I wasn’t at the office more than 10 minutes and the receptionist called me. She was quite excited and had something at the front desk she wanted to show me when I had a minute. The receptionist’s daughter had come for a visit over the weekend and brought her a picture book with photos from the daughters wedding last year. It was a hard cover bound photo book, what I would call a coffee table book. Several of the pages had photos full bleed (all the way to the edge of the page). I must admit this was so much better than a scrapbook for these particular photos. Don’t get me wrong I have been an avid scrapbooker for over 10 years but this took it to a whole different level giving the photos the presence they needed.
Several of the photos had captions to them. Of course proud mom was adding a lot of her own commentary as she showed off the book to me. Her daughter was also able to create custom books for each family member from the wedding. It really highlighted the photos that were important to each person. For the bride it was very important to customize each book since the brides parents are divorced and remarried.
If you haven’t seen one yet they are a great gift idea for a family member or friend. Talk about a personalized gift that they can’t return. Although who would want to return one of these great gifts? Her photo book was from Kodak but I have seen several other companies, like Snapfish, offering these now also. I have seen prices as low as $7 up to $100, it really depends on how many photos you put in them. I was actually quite impressed with the quality of the book for the price. There are even new products on the market that allow you to create your own picture books in the comfort of your home.
Again I urge you to think outside of the standard picture frame or scrapbook. There are so many other options out there to take your photos to the next level.