Being on vacation meant that I went from having a camera attached to my face from the normal 60% of the time to a whopping 98% of the time. The other 2% I was thinking about photos, posing for photos, staging things for photos, viewing photos, editing photos or changing diapers. You think I am kidding. But I seriously believe that Will recognizes me better with that big black box over my face. And the click of the shutter can capture his attention and make him smile more than my voice. As they say here in the south, I’ve got me a train-ned dawg.
So obviously with all these photos, I want to be able to create a way to remember all the memories we’ve made…and not just vacation memories but also all of our day to day fun times. I’ve been thinking that the best way would be to go with a Blurb book. Each year I can make a book with the family stuff that we’ve been doing. I could even organize it by month, or event, or even by child (we want four kids so when I die, they would know which one is theirs. How helpful am I? Even after death I am thoughtful of my unborn kids. Seriously mom of the year material here. Either that or totally qualified for the looney bin.)
I’ve also been thinking that maybe I should just make a vacation book. I have so many pictures that it would be nice to have something just for remembering that particular trip. And since we would only take one vacation a year – and I only forsee the number of photos increasing, it would be worth it to remember each vacay.
Right now my idea is that it would be nice to do pairings. I’ve done some examples to explain.
Basically it would be like this:
Pairings could be two photos – one in color and one in black and white.
Or they could be one close up detailed shot and one not so closeup or detailed.
Or they could be one texture and one portrait.
Or they could be one inanimate object (or collection of still life objects) and a portrait:
Or an inanimate object and a scene.
Or they could be a scenery shot and a fun shot.
Basically it is just two vertically aligned photos next to each other. I like it because if I did decide to print a book, then one page could have two photos instead of just eating up page space with one.
But back to the issue at hand…remembering memories…is a whole YEAR’s book too hard? Or maybe you think an entire book devoted to a vacation is overkill? I feel like the yearly book could turn out to be ridiculously huge. Maybe I should just do a quarterly book? So much happens in three months time that maybe that chunk would be better suited for us than an entire year.
What do you think?
I don’t scrapbook so that is definitely out. But I would like to hear some ideas on how to capture these fun times. I feel like it’s weird to show people our vacation by whippin out the laptop. Also, I don’t really like writing…funny coming from a blogger…but seriously…I kinda want our vacation book to just be photos. Any suggestions?
I’ve been creating leather bound photo albums through Snapfish for awhile now and couldn’t be happier with the results. Virtually devoid of gab, I make annual books organized by month with just the cream of the crop photos. I, too, take about a bazillion pictures on vacation, so each one has to get its own book! I have them all bound in black leather for consistency and they look awesome all together on a shelf. I vote for all of your ideas above — quarterly books might be the way to go for you. Scrapbooking is soo time consuming and can get pretty messy, and it’s such a shame to leave so many beautiful pictures hangin’ out on your hard drive.
Suggestions are my middle name, or really my blogging name…anyhoo I would suggest using My Publisher or Shutterfly (cheaper than Blurb) or use whatever Kelle Hampton (from Enjoying the Small Things) uses, her books are awesome…but what you have so far looks fantastic, it helps that you are an amazing photographer!
It’s totally doable! I started doing “year” books starting our first year of marriage. I actually did a shutterfly book because we liked how the parent books we made for our wedding turned out. I’m planning to try blurb this year because I heard so many good things. It’s just important to really keep your photos organized throughout the year and if possible (which it hasn’t been for me), make the book as the year goes.
We leave our’s on our coffee table so when we have visitors they can see what the last year brought us. We’ve gotten really good responses from everyone!
I blogged about the one I made. you can view it here: http://thebooneadventures.blogspot.com/2010/05/paper-anniversary.html
Doing one for each kid is a great idea! The only thing that I can see that would be difficult with that is the more kids you have the more group shots you’ll probably be doing too. And it starts to get pricey.
Hope that helps!
I was thinking…You could do a book for each child through the years. For example have a book of Will’s elementary, junior high, and high school years. That could be one way you could make a book for each child without making it too daunting or expensive.
I don’t do mine monthly because there are some months we just don’t do anything exciting. I just chronicle the important things I want to remember in the years to come. It took me a couple of months to put it together exactly the way I wanted…but I also procrastinated a little bit here and there.
