[Becca]

A friend of mine just sent me a referral link to this new site. I know very little about it, but I thought I'd mention it here anyway.

Right now, new members get 400 free 4X6 prints AND a free 8X8 photobook!

It's definitely something worth looking into further, and I'm only posting it now, because it says when they reach a certain membership number, this promo is going to be over.

ArtsCow.com

[Launa]

Thanks Becca, I'm going to check it out! Love Promos! That's a lot of free prints!

[scraphctib]

I checked it out, signed in and got this message:

Since the promotion for 400 free prints & 1 free 8x8 photo book is one of the most popular and hottest deals in the market, we have received over 15,000 new registrants in the last two weeks, over 15,000 photo books and 6,000,000 free prints credits have been granted to all qualified members. Once our target of 20,000,000 free prints credits granted in these days, we will stop this aggressive marketing promotion. You can earn extra prints credits (up to 10,000 credits) by referring your friends to join us. Click here for more details.

The 8x8 Custom Cover Photo Book (including first 20 pages, additional each page $0.50), will be available around 05/31/2008. We promise that our photo book quality will be among the best three in the online market. Thank you.

[kimmybutton]

thanks, becca!

[kimmybutton]

diane, i got the same message, but the free prints/book are still credited to your account. just look under your credit&discounts in the member section when you are logged in. it will list all the credits and their expiration dates.

[scraphctib]

...oooooooooooooooh! Thanks for that bit of info! I'm going to have to check that out!

[Shelbi]

Thanks alot for sharing.
I jsut signed up.
Michelle

[PurpleJAF]

I did, too! Thanks so much. Now, I'd better get working on some 4x6 and 5x7 pages to get printed.

Thanks, again!

[rottenrotts]

Please beware!! After using this site my CC had fraudulent charges show up! If you do use them watch your CC for unathourized charges! This company also operates under: Photoplayingcard.com and artsnow.com. This company is one of those "too good to be true deals"!!

[ginaMO]

Has anyone used the site who can give some feedback? Thanks!

[goofyemt96]

WOW this is great!! Thanks for sharing!!

[alg35536]

I signed up but then I went into the fourm. There arent' a whole lot of posts in there. There also some complaints in there about people not getting their pictures etc.

[jennk]

I went to look in their forums as well. There was one lady who complained about fradulent charges on her card after signing up. The company person who responded skirted around the issue in my book. I do think that I saw paypal was an option to pay with. Would that provide more protection then giving the company your credit info?

[Zaz]

I signed up, but I don't know if I'll order anything yet or not. It really does seem too good to be true. One thing I thought I might mention. When they ask the "security question", don't give your mother's maiden name. That makes it really easy to get through security to places like your credit cards. I used to work for a credit card company. We asked for that on the application, but a place like this doesn't need it. Also, don't give them any more info than the require.

I dug around on the internet, too, and I've only found one person that mentions the fraudulent charges (see their post above). But the promo hasn't been going that long and I haven't heard of people getting their second sets of prints yet.

Just be cautious. They are out of Hong Kong (China) so certain credit card laws will not apply if they commit fraud against you. Check out PayPal's terms to be sure they cover you in case of fraud.

I'll be watching this since I'd love to get some photos printed without me having to do them.

~Zaz

[Momma Crystal]

Anyone use them yet?

[Learnin2Scrap]

[b]

Quote

Thanks so much for the caution. I almost got too excited!

[Christina]

I've used them to purchase personalized photo playing cards for my grandfather for Christmas...they arrived are were great. I haven't had any problems, and decided to try them again by printing my 12x12 prints (on 12x18 paper) since I had 20 free credits for that...also added some photos coasters with LOs on them for fun. Will post once they arrive...does take about 3+ weeks or more.
HTH!
Christina

[ndkrista]

I have used them and the quality is REALLY good! I ordered heart shaped dogtags ($1.99 with free shipping), a photobook ($11.99 with free shipping), a netbook cover under $10 (with free shipping), a bucket purse with brown leather ($13.99 with free shipping).

Be careful to proof your items REALLY carefully before you submit them as I ended up with some words too close to the edges on the purse and also the dogtags. They will take returns but you have to get approval within 30 days of your order placement. Since shipping time takes a bit that does not leave you a huge period of time but because they are in Hong Kong it is not cheap to mail things back to them for exchange or refund. I ended up keeping the items just because I did not want to hassle with the cost to mail back (the errors are not terribly noticeable to most people).

I then just redid the dogtags and reordered them since they were already so cheap (and I will give the other ones to the girls to put on their gymbags, they were for the Captains for our volleyball team, I made a necklace for each Captain's mom with the 3 Captain dogtags on them).

