How would you like a free creative genealogy project?

I am happy to announce that next week end will be free premiere week end, and this will allow you to log into your HM account, and use the full functionality and creativity of Studio software even if you only have a BASIC account! If you don't have a free BASIC account yet, you can get it here:
Preservemyheritage 
From the website:

"There are many reasons to love Heritage Makers, but one of the best is the unlimited creativity made possible with a Premier account. Premier is an unrivaled collection of digital art, including 6,000 pre-designed templates and 60,000 pieces of art. As a heritage maker you can get access to this incredible resource through a subscription or by joining our frequent publisher's group called "Club HM." If you would like to sample the fun and functionality of a Premier account, here's a no-risk opportunity for you. From September 30 – October 3, Heritage Makers is offering a FREE Premier Weekend! During this period you can have full reign over the entire art and template collection at absolutely no cost! Explore the offerings of Premier by making a personalized card for a loved one for World Card Making Day (October 1st), or let your creative passion extend to photo gifts, wrapped canvases, storybooks, or any number of other beautiful Heritage Makers projects. Where will your creativity take you?"

There are plenty of genealogy-family tree related templates on the website, just go on the website,  click on template gallery

http://www.preservemyheritage.com/

and then type keywords like family tree, pedigree, genealogy, heritage, ancestors to see all the various templates available:

Then on September 30 just log in to your account click on the "unlock Premier" button

and choose any project you like, upload your pictures, and create your wonderful family tree for FREE!
It doesn't get better than this!
Here is a video that shows you how to choose and modify a template to suit it to your own needs and taste.

In the next days I will post some of the fast project I am creating with the genealogy templates I like the most, just to give you an idea, but you can really choose any template you like..

Let me know which project you are going to create! If you send me a preview of it, I will post it on my facebook page!

If you would like to actually publish the project you will create (poster, canvas, card, book etc), please contact me first so I can give you the best deal possible, otherwise you will pay full price! NEVER PAY FULL PRICE!

High contrast family trees

If you have been looking through my projects you might have realized that I pretty much prefer pastel colors when it comes to creating family trees and similar, but lately I have been thinking that I should dare creating some that are kind of bold, so here is what I came up with.
I put together a tree with silver leaves on a brown trunk, and played on the contrast with various backgrounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I like the contrast because it makes the family tree highly visible in a nice big room, if printed on canvas or framed in a poster. These are just an example of how this high contrast family tree can look, but really any color back ground would work, and it can be chosen according to a person's house decor, or simply their taste. I practically had to control myself because I was having so much fun with all the different shades of backgrounds!
These can also be printed on 8x8 or 12x12 scrappages, or you can make placemats out of them, which would make them perfect for a family reunion, or why not, for a Thanksgiving table, after all, what better to be thankful for than our family? Each person could have a place mat with their own favorite color background, or even with their own picture at the base of the tree.
They can be printed on greeting cards, post cards, or also be the cover of a post bound scrapbook album.

I gotta say, I am hooked!

Which one of these is your favorite? Which one you think is like a punch in the eye?
Please let me know if there is a color I haven't thought of, I will be happy to create it and post it on the CavaGenealogy genealogy photo album.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can get a free Publishing account by signing up at http://www.preservemyheritage.com and start creating unlimited projects at once!
Love my Creative Genealogy templates and ideas? 

My HM club members can have their favorite Creative Genealogy template transferred to their account for personal use, or  can have it completely personalized by me for them  for a reasonable fee.

Want more for less? Check out our incredible host rewards and My Club HM!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally! !!!^_^

Great news!
Studio has finally the option to transfer full pages from a project to another!!!!
You know what this means???
It means that I can transfer any project I created from a format to another!!!
I can create various size scrappages, placemats, canvases,  greeting cards, playing cards, flip books, story boks and just do " the big work" once!
As soon as I heard the news, I had to to try it!
I decided to  transform my 5 generations post bound album in a 12x12 page, 12x12 canvas and 20x20 canvas!:

and also changed the one I had created with  4 generations and a pink background  in  a 12x12 canvas!!!

This is so cool! And it took me just a few minutes to re-size them!!!
Now I can offer any of the projects I created in the past, in the format that is more suitable to the needs of anybody that asks for it, in a fraction of the time it took me before! Yeah!

