If you are landing on this blog, you know that one of my passions is helping people get their photos off their devices and into their lives. I became more serious about posting photos to Facebook and Instagram sometime in early 2012 when I learned that this is the hipster-way to stay connected to our kids. I can follow their lives in photo and word-snips, and they can follow me. They are the ones who told me that "Facebook is for old people" and I quickly learned that most of their social media comings-and-goings happened on Instagram. It was easy to became a fan of Instagram because it is about sharing PHOTOS. You can send your photo out into cyberspace with a caption, or just plain. But a photo is what is doing the bulk of the communicating. Instagram comes with a set of editing filters and is a pretty fun way to communicate with family and friends.
One of my goals in January is to get my Instagram photos off my iPhone and into an album for safe keeping into the future. For my Insta-Album, I chose a little hardcover 5.25 x 5.25 60-page book from
Pinhole Press. Since 2012, I have sent about 250 photos into cyberspace as "instagrams". These are the ones going in the books. Not all 4000 photos I took on my iPhone are going into keepsake books... just the ones that were favorite enough to post to my Instagram world. It looks like 4 little sixty-page books will get me current. This one is my first! Volume 2 and Volume 3 are on their way.
When deciding what size / shape / style of album I wanted for preserving my Instagrams, I opted for something tiny and something hardcover. Tiny because Instagrams are created & viewed in a pretty tiny format (phone screen size) and it suits them. Hardcover because all of our family albums see a lot of wear & tear. This does not mean we are careless with our albums. It means that almost every time that the kids are home, I can find them pulling albums from the shelves and traveling down Memory Lane in the pages. It is what happens when you have photo albums... and it is a truly marvelous thing.
Because I wanted a square photo frame on each page AND because I wanted to include the text that accompanied my Instagrams, I set up the page layout using
Artisan (formerly StoryBook Creator) software. I used the CUSTOM setting with Height 5.25 and Width 10.5. I inserted a square photo frame on each side of the layout (mine are just over 3.5" square) and inserted text boxes under each photo frame. My guess is that Instagram uses Helvetica font, but since I don't own this expensive but classic font, I used the free cousin-font Arial. Once I create my blank custom layout, I duplicated it 28 times. (Each 60 page Panoramic Mini Photo Book holds 28 - 2 photo - layouts.)
Then it is just drop & drag the Instagram images from your phone - and add the text! Next step is - SAVE AS jpegs, and upload using this link to
Pinhole Press. Nice and easy. To create the album exactly like mine, just select the 'full bleed' page layout option for every page - and drag your created page into place. There are prompts to help you personalize the cover and inside page.
I would like to create a mini how-to video to demonstrate how truly easy it is. Maybe watch for it to show up in a couple weeks. But don't hold your breath. And don't wait to try it on your own!
Please check out
Pinhole Press
for yourself! I am totally in love with the clever and creative
products that they offer. My personal favorites are the Family
Flashcards, the Memory Game personalized with your photos, address
labels and wine bottle labels for a wedding or party. Please use my link
to check it out for yourself.
Pinhole Press
