My Memories Review and Giveaway *closed*

I am a decently crafty person.  I love to knit and sew.  I dabble in spinning yarn and crochet.  One craft I have never been "in to", however, is scrap booking.  I just don't "get" sitting at a desk for hours at a time cutting, punching, and gluing little pieces of paper together and little plastic things on to said paper.  Then you are left with books and books full of choking hazards that you then have to lug with you every time you move.  Since I live in hurricane country, they would inevitably become another thing I would have to evacuate with.  Not to mention, I would actually have to print out my thousands of photos ahead of time; forethought is not my strong suit.  I am also not a fan of clutter and LOVE keeping my memories and important docs in electronic form (which also makes it easier to share with loved ones far away).  As such, I have 3 kids, the oldest of which is now 4, and I don't have a single scrap book page for any of them.


There are lots of sites out there were you can make a semi-custom book from your pictures.   I actually took advantage of just such a site for the grandparents for Christmas this year.  I, however, am a control freak and those sites just don't give me the control I want.  I have looked time and again for a high quality, flexible scrap booking program that was also user friendly and didn't break the bank.  After failing in my quest, I got the opportunity to review the MyMemories scrapbooking software.

I jumped at said opportunity, but, let's be honest, I went into this cautiously optimistic.   I am pretty picky about software.  I am good with software.  I can learn how to use anything, but, if they make it too hard, I am not going to bother.  To my great satisfaction that was not the case here.  The My Memories Suite is very user friendly from the start.

There are quite a few available templates that are free, so I chose one of those.  There are also a TON more that are available on the My Memories website for a small price, all of which are easily accessed from within the software itself.  I then chose my photos, told it to import them into the template.  Since I had more pictures chosen then the template supported, it automatically added on more pages using the same template again.  It gives you hints on places to put text (or you can delete the text as I did in most places). You can rearrange the photos to your liking, change the photo layout to another stock layout, or create your own layout.  You can also add text and many embellishments.  Once you are done, you can export the entire book in many different formats.  These formats include DVD movie, CD, digital movie, iPod ready, digital pictures (JPEG, PNG, or PDF), Photo Album, and more.

If you don't want to use a pre-made album template (of which there are hundreds), you can make your own from scratch.  The software allows you to easily make whatever size album you want (8x11, 8x8, etc) and you can add to it page by page.  There are many built in pages and embellishments, or you can download more from the website (for free or for pay).   You can create pages from scratch in a flash.  You can do some basic editing on the photos once they are imported so that you get make your page look just right.

Here are a few little pages I made featuring some of my recent knits.  (I am a fan of simplicity, but you can get much more complicated than this).

This one I used a built-in paper and photo layout, added "mats" to the pics and ribbon and zig zag embellishments.

This one uses a different built-in "paper", ric rac and bow embellishments, an imprint, and a built-in photo layout.  I changed the location of the photo layout, added the "mat" and "shapes" to achieve the purple border and round corners.

I love that you can use it to make your own calendar!  I used a built in background and added a photo box, text, an imprint, and a calendar.   I then customized the colors and effects on each element.  You can then export it as a PDF or print it as an album.  Very cool.

Here is my first album I made, exported as a movie (it is low res since I put it on the web, but you can make it much bigger).  I made this one fast just to see what I could do, but I think I am going to make a more extensive one for my Kenzie's Kozies website!  Exporting as a digital movie requires an add-on that is not included in the initial download, but it can be quickly downloaded for free once you are a registered user of the software.  Please note that the quality has suffered for uploading it, it is much clearer as it is exported onto your computer.

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

You can add music and such to your movie and digital albums, but I chose not to.

Buy it:
Goto the My Memories website.  Use the code STMMMS61910 for $10 off your purchase of v3 of the software!

Win it:
Enter the giveaway below, powered by Rafflecopter.

Note:I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Mom Blog Society. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.(http://momblogsociety.com)

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