I'M FEELING LIKE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOTGRAPHER TODAY!

t's almost November, time for me to start thinking about the holidays. I have to ship to other states to get gifts to the rest of the family so I definitely have to be done with my shopping before Thanksgiving. I like to make things or customize things I bought so they are special. In the past it's been cookies, wreaths, music boxes, or something I sewed. For all of this October my brain has been blank which is not good.

While decluttering my bookshelves in the livingroom I came across my many photo albums created before I bought a digital camera. I've thought about scrapbooking my huge collection but I have been thinking about it for about 15 years now! I doubt it's going to happen.

Then it hit me. For my grammie's gift, I'm going to make her a photo album of all us grandkids over the years. Obviously I'm not going to send her my original photos so I scanned them. My cousin scanned and emailed me some pictures from her collection to help me out. I also have a ton of photos from my digital camera, stored on my computer. I got the scanning done pretty quick.

Next I checked out several photo book websites and came across http://www.smilebooks.com/. I liked their offerings the best- you can make a custom photo book that is professinally bound, using your own imagination for layout or one of their templates. Using their photoalbum software you enter your own text, put the pictures wherever you like, pick out a book size and what kind of cover you want. Using their software and website is free. You just pay for the book itself.

I finished my photo book last night and I can't wait for it to arrive. I'm really proud of how the pages look. It starts out with us 5 grandchildren as babies. It ends with high school graduations and a few wedding pictures. Perhaps the next book will be of the next generation!