We took more than 2,000 photos during my daughter’s first year. One of the projects on my to-do list is to arrange the best shots into a Shutterfly photo book commemorating my daughter’s first year of life.
I’m making progress toward finishing the task, albeit very slowly. Nearly seven months after my daughter’s first birthday, I’ve still got four more months of photos to sort through and artfully arrange.
I’m not the only parent with organizing photos on my to-do list. In a November survey of parents nationwide, site UrbanSitter found that a top New Year’s resolution among parents is to “organize the family photos.” And one fellow mom recently suggested I look into “how to organize and actually find the time to make your pictures into photo books. arggggh.”
If only I had done the clever photo book making strategy I recently learned from Lynn Perkins, co-founder and chief executive officer of UrbanSitter, an approach I’m sharing as today’s hint in hopes that it will help save other parents some time and stress.
Ms. Perkins’ smart photo book making strategy: As she knew the first year as a mom would be crazy, she outsourced her twins’ one year photo/baby books to the boys’ grandmothers from the start. As she took photos over the course of the year, she forwarded them along to the grandmothers. “They loved it and got into it,” she says. “It worked out very well.”
This trick could work just as well for plain old baby books and photo baby books that have more than photos (you’d just email the important stats and details, along with photos). Don’t have relatives that would be willing to take on such a task? You could always hire a TaskRabbit to do it (yes, other parents have actually done this – here’s one such TaskRabbit job listing for inspiration).
To be sure, there’s the always the chance that whoever you outsource the task to might not pick out the photos you would have, or arranged them to your liking.
You could, however, ensure that the photos you like best make it into the book by taking some time each month to pick out the best “photo book worthy” shots from that month, filing them away in an online folder for whoever creates the final book, and this time saving curating as-you-go strategy works great if you’re going to be making the book yourself too.
Also, be sure to do what mom suggested on a local moms’ message board: delete, delete, delete. As the mom wrote: “When I have to urge to include every angle, I just start deleting mercilessly, remembering that LOOKING at every shot makes a pretty boring book.” I’m a fan of this approach too, deleting the bad shots from my phone as they are taken.
Now, if only I had known about these tricks last year.. . Just 1,000 more photos to go . . . .
What are your time (and stress) saving tips for creating photo books?
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I work best under pressure and with deadlines. I think with only one child, it still works to my advantage. That being said, I made it a point to have his first year photo book done for his first birthday party and then it was also a guestbook for friends and relatives to write well wishes to him (like a wedding guestbook, but a whole lot cuter!) And then I left to blank pages at the end for my husband and I to write in more details how we feel about our little guy. It also became his first year baby book, as I typed in milestones throughout. I hope he’ll like it!
Where do you store all of your digital photos? My Mac is telling me I’m almost full — all due to baby photos and videos! I’m trying to figure out the safest and most cost-effective way to keep them in two or three places (hard drive? online service?). Would love to hear what other mamas are doing.. This year, I vow to delete more as I go…
I’d love to see your finished project or if you have helpful hints on what you included. I am diving into this very task right now and also have thousands of photos and want to include milestones and fund outings, basically a recap of the whole 1st year.
Adding this to my to-do hint list:)