Happy Sunday, and have I got a treat for you… introducing My Memories Suite VERSION 2! That’s right, you heard me correctly. Not only is there a new version to My Memories Suite with all new features, I created a video tutorial to explain it all and show those new features off!
Last month, StoryRock unveiled an all new version 2 of its famous and very popular digital scrapbooking software, My Memories Suite. Version 2 is packed with all new goodies and awesome new features that we were dying for in Version 1. It’s like StoryRock read all of the feedback of features and ideas that its users over the years have been wanting out of the software and put it in one neat little package that will make digital scrapbookers the world over very happy.
If you’ve been to the Pink Toque Craft Blog before, you know I am an avid user of My Memories Suite. I got the software over 3 years ago when it first came out, and I have been in love ever since. I don’t want to babble on forever (because the new Version 2 goodies are exciting!) but if this is your first visit to my blog and you’re wondering what all of the excitement is about and why I love this software so much, be sure to go and read my review. My Memories Suite has been the best digital scrapbooking program to ever come along and with Version 2, it just got better.
Version 2 includes 1500 new background papers, 1300 new embellishments and 20 new layouts that come built into the software for your use right out of the box. On top of that, new features such as the zoom ability, Resource Gallery, and WordArt Designer make creating beautiful digital scrapbooking pages even easier. My favorite new feature is that your text can now be curved and follow shapes. This was not something you could do in Version 1, and I love that I can create text in beautiful circular shapes or to follow the edges of a photograph right on the page. It was probably the most requested feature and question I got from readers of my blog. Before I had to tell people they could only do something like that in Photoshop, but now My Memories Suite allows you to edit curved and rounded text on the fly right in the program instead. Hooray!
My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features – Part 1 of 2
Another highly-sought-after feature that a lot of people asked me about was how to view pages side-by-side so they could build double page spread layouts. Unfortunately, this was not something you could do in Version 1, but now in Version 2 it’s easy. You can also now share your digital scrapbook in a wider variety of ways, including trading cards or calendars. They’ve also streamlined the Photobook process to make it easier to create beautiful photobooks of your finished albums.
I received Version 2 last month and have been trying hard to squeeze in some digital scrapping time with it so that I could show off the new features here on my blog. I finally got around to it today, and created a new video tutorial that highlights all of the major new features available to you in Version 2. I walk you through the new things and how to use them, and it makes it easy for Version 1 users to pick right up where they left off in the old version, or for new users to My Memories Suite to see just how awesome the software really is so they can get it for themselves.
My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features – Part 2 of 2
Version 1 users will love that all of the photo albums and pages they’ve created in Version 1 will be converted for them into Version 2 compatibility and that the transition will be seamless. You won’t lose anything and all of your old albums will be right there for you in Version 2, ready to go and waiting for you to use the new tools and features to enhance them even further. When you’re adding embellishments or papers, you’ll be able to easily see what items are new to Version 2, and all of the old embellishments and papers from Version 1 are collected together in a folder labeled as Version 1, so you can quickly find all of your old favorites or check out the new stuff.
Speaking of Favorites, another new feature that I just love is that I can “bookmark” the embellishments and papers that I use most often and mark it as a favorite. This means that it’s added to a special “favorites” folder so I can access those favorite items quickly anytime I want to without having to search for them every time I want to use them on my digital scrapbook page designs. I show how this works in the video tutorial.
The WordArt Designer allows you to create fun and professional looking word art for your pages easily, and is built right in to the side tab of My Memories Suite now. Type in the text you want to create into word art, select the font and sizing, line spacing, colors, fill, stroke, etc. You can add shadows or a bevel and design the perfect word art accompaniment to any page you’re working on. I also demonstrate this in the video tutorial!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m really excited about the new features in My Memories Suite Version 2! I just recently finished up Family Life 2009 digital scrapbook and am eagerly looking forward to working with all new designs, layouts, and features with Version 2 in 2010. If you want more details about what Version 2 has to offer, check out the info on mymemoriessuite.com. Original users of Version 1 will be able to upgrade for a nominal fee to get all of the new features, papers, embellishments, and layouts that come packaged with Version 2 and brand new My Memories Suite users can get on board and pick up Version 2 for themselves. If you’d like to save a little money on your purchase of My Memories Suite Version 2, be sure to click here — readers of the Pink Toque Craft Blog can get a 25% discount!
