Super Simple Scrapbook/Photobook

I've mentioned this before but I will mention it again; I am not a good scrapbooker.  I have tons of photos that will never be scrapbooked.  It is just too time consuming for me.  I know some people absolutely love it and it is a passion and I wish that were me, but it is not.  I want to preserve my memories but I want them to be cute and easy to do.  On my personal blog I post a lot of collage pictures like this:

as I just can't seem to delete very many of my cute girls and that always makes for way too many to post, so I turn them into collages.  Well last year I wanted to see if I could just put all those collages into a photobook so that I could have a hard copy of all of them.  I used Snapfish and created a photobook where each page was one of the collages I had previously made.  It was simple and easy.  I usually try and make a photobook once a year but it is really hard to pick and choose all the photos and choose backgrounds etc (especially if you are like me and put it off until the last moment before a certain deal ends).  I really like the collage book because I had everything made ahead of time and just had to drag and drop the pictures.  Last month on Facebook I saw a little ad on the sidebar stating that if I "liked" MyPublisher I could get a coupon code for some discount on a photobook.  I can't remember the exact discount but I decided that it was a good deal and I hadn't ever used this company before but I wanted to see if I could make another collage photo book.  Out of all the companies I have used (Snapfish, Blurb, Picaboo) this was by far my favorite.  It was really easy to use, I liked how it let me organize my photos so I didn't have to search through all of them to choose which one to add next.  I did that all in one step.  And I really liked the price plus they always have tons of coupon deals. 

So here is what I did (and literally I did all of this in 3 days).  I hadn't had many new photo collages made of a half a years worth of pictures so I started with that.  I use Picasa to edit all of my photos.  It is a program you download to your computer.  It gives you options to edit pictures, create photo collages, I use it to make my banners on my blogs, you can type text onto your pictures and more that I haven't even discovered.  It is really easy to create a photo collage.  You just click the pictures you want, you can download digital scrapbook paper to add backgrounds and then click the collage button then play away (if you want a tutorial let me know and I will create one).  Anyway I went through all my photos and created collages of them.  Some were really simple, some had a background, some were a background with one photo, some I added text and all I added the month and year they were taken.  Then I used MyPublisher to create my book.  I put the whole thing together in a couple of hours and found a coupon they were offering for a set price on photobooks no matter how many pages.  In the end with shipping it cost $48.00 and I think that is a pretty good deal for a 60 page photobook.  Here is a little look:

 

What I like about this is that you could leave a blank spot to write in it yourself if you want it to include your own handwriting.  You could also leave blank spots to include embellishments if that suits your fancy.  It is so easy-the easiest way to make a memory book I think.  It isn't fancy by any means but even that you could change.  You could pay more for a custom cover, or fancier paper or lay flat pages. If you are being held back by an overwhelming number of photos and you don't know where to start and you feel you don't have any scrapbooking bones in your body then this might be the answer for you.  And I am not getting paid or being given anything free to tell you this.  But I do have a little offer to share with you that I got in the mail with my photobook.  If you have never used MyPublisher then this is for you to try:

Go to : MyPublisher.com/friend and enter your e-mail address to receive a $20.00 giftcard to try MyPublisher.  It says it is for first time customers only and a one time use thing but that is a sweet deal. 

 And if you have used that up then keep your eyes open for other photobook deals (you can search online to find tons).  When one comes along it is simple to get a photobook made when you can just drag and drop already made photo collages onto a page.