I’ve always been a photo-taker. I love to have photos of the various events throughout my life, and I’ve always been big on keeping scrapbooks and photo albums (and, of course, it’s only gotten worse now that I’m a mom). I love having all of these photos, but I have to admit that I struggle sometimes to find creative ways to display our family photos. I’m constantly snapping photos of our day-to-day lives, but I often feel like they all end up living on my computer and never really get enjoyed or looked at. We don’t have a ton of wall space in our home for hanging pictures, and I’m more prone to hang art or other decorative objects rather than family photos on the wall. So, without that as an option, it’s pretty challenging to find a way to show off our cute little family!
Over the years, though, I’ve become more and more determined to actually use the photos that I’m taking, and I’ve found a few simple ways to make sure our photos are seen.
Family yearbooks, as we like to call them, are one of my favorite ways to show off our photos. We started this a few years back and now it’s one of the highlights of the month of January for us – I gather up all of the photos we took over the course of the year and compile them into a big photo book online. We like to use Blurb, but there are a ton of different services out there that are all fantastic (I’ve personally used Shutterfly and Snapfish, and have heard great things about MyPublisher and MPix) and they’re so easy to use! These books are so much fun to look through once they’re complete, and they look adorable sitting out on a coffee table or bookshelf.
I’ve also taken to ordering prints every once in a while of photos that are particularly special. I got these cute square prints from Sticky9 a few months back, and we still have all of Jackson’s weekly photos from his first year on display in our dining room window! As of right now I just toss these on a bookshelf with a cute little bowl on top to keep them from sliding around, but I’d like to get a little box or basket to hold them all – there’s just something special to me about a bunch of loose photographs to flip through!
In the last year or so, we’ve also started using Sticky 9 for photo magnets. You can upload them straight from Instagram and they come in this cute little grid that you can break apart and pop right on the fridge. These are so much fun for Jackson to play with, and I love that they’re so much better to look at than any other random magnet we’ve collected over the years. We order a new batch every once in a while to keep the pictures fresh, and our guests always love to look at them and comment on how cute they are. I have a friend who made some of these herself, and they turned out just as cute – if I had the time I’d definitely try that! These are also a favorite toy (and great learning tool) for Jackson – he loves to point out the dogs and his dad in the pictures!
My newest obsession for displaying family photos are ChatBooks. You can download the app on your phone, and it automatically pulls in all of your Instagram photos (and it can pull from other accounts as well, if you’d like to get your spouse’s photos) and every 60 photos they will make a book and ship it out to you, for only $6. Shipping is free! You can read more about them in Mrs. Bee’s review from a few months back. So every couple of months, we get a brand new book full of all of the photos I’ve posted to Instagram, along with the captions. They’ll warn you before they make the book, so you can go in and exclude any random photos that you don’t want in your book, and you can make sure it’s exactly how you want it. It’s a perfect way to document all of those little moments that I share online, and they’re so much fun to look at! The books are the perfect size to leave out on the coffee table, and we always have people leaf through them when they come over. It’s basically the most genius subscription service ever!
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With these four things in place (along with a few special photographs hung on the wall), I finally feel like all of the photos I’m constantly snapping are going to good use, and I don’t worry about how to display family photos anymore – it’s all taken care of!
How do you display family photos in your home?
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
I make a family yearbook each year too.
I like to print my photos in case my computer ever crashes.
coconut / 8079 posts
We put up LO’s monthly pics for his first birthday party and I just don’t want to take them down! I have also been making photo books with Shutterfly and (after reading Mrs. Bee’s review) Chatbooks. I have ordered magnets for family through Shutterfly, but I never thought about making some for LO to play with! Thanks for the great ideas!!
guest
Love to see a little Aggieland on display! Gig’em! (oh yeah… I’m trying to do the same thing using Shutterfly!)
kiwi / 511 posts
For Mother’s day I got two photo frames each one is engraved my my child’s name and DOB. Each year my husband updates a picture of me and each child. We also hang their school pictures, we actually do that right next to their growth chart. Other than that we don’t really have photos around the house.
I do a Shutterfly book each year because I like the idea of a photo album and I like the idea of scrap booking but I know that I will never make one. So the Shutterfly book is my compromise because I can get fun backgrounds etc to get the feel of a scrap book without all the time and effort. To keep them cohesive I use the same outer cover, the same font and font color and same first picture. The front cover says Maven Family Circa 201X (obviously filling in the year), and the first picture is always a family picture and I put our four names in.
kiwi / 558 posts
Thanks for the square prints reference. I’ve been looking for really nice square prints and it’s been hard to find a good site!!
Also, if you guys are near Aggieland, then you should try to come for one of the Houston Bee meetups!! Maybe you could make it a weekend since I know it can be a little drive to have to do there and back!!
blogger / pear / 1563 posts
The family yearbook is so key! I’m about 5.5 months behind in making our 2014 yearbook, but otherwise I make a book every year. Otherwise all our photos would never be tangibly be seen or passed on.