Creating Memories

Preserving memories and photo printing

Back in 2015 I posted about my journey into uploading my phone photos to snapfish and creating photobooks. I love that I can still preserve memories in a creative way even though I no longer scrapbook.

However during 2016 I have combined my love of daily diary writing with creativity and memory keeping. I will talk more (in September) about how my Carpe Diem planner has evolved into a memory book but for now I wanted to talk about the company I use to print photos from my phone.

They're called Cheerz and they do the cutest instamatic style prints in such great quality! I have tried a few of the phone app printing companies and so glad I found these guys. (PS. not receiving anything for these words, they are my own and I pay for all my prints).

So it's easy peasy, you just pop the app on your phone, allow it access to your photos, upload what you want printed and pay. It takes a couple of days to get to you and VOILA, you have memories in your hands! As I take most of my photos square for uploading to instagram I love that I don't need to alter them to fit the instamatic style that Cheerz uses. I also love that their app is pretty user friendly, cause I can't do over complicated!

My plan is to get into a habit of uploading and printing photos every two weeks so I can keep on top of it and not worry about printing doubles or forgetting to print.

I hope you have good results with Cheerz if you choose to use them!

C xx

Photo book update

I'm really chuffed to bits with the photo books!

I wish I could have managed better photos of them but it is very wet outside and very dark inside!

So let's review...

Cover: I chose the linen cover in red for our Cape Town trip and black for 2010/2011 year book. With no sticky fingers handling the books I think the linen covers will survive. I do want to try the hard custom cover too, and I think this would look amazing for my Kruger book with an Elephant or Lion on the cover. With that option you also get to customise the back and spine of the book. I'm not keen on the dust jacket option as they just get scrunched and bent.

Background themes: There are hundreds of free background themes to choose from, from simple to very colourful. For the year in review book I chose the free 'papers' as the topics of each page are so varied, from Christmas to a summer holiday in Crete. You can mix and match between free themes too. For the Cape Town book I chose a £5.00 Hallmark travel theme.

The papers are fantastic and vibrant! You can't mix these with the free papers but you do see all the papers in the collection before you choose it and of course you can change your mind if you decide they don't work. PS that pan of seafood was for two!

Print quality: Most of the photos I have uploaded to snapfish are iPhone photos and my iPhone 4 had a seriously bad camera! I am so impressed with the quality of the book and the photos.

^^ Especially these ^^

My Kruger photos were taken with my DSLR and uploaded to my iPad through iTunes then uploaded to snapfish. Unfortunatly the PC with the original upload on is in PC heaven so this is the only copy I have. I'm interested to see how they print.

Price: A 20 page 8x11 linen cover, free theme book is £19.99. Add £5.00 for a hard custom or dust jacket cover and £10.00 for a leather cover. Add £5.00 for a hallmark theme. Add £1.49 for 2 extra pages. The page layouts range from 1 photo to 7 photos so potentially you can really load the book with photos.

Overall impression: For a scrapbooker this is a great way to document those photos that you probably wouldn't scrap but would still want in an album. I haven't scrapped in a few years but now don't feel guilty about it! And if I feel inspired I can still go back and print any of these photos that I do want to scrap because I have them saved. It's a win win :)
For a non scrapper in the digital age this is a great way of putting your photos in an 'album'. It's great having them at the touch of a phone button but who doesn't love getting the albums out?

I signed up at a great time as there was a January sale going on and if your order was £35.00 and over you received 50% off your goods price. My order was £49.99 (2 linen books with the hallmark extra), so I received a discount of £22.48. Postage was on top. That means that my basic book was free!

By the end of this year I would like to have done the 2012, 2013 and 2014 years in review, Stuarts 50th and birthday trip to Morocco and my 40th birthday books. And hopefully there will be more sales during the year! Better crack on.

(FYI, this review is my personal opinion and not a sponsored post.)

Ciao C xx

Can we talk about photo books?

On the 21st I mentioned that I had created a snapfish account as a place to store my iPhone and iPad photos and that I had created a photo book of my 2010 and 2011 iPhotos.

As a scrapbooker it feels a little odd making photo books but in all honesty I wish I had done this years ago. I love to print the perfect photo and rifle through my stash to make layouts but I should have been far more selective with the photos I chose to scrap and the rest should have gone into these clever books.

