A Truly Amazing Presenet!

January 2009 letter received

I wanted to sing the praises of Barb and RecallWhen.com.
When Christmas was approaching last year, we were faced with a recurring problem - how to find a memorable gift for my father-in-law. He is like a lot of successful people who has everything he needs and most of the things he wants.

Brad met with Barb and learned about the "Photo deck of playing cards" and we knew it was a great idea right away.

We collected photos from family trips that had been taken over the past 30 years and turned them into a truly amazing present.

The gift was a huge hit - bringing with it a flood of memories and emotion that will be cherished forever.

Thanks Barb for your one-on-one technical help and your kind and courteous business manner.

Sincerely,
Leslie and Brad Pashby
Sun Life Financial
bradley.pashby@sunlife.com

Thank you Leslie and Brad, I'm so glad it was a magical moment.

You're creating memories everyday but are you preserving them.
www.RecallWhen.com

Christmas Gift Responses

Lots of fun creating and MORE fun GIVING and watching the response.
Here is a great report from one of our happy clients who created our novel personalized decks of playing cards for her gifts.

I first met Barb at a Trade Fair in Langley and I was so taken with her photo books and her sheer enthusiasm for what she had created. I was captured. I came home and shared about the photo books that night. At Christmas this year, I created three different sets of playing cards. One was all different photos of my four neices. On the front of each card was a group shot, they were all dressed up in pink outfits for a wedding. I called their set of cards “Cousins”. I gave a set to each of the four girls.

Another set was photos of my friend’s son, as he loves to play poker. I called his set “Mackenzie Favorite Deck of Cards”. He loved it as there was a ‘cool’ photo of him on the front of his deck.. He laughed when he saw how I had gathered photos of him as a teenager, graduating from high school, with his Mum, Dad and sister and others with him holding our friend’s babies.

The third set was a mixture of words and photos. A theme created from my friend’s book “Awakening to the Beauty of Life Within”. These became great Christmas Presents for friends.

The playing cards were stunning, great quality and entertaining for everyone. I have had amazing responses from people about the outstanding quality of the cards. They were definitely fun projects to do on-line, to have printed and finally to give as gifts. I will definitely be making more of these.

Chris Willis

Surrey, BC

It is always great to see the smiles and hear the 'thank you's' when you make a one-of-a-kind perosnal gift.

Here's our January - March focus.

We're teaching Life Story Classes. Here is an invite for our next Meet and Greet.

Be sure to pre-register with West Richmond Community Center as they are preparing food and beverages. $3.00 per person 55+ for this event.

Never too late to think about Valentine's Day.....how about an "I love you because " book.

For more information call me at 604-271-5434

Happy Storybooking 2009

Thank you Oprah!

December was a mile stone for us here as Heritage Makers!

We received tons of FREE press coverage and it was all good. First with Oprah in her December O magazine as one of her 10 All Time Favorite Gifts; then on Oprah's favorite things' show; then featured 1st off in the Good Morning America Chic and Cheap list; then in Better Homes and Gardens Digital Scrapbooking 2 at the top of the list for digital sourcing.

Wheeewwwww! It was amazing, terrific and lots of new people found out about us.

2009 and where do we go from here?
1) Heritage Makers (www.RecallWhen.com) is offering the best ever package for new consultants joining us this month.

2) The Best Ever savings for those joining the Premier Club....a new exclusive club for those taking advantage of 12 months of Premier for $8.33/mo. Normally Premier upgrade is $24.95 usd for the 1st month and $19.95 usd for continuing months. As of TODAY it is $99.95 usd for one entire year of premier upgrade membership. That includes unlimited photo storage and access to over 700 template designs.

Contact us today to join our Consultant or Premier clubs!

Coming Soon: Life Story classes either virtual or in person
Love themed 'Digi Crops' for those wanting to make some precious valentine gifts.
Discounted scanning for all workshop hosts; hosts receive double the rewards in January.

Contact me at BarbAshcroft@shaw.ca or 604-271-5434 for schedules

A Life Lesson

Next is a real life story, shared by a Heritage Maker. Read to the bottom for a solution.

Don't delay . . . scan those precious pictures (like this one)!

I wanted to share a story that just happened to me today. I have to share itnow while it is still fresh on my mind. I got a scanner yesterday (from my Heritage co-consultant) and had invited a friend to come over and scan her pictures, so I set up the scanner in my downstairs kitchen. There's a nice big counter top and so I thought this would be a great place to set her up while I cooked dinner upstairs.

When she was finished scanning and had left, I couldn't decide whether to finish my own scanning or to wait until today.

I was tired and almost decided to just go to bed and read for a while even though it was only eight. But then I thought to myself, "I never know what tomorrow might bring, maybe I won't have time to get to them. Maybe I'll be even more tired tomorrow night.

