Keeping in Teutsch

I've had this pail-like container sitting on my kitchen counter for years that I stuff recipes in. For the longest, I've had intentions to type them all out in a cute font, print them, and then glue them on cute scrapbooking paper backed with cardstock and put them on a ring with cute ribbon tied on it. The thing is, though, recipes take FOREVER to type out and when I would start typing them, I would lose interest pretty quickly. So, year after year, they've just been sitting there and every time I would need to find a recipe or want to look through the recipes I had saved, but hadn't tried yet, I had to go through every one of them. This was happening almost weekly and it was getting really old. I knew I could just buy a picture album and stick them in there by category (or even some specialty recipe book), but I wanted something a little more creative. So when I ran across a picture of a recipe smash book on the blog Joy's Hope that linked to this recipe smash book, I knew I had found the perfect solution for all my loose recipes.

All you need is a smash book (that's what it's called literally as you can see) by K & Company (scrapbooking company), some tabs (that are sold in the same section--I found my smash book and supplies on an end cap at Michaels), some pockets to glue in to your smash book, and the best part--the really fun looking tape! (If you decide to make one, the smash book with the pink spine has pictures of food in it if you want to keep with your "theme." Also, the supplies aren't that expensive.)

The company My Memories contacted me recently about doing a giveaway, and I thought it would be great to give this software/program away to one of you guys who doesn't have access to expensive programs like InDesign and Photoshop (and desperately wish you did)! If you aren't a graphic designer and/or trained in those programs, design software can usually be intimidating, but this one is super simple and pretty much allows you to make the things you've always dreamed of being able to create (or is that just me that wishes I knew my way around InDesign and Photoshop better?).

First things first, this program was created for digital scrapbooking, BUT if you aren't a scrapbooker or prefer the good-ol'-fashion style of paper scrapbooking, it still holds an abundance of creative worth for you. If you can think it up, you can probably do it on here...mostly.

Now for some examples of what I threw together using the freebies that came with the program. (There are also freebies on their website that I found after the fact. And I'm itching to buy some of their kits they have for sale. If you aren't familiar with digital scrapbooking, a kit typically includes a variety of paper backgrounds and embellishments--like ribbon, buttons, photo mats, etc--and sometimes an alphabet. Basically everything you would buy if you were doing it by hand, but at a MUCH cheaper price!)

Here we have the "this is a digital scrapbooking program so I kinda need to show a scrapbook layout" example. (I made this the first night I downloaded the program and have learned a lot since then about how to use it, but this giveaway would never take place if I kept tweaking things, so I just left it as it was in its simplistic nature. There is definitely room for improvement, and when I get around to digitally scrapbooking Juliette's first day of kindergarten, I'll be purchasing one of the adorable school kits they have on their site.)




Now, on to the "other" stuff you can design with this, which I'm guessing is what most of you are interested in. Like I said, the ideas are endless and these are just a few: