Tutorial5: How to work with your freebies in MMS

Hey everyone!
How are you guys doing? And how had your Christmas been? Not every day is a day of sunshine; but I hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas. In the daytime at Christmas, a car had landed upside down in the canal not far from our house, because it was in a very high speed. Good thing that my neighbor immediately jumped in the water and broke the car window to rescue the victims; they were unharmed. So be careful in the traffic everyone and save your life and those of others. At night on Christmas we had a lot of guests, yummy food, fireworks, and lots of fun.;)
I had already placed a tutorial out here about how you can work with your freebies in Microsoft Word. Today I’m placing a tutorial which teaches you to work with your freebies in My Memories Suite. If you haven’t purchased your software, you can use the discount code STMMMS35043 to purchase your software. You will be paying $29.97 instead of $39.97 with this code for your MMS version3 software. Software also comes with a $10 coupon, so a total of $20 in savings for you guys! With this coupon you can choose a free kit or some other product at www.MyMemories.com. If you choose a kit that’s $10 or less, it’s totally free for you with the $10 coupon!!!
No one has participated in this week’s giveaway, so the freebies stay with me. I am going to work with this week’s giveaway freebies. You can work with the freebies from previous week; scroll down to my previous post to download your freebies if you haven’t done it yet. Download the freebies and unzip it. Open an album and click on ‘Insert’ from your Menu bar, then click on ‘Add Page’ and choose for the option ‘Blank Page’ and then click on ‘OK’.

So you now have a blank page.

Now click on ‘Embellishments’ from your Control Panel, then on ‘Add’. You will get a ‘Choose Embellishment’ window; click on ‘Brows Other…’.

Now open the file where you have saved your freebies, then click on one of the Quick Pages that you want to work with and then click on ‘OK’ and then on ‘Close’.



I now have my Quick Page inserted on my blank page.

What we are going to do now, is to insert pictures. I’m going to use firework pictures that my brother and cousin had fired at Christmas. So click on ‘Photos’ on your Control Panel, then click on ‘Box’; a picture box will appear on your page where you can insert your picture. I am going to change the shape of the picture box, so click on ‘Shape’ from your Photos tab and choose for a ‘Circle/Oval’ shape and then click on ‘OK’.

The picture of your picture box has now changed to a circle shape. Move the picture box to the place where you want it to be and make it smaller if necessary. If you are working with the quick pages from the previous post, choose for a ‘Rounded Corner’ shape for your photo box.

We need two more photo boxes for this layout. We can simply copy the photo box we already have by clicking on the ‘Copy selected object’ button and then clicking on the ‘Paste copied or cut object’ button twice. Move your copied photo boxes to its place.

Now double click on one of the picture boxes to add your pictures; you can edit your pictures the way you want. Do the same for the other picture boxes. You can use the Zoom function if you want one particular part of your picture to be shown. The zoom function is also very handy for if you have a group picture and you want only one person to be shown on your layout. Double click on the picture to get the position of your picture right.

Now we are going to add text to our layout. Click on ‘Text’ on your Control Panel. Then click on ‘Add’; a text box will appear on your layout. Move your text box to its place and make the textbox bigger or smaller if necessary and then type in your text. To move your text box simply click on some other object and then select your text box to move it. Double click in the box to add/edit your text. I’ve chosen for a centered alignment for my text and I’ve used picker for a matching text color. You can change your font, size, etc. the way you like.

One final step I forgot to do; right click on one of your pictures and choose for the option ‘Send to Back’.  Do the same with your other pictures. If you want to edit your picture after sending it back simply select your layout, then right click and choose for the ‘Lock Object’ option, now you can select your pictures and edit it the way you want. Right click on the Quick Page again to unlock your Quick Page. I’ve zoomed the first picture a little bit in. When you don’t lock your object, you will only be able to edit your pictures by sending your Quick Page to the back. When you have lots of objects on your layout the lock function is handier, cause with the send back or forward function a lot of objects can get out of place which will cost you much more time to edit your layout. We’re done now; that was as easy as 1-2-3!!!

You can export your layout to a JPEG image and share it online with your family or friends or print it out.

