Summer is here - hooray! Something about being outside in the sun makes kids happy to be photographed. But instead of shooting all those photos and then just leaving them in a drawer (or on the hard drive of your laptop), I suggest you g…
I'm always on the lookout for ways to actually use the 15,640 baby and kid photos stored on my laptop. And after Mother's Day last week, you probably added a few more. I mean, I make sure to email them on to the respective grandparents a…
One year, I got my mom an electronic photo album for her holiday gift . Well, that was a flop. She told me she really wanted a regular photo book of her grandkids, just like I gave her the year before. But, I like to complicate things! S…
At the first sign of snow, every parent in our neighborhood bundles up their little dumplings and runs outside with three or four cameras-- because it's Georgia, and we go crazy over a little snow. But when we get back inside, the photos…
It may sound less than surprising, but I still think that a framed photo of the kids makes one of the single best grandparent gifts ever. At least if the photo is fantastic. And the frame is gorgeous. So I'm so happy to hear that Obrien …
I can't be the only mom who would sooner frame a picture of my crying, tantruming kid than the pretty, perfect one that looks like I bribed her with a lollipop. In fact, I know I'm not the only mom who feels that way since discovering th…
Editor's Note : Unfortunately, Big Picture Scrapbooking no longer exists. Lazing in the pumpkin patch. Biting into a just-picked apple. Jumping in a leaf pile. I have all of those iconic family pictures of fall sitting in photo albums al…
I still remember that excitement of putting together a little soft photo album for my babies. They'd gnaw at the pages and we'd convince ourselves that we were somehow imbuing them with essential social cues to put them on the path to he…
One of my favorite gifts from my baby shower was the lovely DSLR camera I received. Having spent years taking out-of-focus pictures of my cats, I'd hoped having a high quality digital camera would prevent me from taking the same out-of-f…
It was her very first ballet recital, and I wanted everyone we know to see her joyful smile as she hugged her first bouquet of roses. But that doesn't mean I'm going to just give away our new custom photo cards from Shutterfly. I might j…
Getting my four year old daughter to smile for the camera is harder than you can imagine. She doesn't like sitting still, much less actually looking at the camera and posing for a picture. Sound familiar? That's why I was so happy to get…
Stumped for Father's Day? Maybe it's because I'm married to a photographer (though I don't think so), but I'm thinking that if Dear Dad from Chronicle Books doesn't bring a little tear to his eye, he might not actually be human. The volu…
I got a snazzy new camera for Mother's Day and hoped it would instantly turn me into a photographer that makes grown men cry. Instead, I'm still taking loads of uninspired, far-away photos of my kids doing various inexplicable things. Wh…
The ghosts of bad desk tchotchkes of Father's Days past still haunt me: Paper weights, coffee mugs, mini voodoo dolls. Sorry Dad! Sometimes you're hard to shop for. But grandpas and new dads -- not too hard. Especially if they're sentime…
If you are lucky enough to not only be a mom, but still have a mom around to guide you through your turbulent mothering moments (or in my mom's case, laugh at me), then you probably have witnessed the power that the perfect picture of yo…
I'm far from a photography expert, and admittedly, the only camera I use anymore is my iPhone . While every now and then I get a great picture with it, I often feel bad that the only pictures of my kids are taken with the sub-par quality…
Growing up, we had a big framed photo of my family that was a Mother's Day gift for my mom. How I hated that photo only five years later, with our embarrassing clothing, my poofy hair style, the cheesy backdrop. It isn't something I plan…
I'm on a bit of a framing kick lately; instead of buying new artwork we're trying to make use of the photos and odd bits of ephemera we have around to liven up some of the blank walls. So when I discovered the gorgeous handmade frames fr…
My husband is a photographer, and the good news is that we have countless professional-quality photographs of the kids. The bad news is that almost all of them exist only on my husband's computer. Ahem . Because just as the shoemaker's c…
When digital scrapbooking sites first started appearing, I remember thinking, "Huh. That's a really good idea for non-crafty people like me who only deal with the computer. But I'm far too busy blogging to do anything like that." Enter S…