You’ve been taking photos non-stop since your baby was born. But are the best ones drowning in a sea of unorganized jpg’s on your phone? Don’t let all of those adorable snaps go unseen. Here are a few easy ways to print your favorites, design photo books your kids will treasure and create keepsakes with your best shots.
Turn Your Social Feed Into Tangible Books
You dream of designing a beautifully laid out photo book for each of your baby’s months, or even years, of life. But then reality sets in – personal time is virtually non-existent in the first year! Let Chatbooks be your hero. The app pulls in photos from your Instagram or Facebook feed to make 60-page little soft-back photo books that are totally affordable. You can set it up to automatically print a book each time 60 new photos appear. Though you’ll get a notice in advance so you can change the cover image or delete any that aren’t your favorites. You can also add photos from your camera roll or create books that aren’t based on your feed. When your kids get older, they’ll love flipping through the easy-to-hold volumes.
Available at chatbooks.com, $8 per book.
Create Monthly Photo Books Made for Sharing
Do Grandma and Grandpa asked for printed photos of your baby every time they visit? Then they’ll love Groovebook. Using the app, select 40-100 of your favorite photos each month to get printed in a book. The images are on perforated pages so friends and family can tear out favorites (if you let them, that is!). You can also add on a gift subscription. This service is incredibly budget-friendly, so go ahead and share!
Available at groovebook.com, $2.99 per month plus tax.
Embrace The No-Effort Way to Make Photo Books
If you think making a beautiful designed, hard cover photo book is out of your skill set, think again. Nowvel’s iOS app has the most genius technology that scans through your camera roll and selects the best images from every event, milestone and moment. Then it lays out 20-100 of them in a photo book for you, featuring different sized images that make it look completely professional and personalized. Once it’s generated you can go in and edit or replace images and add text as you wish. These are high-quality books that will last through years and years of browsing through memories.
Available at nowvel.com, prices vary by book size and style, $15-$45.
Join A Private Online Journal With Printing Options
Don’t want to share your babies most precious moments with all of your Facebook friends? 23snaps offers a private feed you can share with only your closest friends and family. It’s a great spot to store your top pics (and videos) – they’ll be displayed in chronological order and you can create a separate feed for each of your children. What’s more? You can easily order tangible photos, too. Choose from either 4×4-inch square prints or traditional 4×6-inchers. Or design 8-inch square hard or softcover books.
Available at 23snaps.com, $0.30 per print, $38+ for hardcover books and $31.99 for softcover books.
Store All of Your Best Shots
Make a habit out of uploading your favorite snaps once a month to Flickr’s app and not only will you ensure your photos are safe from any broken or lost phone incidents, but also you’ll create a timeline of great shots you can share and organize into albums. You get 1,000GB of space, which means you can upload a ton of hi-res images before you have to start paying for the service. In the interest of protecting your broods privacy, you can choose to have your photos be seen just by friends and family who you invite to your feed. You’ll also love that you can edit photos directly on the app.
Available at flickr.com, free.
Print Photos from Your Phone in an Hour
If you need prints fast, the Shutterfly app is your secret weapon. It’s quick to select the photos you want from your phone’s camera roll and have the printed at your local 1-hour shop, or if you can wait, directly from Shutterfly. But hat’s not all this little app can do. You can also quickly and easily create 20-75 image photo books, canvas prints and gifts (mugs, magnets, etc.) using your phone’s images. Of course you can do all of this on Shutterfly’s website too, but the app gives you the freedom to mulit-task while you’re snuggling your sleeping baby or nursing.
Available at shutterfly.com, prints free-$22.99.
What’s your favorite way to print, share or store baby photos? Share below.
–Julie Seguss
