Young House Love

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How We Make Our Annual Family Photo Book

Last year is soooo, well, last year. But before we bid it a formal adieu, let’s get into one of our favorite annual happenings:

Our Family Picture Tradition Making Space And Money Saving Photo Yearbooks Title Card

Yup, we’re currently experiencing a resurgence of 2012 love thanks to the recent arrival of the 2012 Petersik Family Yearbook.

MyPublisher Bound Photobook With A Year Worth Of Family Photos

We love ordering a photobook each January (which we share every year) to encapsulate the previous year’s favorite photos. We were big fans of the first one that we bought back in 2010 from MyPublisher, so we’ve stuck with them each year since so that all of the books look similar (plus, we love the quality). So with the addition of yearbook number three, we’re finally starting to have a nice little collection going.

Previous Family Yearbook Albums From 2009 2010 2011 2012

This year’s book was a bit late in coming because I’m very strategic about ordering from MyPublisher. I like to use up the maximum allowed number of pages (100). But since you pay per page (after the first 35) it usually costs over $100 per book. BUT, I get MyPublisher’s promotional emails every week (maybe I signed up on their site, I don’t remember) and I know that they regularly run a “FREE EXTRA PAGES” discount. So even though I put the finishing touches on our book in early January (I was quite eager this year), I camped out for weeks while I waited for them to run that particular promotion. And I’m so glad I did. Boom, $80 saved.

Screenshot Of MyPublisher Discount Deal Of Free Extra Pages Saving 80 Dollars

Just like we did with last year’s book, we opened with a “highlights” page to sort of summarize the year in a few bullet points.

Front Page of Family Yearbook With Bulleted List of Highlights From 2012

But rather than just re-type them for you guys, we thought we’d share some of the corresponding pages inside. So here goes nothing!

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos of Of Book Photoshoots

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Hawaii Trip

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Worm Birthday Party

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Building Deck

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Summer Vacation

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Preschool Starting

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Book Tour

Some of the other bullets were:

One new thing that we did this year was also to include a special Instagram section at the back. Since 2012 was the year that we got started addicted, it was only fitting that we dedicated a few pages at the end of our family yearbook to some of our favorite little candid snapshots.

Yearbook Family Album Spread Featuring Photos Of Instagram Photos

Now the only bummer is that we’ve gotta wait another ten months or so ’til we get to make the next book in the series. Oh well. I guess in the meantime we’ll just try to take lots of photos. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have an issue with that…

Oh and I think this shot really demonstrates the value of these books as a way to document your life year by year.

Stack Of Three Family Album Annual Yearbooks Printed With MyPublisher

Three photo albums wouldn’t be nearly as thin and easily storable or displayable (their pages are thicker and their bindings are huge). But we imagine that even after a decade of yearbook-making we’ll be able to easily store (or display) ten or more of them in a nice little stack, as opposed to a decade’s worth of photo albums, which could easily take up an entire shelf.

And when it comes to cost, hello money in my pocket.

If you do the math, 100 pages of photos with an average of 7 photos per page = 700 photos. Which is a TON of photos for each year, but we’re snap-happy like that. And it usually costs around 15 cents per picture on sites like Target or Shutterfly (that’s their best “bulk” price), so for 700 prints it would be $105! But you’d still need to buy albums if you were doing it the old school way (at Target they’re around $15 for each album, and they typically hold 200 photos, so to store 700 you’d need four albums! So to get a nice custom made book for $45.99 versus spending $165 for traditional prints & albums – well, we’re down.

You can read our original post from 2010 with a little more about why we became photobook converts in the first place along what we put in that album. And if you’ve got another system – or an alternate photo storage trick – we’d love to hear about it. Until then you can find us taking pictures. Lots and lots of pictures…

Comments

  1. nalini says

    I started doing yearbook after seeing your post in 2012. Such a great idea!!. I have subscribed to MyPublisher email but never seem to get the free extra pages promotion. All I get is BOGO offers or 60% of some amount. Did you see the free extra pages offer in the last month?
    The two times I ordered from them , I had to pay around $70 and $50 for 70 pages photobook.

    Reply

  2. Gabriella @ OLinA says

    I can’t wait for you guys to spill the beans….the waiting is torture!!!

