And welcome leah10006, our third contestant! What is your family's name?

OlyNicole and leah10006, please fix your image sizes and reattach them (using Go Advanced > Attach Images). Your images need to be at least 954 pixels tall. The purpose of the application round is to prove you can follow the rules and provide a crisp image at that size. Please figure that stuff out now before the first round where points WILL be taken off for it. I want everyone to do well in this contest!

So...I pushed to go advanced button but I don't know how to ajust the image size, and I don't see an attach image option just and option to upload an image, but I doesn't let me resize it...please help!!! I want to do good in this contest too!

I looked at your post and you already have attached the image.

I resized my image with a photo editing software. I’m not sure, but I think you have to use an external software to get it exactly the right size.

You can't resize your image through MTS, you must use an image editing software (photoshop, gimp, paintshop pro) to do that, but its preferable to just create the image at the right size to begin with. The Image Upload button is what you need to do. btw, what's your family's last name?

ok ill fix the image size b.t.w their last name is Burns
oh and if your editing in gimp what are the 2 sizes width and height

It doesn't matter what program you are using, a pixel is still a pixel. The page needs to be 954 pixels tall and at least that wide. Try to find a 'Save for Web' option when you are saving your images so they can be nice and big and crisp while still having a small file size.

Come one everyone, we only have 1 week left to get another 7 applications in or we can't hold the contest! Join today!

For some reason I can't get the image to attach to the post - I've tried 4 different file sizes (from 227KB down to 181KB) and keep getting "Server (IO) Error".

This has happened before and is driving me insane; I can manage an inline image no problem, but if I can't attach the image as well then I might as well give up now...

Keep trying Selly, post an inline from another hosting site for now till you get it straightened out. MTS has both pixel size and image size restrictions so you have to be very careful you are following my guidelines perfectly. Sometimes there are just site gremlins, so try again later. I wouldn't dock you for something not in your control if you were trying to comply. I can't wait to see your entry.

((Please note that I'm using the British terms when talking as Cherry - we don't use the words "diaper" or "vacation"))

Hi there! I'm Cherry Appleby, grand-daughter of neighbourhood founder Acacia. I've always been creative, faffing about as a kid with Mum's easel (think it was Gran's as well, but she died long before I was born), so making a scrapbook seemed to come naturally. Course, being the heiress to the family legacy I'm pretty busy anyway, but I find this type of stuff therapeutic.

After playing with ribbons, fabric and pics I found in magazines (okay, I didn't cut the cherry out very carefully), I got a cover I was happy with:


Mum found my new husband for me while working at her shop - I was too shy to talk to most guys and flirting was the last thing on my mind! Aubrey Pratt caught her eye, and it wasn't long before she brought him back with her to meet me. I found him enchanting, and was overjoyed when he eventually popped the question. It was inevitable that I'd document it this way:



I'm not sure who was the most excited when we discovered I was pregnant. Aubrey loved to feel the baby kick, while Dad went all gooey, chatting in baby-talk to my bump as often as I'd let him! Mum felt certain we were having a girl; Dad reckoned "that's a lil footballer you've got there!" (his words, not mine!). As for me, I didn't mind as long as the child was healthy.
Baby Daisy was in no hurry to be born - I had to wait a week past my due date before she finally arrived! Course, once labour started I expected it to take hours, but no - Mum told me that this baby wasn't going to wait for us to get to the hospital and that I should be prepared for a home birth...
While I recovered from the birth itself, Aubrey got busy with the same Polaroid camera Mum had used to document the "bump months" as she'd referred to them, taking snaps of Daisy left, right and centre!
Anyway, in between feeds, nappy changes and the discovery that we're expecting another (yes, I'm pregnant again!), I somehow managed to find time to document our first-born's first moments of life in our arms:



Having twins only a year after Daisy was born meant a lot of hard work, and I was glad that my parents were still around and able to help out. Or so I thought. Dad died when Daisy was just two, leaving us feeling the strain. When his will was read, we learnt that not only were we inheriting some money, Dad had decreed we should spend a chunk of it on a well-earned holiday when the kids were old enough - he knew we'd need one!
When the twins (Dawn and Declan) turned five, we booked the plane for an autumnal camping trip high in the mountains. Daisy was super-excited - she'd heard rumours that Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) lived in remote places like that, and was hoping to meet one. The twins caught her enthusiasm, and Aubrey managed to find a map that might just lead us to the right place...
It worked - we did meet this Bigfoot fellow, a gentle giant if ever there was one, but he was a shy type and refused to pose for the camera! Still, with plenty of other holiday snaps and a large pile of autumn leaves Daisy and I put together our next scrapbook pages. She begged to be allowed to write the captions for the pictures, so while I did the one for the campfire shot, I let her do the second page:



Daisy's first day at school was actually before our holiday, but with various other commitments we didn't get round to making our scrapbook pages until a good while afterwards. She was enrolled at Orchard Primary, a single-storey red-brick building in the heart of the neighbourhood. In the new burgundy blazer, crimson jumper and tartan skirt that constituted the uniform, she looked extremely grown-up. However, I'm not sure who was the more nervous when we got to the school gates!



