Shutterfly photo books: story ideas (and giveaway!)

My mom makes mini photo books with Shutterfly for my kids every time we spend a weekend together, so we have a whole bunch of them. She is/was a creative director at her own ad agency, so she’s pretty darn good at it. But the hardbound books that Shutterfly is promoting now are in another league. I saw them in person last month, and I was impressed.

What I like the best was the approach to storytelling they shared. It has helped me stop thinking that a photobook has to be a comprehensive summary of the whole year or even a whole vacation. This template, for example helps you create a top 10. How easy is that? Only ten photos needed!

It doesn’t even have to be a Top Ten of the year. It could be “Top Ten Things about Julian’s 7th Birthday Party” or “Ten Things Scarlett Does Everyday” or “Top Ten Adventures in Our First Ten Years of Marriage”.

Another direction: This template is for “A Year of Firsts.”

Yet another example:  Catherine from Weelicious made a book documenting how to make a particular kind of cookie. The whole book is photographs of the recipe steps with instructions. I think this would be fun to send to a niece or nephew. I was hoping the photos I took of Julian making slime could be used as a How to Make Slime book. (See exactly how Catherine’s book came out on Shutterfly’s site.)

Note that these templates live on the “Storytelling” tab of the Shutterfly site.

GIVEAWAY! Now that you have tons of ideas, and know that the bar might be as low as collecting 10 photos with a theme, here’s your chance to win $150 dollars of credit to use on Shutterfly.  We wanted to make sure that if you make a book, you can buy multiple copies and have them shipped directly to your loved ones. (You know what I wish someone would do? Make a book of their baby doing every activity on our list of 52 challenges for rookie moms! Shutterfly, can you help us make that happen?)

UPDATE: Giveaway now closed (1/2/12). Winner will be notified on 1/3/12.