Category: Memory Keeping

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You! Part II

Jane Sadek

MEMORY PRESERVATION: THE PROBLEM WITH FREE

Another Thing You Probably Didn’t Realize!

Last week I discussed secure cloud storage, data mining and advertising. This week I’m going to discuss the most important thing that sets FOREVER apart from it’s competition and basically, that’s why it’s called FOREVER.

Cloud Storage You Own Rather Than Rent

As I discussed last week, some companies provide free storage and the rest charge you a small (or not so small) fee monthly or annually, like rent. They are giving you a license to use their cloud, but they accept no responsibilities for it and they let you know they are going to data mine your account, while getting paid to advertise to you. If you are using their service for free, they will outline the circumstances in which your account will be shut down and they are not required to inform you about it. Some do, but in the end, if you don’t take action, your images will be deleted. It’s a lot more simple if you are paying rent (fees, maintenance, whatever they call it), because when you don’t, they delete your account.

At FOREVER you pay for storage up front with a one time payment or a 24 month payment plan and then its yours outright. You will not continue to pay a monthly or annual fee to maintain it. Your heirs will not have to take up your payments or pay any transfer fees. If you get dementia, get sick, go broke or die, you descendants not going to lose access to your space on the cloud (unless you want to bar them) and your images will be safe for whoever you would like to get them.

What you want FOREVER to do with those images if and when you aren’t managing them, for whatever reason, is up to you. There’s a way to set up everything up so your heirs get immediate access or you can make everything public or…well, there’s several options and one of them will suit your needs.

But What About That “Updated File Formats” Thing?

Updated File Formats are the icing on the cake and something no one else even mentions. Remember floppy discs? There was a time when floppy discs were state of the art. Now they’re useless (unless you get them digitized by FOREVER).

Well, a day is coming (and it won’t be long) when the same thing will be true of jpg, mp4, pdf and the rest of the alphabet soup What’s going to happen with your images if they are on Google Photos or Dropbox in the new soup? You don’t know, do you?

That’s something FOREVER cloud owners don’t have to worry about. When jpg goes the way of the floppy disc, then FOREVER is going to update your images to whatever the new thing is.

Remember not so long ago when Apple came up with the HEIC format? It was just one of their many ploys over the years to not play well with others. Almost immediately, FOREVER created a work around, so Apple customers would have seamless use of their FOREVER account and just recently, that work around became full integration.

I don’t know what the new alphabet soup will be. Will HEIC become the new jpg? Or is something else being developed somewhere else? It really doesn’t matter if you have FOREVER storage, because FOREVER’s got you covered!

A Few Final Footnotes

See those quotes in the lower left hand corner of the image above. Those were taken directly from the terms you agreed to when you signed up with Google and Apple. Apple has made some slight changes in their survivorship wording, but the effect is the same – you no pay, you no play.

The Google terms still apply. Share one photo from your account and Google owns everything. You’ve probably read something similar posted on Facebook. People tell you to copy and paste the post to protect yourself. These terms do apply to Facebook, the only difference being that by posting it on the social site you have shared it, so they own everything. You can copy or paste that post as much as you want it makes absolutely no difference at all. Tell your friends. I’ve been trying to nip it in the bud from the day it appeared, but the urban legend is bigger than the truth, even though the urban legend is a lie.

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

If You Print It, You Must Ship It!

Jane Sadek

MEMORY SHARING: HOW DO YOU WANT THAT DELIVERED?

Plus Shipping? Yuck!

In our wonderful new age of online shopping, shipping is just a way of life, but there are things that you can do to control shipping costs. From monthly free shipping deals, to annual unlimited shipping, FOREVER offers a variety of ways for you to save on this necessary expenditure.

First, a Word About Shipping Deadlines

Last week, I ordered one of the new tea towels from FOREVER and selected Economy Shipping, because there was no rush. I just thought the were cute and wanted one for myself. FOREVER said it would be delivered in 14-17 days. I got it in 7.

