Have you ever used Shutterfly's premade pages?

[Valgal]

I'm using one of their templates to put a book together that I don't have time to start from scratch and it's SO different than controlling every little thing myself. I have to say, besides being faster, it's really making me think about the purpose of my book and what I'm trying to convey. It's really just about the photos and words.

Really different! Never thought I'd use their premade books before, but here I am regardless.

Anyone else do this?

[joelsgirl]

I've never used them because I've always been a SAHM with time on my hands and a need for a creative outlet. However, my SIL uses them, and her albums turn out great because, like you said, the focus is totally on the photos & words. In fact, when we went to Yellowstone/Grand Canyon/Grand Teton this summer, I told my husband I was just going to make a simple book out of the photos, and he said, 'NO! You have to scrapbook them. That's what you do!" LOL so I guess that when we get that album printed in seven years, he's going to regret saying it.

[YepBrook]

I think there's a place in life for both types of books. These days, we hardly print photos out anymore. I think those types of premade shutterfly books are the modern day version of the envelopes full of photos (with the bonus of being able to add words without writing ON the photos themselves). But there will ALWAYS be a place for embellished scrapbooking. Like Kellie said, it's a creative outlet and a hobby. It makes memories a little *extra* special. I personally love to do my shutterfly books a combination of their photo pages (with a plain white background) and handmade scrapbook pages. That way I can get more photos in there, some of which don't really warrant an entire scrapbook page.

[Valgal]

Yeah, I had this idea of making an album of me and Keith's first year together for awhile, but It's not like I ALWAYS thought we'd be together this long. So I only have sub-par photos from my phone or whatever that captured our first year. And here we are coming up on our 1 year anniversary and I'm working full time and in school the rest of the time and I don't have the hours it's going to take to make a scrapbook page for every event.

So I'm using their templates to plug my photos in with some basic journaling and I have to say...

I LOVE IT.

I'll share photos or a video of it when I get it.