My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features

Posted in My Memories Suite, Scrapbooking, Tutorials , on January 3, 2010

mmstutorial5_freebie_previewHappy Sunday, and have I got a treat for you… introducing My Memories Suite VERSION 2! That’s right, you heard me correctly. Not only is there a new version to My Memories Suite with all new features, I created a video tutorial to explain it all and show those new features off!

Last month, StoryRock unveiled an all new version 2 of its famous and very popular digital scrapbooking software, My Memories Suite. Version 2 is packed with all new goodies and awesome new features that we were dying for in Version 1. It’s like StoryRock read all of the feedback of features and ideas that its users over the years have been wanting out of the software and put it in one neat little package that will make digital scrapbookers the world over very happy.

If you’ve been to the Pink Toque Craft Blog before, you know I am an avid user of My Memories Suite. I got the software over 3 years ago when it first came out, and I have been in love ever since. I don’t want to babble on forever (because the new Version 2 goodies are exciting!) but if this is your first visit to my blog and you’re wondering what all of the excitement is about and why I love this software so much, be sure to go and read my review. My Memories Suite has been the best digital scrapbooking program to ever come along and with Version 2, it just got better.

Version 2 includes 1500 new background papers, 1300 new embellishments and 20 new layouts that come built into the software for your use right out of the box. On top of that, new features such as the zoom ability, Resource Gallery, and WordArt Designer make creating beautiful digital scrapbooking pages even easier. My favorite new feature is that your text can now be curved and follow shapes. This was not something you could do in Version 1, and I love that I can create text in beautiful circular shapes or to follow the edges of a photograph right on the page. It was probably the most requested feature and question I got from readers of my blog. Before I had to tell people they could only do something like that in Photoshop, but now My Memories Suite allows you to edit curved and rounded text on the fly right in the program instead. Hooray!

My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features – Part 1 of 2

Another highly-sought-after feature that a lot of people asked me about was how to view pages side-by-side so they could build double page spread layouts. Unfortunately, this was not something you could do in Version 1, but now in Version 2 it’s easy. You can also now share your digital scrapbook in a wider variety of ways, including trading cards or calendars. They’ve also streamlined the Photobook process to make it easier to create beautiful photobooks of your finished albums. You’ll also love that you can click and rotate your pictures right on the page.

I received Version 2 last month and have been trying hard to squeeze in some digital scrapping time with it so that I could show off the new features here on my blog. I finally got around to it today, and created a new video tutorial that highlights all of the major new features available to you in Version 2. I walk you through the new things and how to use them, and it makes it easy for Version 1 users to pick right up where they left off in the old version, or for new users to My Memories Suite to see just how awesome the software really is so they can get it for themselves.

My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features – Part 2 of 2

Version 1 users will love that all of the photo albums and pages they’ve created in Version 1 will be converted for them into Version 2 compatibility and that the transition will be seamless. You won’t lose anything and all of your old albums will be right there for you in Version 2, ready to go and waiting for you to use the new tools and features to enhance them even further. When you’re adding embellishments or papers, you’ll be able to easily see what items are new to Version 2, and all of the old embellishments and papers from Version 1 are collected together in a folder labeled as Version 1, so you can quickly find all of your old favorites or check out the new stuff.

Speaking of Favorites, another new feature that I just love is that I can “bookmark” the embellishments and papers that I use most often and mark it as a favorite. This means that it’s added to a special “favorites” folder so I can access those favorite items quickly anytime I want to without having to search for them every time I want to use them on my digital scrapbook page designs. I show how this works in the video tutorial.

The WordArt Designer allows you to create fun and professional looking word art for your pages easily, and is built right in to the side tab of My Memories Suite now. Type in the text you want to create into word art, select the font and sizing, line spacing, colors, fill, stroke, etc. You can add shadows or a bevel and design the perfect word art accompaniment to any page you’re working on. I also demonstrate this in the video tutorial!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m really excited about the new features in My Memories Suite Version 2!  I just recently finished up Family Life 2009 digital scrapbook and am eagerly looking forward to working with all new designs, layouts, and features with Version 2 in 2010. If you want more details about what Version 2 has to offer, check out the info on mymemoriessuite.com. Original users of Version 1 will be able to upgrade for a nominal fee to get all of the new features, papers, embellishments, and layouts that come packaged with Version 2 and brand new My Memories Suite users can get on board and pick up Version 2 for themselves. If you’d like to save a little money on your purchase of My Memories Suite Version 2, be sure to click HERE: readers of the Pink Toque Craft Blog can get $10 off Version 2 PLUS get $10 of free downloads at the online MMS shop! (use promo code STMMMS21122 at the link!)

