Making Memories

Winners

Congratulations to the following people who will be receiving a girly, girl prize for posting a comment for Maggie’s online baby shower.

Karol | May 25, 2007 at 05:21 AM 

Dawn M. | May 25, 2007 at 07:58 AM

Natalie | May 25, 2007 at 08:29 AM

kristyn | May 25, 2007 at 09:47 AM 

Wendy Myers | May 25, 2007 at 09:50 AM 

Also, Maggie wanted to post a comment to everyone who attended her shower.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

This was so much fun! Thanks so much to Making Memories for throwing me an online shower! And a huge thank you to all of you for all of your comments and advice! I have read through every single comment and I really appreciate all of you taking the time to share your kind words, thoughts and great advice!! I want to figure out a way to include all of the great advice in my scrapbook - maybe a mini book would be fun!! I also loved all of the name suggestions! How will I ever choose?? There are just too many cute girl names!!

Thanks again to all of you! I really appreciate it!! I am so excited that I get to give away some fun prizes now! How fun!! Enjoy and thanks again!!

Hugs!!

Maggie

Try something new challenge

Hi everyone! This is my very first post on the MM blog, so I’m pretty excited! This week, I decided to challenge myself and try a couple things I don’t normally do. I had so much fun with it that I thought I’d post it on the blog as a challenge for everyone to try. If you try it, upload your creations to our MM Idea Gallery, I’d LOVE to see it!

Shown right below is a simple 9" x 9" page that I made. The photo on the page is a picture of my two boys while we were in Hawaii last summer. Whenever I use stripes on a page, I almost always use the stripes vertically. So I wanted to break out of that rut and try something new for myself – I was determined to use at least some stripes horizontally.

Next, I added sewing. So what’s different about that? It’s probably no secret that I like to sew on my pages, but the sewing is usually on my pages – sewing on the paper. So I wanted to sew on the embellishments instead. So for this page, I decided to sew on the green trim and also on the leather flower and leather page corner. I had so much fun sewing on these embellishments – I can’t wait to try sewing on my stickers, chipboard accents, and anything else that I think my sewing machine can handle.

Then the last part of my challenge was to take this single-photo page and somehow make it work for ten photos! With a simple photo collage and a few changes to the accents, I transformed the page above into the 10-photo layout shown below. The small photo of my husband and me replaced the flower accent in the corner. And a title strip replaced the stripes at the top of the page.

So here’s the challenge:

1. Try this simple page composition with one or ten photos. If you’d like to try both, go for it!
2. Use horizontal stripes somewhere on your page.
3. Hand or machine stitch on an embellishment – it can be on sticker, ribbon, trim, a chipboard letter, a fabric flower, you name it!

I can’t wait to see what you create!

Leah

Supplies for A&A

MM Kids Ethan Paper, Fresh Anthology Family & Friends Metal Tab, Fresh Anthology Button, Mailbox Alphabet, Brad, Leather Flower, Leather Corner, Green Trim: Making Memories. Other: thread. Font: Arial.

Supplies for Just another Sunday afternoon

MM Kids Ethan Paper, Fresh Anthology Family & Friends Metal Tab, Fresh Anthology Button, Cheeky Clips, Green Trim: Making Memories. Other: thread. Font: Rockwell.

Funky Vintage Eye Candy

Now that you know how Funky Vintage came about, we wanted to show you some samples using that product.  Enjoy!

   

Inspiration All Around You

Inspiration comes from many places - things we see, things we hear, things we do. Here is an example of some inspiration from something that I would see about once a week - from a shirt my daughter has. Whenever she would wear this simple shirt, I would smile and say how cute she looked. Okay, I know I'm a little biased - she IS my daughter, but why would I be drawn to this shirt? I simply liked the design. The colors and shapes made me happy.

In this example, I duplicated three of the flowers, the colors, shapes, and even the stitching. There is a lot going on here and I could easily use just one element for my inspiration, or change the colors and leave the shapes the same. That is just what inspiration is - a place to start the creative process and make something new out of an idea.

