It's Giveaway Time! (And Coupon!)

The day is finally here! Time for the big giveaway!

I was so lucky to be contacted by the My Memories company to review their digital scrapbooking software! While I don't do scrapbooking in the traditional sense, I do use elements of scrapbooking on my blog, for cards, labels, envelopes, newsletters, posters, etc. I'm always looking for cute and easy ways to make things. And I do like to document my quilts in an album.

The software was super easy to download and install, although it took a bit of time since my internet connection was slow that night. As soon as I had it installed I opened it up. I'm not a computer novice, but I"m not a super whiz either! Take into account I don't read instructions before I jump into most software either! So I took an initial look and thought - "where do I start"! Let me tell you, a few clicks around and I had a page made! I spent a bit of time playing with the different options and functions and felt fairly comfortable with it! I then made all those little pictures in the giveaway tease post below. All with my first time in! And not reading any instructions!

Want to know what I did so far with it? I updated my blog header!

I made a quilt label to print off on those photo fabric sheets. I can then sew this onto the back of a quilt! How cute is that!

I also made a really fun movie slideshow! Something I want to share about this. On my computer the movie file it saved is easy and clear to see. The quality is great. But when I loaded into blogger it goes to fast, it doesn't wait the 5 seconds per page. It goes much faster. I'm sure this has to do with blogger since it is fine on my computer. I then made the movie with longer page turns. But once loaded onto blogger it went at the same faster speed.



Pincushions5-small.mov

So then I tried loading it on webshots and linking it to my post. While this holds the page turning speed to what I saved it as, I lost a lot of the picture quality in webshots.

So know that you can get beautiful movies, even full screen - but I haven't had good luck "posting" the movie. I"m sure there is something I need to do "somewhere" but haven't had the time to track it all down.
There are TONS of papers, embellishments, layouts, etc on the My Memories website that you can purchase, and even some free ones. I also found some other digital scrapbooking sites and was able to download from those sites and use in My Memories Suite software.

Overall I love it so far. I can see myself stretching what I would use this for! It isn't just for scrapbooking anymore!
Have you stayed with me so far? Before I get to the details I want to list out a quick summary

Likes:

• Easy to Use


• Tons of papers, layouts, embellishments, etc


• Makes movies, jpg's, albums, photo books


• Can print from home or professionally

Dislikes:

• When I did try and search the help for things I was having problems with it wouldn't skip to the word I was searching on. I had to click through all the pages of the help button to find what section I wanted. Not sure if that was my computer acting up or the software help. But I did struggle with that.


• I dislike that when I got to save a page as a jpg that I can't give it the name I want it. It saves it by the name of the project and the page number. So while I can pick what directory I put it in, I would like to be able to choose my own name for the jpg.


• Right now the only page sizes I can see are Square 12" x 12" or 8" x 8" and 8.5" x 11" either Portrait or Landscape. Could be I just haven't figured out how to make other sizes. I would love to make it something like 3" x 5" or 5" x 7"

Wishlist:

• I would love to see an addition to this to be able to print out things like address labels or return address labels! I alway make my own return address labels and all the papers and embellishments in this software would make them so cute! It would make it so much easier to dress up my labels. (who knows - maybe I just haven't figured it out yet!)

Want more information or ways to check out My Memories? Here you go:
Blog- http://blog.mymemories.com/
Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyMemories/140359372717593
Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite
And check this out - You Tube tutorials! - http://www.youtube.com/user/MyMemoriesSuite

Want to play too? To Enter:

I am making it simple! Just check out the My Memories website and tell me what digital layout or pack you would like to use and what you would do with it first. It is that simple! Leave a comment below with this information and you are entered to win! Entries close at midnight Oct 15th (US Central Time).

Winner will be chosen from Random.org. Make sure you are NOT a no-reply blogger, or leave your email in your post. If I can't contact you - you can't win.

Your reward!

Your reward for sticking with me through all of this is a My Memories coupon! My Memories gave me this code STMMMS22117 (I suggest copy/paste if you use it so there are no typos) which will allow you to save $10 off the My Memories Suite software AND a $10 credit to the My Memories store! How exciting is that! So if you don't win the giveaway, you still can win by using this code on their site!

Good Luck to everyone!