Homemade Valentines Fruit Chews, Free Printable, and My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software GIVEAWAY!!!

Wow, that’s  a long title. That’s because there is a lot going on in todays post! So pay attention! First, I’m going to show you how to make your own homemade fruit chews out of real fruit. I also have a cute little bag topper for you to print out so you can turn todays recipe into a Valentine. Last, but certainly not least, I have an awesome giveaway  for one of my readers and a discount promo code for everyone! My Memories, a digital scrapbooking company, let me download their scrapbooking software (Suite v4) and play around with it! I had so much fun exploring all the different aspects of this program. And guess what? They gave me a digital scrapbooking software package to give to one of you! So make sure you carefully read the giveaway info at the bottom so you can see how to enter and how to get a promo code for $10 off.
Lets start with the edible stuff. These fruit chews are so easy to make and you can use any fruit or juice as long as its not one of those fruits that mess up the gelatin (pineapple, guava,mango, fig, and kiwi). I think berries work really well for this. I made mine raspberry flavored with fresh lemon juice.
Ingredients:

• 2/3 C. fresh or frozen raspberries
• 2/3 C. fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 C. sugar  (taste it and if its too tart for your liking, add more sugar)
• 1/4 C. unflavored gelatin (4 packets)
• sugar for topping (optional)

Directions:
1. In a small pot over medium heat, cook berries, lemon juice, and sugar until the berries are soft and the sugar is dissolved.
2. Once it starts to thicken up, use a hand held stick blender to make the mixture smooth (you could also use a normal blender). Run mixture through a mesh strainer and into a square container to remove the seeds.
3. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Add gelatin, a little bit at a time, whisking after each addition. Make sure gelatin is completely dissolved. If there are lumps, smooth it out with the stick blender again.
4. Cover mixture and refrigerate for about an hour. Cut into cubes and roll in sugar if desired. Store in airtight container. When I rolled them in sugar they looked really pretty and tasted even better, but once they were in a baggie there were little droplets of condensation. So, if you don’t like that, don’t add the sugar until right before you eat them.
Note: Feel free to pour mixture into candy molds!

Now, I’m going to show you how to dress up your bag of fruit chews using digital scrapbooking software:
What is digital scrapbooking software? It’s a program that helps you create a scrapbook on the computer using digital paper, stamps, embellishments(flowers, buttons, ribbons, brads, shapes..), word art, photos, etc. After you finish a scrapbook you can print it, email it, or even turn it into a video through YouTube or DVD. Your album can have as many or few pages as you want and you can design it from scratch or use premade layouts. Here are some of my favorite features of the My Memories Suite v4 software:

• It comes with lots of fun papers, embellishments, stamps, and templates. Simply open up the list of items on the left side bar, pick your item, and drag it onto the page. From there you can resize or edit on the right side bar. Don’t forget to look under the “purchased” section of papers and embellishments, even if you haven’t purchased any. I found most of the good stuff that came with the software in that section.
• Using MyMemories.com, you can download endless “kits” of scrapbooking paper, lettering, and embellishments. There are some really cute options. There are some fun Valentines Day packages, too! They show up with all the items on one page (papers stacked in the back and most embellishments on top), but when you download them you use the items individually. They are displayed like this:

• The kits are cheap! The one above is $2.29 right now. You can’t tell me that you could buy all those scrapbooking embellishments in paper form for $2.29. Some packages are more than others, but some are less than a dollar! And you can use them over and over, unlike real paper. (NOTE: click the picture above to purchase V-day kit which is on sale 48% off until February 28, 2013).
• There are tons of FREE KITS at MyMemories.com! Pages and pages of free stuff!
• Its really easy to layer items in just the way you want. For instance, say you want text on top of a gift tag, and you want that tag within a frame. Just right click an item and select “Send item forward” (or backward). It’s so simple to set up the page just how you like.
• There are tons of tutorials on Youtube. Click here to see their Youtube page. Here is a basic overview video:

• You are not limited to making a scrapbook album. You can make any kind of digital or printable project your heart desires. You can make blog banners, greeting cards, calendars, collages, posters, subway art, Facebook timeline headers, buttons, stickers,… Just create an item from scratch and customize the size. I created a cute gift bag topper to go with my fruit chews (all with items that came with the software). Here’s what it looks like:

If you would like to print one of these labels for yourself, click the picture above, right click print, and adjust the size to what ever size you need. I used a normal sandwich bag, which 6.6 inches across the top. So I just chose 5x7 and folded it over the top of the bag and stapled it. Just make sure you leave the original Ziploc seal in place so you can still get an airtight baggie. It should look like this:

Note: To avoid condensation in the baggie, don’t roll fruit chews in sugar until right before you are ready to eat. I learned the hard way. Oops.
GIVEAWAY INFO:

• So, do you want in on the goods? All you need to do is visit MyMemories.com, take a look around, and comment on my blog which scrapbooking kit is your favorite. One of my favorites is the “February” kit (which is actually on sale until 02/06/13). Easy-Peasy. Remember, if you get my blog posts sent to you via email, you must visit this actual blog post to comment and enter. You have until Sunday, February 10, 2013 at midnight to comment. (My baby is most likely coming the day after the giveaway ends via induction, so if you don’t hear from me right away, it probably means I am busy having a baby. I haven’t forgotten about you! Oh, and wish me luck.)
• Do you really, really want this scrapbooking software? Well, I’ll give you a couple more entries. After you enter by commenting on your favorite kit, you can also visit My Memories’ blog, facebook page, or twitter account and follow them. Just follow them and comment on my blog to tell me that you did it and I’ll count it as an additional entry. Make a new comment for following each the blog, facebook, and twitter. That’s up to 4 entries!

Here are the links:
Blog- http://blog.mymemories.com/
Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyMemories/140359372717593
Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite
 

• If you win, I will email you the promo code for the free software. You can then download it for free from their website. I will email you more detailed instructions if you win (make sure I can get ahold of you via email when you comment).
• Didn’t win? Don’t be too sad because I have something for you, too! Just because you’re cool, I’m giving you a promo code for $10 off the My Memories digital scrapbooking Suite v4! Here’s the code:STMMMS31723. You can also access it anytime by clicking on the button on my side bar. Just copy and paste in the code at check out and your adjusted total will show up.
• If you want to download or order this software, check and make sure your computer is compatible with this software, or to see more details about this software, click here.

I hope you have a marvelous time with this fun software! I hope you can use it to make some cute Valentines!
Giveaway sponsored by My Memories on Edible Experiments. Recipe by Edible Experiments.