Making Christmas Calendar Covers

I have a confession to make – I like being recognized as the creative and crafty mom who takes time to make gifts, remember all the special people in my kids’ lives and go above and beyond expectations.

One of my goals when I was a little girl was to be a great mommy. You know the type—a great mommy brings homemade snacks in for the classroom, a great mommy makes cool things for all the friends in the classroom to take home, etc. We all know they type of mommy I’m talking about. I wish I were that great!

Here’s the reality – I have three kids, a full time job, a house to run and plenty of extra curricular activities that leave me with next to no time to be creative and crafty. I more often than not forget special occasions, snacks for school are almost always store bought and making gifts for people has always just been a pipe-dream. That was until I discovered My Memories Suite (MMS). In fact, this was the very reason my love affair with My Memories Suite started—It allowed me to do something creative and crafty things in almost no time at all. And now…it’s helping me make personalized gifts for everyone I know…Oh how I love MMS.

So what’s my newest project? I’m making Christmas gifts. I discovered pocket calendar covers, and I am making them for everyone I know. They are a breeze to make and they will get me the kudos that make me feel like a great mommy – a perfect combination;-) You design a snazzy cover for a pocket calendar that you can buy almost anywhere for $1-2, they type that have a plastic covering that you might carry around in your purse, and you place your cover on top of the original cover and sheath it under the plastic.

Here’s a quick tutorial.

First you will need to purchase your pocket calendar. Measure the width and length of the calendar when it is spread open and flat on your work surface. Next you will open MMS and create a photo box the size of the calendar you are working with.

You will need to select a background and add it as a photo to your page. Drag the photo created with your background into your sized photo box.

Add your embellishments and photos. Remember that this will be folded in half once you put it around the calendar, so be careful not to add too much embellishment to the center of your layout.

Print your calendar cover and cut it out. (I recommend printing a practice cover to make sure you have everything the right size before printing it on photo paper.) Remove the calendar from the plastic sleeve and insert photo cover.

Insert calendar into sleeve on top of the calendar cover.

Now you have a finished product. Give it to a dear friend or family member.

Mama's Holiday Wish List

So I want to enter this awesome contest.  If you would like to, follow the links below.   


Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year? 

• A Fiskars paper cutter
• New pajamas (and undies and bras--but that might be TMI)
• Something made by my kids -- I love these gifts:-)
• Gift certificates to viovio.com so I can print more scrapbook pages
• A healthy family - It's so hard to be sick at this time of year.
  

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received? 

• Do cookies count as a handmade gift?  My mom always makes me Russian Tea Cakes and I love them every time!
  

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle? 

• I've always wanted to do a calendar.  I will be my closest ever this year if I get CD calendars done for someone in the family.  I actually just always want to make presents, but I always run out of time...I think anything homemade is an awesome gift.
  

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?

• The one I remember the most was the year we got an Amiga computer.  Santa had never brought anything that "big" to our house before.  I love Christmas though so I have lots of fond memories.
  

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year? 

• They think everything that flashes on the television screen is cool and they'd like that for Christmas, but they usually forget it after it's done flashing, so they don't really have a list:-)
  

6. What is your favorite holiday food? 

• What isn't?  I LOVE russian tea cakes and I only get them at Christmas.  They are probably the #1 favorite, but I don't refuse any of it.
  

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays? 

• I am so SUPER excited that I will actually be handcrafting some stuff this year.  I will be making russian tea for friends and family, I already have calendar covers made for several people and may get some cd calendars finished before Christmas.  Have I mentione dI love MMS---It makes me look good:-)
  

8. What is your favorite holiday movie? 

• We watch Elf every year when we are putting up the tree.  I LOVE it. It makes me laugh out load several times each showing.

9. Favorite holiday song? 

• Hmmm...I got James Taylor Christmas cd last year and really like it.  My longest running favorite is probably White Christmas by Anne Murry
  

10. Favorite holiday pastime?

• Sitting in my living room with my family and the lights off and listening to quiet music in the background.
  

Spread that holiday cheer!

National Digi-Scrap Day--Let's celebrate!

Happy National Digital Scrapbooking Day!  I have a fun little tutorial for you and a freebie.  Also look for a key word in my posting and you can use it to complete a mystery phrase for the My Memories Suite blog train prize.  Find all the words and you will qualify for a gift at the MMS Store!

I've mentioned more than once on the My Memories Suite facebook page that I really enjoy making boxes and hybrid projects with MMS.  I get inspiration all over the web for this fun little hobby.  Check out this awesome website - Kelleigh Ratzlaff Design.  She's posting 30 days of ornaments made with paper boxes.  How cute is that?  I also love browsing The Hybrid Chick's blog to see her amazing creations with paper box templates.

So  are you interested in trying one?  Let me walk you through the steps.  The first step is to get a box template.  Kelleigh Ratzlaff sells them in her shop, but you  find tons of them on the web for free.  One of the sites I frequent is Belle's Printables.  She offers lots of templates for free.  Her templates are offered in JPEG format, which unfortunately does not allow you to design directly on the templates, but I modify them in Photoshop and remove the background, and then I can play with them in MMS.  If you don't have Photoshop, you can still print your favorite paper and embellishments and then print the template on the back of the paper.  I will show you how to do either method. 

Removing the background in Photoshop Elements 7

If you own PSE, modifying one of Belle's templates to a PNG file is super easy.  Go to Belle's Printables and download the template you want to use.  I am going to use the small handle bag.  Save the image file from Belle's site and open it in PSE.  Your screen will look like this

You need to double click on the Layer box that says background to unlock it.  When you see the box asking for permission to create a Layer 0 - click okay.  Here's what that will look like.

