leo's first year: photobook

My best friend C had a great idea after her first-born turned a year old: make a photobook of all the pics and milestones of her daughter's first year. I love the idea, especially because no one seems to print photos anymore! Well I do print some of them and then they stay in the envelope until I find a frame or somewhere to put them.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a Grouponer (just a bit, I'm not crazy about it or anything. So what if I got a Groupon for a night out for 6 to go bowling - I thought it would be fun!). Well Photobook has deals all the time for photobooks (duh), so I snagged one to make a book for little guy. Basically the deal was $35 I think for a book worth $115 - pretty good deal if you ask me!

(NOTE: If you're going to do this, just keep note of the timing of when you get the Groupon. The deals typically last a year - so that means you have a year to make your book. That also means you don't want to be buying your book when you're 8 months pregnant because you're going to have to finish the book before your mini-me is a year old - defeats the purpose!)

When it was time (and I wasn't propping my eyes open with toothpicks anymore) I went through all my photos on the computer and made a folder for the photobook. I then downloaded the program from the site and spent about 3 months procrastinating working on the book. It actually takes some thought as to where you want the photos to go. There are cheesy backgrounds you can use. I started off with a white background, but Mark talked me into doing black and I like it much better.

After adding my photos and playing around with the layout, I came up with an over all look that the hubs and are pretty happy with. It helps that I used some photos from family photo shoot care of our amazingly talented friend Jennifer Kirk. It looks so professional (well her pics do ;)).

Here are more shots of the inside of the book - I know it's likely weird to look at pictures of pictures but it's fun at the same time right?

Ahh that last pic is so sweet - one of my favourites...

So there you have it! My book of Leo's first year. I'll likely do one for the new babes too but have to wait until she gets here!

(fyi - I didn't work with Photobook for this post - it's all me! Oh and my crazy Groupon habit)