Turns out that most of the truly good templates depicted on the box reside in something called the "Idea Vault." That is not a happy place because it amounts to a series of PDF thumbnails that are completely uneditable and completely unusable in the software. And the templates that are available are pretty crummy.

I'm sorry, but it's just not fair to include designs on the box - much less boast of the idea vault as a "feature" (gimme a break) - when they're just not available to people who buy the software. I can't recommend Creating Keepsakes. But I do own Scrapbook Factory Deluxe 2.0 (of course ... it has the word "Scrapbook" in it :-) and that I can heartily endorse.

42 of 44 found the following review helpful:

The Best Scrapbook Program!!!  Jun 07, 2004

I recently bought this program for myself and a friend's birthday even after reading the not so good reviews of this product. I hadn't bought a scrapbook program and was holding out for a good one....And this one exceeded my expectations!

This program is wonderful for both people that want to scrapbook and don't have the time, all of the work is done for you and the ideas are infinite! It's also good for people who want some ideas but want to infuse their own creativity into their scrapbooks. You can change the sizes and colors of almost every embellishment in this program as well as customize every page to your liking! Changing sizes and colors of everything in this program as well as editing photos makes this an extremely versatile product!

One recommendation is once you get this product, spend some time playing around with all of the different features, getting to know what kind of embellishments are available and customize photos, embellishments and backgrounds....You'll see the possibilities are endless!

Besides the scrapbook section of this software, there are cards, newsletters, tags, etc etc....You can do absolutely ANYTHING with this product-It's AWESOME :) All you need is some creativity and this software will provide a starting off point for any project! And if you don't have a lot of creativity, this is still the best because you can choose from 1000's of ready made projects!

39 of 41 found the following review helpful:

Makes scrapbooking incredibly easy  Jun 05, 2004
By K. Hernandez "kchristieh"
After reading the previous reviews I almost didn't buy the product, but I decided to get it anyway since there really aren't any decent competitors to it. I am so glad I have it! I was using Microsoft Publisher before to make scrapbook pages, but the templates in Scrapbook Designer Deluxe are specifically designed for scrapbooks, so they're much nicer. I just use their templates as a step-off point, and alter them with different fonts, picture sizes and clip-art as necessary. The results look great, and it's really quick to make a new page. I highly recommend this product, and am thrilled to finally be caught up on my scrapbooking!

24 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Don't Waste Your Time!  Apr 09, 2004

I am a longtime scrapbooker and ordered this right away when it came out. Well I got it today and guess what - it's just Print Shop all over again. How many times does Broderbund want me to buy the same program under a different name. If you have Print Shop or Printmaster or any other Broderbund product, don't waste your money.

23 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Fun but...  Apr 22, 2004
By N. Hall
I have to say I'm disappointed. The "new" Creating Keepsakes (CK) fonts advertised are not really new at all - they're from CK's original font collections, which I already own. The CK art, too, is from their CD packages. Like another reviewer stated, the whole workspace and basic set-up really isn't any different than other Broderbund programs, either. I just invested in the new Printmaster version - this program isn't very different at all. The main advantage I see is its ability to create layouts/projects in 12x12, except I don't have a printer that can do that.

It's a good program if you don't already own anything by CK or any of Broderbund's creativity software, but I give the program 2 stars because of its lack of originality and what I consider to be deceptive advertising.

See all 17 customer reviews on Amazon.com