I’ve spent most of the afternoon recording the latest tutorial and getting it uploaded for viewing. It ended up being 18 minutes long! Since YouTube only allows videos up to 10 minutes each, I split the tutorial into 2 parts:
Enjoy! Be sure to let me know if you have any questions or comments on the new video tutorials or you need help with My Memories Suite Version 2. Hope you’ve had a great weekend :) Happy scrapping!
You all know how much I love Polariod’s My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software. I just wanted to let you know about their great deal for Halloween; check it out!
If you’ve been waiting to purchase My Memories Suite, now is the time to grab it at a fantastic price just in time to scrap those precious Halloween memories. Need some guidance along the way?
*Gasp* I know, I’m scrapbooking again. Don’t worry — the schnauzer schweater is still a work in progress (and thanks to teaching 2nd grade, it gets forgotten from time to time, ha) and I’ll be knitting some more soon, but I thought a little trip down scrapbook lane would be nice so I could update my Family Life 2009 album a bit.
I gotta admit, I simply used some fabulous quick page designs by other digital scrapbooking artists and inserted my photos for the two latest pages, so I didn’t go overboard, but I did use My Memories Suite to create the pages, which always makes me happy. It’s seriously such fabulous software. Have you read my review of it? It’s been awhile since I’ve trumpeted from the roof tops how much I love this program. Want to know how to use quick page design layouts you download on the web within My Memories Suite? It’s super easy; check out my tutorial… My Memories Suite Tutorial 3: Using Quick Pages. It seriously felt so good to rev up My Memories Suite and add a few more pages tonight. I shouldn’t let it go so long between page creations :)
All You Need is Love
Anyway, first up was a page that pays homage to our epic journey driving from Calgary to Indiana last month when we moved back home. I used Little Boy Blue by Joanne Bain Designs. (Pictured above.) I really felt like the photo of Oliver and Winston peeking their heads out of the Neon with the UHAUL trailer behind captured the trip. The second page was a quick page called All You Need by Krystal Hartley. Because really, all you need is love, and I’m the luckiest girl in all the world to have the love of that handsome man right there in the photo. Aren’t we cute? ;)
Coming up soon is my sister-in-law’s baby shower that I’m hosting, and I’d love to turn the embellishment I created when designing the invitations into a digital scrapbook quick page layout or mini freebie set to give away. I just wish there was more time in the day! I’ve got two weeks to go, and I’ve still got to design and sew a diaper bag for her, too. A few weeks back we went shopping for fabric and she picked out some adorable quilted fabric and described the type of bag she’s looking for. Now it’s just a matter of sitting down and pulling it all together, which sounds easy but I swear time just seems to get by me. I’ll keep you posted and show off some pics as I get going on it.
So that’s it for now! To do list: work on and finish schnauzer sweater, make a little mini kit or quick page of the little boy car embellishment from the baby shower invites, and design and sew a diaper bag! No problem, right? ;) See you soon!
P.s. If you’d like to purchase My Memories Suite at 25% off of the original price, let me help you! And don’t forget to check out all of the My Memories Suite tutorials I’ve created to help you get the most out of the software.
I’m baaaaaaack! Hopefully you liked the Recycled Wallpaper mini pack freebie given away yesterday :) Today as promised I’ve got the coordinating quick page to give away, too! It’s 3600 x 3600 pixels (12″ x 12″) and 300 dpi. It uses a little from the Recycled Wallpaper pack and then I added some other random stuff as I went. It’s a little pink, but pink is a very good color :)
Don’t forget that unless otherwise specified, my digital scrapbooking elements are for personal use only. Be sure to check out the TOU included and let me know if you have any questions. I hope to make some more new stuff in the near future, as time allows. Right now I’m back home in Indiana for a brief period this weekend in order to interview with the school district I taught at before I moved up to Canada. Cross your fingers! If I get a job offer, Lucas and I will pack up the boys and we’ll be on our way.
And of course, finding out last minute (Wednesday) that I was going to need to take a plane to Indy the next day (Thursday), one of the most important aspects of the packing wasn’t which outfit I was going to wear for the interview, or my teaching portfolio… but what knit projects I wanted to take with me for the flight! Haha. Ok so I’m probably exaggerating a lot (It took a long time for me to decide on an outfit, and I spent several hours touching up my portfolio), but it was a very important part of the packing. I had to figure out the patterns I wanted to take and wind some yarn for those projects into cakes to pack in my carry on. I’m going to be working on Danido Crafty’s Bebeh Earflaps Hat and the Modern Cabled Baby Bib by Andrea Pomerantz. I’ll let you know how it goes! :)
I know this is beyond bizarre and a lot of you may be in shock because it’s been months and months and months since the last time I created digital scrapbooking elements to give away since knitting has taken over my craft time lately, but I made some freebies to give away over the weekend and I’m proud to offer them up to you today :) I call this little mini pack “Recycled Wallpaper” as the background papers remind me of scraps of wallpaper that have been ripped down during a remodeling effort. I’ve “recycled” them into something useful for your digital scrapbooking purposes!