Most of the time when you order from FOREVER, whether it is a photo gift, a photo book or digitization, your shipping will be faster than a speeding bullet and it is very easy to get used to that kind of service. However, if you are ordering with a hard deadline DO NOT DEPEND ON THE BULLET.

While it is true that most of the time you will get your package much sooner than you’ve been told, things can happen, especially at peak times – and you might not realize it’s a peak time. Obviously, shipping is insane around the winter holidays. Believe what they tell you the delivery date will be and add a few days around it for weather, strikes and such.

However, there might be peak times you don’t even recognize. You may not have anyone graduating or getting married, but stationary orders can slow down in April and May. Not only are lots of other people getting married and graduating, but pixels 2 Pages Annual Virtual Party is wrapping up and hundreds of women around the US are ordering their recently completed photo books. That’s just one example, but be aware. You’re going to get it as fast as they can make it and get it to you, but in different seasons that can be at different speeds.

“Normal” Shipping Times

“Normal” is a dangerous word, but if I ordered a set of coasters today, Economy is promised in 14-17 days. Standard narrows that down to 12-13 days. Expedited moves it up to 10 days and Rush will put it on my doorstep in 7 days.

As I said, believe what they say and be happy if it gets there earlier. Don’t think back to something you once ordered Economy and got in 7 days. I don’t want you to be disappointed.

CLUB Weekend Deals

Members of the FOREVER CLUB are very special! They invest monthly in FOREVER and FOREVER doesn’t take that lightly. The member may designate their investment to go towards a specific use (like payment plans, memberships and such) or they could be saving up for a big ticket item like video streaming or they could just want to tuck away a little bit every month, so they can buy something they want without spending new money.

That’s what I did with the tea towel. My CLUB dollars are designated to pay my pixels 2 Pages membership, but my level of membership is a little higher than the monthly membership fee, so each month I tuck away a few extra dollars for little splurges, like the tea towel!

FOREVER says thanks for this in a number of ways. They give all CLUB Members a 5% discount on most things available from FOREVER (with a very few exceptions) and every quarter they award some free storage. They also get special deals of all sorts, a FB page and a quarterly Zoom call with the Founder of FOREVER.

Another way they say thank you is the monthly CLUB Weekend, with contests, deals and free shipping. If a CLUB member hits a certain dollar amount (net after deals) of print products then they can have free Economy shipping or half price Standard shipping.

Even if you are not a CLUB member, then you can still win on CLUB Weekend, because you too can get free Economy shipping or half price Standard shipping. You’ll just have to reach a higher dollar amount.

Want to know when it will be CLUB weekend, so you can plan the delivery of your projects? It’s the third weekend of every month. Count on it!

Premiere Shipping

Shopper know thyself. Some people actually order lots and lots of print projects and it’s amazing how quickly those shipping costs can add up. I order a lot from FOREVER, but much of it is downloadable. Still halfway through the year, I’ve spent about $102 on shipping. Even were I to double that in the last half of the year, Premiere Shipping would not be a deal for me.

However, it might be a deal for you. You pay $430 a year and during that year, all Economy and Standard shipping is free, for both print and digitization. You can start your year anytime and it lasts for 12 months.

Anyway, those are the tools FOREVER offers to help you control your shipping costs. If you ship a lot, they can be real lifesavers.

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Happy Birthday to the CLUB!

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING: MAKING THE MOST OF THE CLUB

Making a Memory Keeping Promise to Yourself

I have never talked to anyone who said, “I have no interest in memories.” I talk to a lot of people who are misguided or haphazard in their methodology of preserving their memories, but everyone wants to be able to share their images in some way. I also talk to people with a great desire to save, organize and share their memories, who keep putting it off anyway. They say – this summer, next winter, when my children are older, when I retire, when the wedding is over, when I get back from vacation, when I have more time, when I have more money,…you get the idea.

