Giveaway: Win Digital Scrapbooking Software

The nice people at MyMemories.com sent me a copy of their super easy Digital Scrapbooking Software to review and a great opportunity to pass along some sweet offers.
Years ago, like many, I used to do Paper Scrapbooking, but with two kids and two sets of grabby-fingers, keeping track of all my supplies during the short nap times, not to mention removing all sharp objects from view, was becoming waaay too much work.



Enter Digital Scrapbooking!! Having all your stuff on your computer is wonderful and if you have a laptop, you can even take it with you--how great is that! You may have seen some of my Digital Layouts I've done over the years here on my blog or in my flickr stream. Some of them are pretty detailed and took layers upon layers to complete. I started out with Photoshop Elements and eventually moved on to the full version Photoshop.
Lately, I like to spend more time taking pictures and making them look their best, which means I spend a lot of time in Lightroom and Photoshop; so anything that can save me time and make it easy to put my pictures in digital layouts is great news for me.
I'll be doing more detailed testing of MyMemories Suite in the coming weeks so check back often, but just after watching a short youtube video to get started, here is a Layout I put together in almost no time at all:



Not bad, right? This was just a quick-n-easy one. You can do so much more, like your own custom layouts, adding music, narration and video to your pages. The program comes with a pile of layout templates, background papers, embellishments, word art and, of course, you can get more supplies at the store--even freebies from some of your favorite designers (hello Vera Lim--love her)! The output options include printing, export to jpeg (this is good for saving individual pages for the web), even calendars. You can create Interactive Albums and save your creations as DVD movies. I can't wait to see what else I can do with it. Come back and check my Reviews Page for more updates.

With My Memories Suite you can even create and share professionally printed and bound calendars, send greeting cards to all your friends, make posters or trading cards for your son's soccer team, post a movie of your scrapbook on your Facebook page-all with the click of a button. If you are serious about creating the ultimate scrapbook that preserves and shares your memories with a serious amount of "wow" factor, then My Memories Suite is the one-stop solution for you.

Now, here is some great news for you.

ENTER TO WIN FREE DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING SOFTWARE

Here's what you can win:

• Enter to win a free copy of MyMemories Suite 2.

How To Enter:

• Comment. To qualify, go to the MyMemories website, check out the gallery and store and then come back here and leave a comment. Tell me about your favorite digital paper pack or layout and what software you currently use for DigiScrapping.
• Like NKM photos: Like my Facebook Page. I have free stuff there too, like textures you can use for layouts.

For Extra Entries:

• Like MyMemories on Facebook
• Follow NKM photos on Twitter
• Follow MyMemories on Twitter

Here is the Fine print:

• The Giveaway starts on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011. The winner will be selected via random.org on the evening of Sunday, August 28th, 2011 Tuesday, September 6th, 2011.
• Be sure to add a comment for each one of the extra entries to increase your chances of winning. One entry per 'extra' please.
• This giveaway is void where prohibited by law.

But wait, there's more (sorry, couldn't resist)

If you don't win the whole package, here's a Coupon Code (STMMMS72992) for $10 off the purchase of MyMemories Suite, as well as $10 off at the store. Feel free to share the code with friends.

How's that for a fabulous deal?

Good luck everyone ☺

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Princess for a Day

On Saturday morning, Katie announced that she wanted to dress up in last year's Halloween costume (a pink princess outfit complete with tiara) and have a Tea Party. She spent some time trying to decide which ones of her stuffed animals to invite, since she only has four chairs.
Well, you don't have to tell me twice, I know how to spot an opportunity to grab the camera to try to capture this event (emphasis on try :D). Of course, I only managed a couple of shots, mainly because her highness didn't want to hold still and the whole event lasted just about under 15 minutes before we declared the party over and is was decreed that we wanted to watch a video *sigh*. I so envy the professionals who used to come to Katie's daycare--Li'l Angels Photography. They always got the best, most natural smiles out of both my kids. I can't seem to get them to stop long enough to try to focus :P
I did, however have the perfect pages on hand--Quickpages (also known as Ploppers) at that. So, all the work of the Layout has already been done and all one has to do is plop pictures into the placeholders. These particular ones are freebies from Vera Lim (vlim_itsmydayqp6 and qp1_antje), so these came together pretty fast.

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Nick is Ten!

I saw this cool technique in the latest Photoshop User Magazine by Corey Barker (of Planet Photoshop) that I just had to try. It's called Light Beams Through Text and it uses TEN as the text. When I saw that, I immediately thought of Nick, who just turned ten! (OK, wasn't much of a stretch)
What a great excuse to try out a new technique. :D It was pretty easy, but looks really cool. I even had a picture of Nick I could use for the silhouette.
Now I just have to think of a Page Layout to put it on.

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Fantasy Layouts

This month's Scrapper's Guide Premier Members Kit was all about Fall, Halloween and Fairies. I was already working on a Layout where I had a mini-Katie sliding out of a flower, when I remembered a Corey Barker tutorial from Planetphotoshop. The exercise was to create water and then place an object to appear as though it was splashing into the water. I used part of the tutorial, but then made the water look like it was coming out of the flower--like a water-slide. With the Premier Kit and tutorial, I added the fairy wings and sparkle to complete the layout.

Then I had another idea. I took one of the Kit's Quickpages and made a little fairy magic, where Katie (with wings again) turns her brother into a cat, an elf, and finally back to normal.

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Time for a quick tutorial

It’s Saturday and that usually means cleanup time -- blech. But all work and no play...you know? So, in-between laundry and dishes I took some time to work on a cool movie-poster tutorial from the NAPP site (http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/?page=view&id=kung-fu-poster - accessible for NAPP members) which turns a picture (preferably with a kung-fu pose) into a movie poster. The tutorial used a stock image, but I had just taken a picture of Nick a couple of weeks ago that I thought was perfect. I even thought of a way to finish the project faster than the tutorial by using a brush for the sunburst in the background rather than creating it from scratch, so it took only about 20 minutes. I think it came out quite well, so I uploaded it to my Scrapbook album.

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29 Seconds

I used a template from an Ad Challenge by Kellie Mieze at www.DesignerDigitals.com.
The Quote is also from a Designer Digitals Challenge by Jackie Eckles.

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Template Challenge

I had been looking for something to use this picture with, when this template came along. I used another photo I took from the ferris wheel at the bottom of the Spaceneedle and applied some sketch filters, then I removed some of the color, erased some edges and painted some color back in to make it look like a work in progress sketch.
Picture Template: Kellie Mize-Ad Challenge Freebie (at DesignerDigitals),
Papers: KPertiet_NotebookNo2-12, Angela_Barton_One_paper8, Carousel_BG9_juliemead, MRE_SSPaper_Downtown_Special; applied various blending modes; Edges: NRJ_FREEBIE_INKEDEDGES, SG_bonus_grunge_overlay.

After I saw the Neon at Night podcast from the Russell Brown Show, this looked like the perfect candidate LO to try it out.

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