Making Memories

Here is a great idea for the last day of August, it comes from MM's Show & Tell book.  This page was created by Maggie Holmes.  This is a perfect way to use your old letter stickers.  The rules to this is there is no rules, mix your favorite colors and fonts for your background.

Instructions:

1. Attach stickers to cardstock and stitch boarder around edge
2. Attach vellum and ledger paper to page
3. Attach photo to page
4. Type journaling and cut into strips
5. Embellish with ribbon and rub-ons

Supplies:

• Stickers, cardstock, rub-ons, brad, ledger paper, vellum, metal board clip and ribbon: Making Memories
• Font: Arial
• White pen: Uni-ball

Hi friends! I hope you've enjoyed this month's MM vacation album challenge. I loved seeing the beautiful pages and great ideas from Wendy, Jennifer, Wilna, and Laura. 

My contribution to the vacation album will be a "What I collected" page. In July, my family and I went to Tokyo for 2 weeks. I was invited to Japan to do a scrapbook show and to give a seminar at a scrapbook convention much like the Craft and Hobby Association conventions that we have here in the U.S.

After the convention, my and family and I had the time of our lives exploring Tokyo. It was SO much fun!! The people were wonderful and the food was awesome! Once we figured out the railway system, we traveled all around and saw as much as we could. We got so many cool things in Japan; we had to pay $25 extra for luggage that exceeded the allowed weight, LOL. As a start to documenting all the cool things we collected, I created this scrapbook page.

To hold brochures and notes about our travels, I cut a transparency into a triangle and machine stitched it to the page, creating a clear pocket. I then used the MM travel tags to help hold different things. In the upper left I wrapped a rubber band around the tag so that I can slip tickets underneath the band. To hold some coins (yen and an anime coin that my son bought), I again machine stitched on a transparency so that the tag had a pocket. On the blue tag is an anime card (my family loves anime) which I just adhered to the tag using non-permanent adhesive. The last tag uses an MM clip to holds a few business cards - I met a lot of very nice people in Japan, and if you've been to Japan before, you might have noticed that exchanging business cards is an important part of the introduction process. It's pretty cool! 

Now you may have noticed that there is a lot going on in this page. I've really loaded it up, but I did that because it reminds me of Tokyo. In the city, there is so much going on from a visual perspective - whether it was buildings I saw downtown, advertisements, or even what I saw on Japanese T.V. There was lots of visual stimulation and it was interesting to see so many patterns, colors, and details all squeezed together.

So here's the challenge:

1. Create a "What I collected page" using the new MM travel papers and embellishments. I love this line!

2. Adhere or machine stitch at least one pocket on your page. It can be clear like mine (using a transparency) or made of paper.

3. Try some of my tag ideas or come up with your own ways to use tags to attach and display items that you've collected in your travels.

4. Post your finished page in our gallery. We'd love to see it!

Have a wonderful day! Take care :) 

Leah

Margie, Maricarmen and I just got back from CKU Nashville and honestly had a blast.  We did a day of make and takes and two days of our album track.  The people we met were fantastic and WE LOVE THEM!  We love attending and making new friends.  Here are some photos of the people we got to teach.

For fun we hung out at the Grand Ole Opry House.  We bought hats (we glittered them of course) and danced to the cool music. 

For more photos, take a look at Margie's blog. 

It's time once again to vote for CK Readers' Choice Awards. 

If you haven't already placed your vote for your favorite MM product, do so now.  Here is the link:

VOTE NOW!

I love to blog and I love my blog. Even though I have changed it many times and spend hours trying to learn HTML codes and stuff. Once in a while, I find a blog that totally mesmerize me. One such find is Sarah Bowen's blog. It's a wealth of artistic information. I also LOVE her play list and would often open her blog and listen to all her music (I call it radio Sarah). Her links to various things is fascinating and most of all, I love her photography and her scrapbooking.

I find that I can be visiting her blog and the next thing I know, a whole hour has gone by. I love to look at it (so clean and simple) yet so amazingly artistic and inspiring. She really inspires me creatively. She is one of those "gems" that I really treasure and admire.

Wilna

In MM's August newsletter, we had a refer a friend to sign-up promotion for our newsletter.  The FIVE readers who signed up the most people were promised a fantastic prize including the latest from MM.  Thank you to everyone who participated.

