CAPTURING MEMORIES WITH SHUTTERFLY

*This post does contain affiliate links, however, all opinions are my own.

I love our Shutterfly Photo Books and wanted to share how I use Shutterfly to document our lives and keep our memories presentable and easily accessible. I have never been one to spend a lot of time on scrapbooking, but I love designing beautiful pages online.

Before my first child was born, I decided I wanted to document her first year of life on a calendar. They grow and change so quickly and there are special things about each day if you look for them. So about once a week I would look back and try and record all the special milestones and memories.

At the end of the first year, I realized that I didn’t ever open the calendars and look at them; that’s when I decided to make a Shutterfly book. See more pics below…

I loved how it turned out so much that I decided I wanted to go back and make a book for our first year of marriage. It soon became addicting. We now have a book for our first 3 years of marriage and I’m currently working on our 4th and 5th year. Yikes!

I also decided to make a special book to document Lanae’s second year of life telling some of the unique stories and experiences she had during her second year as well as noting some important milestones.

Our second child, Owen turned 1 this year and I made a first year book with the daily calendar marking milestones. It was so fun to have their two books side by side to see the clear differences in their growth and personalities.

Ever since I first made them, Lanae has pulled them off the shelf and enjoyed looking through them. It is partly through these books that she has learned about all of her aunts and uncles that she never gets to see or hear from.

I love the Shutterfly books for keeping family memories because they are very easy to pull off the shelf and I don’t have to worry about the kids pulling pieces off the page or losing pictures.

It is also such an easy way to remind myself of special family trips and experiences that we’ve had without having to search through all my pictures or my family blog.

At first glance I thought that Shutterfly books would be too expensive. But then I started noticing that they have all kinds of great deals going on ALL the time. You just have to be patient and watch for the right one. I always order the smallest size 8 x 8 and on average I spend about $10-15 per book, however I have gotten several books for just the price of shipping $8. And I have gotten 2 books for FREE just by pairing them with awesome deals.

This does mean that you have to be a bit patient when making and ordering books. I have had 1 book made and just waiting in my account for a month or two and then I will start on a second book. That way when I order I will have two books. Which will definitely push me over the free shipping limit and usually I can pair with a 40-50% off… And you see how that becomes a super good deal!

On the other hand, sometimes I will see a good deal and sit down and make a book very quickly, which is easy to do if you use the pre-designed layouts that Shutterfly has available. Shutterfly offers more than just photo books, including calendars, wall art and other photo gifts. My husband designed me a custom mouse pad and note pad for my birthday, which are both adorable and I love using them!!

Make sure to check out Shutterfly Special Offers. Save up to 50% on selected items such as photo books, calendars, wall art, photo gifts, and more. I promise I wouldn’t recommend anything that I didn’t truly love myself.

Check out some recent favorites from Messes to Memories….

Pumpkin Waffles with Peanut Butter Maple Syrup

Fit Mama Alli

DIY Distressed Chalk Paint Table