Keep Your Memory With a Photo Memory Book

There are many possible ways to keep the memory in our life. The photograph is one of the possible things people can use to recall their memories. What about you? In the past, people use many different types of camera and the most popular one at that time was the camera with roll film. You will need to fix it before taking the picture and the negative film was used to print the pictures. Recently, the advanced technology has brought various alternatives for many people and the digital camera is the best solution. However, the photo memory book can bring different feeling. It is the good choice to put the pictures which were taken by using traditional camera.

You can make the book easily if you follow the instructions carefully. Basically, there are two basic benefits of making this book. The first benefit will fill your feeling with vivid memories. Besides, you can share those magnificent things with your next generations. The two main benefits above become the reasons why people are interested to make the memory book.

Firstly, you must prepare the scrapbook or album. Further, please prepare the acid free note paper, the photos, a double sided tape and also the sheets of album pages. You should collect the family photos and then categorize them into two major groups, which are the past and present generation. And then, you can arrange them in good order based on the year, date and also the family names. You can give the mark to differentiate each generation.

Can you add the other things in the book? Definitely, it is possible for you to do it. You can add some memorabilia in it, such as the theater tickets. The good order will be helpful for you to arrange them to be a perfect book. Including the CD in the books will be all right if you have scanned the entire photos, thus you have the digital copy of those photographs. The unique design can be created by looking at the magazines and internet as the two main references.

Why You Should Have A Custom Engagement Album

If you are like most brides to be, you will want to remember everything about your wedding as well as everything that is leading up to the wedding. You can remember the special time up until your wedding for years to come with a special custom engagement album.

Years ago, people only had wedding albums. Those who wanted to immortalize any milestones in their life did so either by putting photographs in an album or making a crude scrapbook. A wedding album was the only professional custom album that most people had because custom albums were so expensive. Some people could not even afford to have a wedding album and did without. On top of that, it would take a year to get the wedding album from the photographer.

Today, thanks to computers and software technology, things have certainly changed with regard to custom albums. Custom albums are no longer reserved for only weddings. They can be used for all occasions, including engagements, birthdays, holidays, special events, anniversaries and even Bar Mitzvahs. Computers make custom album design easy and affordable.

You can keep track of your engagement as well as your wedding shower and plans for your upcoming nuptials and create a custom engagement album on the computer using photographs as well as invitations and other items. You can even add poetry or song lyrics to your custom engagement album, thanks to the internet and scanning technology. You can create your own custom album design right on the computer and have it printed and bound.

If you do not have the time or the inclination to create your own custom engagement album but would still like to memorialize this event, you can have a custom engagement album designed and printed by a professional album designer. This is not an expensive item and is something that you will want to keep forever as it will remind you of your wedding.

One reason to have an engagement album created by a custom album designer is if you want to get a first hand experience of their work. If you like their product as well as their service, you may engage them to create your custom wedding album. Most custom album designers are well versed in creating custom wedding albums. There are a lot of different designers from which to choose so working with one prior to the actual event makes a lot of sense.

A custom engagement album can also be an ideal gift for a bride and groom. While a bride may or may not think to create an engagement album, you will be sure to make a big splash if you present the bride with a custom engagement album as a shower or wedding gift. Custom albums are something that everyone will treasure. You simply cannot go wrong if you present someone with a custom album. You can make an engagement album for the bride and groom yourself or hire a professional who can do the job for you and create a masterpiece - the choice is yours.

Wedding Anniversary Gifts - First Five Years

A wedding anniversary is the anniversary (or yearly celebration) that occurs on the month and day of the wedding ceremony. The 25th and 50th anniversaries are the most often celebrated anniversaries. These celebrations often include family gatherings.

Specific types of gifts are traditionally associated with many of the yearly anniversaries, and gifts for the first five anniversaries are a great way to help a newly married couple celebrate. In general, there are two types of gifts associated with each anniversary - a traditional gift and a modern gift. Below is a list of the traditional and modern gifts given for the first five anniversaries, along with some ideas for each.

One Year:

Paper (Traditional) / Clocks (Modern)

For paper, stationary with the family name printed on it is a good idea. Photographs may be another. Creative baskets filled with various paper gifts (like cards, gift certificates, etc.) can create a unique and personal gift idea.

Clocks are the modern choice for the first anniversary. With a seemingly endless assortment of clocks available, you have many to choose from. Engraving the anniversary date is a nice touch.

