Friday, January 30, 2009

So how do you preserve your Memories?


I'm trying to decide what to do with all of our many pictures. I used to be a huge fan of scrapbooking until I realized how much it was costing me to do it. Not worth it. I'd rather use the fun embellishments to make a cute card or project here and there, not for every picture.

So, then there is Digital Scrapbooking. Which, as you can see, I just started. It's really fun and completely free so far. I just used free downloads from places like shabby princess. But, then you have to eventually get those printed (if you're like me and virtual isn't good enough) and it is pricy to print 12 x 12 sheets. I have 500 pics of Riley alone from 2008. (These are the good ones I have picked out!) So, I need something that will be cost effective. What I've decided to do are the photo books like the pic above. They are usually about 20 pages for $20 for an 8x10 book and are always having new promotions. (Last week on winkflash I made an 8x10 100 page book for $20 and put 488 pics in it!). So, I think I will make the photo books for each of my kids at the end of each year. That way, I can throw in some of my digital layouts I make and some journaling as well. It's the best of both worlds. And, the point is, it gets done. I would never have been able to scrapbook all those pictures and would've ended up overwhelmed and not doing any, or just picking a few of them in the end.

BTW I'm not knocking anyone who scrapbooks. I think that it is great some people do all that. My sisters are amazing little scrappers. I'm just trying to figure out the most time and cost effective way to print our photos. To me, everything has to be worth the time and energy as well as money that has been put into it. So, what's your opinion? How do you preserve your memories? I would love to hear ideas!

11 comments:

Cordie said...

I did the exact same thing with winkflash! I have had my book for about a week and I can't stop looking at it! I threw in the towl with scrapbooking too :( now that I take so many pictures. I called winkflash and they said they have this promotion about every three months. Winkflash might have the best deal but I have liked my books from Shutterfly and Snapfish better. There is my opinion, enjoy your book.

Justin Caldwell said...

Big fan of photobooks. I've used Blurb in the past. I might just have to steal your idea of doing a yearbook for Jonas.

Dave M. Davis said...

So with that said, which books do you like the best. I am thinking about doing these for photography and want something that is nice quality.

Heather said...

Those books are a good idea. It is overwhelming when you have so many pictures! I think we have almost 800 on our camera that I haven't done anything with, YIKES! Good idea!

Tia said...

I made a photo book for my kids the year before last, and plan on making them one each year. I also gave up on scrapbooking a couple of years ago since I have so many pics, and not enough patience to crop, paste, embellish, etc. Plus I'm not very creative. These computer programs have such cute layouts! I just think of how long it would take me to do that all on paper. I want to learn more about digital scrapbooking and photoshop too. But I love the photo books! And you can print more than one, so you can have one for you, and one for the child. They're just great!

Julie said...

I'm gonna have to try those books sometime because I'm losing patience with scrapbooking. Plus now I take way more pictures with my new camera and I'll never be caught up. Will I have the patience to upload 500 pictures though? How long does it take?

Shelly said...

I think the digital scrapbooking is the way to go. I haven't done it yet but I want to start. Thanks for the idea.

Rich's ScrapBlog said...

www.scrapblog.com is cute and fun! The only problem is I can't seem to get square layouts. They are all rectangles so you could print them as 4x6 or 5x7. I am a huge fan of square though. I printed a bunch of my square digital layouts at sams club and LOVED them. They did amazing. The biggest they can do is 10x10 so I just did a bunch of 6x6's to insert in a mini album.

Joanne said...

Blurb,shabby princess,smilebox,shutterfly. I also send discs to my sister in Philippines they make my photobooks WAY INEXPENSIVE..

Julie said...

Tam, check my blog today!

Jade and Todd said...

HAPPPY BIRTHDAY!!! HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY.IVE THOUGHT TO CALL YOU ABOUT 10 TIMES AND STILL HAVENT SO HOPEFULLY YOU READ THIS BEFORE THE DAY IS OVER!!!!