Laura Vegas

just thought i'd share a little about my photo books and blog books today. it's almost the end of the year … and will be time to put together my 2008 books. my plan was to work on these throughout the year … but that didn't happen. lol!

i love having these books stacked up on my shelves … right along with all my scrapbook albums. i think years from now … when you put all these albums and books together side by side … they'll tell quite the story of our lives. i love to scrapbook … and have been doing it for 13 years now. but there is just no way that i can scrap all our photos … or all our stories. so i have really loved the idea of doing some of these digital photo books. and i've been blogging now for 3 1/2 years … so that is a lot of thoughts and typing involved … and i think having that in print is an awesome idea.

so i have the daycare books that i printed through shutterfly … and they're each a 20 page, 12×12 book. i really want to do this sort of book for our family photos too … just a little more thinking for that. the daycare ones were easy … because i narrowed the photos down by each child. but i think the family photos, holidays, and events will take a little more planning. the blog books i had done through blurb … and they are the 7×7 size.  

these are my "daycare favorites" photos books. i put together the first one mainly because i had won a free 12×12 photo book from shutterfly. you can see more of the book in this post. i mention this in the original post. but i just love how this book sums up our year in photos. there are a ton of everyday, random photos in these. and many of them are already scrapped on a layout. but having them all together in one spot … it's just so cool. i have since gone back and done 2006 also. that's really as far as i could go back … since that was when i made the final switch to digital. i kept these books super simple … same basic page design through both books … and i'll use that design again this year. so it's really simple to pick out my favorite photos from throughout the year … and just plop them all into the book. this also helped cut back on my photo ordering this year. i knew i would be doing this album … so i never ordered that many pictures of the daycare kids for myself. if i wanted to scrap some … i would print them myself.  

i can't remember how i first heard about making these blog books. but i will tell you that the first one i did took me forever! it was the 2007 book … and you can see more of it in this post. my 2005 book is the smallest … at just 90 pages. i don't even have any pictures on the cover of the book … since i had only been digital for about 2 months and had NO pictures to use. and i had only been blogging for about 6 months … and was very sporatic about it then. my 2006 book is 202 pages … a lot more photos and a lot more blogging. my 2007 book is 286 pages … and even more photos and even more blogging. i recently started "slurping" up my 2008 blog posts … and this years book is going to be even bigger. 

so just a little insight to my books … and why i have them done. i have other books i really want to make … just a matter of sitting down and working them out. soccer is a big one … would love to narrow down the soccer pics and get those in a book. someday!