Learn how we are Preserving Travel Memories.
Sponsored post: This post is sponsored by Shutterfly, but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.
“Travel Memories Last a Lifetime!”
However, the small details of your travel adventure (s) might be forgotten if not documented! Since I was a teen, I have always enjoyed taking pictures of the places I have visited. I think that by keeping a visual record of my adventures helps me ensure that I always have a way to look back on them. As you can imagine, when my the kids came along, the photographer in me went into full gear, especially during family vacations. Forward to today and now I have tons and tons of pics of my kids. When the kids were young, my husband and I decided that every year we would take one big family vacation. In the last twelve or so years, we have traveled through much of the Carribean and in and around our home state of Florida. This year, our family vacation took us back to where my husband and I came from. Yes, we hadn’t taken the kids to our home country of Nicaragua (located in Central America). As a matter of fact, the last time my husband and I traveled to Nicaragua was in 2001, a lifetime away! Knowing that I would be documenting our family travel memories, I picked up several extra memory cards and took my laptop with me to have a way to backup our pics. Of course taking our trip pics was just the beginning! Coming back home, I knew that I had to somehow preserve our travel memories. And when I say preserve, I don’t mean storing the pics on my external hard drive. No, I mean printing them and putting them in a scrapbook or creating an amazing photo book. Well, that’s exactly what I did, I will tell you more about that later in this post. However, in the meantime, I want to share with you a few of my favorite pictures from our time in Nicaragua. Check it out!
An Amish farm in a small town.
My daughter admiring the cows.
Visiting Masaya Volcano National park and viewing its current active caldera.
At one of the many Nicaraguan beaches, watching the fisherman bring in their catch of the day.
Monkey island in one of Granada’s Islets.
Touring the Cathedral of Leon.
This are just a few of the many pictures that comprised our trip, there are probably a few hundred more sitting on my computer. And exactly the reason why I asked myself, is it worth sifting through all these pictures and finding a home for them? Of course, the answer was a resounding YES! But how to make something as memorable as our trip? So, to make an amazing way to preserve our family travel adventures, I headed to Shutterfly. com to create a photo book using the Make My Book™ Service. Check out how easy it is to make these books below.
So if you haven’t used this new service, how does it work and is it easy to customize? Well, the answer is YES to both! To make your amazing photo book, all you have to do is follow these simple steps. First, go to Shutterfly. com and click on “Make my book”. Now, choose your options: select a book size, and style using the Make My Book™ service. Personally, I decided to go with an 11×14″ photobook and a summer theme. Next, If you are thinking, but I still have to go through many pics to select the best ones for my book!
Well, this is where the second step comes in. With this new Shutterfly service, all you have to do is upload your photos or entire albums from your desktop, phone, tablet, or your Shutterfly account and Shutterfly designs your book! Yes, that’s right, NO need to choose or sort through your photos because they will select the best ones and they can even curate your pics. Oh and don’t worry if you see a photo you don’t want to be included, just delete the image. Easy, right? Well, easy enough for this busy mom of three!
Once you have selected your book style, size, and uploaded all your image, you can now customize things like how many pics you want your book to have on each page, how much embellishments your designer will use and anything else you want to be included in your book. So, in this last step, you can give your Shutterfly designer further instructions about your book, such as the occasion of the book, the title, and subtitle of your photo book, and you can even ask questions. They will email you with the answers later!
Once your book is designed and ready to be purchased, you will receive an email letting you know. The last step is to view and order your book. Oh! and before you add your book to your shopping cart, you can add it as is or personalize it with your own finishing touches. And the best thing is that their one-time $9.99 service fee is applied only once you order your finished book. As you can see from the images above my photobook has been ordered, received, and everyone LOVES to relieving our little summer Nicaraguan adventures looking at the pics in the book. Chime in, What is your favorite way to preserve your family’s travel memories? Drop us a note in the comment section below.