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June 30, 2008

Digital Camera Drama

So, check out this cute picture of my almost 7 year old.  CIMG7812 He LOVES taking pictures. This was at my cousin Clem's wedding last weekend. I took amazing pictures. My favorite of all was a picture I took of both of my parents standing side by side taking pictures. I was going to blog about where I got the photo obsession gene (or the Ansel Adams wannabe gene) and show the picture here on my blog. Of course I was going to follow it with photos of the amazing ZoomAlbum I made for Clem and Michelle of the whole event. Maybe even a series of ZoomAlbums to capture EVERYTHING! It was so much fun. We got home from the wedding last night and I immediately popped out my media card to put my pics on the computer, when much to my surprise, the only pictures on there were the ones my son had taken of the floor, my ear, his feet, etc, etc, etc.IMGP8918IMGP8991 IMGP8916 IMGP8955 I was perplexed for a second then dread ripped through me as I discovered that in my attempt to entertain my son so he wasn't holding onto my leg the whole night, I had let him not only play with my camera but delete about 200 pictures I had taken in the events leading up to the wedding, including pics and movies of the rehersal dinner, the ceremony and the reception (before I gave the camera to him to stop the whining about being bored and wanting to go home). Ouch, that hurt! Not so cute anymore, huh. Luckily my hero (my Dad) Dadtakingpic swooped in with his amazing techno powers and whipped out his magical photo recovery software called Data Recovery from ParetoLogic which recovered a bunch of the pictures. Unfortunately, no sign of the one of my parents side by side, clicking at least a dozen times each to document the same beautiful waterfall. I guess I'll be using their pictures of the wedding for the array of pocket-sized photobooks to line their shelf and pocketbook!

June 13, 2008

Proud Kindergarten Graduate

Click to play Peter's Kindergarten Graduation!Create your own slideshow - Powered by SmileboxMake a Smilebox slideshowr>

How great is this? Both sets of my son Pete's grandparents were in Maine and couldn't witness the cutest Kindergarten graduation ever. I will so be making a ZoomAlbum photobook of his big day to give Pete and family members. Until then, I have a Smilebox to share...

June 10, 2008

How University of Nebraska is using ZoomAlbum!

This is a great email I got from the 4H Military Coordinator at the University of Nebraska. It's fun to see how they are using ZoomAlbum to keep families connected...

"During the 2007 Nebraska State Fair, we had about a dozen military families schedule appointments to visit our Mobile Technology Lab.  The families brought pictures of the kids' baseball games, summer camps, etc and used Zoom Albums to compile a few of their recent memories.  Families completed their Zoom Albums and took them home to mail to mom or dad who was deployed to Iraq.  All the albums were unique and special, but the one including pictures of a new baby was particularly touching to all the members of our OMK Team who were there to help."

More to come as we get more great stories... 

May 30, 2008

Operation Military Kids

As you may have already read in my blog, over the last couple of years that I have been working with ZoomAlbum, my colleagues and I have had the opportunity and privilege to meet so many wonderful service men and women and their families., at Andrews AFB, The Pentagon, Parris Island and now 4H.

People like Col. Andy Solgere, RTR Commanding Officer at Parris Island, who has completed 3 tours in Iraq and a 19 year old female Marine graduate, who turned down a college scholarship to serve her country in a time of war and who received 1st Class honors in her training class.

During a Family Day event at the Pentagon, we met so many wonderful children who made photobooks, and who were eager to tell us stories about their Moms and Dads serving overseas. And finally, all the tireless event organizers who are passionate about what they do.

More recently, we've been able to form a partnership with 4H in an effort to help use our digital photobook to keep families connected and empower children and families to share memories.

Please go to www.operationmilitarykids.com to learn more about this collaborative effort between the U.S. Army and Americas communities to support the children and youth impacted by deployment.

Click here to read heartfelt stories written by children affected by deployment.

We appreciate all of the hard work of the tireless event organizers who are passionate about what they do. Please feel free to tell us your stories through my blog.



May 18, 2008

Memories of my high school graduation

Imgp7945 One of the many wonderful gifts my mother has given me throughout the years is a photo album of my life that she presented me at my high school graduation in 1987.Imgp7949 Thinking about graduation season being here prompted me to pull it out and peruse it again as I do every few years. I was struck by how scrapbooked it was considering I had never thought of my mom as a scrapbooker, per se. Imgp7948 She had saved artwork I had done from when I was little through high school and scattered in through the album. Imgp7952 There are ticket stubs to plays I had been in along with the pictures, article clippings, poems I had written, recommendations people had written for me, etc., etc., etc. I can't imagine the time it must have taken her to put it together and she continues to awe and inspire me with photo collages to hang on my wall, framed artwork of drawings and paintings I did to hang in my kids rooms and other things she has saved to pull out at the perfect moment. Imgp7953 I wish I were as organized in my creativity as she is and hope she will continue to help me organize my memories as my children grow.

Of course, this got me thinking about quick and easy graduation gifts as well! Imgp7955 Inspired, I scanned my school photos my mom had included in my graduation book from Highland Nursery School all the way through my graduation from Trinity High School (check out the Dorothy Hamill haircut in 4th and 5th grades) and promptly made a ZoomAlbum to share with those looking for a cool unique gift to give the graduate in your life that is easy for them to take with them. Imgp7957 I also made a photobook of the graduation event and the party after. Even though the photos are old and suffered some minor damage being ripped off of the old album pages, they look so good in the ZoomAlbum because of the small format and amazing quality of the special ZoomAlbum inkjet paper. I hope to hear stories from readers and ZoomAlbum customers who took my advice and included some ZoomAlbums in their graduation gift giving. It will be the easiest to carry and most treasure memory to take with them on their future endeavors.

