Saving Memories with Photo Books

If you’re like most Vancouver moms, your computer’s hard drive is filled with digital photos of your children. In fact, digital photography is one of the best things that has ever happened to the mamarazzi. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and we can see the images right away. What’s not to love? Well … there’s that pesky little issue of missing out on the experience of actual printed keepsakes. One great way to reproduce that experience is through photo books and digital scrapbooking.

Photo Books for You

There are a wide variety of businesses that offer online photo book services. In fact, we ran a giveaway last summer for one of those businesses, Kulapix. Our sponsor ookpix is another. Here in Canada Blacks.ca, Blurb.ca and Snapfish.ca also offer photo books. They’re a great way to document a pregnancy, baby’s first year, a vacation, or even just a fabulous Vancouver spring. Some moms make photo books each year on their children’s birthdays, to document their children’s lives. They’re not the cheapest, starting at around $20 and increasing steeply from there, but when you compare that with having photos developed and buying a photo album, the price isn’t bad and the quality is very good.

Photo Books as Gifts

Of course, photo books (like all photo keepsakes) aren’t just something you might want to buy for yourself. They also make great gifts for family and friends. Photo books of kids with their grandparents are fabulous. So are photo books of a child with their bestie, so that both friends can have a copy of those images. You can also pull together photo books from a close friend’s wedding as a gift … the options really are endless.

Beyond Photo Books

There are some great options beyond photo books that you can consider, as well. If you’ve ever had a blog, for instance, Blurb.ca makes blog books. Many moms blog as a way of chronicling their kids’ childhoods, and a keepsake book is a great way to turn that into something tangible. If you love to cook you can also pull together a cookbook with some of your favourite recipes and photos. If you love to do crafts with your kids you can also pull that into a book. Whether you’re making something for someone else or for yourself, there really is something special about holding your own book in your hands.

Digital Scrapbooking

The great thing about pulling together photo books using a service is that they help you format all of the pages. If you have a really strong idea of what you want to do for yourself, though, you may want to do some more serious digital scrapbooking. Much like regular scrapbooking, this involves laying out pages with images, text and colours in creative ways. However, digital scrapbooking is done almost entirely on a computer. Then you can either use a service to print it into a book, or print out the pages yourself. If this appeals to you, there are lots of online classes you can take to help you get started.

Have you ever made photo books? We’d love to hear all about it!