My Memories *Giveaway*

**Got it fixed, hopefully the widget will stay open until tomorrow night now. Keep entering!!

Well, as promised I'm back ready for the giveaway. You will remember that I tried to entice you with my last post on the My Memories Digital Software that I've come to enjoy. Now I know that my creative skills are nothing to call home about but the software has been great.


I won't babble any further though, on to the giveaway...after one last look at my fav. creation. Love it.

Now, without further ado.


The giveaway. 


Okay, okay, one more:

 My designs are really quite simple considering all of the extras that can be added in but I'm trying to take a minimalist approach to life since I am by nature such a clutter bug!!!

And now....


This is gonna be easy cause I hate having to criss cross the internet to enter giveaways. I have entered a few lately that have used Rafflecopter and LOVE the ease so this is my first time trying to host with it. Hope it goes okay.


The first entry is Mandatory. All others are optional but just increase your chances of winning this great software!


Please remember to make sure I have a way of contacting you if you win so that I'm not forced to pick another winner.


Giveaway will end on Friday, March 2nd at Midnight EST. I will do my best to make sure that the winners are contacted Saturday. You will have 48 hours to respond to my email.


a Rafflecopter giveaway


Have fun and thanks for stopping by! And while you're waiting for the giveaway to end why not get to know the company a little more:

My Memories website
My Memories on Facebook
My Memories Twitter

Don't forget about the coupon code!!

STMMMS75980


Click on the banner below and enter the above code to save $10 off of the purchase of the software or $10 off a purchase of some of their products!!



Lovin' Learnin'

My Memories Review

Info on a giveaway at end of post!!! Keep reading!

Do you like to scrapbook? There was a time in my life when I did. I bought the album, stickers, papers, letters, brads, glue, scissors, pictures etc, etc, etc. I can remember spending hours getting my 1st daughter's scrapbook put together. When daughter #2 came along there was less time but I still did some scrapbooking. Baby #3 was our first (and only) boy and I did finish a few boy pages cause it was new and fun.


But by the time babies #4  and now #5 got here my extra time had left the building. I no longer have ANY time to get out all of that stuff let alone actually get any pages done. Besides with all of these kiddies running around it would just be a big mess anyway and that brings me to my next point, where to house it all since we have a full house already. No space. No space. 


So, what to do? I truly LOVE to scrapbook cause I LOVE all things pictures and memories. Well how about digital scrapbooking?


I was contacted at the end of January by a company called My Memories. Never heard of them before they contacted me but upon investigation found out they were a real company with a good reputation, #1 in scrapbooking on Amazon. Really! I was given the awesome opportunity to review their digital scrapbooking software for a couple of weeks. I was totally in!


So I've been neglecting housework spending my recent free time creating pages and more. 


But before I go any further let me share with you all a coupon code for receiving a great discount from My Memories!!

STMMMS75980

This code is good for $10 off the purchase price of My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store. A $20 value!! Yeah!

Back to the software, I made my first pages within 30 minutes. So easy folks. Really. Here's how it works:


1. Choose to start with the premade pages which include embelishments or opt to start from scratch and build your own.


2. Click on the camera in the resource gallery located on the left side of the screen to access your pictures directly from the software. No need to upload and wait. Your photo files will all be pulled up and you can browse for the perfect photo.

This is one of the first pages I created using the Diva set. I love it!

3. After you choose your pictures you can select something from the control panel on the right  to spice up your page. Your options include: embellishments, background papers, text, word art, shapes and even music! Check out all of the options:

The possibilities are endless!!

The photo above shows the Embellishments drop down menu and the many choices you have.

Here is one I made to frame and hang up for my son. I.Love.It.

You even have the option of Changing the size of your album to meet your needs. In this one I was creating a Christmas card (just for the fun of it. I know it's early...or late depending on how you look at it.) and only wanted 4 x 6 size. Done. Great!

You can also purchase more materials from their store as downloads. The prices begin at $.99 and can go up to $9.99 (as far as I've noticed). Once you purchase your item it is stored in your downloads page under your account. Once you download it to your computer it is automatically uploaded to your My Memories software and simply awaits for your creativity to call.

This is a picture for Spring that I want to print and frame for my mantle.

They also have a great amount of Free Items as well and offer something Free every Friday on their Facebook page.

The My Memories software has been so easy to use. I didn't use the Intro. video or read any of the tutorials I was able to navigate my way around the program fairly easily. I do plan on going through those just to catch anything that I may have missed. I said that to let you know that ANYONE can work this program. It's so user-friendly!!


Now I've said a lot of good things about the program but I need to keep this an honest review. So, I do have to list a few of my "eh" feelings. Not necessarily negative, just things that made me go "eh."


1. The file size makes for a big download. It is even recommended that you check your hard drive space every so often to make sure that you don't run out of space. Hmmm...


Go here for a full list of computer requirements.


2. When creating your albums you will see a message pop up saying that the shaded grey areas bordering the page may be cut off so you have to make sure that your items stay inside the shaded area so that nothing gets cut off during printing. What? I would think that they could have just made sure that the measurements would be within the printable area? Hmmm...


3. The program seems to run on the slow side. Now this could be an isolated issue since I can get download happy...all those free downloads are too irresistible! Maybe my computer is tired from working so hard to keep up with me?!


Now remember, I haven't watched any videos or read any tutorials so I might be missing out on some very obvious reasons for the above problems but those are just what I've noticed from playing around with the program.


All in all its a great program and I'm so thankful to have gotten the opportunity to review it! Thanks My Memories!!


**I just saw that they have a My Memories Photobook Studio software currently selling for $29.97! That's good to know!!

Now for the good stuff...if you've stuck with me this long, first thank you and second come back by on Monday, Feb. 27 to enter a giveaway to win your very own My Memories Suite download!! You will not be sorry you entered! It's a great program. See you Monday!