I say, “Make a commitment to yourself to get started,” and the CLUB can be that way. Any project needs tools and for Memory Keeping most people need to begin with some Storage and perhaps some Digitization. So the first thing they ask is, “How much is Storage and/or Digitization?” Then the excuses begin.

I should answer their question with another one, “What’s your budget for getting started? Do you have $30 a month to devote to this?” That’s what the CLUB can do for you. It takes your $30 every month (or $60 or $120 or whatever in intervals of $30) and helps you get your memories, saved organized and shared.

How does it help? Well, the CLUB is your Memory Keeping savings account and you earn lots of interest! Every penny you put into the CLUB remains yours, because there is no fee, and your dollars never expire, so it’s a great way to save up for what you want. But there’s more!! Your membership gets you 5% off everything you buy and it’s stackable with most deals FOREVER offers. Let’s say Digitization is 40%. Then as a CLUB member, your discount would be 45%, it’s that easy.

Another amazing feature of the CLUB is free storage which is added to your account every quarter. Say you join at $30. I did, back in 2021. Since then I’ve gotten 9 GB of free storage, which translates into approximately 1350-4500 stored photos (according to the size of my images).

The Happy Birthday Bonus

I’m taking the time to explain this to you now, because if you join this month (or add to your current membership), there’s a Bonus Double Storage Award. The quarterly award for a $30 membership is half a GB, but in September you’d get a whole GB. For $60, you get 1 GB quarterly, but in September you’d get 2. And with $120 you’d usually get 2, which with this deal would get you 4! Amazing!

So, How Much Should You Invest?

That’s a good question and it depends both on what you can afford and what you want to accomplish. FOREVER has created a couple of handouts to help you decide.

The first shows examples of four CLUB membership levels and how you could use them if your goal was to have Storage and Video Streaming. It includes how much per GB you’d end up paying for your storage and how much you’d have left in your CLUB account at the end of the month to spend or save towards other items you want.

The second is actually a worksheet for you to plug in the items you’d like to invest in and figure out the level of membership that would get you to where you’d like to be.

Join The CLUB and Start Saving Now

At FOREVER, belonging is a tool for you, not an income source for the company. How many things do you pay for on a monthly basis, just for the privilege of belonging, but you get virtually nothing back or perhaps they offer some package of gifts you can’t use unless you already spend a certain amount with them? Yes, I know it’s infuriating.

FOREVER is different in every way. It’s free to join FOREVER and you immediately get 2GB of storage FREE – that’s $50 worth of storage by the way. You also get a $20 Welcome Coupon which you can use on your first purchase for pretty much anything. You also get a free app for your phone so you can synch it with your FOREVER account.

If you go ahead and join the CLUB when you join FOREVER (which you should) you’ll also get a 5% discount on whatever you buy from the very first transaction. You can use the dollars you invest immediately or save them for something big. The third month you belong, you’ll get your storage bonus. There’s a whole list of other benefits you may or may not need.

Here’s another bonus for CLUB members. By using your CLUB dollars to purchase products on FOREVER’s payment plan, you avoid paying a lot of interest on your credit card. If you use your credit card to buy 10GB of Storage outright and you carry a balance on your account, you will pay interest on that purchase from day one. If instead, you use your Bronze Club Dollars, you’ll only add $30 to your credit card balance each month, making it much easier to pay off or pay down.

I have a Bronze Membership. It covers my monthly pixels 2 Pages membership. Another friend has a Bronze Memberships to pay for a storage plan and her p2P membership. Someone else pays for a video streaming plan out of her membership. What will you get with your CLUB membership?

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Memory Sharing in Analog and Digital

Jane Sadek

MEMORY SHARING: CREATIVE MEMORIES & FOREVER

First Love & New Love

Traditional scrapbooking is my first love. It’s where I started and it’s the reason I started this business in the first place. I love tactile photos and memorabilia. I love building a page with papers, embellishments and tools I can hold in my hand. I love to pull a great big old traditional scrapbook into my lap and turn the pages. Sometimes I ease off the page protectors and actually read inside the documents and brochures I have in the albums. It’s my favorite thing.

