my photo/blog books . . .

just thought i'd share a little about my photo books and blog books today. it's almost the end of the year ... and will be time to put together my 2008 books. my plan was to work on these throughout the year ... but that didn't happen. lol!

 

i love having these books stacked up on my shelves ... right along with all my scrapbook albums. i think years from now ... when you put all these albums and books together side by side ... they'll tell quite the story of our lives. i love to scrapbook ... and have been doing it for 13 years now. but there is just no way that i can scrap all our photos ... or all our stories. so i have really loved the idea of doing some of these digital photo books. and i've been blogging now for 3 1/2 years ... so that is a lot of thoughts and typing involved ... and i think having that in print is an awesome idea.

 

so i have the daycare books that i printed through shutterfly ... and they're each a 20 page, 12x12 book. i really want to do this sort of book for our family photos too ... just a little more thinking for that. the daycare ones were easy ... because i narrowed the photos down by each child. but i think the family photos, holidays, and events will take a little more planning. the blog books i had done through blurb ... and they are the 7x7 size.  

 

these are my "daycare favorites" photos books. i put together the first one mainly because i had won a free 12x12 photo book from shutterfly. you can see more of the book in this post. i mention this in the original post. but i just love how this book sums up our year in photos. there are a ton of everyday, random photos in these. and many of them are already scrapped on a layout. but having them all together in one spot ... it's just so cool. i have since gone back and done 2006 also. that's really as far as i could go back ... since that was when i made the final switch to digital. i kept these books super simple ... same basic page design through both books ... and i'll use that design again this year. so it's really simple to pick out my favorite photos from throughout the year ... and just plop them all into the book. this also helped cut back on my photo ordering this year. i knew i would be doing this album ... so i never ordered that many pictures of the daycare kids for myself. if i wanted to scrap some ... i would print them myself.  

 

i can't remember how i first heard about making these blog books. but i will tell you that the first one i did took me forever! it was the 2007 book ... and you can see more of it in this post. my 2005 book is the smallest ... at just 90 pages. i don't even have any pictures on the cover of the book ... since i had only been digital for about 2 months and had NO pictures to use. and i had only been blogging for about 6 months ... and was very sporatic about it then. my 2006 book is 202 pages ... a lot more photos and a lot more blogging. my 2007 book is 286 pages ... and even more photos and even more blogging. i recently started "slurping" up my 2008 blog posts ... and this years book is going to be even bigger. 

so just a little insight to my books ... and why i have them done. i have other books i really want to make ... just a matter of sitting down and working them out. soccer is a big one ... would love to narrow down the soccer pics and get those in a book. someday! 

Comments

[erin yamabe]

those are beautiful!

[Carla]

Love the look of these books Laura...so professional looking. And I love the pics on the front of the newest one! I remember clearly how much trouble you had loading up your book last time!! Hopefully it will be easier this time around!
I receive emails from Kendall's kindergarten teacher every month with photos and stuff that they learned. This would be a great idea for parents to purchase...if someone volunteered to upload everything :)
TFS!!!

[Heather Moll]

those are awesome, laura! i totally want to do one with my blog too!

[Melinda]

Thanks to you blogging about blurb I plan on doing this as well. This is my first year of blogging. I think that creating these books is a great idea...kind of like a journal. Thanks for sharing.

[Cheryl]

Wow Laura! These are beautiful!!! I guess I'll have to try and make one too since this is such a great idea.

[Sara Rossi]

How cool those must look all together on the shelf! I need to do some of the 12x12 books for some older Disney trips like you suggested--there's no way I'll catch up otherwise! I really like how those look! Need to do a little research after Thanksgiving.

[Mary MacAskill]

Laura, do you mind explaining how you make them through them? Do you just create an account and then it just pulls all the info from your blog? What about layouts and things that you've replaced with a "just for pub" sign? What about drafted posts? And are you allowed to add extra photos? I always size my photos down for screen - will that matter? And I know you told me, but humor me would you and tell me how expensive they are? :)

[sasha farina]

they look awesome hey... you will treasure those books so much I know.. i wanna do up some too.. maybe .. maybe not. :D

[Susy]

Great idea, I'll have to see if any Aussie companies do them. So do you just load the pictures straight from your blog and cut and paste the text or do you need to redo the whole typing thing. I like the idea of not having to use your full reso pictures as some aren't even on my computer any more, either on disk or hard drive. My blog is my only form of diary I keep so it would be lovely to have a hard copy of it.
Thanks for sharing them.
Oh and one more question, sorry, do you include your layouts and cards in them or just photographs.

[Alicia King]

so cool...someday I'll do this too! about how long does it take you to do 1 book?

[KT]

Laura.. I LOVE this!!! I have trouble blogging as I always have so much to say and end up not doing it at all. Does that make sense?!? lol.. I just did a photobook on snapfish of my Pup Chopper since it was a freebie if you watched oprah and I LOVED it!!!

[KristaLund]

cool! cool! cool! i've started one...i've got a LONG way to go!