Today I watched a couple of parenting videos. Ideally they should be inspiring. Today I just felt depressed. I put so much effort into being a good parent but the video reminded me of all my shortcomings. Then I started working on this blog post and as I looked at my recent photo book, I felt better.
Making a family history through scrapbooking has been something I have always worked on, mostly as a record for my children. I can't say I love doing it. But last night I realized that having family scrapbooks also helps me because it helps me to feel like a better mom. When I look at them, I realize that we really have done a lot of fun things and worthwhile activities. It's easy to forget about all those things you've done unless you document them. When I look at my photo book, I think maybe I'm a better mom than I sometimes give myself credit for being.
I stayed mostly current with our scrapbooks until I had my youngest 7 years ago. Now that my life isn't quite as crazy, I'm trying to catch up. It feels a little overwhelming! Since photo books seem to be easier than scrapbooking, I'm now doing those which also take up a lot less space on my shelf. So far I've done 2: 2012 and 2013.
I picked up the photo book for 2013 recently from Costco. Here is my review of their photo book software and finished product.
Negatives:
1. It's a little confusing when they tell you to upload your pictures and then select them for the photo book. They made it sound like all my pictures needed to be selected at once. When I did that, all 200+ pictures got put into my book and they told me the photo book was going to cost me $90! (It didn't.) That was ridiculous. Of course the way the computer put them in the book was not the way I wanted either. That also meant I had to go through and delete a bunch of pages at the end after I had created the pages I wanted. That's a feature that definitely needs to go.
2. I didn't like how I had to change my font and borders for every page. Who is going to change their font size for every page? Plus, I wanted borderless pictures. Once I established my style, I wanted to do that for the whole book. But the software didn't figure that out so I had to fix it on every page.
3. I wish it was easier to see the whole page bigger. A few typos got through to the finished product because I didn't go through the process of magnifying each part of each page to make sure I had it the way I wanted. Also, I had a hard time telling if a picture was going to be blurry or not in the finished product. I wish the software had warned me that a few of my pictures were going to be more blurry than I wanted them to be.
Positives:
1. The price. My book ended up costing about $40 before tax for a 12x12 hardcover book that was 36 pages long (one side=one page). I counted about 187 pictures in the book not counting the big family picture I put on the front. That's about 5 pictures a page. It's a very competitive price from the shopping around I did on the internet. I got a great price on my 2012 photo book thanks to my daughter-in-law working at BYU print and getting 50% off. But she's not there any more, so that option is out.
2. The ability to edit each picture a lot. This is the big advantage that photo books have over scrapbooks. In the old days of regular film, you developed the pictures and you had no idea what it looked like until it got developed. Editing was impossible. With a digital camera I could select which pictures I wanted to print out but I didn't have the software to edit each picture before I printed them. With photo books, I can do exactly what I want to each picture, zoom, crop, rotate, shift, etc. to my heart's content. You almost have too many options. At a certain point you get sick of the whole project and decide just to be done!
3. I like putting the text box wherever I want and whatever size I want.
4. High-quality product. I can't tell for sure but this book looks like it's going to last a long time.
Would I do it again through Costco? Yes. Having done it once helps a lot with the learning curve and I hope to be faster next time. Hopefully I will be able to get a few more done before summer starts and the kids are home!
Making a family history through scrapbooking has been something I have always worked on, mostly as a record for my children. I can't say I love doing it. But last night I realized that having family scrapbooks also helps me because it helps me to feel like a better mom. When I look at them, I realize that we really have done a lot of fun things and worthwhile activities. It's easy to forget about all those things you've done unless you document them. When I look at my photo book, I think maybe I'm a better mom than I sometimes give myself credit for being.
I stayed mostly current with our scrapbooks until I had my youngest 7 years ago. Now that my life isn't quite as crazy, I'm trying to catch up. It feels a little overwhelming! Since photo books seem to be easier than scrapbooking, I'm now doing those which also take up a lot less space on my shelf. So far I've done 2: 2012 and 2013.
I picked up the photo book for 2013 recently from Costco. Here is my review of their photo book software and finished product.
Negatives:
1. It's a little confusing when they tell you to upload your pictures and then select them for the photo book. They made it sound like all my pictures needed to be selected at once. When I did that, all 200+ pictures got put into my book and they told me the photo book was going to cost me $90! (It didn't.) That was ridiculous. Of course the way the computer put them in the book was not the way I wanted either. That also meant I had to go through and delete a bunch of pages at the end after I had created the pages I wanted. That's a feature that definitely needs to go.
2. I didn't like how I had to change my font and borders for every page. Who is going to change their font size for every page? Plus, I wanted borderless pictures. Once I established my style, I wanted to do that for the whole book. But the software didn't figure that out so I had to fix it on every page.
3. I wish it was easier to see the whole page bigger. A few typos got through to the finished product because I didn't go through the process of magnifying each part of each page to make sure I had it the way I wanted. Also, I had a hard time telling if a picture was going to be blurry or not in the finished product. I wish the software had warned me that a few of my pictures were going to be more blurry than I wanted them to be.
Positives:
1. The price. My book ended up costing about $40 before tax for a 12x12 hardcover book that was 36 pages long (one side=one page). I counted about 187 pictures in the book not counting the big family picture I put on the front. That's about 5 pictures a page. It's a very competitive price from the shopping around I did on the internet. I got a great price on my 2012 photo book thanks to my daughter-in-law working at BYU print and getting 50% off. But she's not there any more, so that option is out.
2. The ability to edit each picture a lot. This is the big advantage that photo books have over scrapbooks. In the old days of regular film, you developed the pictures and you had no idea what it looked like until it got developed. Editing was impossible. With a digital camera I could select which pictures I wanted to print out but I didn't have the software to edit each picture before I printed them. With photo books, I can do exactly what I want to each picture, zoom, crop, rotate, shift, etc. to my heart's content. You almost have too many options. At a certain point you get sick of the whole project and decide just to be done!
3. I like putting the text box wherever I want and whatever size I want.
4. High-quality product. I can't tell for sure but this book looks like it's going to last a long time.
Would I do it again through Costco? Yes. Having done it once helps a lot with the learning curve and I hope to be faster next time. Hopefully I will be able to get a few more done before summer starts and the kids are home!
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