So, as I started writing in the last draft - helloooo! Sorry it's been so long, life continues apace and I'm working on the kids' photo books for the 2018-2019 school year (which they receive as a Christmas present every year), so I've spent 2-3 hours a night doing that. I'm done with August through November (including Costa Rica which took me FOREVER to condense down in a meaningful way, my goodness that whole trip was incredible) and up to Christmas in December, so I'm feeling good about my progress.
These damn books take me about 100 hours (actually probably 200... maybe more, I probably don't want to know), but my kids pick up one and read through favorite parts at least once a week for the rest all year. Just the other day Cora ran to grab her first year book to determine whether "babies where shoes" (no idea where the question came from, but she knew just where to find the answer; turns out they do "sometimes" but not "most of the time"). Last night Claire was reading through her Year 3 book after dinner and laughing at all the funny quotes I'd put in there with stories about her and her brother back when they were truly each other's very best friend.
The words are what take forever- I go back through a year's worth of blog and facebook posts and copy favorite snippets over to a Word doc I then slowly add and edit into the photo book, but they are BY FAR my kids' favorite parts. They see pictures all the time- hearing the story of Landon's response when he found out I was pregnant with Cora or reading their funny toddler phrases and stories are what they open the books for. And I love them too, which is why every Fall, I start again on page 1, find an old chick flick on TV, and start photobooking away.
I make our books on Shutterfly. There are lots of great sites out there, but I've used Shutterfly for years and will probably stick with it just because I know the interface and all my books match. I've had great experiences with their customer service, getting books re-printed for free if some colors are off or a page didn't print as shown on the computer. They also have unlimited photo and project storage, allowing me to go back and re-print something years later if needed.
ALL the books, in the living room, where they are read ALL the time
Back when I first started making the books you had to stick with the preset templates offered by Shutterfly, but now you can change absolutely everything. This means it takes a million times longer for me to do the books, but it also means I don't yell at the screen that I "just want to add a text box right there!". You can add backgrounds, stickers, ribbons, text boxes, and all the photos you want. (Except not really, as I learned last year- you're maxed at 110 pages for the book, which has never been a problem, though I'm getting closer, and 1,000 photos- a max I hit last year! Turns out with 5 people, several vacations, and 12 months of time, 1,000 pictures are needed to capture it all. But my older books are like 45 pages and 300 pictures.).
As I mentioned above, my goal for the books is to be the time capsule for each year (August-August; measured by the school year). I include stories from the blog, funny quotes and questions from the kids, letters from me, pictures of special school work, art work, writing journal entries, the year-end report cards, pictures of them in their bedrooms- the mundane, the vacations, the extended family, the just hanging around... literally everything. And then it's done!
I used to do different books for each kid back when I had only had two and our years were way less full. But then I was ordering two copies of each book- one for me, one for them- and quickly decided that wasn't sustainable. Plus, and most importantly, I realized when looking through some of my parents' old photo albums, some of what was most then fun to see was the pictures of my siblings and parents at all their different ages doing all their different activities. The pictures of me were actually the least interesting. So, four years ago I decided I would make one book- a Lag Liv family photo album that included everyone and every thing our family did that year. So there's a page for Landon winning the spelling bee, Claire playing volleyball, Cora's funny toddler quotes and questions, James and I dressing up to go out for our anniversary or hosting a wine party with all their friends' parents... it's all in there. Then I save that four times and create individual covers and title pages for each kid. Then we just have one family book and each kid gets theirs with a special first page with a letter from me capturing what I remember most about them in that particular year.
Landon's cover, title page, and back cover pages
It's working great and is the only way I could possibly have kept up! (Though I should note that Cora also got a separate "First Year" book because the first year is so special and full of milestones and stats and other unique things to capture.)