I’ve created “Family yearbooks” for every year since I met my husband. So, 2006 is “K— Family Yearbook – We meet and fall in love”…2007 “K— FYB – We move in together and get engaged”…2008 “KFYB – We do!” (wedding year). I make them all through iPhoto, which has a 100 page limit…so it’s HARD for some years. For 2008, we had a before wedding, wedding day, after wedding “volume” so there are 3 smallish books for that year…anyway, for the most part I’ll continue to try to limit each year to just 100 pages. Good luck, whatever you decide to do 🙂
I am not scrapbooking eaither, but when we came home from our fall vacation to Yosemite last year we actually got all our best pictures printed in a book. I think someone else among the commentators for this blog post mentioned Snapfish, and that was just the one that we used as well. Snapfish for HP computers. Just great and so creative. I will do the same thing again when I have collected all our photos from our honeymoon three years ago :).
I do a book a year per kid (which so far in one book for one kid- he’s only 18 months). I did blurb. Definitely worth it and way nicer than Shutterfly or what have you. You can do layouts in PS and upload that way too (do you have morairi compositor?- I think that’s how it’s spelled). That makes it super easy! I did an 8×8 soft back last year but am getting all fancy and going with an 8×11 hardback. If you google Bloom Photography and look at the one she made her daughter it’s a Blurb book.
Beautiful pictures too! Will is adorable!
Out of all the pairing of photos, I think that the close up and the not so close, is the best one!
I fully support the idea of Blurb! I made two books of our wedding for my parents and grandparents and the quality turned out beautifully. It’s really not that expensive for the quality you get. And fully customizable. I was very impressed and will be using them in the future. I don’t think it’s too much to do a year of photos at all. That’s how my mom has all our family photos organized in albums. The book actually looked very small with only 57 pages, so I am sure a year of photos would look great!
I love Blurb! I made a book using our wedding photos and it came out incredibly professional looking. Plus, it is super fun to create. I think you could get away with doing a full year in one book (I think some of those Blurb templates offer a lot of pages.) Also, if you were open to using some of their other layouts that have room for multiple pictures on a page (maybe for pictures you want to use but aren’t your absolute favorites), you could fit more in. I did a mix of full page photos and “collaged” photos and was pleased with the result. Although, a whole book of full page photos would be really beautiful…
I LOVE Blurb. In fact, I just made (and received) a book last week. It was my second or third book with them and I couldn’t be happier with the result.
Now, I think a vacation book is a great idea. We do it for all our bigger trips (say 5 days or more). I take so many pictures that it’s easy to create a 30-40 page book. Plus it’s nice to show everyone afterwards.
I would also make a yearly book for Will. It would help you keep photos organized and neat, so you could look back at any one particular year.
I like the vacation book idea. You could also do holiday books, like one for Christmas and one for Easter, etc. or all holidays from a year into one book. That way you’d have a year divided into several books, and everything that’s not a special occasion like vacation or a holiday can go into an extra one. And having an extra yearly book for Will (and each of his siblings) would be nice! I like looking through my baby albums, and I’m sure it’s something that Will would enjoy later in life as well!
I’ve used both MyPublisher and Blurb and Blurb is my favorite by far. I actually found them less expensive and I liked their cover wrap options (instead of sleeves!). And I ony make the photobooks about once a year (because I’m lazy), but I think you definitely need to do one for each baby! They would love that once their all grown up! Being a middle child myself I wish there were more pictures of me 🙂
I am working on a digital scrapbooking project for 2010 – a page a week. I have a simple, two page layout that has room for 5 pictures and some text if I choose. I added in a place for the date and every month a change the background colors/digital papers. I just drop in my 5 pictures every week and add some text about what happened that week. Sometimes if we did something really fun most of the pictures are from one day (like a trip to the children’s museum). Other times I do a picture a day. My son just turned 2, so I knew he would change a lot this year and I wanted to capture it all!
At the end of the year I will have it published – maybe shutterfly or my publisher.
Also, last year for Christmas I made a Best of 2009 book for our parents. It was just all the best pictures of my son from the year. It turned out great!
