Creating A Fishing Photo Book Full Of Memories!

Hey Folks,

This past week, I made a "photo book" of my fishing adventures during 2010. I received a $10 promo code if I spent $30 at Shutterfly.com and decided, "Why not? Let's give it a try."

Julie and I have nephews who's wives have been creating photo books the last couple of years and giving them to my brother and sister-in-law as Christmas presents. They select pictures from holidays or vacations and then whip up a theme book on Snapfish.

Shutterfly

In fact, we got a cute photo book as a Christmas gift from our oldest son and daughter-in-law highlighting our two beautiful granddaughters over the past year.

Here's how I went about creating my Shutterfly.com photo book.

I had taken well over 200 digital photos of fishing adventures during 2010. My fishing trips started in February and ended in December, 2010. I created a new file on my computer and named it "FishingPhotobook2010" and added files within it from each month on the year. In those monthly files, I placed select pictures by the month of fishing trips for the soon to be created photo book.

I used Google's Search Engine for the Shutterfly.com site. Once on the site, I created an account by registering.

[url]http://www.shutterfly.com/?cid=SEGOO.BRAND[/url]Shutterfly

Once registered, the process is very similar to Photobucket.com. You must browse your own computer files and select the pictures you desire to be uploaded to the Shutterfly site.

The next step is to select "Start a photo book". The site will instruct you to select which size book you wish to create and several other options for page colors/patterns, etc. We selected the color "Wheat" for our page color.

You will also be requested to selected the style of font. My wife helped me select a font that was personal a friendly. I liked her selection called "Hudson".

That being done, you will move on to the next step.

You will then select which pictures from those that you uploaded over to the photo book selection. These pictures will then show at the bottom of the page. There's a little box to select that will removed the selected pictures from the entire collection of pictures. This definitely makes it a lot easier to keep track of which pictures are left to select from.

At the top of the work page, you will also see a drawing of an opened book, starting with the "Title Page" and each page afterward. I followed the sequence from beginning to end, but you can actually work on whichever page you want and what order you desire... Pretty Cool. For example, you could work on the first page and then jump to the last page before doing the pages in the middle.

You must also select how many pictures you want per page. That selection is located in a menu on the left side of the page in the "Layout" section. In the 8X10 book size we selected, I was able to chose from one to five pictures per page. I mixed it up, but you could potentially put 100 photos in a 20 page photo book.

There are a variety of picture arrangements that allow for text or no text. Once again, I mix it up to give each page a unique look.

I actually broke my book down into the seasons of the year and listed pictures from trips during those seasons. I started from Winter (February & March) 2010 to Fall (September to December) 2010.

Now that the pictures have been placed (picked and dragged) and the text written, I moved on to the "Cover" selection, front and back. I chose a picture that my better half approved of for the front cover and in the text, simply wrote... Fishing With Dad 2010.

On the back cover, I placed a picture of "The Barge" and it's description.

Once the pages were completed and the covers chosen, it was time to move to checkout. Checkout was very simple and self-explanatory.

I also chose to have some 5X7 prints made of some of my friends as small tokens of my appreciation for having them in my photo book.

The entire photo book and prints with tax and shipping/handling costs around $40. With my $10 promo code, I will get it all for a little over $30... Pretty Neat!

I will be carrying this book to the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show (Harrisburg, Pa.), February 5 - 13, 2011, and also the Calvary Church Outdoor Expo (Souderton, Pa.) on March 26, 2011.

I hope that this overview of how i made my photo book of fishing may encourage you to look into it and create a photo book of memories for you and your loved ones.

Take Care,
Dad