My Hobby: Photos and Scrapbooking

I love taking pictures. I love scrapbooking pictures.

I love photo gifts.

I have learned recently that there is a WIDE VARIETY of ways to scrapbook. I have heard about digital scrapbooking, giant journals, and crazy-takes-2-hours-to-do-one-page scrapbookers. There is a whole WORLD out there, that I am N-O-T a part of. I just go along my way and do my scrapbooks and give my gifts.

So, this post is for those with a mild interest in the hobby of scrapbooking and giving of photo gifts.

If you are crazy into it, visit some of these sights:
Heidi Swapp
Paper Cat
Giant Journaling

If you are average like me, this post is for you!

First I want to start with a new, very cool photosite called Heritagemakers. One of our commenters here turned me onto this. I put together a hardbound scrapbook through their website that had every bell and whistle you could think of. I was able to upload my photos, and then digitally scrapbook them. There were tons and tons of embellishments, alphabets, borders, colors, custom colors, already-done page layouts, and the list goes on. Not only that, but you can resize and rotate everything. It was this scrapbookers dream b/c there was no cutting, gluing or MESS in my house, and the end result was a fabulously printed and bound scrapbook...I even got to design my own cover.

At first I thought the price was a little up there, BUT I had this great cross-comparison. I recently made an 8 x 8 scrapbook for a friend, that had about the same pages as the 8 x 8 Heritagemakers Digital scrapbook. Doing a scrapbook from scratch with an acid free album, papers, embellishments, stickers, and printing the photos, was around $70-...not including the scissors, glue etc. that are already in my kit. Plus it took hours and hours to put together.

The Heritagemakers book is $49.99 I think. And it is a really high quality, creative gift. I think this would be so great for a very special gift: Anniversary, Wedding, Baby's 1st Year, Christmas, or Birthday. But, honestly I think it is so smart for all of you who WANT to scrapbook but are so intimidated by/"over" having to get all the supplies, pull them out and DO IT. $50+ a year for your family's scrapbook seems like just the right price, and you can be working on it a little at a time all year round. I give Heritagemakers an A+++. These books are NOT for those of you who want the stark white back grounds and a few photos on a page...this is for the creatives!

2 other points. 1 is that some of you out there are a little afraid of making mistakes, and here you can just UNDO...it's not STUCK WITH GLUE. And, they have a 12 x 12 album available, which is the size of my personal scrapbooks, and frankly they are starting to take up a LOT of space, so I am strongly considering making a 12 x 12 scrapbook from this site as my family's album....

Snapfish was my first adventure in an online photo service. I started about 5 years ago, and I am still a loyal customer. The quality of their prints, price, prompt service, and EXCELLENT customer service keep me coming back. I have gotten a lot of friends and family to use this site religiously as well, which tells me that many people enjoy snapfish.

Though recently they have added some new features, I am most familiar with their postcard, flip book, and photobook services. Every year I get my family Christmas postcard printed by them, and I love the quality and fast service. I can take the picture one day, and about 3 days later have the postcards, by using regular mail shipping options.

The flipbooks are great too, for small gifts, or little memories you want to preserve. Stark white, clean backgrounds with the option of borders and captions. It is user-friendly to put together, and high quality.

Photobooks are my favorite Christmas gift to give to Grandparents that already have everything. Their layouts/options for pages have become more sophisticated over the years, but are pretty basic. The price is right at around 20 dollars, and 10-15 percent off additional books that are the exact same. The only glitch I have experienced with these books is my grandpa received one that had about 15 pages in the beginning of the book, of some random person that I don't know's wedding photos, but the rest of the book contained exactly what I had ordered. He never told me this, I just discovered it when visiting, and my husband easily removed the other family's pages.

Photostamps
For that extra touch on a card or postcard, I am a fan of the photostamp. It is definitely a luxury item and a little pricey, but I just love the idea. I have done this a few years for Christmas cards, but when I realized that get stamped over quite a bit in some areas, I reconsidered...

I have also received photogifts made by a MAC site I think...right Carrie? and they seem very similar to Snapfish.

So.....would love to start a thread on your experiences, and maybe we will repost this with some tweaks and links around the holidays...to get us thinking of that extra special, personalized GIFT!