Photo Books--Of My Own Making

I love photo books. I've always taken lots of pictures and love to put them together in story form. I was a scrapbook girl back when they were all the rage. However, I have a few that are still waiting to be finished ...namely my wedding album!

For a while I decided to just get prints made and stick them in traditional pocket albums. I have quite a few albums, but they don't really tell the story of life like I want.

Therefore, I switched over to photo books as soon as I could!
Over the past year I have made several photo books. I have used many companies to make my books--Snapfish, Picaboo, Shutterfly, and SmileBooks.

I've managed to snag some great coupons and usually purchase my books when I can maximize my savings. I'm ALL ABOUT saving some money! I got each one of my nine books for either "free" or significantly less than regular price.
My conclusion: Shutterfly books are my favorite and will pretty much be the only ones I make from now on. As a result, I plan on looking for coupons or deals and having books made and ready to finish so I can order them when a deal rolls around.

Shutterfly (top left), Picaboo (top right), Snapfish (bottom left), SmileBooks (bottom right)

Picaboo album, above, and SmileBooks, below

I really liked the black pages in the SmileBooks album, but I had very little control over where pictures were placed and the program was cumbersome to use.

Why I like Shutterfly best:
--book binding (appears more secure than other brands, even though it has glued in pages rather than sewn in pages; time will tell)
--coloring of the pages (brighter colors overall, though the SmileBook coloring was very good too)
--quality of the photo wrap cover (better selection of covers, better color, better quality when opening the book to the first page)

The biggest thing I didn't like about Shutterfly books:
--the cost without a coupon can be high
--the inability to get the layout I wanted, especially when creating 8x8 books

This year I made each of my big kids a "First 5 Years" album using Shutterfly. I used the 8x8 size. They LOVE them; it's a book all about them! (That's especially cool for a twin who typically has to share everything!) The only bummer was trying to make all my pictures work with square frames (which was standard on a lot of pages in that size book).

BUT, I cannot wait to try their new Custom Path. You can resize photo boxes, move them around, etc.--all the things I wanted to do in the books I made but couldn't. I could do this customizing on other brands of albums, but other features were more cumbersome (like importing photos).

In addition to photo books, Shutterfly makes awesome cards. They have a vast selection of Christmas cards and the most adorable birth announcements!

In all fairness, I will tell you that I'm hoping this post earns me another free 8x8 album so I can try out the new Custom Path very soon. However, all the opinions expressed in this post are entirely mine!

Have a blog? Sign up for a chance for a free photo book from Shutterfly.

One Month

One month ago today our family grew.
One month ago today God gave me a precious gift.
In this last month we have gone back to very interrupted nights, carrying a diaper bag and more gear than a tiny person should require, and spending hours inspecting the tiny wonder of new life.
As much as I wanted one more, I never imagined just how wonderful it would be.
This first month has flown by!

I'm way behind on sharing photos. I have a bunch more but I haven't even had time to go through them yet!
The top two photos were taken by my talented photographer friend, Anna. texasartgirl.com
The cute brown and cream colored outfit with trucks was a designed and made by my talented seamstress friend, Bonnie. fishsticksandfries.com

Some Random Pictures

I pulled out my camera and snapped some photos on Sunday so we could start putting together our Christmas card.
Rylee was jumping in the leaves (actually, that was Saturday) while the twins took a nap. On Sunday, she continued her adventures and the twins joined in.
After hearing me say "look here. smile. don't squint. open your eyes. stop doing that. can you please cooperate and we'll be done quickly?" a million times, I declared us "done". Then, the girls wanted to take pictures of me.

Angle is everything.At first, Rylee was standing on the ground and pointing the camera up at me. Not so good.
Then, I put her on the fort and she was looking down at me....much better.
Jenna wanted a turn, as well, so she shot a few pictures. I have to say, they both did a great job. And, my nice camera is pretty big for 4 and 6-year-old hands!I'm 30 weeks along in this pregnancy. The baby boy is kicking strong. He moves a lot, especially after the kids go to bed and I'm just sitting still. I had a check-up yesterday. The doctor said she thinks he's heads down. My blood pressure is great, my glucose test revealed no diabetes, and the baby's heartbeat was right on target. I now go to the doctor every two weeks, for the month of December, and then come January I will go once a week since I'll be 36 weeks on January 2. I can't believe it! We will be having another little baby in just two more months!!!

