I was totally inspired by Claire over at A Peachtree City Life when she shared her year in review book. Essentially, she makes a bound photobook for her and her husband for each year. How cool is that?
And if you’ve ever visited Elise Blaha, you know how inspiring she is. I especially love the concept of her 2011 book.
I’d been trying to think of a way to organize all the photos beyond the computer and I knew that a photobook was the perfect solution. We actually got married at the very end of December, so every year’s album would also coincide with a year of marriage.
I love that. I think it’s really cool.
It’s a way to have a way to see the photos in print, without printing out the photos and scrapping them. Something more lasting than a Flickr album.
So, one of my goals for the year was to make a book for each year. I’ve completed 2010 and now I’m working on 2009. It’s a little time consuming, but I’m really happy with the first book.
I ended up going with Photobook USA for the 2010 book. I found a Groupon deal for them (did you know you can buy these Groupons from any city if they are available if you are purchasing online?). It was pricey, when it all came down to it. But, the quality of the book is just awesome, and I was willing to pay more for that. (Here’s the “title page” with the vellum page on top.)
I kinda figured that if I were to print all the photos/buy a nice album/scrapbooking supplies/paper/etc., I’d be spending a fortune anyhow.
The plan is to use the same format for all the years, although that could change. Since my photos are organized by month, I decided to also organize the book by month.
This worked out really well. It made me go through all my digital photos and find the best. Since most of my photos are saved on Flickr, I deleted almost anything that didn’t make the photobook. This was an unexpected perk – I freed up a lot of space on iPhoto. I didn’t think I needed to save those detail shots that I take for the blog anyhow (and if I need them, I’ll find it on Flickr and re-download).
But the other photos are now more organized and there’s less clutter in my iPhoto.
Here’s an example of the monthly layout.
Each page has the month name and a corresponding color. Simple, but I like it.
Some months have more pages than others, depending on the month and travels. I included lots of photos of us and our house and garden, since that is a big part of our lives.
I didn’t use any text because I thought that could get too busy, but I had originally intended the color space on the pages to be an area for short hand writing notes/names/details in a ballpoint pen. Now that it’s here, I’m feeling nervous about doing that. The book is so darn nice, I don’t want to mess it up. But, I also don’t want to forget people/places/stuff. When we look through my parents’ photos, there are so many that we don’t know what they are. I want to avoid that. And something about handwriting makes it feel a little more personal.
Instead, maybe a typed page at the end with a few notes per month (people/places/details)?
Any other ideas for this?
Instead of doing books for each vacation/event/home renovations/etc, everything is in one place. I really like the 11×11 book, it’s big without being HUGE and really feels substantial.
I’m excited to get all the books together, now. (Shocker. I’m never impatient with these things.) But it will come together eventually.
Now that I’ve done it, I’ll do 2009 and 2008 a little differently. I majorly misjudged how large the photos would be on the pages. My screen made them appear smaller. So some of the photos are bigger than I intended. As such, I expect to use more photos per page in 2009 and 2008, which will also save me money because there should be less pages. I had more than 150 pages in this one (about 75 pages). I expect the other books to be much thinner, which is okay.
I’m also planning to try to work on 2011 by the month.
But, it’s really fun to look back. When Ryan looked through it, he said (with a grin), “I had forgotten everything we did in 2010.” That’s the whole point, right? To capture those great memories so we never forget them – from vacations and day-trips, to dinners with friends, gardening adventures, snow storms and walks with the dogs.
A year in the life.
How do you capture these memories?
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Real Housewife in MN says
I did this same thing last year and LOVE it! I have tried my hand at scrapbooking and it just doesn’t happen. This looks way more professional and I love the prearranged layouts. Good call on going back, I still have to do that. Looks awesome!
Kristen @ Miss Prissy Paige says
I love this idea. I actually made something similar for my Ryan for Christmas and he loved it. Now it’ll be a tradition to make one each year – I think we’ll appreciate it so much 10 years from now.
Stephanie says
we decided we’ll be doing a book for each duty location we live at. i made my Florida book shortly after moving to Guam – i love all the memories!! also, we’re doing vacation books for all the places we visit here in guam (already made for australia, beijing & hong kong)…. these books are AWESOME and so much better looking than a scrapbook. i prefer picaboo – i always make the books and then wait for a good sale to purchase them!
yeoldesandwichshoppeva says
This looks so great! I’ll have to check out the company you used. I’ve used shutterfly before and it’s not too shabby.
I actually made a mini photo book of Joseph’s first 8 months of life for all of the grandparents & great grandparents at Christmas. Now I badly want to catch up all of our family memories the same way. We’ve got 1000s and 1000s of photos, all on computer. I don’t even have an album of our wedding photos. Must fix immediately.
Amanda @ Little House on the Corner says
Oooh, this IS a good idea! Making online photobooks is so fun, but it’s just a matter of finding the time to do it!
I also bought a Groupon for an online photobook deal, but I don’t think it was Photobook USA…. Anyway, I have until November to use it so maybe I’ll have to consider doing a “year in review” too!
