My Memories Part 1
One of my favorite things to do is scrapbook. I mean the traditional get out the paper, scissors and glue kind of scrapbooking. You know, like a great kindergarten project! I’m a very creative person, when I don’t get a chance to be creative, I get very cranky. I have to be honest I haven’t really scrapbooked in that manner since I was pregnant with The Informer. I have done a bit here and there using internet companies that specialize in photo gifts and products. While this is a fun and a fairly quick way to get your pictures into books I found them to be limited in what you can do, as far as creativity goes.
I personally think it’s really important to record your memories for future generations. When my grandmother died, I remember going through boxes of fabulous pictures and not having a clue as to who the people were or anything about them. I must admit one of my goals is to get all of my pictures into scrapbooks for my family.
I did try a great product that took your pictures and or movies and made them into beautiful DVD’s. I originally ordered something like this from a large well known company, for gifts. I paid a fortune for pictures that had one mode of transition and one song played in a loop. While very nice, it was very boring. The product I used at home allowed me to string together several songs, great backgrounds, captions, different transitions and wonderful embellishments. And, while these DVD’s have been great, it’s not the same as a scrapbook you can hold in your hands.
So, when a representative from My Memories.com e-mailed me about trying their scrapbook software I was intrigued. When I went to the web site, the thing that really caught my eye was the following paragraph –
“MyMemories Suite v3 software is a complete digital scrapbooking solution that provides a comprehensive powerful set of creative tools no other scrapbook software can offer. With its intuitive workspace and enhanced time-saving features, this application is perfect for a beginner to create a complete album in minutes, or to empower the design pro to build a scrapbook album masterpiece.”
I looked further and found that I could use my digital pictures to make awesome scrapbook pages that could be printed out, or I could turn it into a DVD, or make it interactive or even send it to an iPod. I loved that there were hundreds of scrapbook kits, which included background papers, embellishments and fonts. And almost all of them are really priced at a value! If I go buy paper or an embellishment at the store and use them, I’m done; they are only in one book. But, with these kits I have the background paper and embellishments to use over and over again.
I decided I would give it a try. The deal was that I try it out and tell you, my readers, what I think. So, here goes. At first I must admit I was a bit nervous, I had a bit of a rough patch in the beginning and I was really worried. What if I didn’t like the software and it was too hard to use what would I do then? I would never want to lie to anyone about something that I thought wasn’t a deal or was hard to use, but then My Memories.com was expecting me to post a positive review of their product. Well I’m here to tell you that after a bit of a rough start, that was my own fault, it is a great product.
I wanted to make an album that I had enough recent pictures for: one, so I would remember for journaling and two, so I could be selective about what I used. I decided to make an album of our recent vacation to Baltimore
When you open the software to get started a window pops up that says New Album Options. From there you can decide if you want to create an album from a template or make your own. In the interest of time and just really wanting to get it done I decided to go with a template. I figured I would explore creating my own pages after I got the hang of the program. OK first bump, there was no template for vacations that came with the program. No problem I thought, the templates and things are reasonably priced I’ll buy one. I bought a fabulous kit called Road Trip Time; the problem was it wouldn’t open. I was really frustrated. I e-mailed customer service and I must say I got a very quick response (after the new years holiday weekend) from two different people. That impressed me!
The problem, I didn’t do enough reading. As The Director always says the problem usually lies with the user. I didn’t understand that there is a difference between a kit and a template. Realizing that I had bought a kit, (which would have been great if I had wanted to create my own pages) and not a template, explained the problem. So, I bought a template and the coordinating kit, and then I was on my way.
Now don’t get me wrong the program came with lots and lots and lots of templates and backgrounds and embellishments that I could have used, I didn’t have to buy anything, to use the program. Because of the type of album I decided to make, I wanted a template that specifically had travel stuff, especially the road trip stuff. The template I picked out was great! Since the trip was for The Middle Child’s 10th birthday trip, (I’ll write more about that and explain later) I loved that the template we picked had flowers and girly stuff along with the road trip stuff. To me it was a great representation of who she is and it worked great with the type of trip we took.
Once I got the template loaded (Super easy to do, they send you step by step instructions for everything, awesome!) I was off. Everything is so easy to use and understand, so far the hardest part for me is trying to figure out which pictures to use. The online HELP section is very informative and if you’re more of a visual person they have a whole host of YouTube videos that explain things step by step.
Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of my review of My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software. I’m going to include some of the pages that I made and announce the winner of this fabulous product. And don’t worry, I have some great discounts for everyone else!
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