My Publisher "free extra pages" sale

This is the sale I wait for! My Publisher is running their "free extra pages" up to 100 pages through June 10th. That's $35 for a 100-page, hard cover book (without upgrades). That's a good deal.

By trial and error I have established my preferences when ordering from MP. There are endless options after you choose the size and hard vs. soft cover for your book but I have hit upon what I really like, what I think is worth the upgrade price and what is not and thought I'd share those preferences here. It may not make sense if you have never ordered from MP, so just skip over this until you have completed your first book and are ready to place the order. Then consider this.

Here is how I order my 8.75"x11.25" hardcover book:

*Classic hardcover finish in matte

*Lay flat pages (+$20)- inevitably I have words and pictures eaten in the binding of the book if I go with the traditional binding. You can maximize the page layouts if you go with this option.

*Deluxe paper (+$3.99), satin finish

*Standard printing
            (I do NOT care for the super gloss at all!)

*Premium end sheets, your choice of paper

*No slipcase

With shipping costs, this comes to just under $70. And it makes for a very nice book. I will be finishing up my 2012 {july to december} book this week and placing my order. Hooray!

why I use My Publisher

 There are countless online photo sites to choose from to make a photo book. I have used a few different ones, including Shutterfly and Snapfish, for smaller projects but have always chosen My Publisher for my family books, my big books. And this is why:

My Publisher runs the best deal for books with lots of pages. About three times a year they will offer their "free extra pages" sale. Their classic book, with 20 pages, starts at $29.99. For each additional page over 20, you pay $0.99. That adds up when you have a 100 page book. So I make my book and then wait for that great sale that lets me buy my 100 page book for $30. I haven't found a better deal. {They actually run a lot of sales, but this one is the best, even better than a BOGO sale.}

My Publisher has software that you download for free onto your computer so that you are not online when making your book. Perhaps you have a speedy internet connection. Good for you. We do not. It saves me much frustration to not be dependent upon the internet when working on my projects.

A nine-photo layout example from the book I did for my brother's wedding. I mixed developing tints as sometimes lots of color on lots of pictures on the same page is over-stimulating. 

I kinda got stuck on "twelves" last year. It made for fun shooting goals throughout the months. This is a picture of one of the pages from my 2012 book, with a 12-photo layout option. 

Any photo book company is going to offer the option to "auto fill" your book for you or for you to manually choose the page layouts and placement of pictures. If you are wanting to try this family photo book thing but are a bit overwhelmed by it all, auto fill your book. You can then go back and tweak what you want, add text, move photos, but it essentially makes your book for you in a minute.  I, however, really like choosing page layouts, getting creative with texts and all that, and I think My Publisher has great manual options for letting you do whatever it is you want to do. Shutterfly seems a bit more restrictive in their templates.

Here is a screen shot of my desktop with My Publisher open. I made cover pages for each month with highlights and favorite memories journaled in. This picture background is of my kitchen window,
 a place a spend a large chunk of my time.

Another screen shot with MP open. See the little "My Style" at the bottom center of the page? With this turned on, your layout possibilities are endless. 

And lastly, MP has good customer service. I received a book once that was bound a little crooked, okay, it looked very crooked to me, but I called them, took a picture of the issue and emailed it over, and they sent me a code for replacement book just like that. No need to ship back the imperfect book (which is huge, because a trip to the post office with little boys to correct their error is no small thing).

Now, go poke around their site. I think next topic will be selecting pictures for your book,  as you can save yourself some work if you are choosy with your photos before importing them into the program.

on writing your family's story

I will never admit to loving winter. I do, however, love seasons. And I love the season of winter for the activities, the routines, it prescribes. Winter is my time for reflecting on the year past, sorting through pictures, pulling stories and snippets from various journals I keep, and compiling it all in a book, er, two books, for us to remember the year for what it was: a gift.

I have just finished the first installment of 2012, {january~june}.