Since it’s been awhile, I’ll be sure to mention that as always, the background papers and elements are created at 300 dpi, and the papers are 3600 x 3600 pixels (12″ x 12″) in size. The set is for personal use only (the terms of use are included, please be sure to check them out!) and the set includes 3 papers, 3 coordinating clips, and 3 matching ribbons. Nothing fancy, but it’s a little somethin’!
I know I’m a little rusty on the digital elements scene, but hopefully you’ll be able to find a use for this mini set! Be sure to check back tomorrow, as I’ve also created a quick page that coordinates with these elements. It’s a little pink and girly but that’s ok sometimes, right? See you soon, and enjoy the elements :)
This weekend I got around to some much neglected digital scrapbooking. It feels like it’s been forever! Several months ago when I was doing more digi scrapping I had started stockpiling various quick pages that I’d found on DigiFree as I came across them daily. I was just saving them for a rainy day I guess! The weather has definitely been rainy here in Calgary lately, and so on Sunday I went back through the folder and turned around 33 of those quick pages into new pages of my digital scrapbook.
Kissletoe by Cinnamon Designs
Firstly, I went back through photos I had on my hard drive, which took me all the way back to November. There were a couple of events in the fall and winter that needed to be scrapped, such as Lucas’ birthday party, outings with friends, and Christmas. I also realized that the more digital pages I had in a single scrapbook in My Memories Suite, the slower/longer it took for the program to load the scrapbook when I wanted to work on it. This makes sense since it had to render all of those thumbnail previews along the bottom, and the more elements and extras on a page to render, the longer that would take. Multiply that times 40 odd pages or so, and you can see where I’m coming from.  To help with the clutter, I decided to sum up the end of 2008 by adding a few more pages to finish off the year, and then start a whole new, separate album for 2009. So now I have a Family Life 2008 album and I’ve started a Family Life 2009 album that will be ongoing for the rest of 2009.
Green Lagoon by Miss Vivi
Family Life 2009 was a fun one to start on and where I had the most catch up to do, because we’re already just over halfway into the year and so much has happened in the first part of 2009! Really the pages just started flowing once I went back through the photos I had stored away in my Pictures directory. I had some great new photos of Oliver and Winston in their Flames gear to scrap and some Calgary Flames quick pages I had created myself last year to use with them. I had quite a few newer photos of Lucas and I together that were begging to be scrapped, and of course a LOT of photos from our recent anniversary trip to Nova Scotia. It was hard to narrow down all of the fantastic photos we’d taken to just a few digital scrapbook pages, but I managed!
An Apple Day by MimiLou
Then I scrapped our recent family outdoor activity of choice: rollerblading! Lucas and I have been rollerblading fairly regularly for almost a year now, but just recently (like 2 weeks ago) we decided to start trying to rollerblade with Oliver and Winston, too. This has been ridiculously hilarious and A LOT of fun, and a great form of exercise for the whole family. Oliver could stand to lose a few pounds, tbh. But shhh, we don’t tell him he’s fat. (Ok we do, but it’s mostly hair, right?)
County Fair by GWTW
Then of course most recently, as in this past weekend, Lucas and I attended our first Calgary Stampede ever! As I mentioned in my previous post, the Calgary Stampede comes to town for 10 days every July and turns the entire town into a rodeo. Suddenly everyone here thinks they are a cowboy. To be honest, the Stampede was very much like the Indiana State Fair, just with a rodeo attached. It was great fun though, because it’s been years since I’ve been to a state fair of course.
All of this work to catch up my digital scrapbooks inspired me to create something of my own to share, and I played around with some new background papers and a couple of matchy-matchy elements to go with them. Nothing fancy, but I plan to give those away later this week, along with a quick page I made to go along with them. How exciting! Although knitting has dominated my crafting time for the most part the past several months, I don’t plan on letting my digital scrapbook get that far behind again, so hopefully that means more scrapping and more freebie goodies for you, too :)
In creating a 2009 album and leaving it open-ended to add on as life happens, I’ve started fast-forwarding in my mind to imagine what other upcoming pages I’ll need to scrap about. Most exciting is the next chapter in Lucas and I’s lives where we move back to Indiana and roadtrip with Oliver and Winston to get there, along with the birth of my first nephew coming up in October. The 2009 Family Life album sure will be a monumental one!