Just get them done, it's only one box."

So I sat down, got them all scanned and then cleaned up and took the scanner back to Traci.

Today I got home from work and went to the basement to get some hamburger from the freezer for dinner. Just as I got to the bottom of the stairs I heard water dripping onto the counter in my downstairs kitchen.

There sat my box of photos, water dripping into them and they were soaked. The whole box was ruined.

My ceilings were full of water. The water had gotten in between the drywall and the paint forming what looked like water balloons with holes in the bottom. The culprit was a toilet upstairs. It had picked an opportune time to break during the day while no one was home and leak all over. The bathroom upstairs was swimming in a pool of water and leaking through the ceiling.

What a mess!! I am really disheartened about the work that it will take to get this all fixed, but I didn't have to be broken hearted about my pictures.

It is still hard to look at them, all soaked and stuck together, I can't bring myself to throw them away.

But it all could have been so much worse.

Wouldn't I have been so much more upset if I had decided to wait to scan my pictures until today. It would have been a much more tragic story if all those pictures were not backed up on my hard drive. Safe and waiting for the ages.

Now they are ready to put into Heritage Makers Storybooks. How sweet of an ending is that?

Sooo. don't delay!!!

Scan those pictures, back them up.

Upload them to yourHeritage Makers account and then to cd's or external hard drive.

Keep them safe.

This is one of those life lessons.

Don't have your own tragic story, learn from mine, get those pictures scanned!!

Take care, Deb

Coming soon! I have purchased a scanner that will do 30 photos a minute and we will now offer scanning services that will have bulk pricing as low as .19 cents each. Learn from Deb's life lesson, get your photos scanned so you never have to worry about them again.

We will take bookings as soon as the scanner arrives. STAY TUNED!

Barb Ashcroft

http://www.recallwhen.com/

It is all about the JOURNEY

Life Story Classes:

This past week I completed teaching a four week Life Story Class for Seniors. It was magical! I felt so privileged to know these individual's stories. To see their excitement as they were able to place the photos and text about their lives in printed bound form was amazing.

When the books return from the publisher, many are sent off already, we will be having a dinner together; "Celebrating being Published Authors" and sharing about their books to each other.

Our course had a fee of $70.00 which included the introductory template to design with 21 pages.

Having these recorded for future generations is priceless, but that is not all.

I recently was directed to a website service in Vancouver that specializes in telling people's memoirs. I thought you'd enjoy the comparisons.

The most complete and largest Heritage Makers coffee table Heritage book (100 pages) I have ever created priced out at $141.00 usd plus taxes and shipping. It was an amazing process and the end result was incredible. I probably invested 200+ hours but it was a personal journey and was worth every minute.

The memoir company shares:
We specialize in projects for families and businesses, with prices starting at $125,000 for individual and family biographies and $200,000 for corporate histories. We also work with many of our clients on a long-term basis as "outsourced storytellers" where we are constantly gathering their new stories and delivering them back in creative and valuable ways.

Yes, they do interview you and your family.
Yes, they scan your photos and documents.

They write the story, they edit the story, they do the layout and they bind the books.

For me the enjoyment came in THE JOURNEY so I'm glad I did it myself, traveled across the prairies and scanned the family photo albums with my cousins and aunts, interviewed them myself, and re-established relationships with family.
ps I also saved the $124,859.00.
Yes, It is ALL GOOD!

Barb Ashcroft

Knitting families together with personal storybooks

Oprah appreciates our products

OH MY !!!!!!!!!!

I just returned from our annual Heritage Makers Reunion (our word for Convention since we have such a community experience) and the conference opened with a taped recording of a PERSONAL voice message left by no other than Oprah Winfrey to a personal publishing consultant with Heritage Makers.

The photo above is the cover of the book sent to her regarding the loss of her beautiful dog Gracie.

Check out our website for a soon to be added taping of that call.

Check out the new clean look of our Heritage Makers website with a 300+ template gallery.

Stay tuned for more fun,

Barb

Digital Diva

Honoring those of all ages

I am so excited. I get to present this marvelous tribute book to a special man onstage in Dallas, TX this weekend. This is a preview of the title page (red outline is cut off when printed). What a marvelous way to say, "Happy Birthday to someone reaching 80".


I have been privileged to hear from some of my clients who have created books for their kids who are graduating. I managed a sneak peak by offering to proof their books for them.


Wow! you guys rock. Your kids are going to be so excited.


If you have any special events like graduation email me for this month's publishing specials for you to checkout.

Keep on Celebrating those ones in your life.
It truly is a Marvelous Mission!

Barb
Your Digital Diva
www.RecallWhen.com