May 08, 2008

Even more on Smilebox

Click to play Bright and Fun
Create your own scrapbook - Powered by Smilebox
Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Okay, so I know I've talked about Smilebox a few times already, but I want to make sure that if you haven't tried it, you are motivated to. It is so fun! This is a Smilebox I made for my Mom for Mother's Day. I'm going to make a ZoomAlbum from it to to give to her on Sunday after I sent it. Smilebox is also offering a Teacher's Toolbox program for qualified teachers. It includes a free premium account to the Smilebox service (a $39.99 value) and gives teachers unlimited access to more than 650 Smilebox designs, music options and print options. They have created designs specifically for the needs of teachers including digital newsletters, school-themed scrapbooks, fieldtrip photo albums, school mascot/logo customizable slideshows as well as student activities such as multimedia autobiographies and storybooks. Right now, the program is limited to the first 1,000 participants. Teachers can register for the Teacher’s Toolbox program at Smilebox.com.  Other interested parties can copy an invitation and send teachers an email describing the offer. However, you don't need to be a teacher to enjoy using Smilebox. Go check it out now. It's totally addicting. :)

May 02, 2008

My Little Shoebox

Have you heard of My Little ShoeboxDsc_0010. Helen Chu offers beautiful papers and embellishments for enhancing  your scrapbook or photobook. They are so beautiful, unique and well made. ZoomAlbum decided to team up with them and offer a pack of matchbook covers, Imgp6087ribbon and buttonsImgp6090 to add to our Solid Color Cover ZoomAlbum Kits at no additional cost! Look at what you can do...
Helen made some beautiful ZoomAlbums she showed at Memorytrends. Mylittleshoeboxatmemorytrends You can get an idea from the picture how great her designs are. Check out her flip flip stickers and other products here! I also just noticed on her site that they are looking for design team members. Click here for more information.

April 29, 2008

Create Everyday

A friend of mine started this amazing social network called "Create Everyday." It's a great place to read about, chat with and learn from other amazing people that are interesting, creative and inspiring. There are fun groups you can join from the site like Healthy Living, Wonder Women Only, Cecallingmemom Cooking with Wine, Tech Chicas, Imgp5615 Paper Crafts, etc. You can create your own page and post pictures, personalize, even have your own blog from there. I encourage everyone to check it out. There are even contests where you can win super cool prizes. I've been posting pics of my favorite ZoomAlbum's, Imgp7143 my bottlecap art, my kids Imgp7773 and much more. I love the idea of having my own website for people to go to learn more about me and hear what I'm up to. This is a super simple way to do it and I promise, is only time consuming if you want it to be...

April 24, 2008

Communicating Life Stories...

A wonderful letter that came into our support office earlier this year. More great ideas for staying connected with family and friends...

Dear Tom,

We appreciate your generosity and you'll find our address below.

We used your book kits to give pictures to & of 2 of my Aunties living in 2 different countries, BC,
Canada and Renton, Washington USA, who are rarely able to see each other-they are the only 2 surviving siblings of 10 and travel accross borders give issue to health insurance validity. They each treasure the book with pictures of their visits together. This was our first project and Doug helped us put it all together! (please let us know if you'd like one for reference and an address to send it to).

Our second project is one I've not completed as yet-it was put together on our vacation and we couldn't print it out on the HP Printer available to us so we put it on a CD and brought it home.  When we tried to finish the project inserting the cd to print out the books, there was nothing on the CD so we need to do it all over (it was of our grandchildren's yearly gathering with us and each other over the last 8 years).  It was to be a surprise for them and will be when we finally get it to them. Would you like a copy when it is complete?

Our third project was using the little books to thank our guests for their participation in helping us celebrate our 50th Wedding anniversary our 5 children surprised us with in august.  The little thank you books were a hugh success. 40 or so were sent out.  We would love to share one with you if you'd like one.

We made a special book of and for dear friends who celebrated their 50th Wedding anniversary in December and of a family traditional christmas celebration this year. 

The little photobooks with text messages bring a lot of joy and are practical as they take up little space and are always at hand.

A big part of the charm is the personal touch of the picture cover of each subject album. 

We hope this conveys how much joy it is bringing in our circle of family and friends!  Thank you for this wonderful form of communicating life's stories.

Again, thank you so very much for the extra book cover print paper and your special services!  And if you provide an address we'll send you copies of our projects.

Lovingly,
Sandy and Ron

April 23, 2008

Mother's Day Ideas

Here we are again almost at Mother's Day. Imgp5388 I for one, can't get enough of picture gifts from my kids and can't wait until they can make their own ZoomAlbums for me for Mother's Day. Imgp5395 (maybe we should get them their own computer so they don't have to make it on my laptop). I love the one we made last spring using a scan of a watercolor painting my daughter had done when she was 5. So personal for her.Imgp5396
Last year at this time, we got the word out about these awesome little photobooks with my appearance on Martha Stewart just before Mother's Day and were swamped with rush orders from people wanting to get them in time to give them to their mothers. If you missed it, it's worth watching. Go to www.marthastewart.com and enter ZoomAlbum in the search to see the show.

Another fun idea is to go to SmileBox, create a slideshow to send to Mom to music in an email and then put it in a ZoomAlbum so she has it digitally and in a photobook. That's what I'm doing for my Mom this year.