photoverload
(I was going to name this post something like “Let me find my crafting scissors” or something like that, but I couldn’t even think of a *tool* I could insert into the title. Let this be a testament of my non-craftiness.)
Hi friends! How’s the morning going? The day is going well over here! I’ve been waking up a little before Liv -she’s been sleeping in late, but before my fellow parent friends start to think “must be nice,” please know she’s been going to bed at ungodly hours- and trying to meditate first thing in the morning instead of later during the day. Stay tuned for a full post on meditation, because it’s been a lifechanger for me. It helps to center me for the day, and is a blissful escape from the to-do lists that constantly run through my brain. For the past few days, I’ve meditated for 10 minutes about an hour before bed, and it’s significantly helped with sleep quality. I downloaded a crystal bowl chakra toning album, sit on my pillow in the corner with my salt bowl and lamp illuminating the room, set a timer on my phone and close my eyes. I love it.
My little meditation corner:
On the random side of life, and the part that has to do with the title of this post: I ordered over 700 photos from Walgreens. They’re all of the “good” photos from Liv’s first 3 years, and I have NO clue what to do with them. I want to put them together for her before her little sister arrives, especially since she loves looking at photos. They were just sitting on my hard drive, and I want her to be able to enjoy them! Sadly, I am not the patient type for scrapbooking. Rounding corners, and adding cute little stickers and backgrounds makes me break out in hives a little. Is there a scrapbook hack? Should I just put them in the plastic photo album sleeves and call it good? Or, is there a service where I can send my photos and they can make them pretty for us? Kidding but not really.
Workout-wise, in addition to Monday spin, it’s been a barre-heavy week! I taught 3 classes Sunday, and taught + took a class yesterday. I’m getting to the point where certain types of exercises feel noticeably better than others -walking of all things feels terrible because of my round ligament pain- and thankfully, barre, Spin and BODYPUMP still feel awesome. (A couple of weeks ago was my last time teaching Zumba for now. I definitely miss it and my Zumba ladies, but it’s not worth shaking it through something that doesn’t feel right.)
Post-barre smoothie:
(frozen pineapple, 1/2 banana, 1 cup almond milk, 1 packet of Vega vanilla protein, handful of spinach, a drizzle of coconut oil, 2 tablespoons shredded coconut)
Last night’s dinner was return of the Cobb: romaine, olives, feta, turkey bacon, grilled chicken, tomatoes, cucumber and homemade Ranch. Last time we made this meal, I was feeling pretty terrible, so it was nice to bring it back this week when I could enjoy it with gusto.
Time to pack up breakfast for the gestational diabetes test -it’s fasting, so I’ll have bfast ready to go for when it’s over!- and get it over with. Fingers crossed that everything comes back normal.
Hope you have a lovely morning <3
xoxo
Gina
Sharing some registry must-haves on ye ol’ Family page
Today’s tip: next time you’re in a plank, keep your hips in line with your body and your spine long. Avoid gazing up, or letting your neck drop, and press back through your heels. If you want to feel it even more, think about bringing your hands or elbows (whatever is on the floor) towards your ankles, so you’re pulling everything in. It will definitely add some extra excitement to your plank! For more planking ideas, some of my fave variations are here.
(You have to look pretty hard to see the TRX but it’s in there. Sadly, I am not able to levitate.)
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I totally hear you on the scrapbook thing – please share when you find a good hack!
i definitely will!
I ran into the same photo problem. I had 500 “favorites” from my little guy’s first year. I just made them into a Shutterfly album. Expensive, but no crafting/long hours involved!
MyPublisher is what we used for our wedding albums. High quality. You download their software to your computer, dump your photos in and voila, they will create it for you. You can also design yourself, if you like. Software can be glitchy sometimes, but the product was worth it. Sometimes they have 50% of sales. 🙂
amazing. i will definitely check it out!
Try Groovebook ( which is now owned by Shutterfly) – they organize 100 photos per month for $36 per year fee.
I always think I’ll get around to scrapbooking some day, so I save ticket stubs and print pictures, and then I never do it, so they are all sitting in a basket just waiting to be made into a cute book!
i’m glad i’m not alone 😉
This totally wont help with the already printed photos, but one of the things I used to love most about Young House Love was the annual family yearbook they put together with Shutterfly ( I think). You can coordinate everything digitally and I believe there are predesigned layouts to choose from.
