I've confessed here before that I used to love scrapbooking. So much so, my husband used to call it my "cult meeting" when I would dash out of the house to join my friends for scrapbooking time together. Unfortunately, having a full time job, a seasonal job, a volunteer position and a blog don't leave much time for other hobbies, so my scrapbooking gear is gathering dust in a corner.
Still, preserving my family's memories is important to me. I have boxes and boxes of old photos that haven't made their way into scrapbooks yet. With the advent of digital scrapbooks making it so easy to create and duplicate beautiful scrapbooks with a few mouse clicks, all the time and energy spent on paper books seems like a waste.
Unfortunately, most of our family's photos pre-2000 are in paper form. Who has time to stand over a scanner and scan hundreds of photos?
Enter, LiveOn Rewind...A few months ago, Clever Girls Collective asked me to be a brand ambassador for a new photo sharing, digitizing, and restoration service called LiveOn. As part of learning about the company, they offered to digitize some of my family photos without charge to me. It was an incredibly easy process, and I am completely sold on their services.
The first thing I did was figure out which photos to scan. I decided start with photos from before 1990. I ordered a postage-paid box from LiveOn Rewind, which arrived in a few days. I was a little surprised at how small the box was, but I was even more surprised that I could fit nearly 500 photos into it. I included some that were in pretty bad shape, thinking that someday I would learn Photoshop well enough to fix them. Some of these are photos of my mom from the 1950's, when she was a young girl in Korea.
I filled up my box and slapped on the pre-made UPS label and dropped it off at a local UPS store. A few days later, I received an acknowledgement that my photos had arrived safe and sound at the LiveOn Headquarters.
While I was waiting for my photos to return, I got an email from someone at LiveOn stating that they could fix my damaged photos. (Note: there is an extra charge for this service). I was beyond thrilled. They sent me a sample of their work, which I posted. I couldn't wait to see the rest.
A few weeks later, all of my photos were returned to me, with a DVD enclosed containing digitized versions of them. There are copies of both the original image and the restored ones. There is also a gorgeous musical slideshow of photos that is like watching your life flash before you (or in this case, my mother's life). The results brought tears to my eyes.
My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year. I can't think of a better belated gift to them than a scrapbook of their early years together, and this way, I can keep a copy for myself and my brothers as well. I can't thank the folks at LiveOn enough for the precious gift they have given me and my family. I plan to put the DVD in our safety deposit box for safekeeping.
If you would like to let your family photos LiveOn, use this code at checkout for a 30% discount at Liveon.com: cgc65
Thank you to LiveOn for sponsoring this blog post. Please visit LiveOn to learn more about sharing and preserving your most important memories. I was selected for this sponsorship by Clever Girls Collective. Although story ideas were provided, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
