At the end of August we issued a challenge for you to take one photo a day, each day of the school year. Depending where you live, you’re just over or leading up to one month into the school year, so how are you doing? Have you taken at least one pic a day?

I’ve missed a couple of days, but on a few days I’ve taken ten or more photos, so I’m doing well.  If you’ve missed a few or more, don’t fret you still have another 8 months in the school year, so start snapping.

Initial Challenge blog post can be found here.

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Halloween is a little over a month away. How will you make it spooktacular this year? Below is a quick celebration checklist to ensure you’re ready.

Costumes or Orange & Black apparel
- Check out your local big box stores, but other great places for costumes include Costco, Cracker Barrel, Gymboree and party supply stores.
Candy or other treats
- Start clipping coupons now as candy gets expensive fast. Other great treats include pencils, erasers, travel tooth brushes and toothpaste, fruit snacks, Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights and microwave popcorn.

Decorations and lights
- Get the box out from the attic and basement and decorate. Maybe pick up a new decoration this year (I buy one a year so it doesn’t get expensive).
- Consider candy corn lights (like Christmas lights) for your now leafless trees.
- Luminaries are cheap, look great and help little costume crews find their way to your porch.

Pumpkins, hay bales and foddershock
- Pumpkins for porch décor and for carving (just don’t carve too soon).
- Pumpkin carving kits.
- Hay and Fodder make great outdoor décor – and “hey” your scarecrow needs something to sit on or lean against.

Halloween Photo Cards or Photo Invites
- Dress the kids up early and take a few pics to send photo cards to grandma and grandpa and other distant relatives. Who doesn’t like getting cards?
- Planning a Halloween party? Make it more festive with a photo card invite.

Halloween Greeting

What do you do for Halloween preparation that isn’t included in this list?

Be sure to have a camera in hand for all of your Halloween planning, decorating, pumpkin picking, parties and trick-or-treating. And, please remember the Halloween convention: a lit porch light means you’re accepting trick-or-treaters and a light that’s off means you’re not.

Have a Bootiful Halloween!

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September 25 starts my 90-day holiday giving “crunch time” countdown allowing me time to make or purchase everyone on my list a thoughtful, creative gift. This year, I have extra incentive to get some of my photo-based gifts made first – I purchased a couple of Groupons and they expire at the end of the month. Even without the looming Groupon expiration, placing my more time-consuming gift making earlier in the crunch period lessens my stress over things like shipping and delivery.

This past summer was a 90-day whirlwind between travel, festivals, summer camp and days at the pool, we were busy and we were also shutter-happy (my iPhone makes it so easy to snap, snap, snap). As a result, I have about 400 photos from just Memorial Day to Labor Day!

I’ve decided to upload all of my photos to Inkubook using the Autofill feature and have Inkubook do the heavy lifting by building a chronological album for me.

Selecting Autofill

Since I had a lot of photos to upload – two books worth – I will have about a 20 minute wait while Inkubook builds for me. Twenty minutes is a lot shorter than what it would take if I were placing the photos myself. I will need to go in and rotate and adjust a few photos, but again, much less time than if I’d done it manually. Note: Before uploading photos to Inkubook, sort through and delete or withhold any you don’t want to have included, or in the case of the iPhone, hold back on the duplicates (low-res vs hi-res) to prevent from double image uploading.

Photo upload process

I’m keeping it simple using the portfolio option with white pages. The only addition I need to make to each page is add black photo corners, because I dig photo corners. I also figure this look is easy enough to replicate and will provide consistency volume after volume.

Adding Corners

From start to finish this book took me about two hours to build a 200 page book from pressing “I want photos placed for me” to pressing the Buy button where I ordered four copies, one for us and one for each set of grandparents. Three heartwarming, handmade (ok, Autofilled) gifts in two hours.

Now, on to making holiday cards…

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Friday, September 23rd is the official first day of fall. Depending on where you live, the leaves around you could be changing now or you may still have a few weeks left to enjoy nature’s canopy. The rich colors autumn provides can make for some amazing photography – from nature to family to pets.

Fall Photography

Below are just a few sites I came across with some great tips for making the most out of landscape around us. I’m sure you can find many more through a Google search.

http://pittsburgh.about.com/library/weekly/aa1

http://www.foliage-vermont.com/phototips.htm01201a.htm

http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/12793.aspx

http://betterdigitalphotography.blogspot.com/2004/09/autumn-photo-tips.html

If you’re interested in adding some pop to your pics, take in a few tips and then take out the camera and snap away.

Slide into Fall

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There’s nothing quite like the open road. A full tank of gas, windows down and a car full of friends… something about nice weather just gives you the urge to take a road trip. Making new memories with each mile marker, the old saying really is true: getting there is half the fun.

When you’re packing up the car to leave, make sure not to forget your camera and a journal. Document every moment, every cheesy road side attraction and every mom-and-pop diner. Then, when you’ve finally had your fill of life on the road, return home and put all of your adventures in an Inkubook road trip photo book. Record each new state and different town you pass through in a book that maps out your exact journey.

