One of my favorite scrapbook sites is closing their digital art store. Polka Dot Potato has long been one of the premier digital scrapbook stores. But now they are shifting gears and focusing on their great print service – they print the BEST 12×12 prints ever, and they are priced right! In addition, they have some business to business ventures, plus graphic and web design. Boy! They are going to be busy!

So, even though we are so sad to see Polka Dot Potato close their digital scrapbook store, there are great savings to be had by all! Now through August 25, you can save 60% on your order, with a minimum purchase of $10. Plus, if you spend over $100 you will save an ADDITIONAL 15%! Incredible savings on incredible art! Click on the graphic below to enter the store and fill your cart!

Have you ever met a kid who doesn’t like to watch their favorite movie? It might be Toy Story or The Little Mermaid, but when they are watching it they are so absorbed by the story. It is fun to watch kids enjoy their favorite movies – and it is even more fun to watch movies that have them as the star! Put in a video of when they were babies or the latest trip to Disneyland and they get so excited! It is better than Toy Story – and that is pretty good!

DVD’s are a great way to share and view memories. One great way to enjoy those memories is to get a Picture Memory DVD made of the big (or small) events in your life. You may have seen videos like this at a wedding reception – you know where they show photos of the bride and groom from birth on up to the wedding day? These videos are not only fun and entertaining for those who are waiting in line, but they are a treasured keepsake for the happy couple and their parents.

However, keepsake DVD’s are not limited to big events like weddings. Why not have a special DVD made for your child’s first birthday or your father’s 80th? What about a collection of pictures and videos from the latest soccer season and then hand them out to the team? You could have a fun ‘end of the year’ DVD made for your child’s school teacher or a cousins DVD for grandparents.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless! If you are looking for someone to create a DVD for you, look no further than Kylee’s Picture Memory DVD’s. Her prices are excellent and the quality is excellent. She will help you create the perfect memory for your favorite people! Head on over to her blog for contact information, and start thinking of the next memory you are going to create!

It is time once again for the fabulous Potato Bar at Polka Dot Potato! For those of you who have not experienced the bar, you can get fabulous scrapbook kits, templates, and more for only .99 cents! There are some great products available and you can’t beat the price. The bar only comes around a few times a year and it is one of the best times to stock up on quality digital scrapbook products.

The Potato Bar is operating a little differently this time. All the designers were given color swatches to work with and as a result you have coordinating products. The products are grouped under certain categories and the products you buy in the same category will go together. This way you can mix and match and come up with a great variety of papers and elements! The categories are: Bunny Hop, Rainy Days, Spring Fever, & Tulip Garden.  There is also the ‘Buy the Bar’ option. This is where you can buy all of a designers Potato Bar products for a 25% discount.  I tell you, there are great deals all around during the Potato Bar!

Here is the official Potato Bar ad:

Once the bar is closed these products will go away forever – well, maybe not forever but they won’t be this price ever again! By the way, if you are new to digi scrapping this is a perfect opportunity to build up your supply of digi products and get a feel for the different designers.  If you are a veteran scrapper, here is your chance to try out some of the new designers at Polka Dot Potato – one of the best digital scrapbook stores around!

I have a friend who is really on top of picture taking and scrapbooking. Every year she takes pictures of family parties, events and general everyday living then she puts it all together in a book at the end of the year. Okay, so this just sounds like the scrapbooking we all do right? Well, she takes it a step further and makes it more like family history keeping! She creates a spiral bound, 8.5 x 11 book for every member of her family. In this book there are several pages for each family member and their pursuits throughout the year. She also includes family vacations, get togethers and just fun stuff. I have to tell you that this friend is the party queen and she hosts fabulous event parties for Easter, Mother’s Day, etc. She includes the invitations and pictures of these events. Is there any better way to remember the year and create a wonderful history for posterity at the same time?

Here are some tips to create your own yearbook. First of all – take lots of pictures! You can’t have a quality yearbook unless you have great photos to put in it. Don’t just take pictures of the stuff you think is important. Take pictures of everyday events – Mom cooking dinner, Dad mowing the lawn, the family playing the Wii. It is the everyday events that make memories and these things will endear you to your future posterity. Think about it, isn’t it the stories of everyday life that you enjoy most about your ancestors? Make sure you take notes and record the who, what, why, where, etc. No one likes to look though a scrapbook and play guess who!