If your name is listed below, then you are a winner.  Email me your contact information so I can send you the prize.  (jweston@makingmemories.com)

• Chelsi Dall
• Heidi S. Tallerud
• Katie Piotrowski
• Kristina Lewis
• Tina Mayo

Watch for future newsletters from MM.  We will definitely be doing this again.  If you don't currently receive our newsletter, sign up now.

This week, as part of the month long challenge, we're creating a layout for our travel album with the theme of "What I Did". When Making Memories asked me to create a layout with this theme, I actually panicked a little. LOL! I hate to admit that my family and I don't travel much ... and I really didn't have any photos to work with. Luckily for me a close friend of mine, Kori Babb, had just gotten back from a vacation to California (my home state). She had such a great time on her trip and had some really great photos. So I thought it would be fun to create a "What I Did" layout for her ... using her photos and her words.

 

I do know that it's easy to get back from a vacation and end up with a ton of photos. So why not pick a few photos that really sum up your activities and create a layout using those. For this layout I choose a photo of Kori and her husband Terry as my main photo ... and then I printed a few smaller sized photos to display together that highlighted the trips activities.

 

I absolutely love the new travel collection. I think it is actually very versatile and I'm looking forward to using it on lots of different themes. Maybe it'll even get me motivated to actually travel myself. LOL! I love all the colors in this collection and they went perfectly with these photos. I think my favorite product was the jigsaw letters and the chipboard accents. I'm in love with chipboard and I think it's great that there are all the different patterns of letters to mix and match ... and how cute are those buttons!

To create this layout:

1.  Trim your red pattern paper to 10.5" x 11" and then mat with white cardstock. Adhere this to the right edge of your green pattern paper.

2.  Trim a 3/4" strip of the cream and brown pattern papers and adhere across the middle of the layout. Add a piece of blue ribbon where the edges meet and staple on the ends.

3.  Adhere your main photo to the top right side of the layout and arrange the smaller photos in the bottom left hand corner, overlapping the paper strips and ribbon.

4.  Adhere the "our adventures" tag and add jigsaw letters for your title.

5.  Adhere "favorite places" tag on bottom of layout and add journaling strips across each line, or hand journal directly on tag.

6.  Thread chipboard buttons with floss and adhere to layout along with chipboard colorboard tag, anchoring them to the paper strips and ribbon.

Are you up for the challenge? Get out that stack of vacation photos and pick out a few that highlight what you did on your trip. Then create a layout and get the main events down in writing to go with the photos. And don't forget to share it with us. Upload your layout to the Making Memories idea gallery so we can all see where you went on your vacation and what you did. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Laura Vegas

It's time for another "We Caught You" blog post.  This time we caught the following people linking the MM blog to their blog.  As a thank you, we are going to send them a surprise.  If you are a winner, please email me (jweston@makingmemories.com) your address.

The WINNERS are.....

• My Scrappy Stuff Blog
• J boys Mommy Blog
• Well Said Cards Blog

It's not too late for you to be caught also.  If you have the MM blog linked to your blog, post a comment with your blog address.  If you don't have the MM blog linked to your blog do so and then post a comment with the address.  We will pick another winner by the end of this week. 

Ad meetings at MM are always really exciting.  We love the opportunity that it gives us to be creative with the products that we are coming out with.  On this particular day we were at an ad brainstorm meeting for our Holiday and Christmas programs.  It was the end of a long week for all of us, so we got a little sidetracked.  This is our graphics department getting a little crazy with our Clears.

By the way, don't tell them we put their photos up.  I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate the entire world seeing them with a fake mustache.  Check our the following publications to see the end result of the ad.

• -Scrapbooks Etc Nov/Dec. issue
• -Simple Scrapbooks Nov/Dec. issue
• -Creating Keepsakes December issue
• -Paper Crafts Dec/Jan. issue

Today we decided to have a little company bowling party, so we headed down to the local bowling alley to show off our bowling skills.  We had a great time.  Here are some pictures of the fun.  The winner was our DC manager, who managed to score 198. 

(Tess and Angela enjoying a refreshing soda, Jodi and Mike posing for a photo before the next round, Jodi, Megan and Dawn hoping for a strike)

(Keith, Hillary, Audre and Colin - the team wanting the bowling trophy the most, Brian and Leslie checking out the score, Jodi doing her pregame stretches)

   

(Jodi and Heather trying their lucky spin, Mike giving it his all, all the smelly shoes after the game - gross!)

