One of my goals for the year is to get more on top of scrapbooking (aka making photo books). An easy one to get out of the way was to make a 2012 instagram book. I actually made it on New Years Eve (yep, we get crazy around here NYE) so technically I made it last year but who's keeping track?
I made and ordered my book through Blurb. I have shared my infatuation for Blurb before (and a long research project which settled me with them) and still remain pretty true to them. They have pretty reasonable prices for large sized books (and lots of promo codes you can find online) which just makes it a no brainer when ordering a book. I occasionally use other company's when I find an amazing deal or free coupon but besides that I stick with Blurb. Plus it is so much faster to make when I am familiar with the software.
Something I really like is that Blurb offers special layouts for Instagram and Facebook books. It links up with whichever one you are choosing and uploads them into your book for you. And supposedly they do something magical with your pictures to help make them look their best for low resolution photos.
I made a book last year of my phone pictures (pre-Instagram) and uploaded them through Facebook. I made each page only have one photo which I ended up deciding wasn't necessary. So I collaged most photos this time which I think looks really fun plus makes the cost a bit cheaper by having less pages.
Each page has some sort of a theme or cohesive coloring which makes the pages flow better but also adds more hours to my work time to get it right. It's worth it to me but not necessary for non-perfectionists!
I shared a photo of my book on Facebook and Instagram when it arrived in the mail and got a ton of awesome questions! One of them was about the quality of the photos considering Instagram does not produce high quality images. I took a few pictures of the full bleed pages and the photo off my camera actually makes it look better than it looks in the book. It's pretty grainy unfortunately but the smaller images seem to come out clear.
Overall I am very happy with the book. I love that these books give snapshots of the everyday. I feel like I use Instagram with a different purpose now that I print them into books. I choose to be intentional in wanting to remember that moment.
And just for comparisons sake, here is this year's book next to last years. It is about half the size which I was going for and saved me some money. Though last year's book was a little bit better quality since they were not edited in Instagram but still taken on the same phone.
I have an Android Thunderbolt phone which I am very happy with but I do believe that iPhone's have a better camera overall. I also think the photo you take and how you edit it on your phone also makes a difference in how they look in print. Just like with regular photography, I am constantly learning to be a better phone photographer and when in doubt natural light is ALWAYS best (in my opinion, at least!).
So there you have it, a year in Instagram photos! I am domesticfash on Instagram in case you wanted to follow along! I am currently working on my next photobook, our three year anniversary trip to Puerto Vallarta. And I am realizing I have still not written a post about our trip yet! I will put it on the never ending to do list!
You can find more posts on my previous scrapbooks and photos books I have made by clicking on the scrapbooking button on my sidebar.
NOW GO PRINT YOUR PICTURES! xo
