While I sit: Making fun, easy photo albums

I'm sitting a lot.  I'm watching this boy recover, but looking puny still.  He doesn't want anything but a spoonful of sherbet every few hours. He needs pain meds every six. He doesn't need much more from me, but I still have to sit here and watch him.  I just need to.

So while I sit, I need something to keep busy.  A few weeks ago, Sherry posted at Young House Love about catching up with their "family yearbooks".  Oh yeah....I had started my online photo album last year....or was it the year before that?  I tried the "scrapbooking" type photo album for a while, and did good with that for a few years.  But, it wasn't really my "thing"....all that clutter makes my heart go a flutter, you know?

I'm more of a computer person.  And I started, I really did. One of those years.  Sherry's post reminded me, but more than that, she inspired me.  See, I was still doing the old scrapbooking style, just in digital format....a few pictures per page, a title, text....  And I did not love doing it....it was very tedious.

Instead, take a look at the pages they shared: there are pictures everywhere! I love the style of it....I take a monumental amount of pictures, and trying to pare those down to just a few was so painful and time consuming.  And while I'd love to remember every detail of each picture, it's just not practical. 

But it got me going, and I've started. And hopefully I will take the time to actually finish a "yearbook" in the next few days.   They used MyPublisher with great results.  I've always used Shutterfly, and my pictures live there, so I'm using that.   It seems like both offer great discounts at times, so keep an eye out!  Shutterfly is offering up to 30% off photobooks right now....get to work!


I can't post examples from Shutterfly yet (still in process), but using the free Picasa collage tool I made something that will look similar.  Page after page of pictures, memories and fun.

Page after page of tons of pictures....I love it!  Shuttefly books also have many options: a few to a lot of pictures per page; titles on some, pages of text on others.  There are so many layouts to choose from.  Once you decide how many pictures you want on a page, you pick a layout with that number of pictures, and wham!  Page is complete.  It's so easy and so much fun!

So get to work.  If nothing else, get those pictures off your hard drive and get them backed up online.  Get them organized by month or event; once you do that, the photobook will almost just fall into place on its own!

ps: AMWN is not afilliated with Shutterfly in any way.  I have had my pictures housed there for years, and have had great luck with calendars and produts I've printed there.