Posts Tagged ‘family’

In my ongoing quest to encourage everyone to get your images off of your computer and into print I’m sharing what I do with my own personal images. I’ve had several requests for information on the albums I print. I’ve been using Blurb for years now. They have great prices, good quality (not the best, but good for the price), great tools for designing your albums, and excellent customer service.

You can organize your albums any way you choose, but I do a whole family album every year. These albums include vacations, holidays, and just snapshots from our home life. I have extended family in there as well because they are such a huge part of our lives. Then I do individual albums for each child that span several years. These albums include events such as birthdays, field trips, their friends, awards, and photos of just them. I like to make it personal and include my descriptions of their personalities at the time and a letter to them every year on their birthday.

Each album is well over 100 pages so I needed something that wouldn’t be too expensive or bulky. Blurb was the best option I’ve found. They have software for designing your pages that make the process simple. I personally like to have as much control as possible so I use InDesign by Adobe. I have found that I like a simple, no frills layout. Each page takes minutes to design so the process isn’t too cumbersome.

Of course you might find that you want to do yours differently. I have friends who do a book for each vacation, or a book with just Christmas photographs. Whatever works for you is best. There have been many afternoons I’ve found my kids laying on the couch pouring over their album and reading everything I wrote. They laugh at the funny stories, like the time my daughter cut her hair off so she could look like her friend. Then there was the time my son had a huge goose egg on his forehead from a backyard accident. When I look at them I see chubby little toddler cheeks that I miss so much, and I see times that went by too fast. These albums are priceless to me.

I know I’ll never find my kids pouring over CDs on a lazy afternoon. It just won’t happen. So please print your images! You’ll be so happy you did!