5 Reasons I LOVE My Memories Suite

Let me start out by saying that I have almost ZERO natural talent for crafts...PERIOD!  There are some people that can whip together the most stunning craft decoration or paint the most beautiful work of art,  I am NOT one of those people.  I yearn to be more naturally creative!  I have yet to find something that I am exceptional at, which is why I keep trying new things...you never know what will be your thing.  But in my attempt at trying new things, I have experienced learning a lot of things that I can do moderately well.  

In all honesty, I probably NEVER would have tried digital scrapbooking (digiscrap) if I did not work at a digital scrapbooking company.  I know that sounds horrible to say, but I would have immediately thought it to be outside my artistic abilities.  However, when working for a company you really should completely immerse yourself in the business to truly do your job well and that is exactly what I did.  You may be asking yourself "what is digiscrap"?  Let me break that down for you:

DIGISCRAP VS. TRADTIONAL SCRAPBOOKING
The great thing about both of these is that between them you should find something for anyone.  Traditional scrapbooking is exactly like what it sounds like...scrapbooking the traditional way!  You sit down and use physical materials (there are so many different kind of supplies that I won't even get into it) to layer, cut, and design a beautiful page that traditionally has photos that you want to preserve in an album.  More than creating an album, a lot of traditional scrapbookers use their craft to create tags, cards, decorations, and so much more!

Digiscrap is, go figure, a digital approach to traditional scrapbooking.  We don't have a craft room designated to our form of scrapbooking, as long as we have our computers and probably a back up hard drive we are good to go.  Just like traditional scrapbookers we layer, crop, and design pages as well, but from our computers.  Instead of going to a craft store to get our supplies we can hop on the computer and shop digitally for papers, elements, and more!  With digiscrap you can then take your pages and either print them individually or, my personal preference, send them to be turned into a photobook.  Also, similar to traditional scrapbooking, you can digiscrap to create tags, cards, decorations, and so much more.  For me personally, I use a software called My Memories Suite to do all of my digital scrapbooking and I love to get all of my digital designs from their online store at www.mymemories.com!  There are THOUSANDS of design to choose from and the great thing is you can buy the whole collection of a design in a bundle to get the most bang for your buck.  If you don't want an entire collection a lot of the times you can purchase papers, elements, monograms, etc separately for whatever project you are working on.  The great thing about the software and the store is that the digital designs will be seamlessly integrated into the software ready for you to create your timeless pages.  In addition to using the software, you can also download the files directly to your computer to use them in other programs.  SO VERSATILE!

I used the scrapbooking software and I did some research on industry trends, and of course I looked on Pinterest to get layout inspiration.  Over time, I got better (still not a pro yet and don't think I ever will be with the ever-evolving industry of scrapbooking) and learned the type of style that I like and I determined that even if I had not been working at a digiscrap company, I still would have picked digiscrap over traditional scrapbooking for my main form of memory keeping. You are probably thinking "why is that" and to leave you without questions I will outline the reasons below.

1. COST
I am a self-proclaimed, labeled, and proud cheapskate!  Whenever I say that people say you aren't a cheapskate, you are just frugal.  Call me crazy but I take a lot of pride in the fact that I find the best deals and, more than finding the best deals, I love to share deals with others.  After doing some research, I learned that traditional scrapbookers spend anywhere from $5-$15 per page on the pages that they create!  Now, I am not knocking these pages!  There are so many absolutely breath-taking traditional scrapbooking pages out there that it really does become art and although I appreciate them for me, remember, I am a CHEAPSKATE!  Let me break this down, when you order a photobook from MyMemories print shop it will cost you $49.99 for a 12x12 hardbound photobook that includes 26 pages (you can print additional pages in the photobook for $1.20 a page with a limit of 100 pages per book)!  If you were to create a traditional scrapbook with 26 pages it would cost $130-$390 based on the above estimate per page!  

Now in all fairness the MyMemories price is just for printing, it does not include the additional digital content.  However even if you were to buy a bundle that costs $20 (includes almost 50 papers, over 175 elements, and has a monogram set that includes 43 characters) you have enough content to create a decent-sized and lovely photobook AND the best part...YOU CAN USE THE DIGITAL DESIGNS AS MANY TIMES AS YOU LIKE!!!  Unlike traditional scrapbook supplies where you use the sticker and it is gone or you need to stock up on 12x12 papers because you used all you had, YOU WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF SUPPLIES...JUST HARD DRIVE SPACE...eventually, but that is still less space being occupied compared to a whole room!

2.  EVERYTHING IS DIGITAL
In this day and age practically everyone uses a digital device to capture their memories.  If you are at the beach and you want to capture your kids playing, you grab your phone out of your pocket.  If you have your wedding pictures taken you will inevitably get a disc with all of your images on it from your photographer.  So for me the natural solution is instead of taking these digital images, printing them out to compose a page, why not create on your computer and send it be printed in high quality photobook?  The difficult part is choosing which photos you want to use!

If you happen to have some family heirloom photos, you can scan them (to preserve for many generations) and upload them into the software.  No reason to worry about them being damaged and they are super easy to share with other family members!

3. ANYONE CAN DIGITAL SCRAPBOOK...SERIOUSLY ANYONE!
​Whether you are retired, a parent with young children, a genealogist, a traveler, or a teacher, digital scrapbooking is a great solution for you.  My Memories Suite specifically can be used by people of all technical skill levels, if you can turn your computer on, download your photos, and have the ability to use a mouse, you can use the software. To help those who are not technically inclined they have fantastic tutorials and top-notch customer service!

4. NO MESS AND NO CLUTTER!
If you are anything like me, sometimes the idea of creating a mess is extremely unappealing!  My family makes enough messes that sometimes the last thing that I want to do is to intentionally start an activity that I know will create a mess for me.  With digital scrapbooking there are no paper scraps to throw away and no items to have to organize. You simply shut down your computer and the clean up is done!  I also am not a fan of clutter, once again between the 6 of us we have plenty of belongings that I really don't have a desire to have a room full of materials that I will likely never use and am discouraged to use because of the mess that it will make.  The only clutter with digital scrapbooking is making sure your photos are organized and if you really start collecting digital designs you will want to make sure that you have the hard drive capacity and back ups.

5. EASY TO SHARE
Have you created a wonderful scrapbook of your family and you have family members who want a copy too?  If you digiscrap you can easily print a page from your printer at home or order another photobook.  No longer do you need to spend the time and expense again creating a book from scratch!  Also, with My Memories Suite you can also export to a JPG so you can send to other people electronically or share on social media.

Of course I would encourage anyone to try digital scrapbooking, especially by using My Memories Suite, but the most important thing is, whether by digital scrapbooking or traditional scrapbooking, to get those photos off our phones and make them readily available to share and enjoy for generations to come.  

If I have convinced you to try My Memories Suite please be sure to use my code STMMMS36198 at checkout (copy and paste to make it easy) to receive 25% off the software by using this code. You can also save 10% on print product orders by using my code as well.  Happy scrapbooking!

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