Occasionally, you get to feel like you are a super hero. Usually, it seems to be connected to stuff that you know doesn't really matter in light of eternity but it is something that you value on this earth. Keeping track of my kids' childhoods probably is one of those things for me. In fact, that's part of why this blog even exists; blogs are often online journals that provide a glimpse back into the past.
It's funny how things change over time. With my first two, I started lovely paper scrapbooks, embellished with die cuts and stickers and fancy paper. Then, I realized that I could purchase CD's that would create custom scrapbook pages with out the mess and fuss of actually owning die cuts and stickers and paper. I switched to using that for a bit. But Shutterfly and Snapfish then started offering the ability to do basically the same thing. So now, that's how I scrapbook.
I have to say that so far, it is actually working really well. Right now, every child has a scrapbook from the time they were born and that seems like a minor miracle. How? Well, a few things really help me out.
1. I do not create a custom book for each child. Instead, I create a family yearbook for each year. I make multiple copies of the same book, one copy per child. I cannot tell you how much my kids enjoy looking through the books. They will fight to be the first one to see the newest one once it arrives. (That is probably the biggest time saver. Making one book versus four is a game changer.)
2. I use my blog as a way to help organize my pictures chronologically as well as a way to help me remember the stories and events that I want to include. Having the stuff sort of organized already makes the big task seem a lot less daunting.
3. It can be a bit pricey to make so many books. (Although if you were doing paper scrapbooking, it really might not be all that much different. I think my latest order was right at $35 a book without any discounts. But if you figure for paper scrapbooking, you would have to buy an album that might be $10 on sale plus another $15 worth of paper just to fill the pages, I think you'd easily be close to $35 for a handmade paper scrapbook.) So I take the time to create the books, save them to the publishing company, and then print them once I have a coupon or when there is a great sale. That does require committing to one company before you find the coupons. (I've also done it the other way, where I found a coupon and then made the book based on that company.) I have kind of decided that Shutterfly seems to have the most promotional offers. I just printed our 2014 book from Shutterfly because I had a Groupon that saved me like $10 and because I got a special coupon while shopping at Kohls that was for $20 off of a $20 order. To save money, I actually ended up doing two separate transactions since I couldn't use both at the same time. I think one book was $28 and the other was $25 when I ordered instead of the $35 regular price. I actually have to order two more books since I only had two promotions but I'll just wait until another offer comes around.
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| I get the hard cover 8 x 11 versions. |
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| All the embellishments are just a part of the company's photo albums so it's super easy to create a custom layout. |
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| I also love that you can do a combination of text and photos. It makes it so easy to include milestones, funny stories, and facts about a holiday. |
1 comment:
I use snapfish. Each child has their own book. Some children get two a year, one who has a ton of activities usually ends up with three a year. This year I only have three children I'm doing them for. I told my older ones that 2014 was the last year I was doing for them because their activities are now outside of the family. I don't do anything fancy though. Just arrange the photos on the page with a heading to tell what is was. Most often I just put the Month and then fill up pages for that month. I'm not very creative!!!!
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