Shrinkable Plastic

So I've been fascinated with the creative things people can do with digi art or photographs and an ink jet printer I had to share this one. Thanks to the magic of biaxially oriented thermoplastic polystyrene (also known as Shrinky Dinks).

You can print photos or cute digi/clipart on plastic using your inkjet printer, and shrink them down small enough to make into necklaces, fridge magnets, earrings, or practically anything you can think of.

The very talented Kris Mazy, creative team member at our friends Ettes & Company, created these darling earrings using the Some Beach Somewhere collection and shrinky dink plastic. She wrote, "I printed Ettes Some Beach Elements on sanded white Shrinky Dink. Cut them out, punch a hole and "cook" them to the package directions. Add the fish hook... and you have got some SUPER-Cute earrings. (***spray these down with a clear acrylic spray after they cook to prevent the ink from running if they get wet.***)

And from one of my favorite photo websites, I found these fun ideas for using Shrinky Dinks. Make Photo Necklaces, Earrings, Magnets and More using Shrinkable Plastic.  They created some magnets, earrings, necklaces and Zipper pulls with photos. What a great fit for the MMS software. You can create an entire sheet of photographs using the "photo shapes" button in the software and print directly from the software. See the sample page I created in a few minutes in My Memories Suite. Note: I created a portrait 8.5 x 11" page so that I could print directly from the software.

Now I'm off to Michaels to get my shrinky dink plastic!!

Some Beach Somewhere

If your summer plans include a trip to the beach, check out our newest Collection, Some Beach Somewhere in the Design Shop now! The Some Beach Template, Full Pack, Date Strips and Monogram Pack are filled with gorgeous designs that are perfect for highlighting your photos of your summer activities!



The heat is on, and your summer photos will “shine” when you combine them with the waves, shells, sea creatures and other designs in this kit! Our beautiful “Some Beach Somewhere” Collection provides you with a gorgeous variety of “coastal” papers and embellishments perfect for those trips to the beach or any summer get-away. We've added a set of Template pages created with the Some Beach Somewhere Collection. This set includes eight beautiful layouts that make your digi scrapping fast, fun and creative!

This beautiful collection of “coastal” papers in both the template and full pack are the perfect papers to accent your summer photos! You will certainly think of “Some Beach Somewhere” when you work with this set! The beautiful colors and patterns are perfect for your favorite summer memories!

Here are some fun Beach/Ocean Titles:

You and Me By the Sea

Sun, Sand, & Sea

Just Beachy

Sand Castles & Salt Water

Teeny Bikini

Oceans of Love (or Fun)

Waves of Fun

Buried Treasure

Sandy Smiles

Bathing Beauties

Fun in the Sun

Mr. Sandman

Shore fun

User Tip: Making Your Titles and Text POP!

Today’s Tidbit by guest Lisa Jurrens:

Making your text POP off the page is a great way to spice up your pages! Here’s a little trick to help make that happen! Choose a font and “headline” or text for your page. Add a DROP SHADOW and adjust it to suit your taste (this is done by clicking and “dragging” the shadow to the desired position in the “drop shadow/shadow properties” box). After it looks good, click “OK”. Now click the “COPY” button in your top menu, and then the “PASTE” button in your top menu. This will create an exact duplicate of the headline or text. Then change the color of the duplicate text and layer them one over the other. You will get a different effect if you do black over white, or white over black – or a color over the black or white. It almost gives your text a 3-D appearance! Play around with it and see what you come up with!

The page below shows some basic examples, so you can *see* what I mean!



To see more of Lisa's Tips on using My Memories Suite, join our Facebook group. She posts on there often and has some great ideas to share!!

Introducing Paper Trunk

New in the My Memories Suite Design shop are three top selling

collections by Paper Trunk. Paper Trunk is one of the newest scrapbook manufacturers to join our design group to offer their great designs digitally.

Carrie Postma launched Paper Trunk in the summer of 2007 becoming one of the leading manufacturers to offer recycled cardstock and superior products.

Paper Trunk continues to be eco-savvy and makes every effort to provide luxurious quality and lavish designs. Going digital is a natural step and something Carrie has always wanted to do with her designs.

Click here to visit their website.