Paper Backgrounds for V2

I’ve spent most of the afternoon recording the latest tutorial and getting it uploaded for viewing. It ended up being 18 minutes long! Since YouTube only allows videos up to 10 minutes each, I split the tutorial into 2 parts:

* My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features – Part 1 of 2

* My Memories Suite Tutorial 5: Version 2 Features – Part 2 of 2

Enjoy! Be sure to let me know if you have any questions or comments on the new video tutorials or you need help with My Memories Suite Version 2. Hope you’ve had a great weekend :) Happy scrapping!


Tutorial: My Memories Suite Error Resolved

Posted in My Memories Suite, Scrapbooking , on April 28, 2009

Let’s set the scene: You’ve recently added some new content that you’ve downloaded to the My Memories Suite program directories and you can’t wait to get in and make some fantastic new scrapbook pages with them.  You start up the software and rush in to browse in the new directory you’ve created where all the new content is stored. As soon as you do, an error message pops up. Something about a corrupted file. Annoyed, you click ‘OK’ and realize that you were able to “bypass” the error and still access the files after clicking ‘OK’, but the error keeps popping up and you have to click ‘OK’ for all of the errors before you can use anything in that directory. Every. Single. Time. Ouch.

Some of you have experienced this situation multiple times. And many of you have emailed me, asking about the error and how to fix it, or what was causing the problem. Was it the content you downloaded? The error used the term ‘corrupted’ in reference to a particular file as you were browsing content directories; was there a corrupted image file in your download? Rest assured, it’s not anything you’ve done wrong, and believe it or not, the actual image file in your download isn’t corrupted. (Which is why most of you realized you could just click “OK” and it would allow you access to those files.)

Thanks to a helpful Pink Toque Craft Blog reader, Cam, we now have a resolution straight from My Memories Suite customer service that fixes the problem.  And the answer is so simple I keep wondering why I never bothered to call them myself.

Apparently Windows Vista doesn’t like to play nice with My Memories Suite. (Wait, Vista isn’t 100% compatible with everything? NO WAI!) You know how when you go browsing for scrapbooking items such as backgrounds or embellishments within the software and you see various thumbnails there to choose from? The first time you browse new content to use within the software that My Memories Suite hasn’t accessed before, the program renders thumbnail versions of every single image file in the new directory when you browse in it right then and there — backgrounds, embellishemnts, etc. — so that when you are browsing your options you have a little preview thumbnail image of the items to choose from.  The error comes into play when you’ve added new content, go to browse it within MMS and you use Windows Vista, as Vista doesn’t like to render the thumbnails properly, hence the error message. The error is basically just letting you know that the thumbnail isn’t present and it can’t be rendered, but it forgets to mention that it’s all Vista’s fault.

The Solution?
I know you’re thinking, “Great, Lesley, but how do we FIX it?” Well, after adding new content to your My Memories Suite software, be it additional content you’ve created or you’ve downloaded from others, (See my tutorial on how to add additional content HERE) you need to right click on your shortcut to launch My Memories Suite and choose “Run as Administrator” from the popup menu. If you run MMS as an administrator and THEN go in and browse the new content you added, My Memories Suite will render the thumbnails properly. My Memories Suite only needs to render thumbnails once — the first time the program accesses the new stuff  — and then the thumbnails will always be there. So this is why right after adding new content you may get errors for certain embellishments. You will continue to get those errors every time you run My Memories Suite afterwards until those thumbnails are created properly.  Once the thumbnails are rendered, the errors will go away.

You will only need to run My Memories Suite as an administrator once after adding new content to your software directories.  If later on down the road you add more new content, be sure that the next time you run My Memories Suite that you run it as an administrator and then go browse to the new content so that the thumbnails for the new files are made correctly, and you’ll be good to go. If you ever run into the error while you’re working within the software, simply save what you’re working on, exit out of the program, and restart My Memories Suite, being sure to run it as an administrator. Then go back to the directory you were trying to access before and the errors should be gone.

The only part of this that still doesn’t make sense to me is how Vista decides which files it cannot render properly. Sometimes I get the error after adding new content but other times I don’t get any errors at all. Sometimes it’s not the entire contents of the new directory I’ve added, just a few select files among an entire folder of new stuff that produces the error. Previously I believed it affected files that were small in size or too small of a resolution to be used properly within MMS.  I was fairly regularly getting the error on tiny items or very thin ribbons, which tend to be a lot of pixels wide but only a few pixels tall and I thought that was the contributing factor.  Perhaps that is part of it; perhaps the reason Vista is having issues rendering these thumbnails has to do with file sizes, dimensions or resolutions. But the most important part to note is that it is not an error or problem with My Memories Suite; it is a Windows Vista problem.