Let’s set the scene: You’ve recently added some new content that you’ve downloaded to the My Memories Suite program directories and you can’t wait to get in and make some fantastic new scrapbook pages with them. You start up the software and rush in to browse in the new directory you’ve created where all the new content is stored. As soon as you do, an error message pops up. Something about a corrupted file. Annoyed, you click ‘OK’ and realize that you were able to “bypass” the error and still access the files after clicking ‘OK’, but the error keeps popping up and you have to click ‘OK’ for all of the errors before you can use anything in that directory. Every. Single. Time. Ouch.
Some of you have experienced this situation multiple times. And many of you have emailed me, asking about the error and how to fix it, or what was causing the problem. Was it the content you downloaded? The error used the term ‘corrupted’ in reference to a particular file as you were browsing content directories; was there a corrupted image file in your download? Rest assured, it’s not anything you’ve done wrong, and believe it or not, the actual image file in your download isn’t corrupted. (Which is why most of you realized you could just click “OK” and it would allow you access to those files.)
Thanks to a helpful Pink Toque Craft Blog reader, Cam, we now have a resolution straight from My Memories Suite customer service that fixes the problem. And the answer is so simple I keep wondering why I never bothered to call them myself.
Apparently Windows Vista doesn’t like to play nice with My Memories Suite. (Wait, Vista isn’t 100% compatible with everything? NO WAI!) You know how when you go browsing for scrapbooking items such as backgrounds or embellishments within the software and you see various thumbnails there to choose from? The first time you browse new content to use within the software that My Memories Suite hasn’t accessed before, the program renders thumbnail versions of every single image file in the new directory when you browse in it right then and there — backgrounds, embellishemnts, etc. — so that when you are browsing your options you have a little preview thumbnail image of the items to choose from. The error comes into play when you’ve added new content, go to browse it within MMS and you use Windows Vista, as Vista doesn’t like to render the thumbnails properly, hence the error message. The error is basically just letting you know that the thumbnail isn’t present and it can’t be rendered, but it forgets to mention that it’s all Vista’s fault.
The Solution? I know you’re thinking, “Great, Lesley, but how do we FIX it?” Well, after adding new content to your My Memories Suite software, be it additional content you’ve created or you’ve downloaded from others, (See my tutorial on how to add additional content HERE) you need to right click on your shortcut to launch My Memories Suite and choose “Run as Administrator” from the popup menu.If you run MMS as an administrator and THEN go in and browse the new content you added, My Memories Suite will render the thumbnails properly. My Memories Suite only needs to render thumbnails once — the first time the program accesses the new stuff — and then the thumbnails will always be there. So this is why right after adding new content you may get errors for certain embellishments. You will continue to get those errors every time you run My Memories Suite afterwards until those thumbnails are created properly. Once the thumbnails are rendered, the errors will go away.
You will only need to run My Memories Suite as an administrator once after adding new content to your software directories. If later on down the road you add more new content, be sure that the next time you run My Memories Suite that you run it as an administrator and then go browse to the new content so that the thumbnails for the new files are made correctly, and you’ll be good to go. If you ever run into the error while you’re working within the software, simply save what you’re working on, exit out of the program, and restart My Memories Suite, being sure to run it as an administrator. Then go back to the directory you were trying to access before and the errors should be gone.
The only part of this that still doesn’t make sense to me is how Vista decides which files it cannot render properly. Sometimes I get the error after adding new content but other times I don’t get any errors at all. Sometimes it’s not the entire contents of the new directory I’ve added, just a few select files among an entire folder of new stuff that produces the error. Previously I believed it affected files that were small in size or too small of a resolution to be used properly within MMS. I was fairly regularly getting the error on tiny items or very thin ribbons, which tend to be a lot of pixels wide but only a few pixels tall and I thought that was the contributing factor. Perhaps that is part of it; perhaps the reason Vista is having issues rendering these thumbnails has to do with file sizes, dimensions or resolutions. But the most important part to note is that it is not an error or problem with My Memories Suite; it is a Windows Vista problem.