Paper Trunk prides itself on being one of the first scrapbooking manufacturers to offer recycled cardstock and a greener option for crafting. They wanted to create a place on their website where crafters can come to find resources to scrap greener and live a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle. And of course a great way to go GREEN is to digitally scrapbook.  Click here to learn more about Paper Trunk's ScrapGreen.

Happy Garden and Drop Shadows

We loved this layout using a Full Pack by Traci Murphy called Happy Garden. It's so versatile and doesn't have to be used for a typical "girly" layout (although the boys might disagree with me). Look how so little text is used, but the message of the layout is pretty clear.

Tip: Don't forget to add drop shadows to your embellishments to give them more depth. For those of you that haven't used "drop shadows" you might need to know that drop shadows can be added to text, photo boxes and embellishments. Two of the best tips about using drop shadows are 1) you can change the color of your drop shadow to give different look and 2) the easiest way to move your drop shadow around is to click on it with your mouse and move it around. It's a simple feature that is often overlooked!

My Creative Space

I have to admit, I don't play with my paper and ribbons as much any more because I'm constantly creating layouts, photobooks and a variety of other projects on my computer. I use My Memories Suite for many of them and find it creates A LOT less clutter then when I did mostly paper crafting/scrapbooking.

However, I have noticed that a lot of  creative people like to show off their craftrooms on their blogs and it makes me feel terribly gUiLtY!! Why? Because like many of you, my space is very small and not creatively organized. However, I did spend two days this last weekend cleaning and reorganizing my space, but instead of showing you those pictures I thought I'd make everyone feel better and show you the "BEFORE" pictures.

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Maybe next week I'll post a layout showing the "AFTER" pictures that I will of course create in My Memories Suite!

Creative Team Call

We are currently searching for Creative Team Members who know how to create beautiful scrapbook layouts and other craft items using the My Memories Suite software. If you feel you are an expert at the My Memories Suite software and want the opportunity to share your designs online with many people, then consider joining our team.

What do Creative Team Members get:
• Unlimited access to our online Design Shop
• Early access to Templates and/or Packs not in Design Shop yet
• Discount for printing professionally bound photobooks
• Participate in CT challenges with great prizes
• Your samples will be featured on the MMS website, Facebook, email promotions and other advertising campaigns
• The opportunity to be a guest blogger on the MMS company blog
• Be part of our beta test team and focus group

As a creative team member, you will be required to:

• Create at least three layouts or any type of craft sample from at least one template or pack from the Design Shop per month (one sample should be from a template or pack that is listed on the New Designs Page).

• Send layouts to My Memories Suite, and to at least two other scrapbook galleries of your choice (ie facebook.com, twopeasinabucket.com, scrapbook.com, creatingkeepsakes.com, etc). Let us know where you post your samples.

• Blog and/or Facebook about New Releases

To apply for our Creative Team, please send the following information to:
jenn@mymemoriessuite.com
• Your Name
• 3-5 Sample Layouts or other Crafts created in My Memories Suite
• A Link to your Blog or Website
• A Link to the Gallery you post to most often (if applicable)
• Explanation explaining why you would make a great CT member

MMS on Good Things Utah

Monday we had the pleasure of working with our designers "Ettes & Company" to be part of a local interest TV show called "Good Things Utah." The projects were fun and colorful and Fayette and Annette did such a great job.



They demonstrated some darling home decor wood blocks inspired by the Heritage Blocks in our Design Shop. They used photos and their darling digital designs available in our Design Shop. These blocks would  make great gifts and would be perfect for Father's Day.







You can also watch the Ettes on an older segment of Good Things Utah using the popular "Dude Collection" to create fun iron-on projects.

Always Be Prepared

New in the Design Shop this week are two great Templates, Blue & Gold Cubs and Roughin It. We received many requests from our customers for some designs that they could scrapbook their cubs and older scouts. We loved that we could dig out the many years worth of Pinewood Derby pictures and quickly drop them onto a darling layout. We even thought the Blue & Gold template would be a great thing to use to create some cute invitations for pack meetings.



The Roughin It template has awesome "camping", "dutch oven" and "scout camp" word art and fun embellishments that can be used to create many more layouts in addition to these great template layouts. You will love working with these and I can't wait to finally get all our cub and scout pictures into an album!!