Bottom line: If you’re getting errors about corrupted image files after adding new content, run My Memories Suite as an administrator (right click on your desktop/taskbar shortcut and choose “Run as Administrator” from the popup) and browse to the new directories to ensure thumbnails are rendered properly to alleviate errors. Special thanks to Cam for sharing this information with us :)


My Memories Suite Tutorial 4: Layered Paper Tricks

Posted in Freebies, My Memories Suite, Scrapbooking, Tutorials , on November 16, 2008
My Memories Suite Tutorial 4 - Layered Paper Tricks

My Memories Suite Tutorial 4 - Layered Paper Tricks

Finally!!  I know it’s been a month since my last tutorial and I meant to get this up a few weeks ago, but as I’m sure you all have experienced… life got busy.  Anyway, here is my final tutorial that I have planned for My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software by Polaroid.  I say final only because I can’t think of any other topics to do a tutorial on within the software.  If you think of something you’d like me to explain or demonstrate let me know and I’d be happy to make more tutorials :)

This fourth installment of my tutorial series shows you how to achive the layered paper look within the program.  Not only does it show you how to layer background papers but it also shows you how you can turn those simple square or rectangular background papers into various shapes, too, when you layer.

 

If you’d rather watch this on YouTube so you can bookmark it to watch when convenient, head on over to YouTube, where you can also choose to watch in high quality.

Hope you enjoy this latest tutorial and it helps you out.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask here by replying on the thread or send me an email: craftblog at pinktoque dot com.  Oh and special thank to all of you that enjoyed and downloaded my The Road Not Taken quick page on Friday.  Glad you liked it! :)  Have a great week!

Updated January 28, 2009: I am now part of the affiliate program and can offer readers of my craft blog who enjoyed this tutorial a $10 discount on the My Memories Suite software, plus an additional $10 to spend in the MMS online store! To get the discount, click the banner link in the upper right corner/sidebar of my blog (Where it says “Get My Memories Suite”) or the link below, and use coupon/promo code STMMMS21122. Enjoy! :D
My Memories Suite $10 discount PLUS $10 to spend in the MMS online store, ORDER NOW! (with code STMMMS21122)


My Memories Suite Tutorial 3: Using Quick Pages

Posted in Freebies, My Memories Suite, Scrapbooking, Tutorials , on October 14, 2008
My Memories Suite Tutorial 3 - Using Quick Pages

My Memories Suite Tutorial 3 - Using Quick Pages

My latest tutorial for My Memories Suite is ready to go!  Today’s tutorial, the third in the series, teaches you how to use quick pages within the My Memories Suite software.  The tutorial assumes that you have already watched tutorial 2 and understand how to add additional content to your program’s directories (which you must do to add quick pages) and then how to physically use quick pages you’ve added within My Memories Suite.  It’s a quick and simple video this time (under 8 minutes, whew!), and I’ve put it over at YouTube since YouTube will allow you to watch in high quality and bookmark it for later use.

 

If you have any questions about the third installment of the My Memories Suite tutorial series I’ve been creating, let me know and I’d be happy to help or explain anything that isn’t clear :)

Need a quick page to use as a test when you follow along with the video? Nab my “Thankful for You” quick page from Sunday — it’s a great way to show off the things you’re thankful for this season :) Happy scrapping!

Updated January 28, 2009: I am now part of the affiliate program and can offer readers of my craft blog who enjoyed this tutorial a $10 discount on the My Memories Suite software, plus an additional $10 to spend in the MMS online store! To get the discount, click the banner link in the upper right corner/sidebar of my blog (Where it says “Get My Memories Suite”) or the link below, and use coupon/promo code STMMMS21122. Enjoy! :D
My Memories Suite $10 discount PLUS $10 to spend in the MMS online store, ORDER NOW! (with code STMMMS21122)


My Memories Suite Tutorial 2: Adding Additional Content

Posted in Freebies, My Memories Suite, Scrapbooking, Tutorials , on October 8, 2008
My Memories Suite software Tutorial 2

My Memories Suite software Tutorial 2

The second installment of the My Memories Suite tutorial series that I’ve been working on is ready for view!  This time around I address adding additional content such as freebies or other graphics to the program’s directories for use within the software.  This allows you to use digi scrapping freebies (or ANY image files such as clip art from the internet, things you design yourself OR even items you scan!) in My Memories Suite just as if it were pre-loaded content.