Digital scrapbooking is my new love. I love learning new things and there is always something to learn about the Artisan 6 software. I love the flexibility of reducing or enlarging photos, memorabilia and elements with the click of a button. I love the pixels 2 Pages Online Community, the Productivity Challenge and Online crops. I love that my finished digital photo albums are smaller, trimmer and more portable than my behemoth traditional albums. I love that I can grab things off the internet to add interest to my pages. It’s my new favorite thing!

The Roadblock

Most people can’t imagine what format to use to share their memories with the future, because they can’t see past the mess. They see the boxes of photos, slides, tapes, memorabilia and who knows what else and then push it aside. It seems overwhelming. It’s easier to kick the problem down the line and pretend to yourself that some day you’re going to have more time and/or money or that your kids will take care of it.

That’s where I come in. We look at your mess together and can discuss your options. Until I see your mess and understand your resources, I can only guess what those options might be. Once I’ve seen the mess and understand what you want, we can come up with a plan. The plan can be anything from all traditional solutions you do on your own to totally digital solutions you turn completely over to me, to any combination of format and labor. We can pull items to use for a particular project or we can take care of the whole thing.

That’s My Magic!

Trying to explain to anyone exactly what I do is hard, because the truth is, when it comes to memory keeping, I do it all. I am not partial to any particular method of sharing your images. I don’t need for you to go traditional, so I can get a custom album project. I don’t need for you to embrace digital photo books and gifts, so I can make a commission. My goal is to walk beside you whatever type of project you choose and help in whatever way you need. I’m in it for to preserve the legacies of generations to come and no matter how we go about that, I win – and you will, too.

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

July’s Facial Recognition Deal

Jane Sadek

MEMORY KEEPING: BOGO DEAL- BUY STORAGE GET 5% OFF FACIAL RECOGNITION

The Focus is Storage, but the Deal is Facial Recognition

Storage and Facial Recognition are NEVER on sale – NEVER! So, when FOREVER says, “Buy Storage and get 5% off Facial Recognition,” then it’s time to pay attention. First, because Facial Recognition is never on sale and because at FOREVER, 5% off is really 10% off and you also get 5% off the Storage with the CLUB.

But (You Might Say) I Already Have Free/Cheap Storage with Facial Recognition and AutoTagging!

Unless you already have FOREVER storage, then you do not actually own any storage, because we’re the only ones selling permanent online storage. Anything else you may have is either storage you have been given a free temporary license to use or you are renting the license. That’s what I blogged about last week. To learn more, see this post.

You don’t want to risk the loss of your precious memories. You want them available to your family when you are gone, so you want permanent online Storage that you own and if you’ve got that, then you also want Facial Recognition.

So, How Does 5% Off Become 10% Off?

I’m glad you asked. FOREVER has a savings plan called the CLUB. It offers 5% off pretty much everything you can buy, including Storage and Facial Recognition. So, if you are a member of the CLUB, you get 5% off Storage and Facial Recognition any day you want to, as well as anything else you want to buy. This month, in addition to the 5% off Storage and Facial Recognition, you’d get another 5% off Facial Recognition for a total of 10%.

With the CLUB you invest in Memory Keeping at a set amount and every penny of that money is yours to spend as you want, but now it will buy you 5% more. You can either do this one month to take advantage of this deal or like many of my clients you can invest every month, so you get 5% off all the time and once a quarter you get free storage, based on the amount you invest.

If You’ve Never Bought FOREVER Storage

If you are new to FOREVER, then you can either buy storage outright or you can buy it on a 24 month payment plan. Let me show you some sample purchases!

Regular Outright Purchase of 10 GB Storage + 1 YR Facial Recognition = $309.98 (a good value!)