I have made photo books with Shutterfly and they turned out great. The plus side is they are cheaper than blurb and they often have specials (get one free, get one 50% off, buy 3 get one free) so that makes it very appealing! I also use snapfish to upload my pics and create things. They usually have great offer as well.
There’s another place called scrapblog that allows you to add details to your page. You can add backgrounds, colors, quotes etc. I am still working on my first book from there, but it’s pretty sweet!
As far as the events go- I LOVE the vacation idea. I think maybe quarterly would be a good idea…until more kiddos come along and then it may be too hard (you know, with all those great pics of your cute offspring). Maybe something according to events, or the”best” for each 6 months?? I’m not sure.
I too need to think of a great photo idea and get to making some books!
I think you take so many beautiful photos that you will have plenty of pictures for a vacation book. I’ve made some before and you can even label the spine. It will be like your own like photo encyclopedia, put the place and the date and line them up as you go! Love it!
I’d say go with the quarterly book. If you do the vacation/special event book, then there’s bound to be one kid out of the four that doesn’t have as many books. But if every kid gets 4 books a year for the first 18 years, then there won’t be any complaining. At least not about the number of books, that is – there will still be complaining!
ok… i had grand visions of doing all these things as well. however, three nuggets later and i’m happy that i even take pictures. ok… i really take a ton of pictures, but i stick to only a few photo projects. each year i burn a dvd of some great pics from the whole year and set it to music. this is great to pull out when your kids are going nuts. they love to look at themselves and will remain totally quiet while watching. i also do smaller vacation books. usually just pictures. i tell myself that since a picture is worth a thousand words that i don’t need to add any more. i also keep a family blog. you can make this totally private, too. i just find it easier to upload and type all in the same sitting. blurb will turn our blog into a book, too. so you can do this every year and have an amazing time line of your life. i will randomly throw together books of just one child or event when snapfish or shutterfly offers free stuff. i consider those more for fun since my kids rip thru those on an everyday basis. 🙂
I love the idea of the photos paired together – the shots of sand etc. mixed with the personal shots are great. As an obsessed scrapbooker who has had to put my hobby on the backburner (I have 2 year old twins!) I’ve had to embrace simple projects like this. But you know – simplicity really makes the photos stand out.
I like the idea of having family yearbooks. and then you can make another one for a special occasion you want to document separately, like your recent vacation.
so bizarre! – exactly a month ago i wrote an email to myself (i do that instead of writing post-its, they don’t get lost) titled “family yearbooks.” it sounds like several people have mentioned doing this, but at the time i thought i had come up with a novel idea. haha. here are the notes i gave myself
– use blurb (or research other options) yeah, i guess others are cheaper but blurb is so classy!
– 1 book a year. this may be hard to do, but would definitely keep you from constantly working on a million different books (although a dedicated vacay one isn’t a bad idea)
– done as a family. i thought everyone could chip in to pick the items that make the cut. obviously you’d have to wait until your kids are old enough to participate, but until then, it can be done as a couple
– to include: anything that’s been memorable: favorite pictures, scanned recipes, children’s artwork, a memorable bible verse, song lyrics, etc. if you go heavy on pictures and then supplement with the other things it just adds a little extra interest.
i haven’t followed through on this yet, so hopefully you’ll post yours and i can see how it turns out. good luck!
Another strong vote for blurb here! I have used them and LOVE the prices and the books. I’m not sure why people think shutterfly is cheaper…blurb is cheaper, especially if you’re ordering more than 20 pages in a book. Shutterfly also only lets you have 100 pages…blurb goes up to 440.
I do yearly albums and they are large. My last album was 200 pages. I do a combination of the great shots I love and include a lot of things in our daily life. I want my kids and future generations to get a real glimpse of what our lives are/were like. Not just the great portraits.
Usually I’m about a year behind in our albums. So, this year, my goal is to complete 2009 by the end of 2010. Blurb always sends a coupon out for 20% off and free shipping in Nov. and that when I order the book.
Because there are so many offers out there for free photo books, or at least hugely discounted, especially around Christmas time. I would use those offers to make all the other little special books that you want…vacation, etc.
