My Memories Giveaway

I love scrapbooking! I enjoy the idea of putting my memories on a lasting medium for myself to revisit later. It's great as a lasting record of what our lives are like now for our kids or those in later generations. I do paper, digital, and hybrid scrapbooking. Digital is usually the quickest way for me to get photos and memories on a page. I have used different programs for scrapbooking digitally (even powerpoint!).

So when I got the chance to try my memories, I was excited to see what kinds of new things I could do with My Memories Suite V2. It is VERY user friendly software, but still allows for customization. You can use their kits or any that you already have or buy, build pages, templates, and even add video and audio!

Here's a quick little page I made of a sunset in our neighborhood. It's easy to replicate this page and make little tweaks (change photo size, orientation, etc.) to make pages in a book that coordinate!


I'm excited to offer a chance for you to win digital scrapbooking software from My Memories! AND I have discounts for every one of my readers! Just use the following coupon code for a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite V2 software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - a $20 value! Use the code: STMMMS52162


**Please leave one comment for each entry as follows:**

*1st entry: Go to the my memories website and leave a comment here about a digital kit, template, or quick page that you like. Did you find the free kits section? Yeah, download some of those too! :)

For additional entries:
*Mark my Etsy store, Pretty Or Practical as a favorite and leave comment here with your Etsy name.
Follow me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway. Please add a comment here with your Twitter username.
*Post about this giveaway on your blog or Facebook page (please post your link or user name in comment).

Entries end at midnight Eastern time on October 17th. Winner will be selected by random number generator on October 18th.


This post is sponsored by My Memories.

Rebecca :)

Elmer's and Xacto

I am part of a site called (www.bzzagent.com) and I am fortunate to get to test different types of products. I have tested food and make up, but imagine how excited I was to receive this kit filled with wonderful crafting goodies from Elmer's- Xacto!

I'm working on a couple of projects using these new tools!


If you are looking for ideas, go to Elmer's site for crafters...

Big Idea Festival

If you aren't involved yet in Big Picture Scrapbooking, now is the perfect time to give it a try! There are always free scrapbooking classes there, but Aug 12 starts a new class with 39 different projects! That is a ton of inspiration! Go to BPS and check it out!

Kolette Hall "class" on her blog!

I have taken several classes at Big Picture Scrapbooking with Kolette Hall. She is a phenomenal woman and an amazing and inspirational teacher. She also makes the most beautiful artwork and downloads. The project we will be doing together is called "Needful Things" and it's about prioritizing and managing your life. We just happen to be using scrapbooking supplies to make a gorgeous notebook too! If you are interested in "playing along" with us, go to Kolette Hall's blog.

Here is what Kolette has to say about the project:

"Life Management.
That’s a tricky thing sometimes.  We all have unique lives – different families, different work situations, different homes, different adversities, different likes and dislikes, different personalities, different everything.  Because of the need to adapt strategies to fit our individual circumstances, learning how to manage our lives can be challenging."

One Word

Ali Edwards picks a single word to inspire her throughout the year. I selected a word for last year and found it was very inspirational. I have picked a word for 2010!

We went to the beach several times over the last week, so I wanted to share a couple of photos I took :)

Scrappers Give Thanks!

My kids and I are doing a great challenge called "Scrappers Give Thanks"! We are so excited to send cards for soldiers to use to write home to their loved ones ♥
If you have scrapbooking supplies (paper, hybrid, or digital) on hand, consider making a few cards for this cause!

Scrappers Give Thanks

Now THIS is cool!

I just realized that I hit my 100th post with no fanfare! I can't believe I have done that many posts, I still feel like a blog newbie!

Anyway, THIS is the coolest thing I have seen in a while, a library catalog card generator! You can even add little "scribbles" to the cards! I can see so many uses for this in scrapbooking...

CHA convention

CHA is coming to Orlando! Hurray, I get to go!