Wishing you a prosperous and happy New Year everyone!!! And be careful with the fireworks.
Sharda

Tutorial 4: How to create a layout for your envelope

I’m back with a new tutorial and today I’m going to show you how you can create your own envelope. You can open your album in MMS in which your had created your Christmas postcard and we are going to create a layout for the front of our envelope.

Method 1 for creating a layout for your envelope in MMS

If you are not planning on using the layout of the back of your postcard, you can simply make some changes on the layout you already had created. If you are planning to use your layout again, there are two options from which you can choose. Option no.1 is to right click on the thumbnail of your layout for the back and then click on ‘Insert Duplicate Page’. So we are now going to make a little bit of changes on the layout we had already created. If you hadn’t created a layout for the back of your postcard scroll down and try method 2.

Drag your embellishment(s) to the side of your layout to create some space for typing the addressee’s name. You can make your embellishment(s) bigger or smaller with the handles of your embellishment if you like. Now drag your text somewhere in the middle. Delete the text by selecting the text box, then clicking on the text; you will see a cursor. Place the cursor at the end of your text and backspace it. Your text is now deleted and you can type in the recipient’s address now. You can also make some changes to the font if you like.

The Curlz MT is to curly; I’m afraid that the postman won’t be able to read the address easily, so I’m going to change the font back to ‘Times New Roman’. Simply select the whole text and then choose for another font. You’re now done creating a layout for your envelope! Sorry, I’ve blurred the address I had typed, cause I don’t want the address to be seen on my blog.

Method 2 for creating a layout for your envelope in MMS

The second option for creating a layout for your envelope is to click on ‘Insert’ on your Menu bar and then click on ‘Add Page’, ‘Blank Page’ and then on ‘OK’; this way you’ll have a blank page in which you can add your embellishment(s) and/or text. Start by inserting an embellishment or embellishments which you had used for creating your postcard.

The second step is to click on ‘Text’ from your Control Panel and then click on ‘Add’. You will see a text box on your page which you can make bigger or smaller with the handles of your text box. Choose for a font, size etc. and type the address of the recipient. That’s it; done in a jiffy!

How to draw the shape of your envelope in Microsoft Word

Now it’s time to draw the shape of our envelope; this way it’s easier to cut out the shape. You can print out the layout which you had created in MMS and then draw the shape with a pencil or you can also draw the shape on your pc or Mac using a software; MMS can also be used for this task. I’ve worked with Microsoft Word to draw the shape of my envelope, cuase I had printed out my layout in Microsoft Word. So open your previously saved file in Microsoft Word.

We are going to insert two more lines at the top and bottom and then we are going to delete the pictures.

I’m going to move my rectangle a little bit downwards by selecting all the lines. First select one line, then hold your control key down and select the other lines. Now move your rectangle with your downward (↓) key.

Move the line at the top of your rectangle a little bit upward; I’ve hit 3 times on my upwards key (↑). Now move the line on the right of your rectangle also by using the rightwards key (→). Close the rectangle by pulling a little bit on the lines. We’re doing this cause we need a little bit extra space for the card. If you have stuck embellishments on your postcard that needs some more envelope space, just move the lines a little bit more. Now you can draw the wings of your postcard by inserting lines.

You can select the lines and use ‘Copy’ ‘Paste’ to get exact lines of the same lengths for your wings. You can now also insert your layout that you had created in MMS.

When you’re done drawing your wings, move the line at the bottom of the rectangle a little bit upward to create some space for the recipient to be able to easily get your postcard out of the envelope.

Make the vertical lines a little bit shorter, so all the lines are closed now.

We are now going to round the corners of the wings a little bit by inserting arcs at the corners.

Delete the line at the top of the rectangle and make the lines on the left and right of your rectangle a little bit shorter, so this way you won’t see the lines when your are done creating your envelope.

You are now ready to print out your envelope!

Cut out the shape of your envelope.

Fold up your envelope.

Glue the right and left wing and then you’re done!!! My camera lens was dirty; sorry about that.

Wishing you guys a merry X-mas!!! And I have a Christmas gift for everyone! You guys are getting 2 Quick Pages, and all of the papers and elements used in creating them. The elements and Quick Pages are .png and the papers are .jpg format. They can be used in any software. Here’s the link for everyone to download these Simply Adorable freebies: http://www.mymemories.com/store/share_the_memories_kit_2 

Here’s an image of how your free gift looks like. If you want more Quick Pages just leave your name and e-mail in the comment section of this post to participate in next week’s giveaway!

