Monday, February 18, 2013

My Memories Review and Giveaway

The nice people at My Memories gave me a review copy of their software and a free copy to give away! How cool is that? I have been pecking away at using the software in-between learning Rhino and it's powerful simplicity is refreshing. Contest details are below the image.

One category that has frequently fallen flat is card making and scrapbooking software, so I was delighted to give My Memories Suite a go. I have been there and done that so many times, with a pile of CDs from the past 15 years, which have all disappointed in some way. Either it's too complicated to get something done quickly, or too simple to be creative enough. Or they come with bargain bin clip art and a mix of different features and I end up fixing things in CorelDraw later. MS Publisher and Avery's DesignPro software are pretty much only good for label making :D Why can't there be one program that does it all?

My Memories Suite seems to do that and more. I was able to quickly make some 12x12" pages and get my photos in there fast with the pre-designed templates. Of course, you can create your own designs or go with a "digital kit" that contains all the co-ordinating materials to create a cohesive theme. One thing that really gets me hung up with real scrapbooking is not having colours that co-ordinate or missing some little element. Or I get too hung up on the layout and never get anything done. This way I can quickly change things up without getting precious about using the good materials. I like the digital work area that lets me see everything at a glance, as you can see below (click for a larger image). Trim guides are pretty handy and warnings pop up when it looks like the pages may be trimmed when bound in a book. There are options for multimedia scrapbooks as well, and you can add music and video. Whew! I could really go on all day about all the features they packed into this program. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can definitely use this program right away without reading the manual (although it helps :-))



Give away time!

I like to keep give aways simple, so everyone who leaves a comment will have a chance to win. I'll write everyone's name on a piece of paper and Muffin will randomly pick one :-) Contest will close at 9pm MTN on February 25. One entry per individual person.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Be Mine?

It is so nice to be able to do normal people things today - thanks to the long weekend here in Alberta, I don't have class, which means I have time to catch up on things (it doesn't mean no homework though, woe!)

A couple of weeks ago I had a great idea - send Valentine's to my friends! But like most of my great ideas, the turnaround time was a little short, so I didn't send as many as I would have liked. It was just so nice to be able to make something. I was in a hurry to get them out the door, so I only had time to take cell phone photos. I made two of each of the following from the crafty stash:

A budgiegram, with a little note :-)
Valentine by Christine Bennett

"You're the purr-fect friend!"
Valentine by Christine Bennett

My favourite - "It's so tweet...that you like me!" with a Facebook thumbs up on the inside :-)
Valentine by Christine Bennett