Two years:

Cotton (Traditional) / China (Modern)

Cotton bed sheets may be one of the first items to come to mind, but there are also many other items made from cotton. For instance, terrycloth towels and bathrobes are made of cotton, as are denim and corduroy. Again, a gift basket of items that include cotton could be a unique and personal gift idea. Choose items that relate to hobbies or interests shared by the couple. A few items that include cotton are books (book bindings include cotton), coffee filters, and tents.

China isn't just for dishes. An oriental gift basket or a set of Chinese herbs and teas can make an original gift idea.

Three years:

Leather (Traditional) / Crystal, glass (Modern}

Leather items can include watches, luggage, leather-bound books, jackets and shoes.

For the modern gift, crystal and glass can be found in many items, such as photo frames, dishes, light fixtures, televisions, windows, art pieces, dishes, clocks, computers and jewelry. Again, customize or engrave items to make them personal and choose items that can be related to the couple's interests.

Four years:

Linen, Fruit or Flowers (Traditional) / Appliances or electrical gifts (Modern)

Tablecloths or sheets make great linen purchases for a gift. Baskets of flowers or fruits are suitable traditional gifts for this anniversary, too. In addition, memberships for monthly flower or fruit clubs are a great idea for this gift. Items decorated with fruit or flowers can be easily found for gift ideas.

Electrical appliances can range from dishwashers, refrigerators, etc. to smaller items like travel coffee mugs, blenders and food processors. Even assorted items related to cooking appliances can be given for this modern gift.

Five years:

Wood (Traditional) / Silverware (Modern)

Wood can be found in a countless amount of items. A few good traditional ideas for this anniversary would be coffee tables, coat racks, or perhaps a welcome sign with the couple's name printed on it. Many household items have wood accents and hand-carved wooden objects can be elegant, personal gifts.

Silverware can be fairly straightforward as a gift, but you can also consider other items that contain silver, like jewelry, various collectibles, coins, musical instruments, kitchen utensils or cookware, and mirrors.

The focus of wedding anniversaries and wedding anniversary gifts is to celebrate the union of two people. Be sure to keep those two people in mind when choosing your gift. A personal gift is sure to be loved and appreciated.

Uses for Lighted Picture Frames

Your favorite photos can be displayed elegantly with an LED lighted picture frame. These beautiful lighted frames can make any picture or photo the focal point of a room. Not only do these frames work well for your own photos, the can work as displays for a scrap book collection or for an art show display. Give them to your friends for a present they are sure to enjoy for years to come.

For Your Own Photos
Your favorite photos can be displayed in an LED lighted picture frame so anyone who visits your home will be sure to notice them. Place them on bookshelves, end tables, counter tops, walls or anywhere you wish to display your favorite photos. Why leave your favorite photos in a photo album where no one can see them when you can display them elegantly with a lighted picture frame?

For a Scrap-Book Collection
If you have a special group of pictures, such as a scrap-book collection, you can make these pictures come to life by displaying them in lighted picture frames. Use a bookshelf, a wall or any other space in your home to display the most important moments in your life.

For a Display
If you are an artist or work displaying other people's art work, what better way to show off your work than displaying it in a lighted picture frame? Your artwork will jump off the canvas and grab the attention of buyers who are attending your art show. This special way of displaying your work could earn you income by making your work really stand out at a special art showing.

As a Gift
Lighted frames make the perfect gift for any occasion. Your friends will love you for your thoughtfulness and the gift is something they will use and treasure for years to come. It is the ideal gift for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, retirements, reunions, corporate gifts, and many other special occasions. You can make the gift even more special by putting a special picture of a friend or loved one inside the frame. Grandparents love getting pictures of their grandchildren and will be sure to show off these pictures in the special lighted frames.

As you can see there are many uses for lighted picture frames. They make wonderful gifts, elegant displays or used to display your favorite photos. You can buy lighted picture frames at the best prices at an online lighting store. While you are there, you can also find great deals on other lighting products. There may be special discounts available if you order multiple items online. Check with your online lighting store for full details about discounts and special pricing options.

Wedding Pictures - What Every Bride Should Know Before Posing for Her Pictures

Well, your big day is approaching and you don't know how the pictures will turn out because your not a professional model. Will they be good, great, terrible? There are some ideas you can think about and even practice so they begin to feel more natural to you.

