Valentine's Day Photo Book Gift

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When I make a Photobook gift, I'm not so shameless as to ask the recipient, "Do you like it? Is it plain knock-out gorgeous?" Instead I slyly ask, "Which one is your favorite page?" And I occassionally get the right answer, "I love every page of it!"

When I make a Photobook for someone, the message from my heart is: Hi there, I'm so glad you are in my life. The thing about photobooks though is that it is not an impulse gift. It takes a couple days to gather your favorite pictures, and although it is snap easy to then create a photobook with the pictures, it still takes a week or two to get the finished hardcover book back. So plan early. Most photobook creators - Picaboo, Snapfish.com
, Kodak Gallery - suggest getting your book order in by end of January to get it back in the mail by Valentine's day.

Before you even turn on your computer to create a photo book, decide on a theme. Even if it's for Valentine's Day, there are many unique stories your book can highlight. Here are some tips:

Valentine's Day Photobook Ideas

• Favorite Activities – Look through photos of your favorite activites. Why are they special to you? How did you stumble on the activity? Your loved one will enjoy reading through the photo book and remembering all of the special moments you have shared.
• I Love You Because … - Be sure to include both the mundane and the special. Does your partner do special things for you when you are feeling down? Do you love the way he plays catch with your son? Capture the big and the small things. A relationship is so full of them when you think about them.
• Our Travels – Re-live your favorite romantic vacations. Take him back to those special destinations.
• Love Letters - Whether you communicate via post cards, letters, email, or instant message conversations, your partner will cherish the collection of these special messages into one photo book filled with both the history of your romance as well as photos of your time together over the years.
• Honeymoon – Remember your honeymoon? Chances are you took tons of digital pictures that are just sitting dormant in your hard drive. Celebrate them all over again.
• Double Vision - This is a fun photo book that I showed in an earlier blog post but it requires you to have some knowledge of photo editing, like putting in a tiara in the duplicated photo, taking off a wall painting, or changing a shirt color. The plus side: double the message. If one photo says I love you, two "almost identical" copies of the same photo says I double love you. Either that or I've gone overboard again with my ideas.

Take time to preserve your memories in print, take time to say, "I'm glad you are in my life". We don't say it enough.