photo album / baby book recommendations

Amber_Waves · September 2017

Hi all,
I'm looking for recommendations on how to stay on top of making/keeping a family photo album and/or a baby book.
What have you done that has worked for you?
DH & I are pretty good at taking pictures, but getting them into a book with adequate captions never seems to happen... So, I'm looking for PROCESS recommendations as much as printer or publisher recommendations.

Thanks!

edited: spelling

breezybee · September 2017

I'm going to try to have a word document that I update once a month with milestones/etc for each baby. I'll be taking millions of pics through the first year, and then at the end, I was going to put together a scrapbook for both of the girls. I am not crafty by any means, so we'll see how this goes!

anewadventure · September 2017

i am terrible at this and therefore have no good advice.
i believe there are a variety of apps that can be useful in terms of forcing you to actually do something with all of the pictures on your phone. for example, for some small cost per month (like, i think a couple of bucks) one of them would remind you to pick 100 photos per month and it would print them in a booklet with perforated edges (so you can rip them out) and mail it to you.

or something.

SO VAGUE. I'M SO HELPFUL.

abcola · September 2017

I downloaded tinybeans and plan on using that along with chatbooks to share pictures with family and then have them made into books. With chatbooks you can connect with instagram to get the captions, but you can also just use your photo stream.
Right now tiny beans is driving me crazy because it prompts you to take pictures of LO...
I have a pomo code you can use if wanted: https://invite.chatbooks.com/alitbraswell0n0

txmomma16 · September 2017

I am no help at all, but I love this thread because I also have this question. Thank you!

katiegeminimoon · September 2017

I don't have a LO yet, but I plan to use Shutterfly. They have good prices when they run sales and I am familiar with making photobooks there. I plan to upload pics once a month and make that months page(s) then instead of doing a whole year at once. I may also try Chatbooks or whatever it is where it is just very simply a bunch of pictures printed for the cute but not official book worthy pictures, haha.

alysapuggles · September 2017

I haven't used any special app, but i have my phone photos auto backed up by Google photos and then (in an ideal world) go in every month or 2 and upload the ones I want to something like shutterfly so they are ready to go for ordering prints, making books, etc. However the key here is staying on top of that. I got way behind and am only uploaded to DS' 3rd bday. He turned 6 this summer.

I have used both Snapfish and Mixbook for photo books and prefer Mixbook.

whiska · September 2017

Jumping off of this - anyone have good apps for
1) Sending pics to family members. TinyBeans would drive me crazy if it's reminding you to take pics every day! I have some family who don't use Facebook, or else I would post and only make them visible to "Family"
2) Printing and mailing pics? I would prefer pics sent in an envelope over something like a postcard. I think my mom and ILs would freakin love getting these in the mail.

blueskies17 · September 2017

A few moms on a local mom FB group recommended the Qeepsake app- it texts you automated questions about your LO and your responses are added to his/her private journal. You can also text Qeepsake when something memorable happens. Then you log onto the website to add more pictures/edit entries and can order a print of a Qeepsake book (which is expandable so you can order more pages later). Sounds more manageable than scrapbooking (which I'm going to attempt, but I'm terrible at it) so I plan to try it out!

lavashiner · September 2017

@whiska @abcola I have tinybeans and love it. I must have turned off notifications because I've never gotten a prompt/reminder to take pics. I recommend checking your settings to see if you can turn the notifications off. That would drive me nuts, too.

What I love is that it sends a weekly email to any interested family member with the photos from that week. For DD's great grandmother, this is ideal since she is not on Facebook (neither am I for that matter) and I don't have to completely spam my instagram with tons of pics of my kid.

I also use chatbooks and have had success with the books from google photos as well.

flowerpower5838 · September 2017

I jotted stuff down throughout the month and shared that on FB with a monthly milestone picture. I have zero advice as far as keeping up a baby book as I have yet to fill it out, but I have the Lucy Darling Simple Book of Firsts. I'll refer back to those FB posts for the monthly info. I do recommend getting a book soon as there are some pre-baby spots to fill in.

cait5413 · September 2017

I bought a physical old-school baby book for DD and have been pretty good about filling it out. I will probably get one for this LO but I bet it won't be as detailed. I have also used snapfish and shutterfly in the past and like them. I LOVE tinybeans. So good for the grandparents. I do take a pic or video of rd every day with my phone. It only takes a sec and is so fun to see how much She's grown. But if you find the n notifications annoying I believe you can turn them off

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