Be on the lookout for things that inspire you.  Take a different perspective on the things that you see and try to incorporate that into your work.

Have fun.

Joey

Happy Memorial Day

Today we are out of the office for the Memorial Day Holiday.  If you are off also, we hope you enjoy your day.  Check back tomorrow for everyday inspirational ideas for Joey, our MM Idol winner. 

Maggie’s Baby Shower Open House

We’re having a baby shower for Maggie!  After three adorable little boys, she is finally having a girl, so we are celebrating.  Due to the fact that our blog readers come from all across the world, this baby shower is going to put your imagination to the test.  If you are game, read on….  It can’t be a baby shower without some yummy treats.  Unfortunately we can’t serve these treats to you, but we can give you a recipe to try.  These delectable treats take little effort to make, but the end result is marvelous.

Sandwich Almond Cookies

1 cup soft butter

1/3 cup whipping cream

2 cups flour

Mix with fingers (like a pie crust)

Chill dough for ½ - 1 hour

Take out dough and roll to approx. ¾”.

Cut with a 1 ½” circle cookie cutter.

Put circles on plate and sprinkle with sugar.

Prick four times with a fork.

Bake 375 degrees for 3-4 minutes

Frosting

¼ cup butter

¾ cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp almond

add a little bit whipping cream until frosting is smooth 

add pink or blue food coloring

Next, it’s time for gifts.  Maggie recently had a baby shower and received some adorable outfits for her new little girl.  She is also working on the decorations for the nursery.  We wanted to share.

 

As your gift to her, please share any new advice for the mom to be.  Do you have any fabulous tips on how to raise a girl or do you have any great name suggestions for her?  Share your thoughts by posting a comment.  In return we are going to give back to you.  Maggie has put together five fabulous ALL GIRL PRIZES (pink, pink and more pink)!  She is going to draw five winners on Wednesday, May 30^th.

Thank you for stopping by the baby shower.  Make sure to post on comment on your way out.

Guest Challenge from Miyuki

Hi, everyone!  I am Miyuki Kawakami from Japan.  As most of you may already know, the Scrapbooking craze is spreading in my country really FAST!!! I LOVE Making Memories a lot and use their products in my layouts all the time.  They asked me to create the challenge for this week.  I wanted share a cute acent that I love to use on my pages.  Using tags and stickers, you can create these REALLY cute snowy accents, as shown in my layout.  Let’s have a good time making these cool-easy-fun embellishments together! 

To do this, follow these easy steps. 

1. Start with light blue cardstock and scallopped cardstock
2. Adhere MM's Cheeky’s Emery patterned papers as a thick border on the left
3. Use Cheeky’s Emery patterned papers as a short border or photo mat
4. Adhere two of your favorite “snowy” photos
5. Choose the best spot for the “Snowy Accent” and place a metal rimmed vellum tag in that spot
6. Adhere a Snowflake Eyelet Charm and secure it with a snowflake brad
7. Adhere alphabet stickers around the vellum tag to create circular text effect
8. Use the same technique to add two more of these on your page
9. Insert a hidden journal under a top photo

I would love to see what you have done when you are finished.  Upload your pages to the MM Idea gallery so we can all see.

Miyuki

 

Chocolate is my inspiration!!

Not to eat, heck no, it gives me a sugar high and makes me weird but, I was browsing around an eclectic imported food store in Draper, UT the other day and I saw these beautiful little wrapped chocolate squares that stopped me in my tracks!. Beautiful packaging has been my passion since I first became a graphic designer, over 20 years ago and my children still remember (and complain about) the fact that I have bought many food items based solely on the beauty of the packaging without regard for the taste of the actual product…some tortilla chips come to mind. In my defense, there is some logic behind my thinking. I figure if a company is going to pay attention to the details, like awesome packaging, they will be paying attention to the big stuff, like product taste!

