Stinkerpants

That being said, if you know me, you are not surprised by any of my projects. Yes, some of them are time-consuming (I'm not going to lie - our weekly photo project takes quite awhile), but some of them aren't as much work as they look. For example, I realized that I sounded like a Martha-wannabe (read = nut-job) when I told my friend H that I have a digital photo album made for every year. But in reality, it's not nearly as much work as it sounds. When H said, "I've been meaning to do that..." and was subsequently surprised by how easy it sounded, I decided to share my method with you guys.

 

First off, here's a couple of snapshots of the inside of some of my albums:

 

 

I use blurb to make all of our books. My main reason for doing so is their desktop application, BookSmart. BookSmart allows you to work on a book over time, automatically saving its changes so you don't lose your work. It also allows you to work on more than one book at a time, which is great if you have holiday gifts to make (or if you're trying to make albums of previous years). Originally, my plan was to work on the book as the year went on, so I didn't have to do it all right before the end of the year - that would be really overwhelming. Unfortunately, I just don't have the discipline to sit down at the computer and work on it every week! 

 

You know what I do have the discipline to do, though? "Star" my favorite photos in iPhoto each time I import new ones. After all, I'm looking at them anyway, right? Then, at the end of the year, I make a "smart" album in iPhoto to show only my starred photos, export them to a folder, and drop them into BookSmart. The book automatically fills, in chronological order. After that, all I have to do is format the pages so related photos are on the right page, and fill in a little bit of text if I feel so inclined. It's genius, if I do say so myself. ;) 

 

 

If you have a Mac (and especially if you take a lot of photos), a big tip is to download the app iPhoto Library Manager. This application allows you to divide your photos into multiple libraries, which makes organization a lot easier AND makes BookSmart run a lot faster. I have an a new iPhoto library for every year - that application is one of my all-time best purchases ever!

 

The work I put into these yearly photo albums is 100% worth it. Every once in awhile, I pull one of these books off the shelf and reflect on how grateful I am. Both for this life, and for these photos. I'm so glad they aren't buried on a hard drive somewhere!