if you make photo albums/books for your kids...

[esperanza]

Never thought I'd be posting in this forum. I'm SO not crafty! I wanted to get some input from other moms who make photo albums/books for their kids. I decided before ds was born that I'd go the Shutterfly photo book route. I'm not a paper scrapbooker at all, and I felt like something online was easy enough for me to keep up with. I made four books of ds' first year, and I'm super glad that I have them. They were a lot of nap times, but so worth it to have those photos.

Now that we're in year two, I have to figure out what I can keep up with. I figure the first year's books would be more intense, since there are so many firsts/big moments that first year. At first I thought maybe I could get by with just one book for each year after, but I'm thinking it will end up being two. (Just because otherwise the book gets too thick.)

We'd love to have another child at some point, so I also have to think about this in terms of keeping up with two kids. I'm the oldest in my family, so I got the better photo albums. But I'm hoping to not short change the second one too much! I am trying to figure out how to work in keeping up with the photo albums into our daily life. I was thinking maybe taking a few hours at the end of each month. The other option being trying to do something once/week, but whatever I pick I don't want that constant nagging feeling that I'm behind on my books and should be working on them.

So if you do photo books, how do you keep up with them? It's been so nice keeping up on them and not getting too behind (and doing months at a time). I need a plan so that I know I don't have to think about it except at x time, otherwise I'll keep thinking that I should be working on them. How do you make it sustainable? Thanks!

[sunflowermom]

What a great idea! I'm no good at keeping up with projects like this, but I'd love to hear tips from those of you that are!

[CelticJourney]

Putting together a digital photo book doesn't take much time IF you have the photos organized and IF you aren't overly worried about everything being 'super cute'. The sorting and organizing is the work, so it's a great idea to take a hour or so at the end of each month to sort

I have the kids pictures on the computer by year and then each one has a folder (copies if the pic has more than one child etc). I'd love to say I've kept them all in great order, but sadly, no. It does help if you burn CD's at the end of each year to have backups!

[ctab]

Project life all the way. It is simple and fun. I like Stampin Up's the best, but you can get the regular kits, albums, etc in Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc.

Here is the basic explanation
https://beckyhiggins.com/about-project-life/

[ECingMama]

The people I know who keep up with it do it monthly. I like MyPublisher and Blurb. I use Shutterfly too.

[Katigre]

I use Shutterfly and do one 'baby book' per child. It usually goes until they're 3-4 and I reach the max pages Shutterfly allows. I like having one book even if it has 85ish pages, and the kids look through them all the time.