Printed memories

**collective sigh** It’s Friday. I think this week went by fast, but then I think how long it took to get here. Quite the battle inside, but regardless of if it was quick to come or slow as molasses, its happily here.

All week long has been quite the head in the clouds feeling for me. I got a groupon for a 20 page shutterfly photo book that expires in just a matter of days, so pretty much all this week, I spent my work hours creating it. I realize some may find this wrongful use of company time, but well, clearly I don’t have issues with it, so creating a photobook was on my agenda to do.

I decided to make an album of the cross country road trip G-man and I took back in 2009. Ack! Over 3 years ago. That’s unbelievable to me, any way, it was so great looking back at the memories we captured. Getting brought back to that moment where we caught the last 20 minutes of daylight at the Grand Canyon before we couldn’t see anything anymore. Or when G-man drove me through a tropical storm on the coast of Mississippi, because “it was nothing” to him…as the water is spilling over the wall covering the road..and I’m having an internal panic attack..

Or when we were at Disney World and got matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts to wear around the park. Just typing that brings the biggest smile on my face and sentimental tears to my eyes. …and now I’m crying… ugh, I’m hormonal, and emotional and gosh, I’m missing him bad right now.

{any way} I thought I could fit an entire month’s worth of photos (we took a month to drive from California to Virginia) in 20 pages, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. 46 pages later (not bad if I say so myself), my book was complete. I read from other’s that Shutterfly puts this “vivid effect” on all of your photos without your knowing which will over saturate and make your photos more yellow/orange, so I wanted to make sure I took that effect off before hitting ‘order’. Only I couldn’t find where it was. I looked everywhere to no avail, and finally jumped on live chat to ask.

I wasn’t prepared for what they told me. That I had to completely remove every single one of the 170 pictures I put in the album, delete them all, remove the effect and start over. I was crushed… not to mention a little upset. 45 minutes of live chatting back and forth, and taking 50 pictures of each page and its layout with my iPhone later, I finally was able to follow their instruction, remove the vivid effect, and start all over.

Thank goodness I took photos of each page of what pictures went where. In 45 minutes flat, I had put all the photos back where they were, triple checked every page, font and spelling and hit order. Now I sit and wait. I’m pretty excited to get it. This is just one trip of many that needed to be made into an album, so I’m excited that it got done.

I’m really becoming a big advocate for getting photos off the computer and onto print. Whether they’re thrown together in a cheap photo book, made into hundreds of 4x6’s or placed with care into many expensive photo albums, they need to get off the computer and into our hands. My goal is to have stacks and stacks of photo albums to share and see for years to come.

What’s your goal with your photos?
Do you use Shutterfly for your albums?

Have a lovely weekend, my friends. I’ve missed you guys!

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