(Link here: http://www.younghouselove.com/2013/03/remember-2012-yeah-that-2012/)
I have a friend who has done similar but much simpler photo books for her kids – she has a page dedicated to each family member with large print text about the person (e.g., Grandma always makes cookies for Christmas. She lives in Kentucky.”) <– or whatever. When I've babysat for this family, the kids are always so excited to show me the photo books and read them with me.
oh i love that idea! thank you
I hate scrapbooking… Check out MyPublisher.com – that changed my life when it came time to making photo albums. It’s super easy (once I got the hang of it) and I’ve made so many now! The photo quality and the hardback covers are great!
i will definitely check it out! thank you 🙂
I still need to print my wedding photos! And we just celebrated our 2nd anniversary! I would love for a service to turn it into a book for us!
Ah, Gina this post resonates with me because I have the same issue with photos – i keep telling myself I am going to make “yearly” photo books (like Young House Love), but even that is so time consuming – Shutterfly even populates the pages for you, but like i said it still takes a LOT of time, sigh. I would love a service to do it for me too!!!!
if you find one, let me know 😉
I love your meditation corner. It looks so peaceful. I would love to see a post on meditation in the future. It is something I often want to do but don’t know too much about it. Best of luck with your gestational diabetes test today. Sending good vibes your way!
I have an ish ton of pics that just sit in a box now. My goal is to get them semi organized as far as time (I don’t want pics of my babies mixed in with pics of me in high school) and put them all in an album. I don’t think you need all the scrapbookiness. They will be fun to look through when the kids are old enough. Maybe slide in a little note card for special pics to tell what they are of of when they were taken!
For photo books I’d check out Shutterfly. They do have options for more customization but they also have Simple Path where you choose the size and theme and the photos are arranged for you and you can just rearrange and add captions if you wish. They’ll also store the book data forever so if one gets lost or damaged or you want more copies you can re-order later.
Looking forward to your meditation post. A friend of mine swears by that. I just started doing different plank variations like walking in a circle whole planking and side raises. Ugh those side ones are killer!
i love the circle plank idea! i’ll have to try that one 🙂
I’ve made the digital photobooks and I like them, but I think kids enjoy “feeling” the pictures too, which is nice since you already have them printed. I would go old style and just attach them to pages but with no added craftiness or just use plastic sleeves but there is something nice about a true photo album where the pictures are attached not just stuck in there. My grandma used to just keep hers loose in a big box and we would pull them out and look at them. We enjoyed them just as much that way too. It is a little hard on the pictures though.
i agree. i made a shutterfly book with our maternity photos for liv, and the pages are already crinkled and gross. i think the plastic helps protect everything and gives it a more “real” feeling
I would suggest looking into Project Life – it’s sleeves to put in photos, but the kits come with little cards to add that say fun things or have options for you to write a little note on. It’s the best of both worlds in regards to actual printed photos and not putting in a ton of work!
I was going to suggest this too! I want to try it out as well. I used to love scrapbooking but I have no time! And the pictures keep piling up! The Project Life looks like something that would be quick/cute & something you can do while watching tv or something in the evening.
off to check it out now!!
they are amazing- i had never heard of those before. what would i do without you guys? :0
Ooooh, i’m off to check it out now too!!!!!
I was coming to say the same. You get the extras of scrapbooking (fun colors and quotas and opportunity to journal) but the system itself is so easy! just put the pictures and cards in the pockets of the albums and you’re done!
Ahh!! Photo organizing! That’s my weak corner too. Groove book is good but useful if you hadnt printed your photos already. I think there are some cute plastic album things that will at least start the process. Maybe you can add blank notes/post its around them and let Liv do the her own art work on it!? 🙂
i like that idea. thank you!
I am the same way with photos! I have so many that I would like to print but I want to have a plan before I do!
If you want a scrapbook hack – I call it scrap-booking for the Lazy – It is the company called Project Life.
http://beckyhiggins.com/project-life/
No stickers or rounding the corners – you just stick the photo in the slot and then you buy these little notecards and you write something on it and slide it in the slot. I can whip out a bunch of pages really quickly. Some people get really into it and do more. But I take the lazy way!
these are beautiful!! thank you!
I upload photos to Snapfish then make photo books. You can either place the photos yourself or the site will randomly place for you. They usually have deals going each month for percentages off as well. There is no way I could ever sit down and scrapbook.
perfect. i will check it out!
