Tutorial – Changing Gradient Color

Several of you have asked how to recolor a gradient wordart, so today I have a little tutorial for you. 

Begin by adding a wordart box to your page. Next scroll down to the fill option and click on the color box. This box will appear a gradient grey color.

After you click on the gradient box, another box will pop up that will allow you to select the color change options.  When the box pops up, click on the small white box in the left hand corner of this box,

 

 

When you click on the small white box, you will notice that color box will change  to white.  You will then click on the color box to get to the color palette.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Sarah

Have you checked out our forum lately?

We are working hard to grow the suitegal forum as a great resource for all of our MMS users.  This week we want to welcome Jessica Creedon and Shawna Snowdon to our team.  These two ladies are going to help Lisa and I moderate the suitegal forum.  As part of our additions we are also going to be providing daily scrap challenges on the forum to help inspire you to have a little fun with a scrap page today!

If you haven't had the chance to check out the gallery in the forum, you can see what our MMS scrappers have been doing.  Get inspired, and then post your own!  There's room for everyone!

Happy Scrapping,

Sarah

Welcome Mamabuzz readers!

If you are new to My Memories Suite or the idea of digital scrap booking, you are looking in the right place.  This hobby is one of the best ever!  You can record your history, your recent memories or your future memories in no time at all.

Two years ago I bought My Memories Suite.  I started using it and it was so simple to use.  Very little learning curve at all. I love scrapping with MMS because I can quickly scrap beautiful pages, learning the software took me no time at all, and I can be creative daily without making a big mess in my house.  Here are a few pages I have been working on recently.

I made this great page with the Earth Day Quickpages from Shabby Miss Jenn's.

 

 Love the hopscotch kit from Shabby Miss Princess that I used on this page.

I scrapped these entirely on My Memories Suite. I haven't ever scrapped with any other program.  I do use Photoshop Elements to edit photos, and I love Photoscape for editing photos, but when I want to scrap I always turn to My Memories Suite.  I don't have to think to scrap, and when I need to relax, I don't want to think - KWIM?


Here's a little freebie for you today to help you as you get started digital scrapping.

SuiteGal Guide Download

If you haven't had the chance to check out the reviews of this great program at Mamabzz, click over their now.  Also check out all the cool stuff at My Memories Suite's website and at the MMS Facebook.  If you haven't bought a copy of this great software yet, let me assure you that

you won't regret the purchase at all. 

Click on the icon to go straight to the MMS checkout! Use the code: MamaBuzz20 to get 20% off.

Who What Where When Wednesday #10

Start collecting some pictures of your favorite cartoon characters.  Make a layout to share who your favorites were…when did you watch them…what did you love about it? 
Happy Scrapping!

Changes are in the works

I am so excited to share with you all that changes are coming to suitegal.com.  I have a new partner, whom I will announce soon, and we are working together to make this site an awesome resource for anyone who wants to scrapbook with my Memories Suite and similar software.

If you haven’t been to the site lately, you should check it out.  You might see a little preview of some of the exciting changes.

Can’t wait to see you there!!

Sarah

Who What Where When Wednesday #9

Remember your first pet.  Share a little about this pet.  What was it?  What was it’s name?  How long was it a trusted pet?  When did you get the pet?  Do you have a special picture of your pet.  Scan it and include it!

Happy Scrapping!!

Top Ten Friday #8

Scrap your ten favorite desserts.

YUM!

Who What Where When Wednesday #8

Make a family tree.  This is a vital piece of history you can give your family.  Take a moment to talk with the historian in your family, or your parents, or an older relative.  Remember to ask who, what, where, when – You’ll be surprised at the stories you can collect!
Happy Scrapping!

Top Ten Friday #7

Scrap a list of your favorite ten books.

Who What Where When Wednesday #7

Scrap a summertime memory that makes you smile.  Who was involved in the memory?  Where did it take place?  What was the memory?  Why was it so special to you?
Happy Scrapping!

Top Ten Friday #6

Scrap about 10 smells that make you happy.

Who What When Where Wednesday #6

This series of challenges will help you record a little bit of your past for future generations.  Answer the questions about the topic each week!

Tell about High School.
Where was it?
When did you graduate?
How did you have fun in high school?
What is your favorite memory from high school?
Who made the biggest impact on you in high school?

Top Ten Friday #5

Scrap about 10 foods you love to eat.

Who What When Where Wednesday #5

This series of challenges will help you record a little bit of your past for future generations.  Answer the questions about the topic each week!

Tell about Jr. High/Middle School.
Where was it?
When did you start Jr. High?
How did you dress in Jr. High/Middle School?
What was something crazy you did in Jr. High/Middle School?
Who was your best friend in Jr. high/Middle School?

