My Memories Suite Giveaway!

I have one project that sits on my book shelf just staring at me, always filling me with guilt because I haven’t started on it yet.  It’s a collection of tons of photos, documents, letters, legal papers, and memorabilia, most of which my mother saved, waiting for me to put into some sort of order and into an album. About two years ago my older sister and I filled out our family tree with whatever information we had or gathered from our relatives.  And now it’s up to me to somehow pull all of this together in some coherent order for the family.

So when Liz Gardner contacted me recently to ask if I were interested in doing a review and giveaway of My Memories Suite scrapbooking software - I was all ears!  I quickly agreed and I have been working with the program and getting familiar with what it has to offer.  

To call it scrapbooking software just doesn’t do it justice.  I’m blown away not only with what you can do with the software, but also with all the extras My Memories Suite provides.  But let’s start with scrapbooking. The software comes with a number of design templates to work with.  Each template comes with several page designs, embellishments, ribbons, words, word art – all of which are completely customizable to your taste.  You can add, subtract, change color, change backgrounds – there’s no limit to what you can do.   The software even has some basic photo editing tools such as resize, crop, reduce red eye, or adding some imaging effects.   

If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the design templates provided with the software, the My Memories website contains more FREE templates, quick pages, page packs, extra embellishments – there’s 181 freebies listed.  Still not satisfied?  There’s over 2000 kits available for purchase at very reasonable prices.  They have a number of designers creating beautiful designs for them, each with their own distinct style.  I could see where I could get “hooked” on a few designers because their styles appeal to me. 

Once you have created your masterpiece you can of course print your pages, but you can also create photo books, cards, calendars, CDs, DVDS, slide shows.  You can add music and narration if you like.  Yikes – I want to do it all!  

I thought I would start, though, with some of the photos I have from my parents.  Mom and Dad have been gone for a long time now; they both would have been 100 years old this year.  My Mom saved a lot of photos from when they were in their twenties and thirties, during the time when they met, dated, became engaged and married.  I’m totally fascinated with their photos from that time.   Here’s what I created with My Memories.  The template I used was “Smells Like Spring Flowers.” It has six different page elements and you can use whichever ones you like and you can repeat pages, changing colors or embellishments if you like.  I thought it would be interesting to show you the pages as they appear in the program, then as I changed them for my album.  

Here's the pages provided (I used just four of the six):

And here's what I did with those pages:

Mom and Dad's nicknames for each other: Brown Eyes and Hon.

Red Sails in the Sunset was their song.

This page was a little bit of an "oops" - I lost some parts of the image by accident, but then decided I liked this simple look with one of my favorite photos. 

Love Mom's dress and bouquet!

All in all, even with my "oops" I really enjoyed working with the program. 

So what’s my verdict? Two thumbs up. Here’s why:

·         Fun to work with. Compatible with either PC or Mac.

·         Allows for your own creativity.  Use the templates as is, or modify them as much as you like.

·         Choose your final output – print, CD, DVD, photobook, etc. (I’m still checking out all the options.)  You can also export your images as JPEGS.  That’s what I did to include the images here.

·         An almost unlimited number of design options are available.

·         Their web site is full of information, freebies, and the shop where you can purchase additional designs. 

·         I was very happy to see that the web site also has video tutorials (I viewed one to answer a question I had) and a forum where you can ask questions and share information. 

·         The My Memories software comes with a very complete user guide PDF.

The one piece of advice I would offer is allow yourself some time to get familiar with the program, the user guide, and the web site before you start in on a large project.  If you have worked before with other photo or design programs much of this will be familiar to you.  If you have not, the learning curve may be a little steeper.  

Best of all, can you believe that this software costs only $39.97?  

And I can make it even better.  I will be conducting a giveaway for one My Memories digital scrapbooking software package!  To qualify, see the instructions below.

If you don’t want to wait to see if you win, you can use my personal coupon code to get a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook Software AND a $10 coupon to the My Memories store.  That’s a $20 value, people!

Here’s the code for you to use when you order (please enter the code carefully and correctly): 

 STMMMS19097

I’m working on a few other projects with My Memories designs and I’ll be posting as I finish them over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned!

UPDATE!

Here's a calendar page I created from scratch with the software.

How to Enter

You have several chances to be entered into the random drawing. PLEASE read carefully; the entry requirements have been changed.  I’m going to allow two weeks for you to enter for the drawing.

First entry: Visit My Memories website, come back here, and enter a comment about your favorite digital paper pack or layout.

Second entry: Enter a comment if you have signed up to follow My Memories blog.

Third entry: Enter a comment if you have signed up to follow My Memories on Facebook.

Fourth entry: Enter a comment that you signed up to follow My Memories on Twitter.

Fifth entry: Enter a comment that you signed up to follow my blog, my Facebook page AND/OR my Pinterest page (or comment that you already follow).

That's five chances to enter for the random drawing!  Please be sure that your correct email address is in your profile; if it is not, include your email address in your comment.  I will use random number generator to pick a winner after 12 noon EDT on

Tuesday, May 29

Good luck!!