Next, to avoid an overwhelming task at the end of the year scrap the pages throughout the year. If you stay on top of it, you will remember the details of the events and you will have less stress at the end of the year. You will just need to print, bind and wrap! A ready made gift that you have created with love all year long.

When printing your book you can rely on professional printers to create a beautifully bound book. Or you can print it yourself using a high quality printer (I like HP Photosmart printers, but everyone has their favorites!). Make sure you use good quality paper like the Epson Double Sided Photo Paper. This paper is high quality, shows the colors brilliantly, and since it is matte you won’t have a glare.

NOTE – Anything you print with an inkjet printer is not waterproof so if it gets wet you will get smears. To prevent this, put your pages in sheet protectors or treat it with Preserve-It Digital Photo & Paper Protectant. This is a spray that will create a water and fade proof barrier on your inkjet printed photos. Just to test, I printed scrapbook page on the Epson paper and then sprayed them with Preserve-It. I then ran the page under a faucet and it didn’t run or smear. Of course you would never put a photo under running water, but I was a skeptic so I had to test it!

Start now to create a wonderful keepsake for your family and friends. Not only will you be giving them a wonderful gift of memories, you will be creating an invaluable history of your family.

Here it is, a brand new year. Have you made your resolutions yet? It seems we like to start the year resolving to eat better, exercise more, and be budget wise. But what are your scrapbook goals? Now, don’t laugh – I am serious! Do you have any scrapbook goals for 2010?

If you haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions that have the word ‘scrapbook’ in them, let me help you. The number one thing you should resolve to do this year is take more pictures!. Keep a small camera with you all the time, because you never know when the perfect shot will happen. There are wonderful compact cameras on the market that take excellent photos. So even though you might prefer to take pictures with your ‘nice’ camera, you will find that having a purse camera is very handy!

Next, get the pictures off the camera! So now that you have taken all these great photos, where are they? If you are like a lot of people they are still sitting on your memory card – in the camera. Upload the photos to your computer and then back them up. It is a good idea to have at least to back up copies of your photos and scrapbook pages. You never know when you might have hard drive failure.

Make a scrapbook plan. Set a goal for scrapbooking so many times per month, or finishing so many pages. Make it a realistic goal that you will be able to attain – we want success, not failure! One idea for the new year is to create a ‘year in review’ book. Start now and take photos and create a layout each month. At the end of the year you have a fun book that has all the highlights of the previous month. This type of book makes a great gift for grandparents too!

Make a photo book. Another fun gift for almost anyone is a professionally bound photo book. These books become treasured keepsakes and look wonderful – just like something you would pick up at a bookstore, but it is all about your family!  Learn how to make a photo book today!

Print your pages. As you finish your layouts – print them! Everyone loves to flip through a scrapbook and relive memories. Sure, you can look at the layouts on your computers, but having them in a book you can hold is wonderful. Polka Dot Potato does wonderful scrapbook printing, any size including 12×12. Their prices are great and the quality is fabulous!

Sit down and write your scrapbook goals for the coming year. When you get to next December you will be glad you did!

It is that time of year again, the sights, the smells, and the shopping! It is so exciting when you find the perfect gift for someone – you know when you have it. You can’t wait until they open it because you just know they are going to love it! But what do you get that person who has everything?  How about a digital photo book? These are great to give grandparents because they LOVE to show off their grandkids!

Here are some ideas to create the best photo book gift.  If you want to drop photos into a pre-made template and have it bound into a book, you can visit one of the many different online printing services like Tiny Prints. If you order a book through them by December 10 you get free shipping. Online photo printing services offer lots of options for your book – different sizes, page styles, etc. You can create a personal photo book very easily. Many online sites also allow you to upload scrapbook pages you have created and print them into a book.

Another idea is to create a fun book of the years events by using quick pages. Quick pages allow you to put your photos into pre-made scrapbook pages. These pages are darling and so easy to use. This is one of my favorites:
This quick page is created using the Adorable Leonardo – Quick Pages by Nandinha Menezes. This quick page set includes 10 8×8 quick pages and is available at Polka Dot Potato.

You can also use scrapbook pages you have created throughout the year and print them as 8×8 pages instead of 12×12. You can print your own with great results! I print my 8×8 pages on my HP Photosmart Printer with fabulous results! you will want to print on a good quality matte paper. I use Epson Matte Photo Paper (I buy it in bulk!). You will get a velvety smooth print with vibrant color. I like using matte paper when I am putting the pages in sheet protectors, I guess I don’t want a double does of gloss! Plus, I really like the way photos look after being printed on the Epson Matte paper – gorgeous!

