5 Unique Photo Book Ideas

Do you have a mountain of digital photos on your hard drive? Do you ever do anything off screen with them or are they hiding in the dark reaches of your computer?

I love to print enlargements for a wall gallery I keep above our fireplace but otherwise generally forget to make prints for myself and for family. So when AdoramaPix asked me to try out their new photo books service, I jumped at the opportunity to get some photos printed for the real world.

The hardest part of knowing where to even begin with my photo book was deciding which photos I wanted to include and what the theme of the book should be! I'm too Type A to just toss a bunch of recent ones in and call it good. If I'm going to take the time to design it and print it out, it needs to be a "project"!

As I looked through my photo library, I found several clusters of photos that would make super fun themes. If you're looking for your own inspiration, you could start with one of these suggestions.

5 Unique Photo Book Ideas:

1. A year of holidays & special occasions: Skip the everyday and just showcase all the festivities from a calendar year. Be sure to include the silly little "Hallmark holidays," too. This is an especially popular theme for grandma. Also makes a cute book to teach seasons to your little ones.

2. Personality profiles: Gather photos of your kid in all their may moods: Happy, silly, sad, sleeping, tantrum-ing, laughing. I love my book like this from the toddler years when they are truly little characters.

3. Sibling love: Gather all your best photos of the kiddos in family clusters. I easily could have made an album filled with photos of my girls cuddling, playing together, goofing off together, etc. Showcase their relationship over time.

4. Summer list: Is your family working through a summer bucket list? Document the fun with photos to put in a season-end summary book. Check out my tips on summer photography here.

5. Family favorites: An adorable snapshot in time of your family could include shots of your favorite: places to go, things to do, foods to eat, go-to outfits & accessories, important friends, anything and everything that is most important to your family right now.

Have a theme all picked out? Ready to make a book? The ordering process at AdoramaPix was incredibly easy. I chose to create my own 8x8 designs using an album template I purchased from Oh Snap Boutique! but Adorama also has their own templates you can customize and make your own. Once you've uploaded photos, it's just a drag and drop system to lay your book out.

My favorite feature of the book is the stay-flat binding. I was able to print a photo design across the two-page spread and the photo looked beautiful with little interruption from the binding. I loved the ability to have a photo bleed (where it appears to run off the page without a border.) The photo below shows both a page bleed and the binding:

I'm pretty picky about paper and I couldn't have been more pleased with the quality of their stock. The pages are thick like cardstock and the cover has a pearly shine to it. My photos of the product don't do it justice. Can you see how thick that page is in the photo below? It could stand up on it's own!

What photo project are you working on right now?