“Desperate Housewife” Marcia Cross Partners with Hallmark to Create Legacy Keeper

New Legacy Keeper incorporates audio technology to help preserve memories for future generations

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Life makes the best story. As a family-focused new mother of twins, actress Marcia Cross knows this is true. She wanted to tell her own story, and to ensure her family’s legacy lives on so her children, and their children, will stay in touch with their roots. That’s why Cross approached Hallmark with her vision to help people share life’s journeys. Together they created the Hallmark Legacy Keeper, a memory-keeping product that uses digital technology to capture and preserve families’ histories for future generations to see – and hear.

“Sharing our joys, heartaches, and life lessons will bring us closer to those we love and those whom we will never meet,” Cross said. “That’s why I approached Hallmark with this idea. I wanted to create a tool for people who, like me, believe life’s journey is precious enough to be captured and shared with loved ones for years to come.”

The Hallmark Legacy Keeper contains all the elements necessary to record an autobiography in one’s own voice. The kit features:

• a digital MP3 voice recorder (with up to eight hours of high-quality voice or music recording capacity)
• easy-to-use quick-start instructions
• a book of categorized questions (to help organize the story-telling)
• storage space for sharing keepsakes, mementos, photos, and DVDs

Hallmark’s Legacy Keeper will help people share their life story so future generations can see and hear it for years to come. The Hallmark Legacy Keeper, a Hallmark Gold Crown exclusive, retails for $50 and is now widely available at Hallmark Gold Crown stores.

“We were thrilled to work with Marcia to bring the Hallmark Legacy Keeper to life,” said Jonathan Bowyer, a retail merchandise manager for Hallmark’s memory keeping products. “This new innovative memory keeper allows people to deepen their connections by talking about their relationships, and it preserves those conversations for generations to come in a way that simple photo sharing can’t.”

About Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Kansas City-based Hallmark is known throughout the world for its greeting cards, related personal expression products, and television's most honored and enduring dramatic series, the Hallmark Hall of Fame. The company's Crayola subsidiary provides fun and imaginative ways for children to colorfully express themselves. The company publishes products in more than 30 languages and distributes them in more than 100 countries. In 2006, Hallmark reported consolidated net revenues of $4.1 billion.

SOURCE: Hallmark Corporate Information.