Make a Shutterfly Album for Grandpa

#15

I discovered Shutterfly last year when a friend showed me an album she made through the site for her parents and am so glad I did.  If you are unfamiliar with Shutterfly, it lets you create personalized photo books, photo cards, calendars, stationary, and more.

Last year, I decided that it would be a lot of fun if I created an album for my grandpa’s birthday and began creating it months in advance. I decided to use every single photo that my grandpa and I have ever been in together, from when I was first born and he and my grandma came to visit me at my original house, to my communion, to a group family photo at a luau we attended, and, at the end, photos of his four grandchildren.

Because a lot of those photos were taken before the days of digital cameras and were not all on my computer, I used my Iphone to take photos of the hard copy photos we already had — in other words, a picture of a picture. I’m lucky my mom took millions of photos while I was growing up because going through all of these old memories was a blast.

After I took hundreds of photos with my iPhone, I emailed every one of them to myself, and from my email, moved them to iPhoto, where I created an album called “Grandpa’s Photos.” If some of the photos came out dark, I used iPhoto’s editing features to lighten them. I also used more recent photos that were already on my computer or Facebook account.

Creating an account on Shutterfly is really simple, as is developing one of the photo books, once you upload all of the photos you want to use. There are various themes, layouts, and designs you can add to your photo book, which results in a professional looking hardcover album full of memories.

I could care less about what the book cost, but another nice thing about Shutterfly is that they always send coupons with amazing deals via email, including opportunities to get free magnets, calendars, and more, which is a great added addition to your gift. If I sound like a sales person, it’s because I think Shutterfly offers a wonderful opportunity to give friends or the people you love thoughtful gift, while having a great time doing so.

I remember I couldn’t wait to give my grandpa his gift last year and he seemed to love it. It’s now on display in his house and although he looked through the book when we were together, I remember him telling me he went home and looked through everything carefully then as well, while commenting about certain memories or photos I had added to the book.

So if you were trying to think up Christmas gift ideas, I would highly recommend checking out Shutterfly! Or, if you just want to make an album for someone for fun, no matter what time of year it is, that would be great too.

On a side note, I apologize it has been quite some time since the last blog post! The end of the semester has gotten a bit hectic, but the good news is that in two weeks our finals are over and we go on winter break : ) I can’t wait to again dedicate all of my time to Project Light to Life and my wonderful readers over winter!

Has anyone else used Shutterfly to make an album or other type of memorabilia for someone you love or received a Shutterfly album? I’d love to hear from you guys!