In the past few days I have also created books of my trip to the Kruger National Park in 2012 and our trip to Cape Town in 2013.

I have absolutely loved creating each and every page and reliving each memory with it.

I didn't use all 13million elephant photos I took but I did use quite a few of the lion photos as it was a rare treat so see so many little ones feasting on the carcass of a recent kill. We imagined that the rest of the pride were lazing under the trees just on the other side of that mound!

Once I have caught up with my iPhone photo books I will work on the many CDs and DVDs that I have containing years worth of digital photos. Thankfully they are in year order so i'm sure it won't take long to get them all in book form.
As for all the film photo prints, well that's a discussion for another day!

Ciao C xx

Another busy week

Seems to be the story of my life!

The 'last' day of my holidays was lovely. I spent the morning at Hitchin market and managed to bag a few bargains. My most favourite, whch i've not photographed yet is a Royal Doulton red rose hat pin. or at least I think it's a hat pin. It's so delicate and pretty.
I spent the afternoon sewing! You'll need to wait to see what :)

Then on Saturday Stu whisked me off to Southampton for the night. I finally got to visit family friends who have been in the UK for just over a year. It was so awesome to catch up, as i've missed them terribly. But in true slack scrapper style, I didn't get one photo :(

On Sunday we stopped at Weald & Downland Open Air museum.

 

It is such an interesting place, and the grounds are just lovely for a whole day out. We spent about 4 hours walking around, but I really could have spent the day and scheduled to listen to the talks that they give at random houses through the day.

 

And this week has been a whirlwind of meetings, trying to catch up from my week off and training one of our team to take on some of our workload. This will be a HUGE help to us!

I've booked next Tuesday off to go to knit & chat, and I hope the weather is good so I can spend the afternoon in the garden!

Oops, just noticed the time and it's getting late, I must dash!
Ciao
Caz
xx

WOW!

It's been a while. I fell of the blog wagon and have enjoyed my time just walking along and staying away from the pc.

We've also been on holiday and had a well deserved break from the hum drum of every day life. Here are a few pics.

And Hamish!

I have more but they are on mums laptop which is still in Scotland with her :)

I'll be sharing my holiday journal on Creative World on the 7th September, so be sure to pop along and visit.

On Sunday we just rested and chilled infront of the telly, getting our breath back from the hecticness of the past month or so. Stu did a tonne of driving in Scotland so he needed a break. Yesterday however we got stuck into the garden and did a load of tidying up and mowing the lawn. I harvested the carrots and planted out the last of the radish and lettuce. We now have to enjoy the fruits of all the hard work and wait for autumn when we have a mamoth cut back in preparation for the spring.

And today it's back to work, thankfully it's a short week!

Until tomorrow!
Ciao
Caz
xx

An update...

Well two actually!

Firstly...

Little Mr Josh is all better :) There is no muck and from what I can see, infection in his eye. Great news as it means no vet, which means no travelling in the car, and of course no big bill.

Second update is my Month in My Life journal.

I love sitting down each evening or morning to journal my day. I'm including photos, shopping/diesel receipts and any other paraphernalia that I gather on the way.

Today we're Down in the Garden, over on Creative World, and we're looking at creatures you want to encourage into your garden.

I have a half day today, WOO HOO! Going to visit the plant man and maybe take a drive to Welwyn to buy my hand bag :)

Ciao of now!
Caz
xx

haPPy baNk hoLIday!

I hope you've all had a good day!

I've crafted and watched tv :) The day has been so relaxing. No gardening though cause it's raining and miserable outside!

I have a few photos to share but as I am hating this new typepad, I will say my goodbyes and then upload the photos!

Ciao
Caz
xx

PS I have been tagged by Trish and will get around to posting about it soon!

One more sleep!!

Wow am I ever excited!! Mum will be here in less than 12 hours. Well in the country :) My cousin Danni is picking her up from the airport and bringing her up. She is also going to spend the day with us which is so cool cause although she only lives in London, she may as well be back in Africa, cause I never see her :(

This photo was taken in April, when mum was here for the wedding. I hope to get loads more photos this trip.

I had a scrappy day yesterday so i'll upload the LOs I finished during the week.

Off to Luton this morning, YIKES, so glad I have Stus satnav to take me there!!

haPPy creATing
Caz
xx