If you cannot view the images in this email, click here.

May 24, 2007

A Note From Jackie

While I will always claim my favorite season to be Fall - nothing tops the excitement that the start of Summer brings! Memorial Day weekend is upon us, the unofficial kickoff holiday to Summer. I have so many fond memories of childhood Summers spent at the lake, in the backyard pool, running through the sprinklers, at baseball games, at the park, riding bikes, flying kites and playing with friends (the list could go on!). I hope you all have a fun weekend kickoff to Summer!

p.s. Don't miss our Carolee's promotion - now through May 29th!

 
Something to Celebrate
By: Susan Berg, Design Team Member

Happy Un-Birthday to You! Happy Un-Birthday to You!

Birthdays are not the only celebrations in our lives. Achievements in school, at our jobs, anniversaries, graduations, retirements, and religious milestones are all moments worth celebrating. Frequently, though, it is moments like these that we find the most difficult to scrapbook. Such an important occasion, so many wonderful memories and photo opportunities leads to at least a little extra stress when you sit down to scrapbook these times.

While the focus of this article centers on journaling, a few pointers before you get to the actual scrapbooking:

** Before the big day, make a list of pictures that you want to be sure to take. If possible, include some staged photos that can be taken before the excitement takes over. While action shots are wonderful, should something happen to keep you from getting those, you will still have the planned pictures to include in your scrapbook.

** Consider having a majority of your pictures printed in a smaller size. Even if you normally scrapbook with 4x6 photos, try using 3 ½ x 5, half sheets, or wallets. This will enable you to include all of those “must have” shots without having your layout look cluttered and cramped and can provide a nice contrast to one special enlarged photo.

** Keep cards and/or letters received on the occasion to include in your layout. If there are too many, or combined with your pictures you have run out of room, consider adding a fold out mini-album or a mini-page between two 12x12 pages, or you can maximize your space with hidden journaling: under a photo or on a pull out tag.

But pictures alone can only represent a portion of the importance of the day. Journaling for these events is what will be cherished for generations to come. And for many, this is where we start to falter. Always be sure to include the basics: who, what, where, when, and why. For things like this, the Making Memories Tag Maker is a terrific little item! Print up the information and make it into an attractive tag that can quickly give the vital information to whoever is looking at the layout. There are also several different stamps that make the perfect spot for jotting down a few highlights.

For the more in depth journaling, consider writing a letter to the subject of the layout. Let them know how proud you are of them, what you were thinking at that moment, and what you hope this event means for them. With all the different lined paper products out there like Scenic Route Backgrounds and Karen Russell Narratives this is easy to handwrite and make even more meaningful. If your feelings are too personal for anyone who might look through your albums, consider tucking the note behind a photo. This will save you space on the page and allow you to be more candid in your note.

Perhaps even more meaningful is to have the subject of the layout contribute to the journaling. How did they feel in preparation for their big day? Why was it important to them? How will this change their future or how they look at life or feel about the world around them? What changes will follow this event and how do they feel about them? If your subject is not very inclined to write their deepest thoughts out for you, consider interviewing them. The Chatterbox Instant Interviews Idea Book (on its second edition) or Scrapbook Trends’ Journaling Your Story can help.

If a party or reception is involved in the big event, consider asking the attendees to help with the journaling. How are they feeling about the occasion or the celebrant? Do they have any advice? If they went through the same event, what impact did it make on them? Plan ahead and have something prepared in advance to help get these journaling gems like premade tags and acid free pens to write with, a mini album that can be attached to the layout later, or even just small pieces of paper.

Whether the occasion is a baptism or graduation or retirement, you can preserve the feelings of the day with some well crafted journaling to complete your beautiful layout.

 
 

Design Team Examples

To view all layout ideas and products used, please be sure to visit the Design Team Gallery: Something to Celebrate

Or Click each image below to see a larger view!

