Make a Fabulous Online Photo Album with a 'Scrapbook' Feel

Can you believe that it's almost Christmas! I do hope you have most of your shopping and wrapping done!  We bought our Christmas dinner last night and the stuff for the kids stockings.(Hope I can share the menu with you tomorrow! Yummy!)

Today, I'm doing my very last two things on the list...addressing some Christmas cards for local friends and arranging the dropping off of an Angel Tree Gift to a young teenager whose mother is in prison. That was the main way that our church ministered to others this Christmas. :o)

Gift Idea: Online Photo Album

Before I get to work though, I thought I'd share one last gift idea--an online photo album. I mentioned this on my Christmas list in November. Every year we make a photo album for my hubby's parents who live in Washington DC.

If you would like to try this, there is still time at Shutterfly to make one and get a huge discount. The deal is over today though. Still..this would be a great gift--deal or no deal.

Easy Option

If you are in a hurry, try the 'easy' mode. But be forewarned. You can't customize the size or shape of the boxes (which is bothersome if you have a photo with low resolution in that particular shape). And you can't add more than four photos per page. Still-- it is quick!

Custom Option

The other option is the custom one. You can add as many photos as you like and change just about everything, which is why it took me so long to make my album. LOL!

 I spent a LOT of hours on this..but it's our annual family year book, so it's worth it to me. 

I love being able to get that 'scrapbook' feel without actually doing the scrapbooking! No fuss or muss!

Tips

• Yellow Triangles - The little warning marks don't show up when the book publishes of course. These tell you there are typos or that the photo is too close to the edge or may be blurry when printed.
• Be careful to make sure none of your photos are too low of resolution. You will regret it when you get the book. The picture WILL be blurry.
• Save often!  It has auto save..but my java plug in crashed a couple of times and I lost a lot of work.

• Don't change the cover or style midway through if you have done a lot of arranging you don't want to lose. It will mess the whole thing up!  Play with it a while before you start doing a lot of detail writing or embellishing.

• Try to gather as many photos as possible from your various folders. It's a lot easier than hunting mid-way through.
• Make an outline of events you want to include. 

• If you have the option, don't pre-fill...instead choose to put your uploaded photos in a photo bar.  Just drag photos to a page for each event without doing any detailing (text or embellishments). Keep sorting and dragging till all of your photos from the bar are gone. Now each page has all the relevant photos grouped for that event and you can go back and fuss with them or even add a page if necessary.

Have fun this holiday season with a heart-warming photo album. It's a great way to end the year!

Happy Homemaking...

Donna