Example 1: Same Purchase in July with this deal and CLUB $288.88. Then stop CLUB or continue, your choice. (You saved over $20!) Without CLUB you only save $12.99.

But let’s say you’d like get started with your memory keeping with a $30/month investment. I’d recommend Example 2: Invest in CLUB for $30 a month for 24 months, buy Storage on 24 MO Purchase Plan and 24 months of Facial Recognition(2 annual purchases). Your first month you’d spend about $100, but only $30 a month after that and you’d have so much more. Instead of 10 GB of storage, you’d have 14 GB, because of the quarterly storage gifts. You’d also have a second year of Facial Recognition AND and about $325 of your own investments to make purchases at 5% off. This is just one example of the way to do it. What you actually would invest and how you use it is up to you.

If You Already Own FOREVER Storage

If you already have FOREVER storage and have almost filled it up, then this deal should be a no brainer. Buy what you need and take advantage of the Facial Recognition deal, at $117 using the CLUB. And remember, the more storage you buy at a time, the cheaper it is per GB!

Let’s say you’re a CLUB member and you don’t REALLY need any storage, but you really, really want the Facial Recognition deal. I can offer you a 2GB Storage package that will qualify you for the FR Deal. The CLUB price would be $47.94 for the 2GB and $117 for the year of FR for a total of $165. Subtract the CLUB dollars you have in your account and you might have enough there to cover it.

Let’s Talk About You!

These are just examples I pulled out of the air. You might need more storage. Perhaps you’d like to purchase permanent Facial Recognition rather than buying the annual subscription. Maybe you’d like to budget more than $30 a month for Memory Keeping. Whatever you’re specific needs are, I’m happy to run the numbers for you.

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Point, Click, Print, Share

Jane Sadek

MEMORY SHARING: FOREVER – SIMILAR, BUT NOT THE SAME

What’s Similar?

Most of us have gotten photos printed online or at the local drugstore. Many of us have used the fish or the fly to create Christmas cards or Graduation announcements. There’s lot of places to create photobooks, calendars, coffee mugs and such. And while there are horror stories out there of missed deadlines, poor quality and lack of customer service, the truth is millions of people, everyday, use these services and are satisfied with the product they receive. So, why should I get you to change to FOREVER?

Well, First & Foremost, There’s ME!

I don’t want to get you to change to FOREVER. I want you to change to ME! The Fish, the Fly and all the rest of them are big online corporations focused on volume and profits. To accomplish what they’re focused on, they have to have competitive pricing and their quality has to be acceptable. But they’re impersonal and they’re not local.

On the other hand. I’m local. You know me. You see me at the grocery store. We belong to the same organizations. I’m focused on affordability and one of the reasons I represent FOREVER is their quality, which is superior to anything I’ve seen. Shop local is a thing! I eagerly offer my services to you. Give me a chance!

So, Who in the Hell is FOREVER?

Let’s say you want to shop local and support me, but a part of you may be thinking, “but I’ve never heard of this FOREVER.” Until a few years ago, neither had I – and do you want to know why? FOREVER spends zero dollars on advertising. Someone I trusted told me about it and it took a while for me to embrace it. Even after I got the whole “storage you own rather than rent” part, I clung to my traditional scrapbooking and regarded the whole “Create & Print” thing with skepticism. It didn’t help that I wasn’t much of a personalized photo gift person. My first year with FOREVER, I still sent out cards from the fish!

Try It, You’ll Like It!

Reluctantly, I stuck my toe in the water – first with a photo book. (The first I’d ever made, by the way.) Then I got a personalized planner, then Christmas cards and soon I was off to the races. Then my customers started making things I’d never considered, like calendars and blankets. Those were cool, too.

Over time, almost by osmosis, I began to realize how superior FOREVER print projects really were to everything else offered out on the internet. I certainly loved everything I made, but more impressive was how thrilled my clients were – clients who had been using the competition for their projects and were in awe of the quality and ease of FOREVER.

