photo fun

Morning! Today I thought I would share with you something neat I have decided to do for Ella Claire and Gracie and any other little ones that might be apart of our family one day. I find myself making mental notes almost every day to remember something funny or cute that EC says or does. In reality, I will not remember a thing unless I write it down. Mom brain, pregnancy brain....whatever you want to call it! 

Last Christmas, I decided to make a photo book for my parents and Jeremy's parents and both of our grandmothers. They LOVE it and Ella Claire loves looking at it too. A few weeks ago, I got an email from shutterfly for a free hardcover 8x8 photo book. I decided to make one for Ella Claire, starting from where I left off in the other book from Christmas. So basically, every year, I am going to make a photobook for each of our children. It's such a great way to keep your favorite photos organized and remember those special moments or funny comments. Now, I'm a little OCD about pictures. I take a ton and print out all of them and keep them in a photo book and I have a hard copy of them all on CD.  If I had a fireproof box, which reminds me, I really need to pick one of those up, I would have those CD's in my fireproof box. But, even though I do all of that, I still like the idea of my fav's being in a book; it's like our own little story.

This is the book I just got for FREE from shutterfly. I only paid shipping.

This is the one I made for Christmas...

It came from picaboo. I will say, the quality of the photos are much better in this book, but it's a little bit more expensive. I got these books bogo and I think Picaboo is having that sale again right now. This is the back of the book. I chose a brown linen for the cover. But there are many options.

A few pictures of the inside...

Here is the front and back of the shutterfly book.

I love that you can add text to the spine.

I forgot to take pictures of the inside of the shutterfly book for you, but here is a screen shot I made while designing it. I added text all throughout the book. I made sure to acknowledge EC's age, her favorite things, favorite foods, her 1st boo boo, and a few things she loved to do at each age. 

A few tips if you decide to create your own...

1. Up load your pictures to the website then start your book. The programs will allow you to just pull pictures from your computer as you create the book, but then when you are finished it has to upload the pictures and your book design and it takes FOREVER!! Like, I'm talking 3 days. Not kidding. So just save yourself the time and frustration and upload all the pictures to the website then start your book. If you forget a few pictures, you can always go back and add more. This is a screen shot I took of it uploading my pictures and book. If you can read under the title Uploading Project, it says, "You're almost there!" This was not true, this was about 48 hours into the upload and it took another day or so. Frustrating!! I actually ended up starting completely over and uploaded the pics first. Worked much better that way.

2. Start early and be patient. It takes a while to design the book. You design the entire thing, front to back, so you pick out the backgrounds, colors, layout of each page, text, etc...  I got the email for a free book and procrastinated. Then a few days before it expired I decided to go ahead and make one. Because it took so long to upload, I almost missed the deadline. I literally ordered this last book hours before the deal expired.

3. Go back and check every page for misspelled words, and correct dates. Enough said for that, don't ya think?

Okay, after complaining about how long it took to upload, it really is worth it! I am so proud of the books and I know I will always love looking through them. Ella Claire loves them too! They are great entertainment in the car and we took it to the doctor's office this week and it kept her quiet while we waited.

Happy memory making!!

One more thing...my brother in law and sister, along with a team from our church, left early yesterday morning for a missions trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Our Pastor mentioned Sunday that they will be ministering to the Honduran army while they are there. We are praying that the Lord will do mighty things through them! Please pray that lives are changed and souls are saved and also for the mission teams safety! Also, my sister and BIL left Madelaine here with my mom and dad and I know that was a VERY difficult thing for them to do, especially for Kim. So, pray for extra strength for them while they are away from their baby girl! Thanks so much!!!