Hi Mamas,
Yes, I'm just getting around to weeding through and printing out pictures uh, from the beginning and my daughter is 4.5! I know, a bit behind, but before I started from scratch looking for the best albums to place them in I thought I would ask here first. There's a lot of photos, so they ned tobe one's that can hold alot, plus I have diffrent years now, so maybe the kind that would have some sort of lavel for the outside binder or slot to fill in years, etc. Not sure if I need space to write anything, maybe its best to write on the back of the photo's, so any suggestions would be appreciated? Target? Micheal's Crafts? or other online places?
Best, S.
Any photo album will do. Write on the page, "May 2010". I do not see
a need for fancy albums that cost a fortune. Remember you are the
only one that wil be looking at it.
If your photos are digital or can be scanned I would do it all on either snapfish or shutterfly. Easier and will probably last better.
And PLEASE, your daughter is 4.5!? I had friends that waited until their kids graduated High School to begin!
If you really feel the need to make actual print albums, you can get multiples of the same album just about anywhere & label them for dates, or special events. If you feel more creative, Michael's would be great because they have lots of scrapbook ideas & supplies, including decorative papers, stickers, etc. It would be good to either have labels on the pages, or at least on the back of pics, so you can identify people & dates years from now when you might not remember so well, or when others are looking at them, there aren't so many questions like "who's this?" or "whats this of?".
I have over 30,000 digital pics on my computer at home just from the last 7 yrs of my family, kids, & events. Luckily my house has a combo living/dining space where my computer is near the dining table. I have the photos screensaver that comes on after 30 minutes of non-activity. Everyone has a great time sitting at the table watching the computer screen playback all of the pics.
You could also get a digital picture frame. Some are AC powered, some can run on batteries. Most have memory card, or usb slots so you can change pics at any time. The battery powered frames are also portable & easy to take anywhere with you, or be passed around with a group.
If you decide to print, use one of the mentioned online photo sites, or even a dept store website like Walmart, or Target. You can upload your photos & have them shipped to you, or you can have them printed in a local store for pick-up in as little as one hour. Whatever you decide, good luck, & have fun doing it.
I always make photo books on shutterfly.com. It's really easy because you just upload your photos from your camera, then choose the photos you want to include in the book and choose the way you want you pages to look and they print the book and send it to you. If you want to make a regular photo album, check Christmas Tree Shop for inexpensive albums.
I love this question! It's so hard to keep up with all the photos! My son is 3 and I've got one actual photo album of him from 0-6 months old, then things got a little busy I guess!
What I plan to do, when I have the time, is make photo albums on Shutterfly. Much easier and less expensive than printing out a gazillion photos and buying books.
I loved the response below about someone waiting until the kids were in HS to start their albums! Now I don't feel so guilty! :)
Lynsey
I recently started using photo boxes instead of albums. They are about shoebox size and five dollars a piece. I just recently saw them on sale at Michaels for two dollars a box though. I can usually fit two years worth of pictures in one and there is a spot to write the year on the outside of the box. I like it because if I need to take a picture out, then I don't have a blank spot in the photo album. Also, I took months organizing my albums and when we moved someone packed my albums in a box wrong and when I took them out of the box.....all the pictures fell out. If they were in a box, I could have just thrown them back in there, instead I had to reinsert them into their sleeve. What a mess!
Why wouldn't you scan them and store them on a disc from the computer?
www.shutterfly.com
www.snapfish.com
www.kodak.com
to share photos online:
www.photobucket.com
www.flickr.com
www.smugmug.com
I would save digital copies to disk but it is nice to have printed out photos in an album. My 4 year old likes to look at the older pictures from my childhood an beyond. He now knows a lot about family relationships and knows relatives back to his great grandparents by name (he knows his one living great grandmother). This is in large part because I helped make scrapbooks of all my grandmother's family pictures when she had her 85th birthday party. It was a big project but not unmanageable. I used 12 by 12 inch scrapbooks (they go on sale at the craft store every few months) and got a large pack of colored paper the size that fit. Most pages were simple with just the picture(s) on a colored background and information (who, where, when plus any significant details). I did make a few pages a little more detailed with a contrast color or pattern paper but when you have a lot of pictures keeping it simple helps. I did do this project before my first child was born (my kids are now 4 and 17 months). Once I had kids it was a lot harder to keep up. I made it easy for myself by just putting the printouts in books with sleeves for each picture. Several times I have taken the disk with the digital pictures to the drug store and gotten prints made that way. I think you can do that online as well. anyway, whatever you choose to do I hope it turns out well.