I know what you mean about writing in them – I wouldn’t really want to either. Unless I had really good handwriting! 🙂
Erin @ Domestic Adventure says
I love Blurb if you ever want to try something different. But, your book looks beautiful and very professional, so you might just want to stick with what works!
ashley morgan says
I love, love, love this! If I could write “love” 50 more times, I would. I made a Blurb book of our wedding, but what a great idea to have one for each year.
I would definitely jump in and hand-write some notes. It just makes it all the more personal.
Amanda @ Serenity Now says
What a neat idea!! Yours turned out so nicely, Kim. 🙂 Great photos. Mine would be the most boring one ever. Photo of me blogging. Photo of T going to work. Photo of girls trashing play room. You get the idea. 😉 Thanks for the visit today!
Leigh says
Love it! I’ve done a few photo books using either shutterfly or snapfish when they send the free book codes. I’ve always had big plans to make yearly book and an ongoing one for our anniversary trips….but well…none are done (or even started). I’m more a fan of old school hard copy method, I find the online stuff somewhat frustrating, but then I get too caught up in papers, embellishments, etc. Maybe it will be my summer project.
Allison says
Thanks for the neato idea, Kim! Tootie wants her very own pugbook now!
Michelle @ Ten June says
Oh my gosh, adorable! You always have the best ideas! I want onnnnnne 🙂 Maybe we’ll see it on Groupon again soon!!
Lauren says
I love this idea. I used to scrapbook but honestly it takes so much time, energy and money! I am all about keeping it simple. I will have to look into a photobook!
Leah says
This is such a good idea. I am going to go work on this today! Thanks for the awesome tip. 🙂
Kristi says
This looks great. I have a friend who does this every year and I think it is an awesome idea. Too bad I already have gotten into scrapbooking. Maybe in the future I will switch to photobooks.
Jenny @ Words on Wendhurst says
I was really into scrapbooking, but I love photo books too. Maybe I will do this going forward 🙂
Breanne says
I am so stealing the crap out of this idea!! I’m a big photobook fan, but I’ve been hemming-and-hawing over the best way to organize all the books I wanted to make. It’s super cute! And I think the notes in pen is a great idea, great way to keep track of details you’ll forget in 5 years!
fabulous50shousewife says
I had been using scrapblog but it was recently bought out by mixbook and I can’t believe how easy it is to create unbelievable layouts with your photos. I’m caught up on our regular life photos (5 months into year 3 of marriage). BUT I’m desparately trying to figure out my plan for our wedding photos. There are so many I can’t decide what I want to do!
Enjoyed checking out your blog!
Lucky Girl says
Your book looks great! I love the idea of having a color band for each month – almost like a catalogue 🙂
I’ve use Blurb in the past but wasn’t super impressed by the paper quality. What made you choose Photobook?
Emily says
Me me me. I love your book – it’s fabulous and the colors are such a great idea!
Emily says
I have half of 2010 ready for a Blurb book – but need to find Tommy’s baby pictures (due to a computer crash) before I can get it done and ordered. I need to do this before 2012 is here!
*claire* says
great job!! i really love your idea of writing in the notes – i debated that as well – in my first one i had little notes i typed in, but it just seemed cheesy. i like the handwriting or summary page ideas a lot.
i think it’s smart to make a big book. i made mine small the first year bc we were poor 🙂 and have done them small since, for consistency, but i’m itching for a bigger one!
also – what a great idea about deleting photos that didn’t make the book – i SO need to do this! my photo collection is intense.
ps – and thanks for the shoutout! aren’t they so fun to make?? definitely a labor of love!
Arizona Lainey says
This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! Kudos Miss Kimberly!
Liz @ It's Great To Be Home says
I think I have about a zillion photos stuck on iPhoto, and I know I should do something like this with them! Kudos to you for actually doing it. 🙂 How fun to be able to flip through your memories!
SarahKL says
LOVE this!! I’ve been trying to do photo books after big trips, but a year long one sounds like a great idea too! Thanks for the inspiration!
Mrs. Adventure says
I love the idea of these books I really do – I’m a hobby scrapbooker but if I run short on time once kiddos come along I’ll be using this method. I’ve even thought about having a blog book published of just our stories :+)
The Brick Cottage says
I love this idea! I’m not a scrapper and rarely do we even print pictures anymore. When we want to reminisce we gather around the computer but that’s not nearly as nice as snuggling on the couch and flipping through a book.
Nikki says
This is such a great idea. Sometimes I get around to doing a book for vacations or birthdays, but most of our pics are just sitting on my computer.
Cindy @The Flipping Couple says
So fun. I love looking back through photos and remembering everything that happened.
I (supposedly) do a book a year, too. But I just print off the pictures and throw them in a black album. I’ve done this for exactly one out of the four years we’ve been married so far. Awesome. My goal is to get the rest of the books done by the end of marching band season (since I have LOTS of alone time over the next couple months…).
Also? I take way too many pictures. So there’s that.
DecorandtheDog says
I’m a photobook girl as well. Scrapping takes way too much time..and talent…and patience.
I’m a fan of MyPublisher and Blurb. I mainly just do vacations and important events but a “year book” is a great idea!!