Other random thoughts/process notes:
- If you use Shutterfly, save your book when you're done and then wait for the "unlimited free pages" promotion. It's by far their best offer for photobooks because you just pay for the base book ($20 or so) and add whatever additional discounts you have. So last year I ordered FOUR 103-page full color, hard-cover books for a grand total of $106, which is completely ridiculous.
- To get started, I go back through my photos from the year (which I already cull way down after each month), selecting the ones that stand out or I think tell the story of each month, and export them to a new folder on my desktop labeled Aug-Dec; Jan-Apr; May-Aug. Then I upload one tranche and finish those months before adding the next set of photos. It keeps things feeling manageable. When I'm done with one tranche I delete all the photos I didn't use from the project to start with a clean slate for the next.
- I used to use the storyboarding feature, but now I just make each page as I go in general chronological order. I break the order based on subject matter, for example, this year I had the Spelling Bee on a page in December but added the photos from the Regional Bee in January to complete that page and overall event. Same thing for swim team- I do one page for the summer with my favorite pics from the whole season.
- Each kid always gets one page dedicated to their random quotes, successes, and favorite things/pictures of that year. I spread those out throughout the book.
- There's also always a End of School page for each kid with their awards ceremony, a picture of them with their teacher, a screen shot of their end of year report card, and pictures of my favorite of their school and/or art work from the year.
That's all I can think of! I did make each kid a book from our Disneyworld trip because we had like 2,000 pictures and it was such a fun, special week, but other than that, I just include any vacation pages as part of the overall year. They're already going to graduate from childhood with a foot-long boxed set of 18, we don't need more!
And so, back to photobooking I go.
This is INCREDIBLE! You are such a great mom. Thank you for the detailed explanations/how to. As a working mom with 3 kids (7, 6, 3) and THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of pictures, I have been wanting to go back to the beginning and make photobooks but am feeling so overwhelmed. Your post made things feel a little bit more manageable. It's going to take me a long time to catch up but you made me realize it will be so worth it.
ReplyDeleteThanks! If I was starting a few years in, I would start with the school year (or calendar year, if you prefer) you just finished. You can always go back and fill in the past years, but getting on top of the last one will feel great! And if you don't go back, that's okay too! I think every book is a gift. And another option would be to do an overview of the preceding years with maybe 1 page per month of very favorite photos- the ones you love going back to see - to capture the flavor of the years before you started. Someday I'd love to go back and redo Landon's first year- it's such a small book with preset pages and is NOTHING like Claire and Cora's. But then I think, this is what was available to me then, and it's what kicked off this whole tradition and it's fine. Again, anything you create is a gift- to you and them! Good luck!
DeleteGood idea, because if I start 8 years ago I might never catch up. You are right, anything is better than nothing :) Thank you!
DeleteI'll also add---if you really want to save time, you can just choose your favorite pictures then let Shutterfly work its magic and arrange them for you. I don't do that because I am obsessive about my books, but this would be considerably faster than customizing every page, placing each picture just so, etc. (But then again, I still haven't done #2's baby book and he's 5...so I am not following my own advice here!!)
DeleteSo true and yet, I too know I'll never use that option! 😂
DeleteWow, this is amazing! Thanks for the tip on the 'free unlimited pages'! I used Shutterfly to make a 2018 photobook last year and I think that book alone was over $100 because I selected the special binding so it would lay more flat when you looked through the pages, which was probably unnecessary... but lesson learned! I put our 2018 photobook together in the early months of 2019 and it was such a pain that going forward, I'd 2 months at a time so things are more fresh in my memory. So in March I did the Jan/Feb pages, in May I did the Mar/Apr page, etc etc. It makes it much more manageable. I upload from google photos so at the end of each month, I make an album of favorite pictures to upload into shutterfly. That also makes it easier to make the books as the pictures are all organized by month.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea. I always say I'll photobook as the year goes on and then end up finding I like the 9 month break and then just diving in and smothering myself in Shutterfly late at night. I also find the distance from the events helps me distill them better into the summary format, but still, each November I think- I'll start these earlier next time!
