Digital Scrapbooking - Sault Sainte Marie,MI

Just as an FYI, Creative Memories just declared bankruptcy. They are trying to re-organize the company, but it will mean streamlining their products, including digital.

I use Creative Memories, too. I used to be a consultant, but not now due to medical problems in the family that I need to focus on.

I have been concentrating on making family heritage albums, taking old fragile photos that are fading, and using Creative Memories Memory Manager 4 to digitally store and improve the photos (repair rips, fix faded colors, and this way the photos will be stored carefully and there won't be just one precious copy in some elderly relative's album in an attic somewhere). I made history albums using Ancestry.com to figure out immigration, etc. I have made about 4 albums with restored and preserved vintage photos. Doing this ensures that more than just one person can enjoy these beautiful old albums and not worry about handling the fragile old photos.

What I like about doing albums digitally is that you can easily adapt a book to a specific person. You can custom-tailor a book by removing a page, or adding a page. For example, my in-laws are divorced. In the heritage album copy that I gave to my father-in-law, I digitally inserted a page with his new wife and some photos of her as a young woman. In the copy that I gave to my mother-in-law, I deleted those pages.

Another nice thing about digital scrapbooking is that you can just turn on your computer and work on a page. No need to pull out all the tape, cutting tools, papers, etc. I can sit in a doctor's waiting room with my laptop and add embellishments, or adjust the photos on a page.

Creative Memories' scrapbooking creation software is called Storybook Creator (now in version 4). Memory Manager is their software for cataloging, storing and organizing all your digital photos. Right now I'm going through about 30 years of photos, scanning them in and putting them into Memory Manager. You can create your own virtual sort boxes and call them anything you want.

I also use my Storybook Creator to make graduation announcements, photo gifts, and other projects.

If you locate a Creative Memories consultant in your area (just go to their website) you can have a consultant who can help you with this, and attend classes or scrapbooking events, or just get some one-on-one help.

I would start by thinking about what makes sense to you. Do you picture yourself making albums by event (vacation to Disneyland in 2007, for example), or by family member (a book of Susie's life, another book of Johnny's life), or by year (this is our family in 2003, 2004, etc)? I have a book for each of my children (ok, I'm still working on my daughter's). Do you like to cook, or do you and your family have a hobby or passion, like camping, baseball, etc? You can use the software to make a family recipe album, including photos of old recipes in your grandmother's handwriting, and pages containing recipes and techniques you want your children to know when they're grown. You can make an entire album devoted to your hobby, like all the baseball games and stadiums you've gone to, or all the camping trips you've gone one.

The nice thing about digital scrapbooking is you don't have to commit to pasting something in a book, you can just make a book online and then get rid of the whole thing if you realize it's not what you want, or delete pages.

Creative Memories has tutorials also, and ideas for getting started. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Get started and have fun!

my mother is a close to my heart consultant and does a lot of digital ( and physical) scrapbooking through them. much like creative memories, and far better than shutterfly. their digital scrapbooking is through " studio j" abd let me tell you her pages are brilliant!!!

her name is Cynthia Anderson if you want to look her up. she's been doing this for about 20 years ( physical, then digital)

I would start with a site like Shutterfly. It's free to do and you just pay for the book. If you like it, then you can purchase kits and get into it more.

I use Shutterfly and Snapfish. I like both. They both have coupons and sales a lot. You can work on your books whenever you have time and save them to your account. So once you finish, you may want to hang on to it and wait for a deal to come up!

Shutterfly has a storyboard option to help you design your book which is incredibly helpful and easy!

Snapfish just redid their book making program and it took me a bit to get used to it, but it's pretty nice too and enables you to size your own pictures, etc. I've been happy with books from both sites.

I went from paper scrapbooking to on-line book making. I use Shutterfly. They have good sales and the books are beautiful. Lots of options to make your page creative and what you want. I thought Creative Memories was too expensive and didn't want a "consultant." I can figure out what to buy on my own :)

Shutterfly is easy.

Creative Memories lets you do way more. I set it up a few years ago with an expert (a really savvy mom). When I did it I had to just through hoops to make is compatible with Mac (an Apple Genius has zero knowledge on how to add windows to mac, so don't bother setting up an appointment with one of them).

I love all my creative memory stuff. You can even creative your own birth announcement or christmas card and use Costco to print it as 5x7 (so the background is all custom with any clip art you want). you can create the extra custom book and have it printed through Shutterfly.

But if you want easy, Shutterfly is great.

I love Shutterfly. You make the photo book online and then they print it out for you. I've done dozens.

Creative memories has a program, but I thought it was expensive.