Now choose the magic wand tool.  You will use this to delete the background of this photo.  Click on a white portion of the background.  It will select all potions of the picture that are white.  Then hit delete on your keyboard.  This will delete the white background and make the background transparent.  Here's what your final product will look like.

Save that as a PNG file and you will be able to play with it in MMS as an embellishment, which allows you to layer papers underneath it.

Now to the fun part---Open MMS.  You will want to open an album that is a rectangular shape.  I have one called landscape projects that I use for making boxes and cards.  This saves me from having too many new albums to search when I want to reprint a project.

Once you have your blank page open, click on Embellishments.  In the lower left hand corner is a Browse button.  Click on that button and then find your pgn file of the box template.  Select the template and then click OK.  You will see the template on your screen, but it may be very small. Stretch the size of your template until it covers your entire page.

Now you can select a background and embellishments to make this box super cute.  If you are using a light background I recommend changing the opacity of the template so that the lines are less visable when you are folding it.  If you want to avoid having any lines on the front side of your box, just print your paper without the template and then print the template on the back of your printed paper.  You can also use this method if you do not have PSE and cannot remove the background.

Here's what my box looks like after I have added the background and embellishments to it.   I used StoryRock's Hello Cupcake for this cute little layout. 

Now print this adorable little box and assemble it.  Cut it on the outside line - You will fold it on the other lines.

What do you think of the finished product?  I think these would make cute little party favors:-)

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial.  If you would like to make this little bag, Belle has graciously allowed me to modify it for you so that you can download it and use it in My Memories Suite!   Here's the link for the freebie - Small Handbag Template.

Don't forget to take a picture of your **MEMORIES**!

Hop on over to Lisa's blog for more blog train fun - http://imsewkrazy.blogspot.com/. 

Baby Announcements

One of my favorite gifts for expecting mothers is personalized baby announcements.  Right now I am waiting to hear from one of my friends that she had her baby girl so I can finish this baby announcement made with StoryRock's Hush kit.  This kit has some adorable baby embellishments.

I made this announcement for one of my friend a few months ago using Ettes and Comany's My ABC Book.  I love this kit because it is so versatile.

While I was making these, I palyed around with a framed poem/picture gift.  This one is a simple layout using the pink orleans paper from MMS and the dotted brown ribbon and brown bow.  I like the idea, even though I'm not sure this is the layout I like.

The next time one fo your friends has an exciting event coming up, consider making a personalized card for the occasion.  It makes a great gift!

Happy Scraping!
Sarah

Do you have a backup plan?

Recently a number of articles have tickled my mind regarding back-up plans.  The first article I read discussed creating an emergency plan for your family in the event cell phones do not work and the second article was about this generation being "the lost generation" because we have so little printed material about our current day and age (i.e. everything is electronic).  Both article addressed two very different things, and yet both were focused on the dependecy our society has on eletronic recording keeping and coorespondence.  The articles have really brought to my attention though that I want to have a backup plan that is not reliant on technology -- and when it comes to my photos--I want to have some printed material to leave my children.  So I've created a back up paln for my scrapbooks and photos.  I back up photos onto an external harddrive regularly, I also upload photos to flickr for an offsite backup and I print my scrapbook pages regularl, so that I can share with others my photos and memories and they aren't just stored electronically.  So far--it's working...Do you have a back-up plan?

Been Behind in posting

I'm not sure what took me down, but a bug got me in a big way.  I've been down for about ten days...Really down for the past five.  Not only did it make me sniffly, achey, stuffy, and shakey -- it zapped every ounce of energy I had.  I really wanted to share some pages out of my scrapbook that I made using some of the StoryRock's Back to School Kit.  These pages include my first scanned art pages.  I love the way they turned out and can't wait to scan more of my kids work.  I really like the simplicity of the Back to School Kit.   The lined pages are perfect to highlight school aged children, but not so busy that your pictures get lost in the pattern.

Just a little background--My mom is homeschooling my children this year.  They went to "grandma school" this summer, but when they started Kindergarten, the school switched to KinderSchool.  LOL--just symantics.

Tell your story....

As I have been immersed into the scrapping world over the past nine months I have seen a reoccurring theme over and over...TELL YOUR STORY.  Scrapbooking is an art of telling your story to future generations, to your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren.  But a question that seems to arise as often as the theme is mentioned is, "Where should I start?"

There are some great resources available on the web to help you tell your story. You can find tons of journaling prompts, digidares that inspire you to tell stories in a creative manner, or blogs all about telling your story like Baby Love Letters.  If you want to get off the computer and hand write some of your story before you scrap it, you can also find books of all sizes about the topic of writing your memoirs.  Check out these books:  Your Words, Your Story or That's Life:Finding Scrapbook Inspiration in the Everyday.  Another great way to find inspiration is weekly challenges.  Here are two excellent challenge sites that will inspire you to tell your story: My Story Matters and the Book of Me Challenge. 

I try to tell the story of our family in my scrapbooks, but I do have some difficulty telling about myself.  Lately, however, I have been inspired to do this more from visiting with my grandmother who lost her mother at the age of six.  If something were to happen to me, I want my children to have something to remember me by, rather then making them rely on their young memories.  So, I was thrilled when I found StoryRock's Chic to chic template which is perfect for helping me tell my story.  Here are a few of the pages from my book of me. I just changed the backgrounds on the templates provided to match my color scheme and filled in the journaling.

Can you think of someone who might like to have a book about you?  Consider grabbing Chic to chic this week and whipping one up for them.  You may also consider making one of these about someone else.  Help tell their stories so they can be remembered.

Happy scrapping!  Sarah