What to do with all my photos
How many photos do you have on your phone right now?
Between taking pictures of your kids, your vacations, and the rare moments you get time out with your friends, it’s not unreasonable to have thousands upon thousands of pictures on your phone. In fact, most moms have more than 10,000 photos saved on their phones (me included).
The real question is what are you going to do with all of those pictures?
Back in the day you’d take a photo with your camera, drop the film off at your local photo shop, and then create photo albums with the printed pictures.
But now, the majority of your photos are taken with a cell phone and they stay there, FOREVER!
Everything is all good until you run out of storage space, forget to back up your pictures to the cloud, or one of your toddlers accidentally erases your photos (true story).
So, to make sure you get to enjoy your photos without fear of losing any of your special moments we are going to talk about the best photo book maker for busy moms like you. Let’s face it, photo albums are a thing of the past, and photo books are where it’s at!
Let’s get ready to make your pictures into a book.
Photo Book Maker for Moms
This post is sponsored by Mixbook Photo Co. All opinions are 100% my own. This article also contains affiliate links, please read our disclosure for more information.
Best photo book maker
I’ve made photo books with various companies over the years but one company stands out above all the rest. Mixbook! Using Mixbook has been the greatest experience by far.
Despite the title of this article, you don’t have to be a busy mom to enjoy the photo book making experience that’s exclusive to Mixbook.
Mixbook is for anyone who wants high-quality, customizable books that won’t frustrate you to create. This includes but isn’t limited to:
- Professional photographers
- Event planners
- Venues
- Grandparents
- Teachers
- Organizations
- Businesses
The list goes on and on. Regardless of what you’re trying to accomplish with a photo book or your reason for needing a photo book, try Mixbook once, and before you know it, you’ll be making books for every occasion. I do photography on the side but my favorite way to use Mixbook is capturing memories of my daughter.
As a mom there is so much so you can do with a photo book and so many occasions to cover. If you’re doubting that Mixbook can be of help to you, consider these books you could be making:
- Breastfeeding photo album
- Custom baby photo album
- Maternity photo book
- Newborn photo book
- Monthly photo book for baby
- Yearly family photo book
- Vacation photo book
I think you get the idea. Now you see it won’t be as hard as you thought to finally do something with all of the pictures on your phone.
What to look for in a photo book maker
There are a gazillion photo book makers out there but there are certain things you want to take into consideration before choosing one.
- Size of photo book
- Ability to customize
- What kind of paper can you choose
- What is the cost
- How long will it take you to complete the process
- How easy is the platform to use
- When can you expect to receive your photo book
- What do other customers have to say about their experience
Size of photo book
Once you finally make the decision to do something about all the photos on your phone, you want to make sure the photo book can accommodate your selections.
How many pages will your photo book be? Is there an option to add more pages in addition to what’s included in the base price?
Can you get the photo book in multiple sizes and what are the different sizes you can choose from?
Do you have the option of a square book or can you get a landscape or portrait sized book if you want?
The desired size of your photo book will depend on a couple of things:
- where the book will be displayed
- how many photos you’re wanting to include
- the overall purpose of the photo book
Ability to customize
Imagine creating a photo book only to find that the standard layouts just won’t work for your photos. Before starting down that rabbit hole, check and make sure that you can customize the book to fit your needs.
Customization includes the ability to choose the style of the cover, customizing the designs on the pages, changing the fonts, adding your own backgrounds, and creating your own sentences. In other words, you want full creative control of your photo book as if you were creating it from the ground up.
Of course, there are instances where you may not have time to be creative. During those times, you want the basic designs to be good enough to pass as something you spent hours creating.
You just want to be able to create a photo book that you and your loved ones will love and cherish for years to come.
What kind of paper can you use?
This may seem like a silly thing to have to worry about when creating a photo book, but think about who all will be looking at the book. Toddlers and preschoolers are obsessed with looking at photos, especially of themselves. They are also not known for being gentle or keeping clean hands.
Keep this in mind when picking your photo book. You want the option of picking something that can stand up to kids.
What does it cost?
Chances are once you see how easy it is to make photo books from the pictures on your phone, you won’t be able to get enough. The problem is, you’re not going to want to spend an arm and a leg to do it.
Make sure the company you choose has reasonable prices with top-tier quality.
How long will it take to complete the process?
Busy working moms are always short on time. As relaxing and enjoyable it is to go down memory lane looking at your photos, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll need to move on to another task.
You want to use a photo book company that’s going to make your photo book making experience short and sweet. You want what you want but you don’t need to spend all day trying to make it happen.