(Amy and Jodi - tall and taller, Hillary and her lucky charm, Dave giving it one more try, Brian following his winning game)

 

(The "Victory Pose" complements of Margie, Jenny, Jodi and Tess)

Join me in sending birthday wishes to Wendy Anderson.  We hope this day is full of fun, presents and a yummy birthday cake!

   

Like so many experiences while traveling, meeting new people must be one of the best things! My mom and dad visited us from South Africa in October last year. This was the first time my mom traveled anywhere overseas and what an experience it was for them. They met so many new people and what fascinated them was that people are so much the same right around the globe. They ate turkey for the first time and even saw a white Christmas.  So "I am dreaming of a white Christmas" is a dream for them that came true. My parents also met a few people of their age and they LOVED talking to them hearing stories from long gone. And of course they enjoyed their grand children! I am sure of all the people they met the little people was their favorite!

This week my challenge to you is to create a page for your travel album about the people you have met on your vacations.

Wilna

We get submissions to our idea gallery from all over the world. Today we thought we would spotlight a submission from Anne Jo Lexander who is from Norway. 

Anne used MM's Funky Vintage collection and Tag Maker Rims to create this beautiful page.  What a simple and fun way to frame multiple photos on this project.  To top the page off she used some additional embellishments like flocked ephemera, fabulous flowers and clears to add that extra bit of dazzle. 

For more great ideas, visit our consumer idea gallery.  If you have a fabulous project that you want the rest of the world to see, don't forget to upload it to our idea gallery.

I got an email from Shanna Vineyard the other day.  She was excited to share her beach album that she created using MM's new tropical travel program.  Take a look at her project for today's inspiration.

 

 

Signs are one of the most recognizable forms of communication around. Whenever I see a new one, I notice it right away, just like I did with this new sign I saw at Walmart. A couple of things really drew my eye...first the colors. I love black with pink (or black with any color really!) so this was a favorite right away. Second, the letters. Now, these kept me looking for a few minutes. I love how they are overlayed but carved out too - with a border in between. My first question - how can I do that on a scrapbook page?

I found a super easy way to create these same type of letters using stickers as shown on "Sunny" - a layout of my youngest daughter playing in the water.

1. Decide on the word you want to do and select some stickers that look good. I used these awsome MM stickers that have several sizes and font types all included. I like to take each sticker and lightly stick it on the edge of my table as I work.

2. Lay the first letter slightly over the second letter - or, if it looks better for the second letter to overlay the first, do it that way - and stick together.

3. Using a small, precise pair of scissors, trim around the overlaying letter. On curved letters, it helps to trim a little bit more, on straight letters, that's all you need to do.

4. Now, move on to the next letter and do the same until the word is finished and ready to stick to your layout or project!

I've shared with you, now you share with me - show all of us your creations using this fun technique by adding your version to the MM idea gallery!

Joey

I was recently asked to make a mini album using the new Funky Vintage Flocked Chipboard mini albums and I have to admit that I LOVE them!  The 6" x 9" size is a fun new take on your typical mini album. I've been doing 6" x 6" albums for years now, but those extra 3 inches gives you that little extra room to work with, without being too overwhelmed.  The album itself has a super wide spine allowing lots of room for bulkier pages.  I love that I could decorate the chipboard cover, yet it has the fun flocked spine to give you a head start and add in interesting texture to the cover.  I simply added some pattern paper, painted jigsaw, a frame, and some fun Funky Vintage embellishments to complete my cover. 

My album is titles "Faces of my Days."  I made this to hold all the faces of my daycare kids that are in my life right now.  The 6" x 9" pages were the perfect size to make this easy and simple, and the 2-ring binder style album makes it easy to add as may kids that I want over the years.  I used papers, embellishments, and paints from the Funky Vintage collection to assemble this album.

Pick up one of these fun new mini books next time you're out or buy them here.  I think you will find that the 6" x 9" page size will work great for so many projects...not too big or too small.  Make sure and let us know what you come up with by uploading your designs to the MM Idea Gallery.  Happy creating!

Laura

 

I love summer vacations- big ones, little ones, weekend ones...even ones that only last for a few minutes in a sun filled backyard. There are so many beautiful things to see in the summer time- especially in Western Washington State, where I live.

I think because I don't have children, I naturally take a lot of scenic photos of our excursions- and I am glad that I do. It's great to look back and remember how yellow the grass is at your favorite campsite, or how misty the ocean can get in the morning...not only does it highlight so many happy memories, it also helps refresh your memory when packing for a second visit.

