i’m the opposite of a hoarder and packrat. i’m not a fan of clutter. and while i love the artwork my children create, i don’t have room to keep every masterpiece.
last year, to combat this problem, i photographed all of camryn’s preschool art pieces and created a photo book using shutterfly. all while 9 months pregnant mind you. while i loved the end result, it took FOREVER. the process involved me photographing each piece with my dslr. uploading to my computer and editing them. then uploading to shutterfly. i think this process took time away from whatever else i should’ve been doing on and off over the course of three days. not really conducive to everything a busy mama has going on.
this year, i decided to try a different approach and use artkive. artkive is an app for your phone that couldn’t make the process simpler. simply download the app, take photos with your phone of your child’s artwork, label and tag each piece (optional), and then send your photos to be printed into a book. all from your phone! because i was making two books this year, one for each girl, this definitely sounded promising.
both books arrived to our new home in the last few days. i love that you can select any of your photos for the front cover. i selected this butterfly project as both the girls had created one so their books coordinate. you also are able to label the front and spine with your own wording. i chose each girl’s name, the name of the school and then the year. (part of my title is removed for privacy.) this was awesome as camryn attended a full year of school but leighton only started preschool in january so was there for only five months.
you can choose between two different sizes of books – 8.5×11 or 8×8. the books are hardbound with a dustjacket that your photo is printed on. the quality of the paper and pages is absolutely amazing. super thick and durable. they will easily withstand the constant viewing they’ve been getting by the artists of our home who can’t get enough of seeing their work in print.
here is a sampling of what the pages look like on the inside of the book. i chose not to tag any of my photos with titles, the artist name or date as i was taking them all at one time rather than throughout the school year.
for this coming school year, i hope to take photos of projects as they come home rather than regulating them all to an art pile for me to sift through later. i also think it would be fun to include photos of the girls holding some of their projects to get a glimpse of how they change throughout the year as well.
i love that i didn’t have to specify how the photos were to look in the book. if they were vertical, they are oriented away from the spine so that you can see the full piece of art.
if the art piece is horizontal, it is centered on an entire page.
the entire process couldn’t have been easier. i honestly created leighton’s book while movers were in my house taking box after box to the moving truck. i was in our furniture-less dining room with a piece of packing paper draped over a box taking photos of her art work. i’m sure they thought i was crazy. i had all of her art work photographed and her book ordered in less than an hour. even andy couldn’t believe that it was that easy.
during the process, my only negative thought was that the price was more expensive than a typical photobook that you could purchase. however, after receiving the books and reviewing the quality and the amount of time i saved by creating them through the artkive app, it’s no longer a concern. my time is valuable – to me anyway! – and the convenience factor far exceeds the price paid.
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i was not compensated for this review. i’m simply a busy mama who found a great product and wanted to share this amazing find with others.
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