Reasons why Quilters & Bloggers should embrace Scrapbooking Software, and a Giveaway too!

Some quilters and bloggers are also scrapbookers and are aware of various tools that are well known in the scrapbooking arena, but are not known, or not well known, in the world of quilting.  Today, I want to share insights with you on a software package that was designed for scrapbookers, but can also provide great fun and value for quilters and bloggers too! 


First, I want to say that I've had such fun using digital scrapbooking software to create a large variety of photo layouts, cards, banners, flyers and more.  So many, that I found it difficult to narrow down to show you a few samples.  And, they were all so easy to create.  I do hope that I can also inspire you to think of more ways you might want to use this software!  Here are my top three reasons for Quilters and Bloggers to embrace Scrapbooking software:


Reasons why Quilters should embrace Scrapbooking software:

1) You may want to create an album of all your quilts using a variety of formats, embellishments, text opportunities, and more:

2) Maybe you want to create a greeting card for a friend.  You might want to print these on your home printer, or at a kiosk in a store, or thru an online service provider.  But, ultimately you want to control what photo(s), text, colors, clipart, embellishment, and more are used in creating that very special card.

3) Maybe you need to create a flyer to increase awareness of a quilting event:

Reasons why Bloggers should embrace Scrapbooking software:

1) You want to create cool headers, badges, clip art and more for your blog giving it great visual impact, while being unique.  The software comes with a number of templates, but you can also create your own designs starting with a blank page.  And, you can pull in your own images, clipart that you may have, as well as buy layouts and embellishment online at very reasonable prices.

2) You want to share multiple photos, but in an interesting format:

3) You may want to want to create text using a photo of your quilt:

In quilting, as in blogging, there is an endless need for creativity.  And, that creativity carries into the need to organize and share photos, as well as text, in a format that entertains the mind.  While there are many software packages that allow us to achieve this, there are few that are easy to use and reasonably priced.

Are you wondering what software I've been using?

I've had the pleasure of evaluating My Memories  Suite software and really do believe this software to be very easy to use, quite robust in functionality, and offered at a very reasonable price.   I do want to clarify that I've been using the MyMemories Suite Version 2.0 digital scrapbooking software.  They've recently come out with version 3.0, but I haven't yet had an opportunity to explore their newest release which does provide much more functionality than Version 2.0 (e.g. ease of creating greeting cards, etc.).  To clarify, insights that I'm shsaring today are Version 2.0 centric, but  I hope to be able to upgrade to Version 3.0 soon and look forward to sharing with you more insights soon. 

I found the MyMemories Suite Version 2.0 software to be very intuitive.  You can download a user manual, but I found the software easy to use without first having to read the manual.  There are also some excellent tutorials that you can download for free, in PDF format.  Both the manual and these tutorials, along with their great blog, insights shared on their facebook page & newsleter, really help to broaden your expertise with this software as well as provide inspiration & tips for creativity. 

You may want to check out all the My Memories Suite videos on YouTube.  Here is  a general overview video that I thought provided good insight on this software:

This software will help you create digital scrapbooks, photobooks, cards, calendars and gifts for your friends from your computer.  It will also allow you to create fun designs that you can print on your fabric for use quilting projects, as well as use to print greeting cards and more.  And, it offers an excellent source for creating digital artwork for bloggers.  Possibilities are endless.

Highlights of this software:
- very easy to use, easy to install
- great training tutorials PDF format available online
- nice online store where you can purchase pre-created collections (e.g. background papers, frames, embellishments, etc) at reasonable prices
- easy to import your own images to this software.
- ease of use for recog and easily install
- easy to share what you create using this software by way of printing, making a DVD or CD, or even making an interactive album in which your friends or family can watch videos, listen to music that you add to your album, or embedding links in your album where those watching can click to get to websites that you point them to in your creations.  How cool is that?

I'm truly amazed that MyMemories software is so reasonably priced at $39.97.  They have also offered readers of SewCalGal a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the My Memories store - $20 value! Just copy and paste the code STMMMS74482 and enter it during checkout to receive your discount!

Use Code STMMMS74482 at checkout!

Did I mention a giveaway?

To enter, please visit www.mymemories.com and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, then comment below on this blog post telling me which ones you like best. This entry method is required.

Want to win this scrapbooking software so much you would like to have extra opportunities to enter?  After you have completed the required entry above, do any or all of the following to get one extra entry for each of the following.  Just leave a separate comment for each way you enter, and be sure I have a way to contact you if you name is drawn when I randomly select a winner next Friday:
1)  Be a follower of My Memories' blog:  http://blog.mymemories.com/
2) Like My Memories on Facebook and tell them SewCalGal sent you
3) Follow My Memories on Twitter
4) Be a follower of SewCalGal's blog.

Again, a winner will be randomly selected on Friday, December 9th.

www.mymemoriesblog.com
http://www.mymemories.com
http://blog.mymemories.com/






Lastly, the winner of last weeks' Fun Friday giveaway, sponsored by "Sewing with Silk" is: Kay