Seven years have passed since that awkward first school day, and it's now time for Daisy's 13th birthday! She wanted to go bowling for her party, so I rang ahead and booked the alley for it. The staff did us proud: balloons in her favourite colours down the alley and attached to the party chairs, a superb buffet tea and a beautiful cake with 13 pink candles. I would've liked to have taken better photographs, but we got the important bits.
I let Daisy do the pages on her own; she's old enough now to know her own style and what colours she wants to use. Luckily we're pretty similar with certain aspects!



Where did the time go?! Another five years has whipped by, and Daisy turned 18 two months ago! She's just completed her A-Level courses, which means cue the Sixth Form Prom! The evening knees-up took place at Pine Lake Hotel, and by all accounts was "supremely awesome" - I'm guessing that a good time was had by all. I did hear on the school grapevine that Daisy's date Ganymede came home with lipstick on his collar, so I was looking forward to seeing the Prom photos... when I saw Daisy's finished scrapbook page all became clear:



The results are in! Daisy did extremely well, gaining 2 As and 2 Bs in her A-Levels. Needless to say, Aubrey and I are super-proud of her! Time for her formal Graduation ceremony, along with the rest of her class:



N.B. For Round 5, please judge the GRADUATION pages. Although I like the photos used for the Prom pages more, I'm happier with the overall design of the Graduation ones.

And we have our 4th contestant, Selly_2009. Keep them coming everyone, we are almost half way there! It's getting exciting now!

are there any websites i can go to to get the photoshop or other software to resize my images....perferably a FREE one..someone let me know if they know of any.

When I was submitting my first upload yesterday (which was just approved yay me! lol) it kept giving me the same error for my zip and screenshots. I just kept coming back after a couple minutes and trying again, it worked eventually...




I use Gimp. It's free. http://www.gimp.org/

The Server (IO) message is a connection error, e.g. you got disconnected from the server while your pic was uploading. As such, it's pretty hard to fix yourself, except by waiting until the connection between you and the server is a bit more reliable.

(Feel free to tell me to stop butting into your contest, Phae, I'm just jealous of people who can join!)

Ok, I think it might be resized to the right image size now......I think

Thanks for the info whiterider - I thought it might be something like that (trying the old uploader kept timing out). Maybe trying at different times of the day will work.

white, I don't mind you butting in at all, I'm actually still waiting for you to say you'll judge already. I do need one more....
I like it when my judges help answer questions and participate in the thread. Makes me seem less like a control-freak. Keep helping me out jones, it's very much appreciated!

Olynicole, no sorry, its still very small. See how big my image is? Your's needs to be that big too. Please keep trying under your first post instead of making a new post for it, cuz then I have to change my table >.<

Selly, keep trying. I put the attachment requirement up there because I hate looking through old contests and seeing nothing but 'Image No Longer Available' because they were hosted somewhere else. If it came down between the image size or the attachment requirement, I'd rather have correct sized images. Small ones are just too hard to see!

leah, thank you for fixing your image size. You are good to go now!

We need 6 more people by Sunday! Once we have 10, I'll announce the first round! *Da da da-da, Da da da-da...*

Wow, this looks exciting! Just a quick Q for ya Would it be appropriate to create a wedding style scrapbook, that my newlywed Sims could have been given as a gift to fill with memories of married life? I just have this idea in mind, but I don't want to do anything I will regret later in the competition! So I'm just wondering if that style is the way to approach this? Thanks! :D

- Kisses x

It depends on how far into the future a wedding style scrapbook would go normally. This contest is going to span about 10 to 20 years for a family, watching at least one child grow up. I don't think it would be something that wouldn't work, but we aren't just focusing on the two starting sims. Your call. Can't wait to see your entry!

hi phae i was just wondering are you allowed have two entries if not it's ok

leah, I don't actually know. I would say yes, as long as they are different families and your two scrapbooks are very different. But will you be able to do twice the amount of work as everyone else and keep it up to quality? Would you be able to do them all within the first week, I don't think the other contestants would appreciate missing out on their bonus points because you opted to have double the work. I'm going to let Heaven or beeps rule in on this one. I'm not sure if your second entry would count toward the 10 we need. If they say that it would count, and you think you can pull it off, I'd say yes.

Contest forum mods? What say ye? Yay or Nay?

Phae i was just wondering can i change the family not the scrapbook itself i hope you dont mind thhnkz

leah, if you want to change your entry, go ahead! You aren't set in stone until you submit your first round entry, just take the other image down and put a new one up.

I don't want to but I may have to drop out of this comp because I don't know if I can adjust my image sizes to fit the contest rules. I've tried the programs used to do this but they take up so much memory it makes my computer run very slow, hopefully I can come up with a better solution before the deadline but if not I'll have to drop out.

What did you use originally to make your image? Maybe we can help you resize it with that...
Really don't want to lose you. We'll help you figure it out

Yes, you don't actually need to resize your image, you just need to set it up correctly in the first place. There should be some sort of 'Image Size' adjustment setting. Or, usually when you create a new file it asks you for the size you'd like it to be. Tell it that. If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll post a colored square that is already the right size and you can add your stuff on top of it. We'll figure it out, I don't want you to quit because your software is fighting you.