CHA-Summer 2009 Convention & Trade Show
July 27th, 2009 (Education Only)
July 28th-30th, 2009 (Trade Show)
July 31st-Aug. 1st, 2009 (Consumer Show)
Orange County Convention Center
Orlando, FL

Please note that online registration is now open for CHA Summer 09!

What I've Been Doing Lately!

I haven't been creating much in the way of sewing, mostly mending the kids' pants! That still keeps the machine going! I have done a few scrapbook pages and I have a bunch of photos from Sea World that I think I'll use for a mini album. I'm looking for ideas right now and have ordered the photos from Snapfish. I got them all free thanks to my coke rewards.

We have more company this weekend and next weekend, so we are going to stay pretty busy!
Here are a couple of more photos that we took last week:

Organizing Creative "Stuff"

I am NOT good at organizing, especially my creative area! It always looks like a train wreck. So... I have been searching craigslist and found an armoir for my craft supplies. I am hoping to get my creative "stuff" organized. I have my scrapbooking stuff pretty organized, papers, brads, etc. all in drawers and ribbon in jars, etc.

The stuff I can't organize, my quilting notions and my current projects, they just kind of become piles. It's like mountains of memorabilia and fabrics! Any ideas anyone? How do you organize your creative "stuff" and current projects?

His Holy Name: Righteous card

Protector

my latest challenge card

His Holy Name Card

This is my title card for the His Holy Name Challenge at Faith Sisters.

for the His Holy Name Challenge

I am doing a 3x5 card box and filling it with the names of God. There isn't a lot of room for embellishments, so I am having to try to simplify!

More a Week in the Life

More of A Week in the Life

Well, I have been snapping photos of the strangest things and even forgetting things that I should take photos of (like car line at school, a big part of every day). I think I will use next week to get a few generic shots that I forgot- like car line. And work on building my mini album and choosing a color scheme etc. I tried to upload a few photos, but blogger wasn't having it! So I will have to upload at another time... maybe tomorrow. I've been working on a journey of faith album called Look Straight Ahead and I am excited to share that here as well. I finished it tonight and I just want to sit and flip through the pages over and over.

A Week in the Life

I am doing a challenge to scrap a week in my life. I was inspired by Ali Edwards. It should be fun and I am interested to see the finished product as I don't really know the specifics yet. I am already taking a lot of pictures of what seems to be nothing... and awaiting creative inspiration for how to put them together, but I have high hopes for what this little mini album will be!Here is a peek at some of the pics. And you can see I have just started another of those knitted washcloths, this one is a different pattern :)

Join the Birthday Bash Cyber Crop at Faith Sisters

Join Faith Sisters for our
Birthday Bash Cyber Crop!

Who: YOU are invited!
When: September 26-28th
What: Challenges, Prizes (traditional and digital,) Sales,
Chats, New Goodies and MORE!
Where: www.FaithSisters.com
Why: To celebrate our 1 year birthday!

a scrapbook page

Here is a scrapbook page I tried with a heritage photo.
I think the color scheme is great with a black and white photo!

I just love working with these kinds of photos, it helps me to feel connected to my roots.

Morning at our house

This morning I was awakened by a sweet voice saying "Mom, it's 6:59" (alarm was set for 7). Then she went to get ready. Alarm chimed. Another sweet voice came to wake me and said "you are the best Mom I've ever had" - yes that is his sense of humor. Then I got a sweet nose kiss. What a wonderful morning. I sometimes wonder what I will do when these days are gone and there aren't any sweet little voices to rouse me and get my day started out right? It just makes me realize that I need to enjoy the NOW! I picked NOW as my word of the year (Ali Edwards, a scrapbooker and blogger inspired me to do this). I had kind of let the NOW thoughts dull with the passing of the months, but this has rekindled my desire to enjoy the NOW. I will cherish them NOW... such a precious morning today. Here is my LO celebrating NOW as my word of the year: