My Memories Scrapbooking (& Giveaway!)

Okay want to know something ironic? I was unpacking scrapbooks (it may be plural, but don’t let if fool you. There’s only 2) last month (finally, it’s been 4 months?!?) and thinking to myself “Self, do you realize you haven’t gotten any professional pictures of your baby who is now 2 done? And heaven only knows if and how many pictures we actually have of the last 2 years with her in them. Seriously? You need to get pictures done, you need to do some scrapbooking, and you need to somehow make it work in your schedule.” That’s a pretty bossy thing coming from me. So I was beyond thrilled when I got an email from Liz with My Memories asking if I wanted to try out their software that is supposed to make albums easy. Um, heck yes! I used Adobe Photoshop to create things for scrapbooking before, but I’m always up for a new product. So I went ahead and downloaded the software (yeah, it’s immediate, awesome, right?) and browsed around My Memories looking at the cute kits they have available. And get this, some are FREE!! Woohoo! They also have a dollar store section. I mean, it looks like something for every budget is there! That’s my big beef about paper scrapbooking. You have to get pictures printed, have all of the supplies, and that means lots of storage that could go to fabric (see my priorities?) and then whenever you want to scrapbook it’s pulling everything out, making a mess, trying to glue with a toddler, whatever. So I LOVE digital scrapbooking. Plus, if you’re awesome and watch deal sites and such, you can get really cheap photo books to print your works of art. I use it to make Christmas/birth announcement cards, and then hold onto it for an awesome deal and can sometimes get my Christmas cards printed for free. So, do I have you convinced yet? Okay, here’s some awesome crap I made with My Memories software. (click the thumbnails to see my cuties bigger) 

I’m hoping I have a few minutes today to upload my pictures and get my photo book printed. I’m pretty excited about it. I managed to do 26 pages (it’s an alphabet quiet book, see?) in a week, in spare time. The girls will hopefully love it, since what kid doesn’t love to look at pictures of themselves, and people they know? While using the software, here’s my honest review:

Pros:

It comes loaded with lots of papers, embellishments, etc. already

As I mentioned above, it has a lot of free kits and add ons to use with it

You can edit pictures somewhat when you add them to the page

It is pretty straight forward, and easy enough to figure out with just clicking around, at least for me

The pre-loaded templates are cute and fun, and it’s super easy to customize things to your liking

Cons:

It’s somewhat tricky to figure out how to print the book after it’s finished (meaning save it to the computer and then upload it to your printing method of choice)

You can’t do nearly as much editing with it as you can with Photoshop, so some things may need to be edited first

I have a bunch of things (papers, embellishments, etc.) I already had when doing scrapbooking with Photoshop, and I haven’t figured out if I can use them yet in this program. I’ll let you know

When you get your things from the online store, you have to download and install each thing individually. At least I haven’t figured out a way to download them all at once. So if you go crazy with the free kits (like me), you have to individually install them. After that, you’re fine

I just whipped this up from their free calendar template to help start potty training Thing 2. You know, places for stickers. I’ll probably print it on some pretty paper and call it good. It’s more than I did for Thing 1.

So, since I went through the uploading to print, I’ll tell you really quick how to do it. It has a nice feature where you can click on the “Check Album” and you can check album for errors, meaning hanging off the end, spell checking, etc. That’s a nice feature. You can view the photo album too on there to see how the pages look on layout (click on “View” View Album, and then choose whether you made a photo cover or not to make sure it's matched up properly). After everything is checked and ready, then you go to “Share Album”, “Export Pages”. Then you need to figure out on your computer where things are saved (mine was C drive, Users, my user name, and then a folder there for my album), and you should have a folder called whatever your album is called, and you just need to upload the JPGs to your printing method of choice. I’m still figuring out where to get mine printed, but that’s more because I haven’t had time to sit at a computer for longer than 10 minutes to actually upload and get it all ready to print. It’s easy, I’ve done it before with Photoshop. So, once I get it printed, I’ll show you the finished product! Plus, once I actually get some family pictures done, I’ll show you my awesome Christmas Card I’ll make….

Want to see the favorite page I did for this book? I shouldn’t have, but I think it’s hilarious….(click it to make sure it’s big enough to see…)

Do you guys love the idea of scrapbooking/card making/whatever on your computer? Do you want to win your copy of My Memories Suite (worth $40)? Well, leave a comment here telling me why you are amazing or horrible at scrapbooking (hopefully so I feel better as a mom), and I’ll use the random.org to pick a winner the end of the month. We’ll announce it on Saturday, September 1. You have until Friday, August 31 at 11:59 MST to enter. And guess what? It’s digital, so I’ll email you your copy and you can start right away! Make sure your email is enabled in Blogger, or leave me an email address. Thanks! Good luck and Happy Monday!

Disclosure: I was given a free copy of My Memories Suite to use and review, as well as one to giveaway. All thoughts and reviews are my own)