For my kids, I did paper scrapbooks for their first year. Now expecting our third, I might be switching to a digital album for him or her. Still evaluating how I’m going to give each child an album of memories outside their baby book. Probably will be done on blurb.
I don’t have experience with Blurb, but I will say that Shutterfly and Snapfish both do fantastic jobs with their photo books! I like the idea of a yearly book with the highlights, but then also doing seperate books for big events- such as a vacation, holidays, etc. I’m a scrapbooker, as is my mom, and she did tons of books- the ones I like the best are the books she made for my sis and I that are “through the years.” She started at birth with both of us, and then it goes through each year growing up until high school graduation. It’s an abbreviated story of our lives (only 2-4 pages for each age), but it’s a REALLY nice thing to have. And it means so much that my mom made it her self for us. 🙂
Your photo pairings look fantastic- can’t wait to see the finished product!
We have done year books for the last 3 years. I am a huge proponent of it. After the addition of Little Man last December, our goal is to do a Little Man book at the end of the year when we do our 2010 book. With Blurb, you get better deals when you order larger books and/or multiple books.
Huge fans of your pairings. In our year books, that’s the only way we make it work. For some of our bigger events in a year (i.e., vacation, concerts, etc.) we may have some of the collage pages on overload to get all the shots that we want in.
Definitely worth the time and $ to make the memories last!
I don’t scrapbook either. Too time consuming and messy. I’ve made several photo books and love it!
My method is to make yearly books (but I don’t take very many pictures so my books don’t turn out too long.) and seperate books for large trips. In the yearly books I’ll put a page or two devoted to the trip, but with large trips like the Beach or site seeing in big cities I felt like I needed a whole seperate book.
A co-worker created baby books for each of her children for each of their years. I thought this was a great way for the child to see how they’ve grown over time.
Katie I love your pictures! I am all about taking tons of photos too. I just want to remember everything for when I’m old and decrepit and can’t remember what I had for lunch. The blurb photo books are pretty nice. I’ve known people who have used it and I’ve always loved the finished product. Anyways I think putting a whole year’s worth of photos in one book would make it huge. If I were you, I’d probably break it out by seasons. 3-4 months at a time seems much more do-able and less overwhelming (in my mind). I can’t wait to hear what you decide!
I didn’t read everyone’s comments, so I don’t know if this was already suggested, but here’s what I’m thinking –
Since you have so many photos you love from this vacation (and probably from other single instances/events), you could do a smaller, more inexpensive book for each event (like something from Walgreens; I’ve gotten theirs and they are great), then do a nicer Blurb book for the whole year of your most favorite photos from the year. Then you’ll have nice, neat books from each event that you can line up together, and then you can have your yearly Blurb albums you can line up together. That’s what I would do!
Your photos are so awesome! I love the side-by-side idea. Love your texture photos…I’ve been working more lately on incorporating some texture shots into my stuff.
I think you should do all of the above!
– Make a small book from each vacation.
– Make a big book for each year since you’ve been married.
– Make a really, really big book for each child. Get it to them at their high school graduation. (My mom did this for me and my sister. We both seriously treasure those albums.)
I really like using blurb. I always google blurb discount codes and usually save 20% off my books.
Are you planning on having your four kids spaced two years apart?
When my first child was born, I began doing yearly family photo albums using Blurb. I organize the photos by month. I begin the month’s worth of photos by listing on one page all the important events of that month (trip to the park with friends, Callan’s 2nd birthday party, snowstorm of 2010, etc…) and then organize the pics on the following pages without using much text (which makes putting the book together go faster). The pictures usually speak for themselves.
So far the quality and pricing of their books have been great. Once you sign up to use Blurb they will send you coupon codes to get discounts off their books. Last year they sent a coupon right at Christmas time for free shipping PLUS 20% off your total. That made it extremely affordable.
I’ve also heard of friends making a personal Blurb book for each of their children on their birthday, capturing the best pics of that kid from the previous year. It doesn’t have to be a large book…even 20-30 pages could make a great keepsake for the kid and not cost much at all (especially if you use coupons from snapfish or shutterfly).
