I've started over again with the birth of my oldest and I'm trying to figure out how to do the books. He was born in the fall, so for 2003, I have about 12 pages. I can do year by year (with 2003 being very thin) or I can just go by a specific number of pages and fill the album until it's "full". I'm looking at photo books, so I have to figure out what "fill the album" means. What do you do? What experiences have you had with the number of pages in a book? Is there a guide to a comfortable number of pages in a book? The longer explanation: We had a house fire in August 2019 and have finally moved back into our house. The restoration company boxed up whatever was salvageable and we are only just now seeing what was saved. In the meantime, I started over with digital scrapbooking my son's photos from 2003 because I didn't know if any of my paper albums were coming back. (Some have come back, some had to be scrapped.) My albums were a mixture of paper and digital prints -- I had paper pages from 2003 to about 2009 or so -- but since the fire, I have decided to go all digital. Instead of having binders with page protectors full of individual paper and digital prints, I'm switching to all photo books. In the past, my photo books have been for a specific purpose and it was easy to determine the page number. Now I'm looking at putting everything in books and I'm not sure how I want to divide them out. I'm leaning toward a set number of pages for all the books, so they are all the same, but I don't know what that page count should be. 20 pages? 50 pages? 124 pages? The books will be 12x12; I haven't decided on a printer yet.
I am a big lover of getting pages printed in a book. I now, do as many pages as Shutterfly will allow! I did 2020 covid book (in two parts-first one 90 pages, second is gonna be about the same). I upload as I go, and wait for the unlimited page sale! I did a blog post here- here is one with lots of photos Got you covered!
I love a printed book!!! I print with Blurb because they have a large page count per book. I print mine 12x12 and have done anywhere from 24 pages to my biggest one at 422 pages. I dont mind the different page count. They just look so pretty on the shelf with the labelled spines!
Yes to printing! I use Shutterfly too, they have a couple of sales a year with unlimited pages and I do how many ever I can fit. So far I have 3-4 albums with about 100 pages in them. I don't print by year, so it's a mish mash of events, years, and moments. I like around 100 pages. They aren't too "fat" or heavy. They are 10x10 and perfect to sit down and look at.
I've done anywhere from 20-100 pages in a printed album. I make a family album each year - These are right around 100 pages. For my kids I've each made one 1st year album or adoption album. (50-70 pages) Then I've made special albums through the years - vacations, graduation, family pics, etc... (around 20 pages)
I've done books from 20 pages to 101. I don't mind them being different sizes on the shelves because my regular reading books are different sizes. And they all live on the same bookcase (reading books and photobooks). I actually have some that are 8x8 and some that are 10x10. Mostly because I couldn't decide what size I wanted. My kid likes the 8x8, but I prefer the 10x10. As far as time frame, I have a book that is my kid's first year, but other books are yearly. If you don't like the 12 pages alone, could you add some highlights from the first year to bulk it up? Based on the printing companies, I don't think I'd go smaller than 20 pages. I think it would be really thin to be 6 pages (12 double-sided).
Thanks, everyone! I've only printed books with about 20-24 pages and I do feel like that is a little thin. The magic of digital is that I can do a book that is September 2003 through September 2004, as well as a book that is xx pages from September 2003 until it hits that xx limit. (Very likely I will do both, especially since I have three children and it might be fun to do first year books for all of them.) Right now, I'm trying to figure out what that xx limit is. Currently, I have about 16 pages that can be assembled chronologically, so I have quite a ways to go before I'm ready to make a book. (I actually have nearly 400 pages that range from late 2003 to some time in 2019. There are a lot of gaps though because I have so many paper pages to replace.) I've printed 6x6, 8x8, and 12x12 books. An informal survey of my family indicates that they all prefer 12x12, although they will settle for 8x8 if they have to. They do not like 6x6. I have not considered 10x10 because no one thinks that 12x12 is too big and they all think I should stick with that size and not try something new (again. LOL) However, I have only shown them books with about 24 pages or albums with about 50 pages. I want to try more pages but I was also worried that 100 pages would be too much. I suppose I need to print some books myself and see what I think! Thanks for all the input -- I am happy to hear that 100 pages is not considered to be too many or too excessive. Now I have to get working on it getting that many pages ready to go!
10x10 are a great size. Still big enough to see things but not too big to fit on normal bookshelves. I do mostly page prints that go in 12x12 CM albums and it took awhile to find a bookcase that could hold them. I have also done some 8x8 books for myself and while they are nice size wise, as I age and my eyes grow older it is sometimes harder to read what I've written. This year I did 2 projects I will gift to my cousin. I used Shutterfly and printed them in 10x10. I really like them. Any books I might do for myself in the future will be done in the 10x10 size. I also waited until they had the free pages sale to print. Actually the 2 books were supposed to be one but I had too many pages. I could split out about 30 pages into a separate book and I fell beneath the page limit for the other one by doing that.
I'm sorry you lost so much in the fire! I do 12x12 photobooks from Shutterfly during their free pages sales, and those are about 100 pages. When I'm scrapping a vacation or specific event I often print 10x10 and do books of 20-40 pages.
I like 10x10 over 8x8 because it's that little bit bigger, and it makes a difference when it comes to journaling and photo size. 12x12 is not so bad now, but it can be hard for my kid to handle sometimes.
Everyone definitely has a different method and there is no right or wrong. I just print whatever I have once a year. My books are typically between 100-200 pages each. I print multiple copies for family members, so I typically print at 8x8 to keep it economical and I just generally like that size. If you want more pages from the early years, you can always reuse the photos and make more layouts, so those years are more equally represented ... or you can combine years into books. Good luck! Sorry to hear about your house fire, that sounds super scary!
I don't think I'm going to do yearly books, although I was checking to see if that was so common that I should consider it. I may have to plan some books of various sizes to see what feels best to me. Thanks for the input! It was all very helpful (even if I wasn't able to narrow down my options. LOL) I'm leaning toward 100 or so pages and am glad to hear that will not be too many. It's very difficult to have 50 pages in a traditional album and I was concerned that it would be similar with a photobook.
Blurb's limit is massive, like over 400 pages I think. Shutterfly's limit is 111 pages. I've used both, but mostly Shutterfly. I had switched to blurb because they were a little cheaper, but now that Shutterfly is doing their free unlimited extra pages sale, that is a better deal. AND, I will fill the book to get the best deal. I just print to the end of whatever month fits within the 111 pages and then I start the next book. I wish I could fit a whole year in each book, because it would be cool to pull out the 2020 book or whatever, but the dates are on the spine of each book and I'm all about making it as cheap as possible, so I just fill the book and move on. So sorry to hear about your fire though. Yikes! That much have been devastating. It is a unique experience that you can decide how to scrap from scratch though. (look for the blessings, right?)
