Photo Love at Christmas Time

I've been madly scanning photos from when the girls were little. It's made me very teary and reminiscent. Little faces (with scratches!) missing teeth, chubby hands. Such beautiful, amazing memories and fleeting moments captured thankfully in photos.

I have photo love. I admit it. I am totally, 100% in love with photography, cameras, frames, photo albums and the icing on the cake...digital photo books. Digital photo albums, how I luuuuve thee.

How I love to waste my precious time and energy making thee. How I hate external hard drive malfunctions causing me to scan hundreds of photos to keep enjoying making thee.....Hmmm. S**t happens. Get over it and move on...to scanning. How behind in making thee I am. How grateful I am that I have always kept old-fashioned photo albums too, so we still have hard copies of our lost digital photos. Mind you, I haven't printed a single photo this year....for the first time EVER! You'd think I would have, given that I know first hand that backup devices can crash and burn...but surely it couldn't happen twice? 2012 family album...you are happening in 2013. And I have a backup for the backup. Just letting you know.

As we have now ticked on into December, with Christmas and the New Year only weeks away, I have realised just how behind I am with my photo projects. YIKES. It has been a very busy year. When Bel finished primary school I presented her with a 150 page digital album of her primary school days. Photos, school reports, artwork, holidays, merit awards, basically an emptying of the memory box into a book. Kindy, age 4 through til Year 6, age 11 years old. it was a total surprise to her. She cried when she opened it. Yep...it was that good! Bon graduates from primary school next week. She has no graduation album ready to be presented with. We have a typical case of 'second child syndrome'...Bon knows she is getting one....someday...next year...hopefully. I have less time, more photos, a crashed hard drive... a monstrous amount of scanning....two schools to collate into one primary school book. I'm getting there but its hard and I'm not quite enjoying myself just yet. Put it this way...I'm up to kindy, age 4. Watch this space. I am also putting my 2012, 365 Facebook photo project into a digital album....its been a great project and I really want to keep a hard copy of it...a daily diary of 2012! Problem is, my favourite digital album company (momento.com) only do up to 150 pages. Even though my math is not great, even I can work out that 365 photos will be pretty squished in a 150 page book...'Blurb' does as many pages as you like. I certainly hope they are as good as 'momento'... My pixels are counting on it. Whilst we are on Digital printing companies (By the way...this is NOT a sponsored post...even though I would love to be paid to write it!) 'momento.com' gets my tick every time...an Australian company, brilliant quality, quick turn around and an easy computer programme to use with thousands of embellishments, frames and backgrounds to make your books very personal, especially for kids albums. I haven't seen any of 'Blurbs' books, but the interface is a little harder to use and they have very little in the way of embellishments. I'm happy to try them for my Facebook photos as I want to keep it very simple and I need those extra pages, but I will always be a fan of momento. Looking for Christmas gift ideas in a hurry? Momento does great calendars, diaries, notebooks etc. I have given my in-laws a calendar every Christmas for the last 5 years. They love it (I think!!!) I fill it with photos of the girls and what they have been up to during the year. A great way to keep the grandparents happy. Another awesome company is Vista print...look them up. My business cards and flyers are through Vista and each year I do my Christmas card through them too. They have hundreds of layouts to choose from and the quality is superb. The last two years I have chosen a layout that allows for 12 or so photos and I have basically given a compilation of the years holidays or events on this one card. Vista's turn around is really fast...just days usually, so you still have time! Another Christmas gift I love to give for the grandparents is framed photos or mini albums. There are some beautiful, stunning frames available in the home wares and gift shops. I do not know of any grandparent, aunt or uncle that wouldn't love a photo in a gorgeous frame that has been chosen especially for them, especially if the family is scattered all over the world like ours is. On my 'In my dreams' wish list this year (the list incorporating new lenses for my Olympus OMD, diamond earrings and kitchen aids) is a new laptop. Dudie, the King of Neverbuy, has actually put it on my 'For Real' wish list (that's the list with sports socks and lip gloss and a book voucher on it!) My laptop is noisy and runs very hot and is due for a major explosion at any moment. It might have something to do with the 26,000 photos clogging up its memory or the fact it is just plain over worked and old. It's gotta go. Problem is, I've confused myself into a non-buying corner...Macbook pro or Hp Envy 17 which ticks all the right boxes and is surprisingly very on par with the Apple, but $1000 cheaper! You can see my dilemma. Apple will synch with my phone and iPad and help keep my ridiculously out of control email account under some semblance of control for me...and they also don't crash n burn so I hear and are amazing for photo editing...but for an extra $1000? Oh please...help me out people!! The countdown is on...Christmas is imminent. My Photo gift's are ALMOST wrapped and ready to go under the tree...hope all is going to plan in your house? Please, help me out with the laptop dilemma! Mia x