We used i-photo and made a beautiful album! It is really cool to do an album a year 🙂
love the idea to do an album a year. maybe i will make it a new years tradition 🙂
I think making books on Blurb is sooooo much easier than scrapbooking and way less of a mess. I started a tradition of making a year book for each year of marriage (3 now!), and it takes me about 2 hours once a year to pick out the pictures and arrange them on Blurb. Then, I order a hard copy of the book that costs around $40. Sooooo worth it!! The books take up way less space than a scrapbook and Blurb stores them digitally so that I never have to worry about losing them in a fire or anything. If you add words and such, it would take way longer than 2 hours, but I quit doing that after year 1 lol.
amazing- i had never heard of blurb! thank you!
I finally stopped ordering photos in prints. I have years and years of pictures backed up on hard drives, but no idea what do with them. I can only imagine how many photos I will keep and save for “scrapbooking” once we start a family! That green smoothie looks delish 🙂
it stresses me out to just have them sitting on the hard drives haha. but then again, i printed a few boxes worth a year ago and lost them, so there ya go. excited to see you soon!!!
I just get photo albums from Hobby Lobby and slide the pictures in in chronological order and write a short caption (the one I get have a spot to write on). You don’t need anything fancy to enjoy the pictures and it’s cheap this way too.
i think you’re right. that’s how my mom did it for us, and we looked at those photos every morning after breakfast. we loved them
Not sure if this would help now, but I downloaded the Baby’s Firsts app when my daughter was born in February. I end up taking so many photos on my phone, and it’s super easy to just add them to the pre-designed scrapbook pages in the app, then I can go in and order the book for her first year once it’s finished. Also? That salad looks delicious!!
oh that is amazing! i will definitely download that for baby #2
So there is this company called Pinhole Press… and they literally make books out of your photos. You can do cute learning-to-read books for little ones (where a picture of you and the Pilot might have the caption “mom and dad”) or just plain photo collections. Not really on the crafting side of photo storage, but really simple and pretty.
i will definitely check it out. thank you!!
Your meditation corner is divine! I am so inspired, I think I’ll have to create my own. Thanks for the pic!
I second the SnapFish recommendation. I’ve used it for my own books as well as received some as gifts. Great quality! …
I go the shutterfly route. Upload all the pictures and click one button and they put them into a beautiful book for you. You can go through and rearrange the pictures and choose different themes for the backgrounds if you want to but don’t have to. I have done a book for all my big trips recently and they are super easy, fun to look through, good for kids, and aren’t terribly expensive.
Hahahahah Gina you totally look like you’re levitating!!!
I’m with you on the scrapbooking!! I have so so many photos of my kids from the past. Ugh! If you discover a service that organizes them in to a book or otherwise….please share!! I would definitely go for that!
Good luck on your test!! Fingers crossed!!
I’m actually team plastic sleeve.
We have about 5 albums in our family room full of pictures and we will randomly grab an album and look through. I love that we can take a pic out (of that plastic sleeve joint) and hang it on the fridge for the week if we are feeling particularly nostalgic.
Hi again Gina! Just came across this article that compares options for digital photo books:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2014/08/13/here-are-the-best-photo-books-for-all-those-pictures-languishing-in-your-computer-and-phone/
I really need a service for all the prints I have though! Most of them I don’t even have a digital copy. If you hear of a service for prints please let me know!
I’m all about the shutterfly or snapfish album! If you have an account with them they will email coupons frequently.
I just slide them into the cheap-o albums and tuck them away. I’d do that then call it a day!
We’re amazed at how often we pull these out to show the girls something or someone else vs. keeping them all on the computer. Totally worth it!
I put some in a baby book and also print some off on a shutterfly book in chronological order (one per year). I figure some day they can all work out who gets which album/book but at least they will all have a simple baby book too.
I am not much for scrap books, but you can do some cool things with Shutterfly. Love the “levitation” in your pic!
I hate scrap booking too! I started using Mixbook to make our yearly family albums or special birthday albums. At the end of each month I upload any photos I’ve taken and make the pages for them. I do get actual prints of any I think my two kiddos would like to have some day.. Then I put them in a photo box that have dividers for each year/age.
Shutterfly makes photo books! One of my friends had one made for her husband on their first wedding anniversary! It looks amazing, check it out!
Ha–love the levitating photo!
Project Life looks amazing!
Woah. I really thought you were just holding your legs in the air like that at first. I was thinking that’s some SERIOUS core you’ve got.
I’m not crafty either. If you find out about a scrapbooking service, let us know!! 😀
haha life goals! but no
So I’m not crafty either, in fact I’m rather lazy, and when I encountered a similar problem earlier this year (I had about 500 already printed photos that I needed to do something with), I went to Marshall’s and got an old timey photo album that I just stuck all the pictures in. I may go back and write captions, but more likely I will not, haha. It took about an hour.