Creating Paradise

So... after another sleepless night (if you know me you will know this is not as bad as it sounds) I decided to share my delight with my new toy.

Everyone knows how much I love Scrapblog.com, and how much happiness and benefits I got from the site, not only the program but also the community, one couldn't hope for a better site...but lately it has been changing towards the financial side and, after much thought and seeking advice, I decided to buy a program.

I had seen the advert for ScrapbookMax when first investigating DigiFree, the price converted in British Pounds was more than convenient but, why buy at that stage, when @ SCrapblog everything (or most) was free and I was enjoying it so much....

There was also the fact that ScrapbookMax was designed for Windows and we were already working towards our iMac, so I forgot all about it.

I then embarqued in the project of  scrapping Sarita's year books and (at her request) print them.

In this I found the first difficulty with Scrapblog, as they don't ship to the UK.

Not only that but there is no possibility of ordering more than one book and paying one delivery: I had to pay postage and package within the US per book (I printed 3) and then (this I will eternally grateful for) I payed Rebecca, who is part of the team and a marvelous person, the international postage.

Have to admit though: I took the opportunity that they had at the time 25% discount on printing keepsake books, so, all in all, it worked out approximately £50 each book, which, if you shop around, will realize it isn't expensive, especially taking into account that each book had 70 pages or over....

All brilliant up to here.

I was buying credits from time to time but, as it works out cheaper to buy the U$25 at the time, this was a bit of a risky situation...and as the time went, more and more stuff had prices,less and less was free.

Then one day I got an email (presumably I registered at the time of checking out the advert) from ScrapbookMax , announcing their latest version, the 2.0, and the discount, a modicum U$47 something....

I write back (not expecting a reply at all) suggesting they create a version for Macs...

Very soon after I got a reply, explaining how I could work the program on Parallels, the program form Apple designed to allow Windows in the Macs.

Lets cut the story short: I bought it.

There are some reviews of it here:

http://creativespirits.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=3k0gnjw4vlyho

but since writing them, I have come a long way.

It wasn't easy at first, I even went through the painful task of recovering my PC from Trojan Horses and Spyware attacks in order to work SBM in it, because the Parallels was crashing my Mac, but once I got the grip of the program (with a huge helpful hand from the SBM members and team) the making of my pages has turned into creative paradise.

There is one plus with ScrapbookMax that makes everything worth wile: the prints at home are excellent, as we retain our high resolution photos.

In a minor scale, the use of all the freebies and stuff bought in stores is usable with no fuss, no going through Photobucket and wasting time downloading. I say in a minor scale because (we need to be fair here) at the moment in Scrapblog the getting files from Photobucket is faster than it was...still: with SBM I get them drag and drop from my computer.

ScrapbookMax isn't Scrapblog.

I said and will keep my word: Scrapblog is the best program on the net.

Is fast, has a number of amazing features that make composing easy and creativity flows...but our wallets get drained as fast, and SBM does not have this problem.

The program is mine.

A few of my Scrapblog sisters have followed me to ScrapbookMax, that makes it even nicer, and plus the SBM ladies (and gents!) are a nice bunch too.

My thing with Scrapbooking is not a superficial pastime, it has a goal,is a task.

I create projects with the photos we take, I am still in the middle of producing Sarita's books and I will do the rest in Scrapblog.

But ScrapbookMax has allowed me to make my own cards, and now I'm making our Brazil album...and will be able to print and put together in those fabulous albums I got for free from Freecycle...huge leather bound albums which fit two A4s per page...

Can't wait to finish !

So, there you go, this is what I have been up to.

Wont post everything here as I have done lots, but if you are interested, there are two albums and a few loose pages here:

http://www.scrapbookmax.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/15060

Now I'm gonna go think out the next step: to sleep or not to sleep?

that is one hell of a question right now! (09.33 am)

:)