Top Ten Friday #4

Scrap about 10 people you want to meet.

Who What When Where Wednesday #4

This series of challenges will help you record a little bit of your past for future generations.  Answer the questions about the topic each week!

Tell about Elementary school.
Where was it?
When did you start Kindergarten?
How were you as a student in school?
What did you love about Elementary school?
Who was your favorite teacher?

Top Ten Friday #3

Scrap about 10 places you want to visit.

Who What When Where Wednesday #3

This series of challenges will help you record a little bit of your past for future generations.  Answer the questions about the topic each week!
Tell about your best friend.
Who is she/he?
Where did you meet?
How long have you been friends?
What is a favorite memory together?

Top Ten Fridays #2

Scrap about 10 places you've visited.

Who What When Where Wednesday #2

This series of challenges will help you record a little bit of your past for future generations.  Answer the questions about the topic each week!

Tell about your childhood home.
When did you live there?
Where was it?
What is your favorite memory there?
How long did you live there?

Top 10 Fridays #1

Scrap a series of pages about ten special things each week.

Ten people I love...

Who What When Where Wednesday #1

This series of challenges will help you record a little bit of your past for future generations.  Answer the questions about the topic each week!

Tell about your birth.
Who was present?
When were you born?
Where were you born?
What’s your mother’s favorite memory of your birth?

If you want to show off your pages - upload them to our Facebook page.

NEW Challenges

I am launching a series of challenges for my "suite"gals and guys - Check back every Wednesday AND Friday for some challenging ideas!

Join us for a class!!

Join us for a class! Click on the class or series of your choice to purchase your seat.

All purchases of the series are half price if purchased during the month of May.

Series One - My Memories Suite Basic Skills Course

Every Tuesday in  June and the first Tuesday of July

• Class 1  What are all these tool bars?  
  June 1, 2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 2 Easy-peasy Books -Creating a Book from templates  
  June 8, 2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 3 I have an idea - Creating a Page From Scratch 
  June 15, 2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 4 One of these things is not like the other – Personalizing Scrapbooks 
  June 22, 2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 5 – Beyond MMS–Using other people’s papers/embellishments in MMS
  June 29,2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 6 Refrigerator pictures - Sharing your pages 
  July 6, 2010 - 8 p.m.

Series Two:Advanced Skills in My Memories Suite

Every Thursday in July and the first Thursday in August. 

• Class 1 Cut it up – Papers are not just for backgrounds
  July 1, 2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 2 Texting isn’t just for phones – Using text in a layout 
  July 8, 2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 3 Frame me – Using frames to enhance your LOs  
  July 15,2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 4 Beyond MMS – A Review of Photo Software  
  July 22,2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 5 - Basic Photoshop Elements  - Using masks and actions to make your pictures look professional   
  July 29,2010 - 8 p.m.
• Class 6 Let’s get scrapping – Using sketches, challenges and more to build your scrapping skills  
  August 5, 2010 - 8 p.m.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Let’s get scrapping – Using sketches, challenges and more to build your scrapping skills

In this final class of the series, explore ways to stretch your creativity in scrapbooking. We will explore online resources that will help you practice the techniques taught in this class.

• Using sketches to create page layouts
• Exploring the use of techniques on different background sizes
• Participating in challenges to explore new techniques
• Using traditional scrapbooking web sites to enhance your skills.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Basic Photoshop Elements - Using masks and actions to make your pictures look professional

In the previous class we explore basic photo manipulation software packages to make our photos spectacular.  This class will look at using Photoshop Elements actions and masks to change how a photo looks on a page.

PSE actions are elements that can be added to Photoshop Elements to quickly and easily give your photos a specific look.  This class will explore how to install and use actions on photos.

PSE masks are digital die-cuts for photos.  Using masks you can change the overall shape of the photo. Give photos, soft edges or creative edges to make them blend in with your background papers.

Resources will be provided to help you to find free actions and photo masks.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Beyond MMS – A Review of Photo Software

A great way to make a great scrapbook layout is to have great pictures!  A great way to get great pictures is to use photo editing software to make you average  photo spectacular.

This class will explore:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery - Windows 7 built in photo gallery and photo manipulation software.
• PhotoScape - A free photo manipulation software that can be used on individual photos or batch photos.
• Picnik - An online photo manipulation program that can be used anywhere and anytime without having to download software to your computer.

These simple tools can make your pictures go from drab to fab in five minutes or less.  You'll be amazed at their simplistic flexibility.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Frame me – Using frames to enhance your layouts

Have you ever had the experience of seeing a page that you just can't keep your eyes off of?  What makes the difference between an average page and a spectacular page? Consider how a page is framed.