I had put aside many similar projects because I felt it was a waste of time to have to recreate the same thing in a different format, this is why I am so glad HM  has finally heard their customers and consultant and has made this function finally available!


Hurray!!!^_^

As you can imagine, you will hear again from me soon;)

3 generations baby keepsake

I am so in love with my baby that when I realized that I hadn't created something that was just for him yet, I had to make the time to do it.
I wanted to have some sort of family tree that was especially for newborn, and at the same time I wanted to have a picture big enough that I could frame it and hang it on the wall and know that it was him without having to look close.
This is what I created for him:

I am probably going to make similar pages for all my other children, I think they will really cherish it, and so will their children, and grandchildren...
I also think that this would be a really cute gift for a new mom, instead of the usual diapers and clothes, how about something that they will keep forever?
Being a 3 generations one, it is going to be pretty easy to collect the pictures and create this page.
It can be framed, or even modge podged on a 12x12 tile, or a wooden square...
This would be cute also on canvas!
Oh boy... New ideas are coming as I write!
I guess you will see them soon!

A little patience...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can get a free Publishing account by signing up at http://www.preservemyheritage.com and start creating unlimited projects at once!
Love my Creative Genealogy templates and ideas? 

My HM club members can have their favorite Creative Genealogy template transferred to their account for personal use, or  can have it completely personalized by me for them  for a reasonable fee.

Want more for less? Check out our incredible host rewards and My Club HM!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kids family tree placemat: keep their appetite for family history growing!

As you know I am always looking for new ways to get my kids interested in genealogy, and have already created various project that they love, but every now and then they need something new to keep the interest alive.
I was thinking of a way to "feed" them family history and I came up with a family tree place mat!
This will surely give them an appetite to know more about their ancestors and will hopefully start nice conversations at the family table.
I decided to use the 11x14 page format, which I will then laminate to protect it from water and any inevitable mess.
The boys have helped me pick some of the embellishments like the moon and the dogs, but what really caught their attention and got  them all excited was being put on the swing under the tree!
They couldn't wait for me to finish creating, and my 4 year old just wanted me to hurry up and make his, since I started with the one for my 6 years old!

Once I made the one for my first born it was pretty much a breeze to just swap pictures, name and background, (even the dogs as they wished), to personalize it for my other children.

As you can see I added leaves to Jacob's tree. I am not sure yet if I like it better with or without leaves...
What do you think?

My children  are eager to have them on the table, as soon as I will have published them and after I will have laminated them once they are here.
I didn't make one for Mattia yet, since he is so little, and I think it would be more appropriate to use a picture of him when he is at least a toddler, and he can actually sit at the table and eat.
My children are so spoiled when it comes to their genealogy!

I am thinking to make it double sided, I am trying to come up with some fast fact genealogy games, maybe tic tac toe,  matching pictures with names, or places or jobs, matching couples or a game that we can all do together as a family, like bingo with family faces, a variation of guess who... 

If you have a different idea of a family game, maybe one that you are already playing in your home, or one that you would like to play that uses family pictures, I would love to hear it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can get a free Publishing account by signing up at http://www.preservemyheritage.com and start creating unlimited projects at once!
Love my Creative Genealogy templates and ideas? 

My HM club members can have their favorite Creative Genealogy template transferred to their account for personal use, or  can have it completely personalized by me for them  for a reasonable fee.

Want more for less? Check out our incredible host rewards and My Club HM!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My first car- 52 weeks of personal genealogy- week 3

I was going to go to bed but then an  event on my facebook newsfeed caught my attention.
This is the 3rd year of the 52 weeks to better genealogy, and I like it that it challenges you to actually write your own personal genealogy.
The 52 weeks personal genealogy challenge, is this week about cars.

What was my first car...
You might laugh at this one, since I never really had a car in my 30 years I lived in Italy!! I didn't even have a driver license since I didn't want to pay the yearly fee without needing it.
The first car I drove was a green Renault 5 that my then boyfriend was teaching me how to drive. I was only 16, and you need to know that in Italy you can get a driver license only when you are 18, so, I wasn't exactly supposed to even try to drive it! Shh!;) I did scare quite a few people that morning!
In Italy  would go everywhere using buses or trains, sometimes I would get a ride from a friend or family member and only once going to University I got a Vespa scooter after my then boyfriend ( a different one) taught me how to drive it! I believe it was 1994.
There are quite a few stories about that Vespa! I would literally drive it under any weather condition, sun, rain, fog, snow...

