A little bit overdone

Major accomplishment over here, folks. I finally finished Truman's first year album and I just have to gush about it a bit.

You see, I've always been really into documenting life in photobooks. I scrapbooked my life since age 15 and have a yearly album starting with high school all the way through 2009. I switched to digital scrapbooking in 2008 and have never looked back and even had my own little side business for a bit making wedding albums for others. So basically, all that is to say I really really like photo albums. :)

I turned a lot of my blog posts into pages with our family yearly albums in 2008 and 2009. Then I did a whole 'pregnancy journal' book compiling all of my pregnancy posts and pictures into one fatty book. I knew I had to do a baby book for Truman but I honestly felt rather overwhelmed with this project because of the sheer number of pictures (I think I took over 10,000 in the first year of life) and blog posts (can't even count them anymore) dedicated to Truman.

During my maternity leave I took the plunge and started Truman's album. I used lots of blog posts and even some personal journaling I did in Word those first few weeks. I didn't want to forget a second of that newborn magical time and also I succeeded in taking a ridiculous amount of pictures to commemorate it. I'd work on this album periodically, mostly in spurts. I would get really far behind, by months and months, and then I'd focus on catching up to the present moment. By Truman's first birthday I was caught up to November which wasn't too shabby.

And now? I have officially completed the largest, most ridiculous baby book ever. It has 174 pages in it. It's a 11x13 size and huge and rather pricey but I absolutely love it, you guys. I am so glad I took the time to do this for Truman but also, selfishly, for me. A few spreads for your viewing pleasure---pretty colors, my baby boy's face, and lots of pictures!

I'll try to post a link to an edited down preview version here. There are 'only' 81 pages I selected here so that your eyes don't actually bleed from staring at the screen.

Oh, and major shout out to Blurb yet again. I love this company so much and have never regretted using them as my only choice in albums. You cannot beat their quality for the price and apparently they are MUCH quicker than they used to be for printing and shipping. I got the book in my hands within a week of hitting the 'purchase' button and I know I used to wait for 2 weeks when I was whipping out wedding albums like nobody's business.

So anyway, that is that. I really think a lot of moms get overwhelmed by the idea of making a photobook for the baby years and I totally get that. But my best advice is just to take the plunge and get started. It doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to have a million pictures or a ton of text---anything you do will be special.

And with that I better get started on the second year album asap... :)

18 comments:

  1. Loooooooooooove it - it is awesome!! The layouts are so great. I really would not be able to do something of that magnitude. I'd WANT to, which is why I'm so glad Ben just made that book for me (293 pages... remember??) because he did it simply and got 'er done where it would have taken me 5 years.

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  2. Dang, looks like I need to step it up. Isaac's first year book is *only* 150 pages. :)

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  3. I thought I'd comment while my computer take a while to load the album ;)

    But in all seriousness, how cool is this!? It's a lot of work but something you will cherish for a lifetime. Kuddos for staying on top of everything! I keep up with Eli's baby book and getting my pictures printed every month but that's about it.

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  4. great job! i am seriously envious that you do one of these every year...and in such detail! you will be so happy you have these! i dont need to tell you that though obviously.

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  5. This is so awesome Julia! I wish I was half as good at documenting as you. I actually just designed our wedding album over the weekend and ordered it from Blurb (can't wait to see it!), and it's almost our 3 year anniversary! :-)
    Do you do all of the page designs in photoshop?

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  6. yep-I design my pages in Photoshop! I do like the Blurb software, too, though and think that would normally be just fine to use.

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  7. I absolutely LOVE this. I need to do something like this for my little girl. I tried to keep a written, old-fashioned pregnancy journal, but it didn't work out. I wasn't good at keeping up with it. I did manage, however, to keep up with weekly blog posts from 16 weeks on. I've been wanting to turn them into a pregnancy journal of some sort, and this is perfect.

    And, my daughter is seven months old already--thinking about going back and starting at the beginning for a book like this is seriously daunting, but I would really like to. I would love to design all of my own pages in Photoshop like you have done, but I just don't think I would be able to find the time. :( I'll have to check into Blurb's pre-made layouts--plug 'n' play would be the way to go on this, I think! :)

    Do you go with the "regular" paper for Blurb books, or the "premium"?

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  8. Wow, Julia, this is fantastic! I plan on doing this, but haven't started. Yikes! I'm hoping my blog posts will help to not make this an impossible feat. Good for you for staying on top of it. I will hopefully have Finn's done by the time he gets married. ;)

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  9. Very impressive Julia!!! I love it.

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  10. That is amazing! Something you will love for years and years... heck, forever!

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  11. Simply breathtaking...every page is magical!

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  12. I am gonna need to get Photoshop for REALZ! Great job! Now I just need to finish mine!

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  13. Wow this looks amazing! I'm still trying to motivate myself to finish our wedding album, and baby is due in just a few weeks! It's so easy to get behind unfortunately. Thanks for the info about digital scrapbooking though, I've been wanting to try that for awhile.

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  14. This is so cool! Your layouts are beautiful!

    (Do you get the Groupon deals for Blurb? They have deals that you can use on the National roundup.)

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  15. That book is really amazing! It's beautiful and will make a wonderfully meaningful keepsake.

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