This course will explore a variety of techniques to use in framing pictures, embellishments and pages layouts.  We will use papers, words, embellishments and other elements to create focus on a page.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Texting isn’t just for phones – Using text in a layout

Telling your story is the primary purpose of scrapbooking.  Sharing your thorughts, feelings and tidbits of yourself make your layouts special.  Whether you use text for titles or journaling you need text to tell your story.  This class will explore unique ways to use text on layouts to convey your story.

Explore ways to mix and match fonts, create wordart using My Memories Suite, and use text to accent your pages.  Learn a variety of techniques to integrate text and alphas into your layouts and make your titles pop off your page.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Cut it up – Papers are not just for backgrounds

Spice up your pages by using a variety of papers.  Mix and match patterned papers, use papers to create ribbons, mattes, frames, and embellishments.


This advanced skills class explores techniques of using paper in scrapbooking to make your pages unique and creative.  We will explore a variety of ways to use papers to create new and unique projects, including hybrid projects, cards and photo layouts.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Refrigerator Pictures – Sharing your pages

My Memories Suite offers nine different ways to share your scrapbook pages with friends and family.  This class will take an in-depth look at how to use each of the sharing options.
Learn how to:

• Export to JPEG
• Send pages to online printers
• Print greeting cards/baseball cards
• Print bound books
• Create interactive albums
• And share others types of projects, too!

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Using other people’s papers/embellishments in MMS

Have you found beautiful kits on the internet that you would like to use in My Memories Suite?  This class will review simple methods to add these kits to MMS and will also review the pros and cons of adding the kits to the software and using the kits through the Browse Feature in MMS. 

During this class we will also review ways to organize your scrapbooking supplies to optimize use of kits and to optimize the speed of the software.  Tips will vary for MMS Version 1 and 2.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: One of these things is not like the other – Personalizing Scrapbooks

Scrapbooking is an art.  Adding interest to your pages can be done by using some basic artistic methods in your layouts.  This class will review simple techniques such as identifying a focal point, using contrast, triangulation of embellishments and color selections to make your layouts more interesting.
At the conclusion of this class you will know how to:

• identify the focal point of your layout in ten seconds
• use simple techniques to add contrast to your layouts
• be able to use triangulation of embellishments to lead readers through your pages
• be equipped with several resources to create color schemes for your pages

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Creative Juices Get Flowing - Creating A Page From Scratch

Are you ready to start creating pages on your own? Are you a traditional scrapbooker and would rather scrap from scratch? Are you a hybrid scrapbooker and want to learn how to use this program in your scrapbooking?

This one hour class will explore using My Memories Suite for creating pages from scratch. Learn how to select backgrounds, choose embellishments, add text, create titles and add pictures to a layout. In addition we will review adding shadows to embellishments, adding music to your layout and viewing your album as a slide show.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: Easy-Peasy Books - Creating A Book From Templates

Creating a scrapbook doesn't have to take a lot of time. My Memories Suite has created great templates to help you quickly make full scrapbooks.

This one hour course will explore ways to complete scrapbooks using the Quick Fill Method and the Pick A Picture Method. These quick books are completely customizable, from the embellishments, background and journaling. Simple techniques such as changing the background, moving embellishments, and customizing text and fonts make each of these books unique.

My Memories Suite Tutorial: What are all these toolbars?

The first time you open your My Memories Suite software, you might intimidated by all the options you have to begin scrapping.
Don’t fret! We will review all of the options available on the toolbar’s drop down menus.  This will give you a simple over view of how to get started in MMS.

• File
• Edit
• Arrange
• Insert
• View
• Check Album
• Share Album – Briefly
• Window
• Help

My Memories Suite Tutorial: MMS Overview

Price: FREE

Have you tried Smilebox orSnapfish and love getting beautiful results in minutes?  Have you ever been frustrated by the limitations of these programs, like being unable to remove an embellishment that doesn’t suite your tastes or needing more journaling room than you were provided?
Are you thinking about purchasing a digital scrapbooking software that allows you to do all of these things, but are intimidated by the BIG photo programs?  My Memories Suite is the prefect solution for YOU!

This great software allows you to easily create beautiful digital layouts of your photos and enables you to share these layouts with family and friends. It’s easy drag and drop features allows even the most novice computer user to jump into scrapbooking.  In addition, prebuilt templates allow users to create entire albums simply by dragging and dropping pictures onto a page. BUT the best part is that everything in My Memories Suite is customizable. 

If you want to remove an embellishment – GONE!  If you want to add journaling – IT’S THERE!  Before you spend TONS of money on a bigger named software, attend this free class to see if My Memories Suites is what you have been looking for!