Always Learning...making goals and preserving memories.

I am back to the blog again and so thankful to be here. With 2011 around the corner it must be the resolutions that have brought me back to this place. Truth be told I am constantly goal setting and this time at this moment the blog has come back into my goals.

My passions are photos and people. Teaching and motivating. Communicating love and empowering others to do the same. This blog will let me express it all. So I am back to the blog!!!

It will be my mission in 2011 to save memories and preserve moments. My own, like this one of my beautiful sister and her son, at the Energy Plex taking a break from the running to pose. I always cherish our time together.

4 easy steps to preserve your memories.

1. Take LOTS of photos and delete the ones ( right then and there) you don't want. Quantity will allow for quality. 

2. Have an import to the computer routine and use a photo organizing software that will help. I reccomend Memory Manager by Creative Memories. It will help you organize, edit and access a print location ALL within the program. I LOVE IT!

3. Print or Make Photobooks. When you have an organizing program that works for you, printing the photos that you love or making a photobook is EASY!  Keeping photos on the computer is only one part of a process, not the end product.

4. SHARE your photos. People connect wih photos, reflect with photos and heal with photos. Take time to do all three. The computer is only a part but the real connection is the human to human contact. Post to share but be there to connect. Make the time to be present and celebrate the joy in the memories. 

So for 2011 I will share, in person and virtually.

See you there.

Melissa

So thankful...

The past few months have been a transition time for myself and I have missed being creative with my digital scrapbooking. I am OH SO THANKFUL that the click and fill pages were created. It has given me the chance to "catch-up" so quickly and not feel like I am missing out on the SCRAPPN FUN! AND...pixels2pages.net has been an endless source of inspiration, thank goodness for their updates and posts on facebook. ( It has kept me secretly engaged in a world that has felt too distant for too long)

SO....here is the latest creation of my baby Jack with a little bit of 3d-embossing magic and a little click and fill simple style.

Enjoy....Melissa

Super busy so ALL DIGI!

These last few weeks have been super busy. We have put our house on the market and spring break is over.

So I had to get into the Simply Stylish pre-designed pages ( come with the $39.95 coupon) from Creative Memories to put out some fast pages of some of my most recent pics. ( Only because if I didn't do it right away I would forget why the photos made me LAUGH OUT LOUD!) Thank you to my sister who gave me the idea to put the quotes in from the movie Dumb and Dummer.

Digtial Letter Cutouts

I was playing around with the flatten button and discovered that I can "punch out" letters from pictures...

Put a letter of chunky font on a photo, I used the fancy font for the ART page as it was very easy to ungroup ( under the arrange tab) and move the letters around independently of one another.

I then selected both the letter and the photo under the elements toolbar and under the arrange tab I flattened them.

With a click of my magic wand, under the cut and fill tab, I then wanded and removed the letters to leave "punched out letters"

FUN!!! I will have to do some more for a dramatic effect!!!!

Text and Fonts, thank you Lizz...

Lizz Marsh is a graphic designer and a team member who has been eye-balling all that I do. (I am very thankful as she is my downline, one of my biggest cheerleaders as well as a real gift from God) What she noticed was my lack of straying from the typical default font when creating pages and working with text in Storybook Creator. Hmmm...SHE OPENED MY EYES!

I knew fonts were important, but I NEVER understood HOW important they are! Photos and Fonts MAKE A PAGE! Thank you Lizz so much for your insight into taking my pages to the next level.

The buzz word is typography...I will be using more of this in pages to come!

UP NEXT...the SOCK page! I am almost there!

Simply Beautiful! Coming...March 1st.

It took me a bit to get this up to the site, single parent, three kids under the age of 5 and a weeekend at Regionals. Excuses they are not as here I am posting my new favourite combination of products...

Simply Beautiful ( Colour Line) and the Simple Start package.

Simply Beautiful is exactly it! The colours are so SPRING and everything to go with it warms my heart. My heart needs warming right now as it snowed this morning, poop on the groundhog he was wrong.

AND...the Simple Start is the BEST download package I have seen thus far. The template pages are pre-designed but grey. And all you have to do is find a paper pack to work with adn fill all the grey boxes. Then drag and drop your photos in, add some text or a saying and WOW, so easy!!!! So EASY!!!! Ok really SO FAST and EASY!!!! Get the picture. it is $39.95. AWESOME... and becasue it comes with a FREE book coupon code, my book will be made and shipped to me in NO TIME :)

go to Simple Start to see and purchase the product. or
Check out digital scrapbooking at www.mycmsite.com/cre8memories



Thank you Jim Dahl and the rest of the team at CM for working hard to make the BEST books and page prints the industry has to offer.

More to come...the boys got into the down pillows this week. I wonder what THAT page will look like! Melissa

Photo Strip Fun

So I have been up late nights not working on my digital stuff lately ( boo hoo) ...so tonight I finished my work and treated myself to a layout!

I love the Film Strip! And since our next class at the college is on photos and framing, it just seemed to fit!

I hope I will have more to share soon!!! (Possibly Olympic Freebies!)

Simple Photo Editing

This Picture is one of my favourites taken over the holiday season. This is Matthew, he is so content with life. In this picture he just finished showing me the moon in the late afternoon sky, we had done a couple of runs tobogganing with the family and were heading back to the Huckleberry house for some hot coco, just he and I and the camera.

I used the Memory Manager softwre to edit this photo.
There is a lasso and wand feature that makes this type of colour selection effortless. I LOVE IT!

It is perfect for my digital books and for the traditional albums as well. ( The trouble is picking which one!)

Digtial Scrapbooking Glitter Trends

So I was up ALL last night ( not really all night but almost) getting ready for a crop tonight/tomorrow so have neglected to put this page up! I LOVE IT...the inspiration came from the Digi KNow Facebook group, challenge is getting glitter on your page, the lightening stripe... ( I am not very good at it but will proactice I promise!) And from the song that my middle son has on repeat, " Real Gone" by Sheryl Crow. ( Lizz Marsh inspired me to put the words on the page.)

Cheers and hope to see you this weekend at Country Rhodes!!!!

Tiny Dancer

I was inspired by an advert in Canadian Scrapbooking...this tiny dancer has a bit of enchanted studios mixed with creative memories best buds and discover baby boy.

And my baby boy, now 7.5 months old is crawling and cruising. He is trying desperately to keep up with the dog and his two older brothers. Life just got even busier!

Hit the Wall but the wall hit back!

I think I hit the wall this evening as I was nursing the baby to sleep...two more to put to bed after that seemed near impossible, but then I thought I can so do this and then I can pop into the office to peek online and see the latest digtial creations, and maybe play a little too...and so I created a couple of labels, chatted on the phone a little and listened to maceygoodes play-list. (And contimplated downloading a little dinosaur) Hmm...and now time for a little Storybook, I know I have to go to bed but just not yet.

Resolutions 2010

2010 here we come!

1. Play more

2. Laugh more

3. Sleep more

Simple but essential.