Mother's Day is coming! It seems to always sneak up on me, especially now that I am a Mother myself. Every year I have such a hard time figuring out what to get for my Mom—or what to do for her—to show her how much I care. There are only so many picture frames and flowers you can buy without it getting old, right? ;)
Enter Animoto: a video slide show creation service (both online and mobile) that lets you take your treasured photos and videos and turn them into a professional looking video. First, select any one of a number of themed backgrounds and choose music to stream. Then, upload the photos and videos you would like to include. You can actually add photos and videos from anywhere - your computer, Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Smugmug, or Instagram. I was all set to download a bunch of photos from my Facebook albums onto my computer to upload into Animoto, and was so excited to see it could pull directly from Facebook. It loaded an album of 180 photos in just a few seconds! Lastly, add text if you would like and then produce your video.
I spent quite a bit of time searching for the perfect photos for my video. I have plenty of my Mom with Carina, and a number of pictures of us together from my wedding and shortly thereafter. I only wish I had more from when I was a child. {sidenote: pretty please do not laugh at the geeky pictures of me!}
When I watched this for the first time I couldn't hold back the tears; I blame being pregnant. My Mom means so much to me and has had such a large role in making me who I am today. To see us together through the years, and now with Carina, is just too much for this {overly} hormonal person to handle.
After you're finished making your video, you can easily e-mail it to someone, share it on Facebook or Twitter, even Pin it on Pinterest! Animoto truly makes sharing your video slideshows as simple as ever. You can even allow comments if you'd like your friends and family members to weigh in on your masterpiece. There are three separate membership plans: Lite (Free!), Plus, and Pro, all with different features, so you can select the plan that's right for you.
Gift & Giveaway Time!
Use code CleverFL to receive a free full-length video credit. Make your Mom something special for Mother's Day! Or just have fun making a cute video for yourself. In addition to that, one of my readers will receive a coupon code for a one-year subscription to Animoto Plus. With Animoto Plus, you can create unlimited full length videos! All you need to do to enter is leave a blog post comment telling me, "who are you making your video for?" I will randomly select a winner on Sunday, May 6th at 11:59 PM EST.