Several frustrations with using the site:
you have to choose what size photo book you want at the beginning and also the number of pages and you cannot then transfer pages to other books or sizes. For example I made a 32 page book (8x8) because had a great coupon to use (I added 2 pages to the 30 page book). I did it for our volleyball team and through other parents ordering I earned free 39 page 8X8 books. I was then going to order the book for my daughter and one for the coach using the free codes. Because I had originally designed the book as a 30 page book I could not then go in and order as a 39 page book (had figured I could add the extra pages since both would be 8x8 books and then use the coupon). Very frustrating! So, if I want to use the free books I would then have to either completely start over or use the coupons toward making other books.

Customer service is bare bones/you can tell the language barrier. I would write to ask if could transfer a photo book page or copy a page and get a very simplified/non-helpful response.

I have seen some posts in their forum that they will be coming out with a way to transfer pages between books but it is not possible now. When I wrote to them to ask about this I got simple response that could not do it now.

They have an overwhelming number of coupons/codes/discounts etc... and so it can be very confusing. The shipping costs are a bit high (but so are most of the places including Shutterfly etc...) and your best deals are the ones where they offer free shipping. There is a tab at the top of the page that says "Special Sale" and this is where you will find the deals that have free shipping.

I am new to digital scrapbooking and the photobooks I have made in the past have been through other sites. My best suggestion would be to make your pages using other programs and then you can just import a page in as one picture rather than doing the designing on their site (which I wish I had done because then I could have just uploaded the pics and easily made a different size of photobook. I have Photoshop CS3 but no idea how to use it. I have in the past used Scrapbook Factory Deluxe and I should have made my pages in there and then uploaded to their photo book pages). If you know what size book you want it is pretty easy to upload pics and to use their free "kits" that people have developed (some of them are a small charge, many are free).

Anyway- even the pics that were a low resolution (and showed a yellow exclamation point warning me that would not be good print quality) printed really well. The colors and quality of everything I ordered was excellent!

Hope this helps those of you who want to try the site. I did hear from one of the other moms that because the company is in Hong Kong she got some additional small fees on her credit card. I used Paypal to pay for mine and did not have any problems at all.

[catvinnat]

I have been using Artscow for about 3 months with no problems

If you have a look at this thread I have posted pictures and comments so you can judge the quality for yourselves.
so far I have had a photobook, 12 x 12 prints, tote bag, leather bowling bag, bucket bag, pillows slips, a necktie and a fleece blanket from them, oh and keyring watches. I use one of the little bucket bags every day and constantly get stopped in the street by people who want to know where I got it from. Nearly forgot, also waiting for a netbook case to come - thats for my ereader (like a kindle) and only cost $5.99 including postage.

Longest I have waited for anything was 3 weeks but that was the photobook and they do take a little longer


As has already been said you need to keep anything critical away from the edges - I now but an 1/8th inch border round my LO's when uploading to make sure nothing important gets cropped.

The prices really can't be beaten. They seem to work on high volume small margin

I personally have not had any problem with my cc but I will certainly keep a close eye. they do take paypal but not for very low value transactions.

www.artscow.com

[Donnazee]

I had an 8 x 8 hardover book done through Artscow and was happy enough with it - although I thought there seemed to be a slight red tinge to the pics. The cost in aussie dollars was $25 which included postage and so was very cheaped compared to the cost of doing one here in Oz.

I then decided to send the same pages to Shutterfly and have them do a book - this one ended up costing $50 in aussie dollars - so double! But the quality was heaps better - no red tinge and the photos were clearer.

I'm a bit stuck though because I liked the stitching in the Artscow Book but the Shutterfly one was glued so the pages don't open as much.

If I was going to do another book I think I would go through Shutterfly just for the better quality.

There are alot of plates in in Oz that do the photobooks with their own templates but none of them will allow me to create my own layouts in Photoshop and upload the whole pages. Still waiting for them to have that option so I don't have to send them overseas in the future.

I also haven't had any problem with CC fraud - I paid through Paypal also.

Delivery from Artscow and Shutterfly to Oz was around the same time frame - about 3 weeks.

Hope this helps!

[jackymc]

I use both Artscow.com and Printerstudio.com before and found printerstudio seems to provide better quality for printed products.

They both have great offers with Artscow providing more bargains but it's cheaper for a reason as I've found out after ordering. Artscow prints are less rich in color and the material feels a little more flimsy. Printerstudio prints are richer and the materials are like retail type. Oh and they're doing $20 and free shipping off orders now worldwide.

Here's their link:
http://www.printerstudio.com

[KFiasco]

I used this site 2 years ago for Christmas presents. I got 5 books and everybody loved them. I had nothing to compare them to so I didn't recognize the color difference. Out of the 5 books I did notice one of the pages was a little offcenter, but it was for one of the kids and it was too late to send it back and have it for Christmas. No one else even noticed it. I was very pleased with them.