What to do with ALL those photos!

Good Monday morning to you! I hope your weekend was restful and full of the people you love.  You all know I'm a photographer and take pictures daily.  Photography is the one area I've never had to write down the goal of "take two pictures a day" or anything like that.  I just simply wake up and the big, beautiful world beckons me to notice it.  My photography is the tool I use to notice. So you can imagine I have a lot of photos.  Like thousands upon thousands.  One of the biggest urgings I have for families I photography is to print their photos.  I'm all about photos taken with a phone, a digital camera point-and-shoot, and a DSLR.  But to me, that's only half the journey.  

Photographs can be such story-tellers, reminders of memories, and conveyors of hope, when we let them.  I hardly ever remember a moment scrolling through my phone for an hour looking at photos where it has felt nearly as rich of an experience as flipping through one of our photos boxes or gazing at the hundreds of photos on our wall.  There is just something about a real photograph.  

Today I want to share one quick way we actually print our photos and make them accessible to all who enter our home, whether it be friends or family.  First, I actually print my photos several times a year.  We are pretty cheap in certain areas of our life but this is one where I make an exception.  I definitely think it is worth the money to print your photos and get them off your camera and/or phone.  There are a few places I've printed from that I've really liked. 

1.) Walgreens-Yep, your local corner store actually does a fantastic job printing photos.  The quality is good and you can almost always find a coupon code online to use at check-out.  Plus they're done in an hour!  This is who made our adoption profile book. 

2.) Artifact Uprising-"Off your device, into your life" is their slogan and it is spot-on.  Brilliant!  Their photographs are the square prints you see above.  The color and paper quality is super rich and just simply gorgeous.  Their prints come as a matte finish, which means unlike a regular 4x6 photograph they won't have that glossy "shine" on the top.  Their photos are printed on this very nice, thick white paper that has a tiny bit of a texture to it.  Seriously gorgeous prints. 

3.) Social Print Studio-My favorite place ever to print photos.  Seriously! Ok, here's why I like them.  First, their photos come in all different sizes and formats, including the tiny, square photos you see above.  They also have stickers (!!), and a tear-a-page calendar you can buy with one photo per day.  Can we say brilliant?! I actually ordered this and then tore all 365 pages apart and taped them to my wall.  I just seriously love the range of products they offer, their paper quality is great, as well as the color.  Plus their prices are good! I think the 365 calendar is $40? Get those Instagram photos loaded up and printed!

**A note on Shutterfly**-they used to be my "go-to" printing service and I know many people that really love them! The last time I ordered my photos weren't done correctly.  I had too many of one photo but others missing.  Now I'm sure that's a one-time error but something I don't like to do is spend more time than necessary re-sending wrong orders, etc.  So that's why they didn't make my happy list even though you see their package in the photo.  

So next-what to DO with all the photos once you've actually printed them?  Well, let's start easy and small.  Put them in a photo box! This is our second photo box and I plan to have many more in our future.  A photo box is just that.  A box deemed for photos that we often take the lid off, sit, laugh, and just revel in the goodness of memories past.  I purchased this box for $6 at T.J. Maxx but you can also buy a cute, cardboard box at Hobby Lobby for even cheaper.  

Friends, it is truly such a delight to peel the lid off this box and see stack upon stack of memories, moments, prayers, and photographs come flooding back at you.  I encourage you to give this a try! I also think this would make an amazing gift for someone! 

I'll share a few more things to do with your photos in the weeks ahead! Anything else you want to hear about on the blog?  Let me know!