look once punched, so I quickly scanned this: