The Great Shutterfly Project

At some point during high school I decided that I wanted to scrapbook. But I didn't just want to make any old scrapbook, I wanted it to be beautiful. There was one problem that haunted me though...my handwriting. I hated (still kind of dislike) my hand writing. And I had reservations about spending money on making these books and then messing them up with my chicken scratch. But, still I had good intentions and a desire. Those good intentions followed me all the way to college where I would haul all of my photos and scrap booking supplies back and forth from Phoenix to Provo every year never to actually use any of them to scrapbook. At this point I was introduced to my Aunt Dru's (the one who lives in Switzerland and is pretty fantastic) scrapbooks and lets just say that I had no idea scrapbooks could be so fancy and pretty. She had friends who had entire rooms dedicated to scrap booking and they would spend hours putting together just one page that only had one picture on it. The perfectionist in me was overwhelmed at the pressure. Between my lack of funds and my chicken scratch and to be quite honest at this point my lack of interest in actually making the scrapbook I was over the idea.

Fast forward to September 2011. Don't worry, I still hauled all of my supplies to San Diego with me. At this point I was just using them to make cards and other craft oriented things. My mom had come and stayed with us for over a week after we had Oliver and I wanted to thank her with a little something. So I used the new born Photos of Oliver and put together a little Shutterfly book so she could show Oliver off to all of her friends. And I was pretty happy with how easy the program was to use. A couple weeks later I got an e-mail offer for a free 8x8 20 page book and so I made one with our honeymoon photos. After that I was sold!!

I started a book for Oliver's first year (which I proudly completed a few weeks after his first Birthday). I also began to work on a book for every year of medical school. It was so much fun to go through all of the pictures and see all of the amazing adventures we had. It was also fun to not have to glue or cut but just click and type. I was able to finish the first three years before graduation and I finished the last book over the summer. Then there was our trip to Switzerland that deserved it's very own book. And while I was working on that I got another offer for a free 8x8 20 pager so I quickly threw one together of my New York trip with Whitney. Overboard? Quite possibly, but I was so excited that I had found a way to more productively share and preserve our memories and our pictures.

Scrapbook problem soved! I am so glad I didn't spend tons of money on books that I would have been dissatisfied with and that I unintentionally held out for digital. To be totally honest, I try to keep my books simple and to the point. I don't know if there are more professional programs to use for digital scrapbooking (I'm sure there are), but I do know that one of the best parts about shutterfly is that there is always some sort of deal you can wait for. So, I'll make a book and just keep it saved until they have a 40% off sale. And then I always get free shipping and sometimes I'll have an additional coupon. I've also bought groupons and social living deals that make the books much more affordable. There are lots of tutorials and page ideas and it's a very user friendly program.

One of my 2013 goals is to review my college days and try and get the photos organized into one Shutterfly book and hopefully start Oliver second. We'll see if I'm not too burnt out!

And I must say that looking through these books make me so happy and they are such a great reminder of all the adventures I've been on and how blessed I am.

Happy digital scrapbooking!!