I have been making Blurb books every year for our anniversary since we got married, and will definitely be doing the same when we have kids. I love Blurb! I definitely will be doing it when we have kids. It may be a little bit pricer than other options, but the quality is great and it seems like there are more design options than other services I have looked at. Your photos are beautiful- I’m sure it will be a great book!
We used Blurb for our wedding album, and I had so much fun creating it. Their application for download is so simple to use, I pretty much downloaded it and got right to it!
Personally, a yearly book would be pretty cool… Like a family yearbook of sorts. Otherwise, you may have too many books, some really thin (and therefore maybe you wouldn’t be able to commit to the cost of yet another book). But one honkin’ book would be too fun, and you can title them by year, or whatever floats your boat!
Good luck, can’t wait to see what you churn out!
I do a photo book for each of our vacations. I think they are nicer and will last longer than printing the pictures and putting them in albums. And they make for good house decor and conversation topics. As far as documenting will’s life, I have a friend who does picture books by the year. She keeps a folder and puts pictures in there to use. There are so many programs and you can do more than one picture on a page. I use iPhoto but I know there are others. Hope that helps. I’m going to make me a photography book of my favorite shots.
I love the way you’ve paired the photos. It is going to turn out so nice!
Will is turning into a spitting image of Jeremy!
I love your pairings!
I am really torn about the photo album issue as well. I am concerned that a book for each year would end up being way too many books. And are you going to print one for each kid to have in the future? That’s like 100 books if you have 4 kids and want to keep a copy for yourself.
I’m thinking about doing one every five years. I’d still print pictures and get smaller books of vacations and stuff, but for the family album, I think five years will work best for me. I like the idea of a bigger book that tells a longer story rather than multiple smaller books for each year.
But I say definitely go for the vacation book too, and then only put a couple of your favorites in the family album.
Keep us updated on your progress and which company you decide to use 🙂
my blog is mainly about my life as a wife of a youth minister and a mom of a beautiful baby boy. but i love to cook and have started crafting (thanks to inspiration from you! and other blogs), i have printed a blog book once a year from thecutestblogontheblock.com. It is SO easy and SO cheap. You of course dont have to do the full year… you can just choose what dates you want included. i have printed one of all the blogs i wrote while pg, and then his first year. i have been VERY pleased with them. love love love!
I really like the idea of doing a yearbook and a vacation book. It’s only be two books a year and all those precious vaca photos would still be displayed.
The hubs made a Blurb book for me last Christmas, filled with pictures of us. I really like the idea of doing something similar for a family year book. However, to avoid a massive phone book situation, I’ve been picking the best of the best pictures from each event. It’s a little more time consuming, but I’m thinking that a quality over quantity approach may be the best option here – cuz honestly, sometimes when I go back over old photo albums I ask myself why the heck I included half of the pictures I did.
I think a book per year would be perfect, even if they are big. Maybe you could also do books for the “special” vacations, like Will’s first vacation, traveling to another country, etc. Then you can include the regular yearly vacations into your year books. 🙂
I make a MyPublisher photobook for every vacation and I always love how they turn out! I’m intrigued by all these comments now though, and maybe I’ll try Blurb the next time around. I agree with you that it’s much better to whip out a book to show people vacation pictures than taking out the laptop and clicking through. Making the book helps you pare down, pick your favorites, and organize (which by the way, you’re excellent at judging by the pairings you did in this post…love them all!).
I use Photobook
http://photobookusa.com/
The quality is amazing. I make them for all trips and am actually working on a Summer 2010 one right now. They look great on a coffee table and our pictures actually get looked at by us and or guests.
I highly recommend them.
I LOVE the ideas of making books. I’d vote for one per year per child. It can be cumbersome, but SO worth it! My daughter and I love looking through hers and I love that she’ll have 18 of them when she graduates.
But… If I may be totally honest… I wouldn’t put in too many of the “texture”, landscape, inanimate object pictures. They’re BEAUTIFUL, but not the thing I’d want to look back on from my childhood. I think you could find another way to display those that would show them off.
Hi Caitlin,
Yup. I know that child planning is sortof a hoax…The Big Guy is in charge of when we get kids…but ideally we would like four kids before Jeremy turns 40.
