Back to School....and a freebie!

It's back to school time.   Have you taken the obligatory back to school picture?   Did you take a few of them?   :)   I did!   I even whipped up a fun little cluster freebie for your pictures.

And here's what I did with it!

I used additional papers from Albums to Remember's 

All In A Day kit (yellow paper) and Art's and Crafts Kit (green paper)

Here is a preview for the School Add-On:

And while it's not school themed, the Arts & Crafts kit I think can work perfectly for any art work your kids may bring home from school.  There's also a set of clusters, too!

     

And now for the freebie...

 I used Albums to Remember Design's All In a Day School Add On and My Everything Templates by Connie Prince to do it! Click on the image below to access the freebie.

Youer than You - by Mandy King

My dear friend Mandy King has released yet another fabulous kit.  It's called Youer than You and the colors are amazing!   If you have a chance to check out the gallery at Gotta Pixel you'll find Mandy's team did some awesome pages with this kit!

Here are my pages!

Photo mask for this page was provided by 

Indigo Designs for the Aug 2013 Gotta Pixel photo mask challenge

A Shore Thing - New GGI (Gotta Grab It) at Gotta Pixel by Mandy King

If you haven't ever checked out the "Gotta Grab It" event at Gotta Pixel, you should do so this month!   Every month they have a color palette that each designer has to create a kit for.  They sell the embellishment packs, paper packs, cluster packs, alphas, journal cards, etc for $1 per pack for the first few days.  This month's colors are gorgeous!  Mandy has never done a beach themed kit before, so she decided this was the time to try it out.  And I can honestly say, she did an awesome job with it!  I just love how this all turned out.

You can find Mandy's pieces at her GP Store.

Here are the pages I made with this beautiful kit!

Font is DJB Play Misty for Me.

The GGI Sale will end on Tuesday, so hurry on over and grab these goodies!

I'm a bad bad bad blogger....

One day I'll be able to jump into this thing and really keep it up.  In the meantime, you get my sporadic posts.  However, if you want to keep up with my scrap pages or with my family updates you're welcome to friend me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

Here's the latest and greatest from my little corner of the world.   We left California in March and moved back to the Chicagoland area.  We are in the burb's and I got a great new job with my company that will allow me to work from home, rarely travel and spend more time with my family.  Exactly what I was hoping for this year.

In addition, I joined another Creative Team.  So, now I'm scrapping for both Albums to Remember Designs and designs by Mandy King.   It's fantastic to be scrapping for these ladies, as I love love LOVE both of their styles.  So different, yet so much fun with each of them.  In fact, they even collaborated on a kit together.  (That's because I forced them to do it!)  LOL

Here are some pages from their latest kits:

Albums to Remember - Arts and Crafts

  
Mandy King - The Great Wide Open also available at Gotta Pixel

Quick little FYI - on Mandy's Facebook Page she has a matching freebie mini-kit to match her new release!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everybody!   I didn't quite make it to midnight last night, but good thing, as Sarah was up most of the night.   Some sleep is better than none!

I'm sitting here at my desk, accompanied by my coffee and our dear cat, Lily; thinking about how this last year has blown by and how another year is upon us.  What are my plans and goals for this year?  Was I successful last year?  One of the things I wanted to do was finish my 2011 book, which I did, just need to get part 2 printed and stay current with my 2012 scrapping.  I didn't do the second one, but I know I can catch up.  I use challenges a lot to scrap my current photos.  I'll just need to work through this year with more dedication and diligence!

So...what are your goals and resolutions this year?   I always find it helpful to scrap about them, sometimes that gives me motivation to keep them through the year.  

Kit is "This N That" by Albums to Remember Designs

You can find it at My Memories here  or at Gotta Pixel here.

Good luck with your resolutions and goals this year!   I hope your 2013 is full of happiness, joy and success!

One picture...multiple photo boxes

A very cool new functionality as part of My Memories Suite version 4 is inserting a single photo into multiple photo boxes.   If you've ever tried this before v4, you'll know how challenging it was to line up the images just right.   With v4 you can pull this off in just a few short clicks!   Here is a page I made using this technique.

Kits used are Yuletide Treasures (Retired) - by Becca, Snow is Falling - PrelestnayaP, and a freebie word art.

Here are the steps to achieve this look:

1.  Select a multi-photo layout from the photo layout button.  Or you can add several photo boxes and place them how you'd like them to display on your page.

2.  Select all of the photo boxes.  You can do this by clicking on each photo box while holding down the Ctrl key.

3.  Once all of the photo boxes are selected group them together (Ctrl+g)

4.  In the Resource Gallery, click on the camera (Photo Gallery) to open the photo folder

5.  Browse to the folder with your preferred photo

6.  Drag the photo to the grouped photo boxes

Your picture will appear in the grouped photo boxes as if it were a single picture.


TIP:  If you want to add photo effects the photo (I did mine in black and white) you'll want to ungroup the photos (Ctrl+Shift+G) and edit each photo individually.  If you do it still grouped, the effect will not stay after the album is saved.

This is a super fun effect for your photos that really brings some added interest and creativity to your pages!

Scrap faster!

This time of year, I think we all are just slammed with things to do and our scrap time is reduced to 10 minutes here or 15 minutes there. How can you get a good bang for your buck? Pre-made clusters, Cluster frames, Border clusters, and Quick Pages (QP). Some of my most favorite pages of mine were made with pre-made goodies that made for quick scrapping to catch me up and give me my "fix". Here are some definitions of these goodies you'll find in various stores:

1. Pre-Made clusters- these are are clusters of embellishments put together to make a beautiful larger embellishment. Sometimes clustering can be frustrating for people, with the several layers and resizing that it requires. Pre-made clusters are flattened into a single layer, making it easy to put together a fabulous page! My favorite thing to do is to cluster the clusters and add one or two extra embellishments to make it my own. Here are some examples of pre-made clusters:

2. Cluster Frames - these are similar to the pre-made clusters, only they have frames as part of the cluster. Giving a little more structure to the cluster. Sometimes you'll find single and double frames and on occasion you'll even come across three or more! More examples can be found below:

3. Border Clusters - These are great for adding a final touch to your page, or for framing your pages. I've used two of the same and flipped them to border my pages on both sides. Sometimes doing them on the top and the bottom can make for a fun page. Border clusters can be straight or wavy and some can even include frames! See samples below:

4. Quick Pages (QP) - Quick pages are great for building out an album or set of pages quickly if you need to get a book printed in time for a special occasion! These are pre-made pages that have opening for photos. They include backgrounds, clusters, embellishments, and often a place for journaling. I love quick pages for helping to start my creative juices. I often use them as a base for my pages, then add more embellishments, titles, etc. They are very easy to use, just add them into MMS, just as you would an embellishment, add photo boxes, resize them (or reshape if you need to) drop in your pictures and bring the QP back to the front.

More samples of pages made with these pre-made goodies and their coordinating kits. Click on the image for a larger view.

The samples above are made with pre-made goodies from Albums to Remember Designs
Friendship Kit Clusters
Friendship Kit Borders
Friendship Kit Quick Pages
Or buy the bundle and save! Friendship Bundle
Special Day Clusters
Red Bliss Freebie Cluster (FB) Red Bliss Freebie Cluster Frame (Blog)
Winter Joy Clusters
Or buy the bundle and save! Winter Joy Bundle

So now you can not only enjoy your holidays, but scrap them, too! :)