Madeline

Franny

Wendy

Nancy

Margaret

Tracy

Margaret

 

A Designer's Space: Cecilie

By: Cecilie Malling

My play corner

I started scrapbooking in March 2005 and since then I have accumulated a lot of stuff for this wonderful hobby. That also means that my scrap area has undergone a lot of transitions and extensions. When we began doing these mini-features my room looked something like this:

My husband and I live in an apartment built in 1902 -- the needs of the 1902-family was different than our needs; there are 3 living rooms that are all connected with wide doors and even doors with glass in them. That means that the room where I scrap can be seen from other rooms in the apartment and I feel that my scrap area needs to look pretty and that it should somehow blend with the rest of our home. I did have the choice of moving my room to the back of the apartment behind the kitchen, but one of the reasons I love this room is that dh can sit in the easy chairs while I scrap which we both really enjoy. He will be using his laptop and I will be scrapping. This way we can talk or be quiet together; and I must admit I couldn’t imagine being isolated from him while scrapping.

The room serves a dual purpose as it is both my scrap room and our library (sounds so posh, but it is the room that houses all of our books) and I really wanted the two functions to seem like they were a natural fit. So when we redid the room in February we discussed how to achieve this coherent feeling; we decided on painting the library wall in a teal blue color and then do a stripe of the same color above my scrap table:

 

Kate used a Silhouette to make some wonderful wall art for us and mine says “I will have poetry in my life” which is a quote from my favorite movie “Shakespeare in Love”. I love the look of the writing on the blue part of the wall:

 

 

I was very inspired by Sonya’s scrap room and I knew I wanted to have shelves above my table for a lot of my embellishments, paints and some decorative items. I also wanted the shelves to look great and fit the wall perfectly length-wise. To achieve this dh and I ended up buying untreated floor planks, painted them white and they mounted then using white brackets. There is still room to add a third shelf above the two I have now. On the shelves I have my most used products stored in old glass containers mixed with items I have received from scrapping friends:

 

 

 

 

I use my sewing machine more often on layouts than to sew with fabrics and I made it a priority to have my sewing machine on my scrap table so it would be easy for me to use it. Now that I have a Silhouette I have that one sitting on the table as well; I think it is needed if I am to use it as often as I would like to:

 

From my grandmother I inherited a small cupboard that I chose to move into my scrap room. This turned out to be a great idea since it seems to have been created with scrapbooking in mind with shelves and a few drawers. It houses almost all my remaining materials including my alphabets, QK dies, some chipboard, mini-albums, clear stamps, extra adhesive, punches, patterned papers and cardstock and so on. On top of the cupboard sits my photo printer and besides it there is room for me to put the laptop when printing pics. I had the printer sitting on my table prior to redecorating and it took up a lot of space; it has been the right decision for me to move the printer:

 

I have developed a love for clear stamps and want to have them readily available so I have (for now at least) placed all of them along with my acrylic blocks and Staz-on inks in a cloth bread basket that I can bring to my table while working:

 

 

I found these Cropper Hopper file hanging boxes and I use one for my cardstock and one for my patterned paper. I really want to keep the amount of paper down to what I am able to fit in those but I will admit: it is a struggle.

 

 

The Tote-Ally series is a favorite of mine; I have the smallest one on my table where it holds my pens, rub-on tool, some adhesives and a few other small tools. The larger one I have filled with rest of my tools and it sits on the floor on my right hand side while I scrap. I have scrounged a strap from Louise’s dh and it holds my Squeeze closed:

 

 

I think decorating and especially finding organizational solutions for my scrap area is an ongoing challenge and I am always looking for new fun, pretty and practical solutions. My first room was only practical (and at the end not even that) whereas my new one is focused on being both practical and a nice place to be.

Thank you for stopping by to visit my play corner.
 

Gallery Picks of the Week

By: Jackie Bogert and the LM Design Team

 

Thank You Very Much

LlaurenB creates a wonderful thank you card using various embellishments. Anyone would LOVE to receive one of these cards!

Strike?

~Gina~ puts together an AMAZING layout using various photographs to capture the moment!

Halloween 2006

Suzbucket creates an eye catching layout. This layout contains an amazing design that shows great talent!
 

Digital Tip

This week’s digital tip is on creating rounded corners in Photoshop.


http://mb.lifetimemoments.com/viewtopic.php?p=2417695#2417695

 
 

May Photo Contest

DUE DATE: THURS May 31st
All participants will get a reply email confirmation from me acknowledging your submission to the contest. If you do not get a confirmation within a day or two, try to resubmit!