Bottom line: If you’re getting errors about corrupted image files after adding new content, run My Memories Suite as an administrator (right click on your desktop/taskbar shortcut and choose “Run as Administrator” from the popup) and browse to the new directories to ensure thumbnails are rendered properly to alleviate errors. Special thanks to Cam for sharing this information with us :)
Yes I know St. Patrick’s Day comes first, but today I was in the mood to create a bunny, and so I drew up the image I had in my head and made a quickie pattern. It was kinda nice dragging the sewing machine out of the basement and rooting through a large box of my fabric to find just the right stuff. This bunny is made from fuzzy felt and regular craft felt. I used the machine to assemble the body and ears, and then hand sewed the facial features on. Nothing majorly special, but I did love how the face turned out :)
So that’s my crafty donation for the weekend. And what a busy weekend it was! I spent most of my weekend in a two 8-hour day first aid course for work. I am thankful that my instructors had a great sense of humor because it actually helped make the day not seem to drag on. But I did feel like my weekend flew by way too fast, with very little extra time to craft. This next week will be the same… a short four day week at work for kids, but five days of home visits to families of my students for me. The best part is that after I get through next week, it’ll officially be spring break and I’ll be done with home visits. Plus my mom and grandma will be here to visit, yay! So I’m hangin’ in there and am looking forward to more relaxing times ahead soon.
Freebie!
Oh, and it’s definitely worth mentioning that I was recently featured in the March 2009 edition of the My Memories Suite email newsletter! A layout I designed with the software (using elements I designed myself as well) was chosen as the March winner of a $20 gift certificate for products in the My Memories Suite store. The text from the newsletter reads, “This month’s gallery winner is Lesley Karpuik.  Lesley is an amazing scrapbooker and a dedicated blogger!  You can visit her blog at http://craftblog.pinktoque.com. Lesley wins a $20 certificate to the Design Shop.  To enter, post your layouts under “Fan Photos†on our Facebook page.”
How awesome is that? And wow did such nice comments make me blush. And which design did I use? My “Autumn Romance” quick page that I created and gave away for free here on my site back in November. Did you miss this freebie? Well go and grab it HERE so you’re not missing out! :) Don’t forget if you’re on Facebook to join the My Memories Suite fan group and enter to win!
That’s right my friends, I’m now a part of the My Memories Suite affiliate program. You can save 25% off of the My Memories Suite software by clicking from the pink toque craft blog, just by being a reader! :)
I was very honoured today to be asked to join the affiliate program. StoryRock and Polaroid are wonderful to work with and are even more wonderful by allowing me to offer a 25% discount on the My Memories Suite software to my readers. Talk about passing on the savings!
So if you’ve been holding off on purchasing My Memories Suite or have been wanting to get it for a family member or friend, NOW IS THE TIME! :) Not only will you save a bundle, but once you receive the software you’ve got all of my tutorials here to help you out so that you can dive right in from day one… and of course I’m always available to help with your questions via email here on the pink toque craft blog. You’ve got all the support you need to start making the digital transition. I promise it won’t hurt ;)
My Memories Suite Tutorial 4 - Layered Paper Tricks
Finally!! I know it’s been a month since my last tutorial and I meant to get this up a few weeks ago, but as I’m sure you all have experienced… life got busy. Anyway, here is my final tutorial that I have planned for My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software by Polaroid. I say final only because I can’t think of any other topics to do a tutorial on within the software. If you think of something you’d like me to explain or demonstrate let me know and I’d be happy to make more tutorials :)
This fourth installment of my tutorial series shows you how to achive the layered paper look within the program. Not only does it show you how to layer background papers but it also shows you how you can turn those simple square or rectangular background papers into various shapes, too, when you layer.
If you’d rather watch this on GoogleVideos, check it out HERE. Alternatively I just finished putting it up on YouTube too, where you can choose to watch in high quality. (Since the GoogleVids tends to be grainy.) — Also, you can download the video from Google to watch on your computer in case that gives you better video quality.
Hope you enjoy this latest tutorial and it helps you out. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask here by replying on the thread or send me an email: craftblog at pinktoque dot com. Oh and special thank to all of you that enjoyed and downloaded my The Road Not Taken quick page on Friday. Glad you liked it! :) Have a great week!
Updated January 28, 2009: I am now part of the affiliate program and can offer readers of my craft blog who enjoyed this tutorial a 25% discount on the My Memories Suite software! To get the discount, click the banner link in the upper right corner/sidebar of my blog (Where it says “Get My Memories Suite”) or the link below. Enjoy! :D My Memories Suite (Standard Package) SAVE 25% off Regular Pricing ORDER NOW!
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Happy Sunday, and have I got a treat for you… introducing My Memories Suite VERSION 2! That’s right, you heard me correctly. Not only is there a new version to My Memories Suite with all new features, I created a video tutorial to explain it all and show those new features off!
scrapbook
