if you need TIME for memory-keeping or scrapbooking: digi-crop

One of the biggest obstacles to memory-keeping--to getting your photos off your computer or phone into print where they can be seen and held and loved--is TIME.  I hear it over and over again, and I know it's true.  And I totally get it.

And that's why I hold digi-crops.  Digi-crops are a time to PUT ON YOUR CALENDAR to reserve for memory-keeping. 

If you're not local, you can still participate in digi-crops!  Each month I hold one in-person daytime digi-crop and one in-person evening digi-crop.  But I also hold digi-crops ONLINE four times a year! 

An online digi-crop is just a time set aside to work on projects at the same time as other people.  We all "meet" (I normally do Facebook events, but I'm going to start using Zoom, too) and work on our individual projects on our own computers.  We often check in with each other, posting updates on what we're working on (if you want), etc.

It's TIME set aside for memory-keeping!

And now there are even more opportunities to participate in digi-crops!  Heritage Makers leaders host World-Wide Digi-Crops twice a month--one daytime and one evening.  AND YOU'RE INVITED! 

• Wednesday, October 5, 2016 at 10:00am Pacific Time
• Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 7:00pm Pacific Time

(I know this flyer shows the link to last week's World-Wide Digi-Crop.  Hang tight and I'll give you the information for the two October events.)

Here's what you need to do ahead of time in order to participate:

1.  Open your free Heritage Makers account at www.heritagemakers.com/jenniferwise
2.  Download the Zoom app from www.zoom.us
3.  Not required, but I highly recommend watching this video on how to get the best prices on Heritage Makers items since it also gives you free access to the larger digital art collection--which you might want before you start working on your project at the digi-crop.  Here's the video tutorial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP7rwqJsyF0
4. If you're new to Heritage Makers, I'd also watch this 15-minute tutorial video on getting started (uploading photos to your account, etc.)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6-iktLXqj0
5. To join the October 5 digi-crop, click here:  https://zoom.us/j/362871630
6. To join the October 12 digi-crop, click here:  https://zoom.us/j/738363649

If you're finding this post after these dates have passed, contact me (there's a "contact me" tab in red above) for the next digi-crops coming up.  And if you'd like to be invited to my online digi-crops, just search "Jennifer Wise's Heritage MAKERS" on Facebook and request to be added to the group.  You'll automatically get invitations that way.  If you'd like to be invited to my in-person digi-crops, hit that "contact me" tab and let me know.

Don't let your babies grow up to be jpegs!

*easy* Halloween and Thanksgiving home decor blocks

When I say easy, I mean EASY!

Every time I get a new canvas set for my Anthology Canvas Exchange blocks, I think, "I don't need to post this on the blog--I've posted about Canvas Exchange a couple of times already."

And then I got Canvas Set #4 this week.  And now I NEED to post it.  :)
 
These are the EASIEST home decor blocks you will ever see.  You just have to SEE how amazingly awesome they are:




 

Set #4 just came out this month and has Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Winter pieces.  As you can see, I've peeled off the last set I had on my blocks so they're now empty to use for these new holiday pieces.

As I mentioned in {my first post about these blocks}, those long strips just need to be cut in two with a paper cutter, and the you are ready to go.  Like Lisa did in the video above, I just peeled the Halloween set off and put them on my blocks.  This takes approximately 22 seconds.  ;)

Then I tried this cute Thanksgiving set:

And last the Winter set:

I just adore this Canvas Exchange idea.  It makes home decor simple and darling but SO easy! 

The blocks are sold separately or with Canvas Set #1.  There are 4 canvas sets so far, and more to come in the future.  To get your very own (or a set to give as a gift), go to www.heritagemakers.com/jenniferwise and click "products" then "Anthology DIY" and scroll through to find your desired set(s). 

Happy fall, y'all!

video tutorial: Using Masks in Heritage Makers Studio

There is a really cool thing you can do in Heritage Makers, with a really cool result!  It's called Masking.  A few new digital art collections featuring Masks were added to Heritage Makers Studio this past summer, so the creative team at Heritage Makers created this fun video tutorial to show us how Masks work and what we can do with them.  Enjoy!!