VOTING: Starts June 1st via an email vote in

PRIZE: Depending on the amount of entries, top 3 vote getters or top 2 vote getters will win an LM GC (if it is 3= $3, if it is 2= $5, if under 5 entries there will be only one winner for $10)

THEME: ANIMALS I am not sure if we ever had a photo contest with animals as the theme! I do know that I love seeing photos of pets and zoo animals so I thought why not? Right? Smile So, here is your chance to show off your lovely pets! If you don't have any pets, zoos, farms, little petting zoos, pet shops, wildlife etc are many places to get some great shots of animals. And remember, that yes, some people might recognize your pets, don't let that discourage you. The contest is more than that; it's all in what kind of image you make of your animal!! Very Happy ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THE IMAGE MUST BE A RECENT SHOT. Please be honest and do not use a zoo shot from last summer!


INFO:
All photos will be in one category.

INFO ABOUT THE VOTING--
At the end of the contest, a thread will be posted like always to give the link to the photo entries, however, there will be no poll on the boards. You will be given an email address where you will send in your top 3 votes. Your votes must be made by an active username and will only be counted once.

General rules [to insure fairness and integrity of the voting]:

-The photo must not be currently or previously uploaded into the LM gallery. This also includes avatars and signatures. This further extends to no uploaded layouts that feature the photograph.

-Please don’t request votes for your photo through email, postings on LM or other Internet message boards, private messages, etc. This includes having a friend solicit votes on your behalf. Anyone who solicits votes will be disqualified.

-Please don’t post and reveal which entry is yours. The entries are uploaded under the “Contest” user name to ensure anonymity. Revealing which photograph or entry is yours will result in a forfeiture of any prizes. (I know it is sometimes hard if the photo is of people and their kids as we may recognize them but don’t be biased...open your photographic eye!)

HOW TO ENTER- PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
-Email your entry to soulbella at earthlink dot net
-One entry per person.
-*Please include your name and LM user name.*
-Please also include the film brand & speed [or “digital”] & camera make & model.
- Feel free to add any other information like: digital/SLR/automatic, f-stop & shutter speed, any special techniques you used, why you took the photo, why you like the photo, what type of lighting you used & why… this extra information helps viewers learn about your photo & also learn how to create a similar photograph. This information also makes your entry look more complete.
-Photos must be JPEGs and they need to be able to load into the Lifetime Moments gallery. Please aim for about 800 pixels x 800 pixels or smaller. The gallery will automatically enlarge your photo.

IMPORTANT:
*DIGITAL CAMERA USERS: Please reduce the size of your photograph with your photo editing software; if the photo file size is written in MB, it is too large... 15 minute upload/download, it is too large. Please ask if you have any questions about this. (Don’t be discouraged if you are unsure how to do this, I will do it for you!)
*NON-DIGITAL CAMERA USERS: essentially, please scan a standard 4x6 or 3.5x5 inch print without enlarging it. Again, please ask if you have any questions about this.

Please post, email or PM Tricia, Jen or Anya any questions!!

 

New In Stock

NEW:

RESTOCK:

GARAGE SALE:

  • All Karen Foster paper - 30 cents, embellishments 50% off!
 

Coming Soon

  • More Making Memories products
  • restock of your favorites!
 


Sara Meyers, Newsletter editor sara@lifetimemoments.com
Kate J. Design Team Coordinator kate@lifetimemoments.com
Jackie Bogert , Owner jackie@lifetimemoments.com

Design Team (Sara Meyers, Miranda Isenberg, Madeline Fox, Kate J., Susan Berg, Tracy Austin, Sonya Shaw, Wendy Chang, Franny Lesniak, Nancy Thomas, Margaret Winters, Melissa Thigpen, Beshka Kueser, Cecilie Malling and Vickie Brown.)  designteam@lifetimemoments.com

 

 

If you received this email from a friend, click here to sign up for LM Style.  

© 2006 Lifetime Moments, 29445 Beck Road, Ste A104, Wixom, MI 48393
phone 248-449-8044 fax 248-493-5921