I made this page with a few more of the photos I have from a quick road/surf trip to Neah Bay last August. Neah (Nee-ah) Bay is the Northwestern most tip of the United States, and is situated on the Macaw Indian Reservation. It is also a hotspot for Washington State Surfers. I admit that camping sooooo close to the wide open Pacific Oceanwas a little unnerving at night, (I was fearing a sudden Tsunami, much like kids fear the monster in the closet) but during the day, the views and weather were beautiful enough for me to want to stay forever.

Looking for beautiful scenery to take photos of is one of the things I look most forward to when getting ready for a vacation. Do you have scenic photos that you haven't scrapped? If so, why don't you join us in filling up your album with pages highlighting the various things you saw on your last vacation, and share your pages with us in the Making Memories Idea Gallery.

Jennifer Pebbles

 

We've just launched an exciting contest that could win you a great prize package.  Between today and August 17 (midnight, MST), we're asking our blog and newsletter readers to send an invitation to friends and family, encouraging them to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Then - the FIVE readers who sign up the most subscribers by will receive a fantastic goodie basket filled with Making Memories products that are just now shipping to stores.

Subscribing is oh-so-easy. Visit the Making Memories home page and click on "Sign Up for Our Newsletter."  And here's the key: Make sure to tell your friends to put your name in the box marked "Who Referred You?" and we'll be able to credit you with that subscription! We truly appreciate your help. Good luck ... and look for the winners' names to be posted the week of August 20!

What do you get when you mix ledger patterns, lacey flowers, loopy stripes, knockout solids and die-cut edges?  You get our {Note}worthy collection of open stock papers, leather-spined binder albums, multi-layered stickers, embellishment jars, boxed collections and so much more!  These striking ledger designs dressed in three vibrant color families, Ava, Audrey and Hillary are definitely deserving of attention!  We are beyond excited about the way this line turned out and even more excited to get busy creating with it.  My sister is also thrilled because she just had her first baby in May (this is my first niece...yeah!).  We knew for many months before her birth that she would be naming her Avah, so we decided to name one of the collections after her!  However, we dropped the "h" to have a more common spelling for the line - Ava.  We love to name all of our collections after people we know and love.  So here's to my beautiful, sweet little niece! 

Jayme

With digital photos a lot of the tips and tricks happen "backstage" with programs like Photoshop. I want to show you a very simple way to blur a part of your picture while having a very sharp focus on another part. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements. You can use this link to get a free 30 day trial of PSE.
To get the blur effect, we will be using layers which is GREAT to work with.

1. Open your picture.
2. Go to layer (on the top bar)  and make a duplicate layer by selecting duplicate layer. On the right hand side, you will se 2 little blocks each with your picture in them.
3. Go to filters and select Gaussian blur... you can determine how much you want it to blur by adjusting the slide button.
4. Then using your ERASER (on the left hand tool bar) , you erase the parts you want to sharpen /the parts you want to have in focus.
( It's just like having 2 layers. The bottom one is the normal picture and the top one is the blurred one. Now you take away from the blurred one and the bottom one "shines" through!)
5. Go to layer again and click Flatten image

and VIOLA!!! You have a picture that is blurred with a subject in focus.

I hope this is simple enough. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment here and I will check back often and asnwer them in the comment section

Happy picture taking!
Wilna
x

Look for the following products to be shipping to your local stores this month.

Velvet Brads
Elegantly clad in velvet, these brads come in four rich, new color combinations and are dressed to impress. Available in 4 color themes.

Epoxy Curling Tags
Themed epoxy-covered tags curl around ribbon with the help of our Tag Curler tool.  Attach these wishes and images to treat bags, party favors, cards, layouts and more.  Available in 4 themes.

Christmas Collection
The holiday season comes and goes, but the memories last a lifetime.  Make the most of them by picking up distinctive products fit for your festivities.  Making Memories St. Nick program embodies all the traditional style belonging to the season of togetherness.  For a more graphic look, try the bright colors and fresh designs of the cheerful Deck the Halls program.

 

It’s summertime which means traveling, vacations and relaxing.  We are going to do another one month challenge to help you scrapbook your summer photos.  Each week we will create a page that you can add to your album.  At the end of the month, you will have a complete album that you can enjoy in the months to come, especially when it’s cold outside and you were wishing you could be away.