And one more thing before you leave: Be sure not to forget about us while you’re cruising down the highway. Let us know where you’re headed and where you’ve been on Facebook and by commenting on this blog. Think of it as a postcard from you to us, only you won’t need a stamp.

So what are you waiting for? Buckle up, hit the road and have the time of your life. Drive safe and tell us all about it when you get back.

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Recently, I was organizing my digital photos and came across about 40 photos from this past spring that my 5-year-old took while we were on a walk through our neighborhood.

While I had flipped through them on my iPhone when she took them, I hadn’t really looked at them until today. I enjoyed seeing the photos she took. It’s a way to see the world her way — from her 42″ perspective.

Kid Pics

While many photos are blurry and out of focus, some are quite good [see the bridge photo above]. Even the photos marred by movement, show that she was excited about something — just not sure if it’s a rock, leaf or small woodland creature.

Give them the camera (phone) and allow them to capture what interests them.  You never know, you could end up with a great photo for your wall or the next budding Ansel Adams.

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Each new decade of life takes on a special meaning and significance. Whether it’s the excitement of no longer being a teenager or the milestone of turning 40, every decade begins a new chapter of life and causes us to reminisce about decades past. Help your friends and family members relive all the good times and bad haircuts with decade birthday photo books.

Include all of the most memorable moments from their embarrassing baby pictures to the too-cool lean against their very first car, from college life to becoming a newlywed and starting a family. Celebrate a new phase of life by creating a book that commemorates the old.

Scan in old pictures you haven’t shared for years that will make them say, “Did I really wear that?” and “I can’t believe how young we look.” Also include stories and messages from family and friends to accompany the pictures, giving the book an even more personal feel.

Don’t have time to create the book before their birthday?

Take pictures at the celebration and collect comments from those in attendance to include in a book. Give them a present that will allow them to look back through decades of old and look forward to the beginning of the newest stage of their life.

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Every family is unique with its own history, stories and, of course, the crazy family traditions. Through the years between birthdays, vacations and holidays, you and your family have accumulated enough memories to fill a book… Well, maybe that’s exactly what it’s time to do with your own family history photo book.

Old photo and letter, low res, but ok for history book

Let’s be honest, history probably wasn’t your favorite subject in school. Who actually wants to learn about the Industrial Revolution? But wouldn’t it be cool if the history you were learning about was your own? A book complete with decades of everything that is important to you and your family:

Genealogy: Now you finally have a place to record your extended family tree. An Inkubook allows you to show young generations when and where their great-great-great-grandparents came from and presents a way of discovering how you are all connected to your third-cousin Rick.

Stories: Nothing is better than the classic family stories. Record them all in one place, just the way your grandpa told them.

Photos: From the black and whites of your great-grandparents to last year’s Fourth of July cookout, pictures allow you to remember every special occasion and see how you and your family have grown.

Your family will not only enjoy and reminisce about all of the times spent together but will appreciate finally having it all in one place, one “Your Name Here” Family History Book.

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At the end of every school year, your child comes home with a school yearbook order form. Many of us give the money and buy the yearbook, as we probably still have ours from when we walked to school in 2 feet of snow uphill in both directions. And admit it, it is fun to flip through them from time-to-time and reminisce.

Seven-year-old building a photo book

Have you ever thought of making, or better yet, encouraging your child to make a summer yearbook capturing the little league games, swim lessons, pool parties, lightning bugs, backyard fire pit s’mores and more?

Call it a scrapbook, yearbook or photo book, it doesn’t matter, what matters is it will provide creative outlet for you and your child and, as a bonus, will prove the opposite of “we didn’t do anything fun this past summer”.

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Maybe it’s the word “labor”, but Labor Day makes me think of babies. They’re soft and cuddly and usually smell pretty sweet and they tend to be the focus of a lot of the pictures many of us take. Therefore, they make the perfect subjects for photo books.

Every Month of My Life

If you’re creative and have solid Photoshop skills you can create custom designs like in the image above. This baby book captures one photo a month, each month, of the baby’s first two years of life (that way it’s at least a 20 page book). The caption on every page is a song title and a CD was made to accompany the book when gifted to the grandparents.

The book below covers a shorter, but messier time period. This book is all about baby’s first foods. Each page is dedicated to a newly introduced food and captures baby’s reaction upon tasting. This book used a background provided in Inkubook’s cookbook theme and works great in this baby book (I like green beans too).

Baby Foodie

Inkubook has several backgrounds for baby-themed books, see some design options below. Our backgrounds even include  journal page options, so you can jot down the vital statistics and a few interesting memories about your prince or princess.

We also have pregnancy memory backgrounds, birth announcements and more. If you have pictures, we’ll help you find inspiration. And maybe over the long holiday weekend, you’ll have some time to create something beautiful.

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