Making Tangible Memories

Jer and I converted to the digital image world in 2004 when I bought him a digital camera as a deployment gift for his tour in Iraq. Now ten years later, I've only printed pictures for a few books/albums in our house: Troy's and Brock's first year baby scrapbooks and a photo binder gifted from my mom that holds pictures from our big Hawaiian family vacation. I do print and rotate the kids' birthday and school pictures,  annually update our family picture wall display and have other framed photos throughout the house, but it's these three photo books that the kids and I love looking through.

For a few years now it has bothered me that after downloading pictures from my camera to computer, that's where the pictures would stay, "archived" on hard drives. It has helped that I've been able to share some pictures through my blog with family and friends. Even though blogging is my family's journal, my kids don't always see the posts and images I share. A few of my friends do an awesome job of making digital scrapbooks and though I love the idea, I couldn't image myself ever getting caught up if I went that route. After an amazing photographer and friend, Mara Wolff, blogged about her photo books she had printed off, she was happy to meet up with me so I could see her books in person. I was determined to finally start turning my family's digital images that have been locked up and hidden on hard drives into tangible memories for us to enjoy. 

As I researched photo book companies, there were a few main items that I was most interested in: Page number limit, book dimension, template flexibility, quality, and price. Even though I wasn't able to find exactly what I wanted, I am more than happy with how my book turned out.

I printed the Johnson Family's 2013 photo album through Blurb. My book has 430 pages (2371 pictures). Blurb was the only company I found with that large of a page number option; their current limit is 440 pages. Once you pass 240 pages, you no longer have the option to upgrade the paper quality. Even though I would have liked to have the option to upgrade, I am happy with the paper/image quality and the price compared to similar companies. Blurb provides quite a few coupons too; it's easy to find 15, 20, 25, or 30% off coupons; you just have to time it out and be patient. After applying my coupon, each page cost less than $.50, binding included.

I did wish there would have been more book dimension options to choose from, specifically a 10x10 (not only from blurb, but most all companies I looked into had limited options). However, now that I have a 12x12 book, I'm glad I wasn't given the smaller option; it's not huge like my old 12x12 scrapbooks are. One thing to consider about square books vs landscape or vertical; if you are wanting to fill an entire page with a picture, some photos become overly cropped and look better just as a very large image with margins instead of a full page bleed. I played around with the family picture I used for my book cover and though I wanted it to be a full page bleed, it looked much better as a fitted image. My book is a hardcover image wrap; blurb offers softcover and dust jackets, too.

Blurb automatically imports your fonts for you so you're not limited with choices, I plan on using a new font for each year

One thing I wish I would have changed is the position of this image; I wouldn't have had it wrap along the bottom of my book. I would prefer having it bumped up a touch so you can't see the bottom of it from the inside while looking through the album.

I planned on making my own templates through Adobe Lightroom, but after checking out Blurb's free Booksmart software, I really liked the flexibility of using their pre made templates, modifying them, and even being able to create my own (which was much faster than making them through Lightroom!) This program was very user friendly and easy to use. Once I had made a decent number of my own templates, it was easy to make modifications as needed for each page. One thing to keep in mind, if you create a template for the right page and place it on the left page, double and triple check that you have it centered with the margins. While reviewing my book, I found many pages where my template needed shifted. Speaking of reviewing, I am so glad I gave myself a few days to look over my book before I hit the order button! I almost ordered a baby blue book (while in preview mode the borders are blue, it was after I had uploaded my entire book for order that I realized this was the book color!) 

While creating my book, I went through my pictures one month at a time and did some light editing if needed and deleted pictures that weren't worth keeping (that is easier said than done, I could probably be classified as a picture hoarder!) After editing and culling, I would upload one or two folders at a time to Booksmart then add them to the book. This helped me so I wouldn't accidentally skip a picture then later have to figure out how to arrange the template so the image could be added to the spread. The software is forgiving so if you need to move a page within the book, Booksmart allows you to drag and drop it. You can also go back and add in pages if you find a folder of pictures that were overlooked and want them to remain in chronological order. It's also easy to keep track of your used and unused pictures; once a picture is placed in your book, it no longer shows up in the imported picture section so you can easily see what pictures you still have left to add. If you delete it from your book, it is placed back into the imported section so you can place it elsewhere.

I really like the look of an occasional full spread (where the picture fills both pages) and included a handful throughout my book.  There was only one page that I had to use photoshop to modify the look of the full spread. I sized the photo to overflow onto one-third of the other page and I layered and stacked three pictures to fill the remainder. Aside from the full spreads, I was always most excited about adding pictures from outings, events, or folders where the story would easily flow. After making this book, I have set a goal for myself that when I bring out my camera--either the big boy or just the iPhone--I am going to try to take pictures that will flow together and tell a story verses all from the same angle (since I'm always trying to get "just the right shot") and avoid just taking one random picture that doesn't fit in with anything else; I'll take two or three:)

Since I made my boys' birthday invitations and valentine cards digitally, I made sure to add them to the book. I also took pictures of or scanned one or two special drawings and questionnaires that the boys answered for Mother's and Father's Day. For the final page of each book, my plan is to always end with our Christmas card picture. Last year I didn't include a letter with our Christmas card, but the years I did write one I'll include them in the book, too.

After ordering my book, I had a 7-11 business day shipping time frame. On day four I was checking the status of my order and after seeing the words, "Delivered. Left at Front Door" I literally ran to my door! My family has looked through our memories from last year countless times. I realized that my kids had never even seen half of the pictures that we took and it made the hours and hours of creating this book SO worth it. I'm looking forward to working my way back through the years and plan on creating the current year month by month so when January of the next year rolls around, we'll have a new book on it's way.

As I was snapping pictures of the book, Brock, in such a matter-of-fact tone, said "I bet those are easy pictures to take, books don't wiggle like kids."  Here are some of our memories that bring us smiles (and some templates ideas that can provide decent variety):

p.s. The following pictures of pictures will not be going in next year's book :)