    I love those books – I have a crap load of pictures that I thought about putting into a scrap book but that didn’t happen so they reside on my comp. I may copy this fancy pants idea. :-D

    Reply

  4. Meredith says

    Last year, I made a photobook of the adventures of my now-husband and I, from the beginning of dating until our engagement (2/11/2012) and our trip to New Orleans in March to celebrate. It was fantastic! I was able to add photos taken with cameras, photos from phones. I also scanned in ticket stubs, programs, greeting cards and other paraphernalia to add to the pages. I love it– I think it’s my favorite creation so far!

    Reply

  5. Kristen S. says

    I tried to start a yearly photo album for 2012. I was going to work on it as the year went on. Yeah, that didn’t work. It’s still not done! I think I was trying to be too fancy and creative with the layouts and backgrounds. I like how simple your page layouts are so maybe I’ll go back and simplify it and then it will actually get done and I can get started on 2013. Thanks for sharing a look at your book!

    Reply

  6. Lauren says

    We did a Mypublisher album for our wedding album, rather than a traditional album – it looks fantastic, and we were able to order copies for all our parents/grandparents/aunties/siblings etc at a good price.

    Reply

  7. Alyssa says

    Just like photo albums take up a lot of space, so do my daughter’s art projects. I started taking pics of all of her artwork, and creating a photobook at the end of each year. This works especially well if you have a high resolution camera. :)

    Reply

  11. Keisha says

    How do you get so many family photos? I do a yearbook for our family too, but it ends up being pretty much all kids because we never have pictures of all 5 of us. Guess I need to practice with the timer on our camera. :)

    Reply

  12. Cassidy says

    I love these posts! I also do photo books (my children each have a photo book as their baby books too). Another thing I do is order keepsake boxes from Paper Coterie every year for each kid. So the first year holds hospital outfits and such, and the more recent ones also include pictures the kids have drawn for us, etc. and every book contains a tiny softcover of their professional pictures for the year.

    That was probably really confusing, I should make a blog post about it… Eventually ;)

    Reply

  13. Danielle says

    I have a question… How do you narrow down the choices for which pictures actually make the book?
    Each year from about 2004 onward I have an average of 2000-5000 family pictures per year and I’ve already purged…

    Even at 700 pictures per book (like what you’ve done), I’d either need multiple books per year or leave out 75%+ of the pictures!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Woah! That sounds hard! My only advice is that we just try to pick our favorites so we don’t have like 15 photos of the same activity (a trip to the part = 3-5 pics, but we take 30 and the pick faves).

      xo
      s

  14. Krissy says

    My aunt made my dad a book like this last year, as a big 60th birthday gift! She found a bunch of old pictures (some from his parents and grandparents and such), and then went through all the big events in his life. And then we all got to email her a few of our favorites and she included them in chronologically-appropriate spots. It’s a GREAT gift, my dad loves it and brings it out whenever people who never saw it come over!

    Reply

  15. Kate says

    I love the family yearbooks – we’re a little behind since we haven’t started our 2012 one yet, but we’ll get there! About the first pic —“a big old’ post”…did you give it away? Coffered ceilings or post & beam accents? Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with next!

    Reply

  17. agustina says

    Hi there! last week I was thinking the exact same thing while editing our summer holidays photos; suddenly I received a “click on” offer by e-mail for photobooks, 100 photos in our 13*18 cm format( very commom here in Argentina),for half the price of printing 100 photos the tradiotional way….so my friend the credit card came in, and we bought 3 of them! the best thing is that I´ve 3 whole months to edit the photos and create great books!

    Reply

  18. Elizabeth says

    I say canned lighting too.

    Question for you – do you ever get worried you are putting so much into the house that you won’t recoup this when selling due to comps?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We’re definitely conscious of that! Things like DIYing our deck and our patio for around 1K instead of paying someone 10K each for each project (and doing our kitchen for under 8K when most kitchen upgrades are $20K) definitely helps raise the value of our house so that it surpasses what we have put into it (which is key for recouping that money when you sell).

      xo
      s

  20. Tina says

    What a fabulous idea!! I may just have to incorporate that into our family tradition… And thanks for the $ saving tip! :)

    Cheers to your family’s memorable year!!!

    Reply

  21. Kristina says

    I have been meaning to do this for the past year and a half, but what keeps holding me up is what to do with all the little scraps that I’ve saved also. Ticket stubs, little love notes, fortunes (from fortune cookies).
    Any ideas about what to do with all those bits or how to incorporate them into something like this?! I’m not really into the straight scrapbooking (which would send me back toward more of a “photo album” anyway!)

