Christmas Scrapbook document your favorite decorations and ornaments

Recently I posted this "vintage" animated Santa on a garage sale site. 

One of the first replies:

 "I remember my Aunt had one of these Santas!" 

The commenter wasn't interested in buying it but his comment made me pause. For him that was a vivid memory and I flashed forward to future grandchildren and thought hmmm... maybe I should hang on to this little guy. He might spark some Christmas nostalgia in my own children when they return home as adults. I quickly removed him from the For Sale page, dusted him off and plugged him in his honorable spot next to the Christmas tree. 

There he sits writing his Nice List by candlelight....

This Christmas during the hustle and bustle you might want to take a few photos of your favorite decorations and ornaments to add to your Christmas scrapbook. 

If you receive some new ornaments this year, your Christmas scrapbook is the perfect place to document where the ornament came from, what year it was added to your collection and the meaningfulness of it.  I started writing down a list of our ornaments a few years ago and I update it before I pack the ornaments away.

Here are couple of my "old" favorites...

"Just Married" 1988

"Drummer Elf" 1968-ish

What part of Christmas still makes you smile like a little girl or boy?

CM's Day 4 Golden Ticket Prize Package

Monday I posted our Birthday Bash Celebration News! Creative Memories is giving away 3 Golden Tickets each day. They're being placed in 3 random orders throughout the day, each day this week! When you place an order via my website you may be the lucky recipient of a Golden Ticket. 

Thursday's Golden Ticket can be redeemed for:

Prize package includes the Home for the Holidays Cream Mica Coverset, White Pages & Protectors and the Christmas Joy Paper Pack, Stickers and Slide-In Pack!!

Everyone who places an order via my website today will receive a free 3-pack of Fall Stickers:

Everyone who places a $75 or more order via my website today will receive free shipping!

Everyone who places a $250 or more order via my website today will also receive one of these two Exclusive 12x12 Coversets with silver foil seasons design!

 So much to celebrate! Thank You for a phenomenal year!

 Happy Scrappin'

Creative Memories Golden Ticket Prize Package Day 3

Monday I posted our Birthday Bash Celebration News! Creative Memories is giving away 3 Golden Tickets each day. They're being placed in 3 random orders throughout the day, each day this week! When you place an order via my website you may be the lucky recipient of a Golden Ticket. 

Wednesday's Golden Ticket can be redeemed for:

All of this! The Bordermaker system with these Border Cartridges!!

Plus Everyone who placed/places an order via my website today will receive a free 3-pack of Fall Stickers:

Everyone who places a $75 or more order via my website today will receive free shipping!

Everyone who places a $250 or more order via my website on today will also receive one of these two Exclusive 12x12 Coversets with silver foil seasons design!

 So much to celebrate! Thank You for a phenomenal year!

 Happy Scrappin'

Creative Memories Golden Ticket Prize Package Day 2

Monday I posted our Birthday Bash Celebration News! Creative Memories is giving away 3 Golden Tickets each day. They're being placed in 3 random orders throughout the day, each day this week! When you place an order via my website you may be the lucky recipient of a Golden Ticket. 

Tuesday's Golden Ticket can be redeemed for:

Everyone who places an order via my website today will receive a free 3-pack of Fall Stickers:

Everyone who places a $75 or more order via my website on Tuesday will receive free shipping!

Everyone who places a $250 or more order via my website on Tuesday will also receive one of these two Exclusive 12x12 Coversets with silver foil seasons design!

 So much to celebrate! Thank You for a phenomenal year!

 Happy Scrappin'

Creative Memories Birthday Bash!!

Hi Friends! This week we are celebrating Creative Memories Birthday - one year since we kicked off CM with our new owner Caleb!  Our first year has exceeded all expectations and we would like to thank you for making it phenomenal! 

Creative Memories is offering some very fun "gifts" this week only.....

11am CST, Monday, November 2 through 3pm CST, Friday, November 9, 2015

Every order placed via my website will get a FREE 3-pack of Fall Stickers!

Every order of $75 or more placed via my website will get FREE Shipping!

Every order of $250 or more via my website will get an Exclusive 12x12 Bookcloth Album Cover in either Warm Sand or Smoky Blue with a gorgeous silver foil etched design of four seasons! (colors will be randomly selected)

Each day during the Birthday Bash, our elves will place a sparkly Golden Ticket into 3 randomly selected orders during different times of the day! 

If you are the lucky recipient of a Golden Ticket, follow the instructions to redeem your ticket for a Product Prize Package! There will be a different Prize Package associated with each day's ticket.  Today's Golden Ticket holders can redeem it for a Fall In Collection:

My focus is on simplicity and completing albums in a fast, easy way but I know many of you enjoy being crafty and using your paper and tools and embellishments to enhance your photo albums so I will be sharing project ideas during our Birthday Bash week too!

Now...to help kick off the holiday season....take a look at what just launched today:

Happy, Happy Birthday CM!

Happy Scrappin'

Halloween Costume Scrapbook

As you are taking photos of your ghosts and goblins this weekend, I thought you might want some ideas on how to enjoy these photos for years to come.  A Halloween or Fall Festival Theme Album is a super fun way to capture creative costumes and fun times!