What’s more, FOREVER offers better quality at a savings. Don’t believe me? Well, it’s the truth. Think about personalized print providers in the same way you do airlines. When you get online and start comparing prices, it’s easy for Airline A to appear cheaper than Airline B in the initial comparison – but then there’s luggage fees, seat assignments, boarding policies, seat size and a zillion other things that mean you’re not going to be able to compare apples to apples. And if you’re part of a loyalty program with Airline C, that starts a whole ‘nother comparison.

Same thing here. You go online and try to decide who has the best deal on, let’s say, photo books. First, we all know everything is on sale all the time. You almost couldn’t pay full price if you wanted to, but they sling around savings percentages, like a gunfighter slings bullets. But guess what – the savings are only on the “standard” book! Like the airlines, everything else is a la carte, so the savings don’t extend to other things like extra pages or premium paper or a lot of things. FOREVER doesn’t charge extra for “premium”. Their “standard” products are what you upgrade to with other companies. What’s more, when it comes to extra pages and other added features, whatever the initial discount is, it applies to everything in the project, including extras.

And the loyalty program? Don’t get me started. This blog post might go on forever (pun intended).

All, I ask is you try it! One photo book, coffee cup or calendar. Compare the process, compare the prices and compare the product that arrives at your home. Here’s the link to get started: https://www.forever.com/ambassador/jane-sadek/create-and-print/

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You! Part I

Jane Sadek

MEMORY PRESERVATION: THE PROBLEM WITH FREE

Sampling the Status Quo

Chances are you use one of the companies on the chart above. You’re probably getting the service for free – or at least you were in the beginning. And whoever you’re using they’ve probably sweetened the pot with features like free facial recognition and automatic tagging. Why in the world would you consider paying for permanent storage from a company you may have never heard of? Well, maybe I can give you a few reasons.

Guarantees the Safety of Your Files

Have you read the terms and agreements of your cloud service? Probably not. You just assumed a big household name like Amazon or iCloud, would do the right thing? Right? Wrong!!

Virtually every other cloud company besides FOREVER actually informs you in their terms and agreements you are merely being granted a license to use their cloud space. By uploading your images there, you agree to release the licensee from any liability. They are free to delete, compress, share or transfer your images as they see fit. In fact, they probably will also warn you to have your images backed up elsewhere. Is that what you thought you had signed up for?

Perhaps you did know that stipulation, but you thought that was just the way things are and you had no idea you had any other options. Well, there is a cloud provider who will guarantee the safety of your images for your life plus 100 years. It’s called FOREVER.

No Data Mining

Do you know what data mining is? Remember when Facebook got into trouble for sharing information about their users? That’s data mining. Most (virtually all) cloud providers offering free or cheap storage data mine. They tell you they data mine in the terms and agreements, because that’s how they can afford to offer you free cloud services. You’re the product, not the customer. When they offer you other “free” stuff like facial recognition and automatic tagging, it comes along with you giving them permission to mine your data even more specifically than they could without these services.

Perhaps that’s OK with you. I didn’t see any harm it in when I was a captive audience to their services – but now I really understand the way it works and I want no part of it and I certainly don’t want them having any part of me.

No Advertising

As to Advertising, most of us have gotten used to it, so it may not be as compelling a reason to consider FOREVER as some of the other things I told you about today. We’ve gotten almost to the point we don’t even see the ads at the top, bottom and sides of our screens. You’ve probably got a pop-up blocker on your computer. Who cares? Right?

Well, once you have experienced a cloud without any advertising, you’ll care and when you couple it with the relief of secure storage that won’t be data mined, you start to understand how FOREVER is very different from whatever cloud storage you’ve been using.

You think about these things I’ve told you about today and next week, I’ll reveal a few other things you might not have realized about your free/cheap cloud service.