    Reply

  22. Kellie R. says

    I used My Publisher this year to document the first two years of my oldest boy…let’s just say I’m behind. But I waited for this deal too and got the crazy $80 savings! I was so thrilled! It came and looks awesome too. I was thinking I needed to do a photo book per year, per child…but now I’m sort of thinking a family year book is the way to go…thanks for the idea!

    Reply

  23. Sara says

    Like many other people, I was also interested in MyPublisher, so I went to their site, and it looks like new customers can enter their email address on the main page for a FREE first photo book!

    Just a heads-up for anyone else interested! I’m loving the idea of a more compact photo set-up. Our albums are massive, and it’s so hard to stay on top of printing 4×6’s.

    Reply

  24. Debbie C says

    I love how you organized your book! Thanks for sharing! I’ve been meaning to put our family books together for the past couple years but it still hasn’t happened. Sigh…

    Reply

  25. Amanda B. says

    Just finished my 2012 Yearbook! Question – I have 3 kids, should I get a copy printed for each kid??? I chose shutterfly and currently my price at 40% off is $99 (I am very close to the 100 page limit), but today I got an extra 25% off and free shipping, so x 3 = $222.75 (yikes). Talk me into doing this please.
    Amanda

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We just save the file so we can always make future books for kids down the line (when they’re old enough not to color on them or rip them to shreds, haha!).

      xo
      s

  26. Vanessa B. says

    I use Shutterfly and iPhoto books. So far I use Shutterfly 8 x 8 books to document little trips (200 photos and less) and iPhoto 11 x 8 1/2 for big trips. The quality of both are awesome. I’m going to start digi family albums this year.

    I am using Project Life to do year in review books for my pre-digi pics. No adhesive or scissors but makes a beautiful book. Check out beckyhiggins.com for it. Love her products.

    I did a manual Project Life book a few years ago to do “Project 365” where I took a picture every day for the year. It is my son’s favorite album. It has the big events in it but he gets the biggest kick out of the little every day stuff that’s in there. We all loved it so much we are doing it again this year.

    Reply

  27. ashlee says

    sherry & john!

    i need to tell you that the far right hand side of your website has an ad that says, like asian women? these girls desperately need boyfriends! with a picture of a ridiculously well endowed asian girl! does she fit into your decor scheme? haha

    xo

    Reply

  28. Janice says

    I <3ed your photo yearbook idea so much I did one for last year and plan to make it a tradition. I used MyPublisher for my trip to Paris this Christmas and was thrilled with the result. However, disappointed you can't use over 100 pages. I started my 2012 in review in MyPublisher and had to move it to Blurb as it's over 200 pages. How do you pare it down to just 100 pages?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We actually have a good time hitting 100 pages and don’t usually have overages (we added instagram since we had extra pages) so my only advice would be to just try not to put fifteen pictures of the same thing in there (we try to choose a few iconic photos of each event unless we need more, so instead of fifteen photos of a day at the park, we pick our favorite 3-5.

      xo
      s

  29. Carolyn says

    Ah, this might be the impetus I need to do something with all my digital pics. Any advice on organizing digital pics? I feel like that’s where I get lost… I typically just do a memory card dump onto the computer into a folder called “to sort” that I never get around to sorting. I just purchased Lightroom recently and have been toying with the idea of creating albums, but that may not be the best way to deal with photos that I eventually want to print. Suggestions?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We just have a folder on iPhoto called Family Pics 2013 and they’re all just dumped in there, but it automatically stores them chronologically and even has the date they’re taken so when we make the book we go into that folder and just work our way from the top of the folder to the bottom, which gets more recent as you go).

      xo
      s

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Emma! We just use a DSLR (we have a Nikon D3200). And we shoot in A mode, which really seems to help us (we adjust exposure so things aren’t too dark).

      xo
      s

  32. Danielle says

    Not sure what happened but I left a bit of a lengthy comment that appears to have vanished?

    Anyway, I was just wondering how you decide which pictures make the book? I have about 2000-5000 family pictures for every year beginning with 2002 stored on my computers/hard drives and I’ve already purged! No idea how I would decide which pictures to use!