If Halloween is a favorite holiday for you - packed with parties, Trunk or Treat, school Fall Festivals, etc.., then you should probably use a 12x12 Album like this Black Mica Pumpkin Patch album cover. You can't see it in the photo but the cover actually has reflective flecks woven into the bookcloth for an iridescent effect! It's lovely!

If you aren't a big fan of Halloween and only let your kids dress up but don't have many activities involved, then I suggest a smaller album like a 7x7 or 8x8 size with just one photo per year to document the costumes. This will be so much fun to quickly see the progression of time as you flip through years of dress-up in just 12 pages (24 sides).

This 8x8 album (pictured above) is pre-decorated so all you do is tape your photo onto the page and you're done!  It's soo easy!  You can write the date/year beneath the photo at the minimum or you can add a story about the costume:

Why they chose it

Was it store bought or home made?

If home made, who made it?

What were the popular Halloween costumes this year?

What candy did you give away?

Or what was their favorite candy this year?

The Fast2Fab albums come with Page Protectors so when you're done adding the photo and any journaling, you just slip on the protective clear cover and you don't have to do anything to it until next year when you add the next costume photo. This keepsake will be a nice fall decoration on your coffee table each year and you can enjoy it for years to come! Even the future grandchildren will enjoy seeing their parents Halloween costumes in this handy little album. 

For those of you who like to get creative, here are some NEW Halloween Stickers and Papers just for you:

You can cut and paste to your hearts delight with Creative Memories Trick or Treat Paper Pack and Trick or Treat Stickers! (you can use the CM link on the right-hand side of this blog to get to my website or click on one of the photos)

The black and green border was made with the Border Maker and Bubbles Cartridge

The stickers are from the Trick or Treat Sticker Pack

I hope you enjoy these ideas

Have a safe, memory-making Candy Day!

Happy Scrappin'

Christmas Countdown

I'm so excited! Today I received Email #1 in Cynthia Ewer's Countdown to Christmas and this time I am actually going to do it! 

I love Christmas and I want to enjoy every minute of the holiday festivities - from Thanksgiving through New Year's! For a busy mom of 4, it takes some planning and preparation in order for me to truly enjoy "the reason for the season" and not get suckered into a frenzy of consumerism, stress, and unrealistic expectations.

If you would like to get started on an Organized Christmas too, head on over to Cynthia's blog and sign up for her email assignments. You can also download her free Christmas Calendar/Planner notebook!  Sweet!!

christmas.organizedhome.com/christmas-countdown/home

Xoxoxoxo 

DL 

Joining Legacy Republic

Soo this was how I was welcomed into the Legacy Republic family today!  They posted this photo on Facebook - pretty cute, right?  (this was just one photo in a series of new September enrollments but I happened to notice my name - does that make me Famous? or does that make me Vintage? At least they didn't put me on a Beta! Haha).

I packed up my first shipment today...a bit nervous, but mostly excited!  I'm sending in 5 of my personal MiniDV's to have them transferred onto DVD's (that also includes a private online account where I can access them to share or edit from my computer or phone or tablet! And, of course, my old tapes will be mailed back to me along with the new DVDs).

The ordering process was super easy and the packing instructions very thorough. I took my time because I wanted everything to be correct and safe as possible. Legacy Republic entrusts us with caring for our client's memories as if they were our very own.  Going through this process of mailing some of my home movies to be transferred to DVDs certainly helps me experience what my clients may be feeling when using my services. 

I wonder if my home movies will be embarrassing? (no doubt!), silly, sad, boring, adorable, hilarious....?

all of the above?

I wonder and I wait....

Home Movie Conversion

I'm excited to announce my business is expanding to include "old" media conversion service! 

Putting these precious "old" memories (1995 is now considered old?!) onto DVD's and, even better, onto Cloud storage where they can be accessed via a home computer or smart phone with endless possibilities for duplication, sharing and enjoyment!

I'm sending my first package off today and I can't wait to receive it back and have a family movie night starring my kids!  I'll share some snippets with you too (don't worry, this is not your 1950's style boring Slide Show...I'll actually be able to share snippets from the DVD via Facebook, email, blog, etc... ).  Eventually I want to transfer all of my old media over but I'm so excited to see how this all works that I decided to send in a few 8mm tapes that I had taken during My Hero's deployment back in 2006.

Being a "single mom" to 4 kiddos during those 9 months was very challenging. I'm not sure I was very good at it. In fact, I think some of the videos might show me pretty exhausted and maybe a bit impatient....but I kind of remember maintaining a sense of humor (at least I hope I did) and it was a precious time for our family as we went through that separation having "daddy" gone. 

The company I am partnering with is called Legacy Republic.  Does that sound like something out of Star Wars?  

"Nap or do not, there is no try."

(That's my cat Buddy, by the way....you can follow him on Instagram @napfordays   

Don't you think he would make a great Legacy Republic mascot?)

So it's definitely not Star Wars affiliated....it's actually a legit company in California (this California girl says Yay!!) with the technology, know how and careful attention to detail that helped me decide to offer this service to my clients.  

I'll keep you posted on how the videos turn out!  

Happy Scrappin' and Memory Keepin'

Donna Lyn 

Creative Memories Advisor 

creativememories.com/user/donnalyn

and Legacy Maker

donnalyn.legacyrepublic.com