365 Project

My book of daily photos arrived & it looks great! I'm happy with the quality of the book & binding, the quality of the photos & the weight of the paper.

The words are easy to read (my typos jump right out now!) & the photos are big enough. Nick thinks the 8X8 size would even work for this book (which would be significantly cheaper).

Even the photos taken with our camera phone (see the bright lights above) & the blurry photos blend in well with the story that is being told. It feels good to have this project done! Nick & Ella's reaction to the book was strong enough that we are moving forward with the project again.
This year, I am going to use one of Becky Higgins' kits. I'm leaning toward her traditional journal so that Ella can help with the story telling (and we can capture that part of her development). I think her digital kit, a do-it-yourself book & her traditional kit all end up costing close to the same amount (around $100 for the year). My shutterfly book is bigger than her digital book which accounts for the slightly higher price. (You can make a larger book with heavier weight paper going through Blurb, but I'm more familiar with shutterfly).
Though I have created photobooks in the past, I never really made them in place of a traditional scrapbook. But, I'm loving the quick turn around & results so that it changing this year. I got back the NYC & Indiana books & they both look amazing. I wish I had made the NYC book 12X12 because the photos of the city look stunning. In that book, because I wanted to highlight the photos, I dedicated a single page to summarize the weekend & then used lots of full page single photo layouts.
I'm working on Big Sky & Vegas which shouldn't take too long. Spain will be a painful process, but I want that one to really be unique. And its my fault for taking so many photos. Yes, I know shutterfly will organize the photos for you, but I don't think I'd like that very much.
While so many of my friends blog & take millions of photos, not very many of us scrapbook. My friend Kim decided to turn her year of blogging into a book. I think it's a fabulous way to capture all the storytelling & photos we share. I can't wait to see how it looks!