    Reply

  34. Adrianne D. says

    I finished reading this post and went straight to mypublisher! You’ve inspired me and this weekend’s project. I’m so backlogged on my pictures it’s sad.

    I can’t wait to see what’s going on in your living room! =)

    Reply

  35. Brooke says

    Out of curiosity what kind of lag time do you usually have in your posts? You guys always seem to have a new projects started and finished in no time flat. Are the projects that you show (board and batten, crown moulding etc) done a week before, 2 weeks, 1 month before they get posted? Just curious to know how long things usually take you guys to complete projects. Thanks!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Most things are done around 3-4 days before they’re posted (often times we do things at night but then wait until good light the next morning to shoot it and then upload the pics, edit them, write the post and then it goes up). In the case of the board & batten, that was a Pinterest Challenge, so that was completely real-time (we started on the Wednesday we announced it and finished the very night before we posted it). Thank goodness it wasn’t a rainy day so we could grab those after pictures and toss them up!

      xo
      s

  37. Sarah says

    I love your photo books! I really need to make ours already.
    Also, I’m guessing new lights in the living room? Perhaps from your own collection!?
    Sarah

    Reply

  38. Katie @ paisley print shoes says

    I might have to try the company you used! We made a family photo album a couple years ago through shutterfly and the binding is already shot on it – and we don’t really look at it all that much! I’ve been delaying making any more (if you can call 3 years “delaying”) because I wasn’t sure what a better option was!

    Reply

  39. Diane says

    What do you put on your back cover? Another picture? We do these too but I never know what to put on the back.

    Reply

  40. BriannaNJH says

    I made a MyPublisher book of our first year of marriage for our first wedding anniversary (it’s the paper anniversary), and I’ve been keeping at it, and plan to keep making one for each year. Ours goes from April-April rather than January-January like your yearbook, but other than that it’s a lot like yours. One bonus I’ve found– I’m sure this isn’t a problem for you, but it’s because I make the books that I remember to take pictures of the big events and holidays each month so that I have something to put in the book. It’s a great incentive to keep taking pictures and documenting our family history.

    Reply

  41. Melinda says

    We do the photobooks each year – a 12×12 for our family and an 8×8 for each of our kids. I’d recommend ordering the kids’ now so you aren’t shelling out or trying to find copies for them when they grow up and have kids of their own! I love the idea that I will send them off to college with their own memories! We do a lot of digital scrapbooking in ours, and I always include funny or memorable Facebook posts at the end as a “top ten funniest posts”. :)

    Reply

  42. Jessica T says

    What a great idea!!! Do you guys put in all of your monthly superlatives to keep with the Yearbook theme? I normally used Shutterfly since it gives you free range to play around with the layout, but this application seems to let you do even more with layout and design. So excited to create our own yearbook! Thanks for the priceless idea!

    Reply

  43. Amanda Gail says

    Took your advice from the 2011 book post & used mypublisher to order our wedding albums. Ended up saving so much money had plenty left in the budget to get both our parents a book as well as two of the smaller paperback books to give to my sister & grandmother. Couldn’t be happier with the customization & the finished product. So many great options & they really look professionally done. Plus, it was super fun to design our own layout & be able to put our personal stamp on the album by adding text. We LOVE these books & are so thankful that you shared way back when!!!!

    Reply

  44. Maggie says

    So glad you posted about this again! I’ve been thinking of doing something like this for our wedding guest book, using pictures and scanned ticket stubs from our 7+ years of dating, then leaving space for people to sign. Then we can start married life fresh and do annual books ;) I couldn’t remember the site you ordered from, so good timing!

    Reply

  45. michelle f says

    Thanks for sharing! Perfect timing too since I was looking for a good photo book company to make my little boys first year book!

    Reply

  47. Kate says

    Hi Guys! Just curious what ever happend to that old post about removing the fans from the living room? EARLY 2011? I tried and tried to search and it seems to be somewhere in never never land? Can you please direct me to a link?! Thanks J&S!!!

    Reply

  48. Megan says

    I love photobooks! My husband and I used one as our guestbook at our reception that was filled with photos of us through the years we dated. It was like the end of the school year again getting everyone to sign our yearbook. It also encouraged people to write silly things or advice that they wouldn’t have been able to do with a traditional guestbook. I’m totally going to start working on a photobook for this year.

    Reply

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