The fact that My Memories Suite allows you to use any and all common image files (such as .JPG or .GIF or .PNG) means that your possibilities with the software are endless.  While the program comes with tons of pre-loaded backgrounds, embellishments, etc. one day you’ll want to add more, and it’s very easy to do as you can see in Tutorial 2.  You’re not just limited to adding just digi scrapping freebies, either.  In this tutorial I show you how to add a typical digital scrapbooking freebie kit and how you can scan personal mementos like movie stubs or concert ticket stubs and add them the same way so that you can digitally scrap with physical mementos you’d normally paste in a traditional scrapbook.  The sky’s the limit with My Memories Suite, and I’m here to show you how easy it is to make the software your own.  Easily add downloaded freebie kits from DigiFree or scan physical objects such as a napkin from your friend’s wedding or a greeting card you’d normally scrap traditionally and use it within My Memories Suite digitally instead!

 

This is the second tutorial in the My Memories Suite software tutorial series and is roughly 18 minutes total in length.  You can check it out over on YouTube where you can bookmark it, download it and save it just in case you don’t have all 18 minutes to spare all at once.  If anything is unclear, just let me know!  I have plans for at least 3 other tutorials as well.  If you missed the first tutorial, which was an introduction to the software’s basic features and capabilities, click here.  Each new tutorial piggybacks off of the previous videos, so you’ll want to watch them all!  Stay tuned for more tutorials in the near future, and if you have any suggestions for future tutorials (wondering if My Memories Suite can do this or that? Just ask!) drop me a line and let me know; if it’s not already something I’m planning to do, I’d be happy to make more.

And thanks for the kind comments on yesterday’s Tags and Scraps freebie; I’m glad you enjoy them! :) See you back soon for more goodies.  Take care!

Updated January 28, 2009: I am now part of the affiliate program and can offer readers of my craft blog who enjoyed this tutorial a $10 discount on the My Memories Suite software, plus an additional $10 to spend in the MMS online store! To get the discount, click the banner link in the upper right corner/sidebar of my blog (Where it says “Get My Memories Suite”) or the link below, and use coupon/promo code STMMMS21122. Enjoy! :D
My Memories Suite $10 discount PLUS $10 to spend in the MMS online store, ORDER NOW! (with code STMMMS21122)

Updated April 23, 2011: Google Videos is ceasing to exist- you will now find the tutorial above on YouTube, and all links and embeds have been updated to reflect this change :)


My Memories Suite Tutorial 1: Introduction

Posted in Freebies, My Memories Suite, Scrapbooking, Tutorials , on October 1, 2008
My Memories Suite software Tutorial 1

My Memories Suite software Tutorial 1

I’ve received a few emails over the past several months asking me some more specific questions about the digital scrapbooking software I use: My Memories Suite by Polaroid.  One of the more recent emails I got asked a lot of good questions that I realized isn’t very obvious based on the website ad and video.  They’re more technical use questions that aren’t modeled on the infomercial or explained on the site for someone who may be trying to check out the program’s capabilities before buying.  Now that I have been using this amazing software for nearly a year, I felt inspired to create some video tutorials that cover some of the more important aspects of the program and some of the common questions I’ve been asked about it.  Today I’m releasing my first freebie software tutorial, which is a basic introduction.  In this video I do a 30 minute walkthrough of the program’s main features and show you the basic capabilities of My Memories Suite.  The video is embedded below, or you can click here to watch the video over on YouTube, where you can bookmark it and rate it to come back to in case you don’t have 30 minutes all at once to spare.

 

I hope that the video goes into enough detail to give you a better idea of how powerful My Memories Suite is, and perhaps even encourage you to purchase it for yourself.  I couldn’t possibly rave more about how much I love it!  And if you’re a newcomer to the pink toque craft blog, you may wish to read my review of My Memories Suite here.  Stay tuned, I have FOUR additional tutorial videos planned for this software that I will make and release as soon as I can :)  And speaking of upcoming things to release, I have so many freebie goodies coming very soon!  I’ll go ahead and announce that my next freebie will be a 3 day extravaganza starting this Friday (Freebie Friday!) in honour of the start of the new hockey season.  If you’re a Calgary Flames fan, you won’t want to miss it!

And WOW! Thanks to all of you that downloaded my CU paper edgers freebie the other day — they seem to be quite popular :) And I really appreciate all of the kind comments <3  I hope to make some more CU items in the future, too.  Enjoy the tutorial and I’ll see you back in a few days for the hockey special Freebie Friday!

Updated January 28, 2009: I am now part of the affiliate program and can offer readers of my craft blog who enjoyed this tutorial a $10 discount on the My Memories Suite software, plus an additional $10 to spend in the MMS online store! To get the discount, click the banner link in the upper right corner/sidebar of my blog (Where it says “Get My Memories Suite”) or the link below, and use coupon/promo code STMMMS21122. Enjoy! :D
My Memories Suite $10 discount PLUS $10 to spend in the MMS online store, ORDER NOW! (with code STMMMS21122)

Updated April 23, 2011: Google Videos is ceasing to exist- you will now find the tutorial above on YouTube, and all links and embeds have been updated to reflect this change :)