Q&A from Julie:
What type of scrapbooking system do you use to preserve and display
your regular family photos?
I’m in a quandary right now about what to do with our pictures.
Here is my
experience:
I have not done photo albums from our first few years of
marriage. After Autumn was born, I made a digital photo
book using MyPublisher. I was
disappointed in the graininess of the pictures, so I decided to try another
company. I gave Nelson a photo book for Father’s Day from Costco, and one of the pages ripped really easily, so I
decided to try another company. I made
Anna’s baby book using Shutterfly. The
quality of the photos was not way better than MyPublisher, but I did like the
options and user-friendly website of Shutterfly. I stuck with them and have made several more
photo books through them. In 2012, I
decided to make digital photo books of our family in 2011. I had to divide the year quarterly and made
four good-size books because I had so many pictures. It took forever. So in 2014, I decided to try Project Life by
Becky Higgins. It is basically lots
of options of photo pockets for you to put your printed pictures in, then you
can put their cute cards between pictures to write what’s happening in the photo or just be
decorative. While I really like the finished product, it seems like it has taken about as much time as digital scrapbooking, and I think it's been more expensive.
Here is my dilemma:
Digital Photo Books
Pros: You can fit
lots of pictures on one page
There
are many options for backgrounds, stickers, etc.
I like
the finished product of a bound book.
You can
“highlight” special pictures easily.
Cons: The quality of the finished pictures is not always
perfect.
I am a
perfectionist and it takes me a very long time.
The
websites are often running slowly.
I don’t
love staring at the computer screen for a long time.
I won’t
let my kids look at or hold these books alone for fear that they’ll rip the
pages.
Project Life/ Pocket
Scrapbook Pages
Pros: The quality of
the pictures is as clear and good as where you have them printed.
The
pocket pages are thick and kids can look at the books without ripping them.
You can add in pictures and written
text later, and you can add memory stuff like ticket stubs or programs in
envelopes at the back.
Cons: It is costly to print your pictures and buy the
Project Life supplies.
You can’t
always fit the pictures exactly how you want with the pocket pages available.
It still takes a really long
time. I don’t know if I take too many
pictures or write too much (probably both), but scrapbooking isn’t just
something I can do fast!
It is much easier if you have all
of the pictures printed before you start (you’ll be shuffling pictures and
cards around if you try to get started before having every picture ready to
go).
I would love your advice! What
do you use, what do you recommend, how do you include scrapbooking in your
regular life with kids, ANY tips?
I don't do any scrapbooking besides a simple baby book (and Emma's isn't even done. . . don't ask about Noah's!). But I do use the company called Blurb to do photo books or blog-to-book projects. I really love the quality (and it will warn you if a certain picture might look pixilated due to low image quality) and the prices are decent. I sign up for the emails that send you deals like 20% off, free shipping, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe other nice thing is that you just download free software to make the book, then upload when you're done so you don't even have to have an internet connection while creating it.
I wish I had more time to sit down and do it, but at least it's something that only requires my computer and not a bunch of supplies.
One thing that I do is we have frames throughout the house that I put pictures in, and when I update the pictures, I take the old ones out and just put them in an old-fashioned one that just has the slots. Otherwise I am really bad about it. Similar to Bethany, only I haven't even started on Emily's yet.
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