I used it to go on a 3 day trip along the sides of the Mediterranean coast leaving from Cava de' Tirreni, Salerno(Campania region) to Cetraro (Calabria region) with a friend of mine. We would sleep on the beach in the town we reached by each night. What a crazy adventure that was! I even managed to have an accident on the way there, making it all more interesting swimming in those salty waters with a couple of bleeding knees!
That Vespa got stolen a couple years later and had to buy a new(used) one, which got stolen once I moved to USA, but I did manage to have a pretty bad accident on that one too!
It was here in the States that I finally decided to get a driver license after the birth of my first child,  since where I live there is no bus, and  I didn't think that it would be "safe" to drive a Vespa with a baby on my lap. I started driving my husband's car in 2004, a Honda Accord, but that was his car, so I guess my real first car is the one I currently drive the most, a Toyota Sienna 2004 which we got from some friends of ours when we were expecting our 3rd child, in August 2008. What a blessing that car has been, especially after we ended up having only one car after my accident in 2009! It is now even a greater blessing, since there is no way that we could go around in a smaller car with our 4 kids!
To be exact, though, this car is legally on my husband's name, cause the day we bought it I couldn't go sign the title, so maybe I still have to wait to get my very own car!

5 generations post bound album

I couldn't wait for my baby to be born, because I had been thinking about creating a post bound album where I could preserve all the genealogy/family history pages I was going to create for my family, but I couldn't publish it until our newest member of the family was here, because I wanted his picture on that cover, together with all the other members of the family!
So, here is the idea:
A post bound album that has a 5 generation family tree on the cover. Inside, I will add pages as I create them.
This pages will all be about our family, starting with our children and going all the way back to any ancestors that I will gather information on.
There can be basic pages with just vital stats and a picture, pages with info about jobs, travels, achievements for each person, pages with pictures and story of family heirlooms, copies of letters and anything that is related to our family.
This is going to be a life long project, but what is nice about it, is that when my children will be grown up, they will be able to make copies of the whole album or of just the pages they are interested in, and nobody will have to fight on who is taking what.
Meanwhile they will grow to learn more and more about their family, and they will get excited each and every time that we have a new page to add to the album.
Also, I won't have to make a new book in case the Lord blesses us with more kids: I will just add more pages to the album! I don't need to wait for anybody to send me more info to finish a book, I can add them later!
I was finally able to create the album cover today, so here is the front cover:

Here is a particular of the front:

Aren't my babies just handsome?^_^
This is the back:

What do you think?
I can't wait to receive this in the mail and start filling it with the pages I already created!

I can create a post bound album like this for you, or I can help you create it yourself, just contact me for details!
Enjoy your family history preservation!
EDIT: Here is how the post bound album looks in real life:

and here are my children looking through its pages

(post bound albums come with 10 plastic sleeves)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can get a free Publishing account by signing up at http://www.preservemyheritage.com and start creating unlimited projects at once!
Love my Creative Genealogy templates and ideas? 

My HM club members can have their favorite Creative Genealogy template transferred to their account for personal use, or  can have it completely personalized by me for them  for a reasonable fee.

Want more for less? Check out our incredible host rewards and My Club HM!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm back!

Did you miss me?
Well, I missed posting on the blog too, but my family needed my complete attention, so I had to take a long break.
I am returning with a good news: our family welcomed our 4th boy on December 2nd. His name is Mattia and he is just an angel!

This was my most difficult pregnancy yet, but it was worth it!
I am now much better, so I got back to work, and I will have a new idea for you in the next post.

I won't be posting regularly since life with 4 kids is more hectic than I could imagine, and if you add doing genealogy research, being a personal publisher and storybook designer, you can figure out that my spare time is almost non existing!

I do have many ideas though, and will find the time to put them together, hopefully before the  NE family history conference in March, where I will be teaching on Italian genealogy and creative genealogy/family history.

Ok, I need to keep this short, or I won't be able to share my new project!

Thank you for visiting!