photos, photos and more photos

Over on the Anderson blog I made a post a couple of weeks ago about finally getting some of my digital photos printed. I sorted through my images from October '03 - December '04 and got the ones I wanted printed. I used Winkflash.com for the first batch and was really happy with how they turned out. They arrived in about 3 days (Priority Mail) and the quality is terrific. When I tried to print more later their website was running really slowly so I got fed up and used Snapfish.com for the next batch. They uploaded quickly and the site was easy to use, but upon checkout I discovered that they charge a ridiculous amount for shipping (FedEx or UPS ground), almost twice what Winkflash charges. All in all, I liked Winkflash better. The white borders I got on my prints were perfectly even, they send your prints in the order you upload them (so if you load them chronologically they arrive in order!) and they include index prints so you can see at a glance what's in each envelope.

Anyway, so I've got over a year's worth of photos now and have been trying to figure out what to put them in. Originally I was going to get those albums with the 4"x6" plastic sleeves which would make them really easy to just slide in. But then I realized that those sleeves are all horizontal, and my photos aren't all horizontal. I also figured that if the kids are looking at them regularly, there's a good chance the photos will get pulled out and lost. Sooo, then there's those albums with the "magnetic" pages, but they're not good for your photos. Finally I decided that a scrapbook would probably be best. I'll either use photo corners or those archival adhesive tabs to attach them however I want to on the pages. I scored at Ross with 4 identical 12"x12" albums (in my favorite color!) for $3.99 each. Can't wait to start getting this pile of pictures put away. Then I'll only have 4 more years of photos to sort, print, put in albums and journal. *sigh*