The last few times I’ve wanted to make a book to encapsulate a trip or an event, I’ve done it online with Shutterfly. When it came to Iceland, for some unknown reason, I decided to make a scrapbook. Now I’m one of them!
I’ve seen the books and embellishments in Michaels, of course, and all of the stand-alone shops offering classes. But it never occurred to me to become a part of it all until the Iceland trip seemed to call out for a personal, low-tech touch.
Shutterfly offers print printing but I looked around for a local option and found it in Henry’s photos. Holy Hannah – what an ordeal! After I uploaded and cropped more than 100 photos, the site crashed every time I tried to send a batch to print. I contacted tech support and they suggested only transferring small numbers at a time. That’s fine, except I couldn’t look back at what I had previously transferred and therefore, I ended up with doubles and triples of shots I really didn’t need. It wasn’t user-friendly and unless they upgrade it, I wouldn’t recommend it.
However, the prints were done in a few days as promised and they looked good. I knew nothing about the commercial scrapbooking industry. Michaels had a buy-one-get-one deal, so I picked up a couple of books I liked. When it became clear that I needed more than the original 10 pages I couldn’t figure out how the thing expanded! Finally, I asked at the store. A screwdriver and some patience were the keys.
I didn’t buy a lot of stickers and things although I did carefully choose a couple of packages, including a page of bees because that’s what Derek and I call each other: Bee. It took several hours and three rolls of double-sided tape to finish it, and it was worth playing around with layouts before making them permanent. It was fun! The best part was Derek’s delighted reaction. He called it “So us”! That’s what I didn’t think I could achieve with digital.
So, I can’t print another book off at will and I have about a million pictures left over, but this book is really for us anyway. If someone wants to look at it, great. What they’ll see is our trip through our eyes, with all of the goofiness, quotes and comments that entails.
Photo albums are for memories, scrap books are for rekindling the emotions associated with the trip and when combined allow you to enjoy the trip over and over again.