XO – Katie
I love the texture and portrait combinations the best, but I have a tactile memory. So, for me at least, seeing the grains of sand helps me remember the way that felt, and that opens up the whole vacation’s memories. The idea of a quarterly book is good, and if it ever gets too much, you can always put a CD with extra pictures that you want to keep but for whatever reason didn’t make the book in the back of the album.
I have made several books with Blurb and I love them. I never use words; good pictures don’t need them. A title page with place and date and you are good to go.
http://styleandcentsability.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/before-and-after-bathroom/
I made a Blurb book for my daughter’s first year, so it’s really just her baby book. The fantastic thing about it is that I could just print out 2 additional ones and give them as gifts to my mom and my MIL. It’s not too daunting of a task b/c Blurb will pull straight from your blog and you can add/delete any thing you want. I plan on making a book each year of her life (and any siblings that she has), so it will all be chronicled and I don’t have to spend hours creatively cutting out pictures and letters for a scrapbook…that’s too time consuming for me!
I 100% recommend doing it!
I have made a yearbook (with Shutterfly-I think they do a great job and they are constantly giving me free photobooks!) every year on our anniversary and have done separate books for big events (wedding, honeymoon, house, etc.) However since there is no way for me to fit in all the pictures I take during the year (I carry around 3 cameras with me at all times!) I burn the pictures I didn’t end up using in the photobook onto a DVD and then glue an envelope onto the back inside cover of the photobook (I get the hardcover books) and put the DVD in it. That way I have all my pictures from the year in one place and not hiding on some old hard drive somewhere.
I often feel overwhelmed with photos and the thought of forgetting moments of importance or just the small daily things. I have an 11mth old daughter. I no longer have time to scrapbook so I now use Shutterfly.com to create photobooks. I like to do a lot of writing in mine do document her 1st moments. To avoid being overwhelmed (and price of adding extra pages) I’ve done a book every 3mths and use the same theme and layout. Next year I will change that part. They look nice on our shelves and the ease of making them is great! As for a vacation book, I would not hesitate one bit to make a separate book. There are always soooo many great vacation pictures and memories to document! My final comment, I think you are an amazing photographer! I love your black and white beach pictures. Would you consider selling them?
I just love your photos. I definitely vote for a photobook! It’s easier than scrapbook. Maybe you can do a yearly book to highlight major events of the year.
Katie-
I’ve started making an end-of-year book for my Mom and MIL for Christmas. Like some of the other people have commented, I basically take the best pics of the month and have at least 1 page (and sometimes more if we have a busy month or go on vacation) with that month and year at the top with the pics and some text about what was going on. Both have said that that’s what they want every year! (hint: I use Shutterfly and make two books with basically the same pics in it, but each book concentrates on what each grandmother did with the kids). Like, my Mom’s book will have her and my Dad with all of our general family photos and my MIL’s will have her with the kids and the general fam photos. My Mom said “it doesn’t take up a lot of rm, i can take if on a trip, and i don’t have to return it because it doesn’t fit!” But be careful!!! Once you’ve opened this can, it’s a hard one to close! (They can get a little peeved if they think they’re not getting a book!) 🙂 Good luck! I’m sure it’ll be great!
Lauren B.
Love your idea about a book! Something else you could do is by seasons, so 4 books a year. I thought it kinda went with your quarterly idea except it would be less often than 3 months so it may not take up too much of your time. Great idea though!
I did a photo book for the year last year on Shutterfly and I think it turned out well. I’m a totally amateur photog (just use a point and shoot, no DSLR for me) so my photos aren’t as pretty as yours but I like that I have one book of all of the big moments. Your year book might be pretty big with all of your awesome photos! I think the quarterly thing is a good idea and then you don’t have to wait til January of the next year to get your year book. Vacation books are also a good idea, maybe just make them smaller (a.k.a. cheaper)?
Love your idea about the book. Something else you could do is by seasons. I thought this kind of went with your quarterly idea but it wouldn’t be as often as 3 months. That way you wouldn’t eat up too much of your time. I think a book is such a great idea!
