Make your own cards and scrapbook pages for Valentines Day!

Though I'd consider myself a pretty crafty person since Connor was born my crafting days have been pretty much at a still. Between constantly chasing my little man around to homework to the blog I barely have time to breath much less make my own cards. Though a few years ago I would have considered it a special treat to make cards for the people I love. I think that stems from the fact that I personally believe that there is nothing more special than a handmade card or a hand written letter. With that said I've always wanted to make a scrapbook but you can imagine if I don't have time for cards when would I ever have time for scrap booking?

With that said its been years, and I mean years, since I last touched a software package that helps you make cards or scrapbook pages. To be honest my last experience was in high school with dot matrix printer and to be totally honest back then without the use of a laser printer computer generated cards were a little disappointing so I really didn't know what to expect when it came to Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe and the Hallmark Scrapbook Studio Deluxe.

I was anxious to try out Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe as being on a student budget means saving money anywhere I can is always a top priority and with 30+ kids in the family we attend quite a few birthday parties and each birthday party means a new birthday card and it seems sometimes I'm buying two or three cards a week. So printing my own cards would be a dream come true not to mention a way to personalize my cards just the way I want to! So the question is was this new Hallmark Card Studio good enough to pass for real cards?

Well using the Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe is really not much different than using the version I remember from high school. After you set up the software you can browse the cards based on the type of event. More importantly Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe is not just for cards, I was really impressed to find out that you can also make calenders, postcards, stationary, invitations, and more! Connor's 2nd birthday is coming up sooner than I would like to admit and last year I think I spent 30+ dollars on invitations and even more with thank you cards for his birthday. This year I plan on making his invitations using the Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe which I'm excited to say will save me a ton of money!! Yay!

My biggest concern was the quality of the cards you can make with the software and with some trial and error I've found that the quality of the cards depends totally on your printer and the card stock you use. My first couple attempts I used the paper stock I used to use for my handmade cards.. and though the results they did come out looking like printed cards which is what I wanted to avoid. So I remembered I had some photo quality postcard stock in my secret stash and I set my printer to its highest photo setting and made a trial run postcard style invitation which is my favorite type for invites anyways as they are the cheapest to mail. The results were really fabulous and really unless you were looking for it you wouldn't know that I printed them on my printer!

I'm still playing with the Hallmark Scrapbook Studio 3.0 Deluxe but if the results are even remotely the same I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.

Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe and Hallmark Scrapbook Studio 3.0 Deluxe are both available for purchase on the Hallmark Software website!

I have a copy of Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe and Hallmark Scrapbook Studio 3.0 Deluxe to give away to one lucky reader!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe and Hallmark Scrapbook Studio 3.0 Deluxe and tell me what sort of project would you work on first if you won!
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
  • For an extra entry :
  • Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
  • Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
  • One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
  • This contest will end Feb 30th at midnight!