We are all enjoying it. I love that my boys love to sit and look at it. I love that they want to make their own. It sits on the table in front of our sofa, easy access for all, and serves to be an ever present reminder to me of how much I have been given. It reminds me that this life and these little lives I spend my life for are gifts. 

Anyhow, I think I might really put myself out there and do a little series of posts on writing your family's story in an effort to encourage you to slow down enough to pick up your pen or grab your camera and document these crazy days of life with exuberant kiddos. 

I have been taking pictures, scribbling words, and making picture books for as long as I can remember. Was introduced to Creative Memories when I was in 9th grade and enjoyed exercising my creativity in that scrapbook style of recording up until Josiah was born. I had braced myself for the reality that spending hours putting pictures together in that style was going to be unrealistic for me after I had a baby. (Thanks, Ali, for the heads-up.) I resorted to the simple slip-in-the-sleeve albums that you can get at Costco for $10. But, after more than a decade of producing fat photo albums, I now had the problem of where to store all those books. All lined up they took up more than seven feet of shelf space! That was when the idea of digital albums really appealed to me. 

Three years ago I made my first "year in review" family album through My Publisher. It is 100 pages and takes up a whopping one inch on my shelf. And, if it were ever to suffer the sad fate of having coffee spilled all over it, it is saved both online and on my computer so I could just order another. 

I love digital photo books. I love having the story of our lives in pictures and words easily accessible for me to flip back and remember what God was doing in us last year. Or three years ago. It is my hope that I would be able to give you a little inspiration to write your own family's story. And to save you some time by sharing what I have learned over the years. 

why it is really good to remember

I was five when I started my first journal. It was from the Hello Kitty store in the Florida Mall, had 4 different colors of paper, a little lock on the front and I can still remember how it smelled when it was brand new. Even at five I refused to call it a diary. It was a journal. Big difference. A diary is for the recording of silly girl thoughts. A journal was where you worked out the hard questions of life, a place to write about really important things, which at five was often what we had for dinner.

Christmas 1987 I received my first camera. I was seven. It was purple. The pictures I took with it at Lisa Michele's 8th birthday party are in our basement now. Glad to say both my camera and my skills have been upgraded since then.

I think I was born a historian at heart. All those dead people and their dates appealed to me. Captivated me. Human beings, image bearers of the Holy God himself, walking this earth, living out each day of their lives, one hour, one minute at a time, for the past 6000 years. It doesn't matter how brilliant or brave or base you may be, you only live one moment at a time. You only get 24 hours in each day, just like everyone else.

I am thankful I learned history from a theocentric perspective. We studied about the Providential hand of God, shaping men and nations for His purposes. We looked for evidences of Him, sovereignly moving throughout the centuries as He scripted His story. We studied history because, regardless of the century, men are men and are predisposed to the same vices and sins and we can learn from those who have gone before. And we study history to remember. How God has cared for and provided for his people, all 6000 or so years they've inhabited this earth.

It is good to remember. And because I am not all that great at remembering on my own, I journal and collect pictures of my days and put them in books and label them after the years of my life.

They remind me of the faithful God who calls me His daughter. They remind me that my life is not about me. They remind me that I am loved enough by my Father in heaven that he is not content to leave me where I am, but is committed to growing me. They remind me that the painful days where I don't feel very hopeful do have purpose. Growth requires death. And death is not the end.

New life comes from death.

 I have been collecting pictures these last few weeks, wading through thousands of pictures of our year past, trying to whittle them down to fit in a book to sit on our table and remind us of how God was faithful to our family in 2011.

I have really enjoyed the process. It felt completely surreal to go back through the pictures of Bereket and Tamagn that we received via email from February till September, when we brought them home. I remember what it was like to sit and stare at their sad little faces on our glowing computer screen and wonder who are you??? You are going to be my child and what are you really like? Will you fit in our family? Can I love you? Do you even want to love us?

And now they're my kids. I do love them. They do fit in our family. We are glad they are ours. And my heart softens again to the little boy whining at my knees that he doesn't want milk but juice.

Remembering is a really good thing. Please, please remind me when I forget?