The chocolate that is currently my design inspiration is a product by Scharffen Berger. The typography is in perfect scale to the size of the square, which is the perfect shape. Then there is the color….chocolate brown for sure but it is combined with the perfect amount of a beautiful and delicate pale yellow. Each of the colors makes the other richer and more powerful. There is also a mint chocolate which one would assume would be green but no, they have chosen a light blue and a richer, more orange yellow and it works! Both versions have a subtle, slightly darker horizontal stripe which adds dimension to the overall design. Everything is in perfect balance and all of it works together in a subtle sophistication that inspires me to pay attention of all the details to make something memorable out of something very ordinary. After all, it is only chocolate.  Now think how easy it would be to apply these same rules for color, type, and design to your scrapbooking pages.  If anything else take the colors here and translate it into a beautiful layout.

Gail

Spotlight

If you have ever uploaded your work to the MM website, then keep your eyes pealed to the MM blog because your work may be showcased as a great idea.  We all fell in love with a project from Kerry Lynn Yeary. 

Take a look at her project for today’s inspiration piece.

She has been kind enough to provide instructions so you can try this project for yourself.

Supplies needed:

Vintage book

Letter stickers

Patterned paper

Assortment of found papers

Various embellishments

2-4 1.5" book rings

1. Remove front and back cover from your vintage book and trim raw edge with scissors {or leave as is if desired)

2. Apply pattern paper to front or back as desired (I like to keep the back cover as is to show original book details)

3. Apply chosen quote with letter stickers on front cover

4. Cut random found papers to same size as your book cover and randomly shuffle them to make up your altered books interior pages (I like to use some original pages from the book I've altered as dividers in mine)

5. Punch 2-4 holes (your choice) in front cover, back cover and found papers so each piece lines up with back

6. Bind with book rings.

7. Add any additional embellishments to pages.

Enjoy!

Wendy's Scrap Space

We just moved into our house a few months ago, and I was lucky enough to be able to claim one of the upstairs bedrooms as MY room (office, scrap space, studio…call it whatever you want, it’s MINE! lol).  This is the room where I spend countless hours working and playing with paper and scissors and glue. J  I love the big window that’s right above my table.  From the doorway, you can see my work table (which is our old kitchen table that I inherited when we got a “nice” kitchen set.)  Right now I have my printer sitting on my two Making Memories filing cabinets, which hold my Making Memories cardstock and patterned papers. 

My sewing machine is always out on my work table because I can’t seem to make anything any more without sewing on it.  My computer is also on my work table, but when I need more space, I simply move my wireless keyboard and mouse over onto the shelf or on top of my printer. 

When I’m sitting at my table, my black bookshelf is at my left.  This is where I keep photos, some of my scrapbooks, my photo paper and printer supplies, my camera and camera “stuff,” all of my MM paint, and other odds and ends.

Directly in front of me are two of my most prized possessions – my Scrap Boxes.  These cabinets are incredible – they hold SO much stuff.  One cabinet is dedicated solely to my Design Team products – mostly Making Memories.  I am able to organize ALL of my embellishments and a lot of my papers, idea books, and other misc. product.  This cabinet is organized by embellishment type (for example, all of my ABC rub-ons are together, all of my letter stickers are together, etc.)  The other cabinet holds everything else.  I’ve adopted a color organization system for this cabinet – I have one big bin for each color and all of my embellishments are organized here. The 2^nd cabinet also houses my tools (punches, ink pads, etc.) and SO much more.  Seriously, I had bookshelves filled with Rubbermaid clear boxes lining my entire room before I got these Scrap Boxes and now EVERYTHING is organized and pretty and I can find anything I need FAST!!  And when I’m not working, I can simply close the cabinet doors and my room looks all neat and clean! 

Wendy

I can help anyone who might want to purchase a Scrap Box get a bit of a discount.  Just e-mail me or visit my blog for more info. If you have any specific questions about how I organize anything, please email me or post your question in the comments section here – I’ll get back to you soon!