Definitely do an annual book and include all the best photos and memories of the year. It will make for the perfect compilation.
http://thelonelywifeproject.wordpress.com/
Hi Katie,
You take great photos! I have been thinking the same thing about making memory books for individual vacations or holidays. They make nice gifts too. I recently did some research on the best photo book printers, and found that Mypublisher was fantastic. I work in the design/printing industry, so photo quality is very important to me. Their free downloadable software is easy to use, they provide live on-line chat for any questions and assistance, and they are super fast! I placed an order on a Monday night, and my book arrived on Friday. The quality was great (better than iphoto) and the image resolution was excellent. My boss recently ordered a book of her wedding photos. They also offer coupons and run promotions all the time. Like buy one get one 1/2 off. Check it out: http://mypublisher.com/
Happy photo taking and book making!
-Sarah
Hi Katie,
I started taking tons and tons of photos but also collecting mementos from the beginning of my fiance’s and my relationship. We have been together over two years now, so I made a scrapbook with photos of us and all our mementos (one every two years is my plan) and then I started making shutterfly photo albums for every one of our trips. They are great because you can make them soft & hard cover, organize photos and simply type in dates and an album title.
We take lots of road trips and vacations (probably 4+ a year) so we could wind up being rather inundated with the shutterfly albums but I love the idea of some day having an entire bookcase with albums of all of our trips and then scrapbooks of all our special times together (holiday, birthdays, every day, new house, etc). Since you’re not into scrapbooking, I love the idea of quarterly books and then vacation only ones (especially since you take fewer / year). The following link may help you with deciding best site for albums: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/reviews-tests/appliances-electronics/best-web-site-photo-books. Best of luck in the photo album world!
I love the idea of the books! I have never used Blurb, but I usually make books with Creative Memories. Usually I make an album a year that has a few pictures from each month of the year, and then a big vacation one that is separate. The quality of the books from Creative Memories is really good and the pricing is similar to that of Blurb. I swear I don’t work for them, but I love their products!
Your family is so beautiful!
Bear with me because I know you said no scrap booking but “virtual scrap booking” would add an extra personal touch. We used My Publish to make our wedding album and while their layouts and backgrounds are cute we wanted something more personal and we wanted to use more photos in a certain number of pages that it would allow.
So I abused photoshop and “virtually” scrap booked most of the pages 🙂 I created my own personal layout with several photos and my own background and photoshopped together a page (virtually scrap booked, I will make it a phrase!) and dropped those into the book as if it were a single full page picture. I also threw in a few of My Publisher’s layouts and single photos for contrast but I had so much more fun designing my own pages from the ground up and I ended up with a far more personal book with all the pictures I wanted. Example, I have a page with my ring bearer, the ring pillow, and the best man taking the rings off the pillow mid-ceremony where the background is a close-up of the ring pillow (it was a map of the area we where we met and got married.)
Whichever photo book building software you use, just remember you do not need to be limited by their layouts and formulas. Time and energy may be a factor, but you personal touch on your albums doesn’t need to be.
Oh, and I think an annual book where you make the pages as you go on a monthly or big-event basis would be the way to go. You can even use something like Shutterfly and upload your in-progress annual book/photos and send them to family and friends.
Here’s a very thorough review of the different photo book printing services:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/digitalcameras/picking-the-best-photo-book-printing-services/2871
I like the idea of a yearly photo book, plus bonus books for vacations, special occasions, etc.
Your compliment at the top? Just made me smile!
As for the photo albums I have thought about a quarterly book for our family. One year just seems way too overwhelming. It’s funny that you worry about who will get what album when you’re gone… I do the same thing! My plan is to do a few albums a year of misc. events and one for the big family vacation. Then I’d like to (if all goes as planned) go back through the photos at the end of the year and select a few photos from each month of each kid to have their own smaller book. This way they feel like they have some special photos of their own.
Shew…I’m glad I’m not the only one who plans this neurotic stuff out! ; )
I made my parents a photo book using Shutterfly and I used a discount code where all I had to pay was the shipping!!! SCORE!!!! Keep a look out for these, I’ve seen it multiple times….