DESTINATIONS, DFW Metroplex, Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking, Shopping

Let Your Linens Do the Talking

Jane Sadek

MEMORY SHARING: THROWING IN THE TOWELS

FOREVER’S Latest Thing

Photo Books and Coffee Mugs have been popular ways to share memories, but FOREVER has come up with something a little out of the ordinary for your next photo gifting, to yourself or others: Towels! And guess what, the fish and the fly don’t have them.

Three Options & You’ll Love Them All

BEACH TOWEL

Let’s start big – a big 30″ X 60″ beach towel big. If you choose to use the Create & Print feature on FOREVER, there are two pages of templates for you to personalize, including one called The Big Picture, where you can fill the whole towel with a picture you love. If you use one of the other fun templates, you get to personalize them with colors, fonts and orientation. Add your name to be sure no one can claim it. If you can’t find what you want, let me know and I can design it in Artisan for you and I’ll have a blank page to start with.

The towels have a poly front with the print and a cotton terry back, but that poly front is not one of those water repellent polys you might have tried to dry off with in the past. It’s soft and absorbent it dry you off quickly and comfortably. The towel are machine washable and you tumble them dry.

GOLF TOWEL

These waffle weave wonders will please all your athletes, not just golfers, but their design is based on the traditional golf towel with a grommet and metal hook. However, add it to your gym bag or any other sports bag! You might even want to hook it from your scrapbooking tote. Don’t let that “golf” word deter you.

This towel is 16″ X 25″ and it’s a cotton/poly blend which is durable, absorbent and convenient. Like the beach towel there are all kinds of designs in FOREVER’s Create & Print templates for you to customize or you can start your design from scratch in Artisan.

TEA TOWEL

Tea towels are a great gift for many occasions and something we all need for ourselves. You know those tea towels that have hilarious sayings on them. Have you ever wished you could change the wording just a little bit to fit someone you know? Well, now you can.

Looking for the perfect wedding gift? They’ll love seeing their name and or monogram on personalized tea towels. And housewarming gifts? Their name and new address, right on the towel. And how about recipes? Think of this as a whole new way to share that recipe you’ve become famous for.

Waffle weave, like the sports towel, and the same size, but without the grommet & hook, you can make these up in both vertical and horizontal designs. They are a little larger than a standard placemat, but imagine a meal where your guests find their place by finding their face and the placemat goes home with them as a party favor. Cool, yes?

I just ordered this one and I can’t wait to take it to the next potluck I attend. I’m thinking I’ll be having them standing in line to order their own! Thanks for sharing memories with me and come back on Monday for a little Memory Making!

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

A One Stop Digital Shop for Memories

Jane Sadek

MEMORY PRESERVATION: IT’S ALL THERE!

The Way It Seems

To the casual observer, which is most people, Memory Preservation has many sectors. It seems as if cloud storage comes from one place, media digitization comes from another and genealogy comes from some place else completely. Then there’s a whole world for print. You print photos here, Christmas cards there and calendars someplace else. Video streaming is another area of expertise. Most people don’t have an idea where to begin.

And there are some big names in the business – Google, iCloud, Amazon, Legacy Box, Ancestry, Snapfish, Shutterfly – the list continues. They’d be good right? Everyone knows them.

The Way It Is

In reality, there is a single company which offers all these things and even more:

  • Permanent cloud storage you own and superior media digitization
  • Restoration and colorization of faded and damaged images.
  • Professional genealogy support and training for amateur genealogist.
  • A media migration program developed and heartily embraced by professional photo organizers and genealogist.
  • High quality, but affordable, print offerings, second to none.
  • The world’s premiere digital scrapbooking software, digital art and an incredible online community of camaraderie, support and training for digital scrapbookers.
  • Private video streaming with auto-play and no ads.

Are you wondering why you didn’t know they exist? Well, at the very inception of the company, it’s founder decided FOREVER was going to be different. Instead of setting aside a huge amount of their capital for marketing, they instead invested in the best technology available, because at the core of the company would be cloud storage people owned rather than rented and instead of the average Memory Keeper going to multiple companies to get the services they needed, they’d be able to get what they needed at the very place they stored their precious memories.

