The Perfect Last-Minute Mother's Day Gift


I know that it's late, but if your family is like mine, they have NOT gotten their act together for Mother's Day.  (As I write this, my son is busy making crafts for all the moms, and hubby is telling me why cards are cliche.)  I have always been pretty clear that a photo frame was something that I wouldn't be impressed with.  After all, you have to load up all those photos, and it seems like an unnecessary expense to show off some pics.  I couldn't be more wrong, however, when I was sent the Kodak Pulse digital frame to try out.  This puppy rocks.

First, let me tell you about this frame.  Mama like.  Set up was painless, thanks to an intuitive touch screen and great directions.  (Note: I did run into a small snafu when the frame said that it couldn't connect.  A quick visit to the Kodak site told me that I needed to update the software in the frame.  2 minutes and it was ready to go!)  Then I went through and transferred all the photos on my PC from the past 3 years that I thought were adorable and sent them to the frame wirelessly.  They uploaded really fast.  I thought that the process was way quicker than uploading to photo printing sites.  The frame itself is nice-looking.  It has clear imaging, and shows up well in all kinds of lighting.  You can adjust the settings (again, with the touchscreen) to tweak the length of time between photos and whether you would like one photo to appear, like this:



or several in a collage, like this:


The frame holds thousands of pics, depending on the quality.  It's really neat to look over to the frame and see pics from our past.  Way better than flipping through an album!
We also tried out the Kodak easyshare M532 camera, which was perfect timing (because my old Canon was on its last leg.)  This is my first Kodak point and shoot, and while I had only played around with it for a few days, I was very impressed by the following features:
  • The camera was slick-looking and lightweight.  It felt awesome in my hands.
  • The view screen on the back was clear and accurately displayed my pics.
  • There was a simple "Smart Capture" feature that automatically figured out which scene I was taking and adjusted the lighting and other details for me. When I wanted to do something funky with the pics, however, I was in control.
  • There is a neat new "people tags" feature that lets you tag people in you pictures before you connect the camera to the computer.  This comes in handy when you want to use the "Share" button to select photos for your Facebook page.  When they upload, they are automatically tagged for you!
Here is a fun picture I took using the Kodak M532


I'm not a professional photog, and my experience with point-and-shoots is all I have.  I thought that it came out sweet, however, and I can see this being my "go-to" camera for outings and some blog postings.

There is so much more to tell you about these products, but I'm sure you have a Mother's Day to get ready for!  I spent all day yesterday experimenting with both, and I'm sure I'll find more uses as the days go on.  You can find both the M532 and the Kodak Pulse frame for sale on Mother's Day at Walmart stores and Walmart.com!

*I am a participant in the Walmart Moms program. Walmart and has provided me with compensation for my time on this post and Kodak has provided the product. Participation in this program is voluntary. As always, all opinions are 100% my own

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