"baby book" project from He!! & possible gift idea for others
So a few weeks ago I decided I was going to make ...ahem... long overdue babybooks. (2 are in HS, one just started college)
I have scoured the earth assembling and scanning and organizing photos. (love my new scanner btw, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZJH63M/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )
Thank goodness most all but about the first 6mo.s of the first kid are digital. I have over 8000 photos overall. Unfortunately, the first 10 years or so of kids photos all have the following date on them: Dec 1969. Which is more than 30+ years too early. With 2 girls 54 weeks apart, those early baby photos are very frustrating to sort out! That took hours and hours.
Then a whole slew of photos have the date March 19 2009, when they clearly aren't all from that date. Most of the rest have proper dates, and of course as everyone gets older it is a lot easier to figure out who is who.
BTW - note to others ... when you copy an Iphoto album that you manually sorted into a project, it does not stay sorted. Ask me how I know. Argghh. 1969 all over again.
I am done sorting and I have about 400 photos per kid. I had planned that each one's album would have all of their own photos, plus be interspersed with photos of the whole family (another 200) and, in each of the girls' books, also interspersed with the many "GirlZ" photos of just those two (another 100).
Small problem. The vendor I like, Iphoto, has a 100 pg limit on their books. And I don't like photobooks jam packed with a zillion mini photos. NO way to fit it all.
So ... I am going back to making books that only cover birth-five for each of them. They will include their footprints, photos of their nurseries, a custom monogram I had made for each years ago, and a letter about each baby from DH and I.
Then I will dump all of their photos into a slideshow of them that will cover birth-now. I will give them that on a flash drive.
There are a ton of cool/fun flash drives. I am ordering the ones below that are boxed. The box and the drive can be engraved. I think having a box will help make sure it is not lost (yes I know technology may well change). ANyway, I thought I would post this because some of you have something you could give on a flash drive and this is such a nice presentation.
Comments (37)
robo (z6a)
5 years agoI’ve been thinking about your project because Emmett’s birth-12mo photobook took me so long, Yours sounded superhuman! It’s amazing how long it can take to put four photos on a page.
Happy with how mine turned out.
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5 years agomtnrdredux_gw
5 years agorobo (z6a)
5 years ago
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
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neetsiepie
5 years ago
blfenton
5 years agoarcy_gw
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maire_cate
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5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoJoaniepoanie
5 years ago
Sueb20
5 years agomtnrdredux_gw
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoI am so glad, Sue, I know everyone will enjoy it!
Funny you mention the cost. When I first embarked on this, I was thinking it will be a big impact present where the gift is our time not the cost. Yikes, even with the 50% off, each book was $200 OMG. I didn't really expect that, but after all the work putting it together, I wasn't going to go back and trim. I may regret making them so large, 11x14, but I know i usually like photos to be bigger. I also fell for that very pricey for that "lay flat" upgrade that allow you to do those "centerfold" shots. Heck, i actually fell for every type of upgrade they offered, including a storage box.
And then I have the engraved USBs and those boxes. But oh they will be so pretty. I actually went with this one because I liked the idea of putting a photo with it. They also have them in navy, grey, and Tiffany blue.
I was upset that I had to switch my product to Shutterfly, but I have to give them a big shout out. They have added so many features to their books, and so many options for designing them. Plus, they still had my photos on there from 2005, though I had not done business w them in years. In some cases, they were photos i did not find anywhere else in my files. Whew.
One of the best parts of making the book was doing the captions, and adding in things like scans of their footprints, their baby announcements, etc. I also commissioned DH to write a letter to each of them talking about the day they were born and their first few years. He did a wonderful job, brought tears to my eyes and made me laugh, too.
We finished yesterday. Finally.
Annie - love that tree! we do have a few photo ornaments, but a whole tree! Fab
Running - Even from book 1 to book 3 i got better at it and fancier. There are soooooo many options and embellishments and features. And if you have the right dates on your photos, the autofill feature is a great start. Enjoy!
Annie Deighnaugh
5 years agoI have used shutterfly to create 5 vacation albums so far and find their total flexibility on page layout and text placement the best. I too spring for the lay flat option which gives me a place for spreads for my panoramic shots, and the quality is wonderful. I'm always amazed at how quick the turnaround time is too.
Here's a page from our latest book on our trip to New Mexico.
Keep your eyes peeled throughout the year as every once in awhile they will actually offer a 20-page photo book for free. But it's usually with short notice so you either have to work quickly or have a book prepared and wait for the offer. When I ordered this book, they had a deal for free metal luggage tags which I customized with our photos...a great help when trying to distinguish your bag from everyone elses. So they do have good deals.
This xmas, I wasn't happy with the restrictions on layouts for our xmas cards from shutterfly, so I went with vistaprint. I'll probably not use them again though as I wasn't delighted with the quality of the paper used for the card or the envelopes.
mtnrdredux_gw thanked Annie Deighnaughmtnrdredux_gw
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoAnnie Deighnaugh
5 years agomtnrdredux_gw
5 years ago
Annie Deighnaugh