To begin pay attention to your stance. Are your feet, hips and shoulders all facing the camera dead on like a firing squad? This is a no-no. Unless the photographer specifically asks, try to stand a slight angle to the camera. And your front foot will extend toward the camera, not away into left field. These points may sound strange, but try them and see how models in magazines look natural doing this. Along with your feet, your weight will be usually on the back foot. Try to avoid standing with weight even on both feet.

Your head can add so much to the camera and picture with a slight tilt. The best way to make this your own is to think soft, flowing feeling in your body and limbs.

For full length shots be conscience of the bouquet and where it is. If it's a fig leaf level (your hip area), then that's great. And if you have beautiful wide hips using the bouquet to rest on the hip bone when at an angle is greatly beneficial. Tyra Banks is a pro at this but she uses her hands and wrists. I saw her in person and the sister does have nice round hips, but she covers them up nicely for the camera.

By keeping your arms bent the flow of your body and waistline is accented and you'll look great.

When the photographer takes a hand or ring shot, have you and your groom raise your hands over your head for a few seconds to let the book rush out and avoid veiny hands.

A big trend today is photojournalism, meaning the photographer will capture the day naturally. However, everyone need some direction for posing to make them look natural. Like, when it's time to photograph bride and groom together and your free to move try to have your groom stand in front of you or at a slight angle to your. Always avoid you, the bride standing square shoulder to the camera.

For brides that are full figured woman, you should avoid sitting positions. And remember at an angle to the camera.

Another trick is to use your hand on your hip or letting a soft curve in the arm and have it slope across your hip. This will slim your hips and waistline.

I can assure you, practicing this in front of a mirror feels funny, but the idea is to have some techniques that you can do and still fee comfortable with. Start to look at magazines with a modeling eye to see how the cover their hips and how they curve their body in a long dress.

Sorting Photos, A Method to Get You Started

As with Scrapbooking, creating a photo book begins with the process of sorting photos. No matter what type of photo book you are thinking of creating: a travel book, baby book, wedding book, or a celebration of family, the dreaded task of sorting photos has to be undertaken. By photos for the purpose of this article I am referring to printed photos and negatives, as this seems to be the biggest stumbling block to getting started on a photo book project. I have received many phone calls lately from people who are feeling overwhelmed with how to start the process of sorting their boxes of photo memorabilia. I will guide you through the process I use, and I hope it will help to get you started.

Step One - Setting Up
It can be a big challenge to start sorting what can sometimes be generations worth of photos. Find yourself an area where you can work uninterrupted and where you are able to spread out. A big table really helps, and from experience I do not recommend the dining room table. Craft tables are ideal for this project, and can be obtained at a reasonable cost at places like Costco. Other materials that you will likely need are: 4x6 index cards including some in assorted colors, page protectors if you are going to be sorting older photos that are often in a larger size, negative sleeves if you are going to be sorting old negatives, 3 ring binders for storing larger photos and negatives, photo boxes, preferably one for each year if your photos are in 4x6 format, felt markers and a large garbage can. Gather up all your loose photos from all sources: desks, drawers, cupboards, shoeboxes etc.

Step Two - Starting the Sort
When I have a lot of old photos to sort I sort chronologically by year, no matter who or what the picture is of. Do the best you can if you have pictures that you are not sure of. Think of when you took that big holiday, how old your child was in that photo, what house you were living in etc. When sorting older photos you may have to organize by decade 30's, 40's 50's etc. Do not get bogged down with this, you can always come back to these and do a more detailed sort by analysing the photos for hairstyles, fashions, cars etc. I create a white index card for each year of the decade for example 2000 - 2010 and place the index cards in numerical order with the pile of photos growing behind each index card. Once you have sorted all your photos by year you have established your timeline and are ready to start the second sort of pictures. Now you know what you have to work with. If you have photos in older albums you might want to sort them as well, once you finish with your loose photos. Many of us have photos in albums that are not archival quality and you may be shocked at the condition of your photos if you have not looked at these albums recently.

