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Best place to order photo books for moms

This post was created in partnership with Mixbook, all opinions are my own. 

 

Confession, I Have over 30,000 photos stored on various hard drives in our small apartment. I’d also never printed a photo book for our family that I actually like. 

I’ve ordered a few for family members over the years but I wasn’t thrilled with the quality so it was hard to find the motivation to print them.

In January I got to browse through a few different Mixbooks at Alt Summit and I fell in love. The quality was SO much better than anything I’d seen for family photo books and I KNEW I needed to finally start printing some photos.

Lincoln and Adelaide both love looking at family pictures and I wanted to be able to snuggle up and look at photos without pulling out my phone.

But, have you ever wanted to print a photo book and have just not known where to start? Or maybe you DO start, and then get overwhelmed by all the options? You and me both.

For this book I started by picking the time span I would be covering (and not letting myself deviate from it).

Next, I went through my digital photos and dropped them into an album on the computer so I could easily upload them all at once to Mixbook’s streamlined online editor (no downloading anything, yay!).

I loved the modern clean designs that Mixbook offers (they also have a ton of cute options as well) but ended up designing my own pages using their simple layouts option.

To speed up the process of adding my photos to the pages, I designed a variety of square page layouts. Each page either had one large picture, four medium sized square images, or nine small square images. Then, I just used their auto-fill feature and it filled the book right up. I spent a few minutes moving a few things around and I was done!

Last minute I synced my instagram account and iphone images so I could easily upload a handful of everyday snaps that I put in a couple pages of sixteen squares (the iphone quality looked great in these smaller images).

I hit purchase and less than a week later I had a GORGEOUS leather book on my doorstep. And Lincoln and I have read it together everyday since 🙂

Looking to put your own photo book together? Here are a few simple rules I followed when putting my Mixbook together to make it as quick + easy as possible.

A few tips for putting together your own photobook:

  • Set a period of time you’re covering: I picked the start of our European adventure as the beginning of this photobook so I would be tempted to keep adding pages as I looked through 0lder photos. You can always order another book later (and you can bet I’m already planning the prequel to this vol 1 so I can have some cute baby pictures of Lincoln to go along with Adelaide’s).
  • Remember, done is better than perfect: But really, JUST GO PRINT YOUR PHOTOS! Coming from a girl who didn’t, even after starting over 7 photobooks in the last 3 years, it feels SO GOOD to have our memories sitting on our side table in the living room
  • Restrict your layouts: When I first sat down to make my mixbook of our recent adventures, I found I was spending WAY too long playing around with all of their fun layout options. When you’re printing 20 pages that’s great….but when you have 100 you’re designing, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. You can pick one of Mixbook’s cute themes and stick to their prearranged designs. I went ahead and limited myself to square layouts (1 large square, 4 medium squares, or 9 small squares on each page). Once I set those guidelines for myself, I was able to put the whole thing together in less than 2 hours.
  • Pick photos that tell a story: I went ahead and included the photo of Lincoln crying in Bath, UK because he was terrified of the pigeons. I also slipped in a less than flattering image of myself drenched in Barcelona to remember the 4 hours we trudged through the rain to get to the Sagrada Familia during a taxi strike. I love the big pictures I included of our family but I’m also really happy about all the detail shots I included that really help us remember the experience as we’re flipping the pages.

these are THE most beautiful photo books I've ordered and so reasonably priced - and don't miss a few tips for making the designing process easier + faster

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13 Comments

  1. That video is SO GOOD!

    And I love Mixbook – they really are the best of the best.

  2. This book looks so cute! So many memories preserved! I am the worst at printing photos, so I definitely need to try this!

  3. I lovelovelove photo books! They’re so much fun to put together. Your tips are FANTASTIC!

  4. Photobooks are so much fun to make, and a great way to have all of the priceless photos at your fingertips. I have family members that create photo books too, I think I may create one (or a few) for my upcoming trips!

  5. I have so many photos that I don’t want to loose but just sit in my cameral roll, so this is such an amazing idea!

    xo, Sara

  6. Photo books are the best! It’s fun to create them and look back at them for years to come!

  7. Love this, but also can we talk about your living room? STUNNING!

  8. I love your book! How did you get the simple layout on your pages without any words or theme? I just want the pictures, and I can’t find away around choosing a theme.