How To Use MMS Templates That Aren't There...

My Memories templates are the best thing since sliced bread, right? A quickpage where you can move stuff around. What could be better? You even get to download the elements and papers as regular files. I wish Memory Mixer would let us to that too. Apart from that bit everything I say here can be done in Memory Mixer.

Unfortunately having lots of templates installed slows the program down, basically because every time you add an embellie the program is thinking "I wonder what embellies I have in my templates?". I had over 100 installed and had Memory Mixer templates (quickmixes) installed in MMS and vice versa. It was dead slow and stop!

Here's how you use the MMS templates WITHOUT having them in the program. Instructions are written for MMS v3 so you might need to adapt them if you have a different version.

1) Install your template if it isn't already installed. What? Didn't she say we didn't need it in the program??? You're only putting it in the program temporarily!

2) Create an album with the template BUT don't add any photos or move anything or tinker around with it in any way.

3) Go into Windows Explorer (or Mac equivalent) and look at where you save your albums. Create a new folder called MMS Template Albums. (If you're flummoxed by Windows Explorer I'll have more on that on the main site. For now ask someone to help you set this up)

3) SAVE the album and call it Nameoftemplate Template. See the box for album location right under where you choose the name? Choose your new folder, MMS Template Albums.

IF YOU HAVE LOTS OF TEMPLATE INSTALLED GO THROUGH STAGES 1 - 3 WITH ABOUT 6 TEMPLATES AT A TIME.

4) Close MMS.

5) Uninstall the template. Not as difficult as it sounds because the program is already set up to allow you to do this.

In Windows Explorer you need to find where your MMS program lives. It will probably be in C Drive - Program Files. When you find it click on the little arrow to the left and it will show you what's in it. Don't worry, you can't do any damage this way!

Now click on the little arrow to the left of Digital Templates Uninstallers. It will show you all the templates you have installed. As you can see I only have one in there and I installed that to create this tutorial!

Click on the name of the template (follow blue arrow). You will now see the Uninstall option in the window to the right (red arrow). Double click on this to uninstall the template.




Arrows are from The Ettes' Fabulous 4th.

Brilliant. You've got rid of the template, so now how do you use it? This is so simple you will kick yourself and think "I should have thought of that".

6) Open MMS and start a new "from scratch" album.

7) Go to "Insert" in the top toolbar and "Import from my projects". Find where you stored your Template Albums and choose the one you want (this is why you named it NameofTemplate Template and not "Easter Bunny"). Import the first page.

8) Repeat for as many pages as you want - or import them all at once. Delete the first page of your album as it will be a blank page.

Et voila.... there's your template. But, you are thinking, this is an ordinary album. Add some photos, move some embellishments ... it works the same as when you open a template! When you're finished with this new album make sure you save it in your regular album folder. When I started doing this I occasionally edited the template album by mistake instead of importing it into the new album. If you completely mess it up you can always install the template again. Keep and back up all your template files.

Have fun with your fast running program! Next time I'm going to look at how you can use a simple "outside" template in MMS.

(c) 2012 Sharon Horswill All Rights Reserved.

Easter. It's not about the bunny.

I love Easter. I love that Christ died and rose again for me. I also love rabbits and every year I join in campaigns to stop poor rabbits being sold as toys over the Easter period. So for me it's a LITTLE bit about bunnies!

Here's my Bunny prayer for Easter:

I'd love to give credit to the photographer but the bunny pic was going around Facebook so I don't know who took it. Kit used - for both these pages - is Valentina Creations' Pretty Eggs.



Here's my page for Easter Sunday. Photo was purchased from istockphoto. When I visited Jerusalem many years ago some of the passengers from our cruise visited Golgotha to see Jesus' tomb, or what archaeologists assume was his tomb. When they returned one said "It was a waste of time. His body isn't there". Mouths dropped in amazement and a baptist minister who was standing nearby was nominated to explain things. If you ever get a chance watch the film "The Body". It's all about what happens if Jesus' body is actually found. And it has a youngish Antonio Banderas in it ....



There are a couple more Holy Week layouts in the gallery HERE.

How To Use SVG Shapes in MyMemories

I left paper scrapbooking behind a few years ago, probably just as the Cricut and what my DH calls the "Robocop" were becoming popular so I had no idea what svg files were. When I found they were files used in these cutting machines I thought they had no relevance to me

BUT

Did you know you can use svg shapes in your My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking program? Lots of svg files are available free so that means you could have dozens of new shapes to use in MMS.

This is a quick example of a shape filled with a glitter "paper". Actually the paper is a sample jpeg of a glitter style that Lindsay Jane thoughtfully provides with her kits. (Glitter and embossed paper from Lindsay's Frosty kit). The chandelier was free from the FreeSVg blog.




The best way to tell you how I did this is to get you to do it.

Go to one of the sites that offer free svg files. You can Google exactly that or "cutting files".

Download a SIMPLE silhouette type shape. If you're a paper scrapper what we're looking for here is one pass of the cutting machine not multiple layers. You can use multiple layers but not when you're first starting out! For example the chandelier is one simple shape. There are no separate bulbs or cord in different colours.

Download it. It will appear on your computer very quickly as these are small files. If it appears as a web page to to save in your top toolbar as save as SVG file.

Open Windows Explorer and find where MMS is on your computer. It's likely to be in C Drive - Programs - My Memories:



See "Components"? Expand that until you see Shapes. Put your cursor on this word and right click - new folder - rename the new folder to Free SVG Files or whatever name you like. As you can see, I have a folder called free svg files and one for SVG Cuts with sub-folders for the few shapes that I've bought.

Right click on the file you just downloaded and select Copy. Go to your new folder in the MMS components section and Right Click - Paste to put your new file into that folder. You can even do this while MMS is open.

In MMS click on the shapes icon, go to the folder where your new shape is and click on it. It will appear on the page and you can click on the paper icon to fill it with paper. Choose a paper that came with MMS. It doesn't matter what. Double click on the shape and a window will open. You can then replace the image (the paper) with another paper or a photo.

Rinse and repeat! Go get lots of shapes. I have downloaded a few free ones that won't work for some reason. I just deleted them from my MMS folder.

More tips on the main site soon. For the geeks - SVG stands for Scaleable Vector Graphics.