Photobooks

A few years ago, when my son was born, I decided I wanted to do scrapbooks for my kids. I quickly learned that it takes a lot of time and a lot of supplies. I completed my son's first year and started on his second year. My daughter's first year book isn't even close to done. This is both frustrating and discouraging.

One of the biggest challenges was handling the pictures so many times. First, I had to go through all of my pictures from the year and select those that I wanted to print out. Then, once I printed them, I had to put them in order, which turned out to be more challenging than I would have guessed. Then, I had to work with the pictures to crop them and lay them out on the page. I spent time cutting paper and taping it all together. Then, I would journal (in my not so great handwriting).

I tried to scrapbook at home, but the paper, books, pictures, and tools seemed to take over the dining room. I would go to weekend scrapbooking events, but found that I was too social, talking with others and reminiscing as I flipped through pictures.

The costs seemed to be high too. I had to buy the book, the pages, the papers, the stickers, etc. I had to pay to print the pictures and fees for attending weekend scraps.

Then, last year, we made photobooks online for our parents at Christmas. We had them printed and I was very happy with them. It was after that that I decided it would probably work better for me to do my scrapbooking online and print the books. Sure, there was some loss of personal touch, but I was still the one assembling the pictures and providing the thoughts through the journaling. Initially, I thought that the costs might be high, but when I considered all of the other costs I had with making paper scrapbooks, I decided they weren't that far out of line.

Certainly, my experience making the books for Christmas showed me that it was a lot quicker than what I was doing with the paper scrapbooks. Additionally, I was handling the pictures less and as long as I named them appropriately, I could easily sort the pictures I wanted.

So, this year, as I went through the past 12 months selecting pictures for our parents book, I also selected pictures for our books. All of my pictures are in a folder and ready for me to upload.

Now comes the hard part. Who should I use to do my photobooks? I am looking for flexibility - who offers the most layout options both in arrangement as well as in number of pictures per page. Do any of the sites offer better options for journaling than others? Which books are high quality and value.

What has been your experience with photobooks? Who would you recommend? Who would you recommend steering clear of?

This question posed at the backwards edition of Works For Me Wednesday.

Tyson Any'tizers Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to JC and Tamara B, the two winners in the Tyson Any'tizers giveaway.

An e-mail will be sent to each of the winners.

Thank you to everyone for participating and be sure to check out my YooHoo & Friends giveaway.

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:

40 25
Timestamp: 2010-01-04 23:07:59 UTC

The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers 2

I recently had the opportunity to review The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers 2 from Tyndale House Publishers.

There is a page for each day of the year (including February 29th for leap years). Each page features a short verse from the Bible, a devotion, an illustration featuring the Little Blessings characters and a short rhyming prayer. The devotions are short and simple, which is good for younger children who have short attention spans. While simple, the devotions are about things your child can relate to, making it easy to start a discussion with your child about the bible verse and devotion. Some of the devotions even include questions, from which your discussion with your child can springboard.

I think that the format of the book is a great way to share the bible with your younger children. When my son was first born, we bought a Bible for toddlers and while it shared a number of stories with minimal detail, I always felt it was lacking in that it didn't bring about many discussions and didn't seem to teach but rather only familiarize them with some of the basic Bible stories. This book, because of its styling with daily passages makes it easy to share with the kids and leads to discussions about the lessons it is sharing. It's not telling the stories of the Bible, so much as it is allowing your children to understand the teachings of the Bible.

The book is titled to suggest that it is for Preschoolers, but I also think that it would be appropriate for older children. The passages are simple enough that an early reader could read it and think about the devotions.

Title: The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers 2
by Carla Barnhill; illustrated by Elena Kucharik
Age range: 3-6 years old
Publisher: Tyndale
Price: $14.99 (hardcover)



I received no compensation for this post. I received a complimentary copy of The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers 2 to review and share with my children, through MamaBzz.