Memory Pockets Monthly July Collection: Celebrate!

Hello everyone! Melanie here again to share with you everything that is happening in the world of Memory Pockets Monthly! We have a gorgeous summer collection, a new designer on the MPM team, three fun challenges, and tutorials on how to incorporate design principles into your layouts & pocket pages.

Let’s get started!

Memory Pockets Monthly is a pocket scrapbooking subscription at the Lilypad. Six Lilypad designers have joined together and every month they release a new collection with a variety of add-ons. When you subscribe to Memory Pockets Monthly, you become part of a great community!

This month there is a new designer on the team: Paislee Press has joined the MPM team! This month she temporarily took the place of designer Sara Gleason, and next month she will take the place of Designs by Lili. Lili is on maternity leave! It’s very exciting times in the MPM world right now!

In our exclusive MPM forum, designer Amber LaBau shared what inspired the designers when they were creating this month’s collection:

As memory keepers, we often find ourselves in one of two groups – those who record “the big stuff” and those who record “the little stuff.” Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to sneak outside of our self-proclaimed safety zone and find the joy in documenting All The Stuff – or even just The Different/New/Scary Stuff. But ALL of it is what makes up our story. ALL of it should be celebrated – even if just for a moment. Whether it’s a national holiday, a birthday, a family tradition, or just making it through the day in one piece (mostly), your life and your memories deserve to be celebrated!

This is what I love about MPM & our fabulous team of designers: They always create such versatile collections! As you can see in the eye candy section at the bottom of this post, the Celebrate collection can be used to document Canada Day & Independence Day, but it can also be used to celebrate a wide variety of life’s beautiful moments!

Let’s take a look at the main collection! (Remember to click on the main image to see the full contents of the collection.)

The add-ons this month are amazing! Click on the image & take a peek!

We have three – yes, THREE! – challenges happening right now!

Designer Sara Gleason is hosting both the June & July visual challenges, and she is encouraging everyone to have some fun with your camera! For the June challenge, Sara wants to you to get outside & practice capturing light at night! Take photos of fireworks, sparklers, the campfire, the city lights, or any kind of light you find at night. (This challenge will end July 19.)

MPM subscriber Jackie took this awesome photo for the June visual challenge:

For the July visual challenge, Sara is challenging you to capture the sun! Sunrise, sunset, sun flare, or as Sara put it so eloquently, “you can look for the ways the sun plays with the natural landscapes.”

I decided to have some fun capturing sun flare:

Designer Allison Pennington is hosting the July storytelling challenge, and she is encouraging everyone to celebrate an unexpected moment in your week or month!

MPM subscriber Annemieke documented a very special moment for her family:

There are two new tutorials in the MPM forum since my last blog post. The MPM tutorials focus on how you can implement design principles on your layout or pocket page. The tutorial explains how to create visual balance and the June tutorial explains how to create visual triangles.

This month we had a really fun chat with designer Sara Gleason! We had an interesting discussion about journalling on pocket pages compared to journalling on regular layouts. The next MPM chat will be in September and we hope to see you there!

All these tutorials, challenges & chats are available when you subscribe to Memory Pockets Monthly! Here’s what’s included in your subscription (click on the link to subscribe):

As always, I leave you with some gorgeous eye candy from the Memory Pockets Monthly gallery! Did you know we also have a Memory Pockets Monthly Pinterest board where MPM subscribers have been pinning their projects?

Here are some pages by the Lilypad Pollys and MPM subscribers that caught my eye in the gallery!