Step Three - the Second Sort
For some this is the most difficult part of the process as you are now ready to start reducing the size of your pile of photos and make decisions on what to do with each picture. When starting recognize that you will not be including all of your photos when deciding what will go into the photo books that you are going to make. You will be purging some, perhaps passing some along to other family members and others you might just leave neatly sorted into photo boxes. Have a trash can handy and be ruthless about discarding photos of poor quality, duplicates or near duplicates, photos that no longer mean a thing to you (what is this a picture of and where on earth did I take it)? As you sort you may come across good photos that you no longer want but perhaps someone else in your family might like to have the picture. Set these photos aside to come back to later. Depending on your age or life circumstance you might have a lot of these photos. When my grandmother was getting ready to move into assisted living she went through her extensive collection of pictures of grand and great grand children, separated the pictures by child and then put the into small photos albums that she sent to each child. She realized that the grandchildren, especially the older ones might treasure such a collection of photos of themselves. If you have very old family heritage photographs perhaps someone in your family is undertaking genealogy work and they would love to have these photos (either the originals or a DVD copy if you cannot bear to give up the original). One word of warning, do not write on the back of any photo in ballpoint pen. Over time this will mark photos, if you have a need to do this special pencils can be obtained at scrapbooking and craft stores for this purpose. If you are using post it notes never apply to the front of the photo.

Step Four - the Final Sort
You should now have significantly fewer pictures in each of your piles. Now you can create more index cards, use the colored ones and use one for each month and sort your pictures accordingly and file them in your photo box (labeled for the year). As you sort you may have a lot of pictures for a particular month (usually December and the summer months). You may choose to create additional index cards to put collections of pictures together (Christmas family gatherings, Christmas concerts, graduation pictures, birthday parties, the summer holiday etc). Take time to enjoy this part of the sorting process, it does not have to be all task focused. Enjoy reliving those memories, reminisce and savor the moments.

If you have older pictures, say from the 1940's you may be able to put an entire decade of pictures into one photo box, with the years separated by index cards and the decade indicated on the outside of the photo box. Larger size photos can be placed in page protectors, labeled on the protector and filed into 3 ring binders (also labeled with year or decade).

Negative strips should be removed from old holders and placed into the newer archival safe sleeves (do not cut them up) and also place these into their own 3 ring binder. Label the binder as well. You may not be interested in these negatives but once again they can be passed along to someone else in the family who may want them. You can now turn them over, safely preserved and nicely organized. If you want to further preserve these negatives they can also be scanned to DVD along with your other photographs.

Step Five - What is Next?
At this point you are going to have a huge sense of accomplishment and you can now decide your next steps. If you are going to have photo books made, or make them yourself you can decide on categories: trips, wedding pictures, a year in review, a life in review etc. You are now ready for the next step in photo preservation - having them scanned to DVD. Please refer to my earlier article "Scanning Old Photographs Starts With Organization" for suggestions for getting this step done. If you have lots of boxes of photos that you want scanned you can break this process up depending on which project you will tackle first. You do not need to scan them all at once. Once you have your pictures professional scanned a wealth of creative ideas awaits you. DVD copies of all of this work that you have done also makes a wonderful gift to send to other family members. Just think how excited they will be to not have to do this work themselves.

Budget Wedding Photography - 4 Money-Saving Tips

The key to saving money during weddings is to get everything of what you need, and nothing of what you don't. One way you can do that is by excluding certain expenses. Here are some things you can exclude so you can get the best deal from your budget wedding photography package.

1. Reduce the number of shots taken. Quite honestly, you don't need tons of pictures taken. And, to be equally frank, many of the shots taken during marriage ceremonies are redundant. Do you really need a million photos of your Uncle Bob eating and dancing at the reception? So have the photographer limit the number of shots that he takes. Do this by reducing the number of hours he works, or by simply using less film.

2. Get the negatives or high-resolution shots from the photographer. This budget wedding photography tip will prevent him from charging you a small fortune for extra copies. What you should do is get reprints at your local photo shop. Or if you dabble in photo taking, then here's a great opportunity to show off your skills!

3. Avoid photo packages. While it seems that these deals would save you money, they can also saddle you with several pictures you don't really need. They're ideal if you want a better selection of photos from weddings, but not practical if you want to save money. Instead of buying these packages, have the photographer charge you for person-hours.

4. Buy your own photo album. Photographers will often include expensive albums as part of their package deals. Don't fall for it. Instead, buy your own albums from online or offline stores. These photo books are available in a wide variety of colors, styles, and sizes.

Less is more when you want to enjoy budget wedding photography. These tips will help you trim the fat when allocating resources for your special day. Only get the photographs that you want and need!