If you don't already have one, open your free Heritage Makers account at www.heritagemakers.com/jenniferwise and start creating something amazing!!  #makesomethingmeaningful #getcrafty

guest blogger Nancy: life stories and tributes in VIDEO

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting someone with the same passion I have--preserving life stories.  It was so fun to discover that she does the VIDEO form of what I (and you) do in Heritage Makers print form!

So I asked Nancy from Vivid Impressions to be a guest blogger today.  All these years, I haven't been able to think of a more amazing thing than preserving a life story of a loved one in a high-quality Heritage Makers storybook.  And here's something that's neck-and-neck.  Check this out!

My name is Nancy Fingerhood and I moved out to Colorado more than 11 years ago.  I have always been a storyteller - I started writing short stories at 7 years old and I’ve never stopped.  As I got older, I wanted to create videos of my stories.  It’s so exciting to see the images in my head come to life.  I began to make comedy videos a few years ago and then decided to branch out and work with others to tell their stories.

I started Vivid Impressions Productions almost a year ago and have been creating video biographies.  These are loving memoirs that can be shared with future generations. 

Here are a couple of condensed samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Z8Zj57R88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj9y6G_iPgw

My clients can tell their stories, give advice, and reminisce so that their children, grandchildren and beyond will always be able to hear and see their loved one.  I use professional equipment and edit my videos, interlacing them with photos and music.

I also provide photography services for individuals, couples and families.  I am dedicated to providing a comfortable and fun photography shoot.  

Hearing the stories of my clients during their video biographies is so rewarding.  I learn about different cultures, family traditions and interesting stories.  One of my favorite experiences was with a woman who shared her most treasured story book with her son and nephew through the medium of video.  

I am also available for tribute videos for weddings, bar or bat mitzvahs, retirement parties.  I choreograph the footage, photos, and music to create entertaining and high energy video presentations that are excellent for group and party viewings.

I am available for video work and photography in the Denver area and can be reached at 303-919-0089 or at vip@vipowners.net.  My website is www.vividimpressionsproductions.com.  I am here to capture your story and customize your personal history.

how photos help through loss and grief

If there's one thing ALL of us have in common, it's loss.  Loss is so personal and so deep that it's hard to really put into words sometimes.  I recently read this beautiful article by Julie over at www.picturethisorganized.com about how photos can help us through loss and grief that I really wanted to share with you:

http://www.picturethisorganized.com/743/how-photos-can-help-us-in-times-of-grief-and-loss/

Because Heritage Makers books are STORYBOOKS (not just "photobooks"), you can truly tell the life story of a loved one.  To see some beautiful examples, visit the Template Gallery {here} and try typing "tribute" into the search field (or "grandma" or "father" or "pet" as fitting).  Heritage Makers quality and elegance will allow you to create just the perfect thing!

Please share with anyone you know going through grief and loss.  It's a shared experience, so let's help each other through it!

Explore the tabs along the top to contact me with questions or to learn more about Heritage Makers and what it can do for you. 

digital photo storage is a back up, not a goal

If you learn nothing else from this blog, let it be this.

There's kind of a trend right now, a focus on how many ways we can back up our digital photos, how to safely store them, how to make sure they are secure.  But I'm afraid we're missing the point.

The point of taking photos is not to store them somewhere.  The point of taking photos is to be able to look at them, read their stories, and recall happy memories while doing it.  The gift of photos is that they can allow you to re-live a moment, to enjoy something all over again, to fall in love again, even to grieve and heal.   That happens when we interact with the photos, hold them, see them, and love them with their stories.  That doesn't happen by saving them to an external hard drive or some paid online photo storage place.

Think about it like this:  Back in the "olden days" we would take pictures with film.  Then we'd go get the film developed, and we'd get back 2 things--#1 physical photos and #2 negatives.  The physical photos are what we wanted.  They would allow us to see our memories right in our hands.  They show who the new baby looks like.  They captured the wedding day.  The physical photos are what we took the pictures for in the first place.

Now, the negatives were also valuable because they were the backup in case anything happened to those precious photos.  So we made sure we stashed those away somewhere safe.  Think about photos in digital form that way:

When you take photos, focus more on how you're going to preserve them IN PRINT rather than focusing so much on how you're going to preserve them digitally.  And, yes, certainly preserve them digitally (external hard drive, flash drive, CD, online, on your computer, etc.)--and it's safest to preserve them digitally in TWO ways because technology is so fickle and always changing.  Just never lose sight of the fact that the digital storage is a backup.

