One of the goals on my 101 in 1001 list is to create family photo albums for each of the years we’ve had children. Like the boys’ baby books, putting together family photo books has been a nagging task that I’ve put off for way too long, but still ultimately feels really important to me as a way to preserve our family history outside of social media and the camera roll on my phone. We have beautiful photo albums from our wedding and honeymoon and I really wanted to put together family photo books with some of our most precious memories and memorable moments since becoming parents nearly four and a half years ago!
I ordered our wedding and honeymoon photo albums from Artifact Uprising back in 2018 and ultimately decided to order from there again when researching the best family photo albums. It takes a minute to learn the ropes of their online system for uploading and laying out photos, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a pretty easy way to get all your photos off your phone and create a custom photo book that arrives fully finished and ready to give as a gift or display on your coffee table. I love that it’s a hardcover photo book with a dust jacket of your favorite photo or two on the front and back, plus it’s saved in your online account so you could always order a replacement if needed or order multiples if you plan to give as a gift to multiple family members. Read on for my process of putting together each yearly family photo book as well as the exact hardcover photo book I chose!
My process for creating family photo albums online
1. Create a folder on your computer desktop labeled by year.
Because this was a project I’d put off for quite a while, my first yearly family photo book was for the year 2019. Within that folder, I created a folder for each month of the year, which was a great way to get myself organized to eventually upload photos in approximate chronological order when it came to that step.
2. Pull your favorite family photos
from social media, the camera roll on your phone, and anywhere else you might have family photos saved. I used a mix of iPhone photos and real camera shots because I wanted our family photo books to include both milestone moments like family celebrations where I would have brought out my real camera and just regular everyday family moments where I snapped a quick photo on my phone. Many of our favorite family moments with our children happen in the day to day outside those big family celebrations, and iPhone photos tend to be pretty good quality nowadays so I absolutely think they’re worth including!
3. Create a new project online.
If you’re using Artifact Uprising, they have lots of family photo books in all different sizes, but I went with their hardcover photo book in the 8.25″ x 11″ size, with a parchment fabric cover and photo dust jacket. I named each project with the corresponding year, then uploaded my photo gallery in chronological order. They have a ton of different layout options but I quickly narrowed down 3-4 favorite layouts which is an easy way to give your yearly family photo book a consistent feel from one album to the next. Of course you can spend as much or as little time as you’d like playing around with all the different design tools, but I kept ours pretty simple since the process of getting all my photos together had already been pretty time-consuming. I like that you can add additional pages for years where you might have more family photos — unsurprisingly we have many more family photos in the years we’ve welcomed new babies!
4. Preview your project and choose your favorite family photos for the dust jacket cover.
The hardcover photo book makes for a beautiful album on its own but I loved choosing two favorite moments for the front and back covers for each year! If you’re giving a yearly family photo book as a gift or planning to display it on a bookshelf or coffee table, the dust jacket is the first thing family members will see so it’s fun to choose a couple special moments to highlight from the year.
Family photo books are such a labor of love but I can’t think of a more perfect gift for family members or for our children to look at when they’re a little bit older. I definitely presented these as a touching gift to Will on Christmas morning, but I also think they’re just a great way to document our family history and everyday family moments in these early years our children probably won’t really remember. So far I’ve put together a yearly family photo book for 2019, 2020, and 2021 and I’m working on organizing family photos from 2022 and 2023 so I can order those family photo books sometime this year. Then hopefully I can get in the habit of ordering one custom photo book at the end of each year, pulling together all the family celebrations and precious memories from the previous twelve months! It’s taken me quite a few hours to get the ball rolling on this project, but ultimately I think it will be a reasonably easy way to make sure our favorite family moments live somewhere besides the depths of my camera roll or social media. I know my future self will be glad I made it happen!
