I am busy preparing for products I will be featuring at the upcoming National Genealogical Society conference in Salt Lake City at the end of April. Some will be templates, some will be custom family history art. This is my favorite… a custom family tree created using your family names. The leaves indicate the state or country of birth. After creating your unique 5 or 6 generation tree, it’s printed on canvas or framed. Display and share your heritage in your home! I’ll be adding some more heritage products over the next couple of weeks!

I am furiously working on a couple more designs… but here’s a peek at what’s available right now. Each download includes a 5×7 fully-layered card template along with an 8.5×11″ printable template for making small kid-size valentines or gift tags. I make these every year for my own kids. I add my child’s photo and name and print on my own home computer. I usually hole punch and slide a sucker through or attach to a small pack of skittles or M&Ms. If you don’t have a decent printer you can crop the canvas size and print as 8×10 at any photo processing place (i.e. Costco).

Love to hear any comments or ideas.

I just finished creating this recipe book for my whole extended family. I’m excited to see the finished product. I ordered the 6×9″ wire-bound books from Heritage Makers. They were only $15 each! Anyone can make a book like this, just drag in your own photos and type in your personal recipes. You can mix and match the pages to fit your needs. If you want this template to create your own recipe book, let me know and I’ll transfer it to your Heritage Makers’ account. If you don’t have an account, create a free one here!

This information applies to printing a photo wrap, hard cover book. These are my recommendations for printing right now for Photoshop/PSE users:
Shutterfly: is very user friendly. Right now they are having 20% off their photobooks so an 8×8 would be about $24 plus 80¢/extra page. Make sure you turn off their auto color-correct before you print or you will have pages that will print a weird color if you are using a template. Use code SHIP30 for free shipping over $30.

Viovio: Their uploading system is a trickier, their prices for an 8.5×8.5″ book are about $15 plus 30¢ for EVERY page. Their 24 page standard book is about $23. You can also upgrade the paper quality. Their standard paper is ok, but I think the upgrade is worth it. Shipping is usually pretty low. This company is a good option if you are adding a large number of extra pages, because you’re only paying 30¢ for those extra pages.

Feel free to add any comments about other printers… I’m always looking!

Many of my Holiday Card designs are now featured on SmugMug. SmugMug is a photography sharing site that caters to toward professional photographers and individuals that want to store and share high resolution images without all the “junk”. They don’t have bombardment of advertising or loud graphics surrounding your photos. Just a simple, clean way of storing, displaying and sharing photography. I LOVE this company. I am so excited to be affiliated with them. Right now you have to be a member of SmugMug to use the card templates, but if you don’t have an account, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial. AND they don’t take your credit card number so it doesn’t automatically enroll you if you decide not to keep your account. Their prices are good and their customer service is the best. Here’s a link to the cards I have designed. Go to SmugMug!

I happen to have 2 children with birthdays in November one day apart, usually the week before Thanksgiving and right in the thick of holiday deadlines! Last year we went on a little family getaway as a combined birthday. But this year, they wanted parties at home. Ryan wants a Star Wars theme and Sydney wanted a Game Party. They both helped come up with ideas for the parties and invitations. Sydney art-directed her design entirely. Here are the finished invites. Do you have a theme party coming up that you would like a custom invitation for? Remember custom design starts at only $15! Print 1-25 invites for about $1.36 each, with more discounts for greater quantities.

For those that use Heritage Makers, they have just released 24 of my holiday card designs in their template gallery. For those without Photoshop or photo editing software, but want to create their own card, it’s a great solution. Just create a free account using this link then go to the template gallery search under “Jill Means” to see all of my designs. There are online tutorials on the site to show you the basics of how to use their online “drag and drop” system. Just upload your photos and swap out mine for yours. Double-click to customize the text. You must publish your cards through Heritage Makers. Cards are as low as $1.29 each and come with envelopes.

I love templates that are simple and versatile so you can use them for more than one book/layout. That’s what is fun about the fully-layered templates, it gives you a lot of control over changing the design to fit your needs. These are samples from my friend Alison. She created these pages using the Family Proclamation Template. She added her own background and text and it’s a brand-new look. She also has a blog with digital scrapbooking tips at http://www.digitalhotspot.blogspot.com. Have you used any of my templates and given them a “new look”? Send samples and I’ll post the best ones.

Looking for EASY and inexpensive gift ideas? I’ll be posting a lot of them in the next few weeks. These glass tile necklaces make fun gifts and they’re super easy and fun to make. My daughter made one for each member of her soccer team with each girl’s initial in a monogrammed circle with their team colors. We’re also making one for each of my kid’s teachers with a “Larson Stars” theme for the elementary kids and a “Elkhorn Wildcats” theme for my Middle School child. We made a “Phantom of the Opera” one for my 4 year old who is obsessed with it… My daughter Ali even made one that said “Vote for Ali” when she ran for office at her school. Once you get going you keep thinking of reasons to make more! You can purchase the supplies on my website and will include detailed instructions on how to make them. You’ll even get free templates of artwork to choose from. I’ll be adding some more jewelry templates on my site soon. If there is something you are looking for specifically… let me know!

I am super excited about my new Holiday Collection for Photoshop/PSE users. It’s chock full of PNG patterns, elements and overlays to give you power to create in any color. I think it’s super versatile…even beyond the holidays. But I want to see what YOU do with it. Purchase the collection (it’s on sale for $6.99) and show me something you created with it. A card, gift tag, photo book layout, or anything! My favorite entries will be featured here and earn $50 in product credit from my shop, and let me tell you there will be a lot more to choose from by the time the contest ends. Entries accepted until December 15th, 2009. Email entries to jill@legacydigitalsdesign.com.