Yes, Sam has his pants on his head. All-time greatest photo
As a labour of love for the past four years I have made for my husband a family album for his birthday, which falls at the end of July.
And, god almighty, it is a labour of love. Choosing the photos, schlepping down to Snappy Snaps, printing them out, finding the right sort of album, remembering what size of photo I printed out so that it will fit in the stupid slippery pockets. Collecting the photos. Ramming them in the pockets, writing out the little captions.
I’m not good at this sort of thing and it always looks a bit shit.
So this year I didn’t do it. I bought my husband a pair of upmarket espadrilles and hoped he wouldn’t notice about the photo album.
But I feel sad about it now. A yearly family album is a good thing to have and you do have to do it reasonably regularly or it gets left undone for years because it becomes such a mammoth task. Shoals of unsorted photos in shoeboxes has been replaced by shoals and shoals of photographs on the laptop, unsorted and unused.
There must be an easier way, though? And better value. I was astonished at how expensive this photo print out + album ended up being.
Then my sister pointed out that you can just create any old photo book on a Mac, using iPhoto. (So sorry, this is totally irrelevant to anyone not using a Mac.) I had no idea you could do this and possibly you don’t either, which is why I thought it might be worth pointing out.
You go to iPhotos, then up to the top left of your computer, File/New Book and you’re away! The whole thing ended up costing me about £25 and it was reasonably easy to use – and I am really hopeless at things like that.
So there you go! Your weekend craft activity is sorted.
Anyone know the equivalent on a PC? She added as an insulting afterthought.
I use an online company called “bonus print”and wait until they send me massive discount codes. I do the same thing one for each year. It’s easy to use and the final product is brilliant!
Well I haven’t got a mac (cheers, I’m rethinking my blog choices) but I made a photo book online at one of the photo places, choosing pictures from the IPad. Now I don’t know how difficult your method was but I found it pretty simple and it wasn’t expensive. I made it for my husband for Christmas of the past year and immediately thought, shit I ought to do this for all our photos. That was last Christmas and I’ve not acted on the impulse. We last printed out photos for an album when the first child was a couple of moths old. They are still not in an album. It is a mammoth task to catch up now, and will probably be expensive all in one go. I wonder when I’ll do it.
I say every year that I’m going to make an annual photo book with PhotoBox and every year I don’t. Which is terrible. 2017 New Year’s resolution perhaps…
I’ve just completed this labour of love for my husband too! I’ve also decided to saddle myself with the task of doing it every year – so far we’ve got 2014 (actually starts October 2013 to include son’s arrival) and then 2015. Doing this one made me realise that I need to force other people to take pictures of me/us as I only feature in about 2% of the pictures, I don’t actually like pictures of myself, but I do like looking at pictures of my parents with the me and my brother as a child so I assume (hope?) my boys might feel the same way. Although it’s a faff – I know in about 4/5 years time the nostalgia will start to set in of “when they were babies” and I’ll be patting myself hard on the back for doing it.
I have a Mac now – but didn’t to start with and did them both on Photobox. It’s a slightly fiddly process – but pretty user friendly and the end result is worth it. They always have sales on – but still a bit more ££ than your Mac book. I paid c. £40 for 100 pages recently – which was reduced from about £100 in the sale (you can buy a credit during a sale and do it at a later date). I shall be following with interest how much/if I’ve overpaid compared to other sites- but I’ve always used them for photo stuff so know that I’ll like the end result.
I’m never in that many pictures as I’m always the one with the camera, the difference is every now and then I throw a strop about how my husband doesn’t take any pictures of me and it usually results in me hissing at him during story time “this would make a good photo don’t you think?!”. Most undignified.
needs must, mate. I never even suggest to giles to take a photo of me and therefore there are NONE
I used Photobox when we got married and made half a dozen to give out to the relatives, which went down well and was very easy. I have huge empty photo albums waiting for all the house restoration photos and one optimistically stamped ‘2011’ so I’m not doing v well at that …
Go Sam! My first visit to Hermes on Bond Street was made wearing my knickers on my head. They were pink gingham, I was three, my mother feared the consequences of making me remove them so toughed it out. She was v. disappointed none of the sales girls even cracked a smile; “You looked very sweet, darling”. Subsequent visits have been made wearing pants in the approved position….
Thank you for telling me about this!
My boys are young men now and I have no albums at all! All in boxes somewhere getting mouldy (We moved loads and every year I said I’d do it and the years went by and they’re still not done).
Recently cleared out my late Mother’s house and found mountains of old photos in boxes and carrier bags in her loft which are now in my loft for my boys to sort out and put in theirs etc etc etc..
This is great… Thank you.
I have used blurb to make photo books before – the quality is really good and there are loads of different options for paper type, format etc
Hi Esther, I use iPhoto to make books pretty regularly. This isn’t because I am super-organised, but because I am photo-obsessed and never go out.They turn out fabulously. For old and inherited photos – of which I also have loads – I have been using iPhone to take a digital photo (there are good apps for this) and then making photo books. Easy and fun, again in a spinsterish kind of way.
I use “Nero” for this and several other compilations.
Second blurb as being very easy to use and not expensive. Shame I’ve never actually managed to finish and get the books printed. I have grand ambitions of turning phone photos from the past year into a 365 collage so here’s hoping…
I use Snapfish, very easy and quick. Either via the app which gets the photos from your phone or on my laptop which has the saved [ decent!] photos on. I do one every year for my son [ who is now 5 ] to remember his holidays & events.
I use mpix.com for photo books and prints. Relatively easy but pretty tedious. Great looking product though, and makes an impressive little gift for family! Also, I’m American so I don’t know if you have mpix.
I leave this to DH and we’ve got quite a few photobox books of holidays. I get a surprise(its not) calendar of the girls every year too. He’s the avid snapper in the house. He was delighted with his recent 80% off offer but is regretting buying the 180 page book he’s now got to complete by end of Oct …..We have literally hundreds to sieve through after Florida this year!
Third or fourthing the mention of photobox. Never ever paid full price for a book (getting 3 months to complete with a sale credit is great and they prompt you so you don’t buy it and then lose it). Started with one of our wedding and now obsessed with year books. Also severely lacking photos of myself! You’re either the photographer or the photographed.
Third’ing for Blurb. In my experience better quality than iPhoto/Snapfish/Photobox (you have to pay a bit extra for the top of the range paper and cover but you’re keeping it forever, handing it down to the children, etc.) God it takes ages though. I finish it over Christmas every year, fuelled by brandy butter, but HOW virtuous do I feel once it’s done. I find I have to do a bit every 3 months or so as a year is overwhelming.
I feel like there are thousands of albums all over the country of little children and husbands, on apparently Mum-free holidays and trips… we know the truth.