My Memories Suite Review and Giveaway

I was recently given the opportunity to download My Memories Suite Version 3.0, a digital scrapbooking software, so I could review it. And they offered me another copy for a lucky reader. More details soon--I know I'm so excited for my first giveaway!



Let me start by giving you a little background of my scrapbooking and computer skills. I love playing with graphics on the computer and really am pretty much self taught. With my bachelor degree in mathematics, I do have a minor in computer science, but that was mostly programming or building computers. However on my computer I have a version of Photoshop (though I admit I have not figured it all out yet) and Print Shop as well as Word. These are the programs I usually use for digital scrapbooking or any graphic related project. I also love scrapbooking, but am very behind. I am still doing Hazel's first year and she turns three next week. Needless to say I love the idea of digital scrapbooking since most of my pictures nowadays are on the computer anyway.

So onto My Memories Software...I have had it for two weeks or so now, and I have to say I love it! It is very easy to use and pick up without much effort. Well I started by making a digital scrapbook for Hazel. My Memories has many digital scrapbooking kits you can download for free (and even more you can purchase). I have not purchased any yet, so all the examples of work here were done with what comes with the software or can be downloaded for free. I am sharing the digital scrapbook here as a movie. One of the many options on how you share your work with this software.

Next I wanted to see what else I could do with it besides scrapbook. Since I had already done Hazel's birthday party invitations, I decided to play around with a friend's son's. His first birthday is this week, but they are having the party in few weeks. I had suggested the winter 1-derland theme to my friend, and she loved it. So I played around and came up with the above invitation. I have edited out the personal information of my friend. She had told me she was going to use penguins with the theme, so the invitation tied right in. I was able to e-mail her a jpeg copy of the invitation. In fact we e-mailed back and forth until we got it how she wanted it. Then she printed it from her own computer as a jpeg and mailed them out. She does not have My Memories Suite on her computer.

Next I started working on some birthday banners for Hazel and while I was at it, I also did one for Cameron. Each year for Hazel's birthday I find ways to post pictures of her from birth til present. Then I hang them as decorations at her party. My friend had also sent me pictures of Cameron (one for each month of his life), so I took these and put them on a banner with the same theme as the invitation. Each page of the digital album consists of the same shape with different backgrounds on it, a letter spelling out "Happy Birthday!" and a picture of Cameron in chronological order. Then I added the extras that My Memories Suite has. They call them embellishments, but I just had fun whether it was snowflakes, the snow frame, the igloo or the penguin and polar bear and also I added some word art with the winter 1-derland on them. I then emailed each pages as a jpeg to his mother. Again she loved it! She is going to print them out and make a banner to display all the great pictures of him from his first year.


I did a similar one for Hazel using triangles for the shape. I had to make two and use her middle name so I could get all the pictures from birth until present on them. I took a picture of the more recent one. I cut out all the triangles and used and adhesive spray to attach them to scrapbook paper which I bought on sale ages ago for this particular thing.
 Then I got really creative. I went The Graphics Fairy and searched nursery rhyme. Using some of her free pictures I was able to create another banner of decorations that goes along with our nursery rhyme theme. As you can see I personalized the pictures. This was extremely easy to do with the scrapbooking software.  I was able to use The Graphics Fairy pictures I downloaded as the background and then just cropped pictures of Hazel to fit the scene. And of course, I had to include her as the spoon in a Hey Diddle, Diddle picture!

Straight from My Memories Suite

As I played with My Memories, I discovered you could do more and more. For her second banner, I used some of the images from nursery rhymes to color the letters of the Happy Birthday. The digital scrapbooking software made it very easy. It is long, so I haven't hung it yet, but I got some pictures.

One page of Hazel's banner

Last page of this banner with cake!

The final project I want to share is a preview of a change after the first of the year. I used My Memories Suite to create a new Sharing Saturday button. Since you can "share" the album as a jpeg, it makes it really easy. I just made a square album and I was even able to copy some graphics from other programs (The Print Shop, Word, etc.) to get everything I wanted. So the reason I need a new button, is I am going to have a co-host after the new year, which will mean all the wonderful ideas you share will be seen on two blogs instead of just one so more exposure! My Memories Suite made this really, really easy! I got want I wanted and then I uploaded it into photobucket and edited the size. What do you think of it?

Next I am going to play around with the backgrounds and see what else I can do to make my blog more exciting with My Memories! As you can see it goes far beyond just scrapbooking! Oh, and some of the kits were for photo cards as well. I had already done my Christmas cards, but considered showing you a Halloween one, but I didn't make it.





So now, for the exciting part. Yes, I have a copy of this amazing digital scrapbooking software for one lucky reader and for everyone else My Memories has offered you a $10 discount to purchase the software and with the purchase you will receive a $10 coupon good for their store so you can buy some of the amazing kits available for purchase. To get this great offer visit http://www.mymemories.com/digital_scrapbooking_software and use my Share the Memories Code which is STMMMS83543. 


Ok, onto the giveaway! I figured I would try the Rafflecopter for my first giveaway, so follow the instructions on it!



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ok, that is all you have to do to get six entries into my first giveaway!! I will choose a winner with the Rafflecopter on December 29th! Good luck!!