Holding memories close to our hearts (and hands!)
If you follow me on Instagram, it probably comes as no surprise that I create custom, year in review photo books for my kids each year. I’ve documented my passion for capturing everyday moments, but what good are they on my computer where nobody gets to enjoy them?
Today, I’m sharing the lazy mom’s way to make year in review books.
I think every parent makes an effort to capture the biggies: holidays, birthdays and milestones.
But I’m also a huge believer in celebrating the little moments. Some of my favorite photos of myself as a kid are those random, tiny moments. So, with my own kids, I try to capture things like:
…the way she has lots of things to tell me after her nap.
…her special bond with big sister.
…the way her hair curls after bath time.
…that smile.
I’m no scrapbooker, so each. and. every. year I’ve used Shutterfly to compile our favorite moments.
With three littles in the Five Marigolds home, that’s three books a year, my friends. A labor of love, for sure! And love them, they do.
But as much as these are treasured, I find myself procrastinating this time consuming task. In fact, I just recently finished the last three years for my oldest girl last month. Oops! That’s why I was super stoked when I logged in to make yet another book, and saw that they added a Make My Book service. Sign me up.
I uploaded all my photos, submitted them to a designer, and within a few days I had an e-mail saying my book was complete.
Boom. A professionally designed book.
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to make your own year in review photo book, it’s totally free to get started. You only pay a one-time design fee of $9.99 if you order your finished book.
That’s a great deal for us procrastinators.
Do you make year in review photo books? How do you capture your family’s memories? Or, are you still planning to get around to that…one of these days? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
I have been wanting to make photo books like this but it is such a time commitment to find the photos and organize them. This is super helpful! I feel extra motivated now!
raspberryscribbles.com
Glad I could help motivate you, Madi!
Such a good idea! It can be so hard to design those books yourself when you want to include every picture. Someone who doesn’t know you can probably put it together much more efficiently.
I make yearbooks for my kids too and they also love looking at them! Can you give more details about the one time $9.99 fee? My books always end up costing over $100!!!
Hi Ashley – the fee I mentioned is for the design service. When you use it you can specify your personal preferences, such as the number of pages, to make sure you stay within your budget.
How’d the designer do? I’ve been curious to try it. Did it really feel like someone actually compiled it? Or did you still need to edit?
Hi Meghan, I actually gave very little guidance to my designer, just to see how they would do. They clearly put thought into grouping photos by event and timeframe, etc. As a bit of a control freak, I was pleasantly surprised! However, you can give as much guidance to your designer as you want to ensure the book will turn out like you want. You’re able to make any changes you want after its designed.
This is a great service! I like to make family yearbooks with all our photos from the year, but you are right. It takes a lot of time!!!!!
I’ll look into this. Not only would I love to have it, but my parents and grandparents would love this as a gift. The problem is time…
I used to scrapbook for the first and second child, but come the third and fourth–NOTHING. So I really need to at least do a family photo book. Thank you so much for sharing this at 100 Happy Days!
It’s SO hard once you get to the third!
Oh I am YEARS behind in my photo books. I love to know this option exists!
Been there, Sara! It feels so nice to be caught up!
What a fantastic service- I’m like Sara, YEARS behind on photo books! I will definitely have to try this out!
Awesome idea. I love your blog!!! This girl is a new follower!
<3 <3 <3
Thanks Rochelle! I’ve been looking to make books like these for each of the kids for Christmas! A friend was saying it’s a great way to practice attachment parenting with older kids- to have a tangible book of their story in the family: pregnancy, birth, their milestones, artwork but not tucked away in a baby book they rarely see but a book on their shelves they can pull out and look at on their own and discuss and share memories with family. 🙂 These sound like EXACTLY what I was looking for! And with 4 kids… the curate option is SO AWESOME!! Can’t wait to try it!
I can’t wait to get started!
I love this service with Shutterfly. Making a yearbook each year can be SO time consuming. It is worth it though! There are a bunch of ‘year in review’ printables on the anitome.com blog that can be uploaded to Shutterfly’s photo books too. May help some!
Hi. My name is Ranelle. This is something I have been very very slowly working on. I’m a keen photographer and when my daughter was born in 2016 i thought lets get started. 3 years later i have many photos but no books yet. In South Africa we don’t get shutterfly so I’m going to do it myself and get books printed…. However you have somehow given me that extra boost to just start it already before another year goes buy with even more images to sort. It’s something i have even been wanting to supply to other people to make extra income. Your book looks beautiful. Thankyou for this write up that i found on Pinterest. X
I’m so happy to hear that, Ranelle. Here I am a few years later and I have more books to make, as well! 😉
CAn you add writing?
Absolutely! You can customize it as much or as little as you want.