How easy is the platform to use?
If your day job isn’t in the creativity field, you’ll definitely want to use a platform that is simple and quick to catch on to. Otherwise, the end result will be frustration and you may end up without a photo book.
When can you expect to receive your book?
Your hard work is done! You’ve gone through your pictures, picked the ones you wanted to use, designed your book, and hit submit. Now how long is going to take before you’re able to see your handy work in person?
That’s a very important thing to take into consideration. Keep that in mind when picking your photo book maker.
What do other customers have to say about their experience with the company?
When you use a new company or one you haven’t worked with before, it’s not a bad idea to check out some of the reviews. Keep in mind, that people with bad experiences are far more likely to speak out than people who had good experiences.
With that being said, if you see several people complaining about the same thing, it’s probably true!
Mixbook photo book review
So how does Mixbook stand up against the competition?
Easiest photo book maker
Out of its competitors, Mixbook is the easier platform to use.
When making my Mommy and Me photo book for my daughter I almost called it quits because I didn’t want to have to email myself the pictures from my phone and then upload them from my laptop. That was my experience with another photo book maker and it was annoying!
Luckily, I kept going and was pleasantly surprised that Mixbook has an interface that allows you to pick pictures from your phone and send them to Mixbook directly even if you’re making the book on a non mobile device. This was a game changer fore sure and puts Mixbook miles ahead of their competitors.
As a busy mom, you’re looking for all of the shortcuts you can get and this is definitely a shortcut.
Mixbook review: Options
Mixbook offers more options than any other photo book maker I have come across. They have a larger selection of book sizes and layouts as well as paper type and cover options. You just can’t beat the customization options they give.
Photo Book size options offered:
- 6 X 6
- 8.5 X 8.5
- 10 X 10
- 12 X 12
- 8 x 6
- 11 X 8.5
- 14 X 11
Photo Book paper selections:
- Semi-gloss
- Pearl finish
- Premium matte lay flat
- Premium Lustre lay flat
Cover options
- Softcover
- Hardcover glossy
- Hardcover soft touch matte
- Leather
Mixbook review: cost
With all the different options that are offered with Mixbook photo books, you can make your book as inexpensive or expensive as you’d like. Overall, Mixbook’s price is right on par with their competitors.
You can get a lovely 27 page 8.5 X 8.5 photo book for as low as $19.99. Which is exactly what I did.
Mixbook is known for their heavily discounted coupons. You never know when they are going to run a special. One tip to minimize the expense of your Mixboo photo book is to start making your book, leave it in your cart, and checkout once you see a deal you can’t refuse. You won’t be waiting that long, trust me!
Mixbook review: software
I was very impressed with how easy the Mixbook software was to use. It was definitely an added benefit how seamlessly it integrated with mobile devices making the photo book making process that much easier.
As a mom, there isn’t always a lot of time to set aside for these types of activities. I was worried that it was going to take too long and that I wasn’t going to be able to finish it in one day. But, the process was so easy that I had my book finished in under 15 minutes. The longest part was deciding what pictures I was going to use. The software itself was a breeze and everything was self-explanatory.
Mixbook review: quality
I was very impressed with the quality of my Mommy and Me photobook by Mixbook. Of course when my daughter saw it, she wanted to flip through the pages too. I was nervous at first because I didn’t know how well the book would stand up against a 3 year old. To my pleasant surprise, it’s very durable and kid friendly. My daughter gets to enjoy looking at the photos of the two of us and I get to relax and not cringe in fear that she’s going to destroy it.
The colors in the photos I selected for the book came through beautifully. The details of the photos were not lost in the transformation to the book which made me very excited.
Overall my daughter and I are both very pleased with the quality of our Mixbook photobook which further solidifies my belief that it’s the best photo book maker for moms!
Best site to make photo books
If you’re ready to clear out your phone and make your first photo book, don’t bother looking at any other company outside of Mixbook. It’s easy to use, affordable, top quality, and it won’t take a long time for your to receive your finished product.
It can be overwhelming trying to decide which of the thousands of photos on your phone to use for your book, so start off with a specific theme to make it easier to narrow down. You can do a 6th month photo book for your baby, or you can do a siblings book which is filled with only pictures of your kids together. That will definitely make it easier to decide which photos to use and which to save for another book.
Talking to you about how great my book experience was has me excited to get started on my next Mixbook photo book. You should start yours too. Get started here and finally turn those pictures on your phone into a book the whole family can cherish.