Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Win CollageIt Pro 3 for Mac this Halloween

Want to win your own copy of CollageIt Pro 3 for the Mac? Enter below!!

CollageIt 3 Pro Review

I recently received a copy of the program CollageIt 3 to review and check out. When Carter turned one, I gathered up all 13 of my monthly pictures I had painstakingly remembered to take each month on his birth day. Then I sat down to put them into a fun collage and realized I had no idea how everyone else had been compiling them. I went to Shutterfly and a few other online photo shops and played around there but unless I wanted to buy a print I couldn't get a nice high resolution digital copy. Next I hit Google looking for collage programs and there were plenty. I searched through a bunch, however, I wasn't able to find one that easily let me tell it how many pictures I had and just simply add them. They were easily set up for certain stock collage types but not one that fit my custom 13 pictures. In the end I settled for opening a powerpoint slide and adding 6 pictures at a time. I had two collages not one and they were hard to see. It wasn't ideal but at least I had something to show off our fun monthly sticker onesies. Here is my first final product... as you can see I even cut his head off in one picture (oops missed that until now)!!


As soon as my CollageIt 3 copy was downloaded I knew the first thing I wanted to do was to finally make that collage of Carter's first year. As most people do I decided to just play with it and avoid reading any instructions. After all, who wants to read a book just to play with their pictures?? It turns out the program is very self explanatory and easy to work with. I quickly picked the template I liked and added all 13 pictures. A few short minutes later and I had this!!

All 13 pictures of my handsome little guy in one image. I was able to easily round the edges, rotate and crop pictures, change the size of each image box, and more. I didn't feel like I had to be a computer programmer to work the program which is good since I leave that to hubby!I'd easily recommend this program to anyone wanting to create quick customizable collages from their pictures. If you're interested in trying it out you can get it FREE for 3 days ( from Oct. 29 at 0:00 CST to Oct. 31 at 24:00 CST) from the iTunes store here. If you download I'd love to hear what you think of it too!!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Busy Moms and Tots of Jacksonville

Are you looking for a fun playgroup where your children can socialize and you can make new friends? If so, check out Busy Moms and Tots of Jacksonville. This is the playgroup I help organize and as long time members we can't say enough good things about our group. Nolan has grown up with such a great group of kids and now Carter is doing the same. Besides the normal playdates, we do fun things like holiday parties, craft swaps, and preschool learning events.

My latest adventure was coordinating a felt storyboard swap. I created pieces for Bernard Most's book Whatever Happened to the Dinosaurs?. Nolan loves this story and always makes up his own theories for where the dinosaurs have gone. Here is how the set turned out.

Nine of us participated and each person made nine copies of their project to then swap. I now have nine different unique sets that all go to various great books!!  We've done this for quiet book pages, bows, and even sensory bin contents.

If you're in the Jacksonvill/St. Augustine area and are looking for a playgroup check us out. If not, check meetup.com in your area for something similar. I'd also love to help anyone who has questions on playdate ideas or group logistics. You can see some of my playdate idea pins on Pinterest.