I've been doing traditional scrapbooking for 9 years now, but as my family (4 kids now) has grown I've fallen farther and farther behind. I recently attended a Creative Memories demo on digital scrapbooking and am curious if others have experience with it and opinions on their products and on digital scrapbooking. What do you think? Do you feel limited by their products? Do you have your pages printed by CM or some other company? Any and all thoughts, opinions, recommendations, etc. are welcome. I have tried CM's free download version and like it and like how fast I can scrapbook, but the free version is so limited that's it's hard to make a decision based on it alone.
I've heard good things about CM's, but also have heard good things about Stampin' Up and their digital scrapbooking...haven't invested in either...just going by things my friends have said.
I haven't used Creative Memories but it looks nice so I'm not much help there. I just got a new mini catalog from Stampin UP! and they are launching digital scrapbook software as well that will coordinate with there colors and stampsets, etc.
I'm a veyr creative person who just never quite "got" the scrapbooking thing. I was doing good to just get pics in an album w/ name and date! (I have 3 kids,horse,dog,cats,a life...) There are about 2 1/2 years of paper photos still in a box around here. BUT! then I discovered Kodakgallery.com. All pics get put into actual hardcover books. Still not quite scrapbooking- a little limited on "designs". But you can write captions and I find that the less "choices" I have to make, the quicker it gets done.Each year I do the albums in one color- green for 2007, blue for 2008, and all Christmas ones are done in red. So no matter how many albums I did in 2008, I can see which ones belong to that year easily. Snapfish also has them-most of the online photo labs do. Nothing falls apart. Nothing fades. LOVE IT! No deciding where that one picture goes- you can have an album printed for each kid if you want! They have small albums that make great "thank yous"- ALWAYS having a sale on something. And no mess to clean up!! I say go for it.......... Good luck.
I use Srapbook Factory Deluxe... You can get it at Best Buy. Whichever program you use, you can print your 12x12s at Costco for $2.99. I'm sure Sam's has similar prices, but I love my prints from Costco. It's a lot cheaper to buy a program and spend $3 than to buy all the paper, ribbon, buttons, etc.
Another GREAT digital scrapbooking company is Heritage Makers. They offer the bound storybooks as well as individual pages, cards, calendars, etc. too. You don't have to buy software or any digital art collections. And you don't have to store any art, photos or projects on your computer either. It's all online! With Heritage Makers, you have you own account online and have access to more than 40,000 pieces of digital scrapbooking art. It rocks! Plus there are templates that are pre-designed and editable if you don't want to design your page by yourself. Check it out at www.CreateHeritage.com and I'll send you one of my 12x12 page credits to try it out for free.
I love CM. It is so easy and there are so many options. I have the upgraded version (the one you pay for) along with the Memory Manager (the program to store and organize pictures). I have had so much fun with both.
I have almost completely quit buying cards and invites and make them myself with Storybook Creater Plus. It is so fun and easy.
I print at Costco for a fraction of the cost! They can do all different sizes!
Enjoy!
Close To My Heart is coming out with a new digital scrapbooking program called Studio J. It is going to be absolutely amazing!! Check it out!.... http://www.studioj.com/
I am also a CM consultant and love our digital products!!! The new creator 3.0 is amazing it is easy but still lets you move and add anything you would like to! I just bought 4 storybooks and would love to show them to you if you were interested!! It is definately a great investment if you want to get alot done!
thanks T.
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I just finished and printed a wedding digital album for a friend. It was 8x8 and turned out great. Easy to do. I noticed though that there was a difference on the quality of pictures - I had downloaded some high definition pictures from Snapfish and those turned out a lot better. It was my first CM digital album and I think it was pretty good. I am now working on a salsa recipe book with lots of pictures and I am hoping to get a better quality on that one since the background is black - we'll see!
You should check out www.MyPhotobookStory.com. I am a consultant through Heritage Makers and absolutely love it!! The application is online, so you don't download anything to your computer. This is great since you don't need to worry about your computer crashing, you want to upgrade your computer, or you want to work on your projects when you don't have your computer with you and can use someone else's. The templates are 100% customizable, which is what sold me on the product. You can completely tear apart the templates, add pictures, delete artwork, etc. You can also create your pages completely from scratch - the options are unlimited! The company also adds artwork each month, which is at no additional cost to you. The quality of the products is the best I've seen. Please contact me at ____@____.com if you would like more information.
S., I haven't read all the responses yet, so I apologize in advance if I echo someone else's!
Don't worry about chronological scrapping! I took an online class by S. Julian two years ago called "Library of Memories" and it has changed my scrapbooking life! In fact, I was ready to chuck the whole thing before I took this class, but was incredibly inspired afterward! Basically, you sort all the photos you want to scrap into four main categories (All About Us, People We Love, Things We Do, Places We Go), and maybe have a couple of others like Special Events and School Days. Then, within those categories you categorize further -- say, within "Things We Do" you might have a category about reading (we have, oddly, a slew of photos of people in our family reading!). You might have one about playing games. So instead of scrapping chronologically, you're making connections between people, events, etc. On my page about the importance of reading, there are photos of my son (who is now 16) from when he was very little up until he was in grade school -- and the page works really well! So I would encourage you to not worry about being "behind" (you'll never have that worry again if you go with this kind of system).
As for digi-scrapping, I have experimented with it, and use Photoshop Elements. There are tons of free stuff all over the web, and an astounding variety of purchase kits and you don't have to be limited to any company or program. I decided to stick primarily with traditional scrapping because I LOVE the tactile experience of playing with the paper, ribbons, embellies, etc. But if I didn't have the space to keep all this stuff, I would probably convert to digital.
Hope that helps!
I 2nd the Stampin' Up! response... it is neat that all the images coordinate-this way you could use your stamps/paper and it matches your digital pages so you can still do a few traditional pages or order a whole book!