The only meaningful way to preserve photos is in print.  That's how they get seen and loved, how they make a difference, how they are enjoyed.  So you definitely want to print your photos in a high-quality way.  Be sure you are including the stories of the photos when you print them, though--otherwise, half their value is gone!  The details of the photo need to be preserved just as much as the photo itself.  Who is in the photo?  Where was it taken?  Why was it taken?  What are the memories that are associated with it?

These days we spend so much time looking for the best way to preserve our digital photos.  I hope you're now looking for the best way to preserve your photos in PRINT!

The best way can be found at www.heritagemakers.com/jenniferwise.  To see what makes it the best, click the "What Makes Heritage Makers Different" tab in red at the top. 

Who are you trusting your photos to?

Photos and memories.  They're irreplaceable.  Wouldn't you agree?

The beautiful, personal, high quality books you get with Heritage Makers are absolutely priceless!  Heritage Makers is about making heritage, so quality is one of our MUSTS.

Heritage Makers was born in the early 2000s from a woman's desire to help her kids get to know her grandpa who lived about 1,000 miles away.

I came on board just as Heritage Makers was getting going--the company officially launched a couple of months after I became a Heritage Makers consultant in March 2005.   Back then, nobody had seen your their OWN photo on/in a hardbound book!

These days there are other options for putting your photos in a book, and I know some online photobook companies offer big discounts, even free books.  I know everyone loves a bargain--including me--but this always makes me wonder: 

Do you really WANT a free book??

The old adage, "You get what you pay for" is true.  How long will a free book last?  Can you reorder another one 3 years from now after it's fallen apart?  If you do, will that book be saved in your account, or will you have to re-create it? 

I definitely want to get a good price on a photo storybook, but I also want it to last.  I want some guarantees that my precious photos and memories are safe and preserved.  I DO NOT want to go to all the effort of preserving my photos and memories if the product isn't going to hold up--no matter how cheaply I got it.

Have you seen what makes Heritage Makers different?  There's a whole list!  It's in the red tab above, or you can {click here}.   

Heritage Makers products are competitively priced, with the price-per-page of an average-sized book (8x8) being $1.65 per page.  (That's for the 21 pages the book comes with--if you add extra pages, they're around 90 cents each for this size.)  Larger books will cost a little more per page, and smaller books will cost a little less per page.  But if you take into account the price of just printing out your photos at your local drugstore, you can see how competitive Heritage Makers prices are.  Consider this with the list you just saw of ALL THE PERKS AND BENEFITS you get with Heritage Makers, and you'll know you've found the best.

By the way, there is ONE way to get Heritage Makers products free and discounted:  share Heritage Makers with others!  Details are {here}. 

So although I hear what people say when they're looking for cheap memory-keeping, I'm pretty sure if they thought about it, they don't REALLY want a cheap book!

Open your free Heritage Makers account at www.heritagemakers.com/jenniferwise and start preserving your treasured photos and memories in high-quality products backed by Heirloom Assurance.  You may find my video tutorials helpful as you get started--they're at my YouTube channel {here}.   #makesomethingmeaningful

crafty gifts without any work

Sound too good to be true?  Well, IT'S NOT!!

You can get cute and crafty gifts (and a little somethin' for YOU!) without any work!

If you are like me, I start thinking about Christmas gifts in September.  Seems about right!

Did you know that I have a Facebook page that serves as my online shop??

 

Yup!  I do!  It's right here:  https://www.facebook.com/MyHeritageMakersShop/

There are a lot more cute little items at the shop, so be sure to LIKE it on Facebook, and check back there any time you need a gift (or a little somethin' for YOU) to see what's available and see what's new!

Only 111 days until Christmas!

Creating a Life Storybook video tutorial

Have you recorded your life story?  Is it time to record the life story of your parents or grandparents?  This video tutorial about creating a life storybook from Heritage Makers may give you some helpful tips and ideas.  Just be sure you make the effort to turn your good ideas into something priceless.