Tag: Memory Sharing

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

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

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/

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

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.

Footsteps in Sand
Memory Keeping, Photo Organization, Photo Organization Coach, Photography, Scrapbooking

Blogging’s Back!

Jane Sadek

A RETURN TO BASICS: LOOKING FORWARD

Reality Check!

I got distracted! That’s the bottom line. But a recent call from a new customer got my attention. She found my website on the internet. This website, whose blog I’ve been ignoring for about a year and a half now. She had a custom scrapbooking job for me, which reminded me that my love of scrapbooking was what started this business.

I sat there, for a while, basking in the sunshine of all the beautiful custom scrapbooks I’ve done and how much my clients love them. Then I had to have an uncomfortable conversation with myself. “Hey Jane, if doing custom scrapbooks is the part of this business you love best and the part which brings you the best profit, why aren’t you working harder to get more of that business. Why do you spend all of your time posting stuff about FOREVER?”

After a heated discussion about how much I love FOREVER, which is very true, I had to do a reality check. My primary FOREVER customers are my best friend, my cousin and myself. I’m grateful for them and I love doing Memory Keeping with them, but other people are not exactly crashing through my door for digitization, storage and such. If you take FOREVER out of the equation, my best customers are and have been custom scrapbook customers. And how did most of them find me? Through my website.

So Here’s What I Am Going to do About That!

I won’t bore you with all the marketing wisdom I’ve gained over the years, all of which I put on the shelf and ignored for a while, but what I will tell you what I am going to do about it. I’m coming back to blogging. Blogging supports my website and that’s where I get my best customers.

But what to blog? Well, when I mentioned to a few people I planned to return to blogging, they were very excited and told me how much they had been missing my travel blogs. That was gratifying and I decided to call posts related to travel Memory Making posts.

During Memory Making most of us create and collect memorabilia and media. Preserving those Memories is really the second step to Memory Making. So, Memory Preservation posts will be my second blogging focus.

The third part will be Memory Sharing. From traditional scrapbooks from Creative Memories to Beach Towels and Wedding Invitations from FOREVER, I know of so many ways to share the memories you make – both with the people in your life today and for future generations.

That’s it – Memory Making, Memory Preservation and Memory Sharing! I hope you’ll tune in and be a part of the conversation.