And remember, everyone can use the coupon code STMMMS35043 to purchase the My Memories Suite Version 3 software; you will get a $10 discount by using this code. It’s still not late to create your Christmas postcard if you don’t need the postman to deliver it.;) But even when your postcard arrives a bit late, the recipients will be happy that he/she still received something from you.You can also use this software to create your own unique calendar for the New Year!

XOXO
Sharda

How to print out your MMS layouts if you don’t have a printer of your own

Hey everyone!
How are you guys doing?
I’m good; just pampered my feet in a hot tub. It’s good for your body as well as for your soul to pamper yourself now and then.;)

Today I’m going to share my printed postcard with you guys. I don’t have a printer of my own, so I had placed my exported JPEG images which I had created with my My Memories Suite close to each other in Microsoft Word to print it out.

First I had inserted my JPEG images by right clicking on the thumbnail of my JPEG image and then clicking on ‘Paste’ in Microsoft Word. I had created another layout for the back of my postcard in MMS. So when you insert your layouts in Microsoft Word they will be on two pages. I’m going to place them on one page. So how do you do that?

First start by changing your page layout. Click on ‘Page Layout’ and choose for ‘Narrow Margins’.

Now I’m going to make my images smaller. First select your picture, then click on ‘Picture Tools’. Now you can change the size of your picture.

I’m gong to change the height and width of my picture into 4.84”, but you can also choose some other value if you like. So type in the value; I’m typing 4.84” for the height and width and then I’m hitting the ‘Enter’ key.

Select the other picture if you have also created a back in MMS. I’ve added a deer embellishment and a Text ‘Created by Sharda Sewdien’ for the layout of the back. If you haven’t created a back for your postcard, you can also leave a piece of white area and cut out the white area as your back after printing out your layout. So now I have both my layouts on one page.

Select the pictures one by one and and choose for the option ‘Rotate Right 90˚’ from your Format menu.

You could actually also have choosen for a landscape orientation; this way you wouldn’t have to rotate the pictures. There are lots of ways to get the job done.

When you only have one layout, you can place your layout somewhere below on your page and print it out and your done after cutting out your layout! When you also have a layout for the back of your postcard, we are going to continue. So when you’ve rotated your pictures, give it a borderline by selecting a picture border color; this way you will be able to view the borders of your layout.

You can now see that there’s a space between the two layouts. So what we are going to do is, we are going to select the second layout and then we are going to give it a Text Wrapping; click on ‘Behind Text’.

Now you can place the two layouts close to each other without any space; use your arrow key ‘↑’ to get the layout a bit up.

Now choose for ‘No outline’ cause you don’t want to see the line between the two layouts and then insert a line shape instead at the top and bottom of your postcard, this way you’ll know where you should be cutting your postcard.

To insert a line, go to ‘Insert’, ‘Shapes’, then click on ‘Line’ and draw your line by holding your mouse in. Now you can print out your postcard.

This is the front cover of my postcard.

The back of my postcard.

You can also decorate the inside of your postcard if you like. There are endless ways from which you can choose to decorate your postcard. You could for example also have created another layout for the inside or you could use cut-outs and or other decoration items. As a little girl I would love cutting out shapes and pictures from magazines and decorating my diary with them. I’ve chosen for this option this time to decorate the inside, cause I love reusing materials.  You could also try this out when it’s for personal use. I’ve cut out a light-up penguin pal from the inside of an Avon brochure cover which isn’t valid anymore and I’ve glued it on the inside of my postcard. I’ve also stuck some glitter stickers on the side of the penguin and I glued a piece of red lace on the other side. This is how the inside of my postcard looks like.

The only thing missing is a handwritten message and I can do it in the post. I also have created my own envelope; maybe I’ll explain next time how I created my envelope.

I have something special for you guys this week! Everyone visiting my blog gets a free gift. You can download your full of spunk quick pages from this link: Sorry, link has expired. Check out my newest post for new freebies. . You have the time till Tuesday to download your free gift. Have fun creating your layouts with them!!!

I’m going to polish my nails now.

Till next week,
XOXO