FOREVER is not even structured like the usual for profit business, where the point is to create income for the board of directors and stockholders. Instead, the board of directors are responsible for creating a profit to support the business, while providing a benefit to their customers. The benefit is permanent cloud storage which is owned rather than rented and remains available to the owners of the storage and their descendants into the future, long after the initial investment is made, without any additional rent or fees. Currently FOREVER guarantees that benefit for the owner’s lifetime plus 100 years, but the goal of the company is to provide the service forever. Profit to maintain and promote the company is generated from all the other services offered by FOREVER to complement their core service – personal cloud storage for your memories that you own.

That’s not the way the rest of those companies operate. The focus of those companies is their bottom line, especially those offering you free or cheap cloud services. If you read their fine print, you’ll see their goal is to mine your photos for information they can sell to advertisers. You’re a source of income. Not a customer! And if they do upgrade you to a higher level of service, that service only lasts for as long as you continue to pay them rent.

If you’d like to make your life easier, by consolidating your Memory Keeping activities into one service and you’re tired of being taken for granted by companies who use you rather that serve your needs, then we need to talk about FOREVER. Call me for an appointment at 972-971-5263 and I’ll buy the coffee!

Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Fridays are Fun Days

Jane Sadek
Let’s get creative!

Memory Sharing: Fun for You & Fun for Them!

CHOOSE YOUR FUN!

Let’s face it, Memory Keeping can be a chore. It’s better than cleaning a toilet, but uploading, sorting, tagging and such can be a lot of work. Of course, there are those wonderful moments when you see a photo or video that floods you with happy memories and those where you relish telling a story in the description, but most of the time it’s a job.

However, when it comes to sharing your memories, that’s a whole different thing. Something as simple as posting a memory on social media or sending it directly to someone with a text or email, can make your day and the day of those you share with. You can up that game with digital photobooks and a wide variety of photo gifts from FOREVER (or maybe even a scrapbook from Creative Memories).

Oh, but I can hear you telling yourself that you’re happy with Snapfish, Shutterfly, Minted, ChatBooks, SmugMug, Mixbook, Walmart or your local drug store. To that I would say, “Are you sure?”

CHOOSE FOREVER!

My job on Fridays is to woo you away from whoever you’ve used in the past and introduce you to the absolute best. Most people dislike change and it’s just easier to keep using whoever they’ve been using in the past when they come up with future jobs. I say you owe it to yourself to at least take a peek at my Friday posts and be sure you’re really getting the best prices, service, quality and selection from whoever your go-to provider is.

DO IT YOUR WAY!

Perhaps the most important difference in FOREVER and the other guys is that each of them offers their products their way. You fill in their blanks and that’s your option. With FOREVER you can do it your way. If you run into trouble with the other guys, good luck getting a customer support rep to help. With FOREVER, just contact me. I’ll help you out of your conundrum.

Enjoy Auto Print that allows you to load your photos and have a printable photo book with hundreds of photos in seconds. You always have the option of making edits, but it really is as easy as 1-2-3.

Create & Print provides an overwhelming choice of templates for pretty much anything you might want to make from coffee mugs to beach towel and from blankets to photo books. If that sounds a lot like those other services, that’s because you really haven’t done a side-by-side comparison of the results. If you had, then you could see the superiority of the products you get from FOREVER for practically the same price.

For most of you, that’s all you need to know – unless you’re a serious crafter and you want to do it your way! My favorite way to make photo books, stationary, wall décor, calendars, drinkware, blankets, puzzles, coasters, ornaments and magnets is Artisan 6, a digital scrapbooking software that goes far beyond any scrapbook page. What’s more, Artisan 6 is supported by an online community of crafters, digital scrapbookers and the people who train them to do it better called pixels 2 Pages. I could go on, but I’ll save it for another day. I hope you’ll join me then.