My assignment was to create a “where I went” page.  I decided to use several photos from our most recent getaway rather than a single enlarged photo.  With four little ones, we don’t take very exotic vacations – but we sure enjoy do enjoy a refreshing hiatus on occasion. A few weeks ago, our entire family (my parents, my two brothers and my sister and their families) enjoyed a week in St. George, Utah.  Nope, definitely not exotic, but definitely fun and refreshing. 

The new travel line is absolutely gorgeous and worked perfectly with my photos (I LOVE when papers look good with COLOR photos, so I didn’t have to turn any black and white in order to use the photos I wanted to use.) 

Now, for the challenge.  I decided to make this a multi-challenge challenge.  You can choose as many of the parts as you’d like – the more you choose, the more challenging your project will be.

1.  Use the new travel line from Making Memories to create a page about “where you went.”

2.  Use at least SIX photos on your page – keep at least half of them in color

3.  Incorporate your handwriting somewhere on the layout (mine is on the hidden tag, tucked behind the blue background)

4.  Use 3 or more types of lettering (I used stickers, rub-ons, type, and handwriting on mine)

Most importantly, remember to journal – whether your vacation is to far-off places, distant lands, or just a night away, an hour from your home.  Someday you’ll be glad you did – and so will your family!

Wendy

 

Each of our design team members has a different process of completing their projects.  Today Christy Tomlinson is going to share her process.

I love getting assignments from MM.  I am lucky to be able to work on both sides of the design team (book design team and package/web design team).  Book assignments come from with Gail.  We get to submit ideas for sections of the book and also mostly get to decide which to use. I do a lot of home decor projects, and so I constantly browsing through books, the Internet, magazines etc. trying to find something that sparks my imagination. Once I have conceived a concept for a spread, I e-mail the idea to Gail and give her detail by detail what the project will be, the color scheme and what products I want to use. Then I wait! I either get an e-mail back saying "Sounds fun, can't wait to see it", or there are a few times that I get an e-mail back saying "I'm not in love with it... but how about this". I love Gail's honesty for two reasons, first it makes our books so good and second because she can sometimes feed off a concept I have given her and give me even a better idea. She is great that way.

I love this process for books, because then I know before I even start designing what I am doing and how I am going to do it. It makes the process so much smoother for ME!  After the projects are done, I send in another picture for final approval.  Sometimes my concept goes off track a little during design, so it's important for me to send approval pictures BEFORE I send them in.

 

Once I get the approval, I mail them in! We eventually do get these projects/layouts back, (after the books are published) and then I get to use them in my house, for my scrapbooks, or give away to family or friends. They make great gifts!

The other types of assignments I get are from Jenny. The assignments are for packaging, web, catalogs etc. These are fun because the turn around time is pretty fast. Usually I get an e-mail asking if I can do an assignment and that if so, the product will be mailed out that day. I usually have 3-4 days to complete it and then mail it back in. I actually work SO much better with these types of deadlines because I work better under pressure! LOL. I love working with Jenny because she always gives me such fun things to do. These layouts are smaller in size (usually 6" x 6" or 9" x 9") and are used to showcase product, so they generally only have pictures, titles and embellishments on them.  The layouts are also fun because usually the only rules I have are the size and what products to showcase. The theme and techniques are left up to me!  Once I get the products in the mail, I pull together other embellishments or papers that might match the products I am working with, but won't overshadow it.

Sometimes I will sit down and sketch out a design for a page (usually if it's the 9" x 9" or a 12"x 12" in size) Honestly for the most part, I just start cutting paper. I don't measure anything.  I am too impatient!  I just get my trimmer out and start getting several different sizes out of the different papers I want to use.  Then I start layering and where it ends up, it ends up! I like using decorative scissors, so once I have the papers laid out, I go back and cut here and there for more detail.

In this particular layout, I did do a sketch for it, but when I got done, I noticed the white was just so stark and thought if it was going to be on packaging, the white background would blend too much into the white paper it was printed on. I ended up backing the layout with a muted paper and this is what I ended up with.

I have been on the design team for almost a year now, and I love every minute of it. For years I worked as a design team director for another company both for idea books and for packaging. I respect the hard work both Gail and Jenny put in to make our layouts look fabulous in the end process. I have also learned SO much from them during the process too. I decided though I really like being on the design end of things though because their jobs are way too hard! LOL.  I also feel fortunate to be able to work with two different sides of the design teams and work with two fabulous ladies! It makes my job so much easier, to have great people to work for.

So what's your design process?  Please share.

Christy