09.22
2012

Making a Photo Book

I don’t know about any of you but for the past several years although I have taken a gazillion photos I have actually had very few printed out. I have quite a few photo albums filled with photos from when I was younger through Lillie’s first six months and then I just kind of ran out of time to have them printed and put them into albums. I kept putting it off and then it seemed like such an overwhelming task because I was so backed up. I had made a few photo books online in the past but was never thrilled with them. Then one day I saw on Pinterest a link to a blog called A Thousand Words where the author wrote about using a company called Blurb. (She is ridiculously organized and she gives more info about her books towards the bottom of this post.)
I decided to give it a try and I couldn’t be happier! This post is not in any way sponsored by Blurb, I just am so excited about this that I wanted to share. I started by doing last year and am now working month by month on 2012. I am almost caught up and then from here on out plan on just adding in the new photos at the end of each week. I also think I am going to track back and do 2010 and 2009 too. Our book contains well over 400 pages (and thousands of photos!) and was around $130! I know that’s not cheap but if you calculated the cost to print out all the photos I used and buy the multiple albums it would take to fill then you can see what a great deal that is!
Besides the wonderful price, my favorite feature was that you design your whole book offline and then upload it once you are done. The program you download from their site is far easier than any other ones I have used! You can use their templates or create your own and you can add text as well. Anyway, I recently got the 2011 one in the mail and was so thrilled with it. I didn’t do anything too artsy with it and kept it quite simple but here’s a little look into it:
Right up front there’s a spot where the blurb logo goes but if you want you can switch it out which I chose to do.
I used lots of my favorite photos:

And had fun with events like Lillie’s 3rd birthday party:

I also included some holiday decorating (and also different project we’d done throughout the year):

And then, of course, there are pages and pages of random candid shots:

I organized the book in order of how the photos were taken and then at the end I have pages and pages of iPhone pictures. It’s fun now having all of those random snapshots printed out. Two nights ago Lillie sat down with the book and spent probably a half hour to forty-five minutes looking through each page all on her own and then telling me to “Come look!” and “Remember that?” It made me so glad that I finally decided to go ahead and do it!

And here’s the back (Lillie’s first time holding Lola):

I was torn about including text on the cover but decided just to keep it simple and just added it to the spine.
I can’t wait until January when I can print out the one for 2012!
I hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Our Wedding Invitation, Program, and Menu
Painted Pumpkins in Lillie's Room
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42 thoughts on “Making a Photo Book”

  1. I'm impressed! The book is gorgeous, along with your photos. I'm definitely going to check out this website.

    Several years ago I did sort of the same thing with newborn photos of my grandchildren through Archivers and was very pleased with them. However…they on longer do that!

    Thanks for sharing.

  2. Love this!!! Thanks for sharing. Will definitely be checking this site out as I have two boys ages 7 and 9 and years of photos that I have never been able to find the time to print and organize. This is a great way to do it!!!

  3. Thank you so much for this post! I love the idea of a book of one's family. So much history for family to come. Is there a way to add print or stories too? I will definitely follow your suggestion to look at this site. My daughter 's best friend is a professional family photographer. She had a book done for one Halloween through a well known site. But I like the idea of a year. Great job!

  4. How wonderful is that?!! I have always loved photo books (especially ones like this) because it feels so much more special and memorable than a photo album! This is a definitely an item that your family will treasure (and enjoy flipping through on the holidays) for many years to come!

    Tim

  5. Beautiful! I will have to try blurb. I've made a few but uploading and using the other programs takes a long time on my slow computer.

  6. Thank you for posting about this! I recently had a family book done that I ordered thru a photographer, well, it was almost $300 dollars, and no where near as big as yours, I think we probably only have about 7 pictures 🙁 I will be doing this as a christmas gift, what a lovely idea. Have a great weekend.

  9. This is SUCH a great idea!!! I was going through a bunch of photos that we have saved to our computer. Just sitting there. I had forgotten about so many of them! I love your idea of doing it yearly. It's going to be such a task going through all of them, but the final product looks sooo worth it.

  10. i LOVE blurb! i turn my blog into a book every year using their offline designer. it is a wonderfully made keepsake, totally worth the price in my opinion 🙂

  11. This is so wonderful. What a treasure your book is just filled with memories. I love it. You have inspired me….My sister is turning 50 next year and I think she would love a photo book filled with our family photos. As you know my Mom is no longer with us and it would be so meaningful to my sister to have memorable photos of my Mom and all of us. I think it will be the perfect 50th birthday gift! How sweet the photo is of Lillie holding Lola for the first time. So precious.

  13. I am in the same boat… Thank you so much Jennifer for sharing your priceless treasure with us. You have inspired me. I look forward to creating many books for my little one. Have a wonderful weekend.

  14. This looks just fabulous Jennifer. I've been using blurb to put a lot of my travel photos together into a book. It is been a little while since I've done any work on the pages…but seeing your finished project has inspired me to keep going so I can also enjoy the finished product!

    1. I went with the 8 by 10 and LOVE it! Not too big and bulky but still big enough that I can see all of the photos nicely. I definitely wouldn't got smaller. I could see possibly going bigger for a different type book but I think I will probably stick with this size for my yearly ones from here on out.

  19. You are such an amazing photographer! My book would be more on the candid side ;). We give photo books to the grandparents for Christmas, but your book looks better than any I have seen! Thanks for sharing. I may try Blurb this year.

  20. Jennifer, your book looks fabulous. I too love Blurb. Several years ago I went for a ramble in a large local park with my husband and snapped lots of photos. It was such a special day, that that very night, I created a book…of that ramble. It contains lots of fall photos and scripture and not a lot of other text. My neighbor liked it so much that she asked to have more copies made and she gave them as gifts. What a special family treasure.

    1. I'm pretty sure because my book had so many pages I didn't get to choose the paper and there was just one option. I can't remember for sure though. I think for smaller books there were a variety of options. As far as size goes I went with the 8 by 10 and LOVE it! Not too big and bulky but still big enough that I can see all of the photos nicely.

  22. Oh how I wish all of this had been available when my kids were small. I have boxes and boxes of photos and lots of good intentions! Alas, not many finished albums. Many were not safe and those I've had to take apart before the photos were completely ruined. Your book looks amazing!

  23. Your book is fabulous…and I truly think that the price is a real bargain…such a gorgeous keepsake and the photos are so stunning….I have so many photo albums that need to be organized….the new photo sites that are available today are just so amazing…

  24. Can you share where you got the great bird cage image that is inside the front cover? I am inspired to get my photos into books. Your book is so beautiful. thanks!

  34. I've done this with the photos from a few of our family vacations, and we love them. I'm getting ready to begin yearly books for our family, and I really love that you just used photos and no text, but now that you have done it for a few years, do you wish that you had included text?

    1. I really like the look of just the photos but I might consider adding text on a handful of pages where there was something I wouldn't want to forget like maybe something one of the girl's said or something!

  35. I have started my own blurb book ,thanks to you mentioning it the other day.I was curious if your pictures print the same size in the book as they appear on screen, if you have cropped them in your editing program? I have had problems with other sites in the past that if I uploaded my pics,and had cropped them in my editing program,the area I had cropped just printed gray,it didnt fill the box ,even though it looked fine on screen.Thanks

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