My First Giveaway - My Memories Scrapbooking Software

I want to tell you about this fabulous software I was given the opportunity to try out - and then I'm going to give you a chance to win a copy for yourself. This is my first every giveaway, so I'm a little excited. For the record, other than the exact same package I'm giving away, there has been no renumeration for the following review. They merely gave me the opportunity to play around with the software for awhile and then asked me to tell you all what I thought about it.

I got this software offer mysteriously in my email inbox. Figuring it was a hoax or scam, I opened a new window, did a Yahoo! search and went to check out the company. They have freebies you can download. And they weren't just in their software format either. Most of them could also be downloaded as .pdfs and used in other types of projects, or printed out and used for regularly scrapbooking. This kinda impressed me. I mentioned the email to Mr. Incredible and told him that I thought I was going to do it. I'm so glad I did. I have had so much fun with the My Memories Scrapbooking Suite that it's unbelievable. Heck, I'm thinking of doing our school yearbook for this year using the software to put the books together. We were just going to sell inexpensive photo cds, instead of the regular yearbook because of the cost, but with this program I can also do wonderfully themed layouts to add to the fun.

("Morning Hush" - Possibly my favorite pack at the moment.)

The Good Stuffs:

1. Variety - There's a large variety of scrapbooking packs to browse through. I learned very quickly to take a good look at the embellishments in deciding if I really want a particular pack. Otherwise I'd just look at the pretty colors and go, "Oh, shiny!"

2. Freebies, Giveaways, and Cheapies - There is a nice variety of freebies, as well as a dollar store, and many packs are frequently marked down. I've also noticed that they highlight a different designer each week on their blog, complete with giveaways.

3. Easy Account - It's very easy to set up your account. I also like that your Wishlist shows up on the front page of your account area. (Yes, there's a Wishlist feature, which is VERY nice.) The checkout process is pretty smooth as well. It's also easy to download and install new scrapbooking packs. (For the record, I'm running Windows 7 with IE 9, which I don't necessarily recommend for reasons having nothing to do with My Memories.)

4. Software - The most important part, right? What the heck is the software like?  It seemed pretty straightforward and easy to use - to me. Your experience might vary, depending on how comfortable you are playing around with new software.I love how easy it is to resize, reposition, and move around the various elements on a page.

For those who don't intuitively seem to get it, there's also a user guide that you can download. It's bookmarked and hyperlinked to navigate fairly easily. Drama Queen seems to have caught on to how to use the software fairly easily and has been having fun playing around with it as well. (I also just discovered a "Getting Started Tutorial.")

(Our Chi Rho church campers - one of my first pages.)

5. Sharing Your Creations - There are several ways of doing this. My option of choice has been to simply export a page as a .jpeg - and you can do more than one at a time - and then either share them on here or print. I like printing as a .jpeg because it seems to fill more of the printed page than if I print straight from the program.

Of course, you can also print it from straight from the My Memories program. There are also options to create interactive digital albums, add music or sound, save it as a slide show, or even burn it to a dvd. Yet another option is to upload your scrapbook to the webstie and have it printed for you as a bound book. I haven't really explored any of these options yet, so I can't really speak for how well they work.

6. Terms of Use - I'm also impressed with their Terms of Use policy. Photographers can actually use their software to create scrapbooking pages which they then sell. Those pages have to include photographs taken by the photographer, but I still thank that's a really incredible policy.


The Bad Stuffs
1. Honestly, I think my biggest complaint about My Memories is searching the website for what I want. I can search by the name of a pack or the name of a designer, but I can't search for, say, "teddy bears". (Unless it happens to be worked into the name of a pack...) It's a little time consuming when looking for something in particular. 

2. Printing Area - I've discovered that if I print from within the program that the printed area doesn't nearly fill the page. If I export it as a .jpeg, I get much more coverage. It's a minor thing, but is still something to keep in mind.

The Verdict
Overall, I'm finding myself honestly recommending this software to folks I know who might be interested. It's a lot of fun, the kits aren't really all that expensive, and the finished layouts are beautiful. I've shared some of my pages on here and am planning on sharing more during the course of the contest. I'm also having fun trying to figure out interesting ways to use the software for things other than just traditional scrapbooking pages.

The Giveaway
So, you're now probably wondering how you can get your hands on the freebie I've got to giveaway. Or, at least I hope you're wondering something along those lines. I'm going to try and make it fairly easy since I hate giveaways on blogs that make you jump through half-a-dozen hoops and go like this or follow that.

All you need do is go to the My Memories site and browse through the packs for a wee bit. Then come back here and leave a comment telling me which one you really liked. Make sure to include some means for me to get in touch with you, be it your own blog or what have you.

I'm going to keep the contest open until October 15th, at which point I'll use one of the various random number generator's to pick the winner.

Oh, and the winner gets a code to download the My Memories v2 software for free (a $39.97 value) plus a $10 gift certificate to use on their website. Not a bad deal.

The random number generator will have the final say in who wins, promise. I'm sure whoever gets this will really enjoy it. And if you don't win the contest, I'm going to share a code later that I think gives you a discount on purchasing the software. But more on that later...(After I check it out a bit more.)