Lovin' Learnin'

Aweseom curls without the heat!!!

No way right? How many of us have taken the time to take that hair damaging iron to our hair year after year after year? I know that in my younger years I often did just that. And in those younger years my hair held the curl wonderfully. But something happened to this hair of mine sometime between those younger years and having baby years. The hair no longer cares about holding the curl and I no longer have the time needed to curl it. So for the past few years I have spent many a morning pulling my hair up in my comfy old french twist. Quick, easy and hassle-free. Everything a busy mom of 5 needs.

But just this weekend I came across this post at It's Just Laine. (She's got a terrific blog by the way!) Great looking curls with no heat...and in 5 mintues!!! What?!!! I was immediatley intrigued! Check out my video tutorial at the end of the post.

Although I was totally on board about this I was worried that it wouldn't turn out so I decided to take the plunge and twist my hair in the elastic that night. Now since I had just bathed the hair was wet. I decided to let it air dry just a little and then began the work. Literally 5 minutes gals!!! SO easy!!!

I buckled down for the night eager to see what would result in the morning. I slept like a baby since the elastic didn't bother me like those tacky sponge rollers have in the past.

That morning I awoke and quickly untwisted my hair. Boy was I amazed! It worked!!!! This is what the result was!

Sorry about that tacky date imprint!!

Awesome isn't it? I mean wet hair, twisted in a hair elastic and left overnight to get that?! This is THE easiest hair-do I've ever tried. I didn't even use any products in my hair. Totally pleased. And ladies, the curls will last and last!!! I couldn't take a picture of my hair the next day cause my camera was broken after these pictures. (sniff, sniff) but believe me when I say that they did not fall out!!

I tried it on my oldest daughter's hair Sunday morning just cause I was excited. Now her hair was super dry so I didn't think that anything would result. I only left the elastic on for about an hour. The result: some pretty full body waves. Nice.

See the elastic? The hair is twisted around that.

Not bad for 5 minutes of work!

Girls, this is so awesome...alomst life changing...really. Dramatic, I know but for this gal who is always just throwing her hair up this is so great!!!!

Updated to add my own video tutorial. Admitidly it's not the best quality but since the camera broke I'm having to use a smaller video recorder for this. My 10 year old is helping me out by being the hands behind the camera. Hopefully it'll come out okay!

And one more time...

Awesome!!

And for all of you digital scrapbookers out there (and all of you wanna be's) stay tuned cause I have a giveaway with My Memories Digital Scrapbooking software coming up within the next few days!!! You will like what you see, I know I do!!!

Lovin' Learnin'

Valentine's Day Sweets and Treats

I know that I've been M.I.A. lately....life with a big family leaves little time for actual blogging. I've had tons of posts floating around in my brain just haven't been able to carve out the time/energy that it takes to get them onto the blog.


I am back today though for a special treat. But first...isn't he so cute?

He's just getting so big!!! LOVE the shirt!!! (Once the girls are "presentable" I'll post one of them!!)


I've been working hard at getting some V-Day treats ready for our crew and I love them so much I just had to share with you all. I found most of them on Pinterest (love!) so I'll try to link back to all that I can in case you want to Pin 'em for next year.


I'll start with the cards. They turned out so cute! I had hubby print out the cards from the Plum Perfect blog. I had a number of ideas but Brother liked these the best. They were so easy and didn't cost us a dime since we had the paper and ink already!! :) (Well, we did spend $2 on the suckers but that's it!!)

I made the mustache puppet out of black felt and just glued it onto popsicle sticks for the kids. I think they're cute and hope that Brother's classmates find them Fan(tache)tic!! Here is another version from Craft Monkey.


We also made a treat for his party from Family Fun. I didn't take a picture of them but they turned out exactly like the picture from the website. So cute and healthy!!! Watermelon, oranges and bamboo sticks...so easy!!

For our V-Day breakfast we are having heart shaped cinnamon rolls (idea from Poppies at Play)...not typical to have such a sugar laden breakfast around here but trying to "let loose"...the kids (and Dad) loved them! Sorry, not the greatest picture!

The girls will have a fun little drink for their lunches...hopefully they'll drink it cause they're not big on juice! I just removed the label from a mini-water bottle, cut out another one from pretty scrapbook paper and made a topper for the lid. I covered it all with a couple layers of Modge Podge just cause I love that stuff!!

For the hubs I made a couple of things. I inadvertently kind of, sort of, broke our color printer trying to do this...I did get one done though...

...so his first gift ended up with my own writing instead of a cute label printed off like I had planned when I first saw the idea from Mommy by day. He liked them anyway though. I bought a box of Hot Tamales and Whoppers and wrote the following messages on them: "You're my Hot Tamale" and "Have a Whopping Good Day". I think they turned out kinda fun.

Then I made a message board for him. You can find more details from this post. Love it!!!!! Oh, and those Vis-a-vis markers are awesome. So much better than regular dry erase markers.

That's about it for right now. Today the girls and I are going to work on our Valentine Menu:


Lasagna, salad, garlic bread, V-Day cupcakes and homemade Peppermint Patties. Yum, yum.


So, that's what I've been doing between all the normal every day fun stuff that happens around here!! 


What do you have planned for today?

Lovin' Learnin'

Memories of a nightgown.

Quite a few years ago I made Lanie and Ari matching nightgowns. They turned out great and looked so cute on the girls. See the picture? (It's old fashioned...meaning not digital!) :)

Fast forward some years and now this wild one is wearing it and making it look just as cute!!

I love being able to pass down handmade items. They are so meaningful!!