P.S. My handsome hubby wasn't around for much of these photography sessions, but I'm eagerly waiting to get my hands on some photos of him from our friends wedding two weeks ago. He was the Best Man and wore a tux. Boy, was he handsome! We're hoping there is a decent picture of the two of us from that event, but we'll have to wait and see.

Empty Wall No Longer

What do you do with a completely blank wall?

This wall used to have a couch centered on it with a large mirror hanging over the couch.

Then, we got rid of the couch and got a chair with ottoman instead. Next, I moved the mirror (it looked pretty dumb just hanging there with no couch underneath).

I wanted some cool pictures for this wall.
Finally, I found some large black frames on clearance at Target. I found one picture of each kiddo, got enlargements done at Costco, and presto!
Very inexpensive way to dress up my wall! Frames $10 (total) + enlargements $10 (total) = great look for a great price!

Celebrity Look-Alikes

I saw these celebrity look-alike match things on a friend's Facebook profile. So, I decided to see what it said for me. (I don't have a lot of front-facing photos of myself. And, the first one I uploaded was about as unflattering as they come.)




Hmmm...I look like a bunch of different men. That's encouraging!

Okay, at least no men made it this time! But, I haven't heard of most of these people. And, I'd have to say I don't really think I look like any of them.

When I was younger (and thinner), I was sometimes told I look like Tiffany Thiessen. She actually came up on one photo I uploaded, but I couldn't save it like this for some reason.

Then, when I was a substitute teacher the kids told me I looked like Kelly Clarkson and Kelly Osborne. Yeah, quite the combo. Not sure about those.

Do you look like anyone famous?

To have MyHeritage do your look-alike, you can go to their website by clicking this link.

What do you think of my look-alikes?

Cast Your Vote--Favorite Pic

We are printing new prayer cards.
Help us pick the best new family picture.I'll include a few of the fun shots here, but I'll put a number under a few. (okay, I moved them to the bottom so it would be a little easier)

Jenna was having "issues" when we first started. It was incredibly frustrating. Melt-downs seem to always occur when I'm trying to get a family picture done. Just ask my step-mom. (It was Rylee having a melt last summer; I guess it was Jenna's turn. Rylee was just being silly this time.)So, for those of you looking at these pictures thinking that you have a hard time ever getting a good photo, don't envy us for getting one. Ellie took probably 100 in just the 20 minutes we tried. And, at least 10 of those minutes were spent disciplining Jenna. In fact, the picture of Joel offering knuckle sandwiches to Asa (above) was snapped while I was in the bathroom dealing with Miss Grumpy-Pants.We took the pictures at our GFA home office here in Texas. And, Ellie, who you have probably read about here on our blog, took our pictures. She's a very neat teenager who loves our kids and helps take care of them and has a great eye for photography. We all love her!

Feel free to comment, but to cast your official vote, use the survey on the right sidebar.

Thanks for helping us! **poll is now removed, see this post for the results**

Photo #1
Photo #2Photo #3

Looking Back, Looking Forward

I was playing around with Photoshop Elements today (thanks to the encouragement of Ellie playing on it yesterday) and created a new banner for my blog. What do you think? Not bad for a first try, I think.

Well, if you have tried to create and save something, you might be like me and discover once you get ready to "save" your project that your "file cabinet" of computer files is a complete disastrous mess! Mine are.

Because I have a Mac (which i love!!!), I use the iLife products (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, etc). So, my photos aren't really easy to get to when I need to open them for use in PSE. I also get sent random pictures that I download (apparently) and save (didn't know that!). I have a whole slew of photos that I didn't know were tucked away in a file folder on my hard drive. Hmmm...

So, I thought I'd bless you with these photos that will walk us down memory lane (if you knew me in years past). I just love looking back at years gone by through photos. My kids sure have grown quickly.
The days may be long, but the years are short!