Wicked easy to do, as most others here have commented and looks AWESOME all bound up (I got a hard cover)
I love storybooks — http://www.CustomMadeStorybooks.com — that is exactly what we do! Help people create books to save memories for the family to cherish forever! You can do a book for the year – maybe a smaller book for special occasions too — I am working now on scanning in my oldest son’s artwork from school for a school yearbook. The nice thing here is that you have unlimited options as much text or no text at all on all of the pages, same with pictures you can have 1 or 100 (no limit per page)- all depends on you! I would definitely make at least one canvas to hang on your wall with those gorgeous pictures you took!
I am totally with you too — I have 4 kiddos – 3 boys age 4, 3, and 4 months, and one sweet princess age 2. I love your blog too!
Amazing photos. Amazing!!! I was just chatting with a friend during our morning run about how beautiful this morning light would be for pictures! I loved the morning beach pictures with Will – out of this world adorable!
I just wanted to tell you that you’ve totally inspired me! I was thinking about our vacation (back in July) yesterday and was having a difficult time remembering this amazing meal we had and thought of your blog post and decided I needed to make a book about our vacay. I downloaded the blurb softare and was up until midnight last night working on it!
While a book of only photos would be beautiful, think about writing some words (maybe on some nice paper and sticking it in the back cover once the book is printed) so when your kids are older they can read about what you did on your vacation.
I love Blurb! It’s so easy to use, and there are almost always discounts available (but I’m sure you know that).
Sidenote: it does not look like you just had a baby a few months you. You look fan-freakin’-tastic. That’s all. And yes, I’ve been reading your blog for a year and never commented but felt the need to tell you this. 🙂
Totally off any subject~ but what is the texture of yalls walls? Is it crows foot? Have yall done any texture work to update how the walls feel? We have crows foot everywhere and don’t love it- I haven’t seen yall post on the subject of wall texture and I’d love ur thoughts~
thanks
Amy
Hmm….well Amy, I think that our walls are just flat normal texture…nothing added to the drywall mud or anything like that. When we patch holes or build new walls (like in our basement), we add joint compound layers and sand in between for flat walls. Then we always use drywall primer before painting. Hope this helps.
XO – Katie
You could always print your blog posts out to mix into your photo album! That would certainly solve the not enjoying writing part and would help your kids later on to look back on your fun times and see what you enjoyed most! My Mom did yearly photo albums for a long time and they were a good 4-5 inches thick. I love looking back at them but from about middle school on, we just have boxes of photos and newspaper clippings…too much to keep up with!
Just wanted to say that I used Blurb to make a photo guestbook for our wedding and I completely fell in love with it. It was my first time using Blurb and at first it seemed scary and complicated, but it was actually really simple to use and the finished product looked so professional. It looked way better than Shutterfly albums that I’ve seen. I really loved the options (one picture taking up a whole page or even two pages — or multiple pictures on one page). I’ve only been married for 4 months and we don’t have kids, but I like the idea of making photo albums regularly. We don’t do many exciting things (yet), so I think I could maybe get away with a yearly book for the first year, but increase the # of books when babies come along. 🙂 Thanks for the ideas! Definitely try Blurb! You’ll love it!
I just want to say thanks. Your blog is wonderful. Your home is beautiful. Your posts are REAL.
You’re one of my favorite go-to blogs when I want good ideas, or just to chill and read for a while. One of those ones I’d want to be friends with if we even lived remotely close…only a little weird, I know 🙂
Blessings on your family
Anna
I think Blurb is amazing. I use it for my photography business for wedding albums, and they never fail to please. Its really resonably priced too… cost me £20 for a 80 page soft cover book.
I’ve been making Blurb books for a few years now. I make a yearly one (Dec – Nov) and print one for us and give one to the grandparents for a Christmas gift. It’s a hit every year!
Here is our 2008 Blurb book…
http://keeponsmyelin.blogspot.com/2009/09/blurb-book.html
very nice! i was just about to make a nursery reveal request in your post for today, but something told me to scroll down a bit. glad i did. i totally understand about it taking a long time to finish. my daughter is 6 months old and i’m still not quite done with my vision for her nursery.
wow…did you take all these photos? they’re amazing! i love the “pairing” concept , it is so unique . I would recommend doing a title and month/year . i.e. ” Malibu Beach : May/2010″ This way you can organize it chronologically by date and month but the book has a title of the place/event so you can easily pull it off the bookshelves to show your guests.