Too Many Pictures to Count

You've gone on your trip. You spent days, weeks sightseeing, meeting new people, enjoying the local cusine and night scene. Your camera is full almost to its limit with pictures. You've returned home to reality. Now you want to share your experience in the best way possible. But how?

Sure, you could sit everyone down on the couch, have them surround your camera, and watch the film reel of photos flow by. But how fun is that, really? And let's face it, the computer isn't much better. Why not a scrapbook?

For those who have the time to spare, creating a scrapbook can be a release, an escape to your past vacations. It can be enjoyable to spread out all your colorful pictures and place them delicately and deliberately into formations and arrangements on the page. Stamping stickers, quotes, backgrounds, and borders makes the image complete, and appealing to the eye. You can even make it more personal by adding ticket stubs, flyers, maps collected from your travels. Most scrapbooking material can be found at Target, Wal-Mart, Michaels, even a local grocery store--though the selection may be limited. A personal favorite of mine, however, is Paper Source. A store dedicated to arts and crafts. You can find everything there from decorative paper to stamps, from unique pens to stickers, from design scissors to custom embossing. But be careful. If you're anything like me you will get lost in the masses of items and end up spending your whole paycheck. It can be expensive, so choose wisely.

For people without the time or the budget to scrapbook themselves, there is an easier option. It's called MyPublisher. Most people now have digital cameras, so those pictures are inevitably going to end up on the computer. Instead of picking out pictures, putting them on a flash drive or cd, bringing them to the store and paying upwards of $0.20 a print, you can simply download MyPublisher and import all the pictures you want into the program. They have various layouts to choose from--including a travel option--and then you can format the pages with one picture or twelve pictures. It's really up to you. You can even pick the cover--linen, book jacket, leather--and the size. Once you have designed your photobook, buy it. They print, bind, and deliver your book all for a pretty decent price. I have used this service three times now, and I'm never disappointed with the results, and everyone loves the books. They go perfectly on my coffee table.

Of course, not everything has to be done on the computer. For those particularly special pictures, get them blown up, printed, and nicely framed to place around your house or apartment.

Display those vacation photos proudly!!