If you want to make sure the ink doesn’t run, spray your print with Krylon Preserve-It Digital Photo & Paper Protectant when the print is dry. I gave this spray the test – after spraying a page and letting the spray dry, I ran it under water just to see if the ink would run. It passed! The page stayed perfectly printed – of course I wouldn’t recommend running your scrapbook pages under a faucet, but at least you know your prints will be safe from water drops! The Krylon Preserve-It spray comes in a matte finish or a gloss finish. This spray is good for protecting all your inkjet printed photos!

There are many different options for creating digital photo books for gifts. What is most important is you are giving a gift you created yourself – that is far better than anything you can buy at the store!

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Remember the old days when you would just pick up a box of greeting card at the store, sign them and send them off to faraway family and friends.  Maybe you included a picture of two, maybe not. Well, because of our great digital cameras, we now have modern Christmas cards as well! You just take your pictures and then upload them to a photo printing site. In just a few days you will have fun holiday photo cards to send to everyone you know.

But what makes a good picture for holiday cards? You may want a holiday or winter background – something that just screams “holiday magic, snowmen, & fun!”. Or maybe a traditional family group shot, with everyone perfectly posed. It is your choice, because it is your family photo card!

Here are a few tips for getting a great picture for your card:

• Prepare! If you are taking your own family photo, spend some time at the location. You should get a feel for the lighting – what direction does the light come from, do you need a flash, where are the shadows.
• Use your flash! Even in a sunny or bright location you may need a flash to brighten faces that may be shadowed. Use a flash diffuser to soften the light from the flash. You can make your own diffuser by placing a piece of tissue secured with a rubber band over a pop-up flash. Or tape a piece of tissue to the flash on a point and shoot camera. You will find you like the lighting better if you use a diffused flash.
• Don’t expect perfection. Taking group shots is hard, it is almost impossible to get everyone looking the right direction, smiling at the right time, etc.  Allow yourself to relax! Pictures don’t have to be perfectly posed, and everyone in their Sunday best to have a great photo!  I love this photo for that reason.  This photo shows family love – look how much these kids love being together and hamming it up for the camera.  This might not be the setting you would choose for a holiday card, but it really shows their personalities!
• Put your self in the picture! How many pictures do you have of everyone else in the family – but not you? Use the self timer on your camera (most cameras have them), or invest in a remote shutter cable.  Remember the WHOLE family – not just the kids!

With a little bit of planning and a little less worry about perfection, you can create the perfect modern Christmas cards to send to all your faraway friends and family. And of course you will need to save some to scrapbook!

Time for another FREEBIE! Click here to find it.

If you ask anyone in the graphic design or professional photography field, they will tell you that Photoshop is the best photo editing and graphics program on the market. True, it is a fantastic product with a wide range of capabilities. But, these are people that use it every day. What about the average user who wants a program for digital scrapbooking that also helps them get the most out of their digital photos?

While Photoshop is the industry standard for professionals, it has features and capabilities that will never be used by the casual user. So why spend hundreds of dollars on a program that has features you won’t need or use?

Announcing Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8. Complete photo and video editing made easy. Buy now.

Let’s take a look at Photoshop’s little sister – Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements and Photoshop are both made by Adobe. They have similar interfaces and both are capable of photo editing and graphics work.

When deciding which program to buy, you need to look at how it will be used – and how often. Most consumers want a program that will allow them to edit their digital photos – remove red eye, adjust color tone, etc. They also want a program to use for digital scrapbooking or digital card making. While both programs will do these things, Elements is a user friendly program that is easy to learn and use.

One of the major differences in the two products is price. Photoshop retails at around $650, while Photoshop Elements is priced at $99. This makes Elements much more attractive to the average consumer.

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Adobe designed Elements to have all the Photoshop tools that the average user would need. It is named Elements because that is what it has – the core elements of Photoshop. Some people mistakenly thing that Elements is a ‘dumbed down’ version of Photoshop. This is simply not true. Elements is a product with a different focus than Photoshop. There are many online tutorials and forums that are dedicated to learning both Photoshop and Elements.

In the end, it is really a matter of choice and budget. Both programs will give you everything you need for photo editing and digital scrapbooks and cards. So, which will it be – Photoshop or Elements?