DeleteAs a fellow Shutterfly photo-booker, I LOVE this post. Your process is a lot like mine (except I only made a first year book for baby #1...books for #2 and #3 are on my eternal to do list). So one thing I will also suggest is I make my books in early Dec each year---they cover prior Dec-Thanksgiving, and I give a copy to grandparents as their Christmas gift. Both sets of grandparents LOVE their books far more than anything I could buy for them. (They never run the unlimited pages deal around this time of year though, so I wait to order our copy until they run that promo as I always max out on pages and it makes a HUGE $$$ difference.) I am in a terrible mood in early December because this is what I do every night after kids are in bed, and each year I both (a) complain that I am 'stuck' doing this because everyone expects it (b) swear that the next year I will maintain a book as the year progresses (which I never wind up doing). Anyhow, I am glad that I do it for Christmas though because otherwise I'd never get around to it. Beyond time consuming, but awesome books!!
ReplyDeleteI do wall calendars for my parents and they LOVE them! It's like a lite version of photo booking so I enjoy making them when I need a break :). They each keep a copy in their offices and always text me when they get to flip to a new month.
Delete(And your complaining made me crack up because there are totally nights I'm whining about my photo booking and James will make a reasonable suggestion that I do less in them and I lash out with all the love I feel for them in my heart and he's like, okay, so you're good then? Shutterfly and I have a complex relationship.)
Not surprised your kids love them, since they look awesome. Also, I am never doing this. 😂😂😂
ReplyDeleteThis made me laugh out loud. 😂
DeleteCan you tell me your method of getting pictures onto your blog. Because I have so much trouble with blogspot.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU!
Yes! Sorry, you commented this once before and I totally lost it. I don't think there's any easy way to do this. I'm pretty obsessive about uploading my pictures from my phone every couple of days and putting them in their respective monthly folder. I use Picasa as my photo organizer and just select the pics I think I want to use in my next post, export a copy of them to a new folder titled that date on my desktop, upload them all into blogger, and then delete the folder. Then I move them around while I type to make them all line up the way I want them to. It's cumbersome, but it's how I've done it for 12 years so it works :/
DeleteI love this post!! I have done a variety of books over the years including an annual "week in the life" book where I take photos of all.the.things and capture the little details that get forgotten with time. Those end up being a favorite for all of us. The bigger annual albums have continued to stump me in terms of how I want to best approach that because I want us to enjoy them now and then also enjoy them way in the future when we will no longer all be living together. I have three kids too and 4 shutterfly books/year seems more cost effective than some of the other ideas I have been playing around with (such as a digital project life album). Thanks for sharing your thoughts & your process!
ReplyDeleteI love the "week in the life!" What a fabulous idea. I do always try to have a page somewhere in my yearly books that shows the kids in their room, the decor of our house (i.e., some non-cropped photos), our yard, and other random mundane things. I found when going through my parents' old albums that it was so fun to see my old childhood room or the decor of our living room- things I loosely remembered but had no photos of. It's the everyday that becomes so special :).
DeleteWhat size photobook do you create?
ReplyDeleteI do the 8 x 11. It was one of the only sizes they had when I started and now it's just what I'm used to! (And I want them all to match; Landon is on #13!)
DeleteI commented prematurely. Can you please elaborate on all the options you recommend? How do you choose a theme? Which page option do you choose - standard pages? layflat? deluxe layflat? My head is spinning.
ReplyDeleteI just pick something like "Everyday Bright"? The theme doesn't matter because you can go pick extra backgrounds and stickers and whatever else you want, so I just try to pick something I generally like because those backgrounds and extras will automatically be loaded and you can't delete them as options. But I never do any of the pre-designed pages, so it just doesn't matter much - I build them all from scratch.
DeleteOn the page options: I do the standard pages because I'm cheap, but I sprung for lay flat for a book I made for my grandparents and they were so nice!