Revelation

So 2 days ago it hit me. I am NEVER going to get all of these photographs into albums for my children... not in my lifetime anyway. Secondly, I am not even liking most of the layouts I'm creating so what is even the point? My bottom line is this: photographs and portraits into books and the story behind some of the shots to tell my precious children what they were like when they were young. So this just all sort of clicked... how exactly will I accomplish my goal? There has to be an easier way. Enter mypublisher photo books... So I downloaded the software and away I went. There is also another (probably several) site for this kind of photo book called Blurb but it is more complicated and there are more choices for pages. I found myself browsing other people's books for ideas when what I really need is just to get mine done! So... I'm going with the mypublisher site. In the last 2 days I have started all 5 of the children's baby books and am officially caught up for Catherine's 5th year. Yes, I know, she's only been 5 for 1 week but it has included 4 parties and a trip to the pool, along with 2 photo ops.

So, the hard part... like most people, I've only gone digital in the last 5 years or so meaning I will have to either scan my pictures and save them onto my computer or disk. The BEST thing to do is to get the images "digitalized" at a lab and put onto disks. So my goal for this week is to take Tyler's baby pictures to the lab and get them converted into digital images and put onto a disk. Then I can just insert disk and drag and drop into the mypublisher software. Easy.

You might wonder about the price of getting these photo books printed... the prices are listed on their website but you also need to figure in additional pages. The book can hold up to 100 pages (50 sheets front and back). I usually spend about $40 on a scrapbook album, cost of paper and embellishments (you don't even want to know) and additionally the cost of printing pictures. I have 2 printers at home for this purpose but counting in ink and photo paper it comes out to be about the same amount as if I ordered them from Snapfish or somewhere and picked them up at the store. I figure about 20 cents/picture... or $8/ 36 shots of 35 mm film. This all adds up. I'm hoping to be able to get 1 year into each book for them and keep it under $120 each book. I don't mind if their baby book cost a little more... but you can't add more than 100 pages into them.

I also want to get all of Caroline's poetry into a book for her (hi Caroline if you're reading this) starting with her stories she wrote when she was 5. Some of her poems have been published nationally and I would love to present her with her own professional book of poetry. She is also a photo NUT, maybe more than me... and has a professional flickr account. It'd also be nice to help her get her photos into a book. See, the possibilities are endless... but for now, I'm off to get working on Sam's 3rd book starting with his third birthday this past July. So doable... so easy... so excited!

Let me know what you think!